Julie Anne Long - [Pennyroyal Green 08]

by It Happened One Midnight

  “Oh, Tommy,” he said at last. “You are stupider than you look.”

  She jerked backward. And then indignation sent her voice out at whistle-pitch. “I—”

  He winced. “Don’t squeak.”

  “Then don’t be enigmatic! It doesn’t suit you.”

  “Very well, then. I’m afraid it’s like this. Picture, if you will, Tommy, the fuse of a cannon. Now, when one touches a flame to a fuse, what happens? It’s consumed bit . . .” He stepped toward her, so close that his boot toes nearly touched the toes of her slippers.

  She sucked in a breath. But she stood her ground when his knees brushed hers.

  “. . . by bit . . .”

  His voice had gone perilously soft. “. . . by bit. Until . . .”

  His breath fluttered her hair.

  His mouth was next to her ear now. “Boom.”

  It was really more of an exhale than a word. Still, it made her jump a little.

  He slowly stepped back and looked down at her. She could see herself in the big dark mirror of his pupils. She imagined her own pupils were just as huge, and that in that moment they reflected back to each other infinitely, without giving anything in particular away.

  “But of course it won’t happen again.” He was suddenly jarringly crisp. He said it with faint mockery and a hint of something strangely like anger.

  It made her want to kick him.

  He didn’t wait for a reply.

  “Enjoy your trip back to London, Miss de Ballesteros.”

  He touched his hat to her and strode off, whistling something that may have been “The Ballad of Colin Eversea.”

  Chapter 16

  KLAUS WAS TINKERING WITH his press when the bell of the shop jangled. He glanced up idly.

  Then shot to an upright position immediately.

  An angel was standing in the doorway.

  He gawked momentarily, basking in the flawless, serene English Rose beauty: the golden hair, the round blue eyes, the complexion of cream.

  His beleaguered first few months in England suddenly seemed worth it. Jonathan Redmond was surely a genius.

  He bowed, low and elegant and deferential.

  “Good afternoon, madam, and welcome to my humble establishment. I would be delighted to be of some service to you today, if I may.”

  “I am Lady Grace Worthington, Mr. Liebman. And . . . I received a message . . .

  She had indeed received a message, on Klaus Liebman & Co. stationery:

  Your name was submitted to us privately by more than one gentleman as an example of all that a Diamond of the First Water should be. We would be honored if you would accept our invitation to pose for a very special edition deck of fine playing cards paying homage to the loveliest young ladies in London. An appointment will be set for you at two o’clock Wednesday next, should you wish to be immortalized thusly.

  She paused and blushed, fidgeting with her reticule.

  But this first arrival was bold, despite her blush. She was apparently unaccompanied, and she kept glancing over her shoulder.

  “Ah, Lady Grace. Say no more. It is obvious to any man with eyes why you are here. You honor Klaus Liebman & Co. by accepting our humble invitation. It will not take our skilled portraitist very long to capture the purity of your beauty, if that is what you wish. A sketch will be all that is necessary. If you will please have a seat in the window, like so, where the light will make the most of your complexion, and our Mr. Wyndham will join you presently. May I bring you a cup of tea?”

  “Tea would be lovely, thank you.”

  Lady Grace Worthington settled into the chair by the window and folded her hands demurely, while Klaus ducked into the back room, and via a series of eyebrow wags and chin nudges communicated her arrival to Mr. Wyndham, who had agreed to sketch for a percentage of the profits.

  He peered out, looked back at Klaus and mimed a whistle, and Klaus grinned.

  At half past the hour, Miss Marianne Linley strolled by in the company of her brother, Mr. Harry Linley. The two of them had been invited by Lord Argosy to meet in a tea house just next door to the printer at precisely that hour.

  Marianne Linley’s brother came to an abrupt halt at the vision that was Lady Grace Worthington rising from chair in the window to admire what appeared to be a sketch held by a man who had the eyes of a rogue, the hair of a fox, and the shirt of a painter—splashed profligately with color.

