Crossed Quills (17 page)

 Perhaps some of the purple prose could be used in his next Gothic novel, he thought. Then he recalled that he must write no more romances. The risk of his authorship coming to light was too great.

 Sighing, he returned to the manuscript. At least the germs of his metaphors had been preserved, thanks to Miss Lisle, no doubt. Here and there, Prometheus had even written in praise of a particularly strong image. There were one or two comments Wynn did not quite understand. Perhaps Miss Lisle would be able to elucidate, so that he did not have to trouble Prometheus about minor details. He did not wish to look more of a sapskull than he need.

 Somehow he didn’t mind Pippa Lisle seeing his blunders. He knew he had her sympathy and her approval of his aims.

 That his speech had too many aims was obvious, now that she—or rather Prometheus—had pointed it out. Like a scatter of birdshot compared to a rifle bullet, he might hit with every ball yet to little effect. Though he had succeeded in weaving his plethora of opinions into a coherent sequence of ideas, the central theme was weak.

 Reading through again, he could not make up his mind where to concentrate his efforts. Prometheus had made no suggestions. Wynn decided to consult Pippa.

 He set about abstracting from his manuscript a list of topics ranging from the Seditious Meetings Bill to the use of spring guns and mantraps against poachers: a regular stew, all excellent ingredients but losing their individual flavours in the mixture.

 What he wanted was roast beef with a few complementary side-dishes. In fact, he was deucedly hungry. Glancing at the clock on the mantel, he saw he had missed tea with the Lisles and escorting them to the Park. It was nearly time to change for dinner.

 He and Gil Chubb had arranged to dine with friends at Boodle’s Club, he remembered with annoyance. They were to meet the Lisles and Millicent at some party afterwards, but that was no time or place to present his list to Miss Lisle and request her advice.

 Was it too much to ask of her? She had not wanted to come to London for the Season, but Wynn had noticed that she seemed to be enjoying herself. It didn’t seem quite fair to expect her to spend her time on politics, a subject she usually tried to avoid, in common with the majority of females. Of course she could have refused to help directly, to air her own opinions as opposed to conveying messages from Prometheus. However, Wynn suspected a sense of duty to her father’s ideals had driven her to give her hesitant consent.

 He was not really sure why he believed she was competent to advise him. Copying Benjamin Lisle’s work was a far cry from producing original work. Still, if consulting her proved profitless, he could always take his minor difficulties directly to Prometheus.

 And meanwhile he had a perfect excuse for spending a great deal of time with Miss Philippa Lisle.

* * * *

 “I have a confession to make,” Wynn told Miss Lisle on Tuesday morning, laying down his pen and leaning back in his chair. “Promise you won’t take snuff?”

 “How can I?” she retorted. “Until I know what your offence is, I cannot guess whether it will offend me. However, I hope I can safely promise not to hit you on the head with the poker.”

 “You have my permission to haul me over the coals.” He went over to the grate, where flickering sea-coals strove to disperse the chill of the drizzling day, and poked up the fire. “Come and warm your hands, Miss Lisle.”

 “Procrastinating, Lord Selworth?” With a smile, she came over and held out her hands to the flames he had stirred up.

 “Not at all. It isn’t the sort of confession which must be made for fear of being found out. My fingers are cold and cramped from writing, and you have done just as much writing as I have, if not more.”

 “Not this morning. I have been dictating to you. I trust you do not mean to confess to finding me shockingly dictatorial when all you wished for was a few gentle hints?” she asked anxiously.

 “You are the gentlest of dictators. And you have been writing—if I had not watched, I should have guessed by the smudge of ink on your forehead.” Such a broad, clear, intelligent forehead, with beautifully curved brows, set off by two wings of dark, smooth, glossy hair. “Have I ever told you how much I like the way you wear your hair?”

 Blood tinting her pellucid cheeks, Pippa raised a hand to touch the hair at her temple. “Thank you, but I must say I should like to be able to coax it into curls in the evenings.”

 “Oh no, then it would be just like every other young lady’s. You look distinguished, and elegant, and...intelligent. Which brings me back to my confession. When I asked you to help me, I had the gravest doubts of your ability to do so. There, it is said.” Wynn laughed as her expression changed. “May I offer you the poker?”

