The Proposition (38 page)

She bit her lip, then answered honestly. "It sounds very bad, terribly wicked." She whispered, "Do it."

Oh, she did revel in the secrecy of lovers. In Mick's dirty words and sweet words. In their private conversations that, murmured elsewhere, would have been horrid, beyond the pale. Yet between them in the kitchen or the music room or in the pitch dark of night, they were just right—because they spoke with different meanings to the words, meanings and sly degrees of meanings that they invented together, in a language that was just for the two of them.

* * *

A snob, though, Winnie wondered. Was she? A snob couldn't have Mick Tremore, that much she knew. So could she let go of her opinions of ratcatchers and poor Catholic Cornishmen? Surely she could.

Or was she fooling herself? It was more than snobbery to want comfort or even luxury. She looked around at a house that already had quite a bit less of both than the one she was born in. Sometimes she missed the old elegance of her upbringing. Sometimes. Could she leave even this? Her bathroom and electricity and the luxury of buying any book she took a fancy to? Even she wasn't sure.

If he asked her to go with him, would she?

Meanwhile, Mick wasn't certain that the accusation didn't work equally well for him. No matter what he told her, he had a vague sense of not being good enough for her. All her family, education, culture, money, her house and skills—the whole of her he found bloody frightening, truth be told. How did he dare to want such a smart lady, a teacher, the daughter of a marquess, granddaughter of a duke—what a laugh.

He always knew he was ambitious, but this was going some, even for him. The son of a copper miner, whose family thought he was a bloody adventuring hero for going to London and making a ratcatcher of himself so as to send home more money than anyone there had seen in years. Ha. Honest to God. Winnie Bollash. Michael Tremore, you may as well try courting the Queen.

Winnie had been to university. She owned a fancy coach and two horses of her own, plus a carriage house to keep them in. She owned a house of three stories with a lower level for the servants. She had a cook and butler, for godssake, and a third of a coachman, whom she shared with two neighbors. Mick, he'd made the most of two dozen ferrets, most of which he'd bred himself, and five dogs, all of which he'd picked up off the street. He housed every last thing he owned in the cellar where he slept, renting it off a shoemaker for nothing, in exchange for keeping his shop free of rats.

His absurd fantasy was for her to flee her high-class upbringing. She'd become the ratcatcher's wife—though he never mentioned his daydream to her. And not because she wouldn't—though, of course, she wouldn't—but because she deserved more.

The fellow at the bar haunted Mick. The toff who raised horses was more her sort. Or someone like him, but nicer. There were nice blokes, real gentlemen, who could give her a respectable place, show her off in society—Winnie could use that.

She could use a hundred years of admiration; she'd had too little in her life.

* * *

The Lamonts were late. "Happily," Mick said. Winnie knew they couldn't be late enough, so far as he was concerned.

When a box arrived just after lunch, she thought it had to do with them, but no, it had to do with Mick. When he realized it had arrived downstairs, he rushed to get it, as if relieved.

Relieved, elated, and almost fearful, he brought it upstairs to Winnie in her bedroom and presented it. It was a gift.

"Happy birthday," he said.

Oh, dear. She herself had forgotten. No one remembered her birthday. It was an un-event.

"Thirty," he said. "You are now as old as I am. We're the same age."

He took the lid from the box, then, from the top of its tissue paper, handed her a pair of long white evening gloves. "Milly said you had to have these."

She took them, bewildered. They were kid; soft, lightweight, with twenty or more tiny buttons on each.

Then he pulled back the tissue paper and, inside, was a sunset. Winnie caught her breath.

"Tulle," he said, pleased with himself. He lifted it out, as if he could lift out light itself.

It was a dress of embroidered, glass-beaded, salmon pink tulle over darker taffeta—the beads almost as if they were dropped onto the net while liquid, on every other filament, the whole fabric glittering with tiny droplets of smooth glass. Between double shoulder straps, one to be worn just off the shoulder, the other down the arm, the little sleeves were sheer, nothing but tulle and glass beads.

