by Erica Ridley
He stared at her for a long moment, then gave a low chuckle.
Bryony’s insides crumbled.
She had been too enthusiastic, too energized by numbers, sales, and profits. Of course he could not take her seriously. She was a child playing dress-up. A court jester, not a financial advisor.
Max retrieved his journal and scanned through a few pages before setting it face down and closing his eyes. “I’m not fortunate.”
Bryony’s spine straightened. “What?”
He opened an eye in her direction. “You’re right. I could have raised my prices long before my providers raised theirs. That journal records five years of profits that could have been much greater. I did not think of it, because I do not think that way. I am conscious of the price of every purchase I make. It’s easy to forget that my patrons are not necessarily like me. Even if they are frugal in other matters, you are absolutely right. This venue is not a place where one wishes to mind one’s pennies.”
You are right.
The rest of the speech was pretty enough, but Bryony could only focus on those three little words. She was right. He had listened to her. He had taken her seriously.
He was the only man besides her brother ever to have done so, and this despite having given Max precious little reason to have any particular faith in her, mathematically or otherwise.
This was what kind of person he was. Tough, but fair. Willing to entertain differing interpretations of available facts before forming a decision. Willing to listen to someone like her.
Bryony’s heart thumped. Max’s surprising openness made her want to rise to the challenge even more, to give him a reason to keep respecting her.
“You’re not unfortunate anymore,” she said with a teasing grin. “Now you have me.”
His expression hardened. “I do not have you, nor should you be here.”
She flinched. He was right. She deserved that.
Nonetheless, she wished more than anything that the opposite was true. That he did have her. That she could be here. That together, they could create something more.
“You could have me if you wished,” she said in a small voice. “You are in want of an assistant, are you not? I could be your clerk. Off in some corner, unnoticeable until you need me.”
Max shook his head. “You’re not a clerk. You’re a woman. This is a gentleman’s club. You don’t belong.”
He was being truthful, not hurtful. And yet it hurt all the same. “It’s your club. You make the rules.”
“My club, but not my rules.” He gestured about them. “This is what a gentleman’s club is. Having a woman around, as a clerk or otherwise, would change the atmosphere in a non-advantageous way.”
He was probably right. No, he was all but assuredly right. But she could not help but wish that he were not.
“Men and women have been known to get along,” she muttered.
“Have they?” he asked drolly. “The only club where High Society men and women get together are marriage markets like Almack’s, which is not the environment I am trying to recreate.”
Nor was it what Bryony wanted from him.
What she suddenly, desperately wished, was that a place like this was available to a person like her. To women like her.
She didn’t want to sneak into Boodle’s dressed in men’s clothing. She wanted to be able to attend establishments like the Cloven Hoof as herself. As Bryony. The eclectic mix of backgrounds and personalities and classes was more than refreshing.
It seemed heavenly.
She longed to be able to join in the conversations, the games, the teasing. Have an overpriced glass of port if she wished. By all accounts, the atmosphere in the Cloven Hoof was convivial and relaxed in a way she had never witnessed.
To many, this gambling den was home. A dark, shadowy nook that was positively welcoming to any gentleman worthy of Maxwell Gideon’s approval.
But not to her. Never to her.
A knock sounded against the door. Startled, Bryony’s eyes met Max’s.
He motioned toward the settee at the opposite side of the room. “Behind the folding screen. Now.”
She was already moving, flying off his desk and across the carpet to her predetermined hiding spot. Her blood pumped much too fast, her heart too loud.
The door creaked open just as Max was crossing to answer it.
“Situation up front,” said a nervous male voice. “Afraid we need you for this one.”
“Of course,” came Max’s low, smooth cadence.
The door clicked shut.
Bryony didn’t know if Max had glanced her way before quitting the room. She didn’t know how long he would be gone, or what he intended to say to her when he returned.
She was not going to stay and find out. She no longer needed to skulk about in search of secrets. The very first night, she had learned he possessed more money and far more brains than he’d let on to his silent investor.
Things were different now. She was no longer some pseudonymous landlord. He’d placed his journal of accounts in her hands. Trusted her more than she deserved.
With a heavy heart, she slipped out from behind the folding curtain, out of the empty office, out the darkened corridor. Whatever trouble was afoot up front meant that no one was minding the back. It was a perfect moment for escape.
Return to the world where she supposedly belonged.
Chapter 7
Bryony sat in the center of her mother’s drawing room, shoving a needle into white linen. If she had to stay at home, she would much rather be reading a book… but the stories of adventurous men who are allowed to do whatever they wish had lost some of its luster. She didn’t want to read about freedoms. She wanted to live them.
Her mother floated into the room just as the butler arrived to announce the arrival of a friend.
“Lady Grenville!” squealed Mrs. Eastburn to Bryony’s mother, as if finding the baroness at home in her own house at the hour of an obviously prearranged appointment had managed to both shock and delight her.
