Silhouette of a Spinster and Other

Seductions: A Steamy Historical

Romance Novel (Art of Love Book 4)
Charlie Lane
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/silhouette-of-a-spinster-and-other-seductions-a-stea
my-historical-romance-novel-art-of-love-book-4-charlie-lane/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Taming a Warrior Lass: A Steamy Scottish Medieval

Historical Romance Novel (Chronicles of Highland Rebels
Book 4) Emilia C. Dunbar

https://ebookmass.com/product/taming-a-warrior-lass-a-steamy-
scottish-medieval-historical-romance-novel-chronicles-of-
highland-rebels-book-4-emilia-c-dunbar/

A Deal with a Devilish Duke: A Steamy Marriage of

Convenience Historical Regency Romance Novel (The Rules
of Scandal Book 1) Tessa Brookman

https://ebookmass.com/product/a-deal-with-a-devilish-duke-a-
steamy-marriage-of-convenience-historical-regency-romance-novel-
the-rules-of-scandal-book-1-tessa-brookman/

To Ruin a Duke: A Steamy Age Gap Historical Regency

Romance Novel (The Hellion Ladies Book 1) Tessa
Brookman

https://ebookmass.com/product/to-ruin-a-duke-a-steamy-age-gap-
historical-regency-romance-novel-the-hellion-ladies-book-1-tessa-
brookman/

Her Dangerous Duke: A Steamy Second Chance Historical

Regency Romance Novel (The Duchess Deal Book 2) Tessa
Brookman

https://ebookmass.com/product/her-dangerous-duke-a-steamy-second-
chance-historical-regency-romance-novel-the-duchess-deal-
book-2-tessa-brookman/
The Blind Duke's Ward : A Steamy Guardian/Ward
Historical Regency Romance Novel (Dukes Ever After Book
1) Claire Devon

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-blind-dukes-ward-a-steamy-
guardian-ward-historical-regency-romance-novel-dukes-ever-after-
book-1-claire-devon/

A Layer of Love (A Recipe for Love Novel Book 6) Kelly

Collins

https://ebookmass.com/product/a-layer-of-love-a-recipe-for-love-
novel-book-6-kelly-collins/

Raif - Book 3: A Steamy Contemporary Romance (Love and

Loyalty Series 9) Avery North

https://ebookmass.com/product/raif-book-3-a-steamy-contemporary-
romance-love-and-loyalty-series-9-avery-north/

How to Catch a Rockstar: A Steamy Love Triangle

Rockstar Romance (Bad Boys of Rock) Quinn

https://ebookmass.com/product/how-to-catch-a-rockstar-a-steamy-
love-triangle-rockstar-romance-bad-boys-of-rock-quinn/

A Baron's Scandalous Quill: A Historical Regency

Romance Novel Henrietta Harding

https://ebookmass.com/product/a-barons-scandalous-quill-a-
historical-regency-romance-novel-henrietta-harding/
Silhouette of a Spinster and Other Seductions
ART OF LOVE

CHARLIE LANE
Copyright © 2024 by Charlie Lane
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written
permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual persons,
living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.
Charlie Lane asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. Charlie Lane has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
First Edition
Editing by Krista Dapkey
Cover art by Anna Volkin
Created with Vellum
For Brian, who probably would, eventually, let me draw his silhouette if I asked him to.
 Contents

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Historical Note
Also by Charlie Lane
About the Author
Acknowledgments
 One

October 1822

S
he wasn’t wearing gray. Of all the things Lord Andrew Bromley had lost control of since his arrival at his childhood
home, this proved the most unexpected. Mrs. Amelia Dart. In pink.
Impossible. In the five years he’d known Mrs. Dart, she’d never worn colors other than gray. Occasionally black. Or
white. But mostly gray. Never pink. Of all the things he’d lost control of since his arrival, this one seemed the most annoying.
Likely because Mrs. Dart had always seemed so controlled herself, so steadfast, so capable and reliable. One thing he
could always rely on her not to do—wear pink.
Until now, sitting squashed on the chapel pew between his mother and his sister-in-law Fiona. They were responsible for
the pink, no doubt, likely thought it more fitting for a wedding than gray. Mrs. Dart would never. Not even for a wedding. The
spike of surety on that point gave him a bit of comfort, soothed the chaos of his pulse, and gentled the clench of his fist. Mrs.
Dart had not worn pink of her own volition.
Once his brother’s wedding was over, he’d send her back to her room to change. She’d thank him for it. And the world, his
life, could go on as it had since he’d taken sole responsibility for it a decade ago.
He had no time for unexpected pinks. Life contained more pressing matters, after all. He had six letters waiting him in his
room. Six clients needing placement, needing refuge, needing a means toward independence. He’d finished his letter to a
family in need of a governess for their twin daughters, and even though it would make him late, at least Miss Howhampton was
closer to finding a position and a regular meal earned through her own skill.
How much longer would this wedding take? The clergyman, it seemed, would never stop his droning. He’d not even
missed a word when Drew had snuck in late to stand near the back. The chapel was bursting with wedding guests, most of
whom he had never met before, all here to see Lord Theodore Bromley and Lady Cordelia Trent bound by holy matrimony.
He sighed and caught sight of Mrs. Dart once more, her corkscrew curls bound high atop her head, making her easy to spot.
His secretary in pink? The woman who’d helped him run his agency for the last five years? Absurd. His fist clenched, and his
breathing quickened. His cravat became a noose he tugged at.
God, he hated surprises, and her gown had exploded in his face. He couldn’t control what she wore. Of course he couldn’t.
But things would be better if he could.
At the front of the church, Theo and his bride repeated the clergyman’s words, signed the register, then turned and left the
chapel to a roar of cheers. Theo smiled. Actually smiled. Like he meant it. When he hadn’t smiled in years—not at least, that
Drew could remember. Of course, he had reason to smile now. Theo’s new wife was stunning—a Titian dream with generous
curves. But like any Titian painting Drew had ever seen, he felt nothing looking on her. He smiled and nodded as they passed
by but slipped toward the back of the crowd.
Watching a pink gown pass by. Had Mrs. Dart’s cheeks turned pink, too? No. A gown could not change a woman’s
countenance.
An arm, heavy and large, settled around his shoulders. “Glad you could join us.” His brother Atlas grinned down at him.
Drew was a tall man, as were all his brothers, but Atlas stood taller than them all. Broader, too. And though they’d all
experienced their share of disappointment, Atlas’s blue-eyed gaze held far more shadows. The man had seen war, and his body
and soul wore the wounds of it.
“I wasn’t going to miss Theo’s wedding,” Drew said.
“Only most of it.” A laugh lilted through his brother’s rich baritone.
Drew shrugged. Watching his brother marry achieved nothing. “I need to spend a few days in London before returning to
Manchester. We must leave tomorrow.” He and Mrs. Dart. And she would not be wearing pink.
 “So soon? Come now, brother. There’s been talk of a house party. A small one, mind you, and just until the harvest
celebration is passed. Raph is grumbling and saying no, but I think we can convince him to be a tiny bit irresponsible, what
with the sale of the townhouse.”
“Why would I want to stay for a house party? I’ve business to attend to.” More than business. Expansion. The word sent a
thrill through him as brushstrokes never could.
“Do you never stop working?”
“Not if I can help it.” Work was the only remedy for anything, control the only meaningful progression for man.
Atlas patted his brother’s back with a gentleness most would not expect from a man with such large hands.
Where had Mrs. Dart gone? Drew looked about. Like a rogue glove, he seemed to have misplaced her. Despite the
explosive color of her gown. He turned to walk back to the house, but Atlas’s hand tightened on his shoulder.
“Not that way. The wedding breakfast is to be held in town, at the pub.”
“I’m aware.”
“Join us? Please. We so rarely see you.”
Drew sighed and fell into step with his brother. “Damnably odd to have the breakfast in the pub.”
“We do everything odd here, remember? Or have you been so often gone from Briarcliff you’ve forgotten?”
Briarcliff held little for him. He found it too mercurial. Nothing stable to hang onto in its ever-shifting sands. He hated
sand. He preferred London. Or Manchester, where his agency was located.
“Besides,” Atlas continued, “Raph insists on benefiting the village whenever possible.”
“He can afford such philanthropic extravagances these days?” Or was he becoming like their father—his heart too big for
his coffers?
Atlas made a humming sound. “We’ve more work to do. But every day brings improvement. We’ve sold four of the
paintings. And the London townhouse. And Matilda rents out her little Cumbrian cottage. And once I’m finished with the dower
house, we’ll do the same with that. My songs sell, too.” Said with a shake of the head like he couldn’t quite believe it.
“War songs or⁠—”
“Love songs.”
Drew snorted. “Drivel.”
“Yes. But people love them. And it’s good for us, too. I’ve been able to almost complete renovations of the dower house
with the funds from my music.”
“How do you write it, though? Been in love before? Are you pining?”
“No. And no. Writing about love is easy. I think about pudding.”
Drew almost stumbled but caught himself, resulting in only the slightest hitch of his step. “Pardon me? Pudding?”
“Or Bess.”
“A barmaid?”
“A cow.” Atlas tugged at his cravat.
“You’re in love with a cow?”
“No! But she’s a fine animal. And she deserves some appreciation. And I was rather low on inspiration that week.”
“You write love songs about pudding and cows?”
“And sunsets and a good cold ale, among other things.” Atlas ripped off his jacket, a too-big affair meant more for comfort
than fashion. “All lovely things.”
Drew straightened the cuffs of his perfectly tailored coat. “And no one notices?”
“The one about Bess fetched a pretty penny. Zander used to help me write, but when he can’t I have to do what I can.”
“I’m fascinated.” Quite despite himself. In all his two and thirty years, he’d never shared an interest, that he knew of, with
his older brother. He wouldn’t call it interest now. More like … curiosity. “Give me a lyric.”
“No.”
“I want to hear one.”
“No.”
“I’ll be in London tomorrow, and I’ll just find the sheet music and⁠—”
“Fine.” Atlas cleared his throat and sang in the rich baritone that had cast a spell since their childhood. “A glow in her
cheek, the dew in her eye; my heart’s never steady, when my sweet lady cries.”
“What’s that about?”
“Sunset,” Atlas mumbled. “Just change sky to cheek and leaf to eye, then mention a lady and—” He shrugged.
“Why the crying?”
“A storm rolled through.”
“Ah. I think you might be a genius, Atlas.”
Another shrug. “The people seem to like it.”
“Tell me the one you wrote about the cow.”
 “What if, instead, I ask Bessy to kick you in the⁠—”
“Very well, then.” Drew held up his hands as if to stop Bessy’s hooves. “No more music for the moment.”
They walked the rest of the way in cheerful silence, and when they reached the pub, Mrs. Dart still was nowhere to be
seen. No gentle pink below dark, corkscrew curls. Drew scowled as he sat with his brothers.
Raph, the eldest of them, clapped a hand on his back. “Why so dour, Drew?” His dark hair waved back from his forehead,
and his blue eyes sparkled. He had a square jaw and a nose bumped with an old break gifted from a flying fist. Drew’s hand
clenched, flexed open. He shook the memories out of it.
“You’ve no right to be dour.” Theo, the happy groom, slumped in his chair. “I do, though. They’ve taken my bride. Who
knows where.”
Zander slammed mugs of ale on the table and pushed one before each brother. The five of them were similar in height and
features, most of them having taken after their father with dark hair and eyes somewhere between blue and gray. Theo’s brown
hair lightened in the summer to a dirty blond, a single concession to their mother’s lighter coloring.
“What are we discussing?” Zander asked. “Whose face is most displeasing? Very well then. Though I must admit it’s a
difficult choice between young Theodore and the imposing Andrew, I must choose—ow!”
Theo raised a brow as Zander rubbed his upper arm and warily eyed Theo’s fist.
“Shall we take this outside?” Zander asked, all amicability.
Theo flexed his fist, then sipped his ale. “Tomorrow. If Cordelia finds out I’ve been brawling on our wedding day, she’ll
become seriously displeased. And I prefer to keep her entirely pleased.” He grinned, took another sip. “Where the hell they’d
take her?”
His brothers chatted, and Drew drank his ale slowly, letting it warm him. It had been some time since he’d sat with them
like this. Since the night before their father’s funeral over a year and a half ago. That had been a much more somber event,
though the ale had flowed freely and had been followed by a bottle of wine. Then one of whisky. Drew had supplied the
whisky. He’d been the only one of them with his own consistent income.
So much had changed in a year, and he’d been away from it all, busy in Manchester instead of by Raph’s and Atlas’s sides
at Briarcliff or in London with Zander and Theo. He’d met his brothers’ new wives but had not come to know them as sisters.
Better that way. Impossible to control the actions of others. Best to remain as isolated as possible. He didn’t even let Mrs.
Dart close. Any closer than he had to, at least, for her to help him run the agency, for her to be its public face.
“Where the hell is Mrs. Dart?” he mumbled, a finger tapping on the tabletop.
“Speaking of Mrs. Dart.” Raph’s voice cut through the banter and laughter, and the brothers took long sips of their ale.
“What is she to you?”
“My secretary,” Drew answered. “The face of my agency.” The screen he hid behind so the titled families he sent
governesses and tutors to did not realize he actually worked instead of simply owning. A silly distinction. A game he had to
play. But necessary to keep his reputation clean from the whiff of work, labor. His clients required it, and those he helped find
positions relied on it.
“She lives in the same house as you.” Raph leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Not amused. Clearly.
“I have two townhouses side by side with entirely separate entrances. One for my male employees to stay in when
necessary and the other for the women. I sleep in the townhouse for the men, and Mrs. Dart occupies the one for women. It is
entirely incorrect to say she lives with me.”
“You have brought her to three weddings in the last year.” Zander raised his hand to catch a barmaid’s attention. “Another
round.”
Drew held Raph’s gaze. “Where I go, my secretary goes.” His business did not go on holiday, so neither did his secretary.
“It’s not quite right,” Raph said. “We all know she’s not really a widow. Others have likely guessed as well. Surely you can
find a fellow to do what she does so she may do … something else. There must be talk about you two.”
Everyone looked to Theo.
He shrugged. “I’ve heard nothing of interest. And I would.” Theo’s satirical prints had been published in Ackermann’s and
other well-read publications, and they always featured gossip of one sort or another. Usually the kind to ruin powerful men’s
careers.
Hiring an unmarried woman as his secretary had been a bit of an unconventional move, but it had so far proved a smart one.
She did the job better than anyone else could, kept his files and schedule in perfect order, as well as imbuing anyone who met
her with a sense of confidence and trust. If Mrs. Dart said she’d find you the perfect governess, you believed it. Was he
supposed to give that up because there might be rumors?
Drew looked to the rough beams of the ceiling overhead. “I understand your worry, Raph. I do. But she is a woman grown,
and she can find another position if she so desires. She does not so desire. Besides, I couldn’t possibly replace her at the
moment. I’m expanding.”
“Expanding?” Atlas asked.
The maid returned with five cold mugs and placed them before the brothers.
 Drew took a long swallow before answering. “I’m opening a London agency. Manchester is an excellent location for newly
wealthy families looking for elite educational resources.” He’d opened his agency there for just that reason. “They need tutors
and governesses from the best houses in England, and I can provide that. But it is not London.” London would be more
expensive, though not by much these days. And it would be bigger. His clientele would grow as would his reputation.
He looked to his brothers. They leaned back in their chairs, hands wrapped loosely around cups. All looked at him. Then at
Raph. Then back at him.
Raph leaned forward, set his elbows on the table. “Do you have the funds to do this?”
“Of course I do.” Or he would soon.
“Because your inheritance⁠—”
“I don’t want it.”
Zander whistled, Theo chuckled, and Atlas downed half his ale.
“It’s yours,” Raph said. “No ridiculous will stipulations necessary. Mother has decided to forgo all the nonsense Father
insisted on in his will.”
The infamous will donated most of his father’s massive art collection—the only thing of value left in the family—to the
Royal Academy, leaving his children and widow with nothing but debts, a crumbling house, failing estate, and six priceless
paintings. One painting willed to each child with the stipulation they must first earn it. Through the creation of a work of art.
Bloody ridiculous. And just like his father.
Drew pulled the wrists of his gloves up tight, as if they weren’t already perfectly formed to his fingers, and he straightened
his already straight glasses. The glass glinted in the firelight, reminding him of the necessary barrier between him and the
world.
He remained behind it as he spoke to no one in particular. “Not that any of you have skipped past the will’s demands.
You’ve all done just as it asked, as Father asked.” Drew had seen his brothers’ art. Most of it. The canvas splashed with blobs
of paint—Zander’s—and Theo’s satirical cartoon. Only Raph’s artistic contribution was missing because he’d drawn it on his
wife’s arm. Raph’s own damn heart curling from Matilda’s palm to her elbow, alive like vines climbing a trellis, according to
his mother. She liked to describe it whenever the chance arose.
His married brothers had done what his father’s will had demanded of them in order to earn their inheritances. They’d each
produced a work of art deemed valuable by their mother, and they’d each been bestowed a painting worth more money than
they’d possessed in their adult lives. The paintings had been sold, the funds put toward rebuilding the estate and wealth their
father had wasted while still alive or toward building new lives for themselves.
Only Drew had built his life before his father’s death.
“I don’t need the money.” Not necessarily true. He needed money. Just not that money. He had a plan.
Raph turned his hands on the table palms up. “Just sell the damn painting, Drew, and be done with it. I tell the same to
Atlas, but⁠—”
“I want to fulfill Father’s last request.” Atlas heaved a sigh. “Not sure how yet.”
“Songs about cows not winning Mother over?” Drew asked.
Atlas erupted into laughter, a deep sound that boomed throughout the pub. “Not a bit. Afraid she’s become spoiled. Thinks
what she really gets is a daughter-in-law, not a work of art, and I’m not producing one of those for her to fawn over anytime
soon.” He scratched his jaw. “Wish I had the funds, though. The dower house needs it. I’m almost done, but it’s not ready to
rent out yet. There’s some fine work that needs a more artistic touch than I have. Some old furniture that needs new life.”
The brothers groaned, Atlas included.
“We don’t have to bring an artist to the house, do we?” Raph asked.
They’d been raised with artists of all kinds, their father’s friends and students, protégées who took the money he gave them
even when he had no money to give.
“A cabinet maker,” Atlas said.
“Hire him, then.” Raph lifted his glass to his brother.
“Can we afford it?” Zander asked.
“Not really.” Raph sighed. “But if we wish to rent out the dower house, we must find a way to make it happen.” He
stretched his mug toward Theo. “You’ve just opened that school for artists. Surely you or your bride know of someone who can
help. Someone with much talent and little experience. We’ll pay them in food and lodging and help them gain the experience
they need to land other commissions.
“Not a terrible idea,” Drew admitted.
“Very well.” Theo finished the rest of his ale and stretched his neck to look about the room. “I’ll ask Cordelia. She’ll know
someone. She knows everyone.” His roaming gaze stopped, and he slapped his hands to his thighs as he stood. “Speaking of my
beautiful wife, there she is. You brutes won’t mind if I exchange your company for hers.” He did not wait to hear their answers.
And Drew would not give one because he’d finally spotted the pink gown beneath dark corkscrew curls.
“Mrs. Dart.” His muscles clenched to stand, to join her, to ask her about the horrid gown. But he found himself frozen to the
chair. Intimidated by pink? It seemed so. An unacceptable turn of events, and one he’d have to conquer. Because they had work
to do before they left for London on the morrow. And while he couldn’t control, apparently, the clothes Mrs. Dart wore, he
could control preparations for conquering London before week’s end.
But… the pink taunted him from the corner of his eye, drawing his attention closer like the bony hand of fate. He didn’t
believe in fate. He’d finish his ale first.
 Two