 “I have done very little.” She bit her lip. “No more than...than giving a few suggestions as to how to set your ideas in order.”

 “You have done quite as much as I ever expected of Prometheus.”

 The colour fled from her cheeks and she shook her head violently. “Impossible!”

 “I mean it. I wager he comes to you for...Good gad!” Wynn struck himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand. “How can I have been so blind? You are Prometheus!”

 Miss Lisle swooned.

Chapter 12

 As the room ceased to whirl about Pippa’s head, she became aware of a frantic voice.

 “Miss Lisle! Pippa! Oh lord!”

 Through clearing mists, she saw Lord Selworth’s appalled face. She was lying on the floor with her head in his lap. “I am...” she faltered and tried to sit up. Nausea rose in her throat.

 “No, you’re not. You’re pale as rice pudding. Lie still, or you will go off again. Good gad, Miss Lisle, you gave me a frightful shock!”

 “Nothing to the...shock I gave myself. Did I...faint?” she asked, eyes closed.

 “Went down like an elm in a gale. I just caught you before you whacked your head on the fender. No,” he mused, “more like a wilting lily.”

 “You are too kind!”

 “At any rate, I’d say it must have been a swoon, a faint if you prefer. I’ve no experience.”

 “Nor have I,” Pippa said indignantly, opening her eyes, then hastily shutting them again as she met his blue gaze mere inches above her. “I have never fainted before in my life.”

 “I’m afraid it was my fault.” Lord Selworth squeezed her hand, which she had not realized he was clasping. She was still far too weak to withdraw it, she told herself, as he went on, “I gave you the first shock. I should not have accused you so abruptly.”

 Now she recalled in dismay why she had fainted. “It is not true,” she cried, suddenly finding the strength to pull her hand from his and once more trying to sit up.

 “Be still,” he commanded, pressing her back with a hand to her shoulder. “Doing it rather too brown, my girl. Of course it’s true. Why else should you have crumpled like an unstarched neckcloth?”

 “You grow more and more complimentary, I vow! I want to get up.”

 He frowned down at her. “You are still awfully pale.”

 “I am naturally pale.”

 “True, but pearly pale, not pasty. Still, the floor cannot be comfortable.”

 Refusing to admit she was perfectly comfortable, Pippa said, “And suppose someone comes in?”

 Lord Selworth cast an alarmed glance at the door, left ajar as propriety demanded. Without warning, he swept her up in strong arms, and before she had time for more than a gasp of surprise, he deposited her full-length on the nearest sofa.

 She started to swing her feet to the floor.

 “Please, lie still! If you collapse again, I shall have to call your maid since Mrs Lisle is out. We cannot explain what happened, and what she’ll guess doesn’t bear imagining.”

 Pippa blushed, imagining all too clearly that Nan would assume Lord Selworth had attempted improper familiarities. Then, though she had briefly suppressed the awareness, she once again remembered what had in fact caused her to swoon.

 “You know,” she said faintly.

 “That you are Prometheus?” He pulled up a chair. “Now I look back, it’s quite obvious the family friend was a fiction, but then, everything is always clear in hindsight.”

 “It was Mama’s notion to ask for a Season in payment, not mine.”

 “You would have refused me outright, would you not? To safeguard your secret. You are afraid of being sent to prison?”

 “A little.” Pippa shuddered. “You know how easy it is to be condemned for sedition now that
Habeas corpus
is suspended. Have you read of the appalling conditions of women in Newgate Gaol?”

 “No, as you might guess since I’d have tried to fit it into my speech,” he said ruefully.

 Pippa managed to smile. “No doubt. I was less concerned about prison, though, than about not being taken seriously. Who will pay the least heed to my articles if they know them to be written by a woman?”

 “I will!”

 “You are kind to say so. However, you cannot persuade me you would have asked Prometheus to assist you if you had known then.”

 Lord Selworth frowned. “You may be right,” he admitted. “So is it not fortunate that I remained in the dark until I had discovered your abilities for myself?”

 “But now you will wish to find another mentor,” Pippa said sadly. “No gentleman wishes to take advice from a female, especially one younger than himself.”

 “Come now, I am no Methuselah, Miss Lisle! And speaking of mythical figures—your wide acquaintance with Greek and Latin myth was one thing which gave you away—do you know who the original Mentor was?”

