The Love List (18 page)

There it was.  She’d opened the door wide for him.  “Stick with reality,” he urged.  “It’s safer.”

At last she turned her head again.  “I disagree,” she stated.  “Completely.  I let myself grow so busy catering to his needs, dancing around his moods, handling his political peers and their demands, that I forgot about myself.  I allowed myself to be convinced that his work was all-important, and I let his dreams supplant mine.  I was blind.  A fool who let herself be led right into a betrothal with someone like Marstoke, without ever stopping to think about what I wished.”

“And now you dream of feeding London’s starving children?  That’s the future that Marstoke’s List threatens to rob you of?”  He said it without inflection, without derision, but she felt the sting of the barb anyway.  As she’d been meant to.

“No.”  She sat bolt upright now, shoulders defensively squared.  “In fact, that is but the tip of the plan.  There is more—so much more I plan to do.”

Her enthusiasm was obvious and contagious.  It whispered to the young idealist inside of him.  He could scarce believe that part of him still existed, even after so long, after such hard lessons forcibly learnt.  He looked away, intent on denying both her appeal and the wave of heat rising inside of him, threatening the hard callus of distance and disdain at his core. 

“It’s a heartfelt gesture.  One that does you credit.  But that’s all it is—a gesture.  You might fill one belly tonight.  Or twenty.  But there will still be hundreds upon hundreds more gnawing at little backbones from Greenwich to St. John’s Wood.”

“All the more reason to rejoice in the few that will be content tonight.”

He leaned forward.  “You are making the same mistake!  Substituting their needs for yours.”

“No, no!  How can I make you understand?”  She had gone tense with effort and exasperation.  “It is different for girls.  It was the most natural thing in the world for me to arrange my life around my father’s requirements.  No one thought to consult me or even imagine I might wish for something else.  But at least I was warm and safe and fed.  It is so much worse for these young girls on the streets.” She gestured toward the window.  “Have you been paying attention today, as we walk through their domain?  Too many of them have to fight and cheat and steal for basic needs.  Worse, no one expects them to become anything but pickpockets or prostitutes.  Or to die an early, gin-soaked death.” 

She gripped the seat under her, urgent and intense.  “Hestia takes in women.  But it is the girls I want.  I want to give them options, choices.  A new vision of themselves.”  She sat back.  “Dreams.”

“If you had received a classical education—”

“I had a very good education,” she interrupted, her head high. 

“Then you should recall that the ancients thought such meddling naught but an affront to the gods, an invitation for punishment.  And they weren’t far off.”  He shook his head.  “You’d do far better to look to yourself instead.”  He punctuated this with a flick of his fingers.  “Without a husband, your own future is dim enough.”

She gaped at him.  “Are you saying I should
marry
?”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m ruined in the eyes of the world?  Because no man would want me?”

“It’s not hopeless,” he protested.  “Nor is it too late to give that small girl what she once imagined.  Society’s doors might be closed to you, but good men are not restricted to the
beau monde
.  There are fine men in the city, men of sound mind and solid professions.  Given a bit of time, you’ll find someone like that.”

“Will I?”  Color crept up from her bodice, along the elegant length of her nape, continuing onward until it clashed with two white spots in her cheeks.  “Is that how I appear to you?  A helpless maid waiting to be married off to the first poor sod
of sound mind
who would have her?”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“Good!  Because that’s not what I am!  What I am is forever through with being a helpless . . . anything!  I shall likely never marry.”  The dismissive way she said it frustrated him.  “You talk of who might have me, but what of the other way around?  The two men that nature and society charged with my welfare have betrayed me.  Who do you think I shall trust now?”  She leaned in his direction.  “I’ve already broken covenant with myself once.  I won’t do it again.  I shall see to myself.  Dream for myself.  I have brains and talents and the ability to carry out my own plans. 
Le Cygne
is but the first of many stations and even now a land agent in Surrey searches for the right house and land—”

“It makes no difference.  Your efforts may be valiant, but they will always be too small.”

“So should I aid none because I cannot save them all?” she asked, incredulous.  He grew uncomfortable, though, as her gaze turned scornful.  “My father feels as you do.  He’s labored for sweeping reform for twenty years.  And accomplished little, despite his willingness to sacrifice even me.”  She sniffed.  “So you must excuse me if I have no wish to adopt his strategies.  I shall content myself with searching out the likeliest candidates, and helping them one at a time.”

