Linda Needham (13 page)

“To the letter.”

“Except that the government will then take your findings and use them to enact some cruel and punitive legislation against the people it’s supposed to protect. Like the suspension of habeas corpus: a travesty of justice that allows a
man to be tried for his life
in absentia
so that the Home Office can strike a killing blow against the press and public assemblies before anyone can protest.”

“That’s not the intent.”

“Well, that’s the result. And mark me, sir, that’s just what will come of your Peterloo report.”

“If an act of Parliament is required to quell the unrest, so be it.”

“And when you learn that your commission has made one tremendous error after another and innocent men have been transported and imprisoned and even hanged, no one will be condemned for the misjudgment—because by that time, Parliament will have passed an act of indemnity absolving the ministers and their agents from culpability. It’s a devilish stratagem, my lord.”

“I say again, I will not issue a report until I am satisfied.”

“I plan to be there in the gallery when it’s read, my lord, when Lord Pudding tries to explain himself in Parliament. I’ll collect his speech and Sidmouth’s—”

“And mine?”

“Yours in particular.”

“What of my other speeches, madam? Have you ever collected one of mine?” The man was trying his best to look nonchalant as he leaned forward again on his elbows, but having no luck at all. She wanted to smile but held back.

“Hmm…Everingham…” She tapped her cheek as she pretended to remember back to some unmemorable time, to some unremarkable speech.

He’d always made her spitting mad with his thick-headed politics, but she’d loved his voice, the way it echoed off the chamber walls. Worst of all, he always trod the borderline of being correct: a shove to the left and he’d be one of us, she’d always said.

He was watching her steadily, waiting for her answer. “Well, have you?”

Hollie sighed for effect. “I suppose I must have. Yes, I have.”

The man was trying to hide his smile, but it was there in the corners, fighting for purchase. “You must have an opinion of me and my speeches.”

“Well, naturally, my lord, since you are a pig-headed Tory, your speeches are just so much wallowing in what Tories are bound to wallow in.” She waited for his growl, but he seemed amused at the moment, so she continued, “It’s just that I always enjoy your—”

“Enjoy, madam? I’m flattered.”

“Enjoy as in appreciate your speeches for the way you—” The way your dark eyes scanned the gallery, as though you were looking for me, as though you wanted me to understand you.

“For the way I what?” He leaned closer, his breath as near to a kiss as she’d ever gotten.

“Well, the way you speak without notes, my
lord. Off the cuff in a very…” That pesky blush came again, spreading up from her chest like an indictment.

“In a very
what
, madam?”

“In a very compelling way.”

“Compelling?”

Passionate.
Oh, but she couldn’t say that. She was paying too much attention to his mouth, the shape of his words on his lips.

“When you speak, the others in both Houses seem to stop their chattering and actually listen.” Bits of fog still clung to his coat in tiny diamonds; she stopped her hand just as she would have reached up to brush them from his broad shoulders.

“They listen, madam, but you don’t, do you?”

“I don’t what?” It was then that she felt the gentle tugging, his fingers wrapped in the ends of her hair, idling there. No wonder she was having difficulty following his questions. He was too large for her parlor, too grand for her life. He smelled of the forest instead of the cold chambers of Whitehall, of woodsmoke and leaves and hard-worked leather instead of his wealth and his title.

His breathing had become deep and steady, breaking softly against her cheek. His eyes held hers, stealing her breath when he traced the line of her lip with the pad of his thumb as though he might actually kiss her this time.

And then without a hint of warning the man blinked suddenly and stood. “Bloody hell.”

“What is it?”

He scrubbed his hand around the back of his neck, took her hand, and raised her to her feet.

“I think I’d best go, madam, before I forget myself altogether. Before I forget the greatness of the divide between us.”

Hollie stood in her little parlor and watched him go, felt her spirit winding out the door with him, like a silken ribbon caught in his pocket.

“Oh, my Lord Everingham, you have no idea of the impossible greatness of that divide.”

C
harles’s house looked vastly different to him in the clear, crisp light of morning. The halls, the library, his office—settled, civilized. The carpet, the books, the brass upholstery buttons, all of it—entirely comprehensible. And he was in control once again.

Not a hint of the heady temptations of the night before, no flashing eyes to distract him from the business of the day, none of her challenging opinions that made him think of nothing but the rosy bow of her lips.

His sanctuary belonged to him again save for the faint, trailing tendrils of her scent that had followed him into his office and hung above the inkwell on his desk. He caught himself sniffing
at the air like a simple-minded hound. Watching the door for her smile.

Hell and damnation, he’d nearly kissed the woman last night. Twice. Another man’s wife!