 “Something to do with Odysseus.” She was a trifle impatient with the irrelevant question when her future was at stake. “Adviser to his wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus, was he not? A man.”

 “Ah, but at some point in the story his place was taken by Athena in disguise. A female!” he said triumphantly.

 “A goddess!”

 His blue eyes gleamed. “If it weren’t the sort of flummery tossed about by honey-tongued coxcombs, I might call you a goddess. Be that as it may, I most certainly wish you to continue to play the part of Athena, Mentor, or Prometheus. All three if you will! Surely you cannot find it in your heart to abandon me in the middle of this thicket of half-pruned rose bushes?”

 “If you truly wish me to continue, I shall.” Pippa sighed. “But once everyone finds out that I am Prometheus—”

 “Everyone finds out? Why the dev...deuce should anyone find out?” Lord Selworth drew himself up and addressed her sternly. “Miss Lisle, do you mean to insinuate that I might give you away?”

 “Not on purpose!”

 “Then you must be confusing me with Millicent.”

 “Oh no!” Relieved to see a twinkle in his eye, Pippa giggled. “Impossible.”

 “I am delighted to hear it. I shan’t confide in her, believe me.”

 “Nor anyone else.”

 “Nor anyone else, I give you my word. Perhaps it will set your mind at ease if I give you a means of retaliation as well. I, too, have a secret I should hate to see bandied about the world.”

 “Tell me,” Pippa breathed, burning with curiosity.

 Lord Selworth turned rather pink. “You may recall I told your mama I worked to help support my family?”

 “Yes, and you were so reticent about it I immediately assumed the worst. “

 “Did you, indeed! Well, I don’t know what your worst is, and I don’t want to know, but it was nothing so very dreadful. I was neither pirate nor slaver, I assure you. The trouble is, public exposure would blight my political career, if not wither it entirely. Like you, I should not be taken seriously.”

 “Exposure of your consulting me would very likely be as bad for you,” Pippa felt bound to point out. “I shall consider that surety enough, if you like. You need not tell me.”

 “Generously spoken, when I can see you are all agog. I would not be so cruel.” Lord Selworth took a deep breath. “The fact of the matter is, I used to write quite successful Gothic romances. Like you, under a pseudonym.”

 “Valentine Dred!” cried Pippa.

 “How did you know?” he asked, startled.

 “I recognized your style, turns of phrase, in your speech.”

 “Oh lord, is it so evident?”

 “I never dreamt you had written the books, only that you had read and enjoyed them.”

 “Dare I hope you enjoyed them?”

 Pippa was about to assure him she loved his books, when she recalled the ribaldry which went with the tongue-in-cheek adventures. Lord Selworth had written those bawdy tales? Shocked, her face aflame, she looked away—and saw her ankles exposed to his view. Swinging her limbs down from the sofa, she primly smoothed her apricot mull muslin skirt over her knees, her gaze fixed on her fingers.

 “Sir, your books are not at all proper for young ladies to read.”

 Lord Selworth roared with laughter, the wretch! “My dear girl, if you have read enough of them to recognize my style, you have no possible excuse for denouncing them.”

 Bowing her head, Pippa wished she could sink through the floor. “I...I have read them all,” she confessed in a constricted voice, “and I like them very much. Not because of the...the improper bits, but because you seem not to take your characters and their exploits and misadventures very seriously. I hope I am not mistaken?” she asked, looking up as interest overcame embarrassment.

 “No indeed. I’m glad you realized it. Not all my reviewers have been equally perceptive!” he told her wryly. “But you understand why I fear I shall not be taken any more seriously than I take my stories, if I’m discovered to be the author.”

 “Yes. I suppose you will not write any more now? What a pity!”

 “There is one more due to come out shortly,
The Masked Marauder
.”

 “A splendid title,” Pippa exclaimed.

 “Perhaps I ought to have stopped publication when my great-uncle died, but the bookseller pleaded with me to let it go forward. To tell the truth, having written the dashed thing, I should be sorry not to see it in print.”

 “I can imagine. I feel much the same about my articles, and a novel is a far greater undertaking. How did you come to begin writing them?”

 “I started by scribbling down the scary stories I used to tell Albinia, when she was still in the nursery.”