Page 16 of A Duke in Disguise
“We had an Egyptologist last month,” Verity said, glad they had returned to their ordinary mode of discourse.
“Ah, but this one has had a row with the last one, and Portia had to have this one give her point of view, lest there be a civil war among Egyptologists.”
Ash led the way through the crowded room to the recess at the back where they usually sat. Without Nate in between them, it seemed intimate, but Verity firmly shoved those thoughts out of her head and surveyed the guests. One of the nice things about Portia’s salon was that Verity could count on not being the shabbiest person in attendance. For every person of wealth and culture, there was a man whose renown was based on having calculated the orbit of some astral body that might not exist, or a woman who had translatedBeowulfinto Latin. Geniuses, Verity had come to realize, did not always take care with their appearance. Verity, in her worn-out brown frock, blended in.
Any awkwardness between them dissipated by the time the poet stood at the front of the room. Verity knew nothing about poetry. They stocked volumes of poetry in the bookshop, and occasionally included verse in theRegister, but Verity left its selection to Nate. Did that mean she was prosaic? Perhaps her hours of balancing accounts and marketing for potatoes had sapped her of whatever it took to rise above the mundane. The prosaic and the domestic were one and the same, she suspected, and her thoughts had been so consumed with the fate of her brother and her business that there was hardly room left for anything else, not even the things she valued. When had she started to worry more about the market price of haddock than about universal suffrage? She wondered that even without the burden of a husband, she might yet wind up like her mother—crushed by duty, constantly fretting, with little existence beyond her responsibilities to others.
She wanted something for herself, damn it. She wanted to be selfish, to take and grab and do something for herself alone. If she were another woman, she might pick a posy or buy some sweetmeats. But Verity was in no mood for gentle pleasures. If she picked flowers, she’d stomp on them with the heel of her boot. Sweetmeats would taste like bile on her tongue. What she needed was a pleasure that would push back, something that was half self-indulgence and half a fight, something she had denied herself for too long.
A gentle pressure on her arm interrupted her thoughts, and she looked down to see Ash’s hand on her sleeve. He still had his attention at the front of the room, but he had somehow known that she was lost in unwelcome thoughts. Or maybe he had just wanted to touch her. For the tiniest moment, she let her hand rest atop his, heard his sharp intake of breath, felt the warmth of his skin beneath hers. For the space of two heartbeats she let herself enjoy his closeness, then she stood and let it all slip away. She crossed the room to Portia so she could remind herself what lay on the other side of love.
Portia greeted Verity with the usual effusive enthusiasm and murmured commonplaces. “Darling,” she breathed, pitching her voice too low to interrupt the poet who was still speaking, “I’m so pleased you came.” Her brow furrowed in slight concern. “I see you don’t have your brother with you.”
“He’s in Derby,” Verity answered tersely. Then, seeing the mystification on her hostess’s face, she added, “For the executions.”
“Perhaps it’ll do him good to see an execution,” Portia said, as if the problem was that Nate was unclear on what execution entailed.
“I’m afraid he’ll think they die as martyrs.”
“He’d do well to remember that martyrdom involves death.”
“He’s sincere in his beliefs,” Verity started, in a defense of Nate that she wouldn’t have believed herself capable of an hour earlier. But she was interrupted by the prickle of tears in her eyes.
“Oh, my dear,” Portia said, and her sympathy was so sincere and obvious that Verity wanted to flinch. She didn’t want sympathy, however well deserved, however sincerely expressed. She didn’t want anything from Portia, and momentarily regretted that she had gone along with Portia’s insistence that they remain friends even after their affair had run its course. Sympathy from a former lover was a bitter brew indeed. “If there’s any way, any way at all, that I can be of assistance, you’ll let me know, won’t you?” Portia asked.
“No,” Verity said too quickly. The idea of accepting help from Portia made Verity feel something like shame. Their time together had been markedly unbalanced, with Portia putting forth most of the effort. Verity had been—still was—fond of Portia, and she had been more than eager to go to bed with her, but it never quite matched Portia’s sentiments towards her; by the end Verity had feared that she was cheating Portia out of a proper love affair. She winced at the idea of taking anything further from the woman. “I’ve got the matter in hand.”
