It Happened One Midnight (PG8) (24 page)

His father chose not to pursue that line of questioning, perhaps because they were eating breakfast.

“Who is this Klaus Liebman?”

So his father had done a little research.

“A skilled printer who has developed the capability to print excellent color images in great volume.”

“And what is your relationship to the business?”

“I’m the ‘& Co.’ in ‘Klaus Liebman & Co.’ ”

He had the gratifying sensation of watching his father go still.

“Are you . . .
working?
”

He said it the way someone else might say, “Are you . . . fornicating?”

“God, no. Liebman does the work. I simply provide ideas and support.” In the form of cash and gossip and connections.

Which is all a gentleman should do.

His father took this in. A moment went by, filled with the scraping sounds of fried bread being buttered and marmaladed.

Jonathan knew his father was dying to ask about profits.

And then Isaiah could bear it no longer.

“How are earnings?” A brief avidity flared in his father’s eyes.

Despite it all, something in Jonathan surged toward his father’s genuine interest. Still:

“Modest.”

Modest times seven, that was.

His father nodded, smiling wryly, as if this was only what he’d expected.

“Back to this Diamonds of the First Water deck nonsense . . . is it a publicity ploy for your business, Jonathan?”

“I suspect it may prove to be effective publicity.” A tour de force of circumspection, that little statement. “As you said, I do have a ‘certain amount’ to recommend me, and the ton, as always, is interested in any potential nuptials. When you said: ‘Dozens of lovely girls come eligible every day,’ I thought, ‘He’s right! All one really needs in a wife is looks and breeding and preferably a title.’ Surely one lovely girl will do as well as the next! And then you suggested I could always rely on the turn of the card for my future. I must thank you. Ideas truly
are
capital.”

He didn’t precisely bat his eyes at his father.

But he did fix him with his best ingenuous stare.

And then he sipped at his coffee. Somewhat noisily, because the absolute silence abraded his nerves a little.

Isaiah had frozen in the process of buttering his toast. Jonathan could see himself in the knife. Innocent as a babe.

“I never dreamed you were listening,” is what Isaiah Redmond said finally, somewhat sourly.

“Oh—and you needn’t worry, Father, about my caprices of character affecting my choices. Only women of impeccable pedigree are represented in the deck. We’ll print our Famous English Courtesans of the Nineteenth Century deck in time for Michaelmas. Long after I’m supposed to choose a bride.”

This won him, as he’d suspected, a censorious stare. “Certainly you have enough respect for the family name, Jonathan, not to print such a deck.”

Always, always, always the family name.

“A jest,” Jonathan said shortly.

Did his father
used
to laugh? It was hard to remember. He and his siblings all possessed senses of humor. Perhaps as a form of defense against Isaiah.

“Any progress with the Lancaster Mill?” Jonathan asked to change to a subject that was torturing his father, rather than him.

His father sighed. “I’ve invited the Duke of Greyfolk to dine with our family in Sussex in about a fortnight. We’ll discuss his potential involvement in the Mercury Club then “Is the owner still proving capricious about selling the mill?”

“Well, the
owner
died without heirs and without a will, and dispensation of the mill is at the solicitor’s—that would be Mr. Romulus Bean— sole discretion. And yes, he remains either deucedly inefficient or willfully capricious. I’ve requested a comprehensive list of the information he requires in order to begin purchasing proceedings, but he insists on feeding the requirements to us one by one. But we expect he’ll be unable to decline an offer levied from the Mercury Club itself. ”

We expect
.

What would happen to Isaiah Redmond if suddenly the world didn’t behave as he expected it to behave?

With any luck, he’d soon have an opportunity to find out.

T
HE
C
OUNTESS
M
IRABEAU
was dressed as an Egyptian today, or rather, her interpretation of an Egyptian. A gold armband wound round her arm, and kohl was drawn round her eyes.

Tommy wished she could paint
her
eyes with kohl, because the blue shadows beneath them were just a little too apparent, and some of the poets were incorporating them into the metaphors they were using to flatter her.

