Page 21 of A Duke in Disguise
“A job he did for you?” Verity echoed, eyes narrowing. Burkett ran a rival printshop a few doors down. “Why would you need to hire a printer?”
Nate had the grace to blush. “He printed a pamphlet for me. My name wasn’t on it, but even so.” He scuffed the toe of his boot. “Ash was quite insistent about that. Said he’d throw my presses into the river with his own hands if I printed anything even the least reasonable Tory magistrate could construe as sedition while you lived under this roof.”
“I daresay those pamphlets were what the redcoats were after.” She sighed. “I suppose that solves one mystery, at least.”
“Since when does that cat come indoors?” he asked, gesturing with his chin towards the top of a bookcase.
“That’s Ash’s doing. He started leaving a dish out for her and now she follows him around when he’s home. Otherwise she stares at me like she’s ready to gouge my eyes out. A charming cat, can’t imagine why we didn’t bring her in sooner.”
Nate reached up and made a soothing noise. The cat hissed. “Leave it to Ash to spend a fortnight courting the meanest cat in London.” He looked at her, his eyes lit up with amusement, his mouth round with surprise. “He has a type.”
She felt her cheeks heat and turned away so he wouldn’t notice. “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about,” she said, evening out a row of books.
“Miss Verity,” Nan called from the street door, “where should I put the post?” Verity was about to tell her to put it on the desk upstairs, as usual, when she looked up and saw that instead of the usual three or four letters, Nan held a bulging mail sack.
Nate took the bag out of the older woman’s hands and half an hour later they had the letters sorted on the counter. There were the usual handful of letters from writers and requests for subscriptions, but the largest stack consisted of correspondence addressed to theLadies’ Register, either requesting advice or taking issue with the advice she had dispensed. She knew she ought to remind Nate to go upstairs and see that his trunk contained everything he meant to pack, but it was good to share space with her brother without a quarrel looming on the horizon.
“‘Dear sir or madam.’ Ooh,” Nate said, wincing, “that’s never a good start, is it. ‘I’m writing with a heavy heart and a sense of the direst disappointment that a publication intended for the consumption of the fairer sex would expose ladies to such vile—’” Nate looked up. “He goes on like that for three entire paragraphs. What the devil did you publish, Verity? A treatise on venereal disease?” Nate hoisted himself onto the counter and picked up another letter at random.
“It was the problem page,” Verity said. She had manufactured a letter from a woman who discovered that her husband was bigamous. It was more or less verbatim what Nate and Ash invented in her office a few weeks earlier.
Nate opened his eyes wide. “I read that aloud to the other passengers on the stagecoach. Come to think, some of them might have thought it a bit beyond the pale to actually advise that the wives pool their funds and have the fellow knocked on the head and sent to foreign parts.”
“I think it was a very measured response,” Verity sniffed, feigning affront. Nate threw his head back and laughed. Verity wished they could wind back the clock to a time when the sight of her brother merry and carefree was nothing extraordinary.
“Are all the letters like this?” Nate asked, gesturing to the contents of the mail bag.
“About half are in favor of having the bigamist sent to the colonies and praise my pragmatism in advising the lady so. The other half are less enthusiastic.”
“What would the dissenters have advised your fictional lady?”
“They’re of several minds. Either the lady ought to go to the magistrate—”
“Excellent advice if she wants to be made a public spectacle and laughingstock,” Nate said.
“Precisely. But you’d be shocked at the number of men who believe that the law is a perfectly operating organ.”
“No, Verity, I would not,” he said dryly. “You may have noticed that I’ve been slightly agitated about the prevalence of that belief.”
Verity laughed despite herself. She missed this Nate, the brother who made her laugh, who saw eye to eye with her on nearly all topics. “A few other correspondents suggested that the lady herself was at fault for marrying someone whose antecedents were unknown to her people. And a few writers suggested that having the husband press-ganged and sent to parts unknown was insufficient punishment, and that sailors could be bribed to have him thrown overboard.”
Nate raised his eyebrows. “I suppose I ought to be glad that I’m only to be sent to New York with a substantial bank draught.”
“Nate,” she said with a sigh.
“It’s all right, Verity, I was trying to make a joke of it.”
“I know you think I forced your hand.”
“You did force my hand, damn you. And I think you’re being overcautious. But I’m going along with your plan because you’re my sister. Even though I think you’re wrong. I mean, you are wrong, which time will tell, and when I come back I’m going to have a good gloat about it. I plan to be thoroughly sickening, let me tell you. But meanwhile I’m willing to go because that’s what you need.” There was something about the way he spoke the words that made her think he was repeating lines someone had spoken to him, and she sensed Ash’s hand at work.
“It’s not what I need,” she protested. “It’s what’s good for you.”
“Why is it so hard for you to admit that you need something? What’s the worst that could happen?”
The fact that he even had to ask just went to show how two people reared under the same roof could have radically different lives. Verity had to stand on her own two feet, had long ago learned that there was nobody to go to for help. But there was no use trying to explain, not now. “If you make me cry I really will have you thrown overboard.”
“In any event,” Nate said, chucking her on the shoulder, “I’d say your first issue was a success.”
