Falling for a Rake

by Pendle, Eve

  “Have you told her about your road to Damascus moment?” Jones didn’t look up from his writing.

  “I’ve told you not to call it that.” It made it sound much better than it was: a small and long overdue kindness that had turned into a sort-of habit.

  “That’s a no then. You should.” Jones dipped his pen in ink and continued writing.

  “You should do what you’re paid for.” He was rattled if he was acting like an overbearing aristocrat to Jones. “Who are the patriotic ones we need to look out for?”

  “She could help, you know.” Jones shot a look at him without moving his head.

  “Don’t be silly.” He laughed mirthlessly. This was the only amusing thing they’d thought of all day. “She’ll faint at the mere mention of syphilis.”

  “I’ve asked around. She’s respected, and her pteridology suggests she might be clever.” Jones looked up and wrinkled his lip. “Not clever enough to avoid you, but who is?” He bent to his writing again.

  “If you like her so much, you marry her.” He’d die before he allowed Jones or any other man to marry Emily. The thought sprang out of nowhere with a pulse of blood through him. He controlled himself.

  Jones’ eyebrow twitched. “If you’re going to marry her, you have to talk to her.”

  “Why? There’s a great English tradition of distant small-talk, discussion of the weather, and formal platitudes. My parents did that. My grandparents did that. Isn’t the aristocracy just here to uphold traditional values like not caring about your spouse?” He hadn’t ever seen his parents exchange affectionate words or touches. It just wasn’t done.

  “What did you talk about when you took her out this morning?” Jones set down his pen and folded his arms.

  “We didn’t talk much.” Markshall leered.

  “I’m not one of your Tory chums, Markshall.” Jones sighed impatiently. “Stop it. She’s not the enemy. She deserves your respect and honesty”

  “She knows about me.” She was innocent and not involved with the revoltingly messy business of politics. And the even worse mess that was him. She was a lily in the middle of the stinking rubbish pile of his life. He didn’t want her to have to be near anything he did. “That’s why it’s a sham engagement.”

  “A partial account of yourself isn’t honesty,” Jones said patiently, as if explaining to a small child.

  “Isn’t it time you went to bed, Jones.” He couldn’t take any more of his questioning. “We’re not getting anywhere with this tonight.”

  “This morning,” Jones corrected him. “It’s three thirty.”

  “Exactly. Off you go.” Markshall waved him away dismissively. “I’ll read a bit longer and do for myself.” A bit of self-indulgence in thinking about Emily, maybe a bit of onanism, and he’d be able to focus.

  Jones sat up and frowned. Probably more at the idea of Oscar taking off his own coat than because he didn’t want to leave. “My lord, you really ought to sleep.”

  “Your opinion is duly noted.” He pulled a book on venereal disease off the desk and sank into one of the high-backed leather chairs beside the dying fire. This ought to keep him away from illicit thoughts. “Can you get some more coals before you go up?” That would make Jones feel better about leaving.

  “Just call me a parlor maid,” Jones drawled.

  “I can add that to your list of duties any time you like.” As if Jones didn’t already have too much to do. At least he was remunerated accordingly. “Or have you joined a union and are about to complain I’m overworking you?”

  Jones hid his grin as he turned away and left the room, but Markshall saw it.

  Jones had negotiated with him years ago for all the servants to be limited to a ten-hour day and salaries twenty percent over the London average. Except Jones. His hours weren’t limited, and his salary would make a young aristocrat’s allowance seem miserly. But then, his work wasn’t conventional. His job included everything, from the duties of valet to secretary and steward. And as Jones had pointed out, sometimes he had to be the parlor maid. Jones might be the highest paid servant, but he was also the hardest worked.

  Jones had used his position extensively though. He’d shown Oscar the food given to the servants and Oscar had instigated three seasoned hot meals a day. He’d taken Oscar on a tour of the servants’ quarters of Oscar’s own house. Oscar had instructed the butler to introduce individual bedrooms. Throw in an annual party, and unlike virtually every other member of the servant-keeping class, Oscar never had any problems hiring servants.