Her lids began to lower as she stood listening to Argosy describe the sort of jewels he thought would match her eyes. She staggered a bit, then righted herself with a start, just as he was saying, “Peridot, with perhaps a setting of silver—”

“Lord Argosy?”

“Yes?”

“I
am
a person. You may speak to me as if I’m a person.”

She said it with an urgency that clearly baffled Argosy.

Argosy blinked. “Of . . . of course you are,” he said soothingly.

She held her breath. Hope surged.

“That is . . . you’re a
beautiful
person.”

She whirled on him and stalked away. Leaving him as startled as if his favorite cat had turned into a snarling tiger.

She changed her mind and whirled on her heel and returned to him.

“Would you throw yourself off a bridge for me?”

“Would I . . .” He blinked. “Couldn’t I buy you a bridge instead?”

She sighed. And then she took pity on him. “It was hypothetical, Lord Argosy. I shouldn’t want you to ever endanger yourself on my behalf.”

She abandoned him then before she could see any sort of expression of relief cross his face, with a weak smile, and moved through the crowd. All those men pretending they weren’t eager for her attention. And whereas before the exchange of pleasantries had been like imbibing champagne, she’d now lost her appetite for it.

None of them were Jonathan, and that was their chief flaw.

But the truth buffeted her at night as she lay in her quiet bed; she wanted him. More than she wanted to breathe. She lay rigid in the dark, eyes squeezed closed, imagining again his hands on her body, and she put her own hands on her body, an attempt to relive it, to soothe herself, to arouse herself, and burn away the need.

Nothing worked.

She’d done the right thing, of course. It wasn’t as if there was anything to be gained but pleasure from it. And there certainly was a good deal to lose.

She just needed some air that wasn’t being breathed by spoiled aristocrats and poets.

She wove out of the room, past the countess, her destination the windows flung wide at the end of the south parlor.

And then suddenly Lord Prescott stepped around the corner.

She gave a start, and clapped a hand over her heart. “Good heavens, Lord Prescott, you gave me a start.”

“Miss de Ballesteros, you refuse to speak to me. You won’t meet my eyes. And yet you accepted my gift, which has given me cause to hope. I haven’t seen you wear it. Might I assume that you are overwhelmed, or perhaps still mulling my offer? I must know . . .” He extended a hand awkwardly, and then drew it lightly down her arm. It was all she could do not to flinch it away. “I must know your mind. Or dare I hope . . . your heart.”

She’d known she’d be able to dodge Prescott for only so long. Panic knotted her stomach.

“I’m flattered indeed by your offer, Lord Prescott, and by your too generous gift,” she began gently. “Was there a condition attached to the pearls?”

“Only that when you wear them, you will be mine and mine alone.”

Oh. Only
that
.

“You are indeed insightful, and I must thank you for your patience. I am a bit overwhelmed, and I feel somewhat shy, you see, since the pearls arrived. My apologies if I have been less than gracious.”

“Believe me when I say that I would be all that was kind and generous, Miss de Ballesteros. The finest modistes at your disposal. Your own carriage. Servants to command.”

The offer had indeed been generous. It had in fact stolen her breath to think that a man had calculated her worth in pounds.

Her worth when she was naked and compliant, that was.

How did he know she wasn’t covered all over with fur, or boils, or iridescent scales beneath her clothing? He wanted her primarily because everybody else wanted her. She knew a bit about manufacturing demand.

But he was a man of enormous wealth, and he of course assumed she had a price. For didn’t everybody?

“I fear I would make a terrible mistress, Lord Prescott,” she said bluntly, desperately.

He smiled slightly at that. “I doubt it, with your Spanish blood. I’m told your mother had quite a gift. And I am an excellent teacher.”

She went still. And then a furious flush washed the back of her arms and up to her collarbone. Her eyes stung with humiliation.

And Prescott would likely interpret all that color as appealing bashfulness.

No one would ever imply that, for instance, Lady Grace Worthington’s mother had quite a “gift” for pleasuring men. Or assume that
she
naturally would have inherited said gift. What the devil did that
mean,
anyway? No, Lady Worthington was a coddled, precious jewel, a commodity, of a certainty, but one who would go, in all likelihood, to the highest bidder, who would then perpetuate the coddling. She would know safety and respect for the rest of her days.