“Believe me when I assure you that no one understands the blaze of your passion as I do.  But understand also that what you propose is the worst course, the one most fraught with peril.  Donate to a charity if you must.  An almshouse, perhaps.  A foundling hospital.  But don’t meddle personally in others’ lives.  As I’ve said, you’d do better to concentrate on helping yourself.  At least it would narrow the focus of harm.”

“Harm?”  Her jaw dropped.  “Can you think that I wish to hurt these girls?  The greatest harm I could do would be to see their plight and leave them to their fate.”

An ugly laugh welled up and out of him.  “If you believe that, then you are indeed a fool.  All that you’ve been through, and you still don’t understand that Fate is a cold-hearted bitch?  I accept that you don’t mean to cause trouble, but it’s only a matter of time before your intentions are twisted and fate warps your well-meaning into the worst sort of disaster.”

She sat back.  “I cannot understand you.”  She fell silent as her gaze ran over him, searching.  “We are truly at loggerheads,” she announced.  “I cannot imagine what you see when you look at the world.  Or when you look at me.”

No, she could not.  He saw a lovely girl, unspoilt despite the darkness that had tried to touch her.  Even as they argued opposing, irreconcilable philosophies, she worried for him.  He wanted to scorn such folly, but instead he found it unbearably endearing.  Found
her
endearing.   And engaged and passionate and far too naïve to learn from his mistakes.  He didn’t know how to make her understand that help could turn to horror.  That love could become a burden and a catastrophe.

As if she’d heard his thoughts, she turned them on him.  “And in any case, I fail to see why you feel justified in lecturing me about marriage.  You—the reclusive duke who never gives a respectable lady a second glance?  Marriage would seem to be your future, not mine—what with a need for an heir and the succession and all that folderol.”

“Tru is the only heir I will ever need.”

“Why?”  She smirked.  “There are plenty of respectable women of sound mind who would have you.”

He snorted.  “You spend enough time in Hestia Wright’s circles and you’ll run into a few members of the
demi-monde
who will tell you that I’m a bad bargain at best.  I’m cranky, neglectful and endlessly busy.  If I cannot keep a woman like that happy for more than a few weeks, imagine how a wife would suffer.”

“There are at least a few dozen ladies in the
ton
who would endure such deprivations happily—in exchange for the title of Duchess.”

“Then more fools are they.  I’ve had precisely that trade forced upon me and I’ve given up far more than I ever gained.”

She straightened, clearly intrigued, but he looked away.  He could never make her understand that destiny had played a cruel joke in choosing him to inherit.  Yes, he’d paid a damned steep price for the privilege, but others had paid as well, and far more dearly.  He would never subject another to the sort of punishment that followed when he forgot himself, indulged himself.

“It doesn’t matter in any case.  Some people are just meant to live alone,” he said with a shrug.  “I’m one of them.”

Her eyes narrowed at him.  He could nearly see the gears of her mind turning, formulating her next, difficult question, but before she could ask it they both jumped at a loud bang upon the carriage door. 

“Guv?  Be ye comin’ out?  Or is this not the place ye meant?”

Aldmere leaned out.  He caught sight of the narrow winding of Paternoster Row and the clear lettering on the nearest window:
Rudd’s Print Works
.

“No, you’ve got it right enough,” he said, climbing out.  He passed the driver an extra coin before handing Miss Wilmott out.  It had gone nearly dark, but a soft light was visible from inside.  He took her arm, and the door swung open before they could take a step.

Joe Watts emerged.  So forlorn was his expression, so downcast his countenance, that he never even noticed the pair of them.  He carried a broom and began a lackluster sweeping of the stoop.

“Joe?”  Brynne Wilmott took a tentative step forward.

The boy jerked upright, his alarm apparent even in the growing darkness.  He gripped his broom like a weapon, taking up a defensive stance until he recognized the girl. 

His scowl deepened.  “You again, is it?  That’s all this day needed to cap it.”

Aldmere’s jaw tightened.  “What’s amiss, Mr. Watts?”