  The door opened.

  “Thank you, Jones.” He really ought to attend to the contagious diseases issue rather than woolgather about servants working conditions.

  “I have the newspaper. The early editions have just been delivered. You may want to read it.” Jones sounded grim.

  Markshall looked up.

  Jones was holding up the newspaper in front of him, as though it were a shield.

  The headline was emblazoned across the top made him freeze. Then he noticed the next headline, just below, and his blood turned to fire.

  Chapter Ten

  “Our outing seems to have made quite an impression,” Markshall said tightly, casting a newspaper down so it flopped onto the little table in front of her. She didn’t need to open it out to read the headlines.

  ‘Whores to go free while soldiers are detained’, was printed along the top of the page. Then just below the text for that section, the next headline read: ‘Unmarried couple hunting immorality and ferns’.

  The headline about ferns was bad enough, but the association with the other title was plain. For a second, she had an irrational fear of touching the paper, as though it might taint or bite her. But a lady didn’t flinch. Her hands trembled as she brought it close enough to read, and with growing horror, Emily scanned through the second article.

  Fern gathering had long been derided as only slightly suitable for well-bred young ladies, as the trips to gather said ferns often had mixed composition - ladies and gentlemen. Worse still, the classes are sometimes mixed too, as ferns are popular amongst both the upper classes, where the trend originated, and also the merchant classes and bourgeoisie.

  It is the opinion of this newspaper that the vice inherent in exploring so crude a subject as the procreation of ferns, will inevitably lead to vice in all areas of pteridological endeavor. Indeed, it has been called a craze, ‘pteridomania’. Gentle reader, we offer this story as a warning to all young people, especially young ladies, that might be drawn to this seemingly innocent collecting of ferns as representations of God’s beautiful work.

  On the good authority and morality of Lady X–.

  She let the newspaper drop to the table. What would the fathers of her friends in the Lady Hunters, or any other father, say when they saw this? This slander would destroy the innocent pursuit of thousands of young women. The smell of coffee and cream that she’d been drinking cloyed in her throat. All her work, wrecked.

  “Personally, I think warning young ladies that fern hunting can cause old maids to find aristocratic husbands in an effort to put them off the hobby is futile in the extreme,” drawled Markshall.

  She rounded on him, then had to take three calming breaths to regain her composure. No-one suspected a polite lady. “Pteridology is one of the few, very few, suitable outdoors and scientific pursuits that are considered acceptable for young ladies. I didn’t give up fox hunting and grouse shooting to stay inside and do needlework. I need something else and it became fern hunting. If fern gathering becomes synonymous with scandal, it won’t just be me who suffers, it will be young women across the country. I need to find this Lady X– and stop her.”

  “I think you are overstating the case.” Markshall shrugged. “No father prevents his daughter from healthy activities that can lead to matrimony. The waltz was once scandalous, so was the polka, and the Queen danced both in her day. This will blow over.”

  “I’m holding you responsible if it doesn�
�t.” She was going to be sick. All because this man had chased her into a hole.

  He huffed, and his lip curled with wry amusement. “But it can only blow over if we stop more articles being printed. I have a suspicion about who Lady X– might be, but I doubt my contacting her would help the situation. There is a disturbing trend for more rather than less of these articles. I thought I might visit the printer and ask them to reconsider their content.” He paused, almost as though he were nervous. “Will you join me?”

  “Wait while I get my shawl.” A visit to a printer was not precisely the sort of behavior a duke’s daughter ought to engage in. But somehow, that thought, usually so paramount in Emily’s mind, wasn’t there. The lure of doing something about this travesty, and going with Oscar by her side, was everything.

  Returning downstairs, she was informed by a footman that Lord Markshall was waiting outside. She spotted him in his high-perch phaeton immediately. He turned, and she couldn’t repress her smile and he returned it. They were going to sort everything out and for a moment she felt invincible as they grinned at each other like a pair of fools.