All of the men here viewed everything and everyone through a lens of class and context. Not one of them could imagine Tommy as anything other than what she was—an object to be adored and wooed and competed over, but certainly not a lady.

If Jonathan were here . . . she pictured The Doctor dangling from Jonathan’s fist, and suspected something similar would be happening to Prescott right now, for the implication. For the offer.

Except that Jonathan hadn’t the right.

He had no
right
.

She was suddenly as furious with him as if he was the one who’d made insinuations about her skills, even though presumably he knew better than anyone. She was furious with him for the way he kissed her, for the way he’d made her want him, and for stripping her down to her true self, and for making her nights sleepless ones, and for reminding her of what she wasn’t and what she couldn’t have. And for making her days decidedly colorless by his absence. For making her limbs feel like lead today, because gravity was more punishing when he wasn’t about. Damn him.

She closed her eyes briefly against the image of him walking away from her.

She’d
sent
him away.

And she wondered if he had no use for her now that they were friends only.

But she also remembered the look in his eye when she had. That watchfulness, that held breath, that fixed guarded intensity in his eyes. He’d been waiting . . . for something.
Cognac and satin
.

None of this could be helped. One of them had needed to be sensible.

She couldn’t leave her eyes closed for long, for there Prescott stood, dark and gangly and maybe resembling a marionette, but wealthy enough so that his clothes were beautifully made and hung on him properly.

And then she heard herself speak the words, gently, as if in a dream.

“I’m afraid my price is higher, Lord Prescott.”

“Than pearls? Than a town house? Than the allowance I described? Name your price.”

She paused, and she felt oddly as though she were delivering her own sentence.

“I cannot be bought for anything less than your name.”

It took Prescott a moment to realize what she was saying. And then his expression shifted subtly, and his head tipped. He studied her, assessing, reassessing.

“I never realized that was your game, Tommy.”

It wasn’t an accusation. He’d said it thoughtfully. As if he was suddenly evaluating her in a new light.

“It’s not a game,” she said simply. “Now, if you’ll allow me to pass?”

He stepped aside, and she made for the windows.

There wasn’t enough air in the world today to clear her head or make her feel better.

B
Y EARLY EVENING
it was drizzling, which suited her mood.

Tommy shoved her key into the lock of the Building of Dubious Occupations and turned it with an excess of feeling, pushed open the door, and let it slam shut behind her.

The entire building shivered as if Rutherford was in and stomping about, which he was not.

So intent on a cup of tea and a warm fire was she that she nearly missed the scrap of torn foolscap that cartwheeled away from her in the downdraft of the closed door.

She chased it, and bent to pluck it up and carried it with her into the rooms. She couldn’t light the lamp quickly enough, and yet her hands were trembling, so it was slow going. And then when light flared into the room, she immediately inspected the foolscap for a message.

There was nothing at all one side of it, apart from half of an advertisement for Klaus Liebman & Co.

The irony.

She flipped it over, and there it was, the tiny message scrawled in charcoal.

She lowered it again.

A flush of a different kind started up along her arms, and she closed her eyes, and indulged in a tiny hosanna.

And then she picked it up, and closed her eyes, and kissed it.

For this particular message had given her an excuse to compose a message of her own.

A
MID THE STACKS
of invitations for Jonathan was one simple folded and sealed sheet of foolscap. He seized it. He stared dumbly at his name scrawled across it. Then he broke open the seal and devoured the words. There were only a few.

Jonathan lowered the message, struck dumb.

For a moment he stopped breathing.

And then he slowly lifted his head from it, blinking, surprised.

Could it be . . . could it be that the sun was shining for the first time in weeks? What other reason would there be for the fact that the dining room seemed saturated in dazzling color? And was that . . . did he hear . . . singing? Of course, it might be the residual strains of “Bah, Bah, Black Sheep” trapped in his brain, stirred to life again, like a fever.