“Amiss?  What’s amiss, he asks?”  The boy gripped his broom with one hand and planted the other on his hip.  “Nary a thing—save yer damned List has near ruined me.  I’m lucky to still have my place, ain’t I?”

“Did your master discover you’d made off with it this morning?”  Miss Wilmott clearly had trouble summoning sympathy for the young man.

“Lud, no!  And don’t ye be tellin’ him either!”  He shuddered.  “I’m in trouble enough as ‘tis.”

Aldmere was losing patience.  “What’s happened?”

“I thought I was safe this mornin’ when I made it back afore Mr. Rudd was done with his romp.  Back to a normal day, I thought.  But then, round about mid-afternoon, when Mr. Rudd goes home for his tea, that’s when it happened.”

“
What
happened, Joe?”  Miss Wilmott had reached the end of her forbearance.

“A visitor happened, is what.  A gentleman who says he has the last bit o’ the List, ready to be printed with the rest.  But he wouldn’t let the likes o’ me touch it, now would he?  Said it was for Mr. Rudd’s hands only and would I show him the rest of the manuscript so he could put it aright, in order and all?”

Aldmere tensed.  “And did you?”

“Well, of course.  I let him into the master’s office so he could do as he said, thinking Mr. Rudd’d be pleased to come back and find the List ready to go.”

“And then what happened?” Miss Wilmott sounded as if she’d been holding her breath.

“I went back to settin’ type on the broadsheet ballad I was workin’ on,” Joe explained.  “And it weren’t but a few minutes afore another gent walks in, pretty as you please, and announces himself like he was the king.  Brougham, he says he is.”

“
Henry
Brougham?” Miss Wilmott asked, incredulous.

“Aye—the very same.  The toff with his name in the papers all the time, that Whig fellow  who acts as advisor to the Princess Caroline.  I was that impressed.  He said he was sorry for the delay, but he’d run into a lady and his companion had come on without him.  And was his friend finished with the manuscript yet?  I told him no and he asked if he could go in, as well, and help in getting the job done with.  So I showed him to the office.  And then I went back to work
again
.”

They waited, both of them, without exchanging a glance.  There was no need.  It was still there, the energy charging the air between them, along with shared expectation as they waited for Joe Watts to indulge himself.

“Just like the two of ye—I was quiet, going about my business, until I realized that they’d been back there a deuced long time.  I went to check, and you’ll never guess what I found!”

“
What
, Joe?” Miss Wilmott asked.

“Damned if the first gent wasn’t tossed in the corner, trussed tighter than a Christmas goose and gagged for good measure!”

Irritation and incredulity crushed Aldmere’s good manners.  “And the other man?” he demanded over Miss Wilmott’s gasp.  “Where was he?”

“Gone—right out the high window that’s been nailed shut all these many years.”  The boy’s pleasure in telling his story died away.  Melancholy returned to his long face. 

Aldmere’s gut lurched.  “And the manuscript?”

“Gone with him.  And my place nearly with it.  Planned ahead, he did, the bounder.  Loosened those shutters from the outside.”  The boy rubbed the side of his head.  “Ah, Mr. Rudd were that mad, he cuffed me somethin’ fierce when he found out.  He set the first one loose and they both set straight off to mollify the nobs what gave us the job.”

Aldmere turned away, tight with frustration.

“But I don’t understand,” Miss Wilmott said.  “I’ve met Henry Brougham.  He’s active in the Whigs, a colleague of my father’s.  Why should he care about the List?”

“But he don’t, do he?” Joe Watts demanded.  “Because it weren’t him at all!”

Aldmere spun around.  Not Brougham?  There it was again, hope springing up unbidden and unwanted, along with an incredible idea.  Surely not . . .

“’Twere some other bloke entirely,” Joe continued, aggrieved.  “Mr. Rudd showed me a print o’ Brougham and he weren’t even close to the same.”

“What did the imposter look like?” Aldmere asked.  “Was he younger, by chance?”

“Aye, a good deal younger.  Chestnut hair, he had, grown out a bit longer than you fancy men usually allow.”

Aldmere’s heart was pounding now.  “Tell me, did you notice a scar on him?”

The boy’s head snapped up.  “Aye, a crescent shaped scar, high on one cheekbone.”