  Without looking away, he jumped down and held out his hand. “I wasn’t sure if you would come, or if you’d change your mind.”

  “Journalist hunting?” She put her hand in his, the warmth of him seeping through to her fingertips despite their gloves. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Not when fern hunting was threatened.

  “Come on then, up you go.” His other hand came around to her back, a reassuring pressure.

  His phaeton was still intimidating high, but she grasped the sideboard and pulled herself up. For a second, there was a familiarity of Markshall helping her up and she couldn’t immediately place it. Then she remembered where this had started. In a hole.

  She stepped up and he was immediately beside her, a solid presence on the tall phaeton.

  “Care to drive again?” He offered the reins to her. He winked at her as she took the leather straps from him. A quiver went through her remembering what had just happened last time she’d taken the reins from him. They’d kissed. Long and passionately.

  She nodded to the tiger holding the horse’s head and the young groom scampered to the back to jump up. As they pulled into the road she focused. It wouldn’t do to think too much about kisses with Markshall.

  “Where is the publisher of the newspaper?” she asked. Because it wasn’t on a prestigious address like Regent’s Street, that was for sure.

  “Where they all are. Fleet Street.”

  For a few minutes, Emily lost herself in the feel of driving, watching to left and right for other vehicles, and in the connection to the horses through the reigns. The phaeton was fast, so lightweight that the horses seemed to be gliding rather than trotting. She hoped the tiger behind them was holding on tight. The concentration required in the busy road was almost enough to make her ignore the brush of Markshall’s coat on hers. The phaeton had scandalously little space and he was sat close, her skirts covering the nearest of his boots and his hand perilously close to her knee.

  “What are we going to do?” They had to converse, or she would start to watch him rather than the road.

  “We’re going to go and talk to the Daily Letters and find out who has been feeding such nonsense to them.” He sounded grim.

  On the left was Hanover square. The exalted church where so many famous and infamous matches had been made. The feel of the horses obeying her commands, was unfamiliar and exhilarating. It was as good as the wind in her hair whilst out in the countryside.

  “How is your family taking it?” Markshall asked.

  “The scandal?” Emily sighed. “Mother is quite calm and pragmatic. In her last letter, Connie sounded like an overly precious young lady.” Connie was overwrought and convinced she’d die a spinster. Her father’s letter had bemoaned that he didn’t know where the impulse for histrionics came from with Connie, given neither Hugo nor Emily shared it.

  “Should I be thinking a reaction like Marianne out of Sense and Sensibility or some fainting Dickens character?”

  Emily couldn’t repress a smile. “More that she thinks she will be Becky from Vanity Fair, with endless trials not of her making.”

  “We’d better get to Fleet Street quickly then, to ensure we can progress our wicked conspiracy against her.” Markshall laughed and it was like summer sun on her face. “We won’t go through Soho, though it would be quicker. It’s a little unsavory for one such as you. Piccadilly Circus is at the end. Let’s go right again down to Trafalgar Square. Then a mile or so down the strand and we’ll be at Fleet Street.”

  They drove in silence for a little while and Emily’s heart settled, no longer galloping away. Then the wide street and massive plinths loomed ahead. Trafalgar Square.

  She cast her gaze around. “Did you know, George IV’s statue cost almost as much as his mistress’ residences?” she said lightly, trying to ease the mood.

  “Sounds reasonable.” He grinned.

  “Not when you know how many mistresses he had.” Too many for one man, and all living in opulence.

  “What do you know of mistresses?” He sounded surprised that should even know what a mistress was. “And where did you read that?”

  “In The Daily Telegraph.”

  “Dreadful penny press.” Markshall lounged back in the seat, stretching his legs out in front of him. “They should never have removed the paper tax in ’61. It’s encouraged these gossipy, so-called news outlets like the Daily Letters.”