Bryony kept stabbing her needle through the cloth as the two ladies bussed cheeks and complemented each other on the handsome cut of their gowns and the delicate embroidery on their bonnets.
Bryony had little to no experience with delicate embroidery. Not wearing it, and definitely not creating it. She’d had to remove almost as many stitches from her sampler as she put in, resulting in a swatch of linen full of more holes than beauty.
’Twas probably fitting.
In order to give herself a project she would have any interest in completing, she’d asked her artistic sister-in-law to design a simplistic—yet demonic—pattern comprising the words “Cloven Hoof” and a few symbolic elements to remind Bryony of its irascible owner.
It was not a highbrow endeavor, nor a work of art that would ever be put on display, but it was exponentially more amusing than embroidering still-lifes of crooked fruit.
“That must be your daughter,” Mrs. Eastburn announced as if catching sight of Bryony for the first time. But she made no attempt to speak to her or greet her directly.
“That is indeed my daughter,” Mother lamented without so much as looking over her shoulder.
Mrs. Eastburn nodded knowingly. “The youngest?”
“The spinster,” came Mother’s long-suffering reply.
Bryony was suddenly grateful they were not addressing her directly.
“Come, let us sit over here where we will not disturb her.” Mother led her guest to a clump of wingback chairs on the other side of the drawing room, presumably out of earshot.
The tall backs of their chairs successfully blocked their faces from view.
Unfortunately, Mother’s idea of a whisper was still discernable in the otherwise silent house.
“What was I saying?” she murmured once her friend had taken a seat.
“It’s what you didn’t say,” Mrs. Eastburn breathed in awe. “That one is the violin prodigy. Why do you have her here sewing sa
mplers instead of traveling the world as a virtuoso?”
Bryony perked up. Perhaps overhearing hushed whispers wasn’t a bad thing.
“All my daughters love sewing samplers,” Mother said with the confidence of a woman who relied more on information plucked from the air and her own imagination than the empirical world around her. “And ladies cannot be virtuosos.”
“She is a fourth child and on the shelf,” Mrs. Eastburn reminded her. “I imagine she might enjoy the opportunity to do something with her talent.”
“She has plenty of opportunity,” Mother said. “The exclusivity of our family musicales is more than honor enough for Bryony. She doesn’t need to work for money. She needs a husband. If you hadn’t heard, her eldest sister managed to bring an earl up to scratch. I hope Bryony will do even better.”
“A duke?” Mrs. Eastburn whispered as if this future husband was already a foregone conclusion. “Have you a certain one in mind?”
Mother was all too happy to expound upon one of her favorite subjects. “Of the two left in the Marriage Mart, I fear Lambley is almost beyond the pale. His infamous masquerades and endless debauchery would have to cease when he took a wife, else he’d risk exposing her good name to scandal.”
“Or at least be more discreet,” Mrs. Eastburn added. “One cannot consider his activities even an open secret when the man sends gilded invitations. Whatever happened to discretion in such matters?”
Bryony rolled her eyes heavenward. The Duke of Lambley didn’t give a button what some baroness thought of his lifestyle. He had a large enough extended family that he could stay a bachelor the rest of his life if he wished without endangering the title. Lambley was free to live as he chose.
She quite envied him the privilege.
In the meantime, all she had to be grateful for was her quiet position out of view. Bryony had no wish to join Mother’s conversation with her friend. The whispers her ears could pick up were teeth-gnashing enough.
“The Duke of Courteland,” Mother was saying, “is too new in his role for me to form strong opinions about him as a man, but perhaps that would make him the perfect husband for Bryony. Her father and I could mold them both into perfect pillars of society.”
“You are correct in all things,” Mrs. Eastburn agreed. “Now that I see where your gaze rests, I understand your concern. Being a wife is a challenge and a duty. One cannot be a duchess and a virtuoso.”
Bryony stabbed her needle back through the fabric.
Although her methods could be maddening, Mother truly wanted the best for all her children. She honestly believed Bryony dreamed of snagging a duke. She expected her daughter to be just like every other debutante in the Marriage Mart.
Even if it meant being someone else entirely.
“Do tell,” Mrs. Eastburn began, once the tea had been served on their side of the room. They seemed to have forgotten Bryony’s presence completely. “Has Courteland come to call?”
“He has not,” Mother admitted. “No, don’t look sorry for me. Our barony is respectable and our position in society is sound. Bryony is far more presentable now than she used to be, but still not enough to attract a duke.”
Mrs. Eastburn was silent for a moment. “Is it the hair?”
“It is the hair,” exclaimed Mother, vindicated. “I’ve told her time and again that she will not catch any man without side curls, but she acts as if she hasn’t the time to submit to a pair of curling tongs.”
“She’ll wish she took the time,” Mrs. Eastburn said ominously. “If she ends up wed to a second son because she was unwilling to let her lady’s maid perform the duties required of her, it will only be her own fault.”
“I tell her so every day,” Mother said with a groan.