He should have left her at the gatehouse door. He would keep his promise to help her assemble her damned Stanhope, then he’d spend the rest of the day on his much-needed inspections of the estate.

“Your pardon, my lord.” Bavidge’s knock at the office door startled him.

“Yes, yes, come, Bavidge.” Charles couldn’t help his bellow, couldn’t hide his irritation as Bavidge entered, his arms overloaded with files and the day’s business.

“Three letters for you to sign this morning, my lord. From last evening’s dictation.”

“Yes, yes, bring them.” Charles yanked his chair from his desk, sat down and took up his pen. He hated this part of the day. The endless signatures, the blindness that overtook him as his dutiful clerk put the first of the letters on the blotter in front of him. Bavidge’s clear, precise script, familiar and life-saving yet shattering at the same time—because it was all chicken scratching—and awaiting Charles’s signature.

He jabbed the pen into the inkwell and scrawled his signature at the bottom of each of the letters. “See that these get to Sidmouth today.”

“Yes, my lord. Anything else?”

He’d been about to wave Bavidge away for the
remainder of the day when he saw a carefully folded letter tented against the lamp.

“Wait, Bavidge.” He picked it up, sending a light waft of perfume past his nose. Her peach and vanilla. His heart leaped, slid around like a schoolboy’s. “Take care of this first.”

Anticipation drew sweat from his brow as he handed the letter to Bavidge and tried to relax in his chair, shuffled papers as he prepared to listen.

No doubt another inflammatory diatribe against him. Peterloo, the boy, her husband’s trial—the subject could be most anything.

“It’s from Mrs. MacGillnock.”

“Yes, yes. Go on. I haven’t got all day.”

“‘My Lord Everingham, Regarding…’ Oh. Well.” Bavidge stopped abruptly.

“Regarding
what
, Bavidge? Get on with it.”

Bavidge’s sudden blush should have warned Charles, but the man cleared his throat and then continued, “‘Regarding last night’s…indiscretion between—’”

“Bloody hell!” Charles lurched to his feet and snatched the letter from Bavidge, damning himself for being so utterly stupid, for trusting the woman. “I’ll take care of this. Leave.”

Bavidge gurgled something as he backed up sharply into the side table, rattling the prisms on the lamp. “Yes, my lord.”

The man’s neck and the tips of his ears were a hot crimson. He lunged for the door.

“Indiscretion!” Holy Christ, he’d nearly kissed
her. Bloody hell, he’d been two heartbeats from doing more than that.

But he hadn’t, damn it all! He’d gathered up every last shred of his honor and left the woman unkissed.

Yet here she was putting the whole of it in writing. An indictment against his unforgivable behavior, for tempting the bounds of decency.

Blackmail, surely. Her insistence that she be able to air her grievances in exchange for postponing her husband’s trial.

He took a moment to right his thoughts, drew a steadying breath, then glanced down at the page, willing it to make sense for once. A fruitless activity, as always. The ink swam as it always did, as it ever would. And the blindness shuttered his heart.

Nonsensical lines and poetical curves and delicate swirls of various thicknesses. Gibberish, all of it. Damnation, if he could only pound the words into his head, he could understand her meaning.

That was the frustration of it. This knowing that Bavidge had read some of her words, that Bowles could and Watford, and the man who delivered the dry goods to the kitchen could, yet
he
couldn’t. He gripped the page between his hands and tried.

God knows, he had always tried.

You’re a fool, boy.

He had squinted and steadied his breathing and searched for patterns among the scrawling: a clam shell, a butter churn, a bulbous nose. But never words.

He focused on the top line, a single word. Probably, though he couldn’t be completely sure, “Charles.” His name, drawn lightly, cleanly in her easy hand, and all the words that followed in their graceful dance across the page were created by her just for him—to read, to understand her thoughts.

Anger at him, more instructions on his parental duties, or that hint of haughty amusement? He’d never felt so cut off from the world.

From
her
world.

“Bloody hell!” He passed Mumberton in the corridor. “Where is she?”

“Conservatory, my lord.”

Waiting for him to help her put together her accursed printing press. Charles growled and doubled his pace down the hall.

He would have barreled into the room, but she was sitting at a small table at an angle to him, bent over a sheet of paper, a short stack of the same piled at the corner. She was tapping her lower lip with a pen, her chin tipped to the window, her mouth forming silent words. She must have found the perfect sentiment just then, because she smiled in triumph, dotted the air with the point of the pen, and then dipped it into the inkwell.

Breathtaking, distracting. He would force himself to keep a better distance from her.