  “Do you really believe that?” He had strong legs, she noticed, and a purposefully insouciant position. She’d noticed that his most outrageous sentiments were accompanied by a deliberate gesture of faux relaxation.

  “Do people really need this sort of scurrilous news? What happened to ignorance is bliss? All these newspapers and the lower classes get ideas above their station.”

  “You don’t believe that.” She slanted a glance at him while she drove, then looked forwards again. There was something of an actor in his manner. He was too bright, too brash. He wasn’t quite the same man as he had been in the mine shaft. She was sure of that, even though she hadn’t been able to see him in the dark. It was difficult to understand who the real man was, but she was becoming certain about one thing. Lord Markshall’s character of a rake was not him.

  “He was a wonderful patron of the arts.” Markshall’s shrug was more felt through her shoulder than seen.

  “Well, I’m sure that makes up for all his womanizing, debts, drinking, and bringing the country into disrepute.” She couldn’t hide her disdain for men who didn’t stick by their vows to women, be they a wife, a fiancé, a sweetheart, or even a mistress.

  “No one is a saint, Emily.” His voice was hard.

  No. Heroes were not all perfect and villains not all bad. But Markshall was always at such pains to reinforce his wickedness, almost like he was reminding them both.

  When they pulled into Fleet Street, the metallic sound of industry echoed around. Fleet Street was wide but closed in by buildings five floors high. There was a faint acrid taste in the air. One of the mares tossed her head.

  “The sound of the printing presses.” Markshall offered without prompting the answer to the question she hadn’t asked. “They print the newspapers overnight, but many also run all day. Expensive lumps of metal to be idle.”

  The noise gave the street an unsettled atmosphere that was enhanced by the men striding around. Emily looked straight ahead, not wanted to be seen staring. There were men only in their shirts and trousers, seemingly having forgotten the decorum of a hat and jacket. The traffic was busy, with several carts standing waiting, the horses stamping their feet impatiently. They pulled up in front of the offices that declared they were the Daily Letters. As Markshall’s tiger ran around to hold the horses’ heads, Emily held herself still, despite the urge to run away. Now she was here, she wasn’t at all sure this was a good idea. The perfect lady ought not to go to a printer.<
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  Markshall jumped down and held out his hand to her from the pavement. There was no place for being prim. She placed her hand in his, and in the moment she jumped, his hand warm but immovable beneath hers, she had the sensation of flying before he feet were back on the ground.

  She took Markshall’s proffered arm and they entered the building.

  “It’s tuppance for a tour of the press.” A young voice called out before they’d fully crossed the threshold and looked around. Emily looked down to see a boy of about twelve, quite neatly dressed and moderately fed. An apprentice. The boy swung his arms like he wasn’t sure what to do with them.

  “We’d like to see the editor.” Markshall approached the boy and proffered a coin.

  The boy took the coin and looked at them skeptically, then nodded twice. “I’ll get ‘im.”

  They were left waiting in the small dim, wood paneled entrance hall. Only a few moments later, a voice was audible, “…Next time, tell them they can have the tour and that’s all.” A man in a long ink smeared apron appeared at the door. “Yes,” he said abruptly, then seemed to notice their clothes and overall appearance and a look of wariness spread down his face.

  “Mr. Jenkins, I presume.” Markshall shook the man’s hand. “My name is Lord Markshall, and this is Lady Emily.”

  The man’s eyes flared with recognition. “What can I do for you, m’lord?” His tone was too dismissive to be well-mannered.

  “We’re here to discuss an editorial matter.” Markshall took a step forward.

  “We print what people want to read.” The man tilted his chin up defiantly.

  “You print scurrilous lies. Libelous ones.” Markshall scowled and clapped the man on the arm. “I think you’d find it would be more profitable to not print such things.”

  “Indeed?” Mr. Jenkins said, his mouth a skeptical line.

  Markshall examined his gloved hand. “Dirty business, printing. Do you have a cloth I could wipe this mark off with?”