A
melia Dart had been in love for almost five years, but it was time to give it up. Lord Andrew Bromley, the oblivious
object of her pitiful desire, would never notice, no matter what the three women staring at her over the pub table heavy
with tankards said.
All of them Lord Andrew’s sisters-in-law, and all of them of the same mind—Amelia should confess her feelings.
Oh, yes, she’d do just that as soon as Scotland’s weather turned perennially sunny.
Amelia took a careful sip of her ale, watching the women over the rim of her tankard—a brunette, a blond, and a redhead,
who would be beautiful in their own ways even if they weren’t shining with the beauty of being loved by the men they loved.
They’d all insisted Amelia use their Christian names. She’d thought it odd at first. Now she knew why. They thought she would
join their ranks.
How wrong they were.
“How did you know?” Amelia carefully hid the shock and horror from her voice. Careful. She always was. How had they
figured it out? She must know so she could put a stop to whatever had given her away.
Fiona, Lord Lysander’s wife, gave a little hop, making the blond curls framing her face bounce. “Are you angry with us?
It’s hard to tell. You don’t”—she waved her hand at Amelia’s face—“show emotion very well.”
She showed it as well as she wished to, which was not at all at the moment. Precisely why she remained flummoxed.
“How did you know?” she demanded once more.
Lady Cordelia, the morning’s bride, offered only a sly smile.
The Marchioness of Waneborough, Matilda, shrugged. “It seems clear. The way you look at him.”
“For me,” Cordelia added, tapping the glass of her mug, “it was the first time we met, how you kept to his side. And what
Tilda says. How you look at him.”
Amelia raised a brow, a slight gesture that usually sent people scurrying. “And how do I look at him?”
These women did not scurry. They leaned closer.
“Like you love him.” Fiona grinned, hiccuped.
“Oh dear.” Cordelia wrapped an arm around her sister-in-law’s shoulders. “Fee can’t hold her drink.”
“She’s had one,” Amelia said.
“It’s ’cause I’m small.” Fiona held up her thumb and her forefinger very close together and squinted her eyes at them. Then
she sighed and finished off her drink.
“Another?” a barmaid asked.
“Yes, please,” Fiona answered before turning to Amelia once more. “Not going to drink it. Just want to make Zander think I
did.”
“And why would you do that?” Amelia asked.
“Because he’s adorable and overprotective when he thinks I’ve over-imbibed, and he’ll whisk me off to bed, which is right
where I want to be.”
Amelia rapped her knuckles on the table. “That’s what being in love looks like. And that apple at your elbow, Matilda,
that’s love.” Her husband, the marquess, had brought it to her when she’d entered the pub, kissed its skin, kissed her lips, then
flipped the fruit through the air to her with a wink. Matilda had not taken a bite of it yet, but she’d kept it close. “That man over
there is in love.” She pointed to Lord Theodore sitting alone in a chair in the corner. He’d retreated there after hunting down
Cordelia, who’d been, apparently, just about to start an attack on Amelia she did not want to miss. She’d shrugged her husband
off, but he still kept watch, stony-faced, arms crossed, watching.
Lady Cordelia waggled her fingers at him, and that stone broke into a mobile grin as he waggled his fingers right back.
Yes, that was love.
 “Mere looking means nothing,” Amelia finished.
The women stared at her.
She stared back.
Curses. This could go on all night.
“Do speak up,” she said. “Say what you’re thinking.”
“You’re wearing the gown Fee loaned you.” Matilda’s gaze dropped to the pretty frock Amelia had donned that morning for
the wedding, more lace than she’d ever worn before in her practical life.
She traced a scalloped edge of her sleeve with her fingertips. “What of it? I had nothing appropriate for a wedding. As you
well know, Matilda, since I wore gray to yours and Fiona’s.”
Fiona shrugged. “The gray gowns were more than appropriate.”
“I would not have cared,” Cordelia added.
“I offered the gown only because you seemed to admire it. And I wanted you to enjoy yourself.”
Amelia smoothed the skirts, her gaze catching on the gown’s low bodice with the velvet trim. “It’s quite beautiful.” She
hadn’t planned to wear it, even when Fiona had brought it to her. She’d put on her serviceable gray silk. But the pink had
beckoned, so soft laid across the bed. And when she’d held it up to her figure, her cheeks had blushed a pretty shade, and she’d
thought… She’d hoped…
She’d been a fool. A pitiful fool.
“You look lovely in it,” Matilda offered.
“I knew it would suit you.” Fiona reached a hand across the table toward Amelia. What did she want? A handshake? A pat?
Amelia stared at the hand until Fiona pulled it back.
“I apologize.” Amelia swallowed a swig of her ale. “I am unused to speaking like this with other women.” With anyone.
Fiona waved the apology away. “I particularly like your necklace. Quite a devastatingly lovely design.”
The silverwork flowers that sat heavy and warm around her neck glinted with what she hoped were paste diamonds and
emeralds.
Cordelia bumped her shoulder into Fiona’s. “Complimenting your own designs?”
“Naturally.” Fiona preened.
“Fiona should compliment her own designs,” Matilda said, “and we should focus. You, Amelia Dart, should tell him how
you feel.”
And embarrass herself? And lose her position as his secretary? “No. I cannot. Thank you, all, for your concern and your
well-meaning advice, but it would be impossible.”
“No, you’re wrong.” Matilda’s smile was soft and the shake of her head the tiniest thing. “Love makes things possible.”
“I do not believe in magic.”
“Not magic,” Matilda reassured her. “The tooth-and-claw determination of two humans who will do anything for one
another. That is what makes it all possible.”
Amelia studied the small bubbles on the top of her ale. They floated and popped in a time and dance that did not exist
outside the glass. And the life she led with Lord Andrew—also a precious, fragile thing. It should not exist, yet it did. She
should not be happy. But she was. Most days. And if she told him … and if he did not … she’d have to leave. The happiness
gone, the bubble burst.
“I’ve had enough waiting, wife.” Lord Theodore stood above them, staring down at his new bride. “Come along or I’ll
throw you over my shoulder.”
Cordelia winked at her husband. “Promise?”
Lord Theodore turned red as a slash of paint across a canvas.
Matilda and Fiona chuckled.
Cordelia rose from her seat to take Lord Theodore’s arm. “Excuse me, ladies. My husband demands my presence.” She
peered up at him and patted the back of his hand. “Why am I so terribly pleased I can still make you blush?”
His mouth set into a hard line, an attempt to tame a smile that failed almost immediately. “Come along, wife,” he muttered
into her curls as he kissed the top of her head.
Then there were two, and they studied Amelia as if she were an exhibit in the London Tower.
“Where are you from?” Fiona asked.
“Why does it matter?” Amelia countered.
“Just curious.”
Amelia nodded at the tankard before the impish woman. “Drink and forget you find me interesting.”
“But I do find you interesting. It’s the accent, I suppose.”
“Do remember your manners, Fiona,” Matilda cautioned.
“Where are you from?” Fiona would not remember her manners or forget her interest, then.
Amelia sighed. “I was born in England and carted to America as a babe. When my parents died, I was sent back to England
to live with my grandfather. I was fifteen. My accent, I assume, exists somewhere between the two locations. And I have
traveled a bit on the Continent since my grandfather’s death. Spain and France and Germany. Italy. I have practiced their
languages while abroad, so that may add further confusion.”
Fiona sighed. “It’s quite romantic.”
“I don’t see how.” Amelia snorted. The cities were beautiful, the art perfection. The days crowded with admirers, and the
nights lonely. The suitors had only been after her money, the inheritance left to her by her grandfather. Nothing romantic about
doting deceivers.
Matilda shook her head. “A vagabond life is not so desirable, Fee. ’Tis better to have a home.”
Home. Amelia had not been to hers in years, not since taking the position for Lord Andrew. The icy winds, the rough-hewn
landscape. If Briarcliff were a pastoral fairy-tale place, Hawkscraig Castle was a gothic story picked straight from one of Ann
Radcliffe’s horrid novels. Cold and gloomy and oh so lonely. And she missed it just a bit. Especially now, surrounded by Lord
Andrew’s family, the celebrating villagers, the incandescent brightness of a place where people belonged.
Must be the ale.
She finished it off. “I’ve always embraced travel. I enjoy people, and home is in an isolated bit of Scotland. I have no more
close family.”
Fiona squeaked. “I’m so sorry. I’ve opened up your tragedies.”
Amelia laughed. She’d not meant to, but the horror in the young woman’s eyes… she’d needed to alleviate it. “Not
tragedies. Just a bit of loneliness.”
“You don’t have to be lonely.” Matilda averted her gaze. “If you tell a certain someone a certain something.”
But that was why she couldn’t tell him. She’d never been happier than while working for Lord Andrew at the agency. She
had purpose. She helped others. She lived in a bustling, growing city, and the townhouse where she slept welcomed new
tenants each month when they needed a home between positions. Always someone to look after. Always someone to talk to.
She loved her life with Lord Andrew, and she would do nothing to risk it.
“Look.” Matilda grinned and tilted her tankard to a spot across the room. “He’s coming over here now.”
Amelia froze, then moved all the things all at once. Her palms slammed to the table, and her head jerked the direction
Matilda looked as her eyes widened, and … there he was, prowling toward them like a jungle cat. He wore all black but for
his fine wool jacket, which was the navy blue of a winter night sky. His brown hair had been pushed back from his forehead
and curled around his ears. He needed a trim. He always needed a trim. His jaw was clean shaven and sharp, but not as sharp
of as his ice-blue eyes. Always so cold behind the gold rims of his glasses.
He stopped just before the table, scowling down at her, and his presence did what it always did—melted her. On the inside
only. On the outside, she straightened, took a bit of his iciness, and made it hers.
“Yes, Lord Andrew?” she asked.
“Do you plan to do this all day?”
“This? By this do you mean celebrate your brother’s nuptials?”
“Don’t use that tone with me, Mrs. Dart. You know we’ve much to do before we arrive in London.”
“There is much to be done, but it can be accomplished in London.”
Lord Andrew loomed.
Amelia glowered.
Matilda stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I hear Raph calling for me. Fiona?” She reached out a hand to her sister-in-law.
“Hm?” Fiona stared at Lord Andrew and Amelia.
“Zander is looking for you.”
“He is?” Fiona looked up and around. “No he’s not. He’s talking with—” Matilda’s smile disappeared, her foot tapped
beneath her skirts, and her eyes narrowed. “Ah. I see. Yes. I’ll come along, too.” Fiona picked up her tankard and joined
Matilda across the room with the others.
Lord Andrew sat across from Amelia. “What is that about?” His gaze dipped from her eyes to her body for just an instant.
Had he looked at her décolletage? She heated. Every word she’d ever known dropped away, and she took a large swallow
of her ale. “What do you mean, my lord?”
“That gown. It’s pink.”
Pink? Pink! He’d been looking at the pink. Not at her at all. Was the ale deep enough to drown herself in? She finished it off
to stop herself from trying. “Ah. Yes. Fiona lent it to me. Very kind of her. I quite like the color. She says it suits me.”
His brows drew together. “It’s not your usual shade.”
Did that bother him? She’d never even tried to wear color around him. It hadn’t seemed the thing to do in a professional
capacity. She’d followed his example and worn only the dullest shades—grays and blacks and deep blues and browns.
“Do you think it inappropriate?” she asked.
“I suppose not for a wedding, but…”
The most irritating unfinished sentence in the world. “But?” she demanded.
 “It’s not you.”
Rubbish. She waved for another ale. The barmaid would be kept busy this day. How did this man know her when she
pretended to be him? Pretended, at least, to run his agency on her own. And since he had always been a fastidious sort—even
on short acquaintance she’d been able to tell this—she’d copied his mannerisms and tendencies, hoping to keep her job as long
as she could by pleasing him as best as possible.
She’d certainly achieved what she’d set out to do.
And lost something along the way.
“It is me, and I like it. I think I look nice in it. Do you think I look nice in it?” Oh. Had she asked him that? The ale must
have control of her tongue.
His mouth opened slightly, and his eyes searched the room from one end to the other before finally landing, wary still, back
on her. “You are presentable for the circumstances.” But he didn’t look at the gown. Didn’t look lower than her eyes. A lovely
sign of respect.
She hated it. What good a low bodice if no one looked? The sisters-in-law were wrong. No use revealing a thing to this
man.
“The gown is neither here nor there, Mrs. Dart.”
Mrs. Dart. He always used the fake title even though she’d never been wed. She understood the necessity for it. She could
not keep her position without some pretense of experience, maturity. But she felt it built a wall between them, too.
“It certainly seems as if the gown is both here and there,” she replied. “You are overly bothered by it.”
“It is my mother’s or one of my sisters-in-law’s doing, so let us put the unfortunate matter of the gown behind us and focus
on the business we’ll be doing in London tomorrow.”
The barmaid finally answered her call and placed a lovely full tankard before Amelia. She blessed the woman who
scurried off as silently as she’d come.
Lord Andrew frowned at the libation.
“For heaven’s sake. The ale displeases you as well?”
“I need your mind clear, Mrs. Dart. For business matters.”
“It is your brother’s wedding. Surely those matters can wait. Have a drink. Converse with your family.”
“No.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a square of folded paper which he placed before her. The tip of one
corner landed in a droplet of ale that had splashed onto the table, and the paper darkened. Lord Andrew’s face darkened, too,
and he snatched it up quickly, patting it dry on his jacket sleeve before holding it out to her, the paper now hovering from his
fingers high enough above the table to remain safe. “Here. I know what I think best, but I thought you might have further insight.
You work more closely with the families than I do, after all.”
She took the paper and unfolded it. “What am I looking at?” A list of names, that much she could tell. Women’s names.
“Possible financial backers for the expansion.”
“They’re all women. And… unmarried women.” She lifted her gaze from the paper to him, hoping to find some answer on
his face. She knew better, and his emotionless expression gave her exactly what she’d come to expect from him—nothing. “Are
you asking them to make charitable donations to the agency? It would be better to make such requests of women in control of
their own funds. Or men. Unmarried women …” She shook her head. This man should know these things. He should. He did.
She was the one refusing to see something.
“Unmarried women need to be married.” He said the thing she’d been keeping in the dark. “You’ll notice they are all
wealthy families. With no titles. It will be a marriage of convenience for us both.”
Oh. Oh. Her fingers lost feeling all at once, and the paper fluttered to the tabletop, careless of small puddles, and she
pressed her hand to heart where a wound had opened up. It hurt. How could she breathe after this? How could she live?
“Mrs. Dart? Are you ill?”
Her other hand fluttered to her cheek. Cold. “I… I am…”
Another hand cupped her other cheek. Not her hand. This one gloved in black and warm through a layer of thin cotton. She
dared to look up. He stood, leaning over the table, and yes, it was his hand resting on her cheek, his blue eyes gazing down at
her with concern.
“I knew you looked too flushed. Thought it the cursed gown bringing color to your cheeks. And you’ve had too much to
drink. Back to the house with you. Now.”
She shook her head, and though she wanted to lean into the comfort of his palm, it was false comfort, temporary, curt,
professional. Not what she wished. So she brushed his hand away and clutched her hands in her lap, tried to master the
panicked thumping of her heart.
“I’m fine,” she said in a stronger voice than she thought herself capable of.
He lowered back to his seat. “I don’t believe you.”
“I am.” She took a hearty sip of her drink. “’Tis merely that your plan is so unexpected. You’ve told me nothing of it.”
“Apologies. I wanted to be prepared with a list of possible names before sharing the plan with you.”
 “Ever prepared. Wh-when do you intend to begin this course of action?”
“As soon as we return to Manchester.”
“Ah yes. Quite sensible.” The perfect answer to give him because it’s what he expected her to say. Also what she’d say if
she weren’t in love with him. “But…” Her mouth proved almost too dry to speak. She shouldn’t speak. She knew the shape of
the words jumping to leave her lips, and she should keep them locked tight away, but she loved him, and what he intended to
do… He deserved better. The women deserved better. She’d received a handful of the type of proposal Lord Andrew planned.
For any woman with a heart, it was a hurtful thing. “What about love, Lord Andrew? Will you truly enter into a passionless
marriage? Or is there someone you…” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t finish the thought. The names on the soggy paper glowing
on the tabletop between them mocked her. Had he traced any of them with a greater softness than the rest?
“I’ve no time for love. You know that. Love takes time. And it’s too unpredictable. What if I were to fall in love with a
poor woman?” He shook his head. “No. Not part of the plan. Let others suffer with love. I choose only that which I can
control.”
“Suffer indeed,” she mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” She’d been right. She could not tell him. It would not do any good. Once set on a plan, Lord
Andrew Bromley did not veer from it, not for any temptation. And love, it seemed, proved no temptation at all.
She drank her ale slowly and silently, listening to the details of Lord Andrew’s plan, and wondered how long her heart
could survive after the man she loved married another woman. She’d kept her secret for fear she’d have to leave when he did
not return her feelings. Secrecy had meant survival. Now survival might mean the very last thing she’d ever wanted to do—
leave.
 Three