Bryony gritted her teeth. Even though they believed her well out of earshot, she was not some mare at Tattersall’s, to be discussed and dissected before being bid upon by gentlemen more interested in her outward appearance and capacity for breeding than in her intelligence.
But what point was there in saying so? Adding more fuel to the fire would only result in her mother increasing her efforts to marry Bryony off.
Worse, from all she had seen, there was no reason to believe Mother did not have the right of the matter. Diamonds of the first water who bewitched earls and viscounts during their very first come-out were all of a type: the opposite of Bryony.
It went far beyond well-dressed hair, although even Bryony would admit the most successful debutantes did possess beauty in abundance. They were also sweet and biddable, accomplished in talents like country-dances and proper posture, with little ambition beyond giving birth to future ladies and lordlings.
Bryony was opinionated and headstrong, quick-tongued and impatient. She rather suspected she would make a terrible society wife, and was doing the gentlemen of her acquaintance a favor by taking herself out of the running.
Her hopes of escaping such a fate still depending on finding a viable alternate. A gentleman well-connected enough to appease her parents, submissive enough to allow Bryony the freedoms she desired, and respectable enough to cause her family no harm by association.
She lowered her gaze to her demon-inspired sampler. What would such a man look like?
Dark eyes and a sardonic smile rose to mind. She pushed the image away at once. Poppycock.
Not only was she far from the sort to fall in love at first sight, Maxwell Gideon did not inspire one to develop soft feelings towards him. Yes, he was sinfully attractive, and very well, she was consumed by the thought of kissing him, but those were desires one could quench in a single evening, not an attachment that would last for eternity.
More importantly, she had no interest in the sort of arrogant man who would dismiss her out of hand, who said you do not belong and meant it.
“What if,” Mrs. Eastburn mused aloud, “we discarded dukes for a moment and considered earls and marquises as well. There are many more of them, which would give us far more opportunity to find at least one willing to take a chance on your daughter.”
“It has to be more than a chance,” Mother said firmly. “He must take her as his wife. Nothing else will do. I shan’t allow him to play with my daughter’s feelings.”
Bryony sighed down at the crooked horns on her sampler. It was statements like these that she both loved and hated the most.
On the one hand, it proved that Mother truly did care about her happiness, and that she fully believed marrying Bryony off to some titled stranger would be in her daughter’s best interest.
On the other hand, it also confirmed every suspicion that Mother hadn’t the least inkling what Bryony’s feelings on any given matter might be.
Possibly because she’d never listened.
“What kind of husband do you imagine for her?” Mrs. Eastburn asked.
“It has to be someone strong,” Mother said, as if considering the options. “A weak man would be unable to mold her into the kind of wife he needs her to become. The sort of woman society expects her to be.”
Bryony rolled her eyes.
Even Mrs. Eastburn’s answering murmur was skeptical. “How much can we reasonably expect her to change?”
“I am certain she is capable of anything,” Mother said without hesitation. “She’s very clever, with more than just her violin. But she’s also very headstrong and requires a firm hand to keep her pointed in the right direction.”
Bryony’s skin crawled. She did not want a firm hand. If that was what Mother had in mind, Bryony was now in a race against time. She needed a viable alternative without delay. Some gentle soul who would never dream of attempting to point Bryony in any particular direction. Much less toward boring respectability.
Once again, she could not help but recall her most recent encounter with Max.
He was far from gentle. But nor did he treat her like chattel to be trained and punished for misbehavior.
They had discussed numbers. Worked out a strategy. He did not treat her like a silly g
irl, or even like a man. He had treated her like an equal. Like a fellow human whose ideas and opinions were worth considering on their own merit.
And then he had actually done so. Had listened, taken her thoughts seriously. He had not accepted her words out of hand, of course, nor would Bryony have respected him for doing so.
He had done his own calculations. And when he determined she was, in fact, correct, he said so. Just like that. No angst, no anger, no issues. Just thank you, splendid idea, I’ll do that.
Very well, those might not have been his exact words. But it had been the sentiment. A sentiment Bryony felt so deeply because it so rarely was directed her way.
It meant even more because Max was no fool. Every other potential investor had turned down his daring proposal because they didn’t believe anyone could turn such a mishmash of ideas into a profitable club. He had done so in spades. Had proven them all wrong.
Instead of investing when they had the chance, all those naysayers now begged for the opportunity to walk through the front door and hand over their money. Delicious irony, that. Max knew what it was like to be underestimated. To be labeled without potential. A bad investment.
Perhaps that was why he was on her mind so much. It wasn’t his dark good looks, or the way one must keep one’s gaze fixed upon that wide, sensuous mouth if one had any hope of catching it in a smile. It was deeper.
They were more alike than she previously realized, and yet as much as they had both fought to carve their own paths in the world, they were still stuck inside the glass cases in which they had been born.
If and when he took a wife, it would be someone whose family would be proud of him, and vice versa. Who would rightfully believe their daughter had chosen wisely.
