Page 53 of The Wallflower Manifesto
“It is.” Lady Bentley leaned back, tapping a manicured nail against her cup, apparently deep in thought.
Outside the window, the grate of broken glass on wood could be heard as the household staff cleaned up Mr. Waters’s mess.
“It could work,” Lady Bentley mused. “If we are careful. But who would we accuse?”
“Only women,” Millie said firmly, drawing a surprised curl of the lips from her patroness. “I would not give the credit to any man.”
“A debutante?” Lady Bentley suggested. “A servant?”
“A powerful married lady who regrets what was done to her,” Millie retorted. “Or a spinster, a wallflower.”
“Yes. Oh, yes, this could serve us well, and protect the true author besides,” Lady Bentley agreed. “We’d need to recruit whisperers, of course. And Waters might still attempt to sue me for the vanishing of his daughter.”
Millie scoffed. “I can speak to my father about that. You could easily countersue for defamation or some such. Don’t you worry aboutthat.”
For the second time that afternoon, silence settled over Lady Bentley’s bedroom.
This time, it was charged with an unfamiliar, buzzing energy.
To Millie’s ear, it sounded like whispers.
CHAPTER 21
“Whirlwind,” was one of his sisters’ favorite words, but Abe had always thought it was a little silly. Dramatic.
Outside of an actual cyclone, he’d never felt time as much more than it was, and he’d certainly never have called it awhirlwind.
That was before Millie Yardley.
The last week had been nothing short of a … well. It had been something new. The best word he could think of for it—other than that one his sisters liked so well—wasdense.
That letter of hers just would not go away, and now there were suddenly pointed, specific rumors about this lady or that spinster having potentially written it. Those speculations were trickling out slowly, but by Abe’s estimation, causing just as much of a stir as the publication itself had.
The accused parties were either protesting loudly or refusing to comment at all. Honestly, he’d never seen anything quite like it. The confusion alone was its own scandal.
Women, he thought, fought in much more dangerous ways than men. One thing was for sure, he’d prefer a bloke charging him with a sword to a bunch of swirling rumors any day.
He needed to check on her soon. He’d wanted to for days now. But somehow he suspected that Millie was just fine, somehow conducting the entire affair from her bedroom window with utter serenity. She likely did not so muchneedhim as she simply enjoyed his participation in the thing. And, absurdly, that just made him feel more urgency to be there and involved.
Besides, he’d hate to get on her bad side after seeing how well she could handle it.
All the same, it was on his list. His ever-growing list.
There was something reassuring about the steady predictability of stepping into Cain’s law office, even though Cresson had now left the pool of persistently silent clerks in the front room with his ascension to the bar. There was a second room, which Abe was certain hadn’t actually existed a week ago, which was now being converted from storage to a new office.
Sweet Cresson was beside himself about it.
“It’s just a desk for now,” he’d told Abe quietly, showing him into the narrow chamber, piled in all four corners with folios and bound briefs, “but I don’t need much more! Besides, I only have the one case for now.”
Abe paced the narrow room, praising the view and the hardwood and whatever else he could spot. There was a pile of papers on the desk with Cresson’s burgeoning initial tasks as a full-blown barrister, and, much to Abe’s surprise, a copy of the very document that had been tormenting his days and nights since its publication.
“Is that a gossip rag, Cresson?” he asked, trying to stay casual. “That doesn’t seem like your typical taste.”
“No, this one isn’t gossip,” said Cresson, looking surprised. “But I do read those sheets, every day, in fact. That’s how you got hired, remember? I found that scandal sheet on Lord Bentley.”
Abe started, realizing that was true. Dot’s gossip sheet terror campaign was how this whole relationship had begun. “Oh, admit it,” he said to Cresson, feeling strangely nervous for no particular reason, “you just enjoy the salaciousness of it all.”
“Perhaps,” Cresson said with a faint smile, brushing Millie’s manifesto with his fingers. “I like to know what people are talking about, in any event. Do you not do the same, Murphy? I would think it’s a rich source of leads.”