C
oach rides were insufferable. Drew could plot and plan for hours with Mrs. Dart, but she could not write those plans
down. On the one hand, an utter waste. On the other, it did help to organize his thoughts. Not that it mattered this
particular trip to London. Atlas stole all of Mrs. Dart’s time and attention. They’d played card games and read to one
another, conversed and laughed. Atlas even sang her a song, and she’d sung one back. Then they’d sung one together.
And Drew had done his best not to cast up his accounts while attempting to sleep through it all. He’d never been sick
because of the swaying of the coach before. He must have over imbibed last night. Mrs. Dart certainly had, not that she showed
the signs of it. She looked pert and competent as usual in her gray traveling gown and brown pelisse. Gray and brown. Thank
God.
Everything back to normal.
Except for Atlas.
“What are you doing here again?” Drew asked.
“Going to London, same as you.” Atlas grinned.
“I understand that part. But you could have taken your own coach.”
“It needs repairs. And I need someone to help me finish the dower house. That someone is likely in London. Thus, I’m
sitting here. Going to London in order to bring back an artisan.”
“Yes.” A coming megrim beat against the inside of Drew’s skull. “But you are going to London with me.”
“How do you work for such a grouch?” Atlas asked Mrs. Dart.
“It can be a trial at times. But I am more than capable of handling the man.”
Drew grunted.
“Do not let Lord Andrew make you feel unwelcome.” Mrs. Dart’s neatly gloved hand shot out and patted his brother’s
shoulder. There was a pearl button just at the wrist, holding it closed, a solitary concession to vanity in her otherwise drab
ensemble. Drab? No. Rather, call it perfectly practical. He’d never thought her gowns drab before. That damn pink gown had
ruined something inside him. No matter. Time and an abundance of gray skirts would put it all to rights.
“I am glad to have your company, Lord Atlas,” Mrs. Dart said. “You have helped pass the hours in many diverting ways.”
“Many pointless ways.” Drew stretched his aching legs out until they sliced between Atlas’s leg and Mrs. Dart’s skirts. A
nice little wall, separating, dividing, conquering. “We’ve not discussed anything of importance.”
“Do not whine,” Mrs. Dart said. “It’s unbecoming of a grown man.”
“I’m not—” Drew cleared his throat and looked out the window. What he’d been about to say, even to his own ears, had
sounded damn near close to a whine. The edges of London rolled by, the houses and buildings far apart but growing closer
together as they traveled onward. “Let us be serious now. We have two goals in London. The first is to visit townhouses and
choose one for the agency. The second is to find Atlas an artisan.” He pulled out his pocket watch and flipped it open then
closed, needing only a moment to glimpse the time before slipping the watch back into his pocket. “We will need to meet the
property agent soon, so townhouse business first. But we should have enough time to drop you off at the Waneborough
Charitable School of Art, Atlas.”
Atlas saluted him. “Yes, sir.” A military bark.
Drew pursed his lips and turned to his secretary. “Mrs. Dart, have you had time to consider the list I gave you?”
“No.” Not quite a military bark but just as sharp.
“And why not?”
“Because that list is not my business.”
“What list?” Atlas asked.
“It is too your business.” Drew sat up straight, though it meant having to retract his legs from between his brother and his
secretary.
“What list?” Atlas asked again.
“You pay me,” Mrs. Dart said, “to assist you in a professional capacity, and that list is quite, quite personal. Thus, it is
outside of my realm of duties.”
“Personal?” Drew almost rolled his eyes. But he did not. He kept his tone moderate as well. No reason to give into the
frustrated heat rising within him. “It’s entirely a business matter. There is nothing personal about it.”
“It’s a list of marriage candidates!” Mrs. Dart’s voice exploded, and it heralded a buzzing silence into the coach.
First pink. Now explosions?
Drew removed his glasses, then pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe the lenses clean, focusing on
the task as he said, “What has gotten into you, Mrs. Dart?”
Her jaw twitched and her lips thinned, and she tossed her gaze out the window.
“You’re getting married?” Atlas whistled. “Never would have thought. But what’s this about it being a business matter?
You told Raph you were good with funds. If you need money, Drew, the painting⁠—”
“No. I don’t want the painting. I want a marriage of convenience with a wealthy woman of my choosing.”
Atlas held up his hands, palms flat toward his brother. “Do as you wish, brother. I won’t stop you. I won’t agree with you,
but I won’t stop you. Not that I could. You’ve always gone your own way.” Just so. At least it was Atlas finding out so soon.
Raph would have tried to stop him. Wouldn’t have been able to, but he’d have tried. “When did you plan to tell us?” Atlas
asked.
Us. The family.
“After I’d secured the woman’s hand in marriage. Should take no longer than a month.” Drew glanced at Mrs. Dart. She
remained unaccountably silent. “It would take a shorter length of time, Mrs. Dart, if you offered your opinions on the ladies.”
“I offer no opinion on any lady.” Each word sounded clipped, and not in an efficient sort of way. What had gotten into her?
Perhaps she suffered the effects of yesterday’s indulgences more than she let on.
“Do you need the coach to slow it’s pace?” he asked.
She blinked. “No. Whyever would I—” She shook her head. “I will help you with every aspect of the expansion but one.
Let us focus on the townhouses, Lord Andrew.”
“Is it the paper I wrote the list on? It was filthy. Is that why you refuse to consider the names I wrote there? If so, do not
worry. I threw it in the fire at the pub and drew up a clean one before sleeping last night.”
“It’s not the paper. Leave it be. How many properties are we touring today?”
“But Mrs. Dart⁠—”
“I’d do as she requests, brother.” Atlas leaned against the squabs, his big arms crossed over his chest, his eyes like
marbles. Was he playing Mrs. Dart’s protector? From Drew? Absurd.
Best not to cross Atlas, though, when’d he’d chosen a cause to champion. Drew stroked his index finger down his nose,
over the bump there he tried to forget, tried not to see in the looking glass every morning. Noses broke easily beneath fists. So,
too, did other things.
“Very well, then,” Drew said. He could drop the matter. For now.
They discussed the various properties until they stopped before the door of the Waneborough Charitable School of Art. The
coach creaked as Atlas stood and stepped down. “You’ll help me interview the candidates?”
Drew straightened his gloves, pulled out and checked his pocket watch. “I’ve my own business to tend to.”
When Atlas offered no response, Drew snapped the watch closed and looked at his brother. Damn him, standing there
looking … soulful.
Drew sighed. “Very well. I’ll help.”
Atlas grinned, nodded. “My thanks, brother.”
“We’ll return this afternoon.” Drew slipped the silver watch back into his pocket. “Mrs. Dart is to stay here during our time
in London, and I will stay with Maggie. I assume you will, too?”
Atlas nodded. “I won’t be here long. A night or two at most.” He tipped his hat as the coach lurched forward once more.
“How long will we be in London?” Mrs. Dart asked.
“Hopefully not long. But I’d like to have acquired a property before we return to Manchester. No longer than a fortnight.”
She nodded and looked out the window. She seemed … agitated. Her hands were clasped so tightly together in her lap, the
thread that held those little pearls at her wrists seemed in danger of snapping. Her lips had turned into a thin line. She reached
over and picked up her bonnet. It had idled on the seat beside her—between her and Atlas—all trip long, and now she fastened
it to her head, something she never did until moments before descending the coach. She was hiding from him beneath that
shadowed brim. But why?
“Mrs. Dart⁠—”
“We’re here. This is the first address. Two of them, of course. At Aster Square.” She slipped her hand inside her pocket,
pulled out the watch he’d given her for her birthday two years ago, an exact replica of his own. “And we’re on time. And
having come all the way from Briarcliff. Perfectly punctual as usual, Lord Andrew.”
The coach slowed, and they sat in silence until they could disembark and stare together up at the row of terrace houses.
They set off for the door together, too, their strides matching in length and pace, the only difference between them trousers and
skirts.
“Do we really need so much space?” Mrs. Dart asked. “A third- or fourth-rate townhouse would be quite sufficient.”
“Not if we wish to impress the families who hire our employees. They need to see the noble sides of their governesses and
tutors. They come from titled backgrounds, but for one reason or another, they must work. They no longer have the affluence
bestowed on them once upon a time by their names. We must provide them with the appearance of all that they have lost. To
remind the families seeking their services of who they are—individuals worthy of their respect. First-rate townhomes only,
Mrs. Dart. It’s just good business.”
The door to the townhome swung open, and a balding man with a wide grin stepped out. “Lord Andrew?”
Drew nodded and the other man bowed. “Mr. Beggsly, I assume,” Drew said. “May I introduce the woman who runs the
agency for me—Mrs. Dart.”
Mrs. Dart curtsied with the same efficiency that clipped each of Drew’s words.
“Ah yes.” Mr. Beggsly, a man of business for the Earl of Whitmore, the owner of the residences they would view, offered
her a deep bow. “Excellent to meet you. Would you both come inside? We have much to see today. Three other residences. But
this one I think you’ll like the best.”
They entered the house, their footsteps echoing on marble floors, those echoes rising to an arched ceiling and roaming up
the carpeted stairs. The polished wood of the banister shone, and the light-blue walls gave the appearance of airy elegance.
Mrs. Dart gasped. “It’s lovely. And is there a second? Just next door?”
“Not next door.” Mr. Beggsly laughed, a short, false sound. “A mere few doors away. The only flaw.”
Drew frowned. “So far?”
“A short walk only,” Mr. Beggsly assured him.
“I’ve seen enough.” Drew turned and left, ignoring Mr. Beggsly’s gurgling, inarticulate response and Mrs. Dart’s mute
protests. She spoke her displeasure with the arch of an eyebrow, just as he would.
She hurried after him, set her pace to his, and said, “You’ve not seen anything but the entry hall.”
A logical objection, but… “I’ve seen enough to know it’s not what I want.”
Mr. Beggsly showed them three other locations, none as elegant as the first, none as well situated, and after a cursory
perusal of all three, Drew declared flatly, “No.”
Outside the final house, Mrs. Dart pulled him aside, her mouth thinned into a line of disapproval, her gaze as flat as he
made his behind his glasses.
“You are being difficult, Lord Andrew.” She glanced over his shoulder at Mr. Beggsly slumped, dejected against the front
door of the final residence.
“It is an important choice to make. I’m being careful.”
She pulled him around the corner of the building so they were out of sight. He approved her care for privacy. No need to let
all of London know they disagreed. “The first location proved perfection itself.”
“The townhouses were too far apart.”
“Nonsense. You know it is difficult enough to find two available townhomes side by side in a good location. We’ve seen
three good options and one excellent one. Though I can only surmise its excellence as you barely let us walk through the door
before turning your nose up at it.” Color rose high in her cheeks, pink like the gown from yesterday’s wedding.
Unusual, that. He removed his glasses, cleaned the lenses on his sleeve, put them back on. The color remained, a more
flustered rose hue now. Odd. Wrong. “Mrs. Dart, rein in your passions, please. There is too much distance between them, and
no amount of anger will fix the dilemma.” And it was a dilemma.
Once, a man had tried to break into the agency in Manchester. He’d broken a ground-floor window in the townhouse where
Mrs. Dart slept. She’d woken, cried out, and Drew had been down the stairs and into the women’s townhouse before the
intruder could get any farther than the room he’d broken into.
Could he get to her so quickly if he were down the street? Would he even hear her if she needed him? She was just as much
his to care for as his tutors and governesses were. A single woman, very much not a widow, alone. Because he’d asked her to
be. Yes, he paid her well, but still. It did not quite cover the danger of the situation.
She laid a hand on his arm, and the touch gathered his entire attention. She rarely touched him, and he never touched her,
and … and her hand on his arm seemed tiny and frail.
What if he couldn’t get to her? What if he didn’t even hear her cry out? He took a breath that banished his own rising
passion, a waving crest of fear and⁠—
“Lord Andrew, look at me.”
He ripped his gaze from her hand and found her usually almost-black eyes the softest brown in the sunlight. “Let us view
the first residence one more time,” she said, her voice as soft as her eyes. “Let us at least view it past its entry hall. Inspect the
other rooms. We can time the walk from one townhouse to the other.”
He couldn’t very well stand in one, have her stand in the other, and ask her to scream to see if he could hear her. Beggsly
would think him odd. Likely already thought him odd for passing up such a prime location for his agency. His clients would be
impressed. His governesses and tutors would feel at home in the architectural finery. It would restore their self-respect, help
them remember they were not to be scoffed at or looked down upon. They were worthy.
Drew exhaled, slow and heavy, ruffling a hand through his hair. “We’ll look at it.” And he’d hire a burly footman or two if
he had to. To guard the place when he was not about.
“Excellent!” She pulled her hand back then strode round the corner and out of sight. “Mr. Beggsly! We wish to return to the
first location.”
Was that a cheerful huzzah Drew heard from the other man? Excitement… what a waste of energy. Beggsly and Mrs. Dart
chatted about the residence as they walked the short distance to it, and when he ushered them inside once more, Drew felt … at
home. Damn. He’d not wanted to like it.
Mrs. Dart led the exploration, and Mr. Beggsly chuckled at her enthusiasm. She broke from him here, like a bit of him
become rogue. She did that now and then when they were alone. She acted as his mirror twin in almost every mannerism when
they were with others. But, admittedly, better. Warmer, cheerier, the type of him others would actually like and trust. It was why
she had so often proved perfect for him, for his agency.
“You see, my lord,” Mr. Beggsly said, nodding at Mrs. Dart’s retreating form as she bustled into an upstairs room with
sighs of rapture, “she loves it, and since she’s the one who runs the agency and will be spending her time here, perhaps you
should bow to her wishes.”
Hell. He’d known he’d have to even before Beggsly said so.
He didn’t like it, though.
He followed her into the room, and Mr. Beggsly stayed in the hall.
She turned to him grinning from where she stood at a window. “Look. There’s a smallish garden in the back. It’s perfect.”
He joined her. “I suppose. But … Mrs. Dart … what if something happens?”
She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“Like the intruder a few summers back. What if I cannot hear you? Because I’m too far away.”
Her mouth opened then closed again. Then she took a deep breath before speaking. “You surely will not live in one of these
residences. You’ll have a different home. With your wife.”
A different home. He’d not considered that. A wife would not wish to reside in a place of business, no matter how elegant
and homey that place was. Something like a gnarled knot on an ancient tree grew tight in his chest, and he turned from her,
strode from the room.
“We’ll take it,” he told Mr. Beggsly as he passed him by and stomped down the steps.
“Excellent, excellent.” The other man bustled after him. “But there is one other thing.”
“What is it? I have no time for hesitation.” Reaching the entry hall, Drew opened the front door and found a smiling
gentleman on the step.
“Good afternoon,” he said, doffing his hat to reveal a head full of yellow hair. “Are you Mr. Beggsly?”
“No, no, that would be me.” Mr. Beggsly pushed Drew out of the way to greet the other man. “Mr. Tidsdale, I presume.”
“Who is that?” Mrs. Dart appeared at Drew’s side, her gaze glued to the newcomer.
“This,” Mr. Beggsly said, “is what I was about to tell you, my lord. Mr. Tidsdale is also interested in the residence and has
made quite a good offer.”
Mrs. Dart gasped, a tiny sound that cut deep. She’d fallen in love with the place, Drew had promised it to her, and now this
odious little man was telling him there existed another offer?
“Are you attempting to manipulate me, Mr. Beggsly?” Drew stepped closer to the man, pulling himself up tall when he was
already a good foot taller than him, too.
“No, no. But it is my business to sell this residence for what it’s worth. What that is remains for the two of you to decide.”
Mr. Beggsly grinned.
Mr. Tidsdale grinned, too. Right at Mrs. Dart. “And who are you?”
Drew hooked his arm through hers and pulled her toward the door. “We are leaving, Mrs. Dart.”
“No, no.” Her small hand on him again, stopping him. “Let us be rational and calm, Lord Andrew. I’m sure a discussion
will benefit us both.” She removed her arm from Drew’s and curtsied. “Mr. Tidsdale, I think I heard?”
He bowed. “And you are called Mrs. Dart?”
“I am. Would you let me show you around? You can tell me what you want the houses for, and I shall tell you my reason,
and we shall, perhaps, come to some greater insight.”
“Mrs. Dart,” Drew growled.
She ignored him and led the other man down the hall. Mr. Tidsdale followed her like a puppy, his tail wagging, a happy yap
in his voice.
 “You’re lucky to have her, my lord,” Mr. Beggsly said.
“You’re lucky I have her. If she were not here, I’d have⁠—”
“Lord Andrew!” Mrs. Dart’s voice carried down the hall. “Do not say anything you’ll regret.”
He turned on his toe and shoved his hands through his hair. Every damn thing falling to pieces. He went outside and paced
the street before the house. Houses. Counted the steps between them. Three times. Because he would be here, wife or no. His
would be a marriage of convenience, after all. His wife would know what to expect.
Laughter rang from the doorway. Mrs. Dart and Mr. Tidsdale stood framed there, grinning at one another. What the hell was
so funny?
“Are you done yet, Mrs. Dart?” Drew asked, glad to hear ice in his voice.
“Quite.” She stepped nearer him, and he had to clench his fists to keep from grabbing her to his side.
“And have you come to some understanding with Mr. … What did you say your name was? Tittersly?”
“Tidsdale. And”—he lengthened the word, his gaze lingering on Mrs. Dart’s mouth—“not quite yet. But I think an
understanding will not take long.”
What the hell did that mean?
“I’m leaving. Mr. Beggsly, you have my offer. Not a penny more. Come along, Mrs. Dart.” He strode down the street
without waiting for her, but she caught up quickly, her long legs striding at his side in no time despite her voluminous skirts.
“You were rude just now.” He heard the lecture there despite the huffs of breath she took between each word.
He shortened his stride and slowed his pace. “Beggsly was rude. He’s manipulating us. I’ll not have it.”
“The buildings are perfect, my lord.”
“They are not.” They were. Even if they were too distant from one another.
“I know you like everything to be just so. I understand there are some elements here out of your control and that… upsets
you.”
“I’m not upset.”
Silence. Then: “Of course not, my lord. But⁠—”
“We’ll help Atlas with his interviews when we return. And then we’ll tackle my list.”
“As you say. But, Lord Andrew, what will you do about the London location? If Mr. Tidsdale outbids you⁠—”
“I’ll choose another location.” He wouldn’t. Mrs. Dart wanted the house. She’d have it. And no damn Mr. Tidsdale would
keep that from happening. Drew owed her too much to let her down. She’d come into his life when he’d most needed her.
Potential clients had turned up their noses at him when they’d learned he tutored himself, that he handled the accounts and held
interviews to place the governesses and other educators. He’d lost business steadily.
Then this imp of a woman had stumbled into his study, laughing, telling the lord and lady turning their noses up at him that
they had assumed wrong regarding Lord Andrew. He did not conduct any of the business, she did.
Who was she? Mrs. Dart, she’d said, all prim and proper. A widow of many years whom Lord Andrew had hired to run the
agency for him. All lies said with the confidence of a professional stage actress. He was merely here for a visit, she’d assured
his potential clients, to check up on her, to inspect everything and make sure it was up to his rigorously high standards. The lord
and lady had changed their tune after that.
Miss Dart had been there for help finding work as a governess and had jumped to his rescue. And after that Mrs. Dart
remained as his secretary, the face of his company, a means of hiding his own true devotion to every aspect of the work.
He cleared his throat. “Mrs. Dart?”
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
Her steps faltered and he gave her his arm until they smoothed out once more. “Gratitude, my lord? For what?”
“All the years you’ve worked for me. And for today. You often keep me levelheaded.”
“Hm. So I do. You’re welcome.”
“That’s why I need your help with the list. I can trust you to ensure I do not make an emotional decision.”
“I thought emotion had nothing to do with this decision.”
“Precisely.”
She sighed, and just when he thought she would answer him, she did not.
He gave up waiting for one, and they arrived in silence at the art school. Why wouldn’t she aid him in this when she aided
him in everything else? It was for the good of the agency, after all. She was being stubborn, but he’d convince her to help him
in the end. Perhaps when he placed the deed to the Aster Square residences before her, she’d melt into submission.
 Four