She slipped her hand under one delicate sleeve. The tulle disappeared, while the beads shimmered, as if their sparkle had condensed on her skin.

"Oh, Mick. What have you done?" she asked. He had to have robbed a bank. Or stolen the dress. Or God, no: He must have paid for it with counterfeit money.

She would have to take it back. Though, for the time being, she would just look at it, hold it up to herself. The astounding thing—breathtaking, in fact—was that it seemed it might fit.

"Try it on," he said.

She looked at it, holding it against her in the mirror. No, she shouldn't try it on. She would look
…
pretentious in a beautiful dress. As if she were trying to be prettier than she was. She shook her head.

"Try it on," he insisted. "I want to see you in it."

She turned her head, gazed at him, wanting to, yet feeling hesitant. She pressed her lips together between her teeth and stared at him. In this one regard, Mick saw her so differently from how she saw herself. And, oh, how she wished he were right.

"Come on, my loovey with the wide blue saucer-eyes. Don't look so distraught. Put it on."

It was exactly long enough in the hem, exactly right. The waist was perfect, narrow, and banded in velvet, the neckline square, flat to the breast, and low. The skirt flared in front then billowed in back, a froth of rich, bronzed rose organdy embroidered with silk floss and more glass-beaded tulle. It was an enchanted dress, a spell conjured up out of nothing. She wondered again how he'd done it, then lost herself in the feel of the gloves. They fit like a second skin up her arms, with tiny, graceful little wrinkles when she bent her wrist. She'd never had anything like them. The buttons, though, were a trial to fasten. Mick had to do her right hand, his fingers working with delicate attention up the inside of her wrist. An amazing feeling. And an effect, in the end, that was stunning.

Winnie looked at herself in the mirror and felt
…
grown-up somehow. A grown-up woman in a grownup dress.

Mick, meanwhile, walked around her, smiling and smiling and smiling as he took turns touching her and the dress, both. "It's really beautiful," he said. "I've outdone myself. I'll never pick anything more beautiful than this." He added, "Except you." He found her eyes with his and told her, "Now you have no excuse not to go with me."

She still wasn't sure she wanted to. Frowning, she told him, "You've robbed a bank."

"I did nothing illegal or immoral to get it."

She looked at her reflection, half-wanting to believe him, though to do so seemed like believing in sorcery.

She tried not to like the evening gown. "People will stare at me in it."

"Whey damn well should. I will, I can tell you that." She furrowed her brow with concern and self-consciousness.

"Winnie, they looked at you when you took your blouse off and shook your skirts. This at least will be a little more demure."

He was wrong. That wasn't the problem. A ball would be very different. Especially a ball where her cousin and all his friends were there watching. Xavier, with his gregarious elegance and easy self-confidence, his upper-class hauteur and haughty manners: He would take one look at her in this dress and break out laughing.

Yet, to her own eyes, she could not deny that the dress suited her or that it was lovely beyond imagining. The color made her freckles look
…
healthy. It made her hair seem a prettier color, a kind of strawberry gold.

She brushed its skirts. The beads weren't heavy. The fabric was light, as light as air. It whispered, running through her fingers, liquid and shimmery. She had never seen anything more beautiful. Never. And her mother had owned quite a few fancy ball gowns.

"How?" she asked, turning on Mick. How could he possibly have managed such a trick?

He waved his hands in the air, abracadabra. "Magic," he said.

It took her a second, then she frowned and looked around suddenly. "Where's your dog?"

It was a stupid question. His dog could hardly have brought this sort of dress. She realized, though, she hadn't seen the dog, not for several days.

"Where's your dog?" she repeated, this time with a sense of horror.

He frowned. "Win, I have something to tell you. I sold my dogs and ferrets at the beginning of the week, all my cages, my carrier boxes, all my equipment as well as my customer list. I won't be needing them.