  “Oh, this must be the printer Argosy mentioned! The Diamonds of the First Water decks.”

  Marianne, a petite brunette with snapping dark eyes, was immediately alert. She fancied herself precisely that. Certainly she had cause for it, since any number of men had lavishly complimented her this season.

  “What you do mean by that?” she demanded. “Diamonds of the First Water decks?”

  “Liebman will be printing decks of cards featuring all the most beautiful girls in the ton as the suits. You know, say . . . Lady Gra—er, you, as the Queen of Spades.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  The most beautiful girls!

  “Why is Lady Grace Worthington sitting in that chair?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps she was invited? Rumor has it Jonathan Redmond will be drawing a bride from the deck before the year is out.” He gave a short laugh and shook his head. “Redmond.”

  Marianne gasped. “Does he really mean to do that?”

  Marianne fancied herself in love with Jonathan Redmond, and had suffered greatly when it became clear he hadn’t fallen in love with her. Primarily she was in love with the idea of Jonathan Redmond, since he’d been so unattainable and everyone else wanted him. Yearning and competition made her suffer, and certainly suffering meant she was in love.

  Her brother, who hadn’t any idea of this, shrugged. “Who knows? But he has devilish luck with Five-Card Loo, so why wouldn’t he have luck with this game, whatever it—where are you going? We’re supposed to meet Argosy in minutes.”

  Marianne had pushed open the door to Klaus Liebman & Co. “Fetch me later, Harry. I intend to have my portrait done.”

  And Lady Grace Worthington and Marianne Linley assiduously avoided each other’s eyes as they passed, one going into the shop, the other leaving.

  HE WASN’T PRECISELY avoiding her, Jonathan told himself.

  It was just that invitations continued to avalanche the Redmond town house; he accepted them, relieved and reveling, for a time, anyway, in familiar pastimes in which he was relatively certain he would not be shot at or arrested or required to dive into a river, and conversations that were so predictable he could have held them entirely on his own rather than with lovely, interchangeable blond women. There honestly was no time to go to the salon that week.

  And yet nights were a different story.

  “Mein freund! You look as though you have not slept,” Klaus exclaimed as they pored over the books.

  That would be because he hadn’t, not really.

  Something about being alone in a bed at night—for that’s precisely what he’d been, alone—well, the moment he closed his eyes all he saw was Tommy’s face after he’d kissed her: soft, stunned, vulnerable. The feel of her arcing beneath him, lithe as a flame, and her hands skimming his body, and her mouth.

  Oh, her mouth. The wonder of it.

  Kissing her had been rather like coming to know her: layers upon layers of revelation. He’d never dreamed a mere kiss could be like a punch to the head. In the best possible way.

  He’d seen stars.

  And never had it been like that before. Like a torch to straw, just that fast. A lust so consuming and raw-edged it both shook him bodily and rattled him into stopping, because, despite what anyone else might think, Jonathan Redmond was sensible. And he knew more than a little about control. But he would have taken her, right there on the riverbank, swiftly and hard. He could imagine it all too well.

  He sucked in a breath.

  No. He’d been sensible to stop. Not afraid—sensible.

  It was just .
. . it was just that he hadn’t touched nearly enough of her.

  Perhaps just a little more would take the edge off the need.

  He suspected this was the sort of mental conversation future opium addicts had with themselves after that very first taste.

  “I’m thinking deep thoughts about our business at night, Liebman.”

  Which was, as he predicted, thriving. Their first hastily printed and distributed decks of court cards sold out rapidly, despite their cost (two pounds!), and several shops in the Burlington Arcade had ordered more of them, and Almack’s had ordered one hundred decks of them, White’s twenty-five, at least five different gaming establishment a good hundred more, and Klaus had begun daydreaming about building a second printer while Jonathan began daydreaming about doubling profits.

  They’d earn back the entirety of Tommy’s investment within just weeks at this rate.

  “And I am reaping the benefits of it during the day,” Klaus said dreamily.

  As a steady stream of beautiful women had come to sit in his window to be sketched.

