Page 140 of The Ladies Least Likely
“Returning home,” she said. “I haven’t time to stroll about and be wooed. I’ve a manuscript to finish.”
“But you haven’t answered my—will you wait!”
He clasped her arm and hauled her against him as she heedlessly stepped through the gate at the same moment a small, highly decorated carriage wheeled around the corner. Mal’s heart slammed against his chest as the driver dragged his cattle to a halt. Amaranthe stood pressed fully against the length of him, her body warm and firm, and her heady scent infused his head, setting his wits swimming.
“Grey, old man! Didn’t mean to run your lady down. Apologies.” The driver, a dapper gentleman in a smart driving coat and plain black breeches, touched his riding whip to the rim of his hat and gave them an abashed grin.
“Hullo, Algie,” Mal replied when he had his voice under command. “No harm done.” He felt the fast beat of Amaranthe’s heart beneath the arm clamped about her. She was slender and strong. He did not draw his arm away.
“Your Grace.” Mal nodded to the matron riding beside the gentleman. She was a commanding figure, wearing a fur stole wrapped about her shoulders and an enormous picture hat blocking out the sun. “May I introduce Miss Amaranthe Illingworth? Miss Illingworth, Her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland and her son, Lord Algernon Percy. Algie, congrats on your new papahood. I hear she’s a beauty and wrapping men about her little finger already.”
Lord Algernon beamed with pride. “She’s fair overset our house, I tell you. Can’t hardly tear Mum away. Say, if you bet at Brooks that I’d name her Charlotte, you’ve a pot waiting for you. Mum was Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte for anage, if she hasn’t mentioned that a thousand times already.” He rolled his eyes.
“Really, Algie.” The woman next to him sat forward. She had penetrating eyes and a handsome, strong-featured face set in the regal lines of age. “Illingworth? I don’t know you,” she said to Amaranthe, who gaped as if she’d never seen a duchess in the flesh.
“Friend of young Hunsdon,” Mal said easily. “Antiquarian. Quite a literary lady, this one.”
“Indeed.” The duchess sat back and drew her furs around her. “I shall have you to one of my assemblies, then. We need more entertaining women.” She lifted an imperious hand. “You’ll forgive us, but Sir Ashton is waiting for us, Algie. Good day.”
The carriage rolled away, and for a moment Amaranthe simply stood, wrapped in his embrace, her heart beating furiously against his forearm. Then she broke away and was in the alley dividing two polished rows of town houses before he caught up with her angry stride.
“Do you know who that was?” she threw over her shoulder.
“I introduced you,” Mal reminded her. “The Duchess of Northumberland, having Algie squire her about since Percy, the heir, is in the Americas fighting the colonists.”
Mal had crossed paths with Lord Percy once or twice before he left. The combination of his parents had given the man an overlarge nose, but he was an intelligent commander and the word in the papers was that he had saved British troops more than once from wholesale slaughter by canny patriots who didn’t fight like regular men. It was men like Percy who made Mal consider a career in the military, since he was going nowhere in the Middle Temple.
Unless Miss Amaranthe Illingworth consented to smooth his way, as she had ordered things to run seamlessly and with style at Hunsdon House.
“Duchesses!” Amaranthe scoffed. She darted before a wagon crossing Whitcomb Street, and the carter shouted with surprise and hauled on his reins. Mal joined her on the doorstep of her house, catching her muttered stream of words. “Lords! Assemblies!”
“Senhorita!” The young woman she’d called Inez appeared at the top of the stairs leading down to the kitchen. “I’ve a fresh batch ofbroaif your gent would—” She scanned their faces and checked her enthusiasm. “Oh meu, is something burning?” She whisked herself away as fast as she’d appeared.
“What are you angry about?” Mal demanded, following Amaranthe into her parlor. She yanked off her hat and tossed it recklessly into a chair, then whirled to face him.
“The Duchess of Northumberland! Did you know she’s a baroness in her own right? One of the few in England. She helped elevate her husband from a baronet into a duke. Everyone in townwants invitations to her assemblies. She’s…she’s…she was a lady in waiting to Queen Charlotte, for heaven’s sake!”
He rarely saw Amaranthe at a loss for words. “I know all this,” he said warily. “And Algie’s a fine chap, too. Likely he’ll steady out now that he’s a papa.”
The roaring rush of envy took Mal by surprise. Algie was only a year or two younger than Mal, but he’d been elected a member of Parliament for Northumberland, married Isabella in great happiness the previous summer, and nine months later could boast of a daughter. He had a respectable career and now a family. And what did Mal have?
He must not be bitter. His best hope for a career and a family of his own stood before him. He had to persuade her to want that, too.
“Duchesses. Dukes. Members of Parliament.” She ran a hand through her hair, tousling it beyond repair. “Grey, the people you know live in a world entirely apart from mine. They wait on royalty. Their names are known everywhere. They set the fashion and they make the rules. I am a—” She turned and strode to her easel, throwing back the cover that concealed the pages of parchment. “I am a rector’s daughter. I am a tradeswoman. I earn my living by my own hands.”
She pointed to the manuscript and its copy. As far as Mal could tell, her replication was identical, a work of art.
“There is no fault in being a tradeswoman, if you are an honest one,” he said.
She faced him, crossing her arms over her chest. The movement brought the shape of her bosom into relief. Recalling how her dinner gown the other night had bared a great deal of that bosom put him at a distinct disadvantage.
“What is that supposed to mean?” She narrowed her eyes.
“Do you have anything to hide or be ashamed of?”
He was surprised he’d asked her so boldly. His wits had scattered, or perhaps urgency had pressed him to it. There was no hope of a future for them if she was involved in the shady things Thorkelson suggested. A barrister marry a forger? That certainly wouldn’t help his career. No matter how lovely her shape, or how entrancing her eyes as she flashed him a look of scorn.
“Perhaps you ought to have asked me that before you proposed marriage. Not that I can recall your genuinely proposing to me.”