A
melia wanted to throttle Lord Andrew. His constant calm requests for her to review his list of matrimonial candidates cut
deeper each time. The fact he never noticed how much it bothered her made the pain even worse. Her head throbbing and
her soul pitch dark, she still smiled. Because she’d been asked to take notes as Lord Andrew interviewed the prospects
for woodworkers to send home with his brother. And she did not wish to scare the applicants with her mournful scowls and
sighs.
They’d begun interviews yesterday after a good night’s sleep, and there were still two more candidates after this one.
Lord Atlas sat at the side of a large room in the spacious townhouse where the Waneborough Charitable School of Art
resided, and Amelia sat behind Lord Andrew at a small, portable writing desk, hastily scribbling her own thoughts as well as
those she thought he might be having. It should not be part of her job to anticipate his opinions, but so it was and always had
been.
The woman they interviewed sat before them, the large windows behind her illuminated her deep-red hair with all the light
of the afternoon sun. She seemed a Madonna, complete with halo. But she spoke with all the expertise of a woman whose
experiences ranged further than the saintly and spiritual. “My father apprenticed under Sheraton,” she said, only her faintly pink
lips moving.
“We’re interviewing you, madam, not your father.” Lord Andrew stretched out a leg. The first sign restless itched through
him. He’d need a break after this interview.
“My father taught me everything he learned. I can accomplish any task you require of me and complete it with elegance as
well as skill.” Mrs. Bronwen held her chin high.
“You were not on our list of artisans to interview, Mrs. Bronwen.” Lord Andrew brushed his hair behind his ear, a clear
sign he would soon stand and be done with the conversation.
“I paint as well.” She nodded to the wall behind them, the mural painted on it. “That is my work.”
Amelia stood and traced the flying birds with gentle fingers. “Beautiful.” She looked to Lord Atlas. He would have to work
with Mrs. Bronwen, after all. But his face proved as readable as Lord Andrew’s—not at all. Closed books, the both of them.
Amelia returned to her seat to find Lord Andrew staring at the mural on the wall with unconcealed interest.
He turned to his brother. “Something like that would be appropriate for the dower house, don’t you think?”
“We don’t need anything fancy.” Lord Atlas grimaced and shifted in his seat. “Apologies, madam.”
Mrs. Bronwen stood. “Please know I do not beg for myself but for my son. He needs out of the city. For his health. Please
do not dismiss me because I am a woman. I assure you I have as good or greater skill than any man.”
“I assure you it is not because you are a woman.” Lord Atlas stood, shoulders hunched as if he were a child receiving a
lecture.
“Our mother would skin our hides if she even thought we were suggesting that,” Lord Andrew said. “You see my secretary
behind me, yes?”
Mrs. Bronwen glanced at Amelia. “Yes.”
“Is she or is she not a woman?” he asked. Amelia sometimes wondered if he knew the answer to that question. Perhaps he
asked now because he’d never quite been sure, needed confirmation.
She pressed her lips in a tight line and focused every bit of her energy on not snapping her quill.
“I take your meaning, my lord.” Mrs. Bronwen’s face was sharp and bright, exactly like her voice.
Lord Andrew stood and bowed. “We are making no decisions today. We will let you know when we have.”
Mrs. Bronwen gave a tight nod and swept from the room like a queen. When the door shut behind her, the brothers fell into
their chairs with matching sighs.
“Clearly not her,” Lord Atlas said.
 Just as Lord Andrew said, “She’s the one, quite obviously.”
Amelia groaned and rubbed her temples. “We’ve still two more candidates to see.”
“And none of them matter.” Lord Andrew stood and pulled the bell in the corner. “We need tea. Her boy needs fresh air.
Something there is plenty of at Briarcliff. Hell, Mother would skin us if she found out we turned them away.”
“But she’s too delicate to help me finish the dower house,” Lord Atlas protested.
“Didn’t look delicate to me,” Lord Andrew countered.
She’d looked stout and used to hard work. She had an elegant profile of the sort Amelia would have loved to trace, but
she’d seemed strong of body and certainly of spirit.
“I think you should give her a chance,” Amelia said.
“You have strong opinions about women, Mrs. Dart?” Lord Andrew’s voice carried across the room, begging for her
attention. “You should peruse my list, then⁠—”
“This woman, I do. Sheraton.” Her notes became a blur of fine-tipped black curves on cream. “We should not ignore that
influence.”
“True,” Lord Andrew said.
“I’m the one who must work with her. Restoration is dangerous work. We cannot have a child wandering about. No. Not
her. The first fellow seemed perfect. Good experience. No children. Likable. We’ll do well together. No need for further
interviews.”
Lord Andrew shrugged. “It’s your decision to make, brother. And I’m glad to be done with it sooner rather than later. I’ve
other decisions to tend to.”
The tea came and Lord Atlas left, and Amelia and Lord Andrew sat in matching armchairs before a fireplace at the far end
of the room. She knew what direction the conversation would take once he deigned to speak. She dreaded it. Best to direct the
conversation herself. “You are kind about Mrs. Bronwen.”
“I’m practical. Her father trained under Sheraton. We could not ask for better. And she’ll be happy to work for room and
board because she’s getting what she wants for her son.”
“Another reason to send her away, though. Your brother would be in charge of not one new dependent but two.”
“How much can a young boy eat?”
She laughed and sipped her tea. “Surely you know, having been a young boy once yourself.”
“I don’t remember much. Or I choose not to remember much. Either way, I’ve no clue what sort of sustenance that sort of
creature needs.”
“Have you heard from Beggsly?”
He shook his head. “I’ll contact him shortly. Have you thought on my list?”
There it was. And now came the time she had to rip her heart out. Better now than later, when she had to watch him court
another woman.
She placed her teacup on the saucer and set them both on the small table between her and Lord Andrew. Then she
straightened and held his gaze. “I will not be looking at your list. Nor will I advise you on a bride to choose.”
He opened his mouth to speak.
“And,” she said, marching forward, allowing no interruption, “I will be taking a holiday.”
“A holiday? What do you mean?”
“I will be returning home for a time.”
“Home? Manchester?”
“Home is Scotland, Lord Andrew. Hawkscraig Castle.”
He shook his head as if clearing it from fog. “Where? I’ve never heard you speak of it before.”
“You’ve never asked about my personal life.”
“I… didn’t think you had one. You appeared out of nowhere and just… moved in.”
She chuckled, the memory of the day they’d met relaxed her a bit. She’d been waiting to interview as a hopeful governess,
and she’d stormed in to save him instead. He’d offered her more payment to act as the head of the agency and his secretary than
a governess position would pay. Not that she’d needed the money.
She’d needed the companionship, though, friends and family. She’d missed the sound of welcoming voices, missed the hush
of whisper sharing and the low giggle of well-meant teases among friends. Better to work than lose your soul bit by lonely bit.
He’d certainly given her everything she’d wanted—constant companionship, challenges to occupy her mind, the opportunity
to meet new people and make new friends, to impact the lives of others. She was no longer rusting.
But it was time to return.
Because sometimes solitude proved a mercy for a breaking heart. Perhaps she could return to Manchester after he’d
married. Perhaps that would be time enough to heal.
“You’re coming back, yes?” He stood and paced across the room.
She stood, too, but remained by the fire. “In time. Lord Andrew, in all my five years of working for you, I’ve never once
taken a break. Every day at your side, doing your bidding.”
“Have I been too harsh a taskmaster? We just attended a wedding.” He stopped pacing and stared at her with wide eyes and
arms that didn’t seem to know quite what to do.
“You rushed us away from the wedding and made me work at a pub.”
He scratched his fingers through his hair and hung his head. Then he snapped up straight and threw his shoulders back. “We
are a successful team, you and me. I will not let you abandon the agency in its time of great need.”
“I am not abandoning it. I am taking a brief holiday before helping you set up the new London location. I’ll return sharper
and more energized than ever. I promise. But, Lord Andrew, I am not asking your permission. I am telling you. I leave for
Hawkscraig the day after we return to Manchester.”
“So soon?” he barked. He blinked once, inhaled efficiently if a bit more heavily than usual. “Very well. Take your holiday,
Mrs. Dart. I’ll expect your return a week after your departure.”
“A week?” She laughed. “Travel will take two to three days at least, particularly if the weather is bad, as it is bound to be
the farther north I go. I thought, perhaps, two months, my lord.”
“Two mo— Two months?” he sputtered. “No. Absolutely not. A fortnight.”
“Do you expect me to travel there and travel right back? A month.”
He growled. “Very well.” He strode for the door. “Do as you please. But if you’re not back in a month, I’m⁠—”
“Coming after me?” She laughed, a bitter thing on her tongue. Like tea steeped too long.
He stormed from the room, giving no answer. For a man who lived like ice most of the time—cold and emotionless—he’d
been brimming with heat of late. As if a summer sun had dropped inside of him and slowly melted him, bit by cracking bit from
the inside.
She needed to walk. It would be a long journey to Hawkscraig, and she should stretch her legs before all opportunity to do
so disappeared. She gathered her pelisse and made for the front door and found a familiar face on the doorstep.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Dart,” Mr. Tidsdale said. He wore the most charming grin she’d ever seen.
“Mr. Tidsdale. What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
“Me?” No one looked for her. Ever. Well, Lord Andrew did, when he needed something done. “Do you wish me to… do
something for you?”
He laughed, a full-throated, joyful thing. “Not at all. Not yet, anyway.” How had his grin grown even more charming? “I’d
like your company on a walk.”
“A walk? But I barely know you. Why would you want to walk with me?”
“You made an impression yesterday. Are you going to come or not?”
She’d been going for a walk anyway, so she stepped out onto the street beside him. “I suppose so. I am on my way to Hyde
Park.”
“Excellent.” He waited for her to start walking, then he matched his stride to hers. “I’ve been doing some asking around
about you, and your Lord Andrew.” She swallowed a knot of anxiety. But he’d find nothing. Because there was nothing to find.
“It’s how I discovered your whereabouts at the art school.”
“You’re quite… resourceful, Mr. Tidsdale.”
“You’ve no idea. But hopefully you will soon enough.”
“I do not enjoy riddles, sir. Speak plainly or I’ll take my walk in a direction wholly different from yours.”
He chuckled. “You’re a magnificent woman, Mrs. Dart.”
The compliment took her breath away. How often did she receive praise? Not often enough to become immune to it
apparently. Yet … it did not impact her the way Lord Andrew’s words of gratitude had two days earlier. She’d almost wept.
They were as close to softer feeling she’d ever get from the man, and she’d gathered them up like precious gems, held them
close for admiring later.
“Why the compliments, Mr. Tidsdale?”
“I’m softening you up.”
“For what purpose?”
“I intend to steal you, Mrs. Dart.”
She stopped, and he continued forward several paces until he realized she no longer walked by his side. He turned, tilted
his head, and gave her a curious look.
“Do you expect me, sir, to not react to such a pronouncement? Should I take it in as if you’d commented on the color of the
sky?”
“A woman as remarkable as Mrs. Dart must expect to be stolen away at any moment.”
She scoffed and started walking once more. “Just where do you get the notion I’m remarkable? I’m a mere woman, nothing
special about me.”
“You’re a widow, which means you know grief, but you do not let it guide your actions. You were hired by a marquess’s
son to run an agency that connects good families with the right educators. Under your hand, that agency has grown enough in
reputation to expand to London. Which is why you want the same house I want. Any of those things would make you
remarkable. All of them together—” He whistled.
“My. You learned so much of me in such a short time? You are more resourceful than I first thought.”
“Now you have some idea.” He winked.
A flirtation? Is that what he meant to steal her away for? She snorted. “What is it you do, Mr. Tidsdale? Lawyer?
Physician? Archi⁠—”
“I do what you do, Mrs. Dart.”
She stopped walking again, and this time he did, too. His eyes twinkled as he looked down at her. Thank goodness for her
bonnet, which hid the confusion no doubt written all across her face. When she’d mastered it, she met his gaze.
“You do the same thing I do?” Lie to everyone about being a widow? Live independently wealthy though her employer did
not know? Pine after Lord Andrew? “Run an agency for educators?”
He nodded. “A small one yet, but I plan to grow. As your employer does. I must confess … my interest in the same location
as Lord Andrew is no coincidence. I’ve been studying his business arrangement to copy it. No, to improve upon it.”
“But… how? Why?”
“Your agency sent my family a governess a few years back. For my younger sister. We had a”—his grin returned, more
wolfish than charming this time—“brief flirtation, and I learned much during that time. Namely that my parents were paying her
a pretty sum for her efforts molding my sister, and that only a small bit of that went to the agency who had connected her with
us. I thought… what a shame. That agency stands to collect so much more if they split the profits a bit more evenly. That’s
where your employer has got it all wrong. The men and women he hires are desperate. They’ll work for much less than he
negotiates for them. And they don’t have to know how much he’s making.”
The man was disgusting. Time to be done with him. She marched forward.
He jogged to catch up. “Objections, Mrs. Dart?”
“Many, but I will not bore you with them.”
“Please do. Enlighten me.”
Why not. He appeared to stick to her side like a burr, and perhaps he’d benefit from a lecture.
“First,” she said, holding out a single finger, “you had a flirtation with a woman in your father’s employ. Disgraceful. She
may have felt obligated to give in to you.”
“Not a chance, Mrs. Dart. She liked it.”
Amelia shivered. A cad, he was. “And second”—she held out a second finger to join the first—“it is because our tutors and
governesses are desperate that we never take advantage of them. They trust us.”
“We, Mrs. Dart? Are you and Lord Andrew a we?”
“We are a team.”
“You could be on my team.”
“Certainly not.” She’d like to stomp on his foot, though. That would be terribly nice. Not that it would solve a thing. She
turned on her toe and started back the way she’d come.
He followed, jogged after her. “Think about it, Mrs. Dart. I need someone at my side to get my agency off the ground,
someone with experience. You have that. And with the greater profits I’m making, I’ll be able to pay you more than Lord
Andrew ever could.”
“I have no need for money.”
“You need something else, then? Widows know what it is to miss a man in their beds. Are you lonely, Mrs. Dart? If there is
no we between you and Lord Andrew, perhaps you might consider me.”
She turned to face him, drawing herself up tall. Oh, she itched to plant him a facer. She clutched her fist at her side and kept
it anchored there. “Leave me right this instant. I do not wish to hear from you again. Do you understand?”
He laughed. “I’m teasing you.” She opened her mouth, closed it. He laughed again. “Apologies, Mrs. Dart. It was more than
a tease. A test. I cannot let immoral individuals into my agency. See, that is to be the defining difference between your Lord
Andrew’s firm and my own. I have never worked. He has. I have never kept my unmarried, widowed proprietress under my
roof. He has.”
“I do not care for your insinuations.”
“I know nothing happened. One look at the two of you, and it’s clear as day. He doesn’t see you. I do. And what I’m
offering is more than he ever can.”
She couldn’t help herself. She had to know. “And what is that?”
“Marriage. We will run my agency as husband and wife.” He sighed. “I see I’ve shocked you with too much today. Think on
it. I do not expect an answer now. Here.” He pulled his hand from his greatcoat pocket and handed her a square of paper sealed
with wax.
“A letter?” She raised a brow. “What more can you say that hasn’t already been said, in the worst possible way?”
 “You’re feisty, Mrs. Dart. It’s quite attractive.” He raised a hand toward her face, and she dodged his unwelcome touch.
His hand dropped. “Read my letter. Consider my offer. I look forward to hearing from you.” He grinned, winked, then turned
and walked back toward Hyde Park.
Amelia set her steps toward the art school, the letter clutched tight in her fingers. She wanted to rip it to shreds. The
effrontery! She shoved it in her pocket instead. The letter offered insult but also—she should die of shame on the spot—it felt
terribly nice to be wanted.
It did not take long to reach the school, and she slipped quietly inside. She passed the upstairs room where they’d
interviewed the prospects for Lord Atlas.
Lord Andrew still sat there, occupying the small writing desk she’d sat at earlier, his large frame hunched over the surface,
elbow propped on the table, the elegant lines of his profile resting upon the curled fist of his hand. She wanted to draw that
profile so she did not forget it in the month that would take her away from him. But he would never allow it. He considered art
of any sort a waste of time.
His hair was messier than usual, as if he’d run his fingers through it many times, and he’d removed his jacket, rolled the
sleeves of his black shirt up to his elbows to reveal strong, muscled forearms with a light dusting of dark hair. His gold-framed
glasses rested, useless, next to his elbow. His hands were naked, the gloves sprawled haphazardly across the tabletop. She
rarely saw those hands. Always, always hidden by gloves. They were long and lithe and sinewy—capable of great things.
Beautiful hands. A beautiful man when curved like the vulnerable limb of a tree. No wonder she’d fallen so very hard, so
very deeply.
He growled and dropped his forearm to the table. His head soon followed, his forehead thunking against the surface,
against a soft white slip of paper resting in the very center of the dark, polished surface. Her notes? Or… his list?
She turned from him and heard movement in the music room across the hall. She slowed as she passed because she
recognized both voices.
“No, I am sorry, Mrs. Bronwen.” Atlas spoke deep and low and with true sorrow in each note of his speech.
“Just consider, my lord.” Mrs. Bronwen’s voice almost sang with despair. “Consider that⁠—”
Amelia strode on, no desire to eavesdrop on a woman’s attempt to be heard. She went in search of her bedchamber. Pulling
her arm free of her pelisse, she heard a crinkling—the letter—and pulled it free from her pocket. A month’s holiday from Lord
Andrew would not heal her heart. She’d have to return to him, and he’d be married.
The letter burned in her fingers. Remaining at Hawkscraig offered nothing but death by loneliness; she must return here, to
people, to life. But… there were, it seemed, other options. Though she must return, she did not have to return to Lord Andrew.
 Five

Manchester, a fortnight later

L
ord Andrew hated it—the silence of his house since Mrs. Dart’s departure. She’d been gone but three days, and he
already … missed her?
No. Not that. He didn’t even miss his family. Hadn’t in years. Ever? Well, when he’d first started out, he’d thought the
world a bit too quiet without four brothers and a precocious sister at his side, but that wasn’t missing. He’d certainly not
missed his father.
The clock in the hall ticked too loudly. A horse outside made a fuss. Some servant indoors dropped something. Each sound
magnified louder than usual.
He hadn’t missed his father. Men died. After they ruined lives. It was why Drew did what he did, why the agency existed.
To give a home and some dignity back to those who had lost it through no fault of their own.
He did not miss Mrs. Dart.
He was aggravated with her. For leaving him at such a crucial time. The London houses were still undecided and today,
this very afternoon, he’d be visiting the top candidate on his matrimonial list. Sally Cresswell. A rich mine owner’s daughter
who he … may have met once?
Mrs. Dart would know. But she’d refused to even glance at his list.
He inspected his reflection in the mirror. Did he appear too dour for courtship? He’d conceded his usual all black for a
crisp white cravat and shirt beneath a navy-blue waistcoat. Everything else gray. Like the gown Mrs. Dart had worn as she’d
entered the coach three days ago and left him.
For a whole damn month.
At least he’d sent a footman to protect her. And a young woman, new to the agency and in need of a position, as Mrs. Dart’s
companion. Women did not travel alone, especially not over such distance. Bernard, the footman, liked to box quite a bit. Or
what passed for boxing in the streets. He’d protect her. And Miss Angleton, seemed a chatty thing. She’d keep Mrs. Dart
company. What more excellent companion for a dart than an angle. Both sharp women who would enjoy one another well.
No need to brood. Or miss.
But aggravation was called for, certainly.
He peered into the looking glass, practiced a smile. And almost fell over in terror. So would Miss Cresswell if he looked
at her with wide maniacal lips and every single tooth showing. Had he … forgotten how to smile? Surely not. He tried again,
just the corners of his lips. Better. But a bit—he sighed—dour. No hope for it. He was as he was, and Miss Cresswell would
have to accept him that way. He wouldn’t change just because he’d married. Not like Theo who smiled more. And Zander who
had changed careers. Nor like Raph who couldn’t do a thing without saying something about Matilda and getting a silly grin.
He and Miss Cresswell would enter into a business arrangement, so Drew swept into the hall and down the stairs and up
into the carriage waiting for him outside. An October wind followed him inside and he pulled his greatcoat tighter about him,
but that knocked his hat loose, and it toppled toward the floor. He reached over, retrieved it. Paused.
“What’s that?” A square of paper dotted with a red wax seal peeked out from between the door on the other side of the
coach and the seat. He set his hat beside him and snatched the letter from its hiding spot. The seal—not one he recognized.
Certainly not his own nor that used by the agency. He turned it over. Mrs. Dart’s name curved across the square.
The letter belonged to her. Who had sent it to her, though? He leaned into the squabs as the coach lurched forward.
Crossing one booted ankle over his knee, he tapped the corner of the letter on his thigh. He’d have to have it put in her
bedchamber so she would have it after she returned. Or he could send it to her at Hawkscraig Castle. Did she need the epistle?
The seal, already broken, crumbled away under his none-too-tender ministrations, and a square of paper unfolded.
 Who did she correspond with? His sisters-in-law? Some friend unknown to him? Family similarly unknown.
A lover?
He let the letter drop to the floor, the paper hot as burning coal. It opened even further, making some of the scrawled words
legible. He couldn’t read it. He wouldn’t pry. Her private matters were none of his business. He turned to the window. The
terrace houses where the Cresswells lived rose before him. He could have walked, but he’d wanted to emphasize his position.
He swallowed and watched the house grow larger as they approached.
The paper so very near his boot grew hotter. The leather of his shoe would soon melt clean away.
“Hell.” He couldn’t help it. He ripped his gaze from the window and looked down at the letter, squinted. If he could make
out just one word, his curiosity would be appeased. He leaned forward. “Hell,” he said again as the one word he searched for
became clearer.
Two words, actually. He grabbed the paper and had the entire thing read and crumpled in minutes.
“Marry him? Marry him!” Mr. Tidsdale could rot in hell. Mrs. Dart would never marry that man.
The coach stopped, and the door opened.
“My lord?” the footman said. “Will you alight?”
Of course. He had a plan to set in motion.
But then why would his body not move? Frozen in rage. The temerity of that man!
He held in his hand a letter that threw all he knew to be true in question. Mrs. Dart had left him. She’d received this letter.
Was she even now with Tidsdale? Were they plotting? His hands clawed around the edges of the seat, anchoring him even
more.
“My lord?”
He swung his gaze out the door to see another door beckoning him. Beyond it, the woman he hoped to marry. But courtship
seemed a waste of precious time with this cursed letter burning the world down around him.
“My lord, are you well?”
Why could he not move? Part of him demanded he put his feet on the ground and march into the terrace home and propose a
marriage of convenience to a passingly attractive young woman with mountains of money.
Another part of him tore up the furniture of his mind in a fit of raving rage, demanded he put the coach in motion again and
not let it stop until he reached Hawkscraig.
A terrible idea. It would ruin all his carefully laid plans.
But what did Mrs. Dart plan to do? Tidsdale offered, in his words, “a position in a new agency with better pay or marriage
or both, whichever the lady prefers.”
Ah, there existed another option—hie off to London and rip Tidsdale’s head from his neck. He attempted to poach Drew’s
employee. The scoundrel. Mrs. Dart was much too intelligent to fall for the man’s machinations.
She was.
Wasn’t she?
She had … left. Three days ago, she’d left after five years of never once leaving his side, and without a word to him. Was
it because she’d had a Tidsdale-shaped secret? Was it because she knew this was only her first leaving, and the next would be
permanent?
“My lord.” The footman’s voice high with agitation. Naturally.
But agitation crept up Drew’s limbs too. “Shh! I’m thinking.”
The door closed and Drew pressed his fingers to his temples, closing his eyes. The world around him swam, worse,
shifted. He stood on sand. He hated sand. A slight breeze could send it skating into the air. No control. Impossible to control.
He took steadying breaths. He must make a decision. No… no decision. He already possessed a plan. Marry a rich woman and
continue his expansion. Yes, he should open the door and step into his future, as he’d planned.
But what were those plans without Mrs. Dart, the face of his agency, the playactor he needed to keep his clientele and
expand it? If there was no Mrs. Dart… was there any expansion? Not at least until he trained another woman in her work. All
his plans, put on hold. And he had no idea what her reaction to this letter was. She’d not even told him, jokingly during the
tedious coach ride back to Manchester, that Tidsdale had written to her. She’d kept it a secret. Mrs. Dart kept secrets from him,
and she wore pink to weddings, and he could no longer count on himself to understand her next, her every move.
He had to know. He could not wait a month. It would be pure torture.
Hell.
He threw open the door, and the footman, leaning against the coach and whistling, straightened, and looked at him
expectantly.
“Back to the townhouse,” Drew said. “Then to Scotland.”
 Six