"You see," he continued, "I think I'm taking a job as a valet after we're done. Milton says his brother in Newcastle can get me a position." He let that sink in.

Her stomach went cold. He'd named a real place. He was going, and he had a destination. Newcastle.

"Milton says I have a style to me that would appeal to young gentlemen who can't match their stockings. I agree. I'd be good at taking care of a gentleman." He laughed. "Though after looking at that dress, I'd probably make a better lady's maid, but no one would hire me for that.

"Still, being a valet would be good for me, secure. Good for me and mine. And because I can write and do sums, they're talking about my balancing the gentleman's accounts and keeping track of his appointments, too. It would be at a good salary. It makes sense. Anyway, I won't be needing dogs and such to do it, and my animals weren't getting the exercise and attention they need anyway. Better for them to sell them. Better for me. Even Magic—"

"No," she said, appalled.

"He was worth the most, Win."

"He was your pet."

"He was my friend, he surely was. But you see, the place in Newcastle, they won't let me bring my dog." He stopped a second, looked at his feet. "Milton's brother said the gentleman in Newcastle has his own kennels. His dogs are pedigreed, and he wouldn't want them mixed up with mine." He smiled at her a moment, that cocky, raffish grin he had, full of male bravado. "I mentioned to Magic how I could, you know, have him done, but he said he'd rather I wouldn't. He's wild for Rezzo's bitch. He just loves her. They've been having puppies once a year for a while now, and, truth is, their puppies go like fresh jellied eels first thing in the morning. There's a list of people waiting for them. It'd be selfish to take him."

She tried to accept the dog's absence as matter-of-factly as Mick did. She looked at the dress. It was lovely. But it made her cry. She put her hand to her mouth.

"What?" he said. "What? Don't." He took her shoulders. "No," he reprimanded. "I want you to have the dress. I'm nothing but happy to give it. Won't it do?"

"Oh, yes." She cried, trying to smile, a mess. She sniffed. "Oh, yes. It's quite marvelous, Mick. Quite marvelous." But him. Oh, him. He overwhelmed her. While the dress, the way she looked in it, frightened her.

Oblivious to her distress, since she wouldn't discuss it, he smiled, happy, then—silly man—he wiggled his eyebrows over his crooked grin. He said, "I'll be taking Freddie. If she's up to it. I'll sneak her into my rooms, if I have to." He added, "Just come with me tonight."

Winnie squinched her face at the dress, then at him in the mirror and the way it had all come about. She wasn't sure she should like an evening that he'd had to give up his dog to buy.

He knew her so well, though. He said, "Win, don't struggle with it. I can't have everything. But that's not bad: A poor man learns what he values better than a rich man. I loved that dog, but I love you more; and I want a life with hot baths, books, and enough money for the last of my brothers and sisters to get a good start. I'd have sold everything anyway, even if you had a dress. But since you didn't and since I'm going to a place where I'll have more spending money, well, why shouldn't you have this present?"

He smiled. "Besides, the 'magic isn't gone from my life." He touched her face with the backs of his fingers, brushing her cheek lightly. "Quite the opposite. I want us to have tonight. One, magic, singular night. Do you have shoes?" he asked.

"No."

He laughed. "Dance in your stocking feet then."

She snorted, a kind of laugh finally. Mick was consoling
her
for his having sold his dog to buy her a dress. How typical of the man. How purely, endearingly typical. Oh, how she loved him.

Mick's heart was noble. Inside, he was better than a gentleman; he always had been. A kind of stunning reality hit her: Life would not be the same—it would be less—without him.

* * *

The Lamonts were very late, if they were coming at all. In the interim, Winnie told Mick about the letter from her former student, the new duchess, then told him her theory: "If they bring an invitation, they have to be legitimate. The duke doesn't invite any but those of the oldest, most reputable families to his annual event—the long-known, the bluest blood."