Portia rolled her eyes with an uncharacteristic inelegance. “Good heavens, Verity. We’re friends, I hope. And friends do help one another. You don’t have to have to put red in your ledger every time someone comes to your aid.”
Verity was rather sure that she did have to do precisely that, but wasn’t about to embark on an argument. When another guest appeared at Portia’s side, Verity gladly relinquished her hostess’s attention and returned to Ash. She carefully avoided looking at his face, but he must not have returned the favor, because she found a clean handkerchief being pressed into her hand.
God only knew what was in Portia Allenby’s punch, Ash thought as he and Verity half stumbled back to Holywell Street. The night was foggy, and even though they kept their path to streets well lit by gaslights, it was sometimes hard to see even the cobblestones beneath their feet. Ash kept close to Verity and prodded her gently with his elbow; she took the hint and rested her hand on his arm. He reminded himself that it was a meaningless gesture; they both walked arm in arm with any number of people. But he thought he detected something almost caressing in the way she let her hand drift up from his elbow. Not that he minded her touch—far from it. But it would be a very bad idea to combine spirits with half-arsed amorousness, especially since she was in a rather vulnerable and lonely state of mind and he was finding it increasingly difficult to pretend he didn’t want her. With a sense of dread but also inane gratification, he realized that she had been doing the same thing; these touches were what happened when they both let their guard down for an instant. She did want him, or at least wasn’t averse to the idea. Her hand slid up his arm with increased intent. Definitely not averse. He rolled his eyes at his stupidity—Verity had never been “not averse” to a damned thing in her life. She was either for it or against it. His heart stuttered at the thought.
“You mustn’t do that, Plum,” he choked out.
The tactful response would have been either to remain silent or to murmur something vague, the sort of apology you issued when stepping on a person’s toes, but Verity had never been interested in tact. “No?” she asked, dropping her hand to her side. “Why not?” Her face tipped up towards his in plain consternation. Sometimes he forgot how small Verity actually was; she seemed larger than life, taking up so much space in his mind that it was hard to remember that the top of her head reached only an inch or two above his shoulder.
“Because it’ll give me ideas,” he admitted, trying to keep his tone detached.
“Ha! Ideas. You. Stuff and nonsense. If you were prone to ideas, you would have had them already. That is how ideas work.” She spoke with an air of grave authority that was at odds with her slightly slurred speech.
“How do you know I haven’t?” he answered, his voice laced with something like anger. Ash didn’t know what got into him, what gave him the courage or foolishness to speak those words aloud. Maybe it was the punch, or the fact that they could hardly see one another through the fog and the dark. Maybe because their voices seemed muffled and remote, belonging to the night rather than to themselves, he could pretend it wasn’t himself speaking, but some utter idiot who wanted to be viciously embarrassed for the rest of his life.
“As if a man could keep such a thing to himself,” she said with scorn.
He could hardly argue with her without telling her far more than was good for either of them, so he steered the conversation to more anodyne topics. They made idle chatter for the remainder of the walk, the sort of go-nowhere conversation that people can share when they’ve been in one another’s lives for nearly as long as either can remember.
“Do you think Nate will return tonight?” Verity asked as they turned onto Longacre. The execution took place a few days earlier. The Prince Regent had commuted the sentences to hanging, followed by beheading, so at least the nation was to be spared the spectacle of those young men being drawn and quartered.
“More likely tomorrow.” Ash was certain Verity wouldn’t know a moment’s peace until her brother was safely home and she could be confident that he hadn’t incited any riots during his time in the north.
By the time they got home, Verity’s teeth were chattering. Last winter had been bitterly cold and it already looked like this year would be no better. It was barely November and they had already needed fires several days running. Verity said her fingers were stiff, so Ash unlocked the door and they entered the dark cold house.
“I want to see your new sketches,” Verity said.
He had done two more, each of increasing explicitness. He could have brought them to her in her bedroom, when she was snugly tucked beneath layers of quilts, warmed by a roaring fire. The previous week in that bed, her body had curled against his like a kitten, almost pliant. They could spend their time in one another’s arms as easily as they could in conversation. Tonight he could show her the sketches, sit on the edge of her bed and—
“I’ll lay the fire in your study,” he said quickly.