  It was a veritable cascade of competition and vanity, a parade of cold looks and cold shoulders, as the cream of London young womanhood filed in and out of Klaus Liebman & Co. to sit for Wyndham in the window, which was rapidly becoming just a bit famous. Passersby slowed to admire them.

  Unsurprisingly, Argosy had begun to show an interest in commerce. For surely that was the reason he stopped in at the Bond Street shop.

  The orders for them were piling up. Hundreds of them so far. Two hundred alone, the day after Klaus Liebman & Co. had advertised in the broadsheets.

  “How shall we choose the final faces for the suits?”

  “Oh, I suppose we could draw names from a hat,” he said absently.

  He was trying to imagine what sort of deck Tommy would fit into. The Most Problematic Women of London, perhaps. Men would arrive in droves to purchase the deck, grateful for the warning. They could print a fresh deck yearly, with new faces, just like a calendar.

  Jonathan smiled to himself. Ideas were capital.

  “Are you really going to choose a bride from this deck, Redmond?” Liebman was wistful. He would love a similar opportunity.

  Jonathan thought of the ball he was due to attend this evening, and all the lovely women he would be obliged to dance with.

  “But of course, my dear Klaus. Can you think of a better way to choose a bride?”

  Klaus, a German, and generally optimistic, didn’t quite catch the whiff of irony surrounding those words.

  ONE, TWO, THREE . . . one, two, three. . .

  He could do it in his sleep, the Sussex Waltz. He very nearly was at the moment, although the beautiful blond woman whose hand he was holding and whose waist he touched didn’t seem to know it.

  “Papa says the shooting is excellent. Grouse all but fly right into your hands.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame. What makes it a sport is that animals you are trying to shoot are generally trying not to be shot.”

  Lady Grace Worthington missed the irony.

  “Well, there’s always riding, too. We live near some of the loveliest woodland left in England. You know how it was all cut for shipbuilding for the war. Papa made a fortune.”

  Jonathan was all too aware of her fortune. His father craved an association with her father.

  “And do you enjoy riding, Lady Grace?”

  “Oh, yes! And walking is very pleasant, too.”

  “Oh, I concur. When I’m trying to get from one place to another, walking or riding are usually my choices.”

  That whirring noise, he thought, was the sound of irony sailing right over her admittedly very handsome golden head.

  Jonathan was enjoying himself, but not for the right reasons.

  “There are ruins, too,” she enthused. “Quite pretty ones.”

  “I’m sure there are.” There are ruins bloody everywhere in England.

  He wondered if babies felt this way when rocked. He’d never dreamed a waltz could actually put him to sleep. Not too long ago it was considered utterly scandalous, the waltz. Men and women touching each other for the duration of an entire dance. Like sex standing up. How very carnal.

  How wrong they were.

  Although, like everything else in life, it likely depended upon one’s partner.

  “And a folly, where we can picnic.” She was still talking.

  “Follies are jolly.” By golly!

  “Yes, aren’t they!” She smiled. Teeth arrayed like pearls. Her short top lip sat atop a slightly plumper lower one. Her mouth is like a bud, he thought, somewhat bemused. Poets aren’t completely mad when they write that sort of nonsense.

  Tommy’s mouth had the generosity of . . . a just-opened rose.

  Somehow it didn’t feel at all like nonsense when he thought it.

  “I often take my embroidery out to it on fine days.”

  He frowned very faintly. She took her embroidery out to where . . . ?

  Oh! the folly!

  “What sorts of things do you embroider? Do say butterflies.”

  “I do!” she smiled. “And flowers and bees. Handkerchiefs and the like.”

  He really had nothing more to say to that. Unless it was: Yes, but what in bloody hell do you do all day?

  He didn’t say it. Because it wasn’t just patently unfair, it was mad. If an English gentleman did his job correctly, the women in his life wouldn’t really need to do anything. Embroider. Knit. Raise the children, with assistance from a battalion of servants. Manage the household. Beam adoringly at her husband from across a breakfast table.