I
t was raining. Again. And Amelia had walked every inch of the house twice since morning, unable to clear her head of
Miss Angleton’s prattling. The girl was a mere twenty years old, over a decade Amelia’s junior. They shared little by way
of interests. Though she had sat still for Amelia to take her silhouette the night before. A pretty one it was, too. She’d given
it to the young woman. Who’d squealed and bounced up and down, clutching it to her chest.
She’d bounced this morning too, somewhere between the topics of pantaloons and custard, and Amelia had feigned a
headache and retired to her favorite private parlor to brood—alone—before a roaring fire.
Not even noon yet and already bored. She slumped lower into her chair. A newer one she’d bought and had shipped from
London. Blue velvet. Lots of stuffing. She clutched her spring-green shawl more tightly around her shoulders. Home only four
days and already restless. When she could escape from Miss Angleton, she’d made list after list, attempting to figure out what
would become of her once she returned to Manchester. Or London. To Lord Andrew. Or Mr. Tidsdale. He’d extended her two
—no, three—different options. Work for him as she had for Lord Andrew, marry him, or both.
If she took him up on any of the options, it would be the first. But even that … she shivered as if ants marched across her
skin. If Tidsdale truly had been testing her on their walk, he’d been a bit of an arse about it. She did not trust him.
But she had options outside of the two men. She could travel again. She’d enjoyed that, but she’d enjoyed more returning
home. But home remained this—silent and still as the grave. No neighbors for miles. She remembered now, acutely, why
governess had seemed a better option. She’d certainly not needed the funds. She’d merely needed the company, the pleasure of
people.
One thing had become clear as the rain fogging the castle’s glass—she could not continue working for Lord Andrew, not
unless she fell out of love quick.
She picked up the list she’d been working on and read it, the fire crackling a fitting accompaniment for her voice. “Reasons
Not to Love Lord Andrew. Number one—he’s high-handed and always tells me what to do as if I know no better.” She sighed.
“But he is my employer, so he has a right to have things done exactly as he likes.” She shook her head. No justifications for the
man. “Number two—he’s cold as ice.” Except for when he tried to convince his brother to hire a worried mother so her son
could have fresh air. And when he ensured the tutors and governesses who were employed through his agency received more
than a fair percentage of their wages. No! Distracted once more. She must press on. “Number three—he’s a blind fool.” That
she could not argue with. “And number four—he’s not likely to fall in love. Ever.”
She let that echo about the room and sink into her soul. Lord Andrew possessed no passions. Particularly not for her.
A knock on the front door startled her, and the paper fluttered to the floor.
Another knock brought her to her feet.
Pounding, ferocious and unrelenting, furrowed a groove between her brows and sent her striding for the door.
“Carlisle!” she called. “The door! There’s someone at the door.” But the butler, approaching eighty years of age, couldn’t
hear a trumpet sounding next to his ear let alone someone screaming his name from across the castle. She’d need to hire a
replacement for him to train. It would give him something to do when she left once more. “Mrs. Scott?” The housekeeper was
busy as well?
No use straining her voice. Amelia would answer the door herself. Doors. They were huge and wooden and hinged with
black iron. They were true castle doors, intent on protecting her loneliness by barring the world from her as they’d well-
protected the inhabitants from invasion in the past. It took all her weight and strength to push them open.
Once agape, they revealed the huffing, dripping form of Lord Andrew on her doorstep. His wet hair clung to his face, and
rain sluiced down his cheeks and nose. His blue eyes were wild, and his clothes—where had his jacket and cravat gone?—
were plastered to his form. Entirely soaked from head to boot.
And here.
 She closed her eyes and shook her head. He couldn’t be here. But when she opened her eyes again, there he was, prowling
toward her, dripping on the stone floor of the entry hall, caging her against the wall that was, suddenly, cold and rising behind
her.
She yelped as her back hit it, knocking the breath from her lungs. Or was that him who’d stolen her breath, who’d set her
pulse racing.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” she managed to say.
He’d pressed so close to her, she saw only the fierce gleam in his eye, felt only the heat and strength of his body. He had
her pinned, though his arms did not brace against the wall on either side of her. His jaw worked hard, and his gaze did not
seem to know where to focus—her eyes, her hair… her lips.
“Lord Andrew.” She swallowed hard. “Why are you here?”
“Are you marrying him?” Words ripped from a sandpaper throat.
“Marrying… whom?”
His body went from hard and sharp to slack in an instant, and his arms came up to rest on the wall on either side of her
shoulders. With heavy breaths, he dropped his forehead to the top of her head. Not touching. Hovering.
Why had he come here, shaped like every dream she’d ever had? Why had he asked the question with such emotion in his
voice? Why did he almost hold her now though he did not speak a word? Questions mattered only to her mind, but her body
reveled in the reality—he was here. The reason did not matter. And he was touching her—almost touching her—as he never
had before, looking at her as if… as if she meant something to him.
Her stomach fluttered, and her fingers itched to touch, to verify the reality of his presence. The rain drops from his hair
dripped onto her bare shoulders and curved round her breasts, slipped beneath her shift, erotic little trails that left sparks of
desire in their wake. If only his fingers would follow their path.
Where had her shawl gone? No matter.
He was here and touching her—almost touching her—as she’d always dreamed.
He inhaled deeply several times and then rolled toward the wall. His back hit the stone with a sodden slap, and he dropped
down until he sat on the cold floor, spearing his fingers through his hair and hiding his face.
She knelt before him. “Lord Andrew.”
He did not look up, his head hung between bent knees.
“Lord Andrew, what has happened? Something must have happened to⁠—”
His hands surged up, spearing through her hair, pulling her down where his upturned lips waited to taste her. It began as a
clash. A kiss that tasted of panic and despair. Then it melted into something softer, sweeter. With his fingers strong against her
skull, but gentle too, he tasted first one lip and then the other and sighed as if he’d found home. She knew not what to do except
to let him continue as he pleased. It pleased her, too, and though not her first kiss, it was the first to set her afire. But before she
could trace the curve of his cheek with her fingers, he broke away, pushed to his feet, and strode toward the still-open front
door.
“Hell. Hell. Hell,” he hissed. “I apologize. I am so very sorry. I should not have. Why did I…? Hell!”
Why had he indeed. Yes. Of course he apologized. Of course he would. She passed him and put her entire body into the
work of shutting the door, relished the creak of old hinges that drowned out his incessant apology. When the door slammed shut,
she turned toward the stairs.
“Follow me, Lord Andrew. Whyever you are here, you should get dry and warm. Do you have belongings?”
He did not answer, and halfway up the first flight, she turned to look down at him. He stared at her pale faced and wide
eyed, arms slack at his sides. He blinked several times. “My … my belongings are in the coach. But it is down the road some
ways. A wheel broke.”
“Ah. Yes. The roads are nearly impassable when the rain is heavy. Come along, then. We’ll find you something. I should
send Bernard out to retrieve your belongings, but he’s quite busy and does not relish interruptions. I hope you do not mind.”
“N-no. N-not at all.”
Did a chill shake his voice? Or something else? One of those emotions that had so recently raged across his face, flashed
through his usually icy eyes? If so, it had disappeared, had drained away so only ice remained.
When they reached the wing of the castle that had been opened for use, Amelia stood, hands folded before her, at the
hallway’s end. She’d written ahead of time and requested three bedchambers made ready, for her, Miss Angleton, and Bernard.
But now they needed a fourth. And it did take Carlisle and Mrs. Scott an age to do the necessary work.
“Hm. Bernard is in the servants’ quarters, and you should not make use of Miss Angleton’s chamber. You must make use of
mine until we can prepare another. Come along.” She led him into her room but did not leave the safety of the door as he
passed through to the fire blazing in the grate. “I’ll rummage around for something you can wear. Bernard, perhaps, can be of
assistance. When you’ve disrobed, you can set your wet things outside the door, and I’ll have them cleaned and dried for you.”
He nodded, turning in circles, his gaze darting over every inch of the room.
“I’ll return shortly.” She left, closing the door softly behind her, and promptly melted to the floorboards. She covered her
face with her palms and heaved a sob that seemed a cry from her very heart. Just one. Tears welled but did not fall. Then she
took a bracing breath and pushed to standing, locked every emotion away behind doors as fearsome as those Lord Andrew had
entered through mere moments ago. Before the kiss. Then she smoothed her skirts and went in search of Bernard.
She found Miss Angleton first and muffled her scream with her palm. “What in heaven’s name are you doing, Miss
Angleton? Get down from there!”
The earl’s daughter turned governess turned temporary companion stood on the second floor of the library, or rather, on top
of the railing of the second floor of the library. It was a stout wood stuff, and she seemed to have excellent balance. Only
wavered a bit with Amelia’s yelp. But still.
Miss Angleton did not get down. She walked the length of the railing, turned slowly on the balls of her bare feet then
walked it back again with a grin. “I was bored. I’m not anymore. Would you like a book?”
“I would like you not to fall and break your neck. Down. This instant.”
Miss Angleton huffed but obeyed, and Amelia could breathe once more.
“Now,” Amelia said, “Do you know where Bernard is? We have an unexpected guest who lost to an encounter with the
rain. Soaked through like a drowned cat. He needs clothes.” She could not bring herself to say his name. Perhaps because the
man who had stormed through her door and kissed her soundly did not seem like the man she would have to name.
“Bernard isn’t with the other servants?”
“I checked there first.”
“Maybe the stables. He has a mind to set those right as well.”
Amelia craned her neck to see out a nearby window. Still raining. And harder than before. “He would.” Upon leaving, Lord
Andrew had told the footman to “take care of Mrs. Dart and bring her back to Manchester safely, or else.” Vague, that or else,
but effective, apparently. Bernard now seemed intent on perfecting everything within Amelia’s orbit, including her staff. All
part, he believed, of avoiding or else. “I do not relish the idea of trekking to the stables, but needs must.”
“Mrs. Dart, who is our visitor?” Miss Angleton eyed the railing above her head. She’d be up there again as soon as Amelia
turned her back and closed the door.
She felt a headache coming on, and in no small part because his name sat necessary on her tongue. She would have to speak
it—and in different tones than she’d said it in the entry hall, with worry and panic, with more than a touch of dreaminess.
He was here. And it had something to do with…
Marriage.
Oh, heavens, no. She had the letter, didn’t she? She raced back toward her bedchamber. She must search her trunk, her
cloak, her pelisse pockets, and every drawer for Tidsdale’s cursed letter. But the pile of soaked clothing in the hallway outside
her bedchamber door stopped her dead. She could not go in there. A naked man was in there. The naked man. She backed away
slowly, then fled down the stairs and out into the rain. She, too, was soaked by the time she reached the stables.
But she’d found Bernard, a young but large fellow with a thick mane of yellow hair slicked back away from his forehead,
stomping in a regimental way before the stable master and his hands, who were lined up like ducklings or scolded school
children, though none of them younger than fifty years of age.
Mr. Scott, Mrs. Scott’s brother and Hawkscraig Castle’s stable master, saw her coming and broke rank, rushed toward her.
“Miss! Take this pup back to England. We’ll not have him here issuing order like he’s laird of the castle!”
“No one will have here if you don’t improve your practices.”
“He suggests our ways are outdated,” Mr. Scott cried, jutting a thumb over his shoulder at the footman with larger
aspirations.
“Because they are!” the footman yelled back. Twenty-four hours after they’d arrived, Bernard had forgotten he was a
footman and begun his efforts to improve everything from the castle’s cleaning policies and schedules to stable organization.
The new policies he tried to implement were direct copies of those used at the agency houses in Manchester.
“What does he know about the stables, miss?” Mr. Scott asked. “He’s a footman.”
An excellent question, but not one Amelia had time to answer. “Bernard,” she barked. “Mr. Scott is a wealth of equine
information, and I trust him implicitly. I need you in the castle now.”
“He’s got bad knees!” Bernard moaned.
“What’s that gotta do with it, you tassel-shouldered⁠—”
“There are no tassels in my livery.” Bernard shoved a finger in Mr. Scott’s direction. “Lord Andrew is much too
fashionable to⁠—”
“Lord Andrew is here!” Amelia threw her arms in the air as if throwing up her last and final attempt to gain their full
attention.
And it worked.
Bernard blinked. “Lord Andrew? Here? But why?”
“I’ve no clue.” She had some clue. “But his coach has a broken wheel down the road, and he walked the rest of the way in
the rain. He needs dry things. Can he borrow some of yours?”
 “Mine?” Bernard squeaked. “No! Lord Andrew cannot wear a footman’s clothing. I’ll retrieve his belongings right away.”
“It’s pouring, Bernard, and he needs clothes now.” She put steel in her voice.
Bernard nodded and abandoned his self-appointed mission of improvement. The stable hands breathed easier once he
disappeared.
“Who’s Lord Andrew, then, lass?” Mr. Scott asked.
“My employer. When the rain stops, please see to the coach.”
Mr. Scott sauntered closer to her, picked something from his teeth with his fingernail, and narrowed his eyes. “You’ve no
need of employment.”
“I do. Just not for the usual reasons.” Then she darted back into the rain and returned to the castle. The front door slammed
closed behind her. The sound echoed in the hall. Echoed through her.
Now what? Now she was soaked, too, and her room was occupied and something inside her seemed about to break, but she
held it in, glued the cracks together, and climbed the stairs. Bernard must have taken away the wet clothes. There remained only
a slightly darker stain of wood before her bedchamber door. Had Bernard left new ones with Lord Andrew?
Standing in the middle of the dampened floorboards, she knocked.
“Come in.” His voice sounded deep and rich and once more in control. And in her bedchamber.
She shivered and entered. He stood before a blazing fire, dressed in only a pair of footman’s breeches and his shirtsleeves.
The fire limned his body in molten gold, a brilliant silhouette outlining planes of moving shadow.
He’d kissed her.
He turned. “Mrs. Dart.” Halting steps toward her revealed the details of his face and stubbled jaw, hair slicked back and
eyes—where were his glasses? Usually, the glass obscured his expression, turned his blue eyes unreadable. But now the blue
wavered with emotion. His eyes were bright with concern. “You’re trembling. And soaked to the bone.” He stopped at her
side, no more halting or hesitation, and drew her to the fire. “You’re no better off than I was when I arrived.”
Her teeth chattered. She hadn’t been so cold before, had she? Chills wracked her now, and she shivered so much her teeth
chattered. Because he was here. And he’d kissed her.
“Sit.” He pushed her toward a chair then pulled her up again. “No. Hell. You’ll make a mess of the chair. Don’t sit.
Disrobe first.” Before she could take her next breath, his fingers were on her back, and the tapes of her gown untied.
She clutched the garment to her body with a little cry of protest.
“No modesty, Mrs. Dart. You must get warm. I assure you I have calmed down and am in my right mind now. I will not
accost you again.”
Oh. The tears would come now, then? To compare their kiss to… to madness? She brushed the evidence of her sorrow
away before he could see, and soon her stays fell to the floor, and with it her numb, mute obedience.
“No more.” She wrapped her arms around her chest and retreated from his seeking fingers. She pointed to the door. “You
leave. I can care for myself.”
“No.” He spoke with such calm. Infuriating man.
“You can’t say no. This is my chamber. My clothes. M-my body.”
“I came all the way here through hellish weather for answers, Mrs. Dart, and you will not leave my sight until I have them.”
“Ask them and go.”
“Are you marrying Mr. Tidsdale?”
She laughed. “No.”
“Are you leaving my employ to work at his new agency?”
She opened her mouth to say no but found she could not truthfully do so.
“Deny it now, Mrs. Dart.”
“I will not. I cannot. I have not yet arrived at a decision.”
He lurched backward, and his legs hit the bed behind him. He fell onto it and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his
thighs, then hung his head between his hands as he had in the entry hall earlier.
“Were you going to tell me?” A quiet question.
“Yes. If I accepted his offer. How did you find out?”
His head popped up, and there was more fire in his eyes than in the grate. “You should have told me. I found the letter.”
No use searching trunks and pockets. She’d found it. He’d found it.
“I should not have been so careless with it.”
He grunted. “You should not have been so careless with me.”
“You?” She risked a step toward him. Her hair, loose tendrils streaming wet down her back, made a mockery of her shift, a
garment too thin for the coming winter weather. “Are you a man who needs gentle caring?”
The bed squeaked as he stood. “I’ll leave you to change. I’ve gotten what I came for. I’ll return to Manchester as soon as
possible.”
She let him leave, clinging to the wet shift as she clung to her sanity, dropping into the chair he’d steered her away from.
Somehow her hand made it to her mouth, covering the slightly parted lips, the barely-there breathing. What had just happened?
She’d been sitting in her parlor, bored, irritated, pining as always for a man she couldn’t have. And then that man had burst into
her home, wild-eyed as she’d never seen him and … and he’d kissed her. She gently traced her mouth with her fingers, still
feeling the ghost of his lips against her own.
She knew why he’d come. She knew why he’d momentarily lost control. But why had he kissed her? To claim her in some
brutish way? To mark her as his and not Tidsdale’s? To convince her to stay with him instead?
No. It had not been calculated. He’d apologized for it. Pure madness, unintentional impulse. The sort of fancy Lord Andrew
never indulged in.
She clutched the events of the day to her chest and tried to breathe through the confusion. Fear. Elation. Shock. Desire.
He’d kissed her.
And she cried, shoulders heaving as her tears weighed down her soaked shift even more.
Something else to add to her list of reasons not to love Lord Andrew Bromley. He kissed a lady like she was the air
necessary for life. Then apologized for it.
What a way to shatter her heart.
 Seven

D
rew stood before the closed bedchamber door, his hands fisted at his sides. She cried in there. He heard her sobs.
Because of him?
Because he’d kissed her?
He shouldn’t have. No idea why he’d done it. Except he’d spent the entire journey enraged. And terrified. And there she’d
been—the goal at journey’s end. And wearing pink. And looking terribly confused when he asked about marriage. Her
confusion had done it (and the pink, if he were being honest), sent him entirely over the edge. His body had flooded with such
relief, and he’d done the only thing that had seemed right. Celebrate. She did not intend to marry Tidsdale.
She might well be leaving him and the agency, though. She’d refused to deny the possibility. Which made him want to lose
control again, kiss her until she submitted to him, until the thought of leaving him seemed impossible.
Absolutely not.
The kiss had been a mistake. She worked for him. She remained indispensable, and the kiss—as well as any future kisses
—could ruin everything.
But if she left his employ for another position, he could kiss her at leisure.
And just what the hell kind of thought was that? He growled and strode down the hall. He needed something to occupy his
mind, to kill off rogue thoughts such as those. In the beginning, when he’d first started his agency, work had been his only means
of controlling unwanted thoughts and emotions, fears and desires. But he’d long since had the knack of it without exhaustion
playing a central role.
Not now. His control shot to hell now. He’d worn every emotion precariously close to his skin since he’d found that letter.
No. It went back further. Since the pink.
“Lord Andrew!” Bernard bounced up the stairs toward him, a bundle of cloth neatly folded in his arms. “The clothes aren’t
too foul a fit, I see.”
“Indeed not. My thanks for the loan of them.”
“Naturally, my lord. We’ll have your clothes to you soon as can be, and you won’t have to go about as a footman much
longer. Until then, I’ve brought you these.” He held out the folded bundle. “I pulled them out of my trunk. My best suit of
clothes. Glad I brought them. Usually, I reserve them for special occasions. Don’t know why I thought I’d need them here. But I
prefer being ready for any eventuality.”
“Very good.”
“And you can wear them now. Mrs. Dart plans to have dinner in half an hour, at the same hour as usual, and you can’t show
up like that.”
“I won’t show up at all, Bernard.” The footman’s shoulders slumped. “I must leave as soon as can be. I’ve no time for
pleasantries. Is there a readied chamber I can make use of until then?”
“Another reason why I’ve come for you, my lord. Follow me.” Bernard bobbed his head toward a door to his right. “This
is the only wing open at the moment. The castle is too big to open it all up for such a small party. So you’ll be in the same
hallway as Mrs. Dart and Miss Angleton. I’ve made the room ready well enough. Did you bring your valet?”
“No. Why didn’t a maid ready the room?” Was Mrs. Dart in an unfortunate financial situation?
“There are three maids here, and they split their time between the kitchen and the cleaning. They are busy.” Bernard’s voice
sounded pinched. “It’s a horrid system. They need more staff. But they don’t take instruction and enlightenment well up here.”
He sighed. “I’ve been trying to talk sense into them.” Bernard opened the door and ushered Drew inside. “You told me to keep
Mrs. Dart safe, and I’m trying to, but they don’t make it easy.” A heavy sigh.
The room proved smaller than Mrs. Dart’s chamber, barren and stark instead of cozy, but a fire roared in the grate.
“Where is everyone else? Mrs. Dart’s family?”
 “There is no one else, my lord. Mrs. Scott, the housekeeper, says Mrs. Dart’s grandfather died two years before Mrs. Dart
relocated to Manchester. There was no other family.”
He reached for his lapels to straighten them along with this new information. Found them missing. He cleared his throat
instead. “Mrs. Dart owns this castle?”
Bernard nodded. “And the surrounding lands. Her grandfather was a viscount of some sort, but this place wasn’t entailed.
Went entirely to Mrs. Dart.”
“You’re a wealth of information, Bernard. Thank you.”
The footman bowed. “Glad to be of help where it’s wanted.” He sniffed. “I’ll leave you to settle in and will bring up your
trunk as soon as it arrives.”
“Very good.” A dismissal, yet still Bernard hovered. “What is it? Mrs. Dart?”
“No. It’s only … While you are here, if you find yourself in need of a valet, I have studied the art, and would be honored to
serve you.”
“Ah. I did not know you were so well educated.”
“In everything, my lord. I’ve aspirations, you see, of rising to butler one day.”
“My butler?”
“If you’re lucky.” Bernard grinned. “And I intend to understand every cog of the moving household.”
“Including valet.” Another grin as he laid the bundle of clothing on the end of the bed. “Very well. If I have need of you, I’ll
let you know.”
“Excellent.” Bernard snapped his heels together and bowed low before leaving the room.
Drew turned to the window. A wide lawn spread out as far as he could see, giving way near the horizon to tall grass,
brown, bending in the wind. The rain was nothing but a light drizzle now, and he threw the window open, inhaled deeply.
What was he doing here? It had all seemed so simple, so right, when he’d set off from Manchester—head north, find
answers.
Only he hadn’t found the answers he wanted. The frigid wind whipped inside and curled round him like a frozen shawl.
He slammed the window closed. His stomach growled. And somewhere in the house, a clock chimed. He couldn’t stay
holed up in this room until the weather permitted him to leave. He’d leave tomorrow. Take a horse and have his trunk sent after
him later. Put as many miles between him and Mrs. Dart as possible.
But he was famished. He’d eaten little on the journey, preferring to make haste. Perhaps that’s why he’d kissed her. He’d
been half wild with hunger.
His stomach grumbled again.
He shouldn’t accept her dinner invitation. He should remain in this room and request a tray sent up. Leave early in the
morning on horseback, and⁠—
What a cowardly waste of time that would be. Mrs. Dart had not yet decided whether to take the position offered to her by
Tidsdale. Drew must use his time wisely and do what he could this evening to convince her to reject his proposition.
He dressed quickly but carefully. The footman’s best didn’t fit him quite as well as he’d have liked. Too big in most places,
but better than too small. Too small could not be controlled half so well as too big. Too big could be folded and tucked and
hidden, but too small … that controlled you, constricted movement, and revealed too much skin. He was a far cry, though, from
the courting beau who had viewed himself in the Manchester looking glass, who’d been on his way to wooing a woman he
could barely remember meeting, a woman who would easily facilitate his expansion plans.
All hope was not lost. He could salvage it.
Drew smoothed his hair away from his forehead and found his way downstairs precisely half an hour later. His bare fingers
twitched as he followed the sounds of cutlery on china. Gloves ruined by the rain, he had nothing to hide his hands. Outside the
dining room door, he held them up and turned them over. Palms and knuckles. His father used to say a man’s hands revealed his
worth. He’d meant whether or not the skin there held paint or the nicked markings of an artisan.
Artists had held value for his father. No one else quite lived up.
Drew shook out his hands, flicking the tingle of emotions running up his bones away and straightening his cravat. Then he
entered the dining room. The chatter stopped, and all heads turned his way.
Mrs. Dart stood, her chair screeching across the floor behind her. “Lord Andrew. You’ve decided to join us. Please do sit.”
He sat at the opposite end of the short table from her. Between them sat the young lady he’d sent with Mrs. Dart.
Miss Angleton stared at him as if he wore a woman’s bonnet. “Mrs. Dart had said you’d come. Why?”
He didn’t remember her being so direct.
Bernard appeared behind him and filled a glass with ruby-red wine.
Drew took a sip before answering. “I had questions only Mrs. Dart could provide answers to.”
Miss Angleton’s face fell. “Oh. Nothing more?”
“No.”
“Nothing more salacious, perhaps?”
 “No!” he and Mrs. Dart said simultaneously.
Miss Angleton sighed. “Pity. We all have a bet going, you know.”
“I do not know,” Mrs. Dart said, indignation slinging her voice across the table.
“What kind of bet, Miss Angleton?” Drew kept his voice calm, but surely, she knew the question was not a request. “And
who is we?”
Miss Angleton swirled the wine in her glass. “The other governesses and companions at the agency. We’ve bet on whether
or not you and Mrs. Dart are”—she grinned—“acquainted. Biblically. When you arrived today, I thought I’d be coming into a
small windfall.” She sighed. “But if you’re here for answers, I suppose Laura is the winner.”
“And what does Laura say?” Drew asked.
“I don’t want to know.” Mrs. Dart stabbed her fork into something on her plate.
“Laura says that neither of you has the least idea of how to become acquainted. With anyone.”
Mrs. Dart snapped her fork to the table. “The next time you hear Laura or anyone discussing things they should not, you will
report them to me.”
The young woman opened her mouth.
“Miss Angleton,” Drew said. Both women turned toward him. “Gossip is inevitable. But I hope you know well that it is
inappropriate in most situations. Including this one. I hope you will comport yourself with more reticence when you are
installed with a family.”
Miss Angleton blinked. “Of course I will.”
Drew waited for more. Looked to Mrs. Dart, who seemed also to be waiting. But Miss Angleton ate her food and sipped
her wine and seemed, for all the world, happy as could be. Silent too, except for the occasional hum of delight after a sip or
bite.
Mrs. Dart cast Drew a furtive look before returning to her dinner, and he watched her for several lengthy moments. She ate
with precise little movements, tackling first one dish and then another. The meal was not served in courses but all at once, in an
informal style that had often been used at Briarcliff with his family. She never looked at him, but he felt as if she were aware of
him the entire time, her neck bent low over her plate, hiding her expression.
She wore a deep red tonight, a berry red, brighter and more cheerful than the wine glinting heavy in his glass.
“Why aren’t you wearing gray, Mrs. Dart?”
“Because I do not have to, Lord Andrew.” She looked up, her eyes wide as if she’d not meant to reply as she had.
Miss Angleton chuckled.
“I mean…” She swallowed hard. “I am not working here at Hawkscraig Castle, so I do not have to dress with attention to
anything but my own desires.”
“And you desire red?”
She nodded.
“And pink?”
Another nod.
“La, but you two will put me to sleep.” Miss Angleton stood and snatched a bottle of wine from the sideboard behind
Bernard, who scowled. “I’m going to the gardens. The gardener, Tom, is a closing in on sixty, but he’s still quite strapping.
Wonder if I can catch a glimpse of him.”
“Put that down, miss,” Bernard demanded, grabbing for the bottle.
The companion lunged out of the way and shoved her elbow at his nose.
He ducked. She ran.
“Miss Angleton!” Mrs. Dart cried, jumping to her feet. “Return at once. You are not to ogle Tom!”
But Miss Angleton was gone.
Bernard ran after her. “That’s not your wine!”
Then they were alone.
Mrs. Dart sank back into her chair and took a healthy swig from her glass.
Drew counted his breaths. A circus. He’d entered into a circus.
“This, my lord, is your mess.” Mrs. Dart scowled at him, her hands clenching a serviette near her soup bowl. “You sent
them here with me. Insisted they come. For my benefit. I had anticipated a quiet, relaxing holiday, and now I’ve got a
companion waltzing about the rafters and a footman attempting to turn my household upside down.”
“I thought you’d rub along well together. A dart and an angle.”
“Dart and angle? You presumed we’d match due to our names?” She snorted, took another gulp of wine. “Each moment I
learn more how little you know of women. We are not our names, sir.”
He rolled his shoulders, accepting her excellent point as a direct hit. “Be that as it may, you cannot blame me for their
actions, Mrs. Dart.”
“No. But they would not be here but for you.”
 “You cannot traipse about the country alone.” He grunted. “Damn fool notion, that.”
“You cannot control my every move.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you?” She threw her hands up, then threw the rest of the wine down her throat. She swallowed hard before returning
her attention to her food. The precise movements from before were heated now, messy.
He grimaced. “Slow down, Mrs. Dart, you’ll choke.”
“You wish to control how I eat now, too. And shall I don a gown of gray for you?”
“Will you? It would put me at ease.”
“No.”
He scratched the back of his neck. What ailed her? The kiss? “Should I apologize again?” he asked. “For the k⁠—”
“No.”
“Should I leave the dinner table?”
“No.”
He was getting nowhere. Wrong. He drifted farther and farther away from where he wanted to be—the victor. He needed
her to choose him over Tidsdale, and each cold, hard no she tossed at him made that feel like less and less of a possibility.
“I think I should then, perhaps, explain to you all the reasons you should remain in my employ, Mrs. Dart.”
Her head popped up, and her cutlery clattered to the plate. She studied him for a breath, then leaned back in her chair,
folded her hands neatly in her lap. “This I am interested in. Go ahead, then, my lord. Why should I remain in your employ?”
Setting his wineglass down, he laid his hands flat on the table. A fine tablecloth, the color of champagne. Muted,
respectable. But if a single drop of wine spilled there—a tragedy. He must tread carefully. “We work well together,” he said.
“You mean I work well for you.”
“Our clients, those who need educators, and those who are educators, respect you.”
“They will do so wherever I am at.”
“My family name and reputation guarantee a certain pedigree of clientele. Tidsdale does not have that.”
“Pedigree does not guarantee good behavior.”
“No. But I do.” Anger rose in his gut, and he fought hard to breathe it down. “You know I do not tolerate mistreatment of
our gentlemen and ladies. You know that.”
Her lashes fluttered, and the hard line of her lips softened as her gaze drifted to her hands. Her shoulders rose and fell with
a breath, then she lifted her gaze once more. “Yes, I know that.”
“Can you say the same of Tidsdale?”
She bit her lip, looked away. “I do not know.”
A point for Drew. Finally. What else could he promise her? What other reasons could he give? “You enjoy my family.”
She smiled. “I do.”
“And you enjoy Manchester.”
“It is a bustling city.”
“And… you can wear pink if you wish.” His fingers curled into his palms. This time he broke and looked away from her,
from her cheeks reddened by her berry gown. His cravat, the only article of clothing he’d been able to get just right, squeezed
his neck like a noose.
When she did not respond right away, he began to count the seconds, unable to meet her gaze. One, two, three. All the way
up to twelve before⁠—
“And your list? Of matrimonial candidates?”
He raised his eyes to look at her. She seemed paler than before.
“What of it?” he asked.
“Will you make me look at it, advise you on it? Will I attend your wedding and sit with your wife in the drawing room?”
What did any of that have to do with this, with them? “I suppose if it distresses you so much you hie off to Scotland, then
no.”
Her tongue shot out and licked her lips and her eyes closed, and a look he’d never seen on her face before passed across it
like a summer storm. Then she opened her eyes, and her gaze found his, pinned him. “Lord Andrew,” she said, “I have a
proposition for you. Will you hear it?”
A proposition? He’d done it, then. He’d laid out his reasons for her to stay, and she’d seen that the prudent path to take was
the one that kept her by his side.
Now, negotiations. She’d propose a means of moving forward, set her demands on the table between them, and by the time
he finished this excellent glass of wine, he’d concede where necessary and refuse when allowed.
And he’d have her back.
He nodded, and Mrs. Dart told him exactly what she wanted.
“Stay with me.”
 Eight