Taking a long, defensive breath, he strode into the conservatory, stood over and slightly behind her, then dropped her own note across her hands and the letter she was scribing.

“What the devil do you mean by this, madam?” He straightened and moved away from her, fearing the scent of her perfume would distract him from his purpose. He needed all of his faculties if he was to employ his usual strategies.

She seemed not at all surprised to see him as she turned halfway in her chair and asked easily, “What do you think I meant, my lord?”

He’d long ago learned ways of coping with his deficiency. He used trickery, deceit, quick maneuvering with his associates, and common, ordinary autocratic blustering with his underlings. But Miss Finch wasn’t taking the bait, and he had no idea of the subject matter—only her allusion to last night’s bloody indiscretion.

He pointed again at the offending page, flicked the corner. “Explain yourself.”

She huffed, raised a winged brow. “I thought I had, my lord. Quite clearly.”

“Not clearly enough by half.” He was skilled at turning the problem back on the reader.

“I assumed you’d agree with me on the entire matter.”

“I—” Hell and damnation, what was she talking about? He hated this swimming blackness, feeling his way blindly, more than anything.

“Yes, my lord?”

“I think, madam, that we need to discuss the matter. Here and now.”

“What part of my letter bothers you?” The bloody woman could have been a lawyer with all her double-talk.

My lord Everingham, Regarding last night’s indiscretion between
—and
then
what, madam?

He needed another, safer tack. He lifted the letter again, leaned over her shoulder, and fitted it between her fingers.

“May I remind you of what you wrote here?”

She turned slightly in the closer cocoon of his arms, brushing the top of her head against his chin, tempting him to nestle a kiss against the scented bounty of blond. But that was the subject, wasn’t it?

“Why are you so angry, my lord? I didn’t blame you, because we both had a part in it. Or are you merely shocked at my openness?”

Bloody hell, he’d like to be shocked. Or angry. Or delighted.

“Read it for yourself.” He clamped down on his desire to shout as he tended to do with his staff. The tactic worked on them, though it always caused Bavidge to quake and Mumberton to run for the nearest corner.

The redoubtable Miss Finch merely set the pen into the holder and frowned up at him. “I meant only to apologize for my part in last night’s—”

“Apologize?”

She caught her lower lip with her teeth just long enough to dampen it. “I really should have stopped you. I am, after all, a happily married woman.”

Great God. “No, Miss Finch. I’m the one who stepped over the boundaries. It won’t happen again.”

“So you’re not angry about our little indiscretion?”

“No. I’m not angry.” Aroused then, aroused now, but not angry.

“So is it my request that angers you?”

He shoved away from her, the air knocked out of him. What bloody request?

He’d learned long ago to stick to short sentences when trapped in a dark corner. He stepped away from her to the windows, needing less distraction if he was going to survive this lopsided interrogation.

“Explain yourself.” Here was the safety he respected: distance, putting the onus on her to explain herself. He turned, in charge once more, and clasped his hands behind his back as he took a thoughtful step toward her. “If you’re seeking my approval in the matter, Miss Finch, I’m afraid you’ll need to be more clear in your details.”

She cocked her head and peered at him as
though he’d grown a second nose. “I just wanted to know if I could have a few rags for the Stanhope.”

“Rags?”

She scrubbed her hand along the base of the printing press. “It’s gotten full of grease and ink on its trek here. It must be cleaned before it can be put together, else everything I print will have smudges.”

Good God! The great and terrible subject was rags.

He expelled the stifling breath he’d been holding back, nearly laughed in relief, nearly reached out and kissed the woman, because she was standing too close again, impatient as always. This woman he wanted but couldn’t have.

“May I, my lord?”

He smiled because he’d survived once again, because it felt damned good to be standing in the shimmering daylight of his conservatory with Hollie Finch in her practical, ink-stained apron. “You may have all the rags you want, madam.”

“Good,” she said in her businesslike way. And he would have been just fine for the rest of the day if she hadn’t reached up and smoothed her cool fingers between the wool of his waistcoat and the linen of his shirt, if she hadn’t pulled gently on his neck cloth. “But I’m sure you’ll want to take this off first.”

“My neck cloth?” His blood rose like a tropical tide, filled up his chest and then flooded his
groin, became a keenly throbbing erection and a deep need.

“And your shirt.”

Christ, she would be the death of him. “Before what, madam?”

A rosy impatience tucked itself into the corners of her mouth. “You insisted on helping me assemble the Stanhope, my lord. I’m only warning you that the very first thing you’ll learn about ink is that it’s indelible.”

Oh, but not nearly as indelible as you, my dear. Not nearly.