  A woman shouldn’t need to steal abused orphan children to be considered interesting.

  He should be very unhappy, indeed, if Tommy de Ballesteros had robbed him of his pleasure in meaningless conversations. They were practically evidence of gentility. They were as comfortable as featherbeds. They were as English as the Union Jack. Meaningless conversations were as much a part of his life as the Sussex Downs, and always had been.

  Then again, veterans of war often returned to England, bored and lost and purposeless after the noise and trauma and variety of the battlefield. Perhaps Tommy was his metaphorical battlefield.

  But his thoughts seemed tethered to her, and the lead was short, and he was forever being yanked back to her side.

  He imagined how his hand would feel against her waist now—it would be like dancing with a hummingbird, all quick lithe warmth—and how her hand would feel folded safely in his, and his mouth so close, so close to her mouth . . .

  Tommy would likely want to lead.

  He wouldn’t let her.

  He smiled to himself.

  The bands of muscle in his stomach tightened. He inadvertently squeezed Lady Worthington’s hand.

  She squeezed him back. And smiled so sultrily he realized he must have been smiling sultrily at her.

  “What do you think of child labor?” he said suddenly.

  She blinked as if he’d flicked something into her eyes.

  And then her eyes went wide and a faint pink washed her cheeks. She could not have looked more nonplussed if he’d suddenly noisily broken wind.

  He could undo it if he wanted to. He could change the subject. He could steer the conversation as surely as he led this dance.

  He waited.

  She cleared her throat. “We’ve a number of young servants. There’s a good deal of work to do in a house that size, and servants are so expensive to feed and house, and the children, why, you can just get them very cheaply from the workhouses. ”

  Very cheaply. As if they were cheese, or eggs.

  “Can you?” he said softly.

  “Well, of course. Surely your father employs children.”

  “No,” Jonathan said. “He doesn’t. At least not the youngest ones. I think our scullery maid may be all of twelve years old. Do you think children ought to be working when they’re very little?”

  He watched her valiantly consider this, likely
in order to please him. It wasn’t the sort of thing she’d ever needed to think about. Servants just were. They kept the house functioning, and maintained the lifestyle to which she was accustomed. She didn’t think much more about them from moment to moment than she did about her own, for instance, liver, or pancreas.

  “Well, it’s not as though they’re like us, are they? They’re servant children.”

  “No, I suppose they aren’t like us. Apart from the two eyes, four limbs, same species, that sort of thing.”

  She nodded, looking relieved at what she interpreted as their accord.

  He stifled a sigh.

  It was official. He’d been ruined for purposeless conversations.

  He abandoned continued efforts to sustain it. And his thoughts snapped back to Tommy de Ballesteros once again.

  Lady Grace looked worried about his silence. He did nothing to ease her worry.

  “Mr. Wyndham said the light loves my skin,” she blurted. Then she blushed fetchingly. “He painted me for the Diamonds of the First Water deck, you know.”

  Jonathan was instantly alert. Artists would say things like that.

  “And who wouldn’t love your skin?” he said, and offered up a genuinely sultry smile.

  The ballroom grew restless when he did that, and fans fluttered agitatedly, and feminine brows fought the urge to frown, because frowning brought premature lines.

  He realized too late it was just the sort of thing that resulted in his face ultimately being slapped by Lady Philippa Winslow.

  It wasn’t his fault.

  Her skin was flawlessly lovely. The rest of her likely was, too. A tasteful portion of her bosom was presented by that fashionable dress of hers, and it looked ample and white and soft. And yet he couldn’t seem to muster interest in peeking beneath her dress, when just a week or so ago he’d had one distinctive daydream about it. She was a perfectly pleasant person, apart from a great, and understandable, streak of vanity, which he had exploited for the purposes of his deck.

  Truly. He should be kind to her. Surely that shouldn’t take any great effort. Surely he was so well bred that he could be nothing but kind.

  “Do you really intend to choose a bride from that deck, Mr. Redmond?”