T
hree little words had taken so much effort to speak aloud, and Amelia found herself exhausted. Still, she pushed on
because the tilt of Lord Andrew’s head suggested he did not know what to make of her statement.
“Stay here with me,” she repeated, “for the next three weeks, and after that time, I will make a decision.” Amelia put
all the words together as fast as she could, barely breathing or pausing between them. A terrible request, a foolish plan, but
she’d known when he’d said she could wear pink… Something had changed. No idea what or why or when. But she could not
run from him until she understood. And in Manchester, they would fall into familiar routines, the unknown blooming between
them forgotten.
If she wanted him unsteady, she had to keep him here. In ill-fitting clothes and unfamiliar environments, without work to
occupy his every waking moment. Until she knew for sure that the happiness she’d seen in three women on a wedding day
weeks ago could not be hers, too. They’d said to tell Lord Andrew how she felt. She knew him too well to think that a
possibility.
The man would run. Shut her out entirely.
This was better. This was her only chance. If he stayed to convince her not to leave his employ, perhaps she could convince
him she possessed more than a brain and a perfectly organized agenda. She must show him, persuade him that shifting sands
were not so horrid after all. He’d kissed her, hadn’t he? And with such passion she felt his breath on her lips even now, a
sacred memory. He had traveled on fear and impulse and found her, kissed her. She’d take it as a sign. He’d acted on what he
wanted when words had been impossible.
She hoped.
Despite the almost instantaneous apology, he was not so cold to her as she’d always believed. She hoped. He could be
warmed, and she was the woman to warm him. More hope, and hopefully not fruitless.
So even though she knew she must throw the challenge between them, goad him to stay, she could not keep the fear away,
could not keep it from tumbling her words into one another. When he did not answer, merely stared at her with his lips slightly
parted, that fear grew. But she pulled herself up tall and spoke without a quaver.
“Well, Lord Andrew, what is your answer?”
His fingers, wrapped around the stem of his wineglass, twisted and rolled, casting diamonds in the candlelight. “I have
much to do in Manchester, and this little trip has put me behind schedule.” His gaze on her was hard.
But she did not look away. “By all means, return, then.”
His fingers tightened, white knuckles shining through skin. Then he lifted the glass, finished the wine, and snapped it back
to the table. “I have made excellent points. They are all I have to convince you to remain in my employ. Three weeks will do
nothing to add to my arguments.”
“Perhaps not. But staying will show me you care.”
“Care?” He huffed, looked away. “I am your employer. Other than ensuring you work under fair and safe conditions, what
cares need I have for you?” His jaw twitched.
“I suppose… none.” Hope could be killed so swiftly.
“How long have you been in possession of this castle?”
An abrupt change of topic but why not allow it. He’d clearly made up his mind. He would not be staying. Perhaps things
were done between them after all. She pushed her plate away, no longer hungry. “It belonged to my grandfather. But was not
entailed. I’ve lived here since returning to England as a child. And he willed it to me when he died seven years ago.”
“It’s been well cared for. Particularly for a house so far from civilization.”
“My grandfather believed in improvements. And he had the money to do them.”
He finally looked at her again. “And you have the money to continue them?”
 She nodded. Why did she feel like wiggling, like evading his gaze? She’d never hidden her wealth from him, but she’d also
never made it a topic of conversation. “The pay you give me… I put it into Manchester charities. I’ve no need of it.”
“Then why work?”
His question felt like salt in a wound. Interrogate her, would he? No. She stood, swept toward the door as a wave of
loneliness swept over her. “My reasons are neither here nor there. I’m retiring to the drawing room for a scotch. You may join
me if you are so disposed.”
He did, trailing behind her from one room to another and accepting the glass of amber liquid when she put it into his hand.
No idle chitchat. Merely efficient relocation of their bodies.
He tapped the tumbler, fingernail clinking against glass.
“No gloves?” she asked, incapable of not commenting when his bare hand brushed against her own. She rarely saw him
without them. Even when eating, he kept them close, tucked neatly into a pocket, always donning them sooner than anyone else.
They were lovely hands, though. She’d noticed that before. Long and capable and, oddly, expressive. When his face gave
nothing away, his hands often did. If one knew how to read them. And she did. They hovered with grace over his desk when he
felt perplexed by any problem. They cuffed a wrist behind his back when he’d sat too long and needed to stride the
circumference of his study to expel the welled-up energy. They rarely brushed through his hair, but when they did, they started
at the temples and made quick, efficient work of it. Sometimes, only a time or two she’d seen, his hands curled hard into fists
before flexing flat, his face unreadable, hard, cold. What hidden hurts did that to his hands in those moments of unguarded
revelation?
Guarded all other times. When shaking hands with a Manchester factory master who’d become wealthy overnight. When
using them to calm a young woman, newly alone in the world, who’d come to him for a position. When holding slightly cupped
fingers out to her to help her alight a carriage. If a man could be measured by his hands, she’d measure him deeper than anyone
thought.
He strolled the circumference of the room, his steps slow and measured, his gaze finding every detail. “Mine were ruined.
Extras are in the trunk that has not yet been delivered. And I could not abide the fit of the pair Bernard loaned me. Too big.” He
flexed his hand. “I shall have to do without this evening.”
She sat, her gaze following him as he made a circle of the room. She tried to see it through his eyes. Gold-framed paintings
by she knew not who (did he?), thick drapes before the windows, shelves with porcelain statues her grandfather had
particularly loved. Thick rugs and delicate furnishings—the room of a wealthy woman. Did he feel deceived?
He stopped at a window, the velvet of a curtain brushing his shoulder as he reached up and flicked a golden tassel holding
the drapery back. Those hands again, long and lithe.
“Why do you always wear gloves?” The question was out before she’d finished thinking it. He turned to face her, holding
his hands before him, turning them over and over, inspecting them. “Of course,” she added hastily, “everyone wears gloves in
public, but … even at your desk you wear them. I come into a room where you’ve been alone and find your hands hidden
behind cotton. Even when the heat is oppressive and ink splatters the material.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and took a step toward her. “I will answer that question if you answer one for me.”
“Very well.”
He sat in a chair across from her and leaned to the side to prop an elbow on the arm, then rested his chin on his gloveless
fist. His other hand he stretched before him once more. “My father liked looking at hands. Said he could tell a man’s character
that way.”
“You hid yours so he could not find your character out?”
“I hid them so no one could judge me by them, judge who I am by a quality given to me by my parents and God. My hands
have nothing to do with me.” He scoffed and let his hand fall heavy to his thigh.
He was wrong. That hand resting on that thigh said much about him. Like him, it was long and lean and capable. Like him, it
moved with precision and strength. It was an extension of him, moved by him and shaped by him.
“My turn, Mrs. Dart.” She nodded, her pulse spiking high at her wrists and neck. “Why hide your wealth from me?”
“Would it have made a difference if you knew?”
He tilted his head, his eyes like sapphires—hard and cold. “I don’t see how it would have. You proved yourself an
excellent resource that first day we met. Money or no, you’re excellent to have around.”
“Then why not stay here a fortnight? Flatter me and win me to your side once more.” Or she would use her money, her
inheritance, as a bribe, offer it to him so he would not take a wife, would not need to. Offer to be his bride, complete with
dowry.
Her stomach roiled, and she pressed a hand against it, staving off the sour sickness. She could be no convenience bride for
him. Her heart would shatter. But business partner… perhaps.
“I don’t know.” He pushed to standing and strode across the room toward the fireplace. A fire growled and crackled there,
and the fire screen saved Bernard’s wool from the hottest heat. He turned. “I do not live by the whims of others. I act on my
desires alone. I cede control to no one. Not even you. It is why a bride is best. A business partner would gain control as they
invested their funds. I refuse to relinquish any control.”
Ah. Good to know. Offer of a partnership would be fruitless. “I am not trying to control you.”
“Oh? Why do you want me to stay?”
Because she wanted to kiss him again. Because she wanted him wrecked and melted on the floor for her. Again. And once
they returned to Manchester, that would never happen. “I…” She could not say any of that. “I had hoped we might have
productive discussions about the future. If I were to take control of the London location, for instance, while you retained the
Manchester one, then⁠—”
“That’s it, then? You’re tired of being my secretary. You wish to be my partner?”
Yes. More than anything she wished to be his partner. But not at the agency. In life.
She shook her head, her heart hurting. “I’m not expressing myself well. It is only that I—” She sighed, seeing only one way
forward. “Once you marry, your wife will not like you to be so close to another woman. She will dislike me and make my
position in the agency more difficult than it was before.”
“Is that what this is about? You’re afraid your position in the agency will become tenuous once I marry?”
“Yes.” Not a lie. It was a worry.
“Must I say again the marriage is to be of the convenient sort? Whomever she is will not care.”
“You’re a fool if you think that.”
Once that nameless, faceless woman took this man to her bed, felt those hands on her body, she’d want to shred the heart of
any other woman who thought to be near him. Amelia, at least, might feel that way.
He made a small noise half scoff, half grunt, then awkward silence hung between them.
Bernard streaked past the window, screaming, holding a bottle of wine above his head.
Amelia rushed to the window to look out, and Lord Andrew must have as well. Her body slammed into his as they reached
the window at the same time. The hard point of his chin slammed into her temple, and she teetered. His arms wrapped around
her to steady her, lean her back against the windowsill, and lift the curls along her forehead.
He peered down at her with a scowl. “Are you injured?”
“No.” She touched her temple and hissed. “It might be a bit bruised. You have a sharp chin, my lord.”
He leaned past her, one arm bracing on the window frame on the far side of her body. As he peered at the window,
presumably looking for Bernard, his arm crossed over her chest, and she stopped breathing. Quite on purpose, she held her
breath. Any movement would brush her breasts against his arm. She tingled. Everywhere. But particularly where his arm so
closely almost brushed her body. And lower, past her belly, between her legs. She turned and pressed her palms against the
glass, hoping the cold pane would calm her jumping pulse, hoping the edge of the sill digging into her hips would ground her in
reality.
“Give that back, you blackguard!” Miss Angleton streaked past the window, skirts hiked above her knees.
Amelia jumped again, the back of her body jolting into the front of his as the wine-stealing mouse and the enraged cat
disappeared into the night.
And still, Lord Andrew’s arm was braced on the window, his arm crossing over her back. They would, if Amelia left her
body and observed them from behind, look like a couple viewing the gardens beyond. A man with his arm crossed over his
lady’s back, protective, adoring.
Too much.
She ducked beneath the arm and hurried toward the door. “I must find Miss Angleton. This is beyond the pale. She cannot
act in such a manner when we send her off to a client.”
Lord Andrew cleared his throat. “Quite right. We may have to reconsider the position we offered her at the agency.”
“Yes.” Amelia ducked into the hallway, her heart racing.
“Mrs. Dart.”
She pressed her back to the wall just outside the door, squeezed her eyes shut, and cooed at her heart to stop hurting. Poor
thing, you’ll survive. Just keep beating. “Yes?” she called out loud and clear with false bravado.
“I’ll be leaving tomorrow, early. You may send my trunk along when the roads are passable.”
“Yes.” She didn’t run after Miss Angleton. She ran up the stairs. She’d asked him to stay, and he’d refused. No matter what
he said, he did not want her to remain in his employ. If he did, he would have acquiesced to doing something so simple—stay.
That’s all she’d wanted.
And he would not even give her that.
 Nine

B
efore the clock struck ten, Drew slipped into his borrowed bed. His trunk had been delivered at some point—though
clearly not by Bernard since he’d busied himself with being chased by Mrs. Dart’s companion. So who had done it?
Thank God it had been delivered. It gave him a bit of peace to know he’d ride away on the morrow in his own clothes.
His own gloves. His own damn smalls.
He closed his eyes.
And Mrs. Dart appeared in the darkness, wearing pink and looking startled, her curls falling out of her coiffure as he
backed her against the castle wall, raindrops dripping down his forehead and soaking into her skin.
His eyes popped open.
None. Of. That.
But the clock struck midnight before he finally found sleep, before he could close his eyes without a startled, pink-cheeked
Mrs. Dart appearing before him like a specter. But sleep did come. Finally. And then…
A castle. A wall. A princess pinned against stone. Soft under his frantic hands. Stone turned to feather, and the world tilted,
and his body was hot and hard atop hers, her lips soft and giving beneath his. He pushed her shift, silver in the moonlight,
above her hips and pressed between her legs. She pulled him closer, her voice a soft breath in his ear, an invitation. Lord
Andrew, she said, in a voice tart and sweet and familiar.
He woke sweating with a gasp and pushed damp hair out of his eyes. Somewhere in the castle, the clock finished its third
chime, and the moon spilled through his window. Hell. He was hard, and his body needed release, and—as he had many times
in his life—he took his shaft in hand to grant it. Only, flashes of feeling and arousal dripped from the dream into his waking
memory. Something had felt familiar, but what? No details but for soft flesh and urgent moans from pretty pink lips. He brought
himself release with a few quick pulls, and the fragments of his dream, exhaustion, and satiation took him once more into
slumber.
Where more dreams knit themselves with his bones, leaving him heavy and tired when the sun finally rose and sliced
across his eyes, waking him from a restless sleep.
He’d slept longer than he’d meant to, and he slung heavy legs over the side of the bed and dressed in his own clothes with
sluggish movements and slipped from the house without breaking his fast.
The stable hands were up and about, and one ambled over to greet him. “Morning. Lord Andrew, I presume?” The man
with steel-gray hair and a full beard spoke with a thick Scottish accent. “I’m Mr. Scott. The lads and I retrieved your trunk
yesterday.”
“Thank you.”
“Going for a morning ride?”
“Going home.”
“The coach you came in⁠—”
“Can remain here for now.” Drew tapped his toe. Too many questions. “I’ll take one of the horses I brought.”
“Your driver? Your outrider?”
More questions. “They can return the coach to me when it’s repaired.”
“Aye, my lord.” The man hauled a saddle into his arms, and Drew stepped out of the stable and into the open air, turning to
study the house, castle really, behind him. He’d not seen it clearly as he’d marched through its doors yesterday, focused as he’d
been on one single task—find Mrs. Dart. But the yellow morning offered clear light to look at his leisure. Large and gray and
square, the castle sat on a rolling field of green that stretched out on three sides. Each corner boasted a turret, and every brick,
as well as every blade of grass, appeared well-cared for, as if time had no power here. On the fourth side, at the castle’s back,
the ground fell away after an expanse of wild, winter garden. A sheer cliff dropped into crushing ocean waves below, which
whipped salt through the air and into Drew’s lungs.
His own familial home… damp and deteriorating because his father hadn’t cared… flashed through his mind. Drew
growled and stomped back into the stables, trying to ice over the red-hot emotions, but that was an impossible task when he
could not give name to them. He slowed, forced his eyes closed and his breathing to march at a steadier pace. He’d been fine
until he’d viewed the castle, that symbol of wealth and prosperity he’d not even known existed. Damn Mrs. Dart for hiding it
from him!
He winced. Jealousy? Was that what this glowing steel-hot pain shooting through him was? Jealousy served no purpose. A
useless emotion. Just because his own father had squandered his family’s fortune did not mean he must scowl at everyone
who’d not suffered the same financial fate. Besides, Drew had always been glad it had happened. If his family had not been
destitute and debt-ridden, he’d never have looked for work as a tutor, and that experience had led to his agency.
He’d wrestled his life away from the hands of fate and made it what it should be. And he remained glad of it.
But Mrs. Dart had kept her secrets when he could have been … He froze. Likely even the blood in his veins stilled. And on
numb legs, he returned outside to stare at the castle once more. Was that why he felt jealous? Was that why he raged at Mrs.
Dart? Not because she’d kept her secret. Not because she had the familial wealth and security he’d always lacked, but…
Because had he known her financial status, he could have been courting her.
She would have been the top name on his list. A viscount for a grandfather, a rich one at that. And more important than that,
even, she knew and understood his dreams—the agency, its expansion—and was part of it all, helping to bring it to life. There
would be from her, no tears over missed dinners and late nights working. She would understand. Because she’d be working,
too. True, he could ask her to fund his agency instead, but he’d not taken a single handout or loan so far, and he would not begin
now. Besides, a financial partner would have control. A wife would not.
Hell. He’d been wasting his time. She’d wasted it for him. Who needed a list with Mrs. Dart by your side?
“Mr. Scott,” he called out into the stables. “I won’t need that horse saddled anymore. I’ve decided to stay a while.”
He strode for the house, energized despite the night’s lack of sleep, and pushed through the front doors with the confidence
he always felt when he had a plan and made his way up the stairs, stopping right outside Mrs. Dart’s bedchamber door. She
always preferred to sleep late when she had no pressing matters. She’d still be abed. He straightened his jacket, his cuffs, his
gloves, then knocked.
Silence.
He knocked again.
The squeak and groan of a bed, the soft sigh of a wakened sleeper. Her bedcovers were blue. He’d seen them yesterday.
Did she sleep with her corkscrew curls bound in a plait or free and wild, strewn across her pillow?
“Miss Angleton,” Mrs. Dart said, her voice slow and muffled, “if that is you, do go back to sleep. It is early yet. I’ll scold
you for”—a long yawn—“your actions last night sometime past noon.”
“It’s me.”
A squeak of the human variety this time. “Have you come to say farewell?” Her voice sharper now, less softened by the
lethargy of sleep.
“No.”
The door popped open. She peered up at him from a slim crack, all black curls and white shift, large eyes and
constellations of freckles. “No what?”
“I’ve not come to say farewell. I’m staying. As long as you do.” He took a step toward the crack to join her in her chamber.
She slammed the door in his face.
He knocked. “Mrs. Dart.” He knocked again, harder this time. “Mrs. D⁠—”
The door opened again, fully this time, and she wore a wrapper, some blue silk thing much too thin for the weather. And
much too … feminine for her. Like the pink, it changed her. Where she’d always seemed all angles and lines and an arched
brow of disapproval, now she seemed soft like a flower petal, welcoming. She clutched the sides of the wrapper together at
her chest and joined him in the hallway. He caught only a glimpse of a rumpled bed behind her before the door shut entirely.
“You’ve decided to stay?” She pressed her back to the door, her face unreadable.
“I have.”
“What changed your mind? I thought you thought we were at an impasse. I’m trying to control you, remember? And you will
not allow it.”
“I was hasty yesterday. My temper has cooled overnight, and I now see the benefit of taking some time to convince you to
remain in my employ.” Not just his employ. Not any longer. He turned and strode toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
“To break my fast. Will you join me later?”
Silence, then a yes followed him down the stairs.
He found a housekeeper first, an elderly lady who called herself Mrs. Scott, and she showed him to the room where Mrs.
Dart broke her fast, brought a pot of tea and promised eggs. When he asked for paper, she promised him that, too. And soon he
had everything he needed for practical and survival purposes. Tea on one hand, paper and ink on the other, a plate of
sustenance in between. He slipped his glasses from his pocket, donned them, and composed a letter first, sipping his tea
between sentences. And when he had the epistle written to his man of business, instructing him to find out what he could at
Mrs. Dart’s finances, he tugged off his gloves and tucked into the eggs. Cold now. But he’d not eaten much the night before.
And the food helped him organize his thoughts regarding Mrs. Dart. The perfect candidate for his wife. He would have set
about this path sooner had he known. It was the most logical solution. Yet, he hesitated. Had he considered this plan a month
ago, before pink, he would have asked her directly, placed the plan before her, and known she would make the sensible
decision.
Now… he could not be so sure. She’d rejected Tidsdale’s offer of marriage. Did that mean she did not wish to marry at
all? Or was it merely a Tidsdale-specific reaction to matrimony?
She might tell Drew no, too.
She had run from him in Manchester. And she’d refused to guarantee a return to his employ. Points against him, points to
make him wary of a direct approach.
On the other hand, her refusal to help him find a wife in Manchester suggested she was not unmoved by baser emotions.
Had a fit of jealousy sent her running away from him then? She had seemed to enjoy the kiss. And she had rejected his attempts
to apologize for it.
He leaned back in his chair and pushed his glasses to the top of his head. Marriage would require kissing. He was not
opposed. Neither, it seemed, was she. Perhaps, then, a direct approach was warranted.
“Lord Andrew, I see you’ve made yourself at home.” From the doorway, Mrs. Dart offered a small, slightly wavery smile,
as if she were unsure of herself. Her curls were piled high, and her gown was green today, and she wore a red shawl pulled
tight around her shoulders.
“I have. I thought you would not mind.”
“Not at all.” She sat at the small circular table across from him and poured herself a cup of tea. “I am quite glad to see you
at your ease.”
He did not like indecision. He needed a strategy for moving forward. Tell her directly his goal or… court her secretly?
There would have been no subtle courtship with the other women.
But Mrs. Dart was not the other women. She was … she was …
He pressed his lips into a thin line and snapped his glasses back to the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to think about
what Mrs. Dart was. It fogged things.
“Mrs. Dart, let us have conversation.”
“And by that,” she said, “you mean you want to talk at me, give me more reasons for remaining in your employ.”
“Yes.”
“We are on holiday, my lord. No talk of business.”
“Then—”
A maid entered with a tray she set before Mrs. Dart.
Once she left, Drew continued. “How are we to come to terms if we do not discuss professional matters?”
“We will. Just not now. It’s the first day it’s not been raining since the day after I arrived. I’d like to enjoy myself for a bit.”
He grunted and tore into a piece of toast.
“And I think you should call me Amelia while we’re here.”
The toast dropped to his plate. He chewed and swallowed, blinking at her. “Why?”
She ducked her head and reached for a spoon to spread jam on a point of toast of her own. “Because it’s what friends do.
Call one another by their given names.”
Friends? She wanted to be friends? Hm. Christian names were unnecessary, but not a serious compromise considering his
own desire. Husbands and wives, after all, used Christian names, too. Felt a bit like fate, her gifting him with friendship and
Christian names when it suited his purposes, but it wasn’t. Because gifts meant nothing if you didn’t know what to do with
them. Drew knew. Don’t let them languish. Chain them tight and control their outcomes.
“Very well.” He allowed himself a half smile. “And you’ll call me Drew.”
She looked up, one corner of her mouth quirked into a smile. “As your brothers do. Thank you.”
“Gratitude? For being less formal?”
“Yes. I do not like to feel as if we will be employee and employer over the next three weeks.”
Excellent. Just what he was after. He leaned over the table to get closer to her, his waistcoat coming perilously close to the
crumbs on his plate. “What shall we be, then, if not that?”
She licked her lips. “Friends, then?”
“Friends.” A good place to start. Unnecessary for the sort of contract he considered, the sort he meant to offer the other
women on his list. But he didn’t know them. He knew Mrs. Dart—Amelia—and … she required a different strategy. She was a
woman who had a castle and land but worked, lived in a small townhouse in Manchester and acted as his secretary. She did not
want for money or security. What did she want for, then? What did she need? The other women wanted a title. That he could
give them.
What could he give Mrs. Dart—Amelia—that she did not have already?
“Amelia.” He tried the name out, testing how it curled his tongue.
She jumped, startled, then gave a little laugh, her cheeks blushing—yes—pink. “I am not used to hearing my given name.”
The pink deepened. “Drew.”
His name sounded different on her lips, tentative and precious. It seemed to charge the air between them, ripple awareness
across his skin.
He finished his toast and eggs and donned his gloves. Better. Ripples quite gone, allowing him to focus. “Amelia, why do
you work for me when it is quite obvious you do not need to do so?”
“I want to.” But she’d averted her gaze to her teacup, which she held but did not drink from. One end of her red shawl
slipped off her shoulder. Was she cold? Was she hiding something? Again. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
“And how am I looking at you?”
“As if I’m a painting you wish to better understand.”
He laughed, a hard bark of a sound that fell like a boulder between them. “I never try to understand art. Forget better. Not
even a little bit.”
“Truly? Your mother is a connoisseur. And your brother and sister-in-law help run an art school. And your other brother
and sister-in-law are members of the art world in their own way, and⁠—”
“My father sponsored more artists than any man in England.”
She tilted her head. “Not even a little?”
“No. Paintings by long-dead masters leave me bored. Arias performed by the most talented of singers rouse nothing in me.
And all those statues, half-naked muscles draped in marble fabric—why should I care?”
“Because they are beautiful? Because they are expressions of our humanity?”
He pressed his palms into the tabletop, his eyes wide. “Are you an … art lover?” How had he never known? This omission
a worse one than her wealth.
“Naturally! Isn’t everyone?”
He leaned back into his chair, crossed his arms over his chest. “Not me.”
“You do not enjoy any of it?” She stared into the steam rising from her cup as if it held all the answers.
“Not a single bit.” He shook his head, inspected his gloves. “How was I unaware that you are one of them.”
“Them? By them do you mean normal human beings who appreciate the artistic endeavors of creative geniuses?”
He rolled his eyes. “Creative geniuses? Now you sound like my father. Is there any other conversation to be had? If all
we’re to do in the next weeks is fawn over art, I might head back to Manchester after all.”
“No. Very well. No art. We’ll find something else to speak of. More tea?”
He nodded and tried to hide his grin but found it more difficult than anticipated. She wanted him to stay. Of course she did.
She’d invited him to do so.
“Tell me.” He picked up the teacup once she’d filled it almost to the brim. “What is one supposed to do when not
working?”
“Not create art,” she grumbled, “apparently.”
“Certainly not. What then?”
“What did you do before you began your agency?”
Worked. In the houses of others who sneered at him for his need. They’d been equals, friends, and then … not. He made
them uncomfortable, made them remember that their fortunes were not assured forever. In every family fortune rested in the
hands of a single man, and where his whims blew, so too did the pounds and pence. “I was always a studious fellow.”
She chuckled. “I’ve no difficulty imagining that.”
“I’ve always liked goals. When I was younger, I’d set them and meet them, and then set another.”
“Oh my.”
“Your tone suggests you disapprove.”
“It’s only… did you ever have fun?”
“I enjoy achieving my goals.”
She sighed, a heavy, dramatic affair, and reached across the table, stole a bit of paper from his pile and his quill pen as
well. “We shall have to make a list.”
“A list? I like lists. Sounds like a goal, a plan.” He stretched his neck to see what she scratched on the page.
“Oh, not a plan at all. I shall call it a… a chaos.”
He snapped back to his seat. “A chaos. That sounds horrible. Nothing worse than chaos.”
“I disagree.”
“And I’m flummoxed that you do. Mrs. Dart? My Mrs. Dart likes chaos?”
 She shrugged. “Not usually. But sometimes”—she smiled at him, a brilliant, sunlike thing that nearly blinded him—“it is
diverting.”
He failed to see how chaos could ever be diverting, but if it made her smile, he’d allow it. He’d control that chaos to his
advantage. Because smiles meant amiability, and he needed her amiable. So she would agree to marry him.
 Ten

W
hy had he agreed to stay? Try as she could—and oh, Amelia tried—she could divine no answer to the question. His
reasons for leaving remained, and his pension for frivolity did not. As evidenced by his stoic profile across the jams
and jellies from her. She slanted ink and diversion across a sheet of creamy paper, and he scowled into his coffee
cup.
Cordelia had once asked Amelia if Lord Andrew—Drew, she must call him—possessed a soft center beneath all his ice.
Amelia had declared, unequivocally—no. The man was ice through and through. Men made of ice, however, did not burst
through doors unannounced and kiss their secretaries. Men chilled to their core did not leave their schedules behind for three
weeks of unplanned holiday.
He did not stay for diversion. She must keep that centered in her mind. He stayed to conquer her, to keep her for himself,
and not in the way she would like.
She should ask him. Set the quill down and say, Why have you changed your mind? Her mouth watered to set the words
free, to get closer to knowing. But she locked them up because she did not wish to do anything that would change his mind.
Again. Send him running back to Manchester.
This was her opportunity, a chance to woo him.
She just… could not… let him know that was her intention. She must be subtle but persuasive. She couldn’t burst through a
door and kiss him.
He sipped his coffee, and the motion drew her attention to his lips—firm and mobile and, heavens, they were good at
kissing.
“Are you finished yet, Amelia?”
Finished? The paper she wrote on warmed because he’d set her aflame with the use of her name, the way it curled about on
his tongue, a sweeter sound than the curt Mrs. Dart. And surely the paper her fingers brushed against was doomed to burn to
ash as her name, only her name on his lips, ignited her skin.
“Well?”
“Oh, yes. Quite. Here.” She handed the paper to him, and he held it between his black-gloved fingers, a brow raised as he
read. “‘A dip in the ocean. Games.’ What kind of games?”
“Charades. Blind man’s bluff. Lawn bowls. The usual.”
He snorted then continued reading. “‘A horse race.’”
“I’m quite excited about that one. I’m sure to win.”
“And why do you think that?”
“You’re clearly a man of the city. But I was born and raised on a horse in the wilds of America. And then I came here,
where I was trained in proper technique.” She smirked. “You will never beat me.”
His lips twitched. “We’ll see.” His gaze flicked back to the paper. “It just says ‘books’ on this next line.”
“Yes. The reading of them. The discussing of them. The”—she wet her lips—“reading of them to one another in the
evenings.” His voice was like velvet, and she loved to hear him read, though he never did unless it was a bit of letter she
needed to hear, or a newspaper article he wished to complain about. To hear him read a bit of Byron aloud … she shivered.
“Are you cold?” He stood and rounded the table, but before she could object, his hands were on her, on her shawl, pulling
it up, covering her shoulders, tightening it about her neck.
What was this onslaught? She held her breath till it was done.
But he did not stop. He trailed his fingers down her arm until he found her hand, and then he clasped it, pulled her to her
feet, and guided her toward the fireplace and into a chair.
“There,” he said. “You should be warmer in a moment.” He took the chair opposite her, and she clutched the shawl to her
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
tañedoras de flauta, y de contusiones: el arsenal también se hubiera
visto atestado de maderas para remos, y atronado por el ruido de las
clavijas que se ajustan y por el de los remos sujetos a las clavijas, po
los gritos de los marineros, y por los silbidos de las flautas y pitos, que
los animan al trabajo. «Sé que hubierais hecho esto»; pero, ¿no
pensamos en Telefo? «Nos falta el sentido común.»[150].
SEMICORO.
¡Perdido, infame, mendigo harapiento! ¿Cómo te atreves a decirnos
eso, y a echarnos en rostro que hemos sido delatores?
SEMICORO.
Tiene razón. Por Neptuno, cuanto ha dicho es la pura verdad.
SEMICORO.
¿Y aunque sea verdad, es necesario decirlo? Pero ya le costará
caro su atrevimiento.
SEMICORO.
¡Eh, tú! ¿A dónde vas? Detente. Si tocas a ese hombre, yo me
encargaré de ti.
SEMICORO.
¡Oh Lámaco de fulminante mirada, socórrenos: preséntate, amigo
Lámaco, ciudadano de mi tribu; preséntate y atérralos con tu terrible
penacho![151] Generales y capitanes, acudid todos en mi auxilio. Me
tienen agarrado por medio del cuerpo.
LÁMACO.
¿De dónde salen esos gritos de guerra? ¿A dónde es meneste
prestar mi auxilio y armar alborotos? ¿Quién me obliga a sacar de su
caja mi terrible Gorgona?[152]
DICEÓPOLIS.
¡Oh Lámaco, héroe sin rival en penachos y batallones!
CORO.
¡Oh Lámaco, este hombre hace tiempo que está ultrajando a toda la
ciudad!
 LÁMACO.
¿Tú, vil mendigo, te atreves a tanto?
DICEÓPOLIS.
Heroico Lámaco, perdona que un mendigo, al empeñarse en hablar
haya dicho algunas necedades.
LÁMACO.
¿Qué has dicho contra nosotros? Habla.
DICEÓPOLIS.
No me acuerdo ya; el miedo a tu armadura me marea; por piedad
aparta de mi vista ese espantajo de tu escudo.
LÁMACO.
Sea.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Déjalo ahora en el suelo.
LÁMACO.
Ya está.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Ahora dame una pluma de tu casco.
LÁMACO.
Toma la pluma.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Ahora sostenme la cabeza para que vomite: tu penacho me da
náuseas.
LÁMACO.
¿Qué intentas? ¿quieres provocar el vómito con esa pluma?
DICEÓPOLIS.
¡Ah! ¿es una pluma? Y dime, ¿de qué pájaro? ¿Acaso de
Fanfarrón?[153]
LÁMACO.
 ¡Me las vas a pagar!
DICEÓPOLIS.
De ningún modo, Lámaco; esto no se decide por la fuerza; ya que
tanta fuerza tienes, ¿por qué no me circuncidas? Armas no te faltan.
LÁMACO.
¿Así te insolentas con todo un general, vil mendigo?
DICEÓPOLIS.
¡Yo mendigo!
LÁMACO.
¿Pues quién eres?
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Quién soy? Un buen ciudadano, exento de ambición; y, desde que
hay guerra, un soldado voluntario; y tú, desde que hay guerra, un
soldado mercenario.
LÁMACO.
Fui elegido por los votos de...
DICEÓPOLIS.
Tres petates[154]. Eso es lo que me ha indignado y movido a pacta
esta tregua, no menos que el ver en las filas a hombres encanecidos
mientras otros jóvenes como tú, escurriendo el bulto, se iban con
embajadas, unos a Tracia, ganándose tres dracmas, como los
Tisámenes[155], los Fenipos y los Hipárquidas, todos a cual peores
otros, con Cares[156], a la Caonia[157], como los Geres y Teodoros, y los
Diomeos, tan pagados de sí mismos; otros a Camarina, Gela y
Catágela[158].
LÁMACO.
Fueron elegidos por el sufragio popular.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Entonces, ¿por qué todas las recompensas son para vosotros y
para estos ninguna?[159] Di, Marílades, tú que tienes la cabeza
encanecida por la edad, ¿has ido alguna vez en embajada? Dice que
no, y sin embargo es prudente y laborioso. Y vosotros, Dracilo
Eufórides y Prínides[160], ¿conocéis a Ecbatana o la Caonia? Tampoco
Sin embargo, las han visitado el hijo de Cesira[161] y Lámaco, de
quienes, por no poder pagar su escote, ni sus deudas, decían hace
poco sus amigos: «¡Agua va!» como los que al anochecer vierten po
las ventanas el líquido con que se han lavado los pies.
LÁMACO.
¡Pueblo insolente! ¿Habrá que tolerar tales insultos?
DICEÓPOLIS.
No; si Lámaco no cobrase sueldo.
LÁMACO.
Pues yo haré siempre la guerra a todos los peloponesios; los
hostilizaré cuanto pueda, y los perseguiré con todas mis fuerzas
terrestres y marítimas.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Pues yo anuncio a todos los peloponesios, megarenses y beocios
que pueden acudir a comprar y vender en mi mercado; solo exceptúo
a Lámaco.
(Queda solo el coro.)
CORO.
Este hombre aduce argumentos convincentes y va a cambiar la
opinión del pueblo, inclinándole a la paz. Pero dispongámonos a
recitar los anapestos[162].
Desde que nuestro poeta dirige los coros cómicos nunca se ha
presentado a hacer su propio panegírico[163]; pero hoy que ante los
atenienses, tan precipitados en sus decisiones, sus enemigos le
acusan falsamente de que se burla de la república e insulta al pueblo
preciso le es justificarse con sus volubles conciudadanos. El poeta
pretende haberos hecho mucho bien, impidiendo que os dejéis
sorprender por las palabras de los extranjeros y que os hechicen los
aduladores y seáis unos chorlitos. Antes los diputados de las ciudades
cuando os querían engañar, principiaban por llamaros: «Coronados de
violetas»[164], y al oír la palabra coronas, era de ver cómo no cabíais ya
en vuestros asientos[165]. Si otro adulándoos decía: «La espléndida
Atenas»[166], conseguía al punto cuanto deseaba, por haberos untado
los labios con el elogio, como si fueseis anchoas. Desengañándoos
pues, os ha prestado el poeta eminentes servicios, y ha difundido po
las ciudades aliadas el régimen democrático. Por eso los pagadores
de tributos de esas mismas ciudades acudirán deseosos de conocer a
excelente poeta que no ha temido decir la verdad a los atenienses. La
fama de su atrevimiento ha llegado tan lejos, que el gran Rey
interrogando a la embajada de los lacedemonios, preguntó primero
cuál era la armada más poderosa, y después cuáles eran los más
atacados por nuestro vate, y les aseguró que sería más feliz y
conseguiría señaladísimas victorias la república que siguiese sus
consejos. Por eso los lacedemonios os brindan con la paz, y reclaman
a Egina[167]; no porque den gran importancia a aquella isla, sino po
despojar de sus bienes al poeta; pero vosotros no le abandonéis
jamás; en sus comedias brillará siempre la justicia, y abogará siempre
por vuestra felicidad, no con adulaciones ni vanas promesas, fraudes
bajezas ni intrigas, sino dándoos buenos consejos y proponiéndoos lo
que sea mejor.
Después de esto, ya puede Cleón urdir y maquinar contra mí cuanto
se le antoje. La honradez y la justicia estarán de mi lado, y nunca la
república verá en mí, como en él, un cobarde e inmundo bardaje.
¡Ven, infatigable musa acarniense, brillante y devoradora como e
fuego! Semejante a la chispa que, sostenida por un suave viento, salta
de los tizones de encina mientras unos asan sobre ellos sabrosos
pececillos, y otros preparan la salmuera fresca de Tasos o amasan la
blanca harina, ¡ven, musa impetuosa, intencionada y agreste, y presta
inspiración a tu conciudadano!
Nosotros, decrépitos ancianos, acusamos a la ciudad. Vemos
desamparada nuestra vejez, sin que se nos alimente en recompensa
digna de los méritos que en las batallas navales contrajimos; en
cambio, sufrimos mil vejámenes; nos enredáis en litigiosas contiendas
y luego permitís que sirvamos de juguete a oradores jovenzuelos: ya
nada somos; mudos e inservibles, como flautas rajadas, un bastón es
nuestro único apoyo, o nuestro Neptuno, por decirlo así. En pie ante e
tribunal, balbuceando algunas palabras inconexas, solo vemos de la
justicia la bruma que la rodea, mientras el abogado contrario
deseando captarse las simpatías de la juventud, lanza sobre e
demandado un diluvio de palabras precisas y seguras; y luego de
haberlo rendido, le interroga, le dirige preguntas insidiosas, y le turba
le aflige y despedaza, como le sucedió al anciano Titón.
El pobre calla; se retira castigado con una pena pecuniaria; llora y
solloza, y dice a sus amigos: «El dinero con que pensaba comprar m
ataúd, tengo que darlo para pagar esta multa.»
¿Es justo arruinar de ese modo a un anciano, a un hombre
encanecido, que sobrellevó con sus compañeros tantas fatigas, que
vertió por la república sudores ardientes, varoniles y copiosos, y que
en Maratón peleó como un héroe? Nosotros, que de jóvenes
perseguimos en Maratón a los enemigos, somos ahora perseguidos
por hombres malvados, y condenados al fin. ¿Que responderá a esto
Marpsias?[168] ¿Es justo que un hombre encorvado por la edad, como
Tucídides[169], cual si se hubiera perdido en los desiertos de Escitia
sucumba en sus litigios con Cefisodemo[170], abogado locuaz? Os
aseguro que sentí la más viva compasión y hasta lloré, viendo
maltratado por un arquero a ese anciano, a Tucídides digo, que, po
Ceres, cuando estaba en la plenitud de sus fuerzas no hubiera
tolerado fácilmente que se le atreviese nadie, ni aun la misma Ceres
pues primero hubiera derribado a diez Evatlos[171], y luego aterrado con
sus gritos a los tres mil arqueros, y matado con sus flechas a toda la
parentela de ese mercenario. Mas, ya que no queréis dejar descansa
a los viejos, decretad, a lo menos, la división de las causas: que e
viejo desdentado litigue contra los viejos; el bardaje contra los jóvenes
y el charlatán contra el hijo de Clinias[172]. Es necesario, no lo niego
perseguir a los malvados; pero en todos los procesos sea el anciano
quien condene al anciano, y el joven al joven.
 DICEÓPOLIS.
Estos son los límites de mi mercado. Todos los peloponesios
megarenses y beocios pueden concurrir a él, con la condición de que
me vendan a mí sus mercancías y no a Lámaco. Nombro
agoránomos[173] de mi mercader, elegidos a suerte, estos tres
zurriagos del Lepreo[174]. Que no entre aquí ningún delator, ni ningún
habitante de Fasos[175]. Voy a traer la columna[176] sobre la cual está
escrito el tratado, para colocarla a la vista de todos.

(Entra un megarense con dos muchachas.)

EL MEGARENSE[177].
¡Salud, mercado de Atenas, grato a los megarenses! Juro po
Júpiter, protector de la amistad, que deseaba verte como el hijo a su
madre. Hijas desdichadas de un padre infortunado, mirad si encontráis
alguna torta. Escuchadme, por favor, y hagan eco mis palabras en
vuestro famélico vientre. ¿Qué queréis? ¿Ser vendidas o moriros de
hambre?
LAS MUCHACHAS.
¡Ser vendidas, ser vendidas!
EL MEGARENSE.
También me parece lo mejor. ¿Mas habrá algún tonto que os
compre siendo una carga manifiesta? Pero se me ocurre un ardid
digno de Megara. Os voy a disfrazar de cerdos, y diré que os traigo a
mercado. Poneos estas pezuñas y procurad parecer de buena casta
pues si volvéis a casa, ya sabéis, por el tonante Júpiter, que sufriréis
los horrores del hambre. Ea, colocaos estos hocicos de puerco y
meteos en este saco. Procurad gruñir bien y hacer coi, gritando como
los cerdos que van a ser sacrificados a Ceres[178]. Yo voy a llamar a
Diceópolis: ¡Diceópolis! ¿Quieres comprar cerdos?
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Qué es ello? ¡Un megarense!
 EL MEGARENSE.
Venimos al mercado.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Cómo lo pasáis?
EL MEGARENSE.
Sentados siempre junto al fuego y muertos de hambre.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Por Júpiter, eso es muy agradable, teniendo al lado un flautista.[179
¿Y qué más hacéis los megarenses?
EL MEGARENSE.
¿Y lo preguntas? Cuando yo salí para venir al mercado, nuestras
autoridades dictaban las medidas oportunas para que la ciudad se
arruine lo más pronto y desastrosamente posible.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Entonces no tardaréis en veros libres de apuros.
EL MEGARENSE.
¿Por qué no?
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Qué más ocurre en Megara? ¿Qué precio tiene el trigo?
EL MEGARENSE.
Tiene tanta estimación y precio como los dioses.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Traes sal?
EL MEGARENSE.
¿Cómo, si os habéis apoderado de nuestras salinas?
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Y ajos?[180]
EL MEGARENSE.
 ¿Qué ajos? Si siempre que invadís nuestras tierras arrancáis todas
las plantas como si fueseis ratones de campo.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Pues qué traes?
EL MEGARENSE.
Puercas para los sacrificios.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¡Que me place! A verlas.
EL MEGARENSE.
¡Mira qué hermosas! Tómalas a peso si quieres. ¿Qué gorda y qué
hermosa está esta?
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Pero qué es esto?
EL MEGARENSE.
Una cerda, por vida mía.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Qué dices? ¿De dónde es?
EL MEGARENSE.
De Megara. ¿No es puerca o qué?
DICEÓPOLIS.
A mí no me lo parece.
EL MEGARENSE.
¡Que no! ¡Tu incredulidad es asombrosa! ¡Decir que no es una
puerca! Apostemos, si quieres, un celemín de sal mezclada con tomillo
a que entre los griegos pasa esta por puerca.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Sí que es puerca[181]; pero de hombre.
EL MEGARENSE.
 Sí, por Diocles,[182] y mía, ¿qué crees tú que son? ¿Quieres oírlas
gruñir?
DICEÓPOLIS.
Bueno; no hay inconveniente.
EL MEGARENSE.
Gruñe pronto, puerquecilla. ¿A qué te callas, desdichada? Te
volveré a casa, por Mercurio.
UNA MUCHACHA.
¡Coi! ¡Coi!
EL MEGARENSE.
¿Es o no puerca?
DICEÓPOLIS.
Ahora lo parece; pero bien alimentada será otra cosa[183].
EL MEGARENSE.
Dentro de cinco años, te lo aseguro, será como su madre.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Pero no sirve para el sacrificio.
EL MEGARENSE.
¿Por qué razón?
DICEÓPOLIS.
Porque no tiene cola[184].
EL MEGARENSE.
Aún es muy joven; cuando crezca tendrá una cola grande, gorda y
colorada. Si quieres alimentarla, será una puerca magnífica.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¡Qué parecida es a esta otra![185].
EL MEGARENSE.
Las dos son hijas del mismo padre y de la misma madre. Cuando
se engorde y se cubra de pelos será la mejor víctima que pueda
ofrecerse a Venus.
DICEÓPOLIS.
A Venus no se le sacrifican puercas.
EL MEGARENSE.
¿Que no se sacrifican puercas a Venus? Precisamente es la única
deidad a quien le agradan. La carne de estos animales es riquísima
sobre todo cuando se la clava en el asador.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Comen ya solas, sin necesitar de su madre?
EL MEGARENSE.
Ni de su padre, por Neptuno.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Qué comida les gusta más?
EL MEGARENSE.
La que les des. Pregúntaselo a ellas
DICEÓPOLIS.
¡Gorrín! ¡Gorrín!
LAS MUCHACHAS.
¡Coi! ¡Coi!
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Comerás nabos?[186].
LAS MUCHACHAS.
¡Coi! ¡Coi! ¡Coi!
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Comerás higos?
LAS MUCHACHAS.
¡Coi! ¡Coi!
DICEÓPOLIS.
 ¡Con qué furia han pedido los higos! Traedles algunos a estas
puerquecillas. ¿Los comerán? ¡Sopla! ¡Con qué afán los devoran
Hércules venerando! Parece que son de Tragacia[187]. Pero es
imposible que se hayan comido todos los higos.
EL MEGARENSE.
Todos, menos uno que he cogido yo.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Son hermosos animales, a fe mía. ¿Por cuánto me los vendes?
EL MEGARENSE.
Este, por una ristra de ajos, y el otro, si te gusta, por un quénice[188
de sal.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Trato hecho. Espérame aquí.

EL MEGARENSE.
¡Bueno va! ¡Mercurio protector del comercio, concédeme que pueda
vender lo mismo a mi mujer y a mi madre![189].
UN DELATOR.
¡Buen hombre! ¿De dónde eres?
EL MEGARENSE.
Soy un megarense, vendedor de cerdos.
EL DELATOR.
Pues yo denuncio como enemigos a tus lechoncillos y a ti.
EL MEGARENSE.
¡Otra vez! Este renueva la fuente de todos nuestros males.
EL DELATOR.
Ya te arrepentirás de tu venida. Deja pronto ese saco.
EL MEGARENSE.
 ¡Diceópolis! ¡Diceópolis! Me denuncia un no sé quién.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Quién te denuncia? Agoránomos, ¿por qué no arrojáis de
mercado a los delatores? — ¿Cómo quieres alumbrarnos sin
linterna?[190].
EL DELATOR.
¿No puedo denunciar a los enemigos?
DICEÓPOLIS.
A costa de tu pellejo, si no te largas a otro sitio con tus delaciones.
EL MEGARENSE.
¡Qué peste para Atenas!
DICEÓPOLIS.
Ánimo, megarense; aquí tienes el precio de tus lechoncillos; toma
los ajos y la sal. Y pásalo bien.
EL MEGARENSE.
Ya no es costumbre entre nosotros.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Cierto, he dicho una tontería. ¡Caiga la culpa sobre mí!
EL MEGARENSE.
Id, lechoncillos míos, y, lejos de vuestro padre, ved si hay quien os
dé de comer tortas con sal.
(Vanse los dos.)

CORO.
Este hombre[191] es muy feliz. ¿No has oído cuán provechosa le ha
sido su determinación? Se gana la vida sentado tranquilamente en la
plaza; y si se presenta Ctesias o algún otro delator, les obligará a
tomar asiento doloridos. Nadie te engañará en la compra de
comestibles; Prepis[192] no te manchará con su inmundo contacto
Cleónimo no te dará empellones; cruzarás por entre la multitud vestido
de fiesta sin temor de que te salga al encuentro el pleitista Hipérbolo
ni de que, al pasear por el mercado, se te acerque Cratino[193], pelado
a la manera de los libertinos, o aquel perversísimo Artemón[194], en
cuyas axilas se esconden chivos apestados[195]. Tampoco se burlarán
de ti en la plaza ni el perdido Pausón[196] ni Lisístrato[197], oprobio de los
colargienses; ese que impregnado de todos los vicios, como el paño
en la púrpura que le tiñe, padece hambre y frío más de treinta días a
mes.
UN BEOCIO.
¡Por Hércules! ¡Cómo me duele el hombro! — Isménico, descarga
con cuidado el poleo[198]; y vosotros, flautistas tebanos, soplad con
vuestras flautas de hueso por el agujero mayor de esta piel de
perro[199].
DICEÓPOLIS.
¡Callad, malditos! ¿Si habrán echado raíces en mi puerta
semejantes moscones? ¿De dónde vendrán esos discordantes
flautistas, dignos discípulos de Queris?[200].
EL BEOCIO.
Por Iolao[201], ¡con qué placer les vería irse al infierno! Desde Tebas
vienen soplando detrás de mí, y me han arrancado todas las flores de
poleo. Extranjero, ¿quieres comprarme pollos o langostas?
DICEÓPOLIS.
Salud, amigo beocio, gran comedor de panecillos. ¿Qué traes?
EL BEOCIO.
Cuanto de bueno hay en Beocia: orégano, poleo, esterillas, mechas
para lámparas, ánades, grajos, francolines, pollas de agua
reyezuelos, mergos...
DICEÓPOLIS.
De modo que entras en el mercado a manera de huracán que abate
las aves contra el suelo.
EL BEOCIO.
 También traigo gansos, liebres, zorras, topos, erizos, gatos
píctidas, nutrias, anguilas del Copais...[202]
DICEÓPOLIS.
¡Oh qué deliciosísimo bocado acabas de nombrar! Sí traes
anguilas, déjame que las salude.
EL BEOCIO.
Sal, tú, la mayor de las cincuenta vírgenes Copaidas, a regocija
con tu presencia a este extranjero[203].
DICEÓPOLIS.
¡Querida mía, por tanto tiempo deseada, al fin has venido a
satisfacer los deseos de los coros cómicos, y los del mismo
Moricos![204]. — Esclavos, traedme el fuego y el aventador. Mirad
muchachos, esta hermosa anguila, que al fin viene a visitarnos
después de seis años de espera[205]. Saludadla, hijos míos. Llevadla
adentro. — Ni aun la muerte podrá separarme de ti[206], como te
cuezan con acelgas.
EL BEOCIO.
¿Y cuánto me vas a pagar por ella?
DICEÓPOLIS.
Esta me la darás por derechos de entrada. ¿Quieres vender alguna
otra cosa?
EL BEOCIO.
Sí, por cierto; todo.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Vamos a ver, ¿cuánto pides? ¿O prefieres cambiar por otras tus
mercancías?
EL BEOCIO.
Bien, me llevaré de Atenas lo que no hay en Beocia.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Entonces querrás anchoas del Falero[207] y cacharros.
EL BEOCIO.
 ¡Anchoas! ¡Cacharros! De sobra los tenemos. Solo quiero llevarme
cosas que no hay allí, y aquí se encuentran en abundancia.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Ahora caigo en la cuenta: llévate un delator perfectamente
empaquetado como si fuese una vasija.
EL BEOCIO.
¡Por los Dioscuros![208] Ese sí que sería un negocio redondo: carga
con un mico lleno de malicias.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Muy oportunamente llega Nicarco a delatar alguno.
EL BEOCIO.
¡Qué pequeño es!
DICEÓPOLIS.
Pero todo veneno.

NICARCO.
¿De quién son estas mercancías?
EL BEOCIO.
Mías; traídas de Beocia: por Júpiter lo juro.
NICARCO.
Pues yo las denuncio por enemigas.
EL BEOCIO.
¿Qué furia te mueve a declarar la guerra a las aves?
NICARCO.
También a ti te denunciaré.
EL BEOCIO.
¿Qué daño te he hecho yo?
 NICARCO.
Te lo diré en obsequio de los presentes: tú traes mechas del país
enemigo.
EL BEOCIO.
¿Eres por tanto un denunciador de mechas?
NICARCO.
Una sola puede incendiar la flota.
EL BEOCIO.
¡Una mecha incendiar la flota! ¿Cómo? ¡Soberano Júpiter!
NICARCO.
Cualquier beocio enciende una mecha, la ata a un insecto alado, y
aprovechando un momento en que el Bóreas sople con más violencia
la lanza sobre la flota por medio de un tubo; si el fuego prende en
cualquier navío, es seguro que se abrasará en seguida toda la flota.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¡Canalla sin vergüenza! ¿De modo que para reducir a cenizas la
escuadra, bastan una mecha y un insecto? (Le pega).
NICARCO.
¡Sed testigos! ¡Favor!
DICEÓPOLIS.
Tápale la boca: dame bálago y mimbres para envolverle y
podérmelo llevar como una vasija sin que se rompa.
CORO.
Buen hombre, ata bien tan delicada mercancía, no se te quiebre en
el camino.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Eso a mi cargo queda; aunque deja oír un crujido como si se
hubiera rajado en el horno. ¡Crujido odioso a los inmortales!
CORO.
¿Qué hará con él?
 DICEÓPOLIS.
Me servirá para todo: de recipiente de los males; de mortero para
majar pleitos; de linterna para espiar a los recaudadores, y de barreño
donde se enturbien todas las cosas.
CORO.
¿Pero quién se atreverá a usar un vaso cuyos crujidos resuenan
incesantemente en la casa?
DICEÓPOLIS.
Es sólido, amigo mío, y no se quebrará fácilmente si se le cuelga de
los pies, cabeza abajo.
CORO.
Ya está bien embalado.
EL BEOCIO.
Voy a segar mi cosecha.
CORO.
Excelente forastero, carga con ese paquete, llévate a ese delator
bueno para cualquier cosa, y arrójalo donde te agrade.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Trabajo me ha costado el empaquetar a ese perdido. Ea, amigo
toma tu vasija y llévatela.
EL BEOCIO.
Isménico, cárgatela sobre tus duros hombros.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Procura llevarla con cuidado. Aunque no llevas nada de bueno, sin
embargo, es fácil que salgas ganancioso con tu carga: serás feliz po
gracia de los delatores.
(Vase el Beocio.)
UN CRIADO DE LÁMACO.
¡Diceópolis!
DICEÓPOLIS.
 ¿Quién va? ¿Qué me quieres?
EL CRIADO.
Lámaco te suplica que le des, mediante este dracma, algunos
tordos, para celebrar la fiesta de las Copas[209]; y que por otros tres le
vendas una anguila del Copais.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Quién es ese Lámaco que desea la anguila?
EL CRIADO.
Aquel terrible sufridor de trabajos, que lleva una Gorgona en e
escudo, y sobre cuyo casco se agita un penacho triple.
DICEÓPOLIS.
No le venderé nada, por Júpiter, aunque me dé su escudo: en vez
de comer pescado, entreténgase en agitar su penachos. Si se
alborota, llamaré a los agoránomos. Ahora, recogiendo mis compras
entraré en mi casa «sobre las alas de los mirlos y los tordos.»[210]

CORO.
¿No veis, ciudadanos, no veis la extremada prudencia y discreción
de ese hombre, que, después de haber pactado sus treguas, puede
comprar cuantas cosas suelen traer los mercaderes, útiles unas a la
casa, y gratísimas otras al paladar?
Todos los bienes penetran por sí mismos en su morada.
Nunca admitiré en mi casa al belicoso Marte; jamás cantará en m
mesa el himno de Harmodio[211], porque es un ser cuya embriaguez es
temible. Arrojándose sobre nuestros bienes, descargó sobre nosotros
todos los males, la ruina, la destrucción y la muerte; en vano le
decíamos amablemente: «Bebe, acompáñanos en la mesa, acepta
esta copa de amistad», porque entonces atizaba con más violencia e
incendio de nuestros rodrigones, y derramaba el vino de nuestras
cepas.
Abundante mesa es la de Diceópolis; envanecido con su suerte
arroja en los umbrales de su casa esas plumas, indicio de su regalada
vida.
¡Oh Paz, compañera de la hermosa Venus y de sus amigas las
Gracias! ¿Cómo he podido desconocer tanto tiempo tu sin pa
belleza?
¡Ojalá me despose contigo un Amor coronado de rosas como el que
está allí pintado![212] ¿Me crees acaso demasiado viejo? Pues si me
enlazo a ti podré, aunque anciano, hacer tres cosas en obsequio tuyo
abrir en primer lugar un largo surco para la vid[213]; poner después junto
a él tiernos retoños de higuera, y plantar luego el vigoroso sarmiento
cercando, por fin, todo mi campo de olivos, con cuyo aceite podamos
mutuamente ungirnos en las Neomenias.

UN HERALDO.
Pueblos, escuchad: conforme a la costumbre patria, bebed en
vuestras copas, al son de las trompetas; el que primero haya apurado
su vaso recibirá en premio un odre de Ctesifonte[214].
DICEÓPOLIS.
Muchachos, mujeres, ¿no habéis oído? ¿Qué hacéis? ¿No habéis
oído el pregón? Coced las viandas, asadlas; retirad pronto las liebres
de los asadores; tejed las coronas; dadme asadorcillos para los
tordos[215].
CORO.
Celebro tu suerte, amigo mío, y más que todo esa tu discreción
admirable por la cual gozas de tan delicioso banquete.
DICEÓPOLIS.
¿Pues qué diréis cuando veáis cómo se asan mis tordos?
CORO.
También creo que tienes razón en eso.
DICEÓPOLIS.
Atizad el fuego.
CORO.