Seducing Mr. Knightly (3 page)

To his left, Miss Annabelle Swift, advice columnist, sighed. Next to her, Eliza—now the Duchess of Wycliff—gave him a sly glance. Sophie, the Duchess of Brandon—a disgraced country girl when he first met her—propped her chin on her palm and smiled at him. Lady Roxbury brazenly took him on with her clear, focused gaze.

“What’s on this week, writers?” he asked.

Lady Julianna Roxbury, known in print as the Lady of Distinction and author of the salacious gossip column “Fashionable Intelligence,” clearly had News. “There are rumors,” she began excitedly, “of Lady Lydia Marsden’s prolonged absence from the ton. Lady Marsden is newly returned to town after she missed what ought to have been her second season. I am investigating.”

By investigating, she likely meant all manner of gossip and skulking about, but that was what
Weekly
writers did. Like the writers at
The Times
, but without getting caught.

No one else in the room seemed to care for the significance of a debutante’s whereabouts. Knightly barely did, he knew only that it would sell well to the ton. If the news covered one of their own, they talked about it more, which meant that more copies were sold just so people could understand conversations at parties.

To his right, good old Grenville grumbled under his breath. His irritation with the Writing Girls was never far from the surface. If it wasn’t the deep, dark inner workings of Parliament, then Grenville wasn’t interested.

“Annabelle has quite the update,” Sophie interjected excitedly. “Much more interesting than my usual news on weddings.”

Knightly turned his attention to Annabelle, the quiet one.

“My column this week has received more letters than any other,” she said softly. She held his gaze for a quick second before looking down at the thick stack of correspondence on the table and a sack on the floor at her feet.

He wracked his brain but couldn’t remember what she had submitted—oh, it had been late so he quickly reviewed it for errors of grammar and spelling before rushing it straight to the printers. Her work never required much by way of editing. Not like the epics Grenville submitted or the libel Lady Roxbury often handed in.

“Remind me the topic again?” he said. Clearly, it had resonated with the readers, so he ought to be aware of it.

She blinked her big blue eyes a few times. Perplexed.

There was a beat of hard silence in the room. Like he had said something wrong. So he gave the room A Look tinged with impatience to remind them that he was an extremely busy man and couldn’t possibly be expected to remember the contents of each article submitted the previous week for a sixteen-page-long newspaper.

But he could feel the gazes of the crew drilling into him—Owens shaking his head, Julianna’s eyebrows arched quite high. Even Grenville frowned.

Annabelle fixed her gaze upon him and said, “How to attract a man’s attention.”

That was just the sort of thing
Weekly
readers would love—and that could lead to a discussion of feelings—so Knightly gave a nod and said, “Good,” and inquired about Damien Owens’s police reports and other domestic intelligence. The conversation moved on.

“Before we go,” Knightly said at the end, “I heard a rumor that a reporter for
The London Times
has been arrested after having been caught impersonating a physician to the aristocracy.”

Shocked gasps ricocheted around the room from one writer to another as the implications dawned. The information this rogue reporter must have gathered from the bedrooms of London’s most powerful class . . . the fortune in suppression fees he must have raked in . . . If information was power, suddenly this reporter and this newspaper held all the cards.

There was no way the ton would stand for it.

“That could explain so much . . .” Julianna murmured thoughtfully, her brow knit in concentration. “The broken Dawkins betrothal, Miss Bradley’s removal to a convent in France . . .”

This only supported Knightly’s suspicions that there would soon be hell to pay. Not just by
The London Times
either.

“Why are you all looking at me?” Eliza Fielding, now the Duchess of Wycliff, inquired.

“Because you were just famously disguised as a servant in a duke’s household,” Alistair Grey, theater reviewer said, with obvious delight. Eliza grinned wickedly.

“I’m married to him now, so that must grant me some immunity. And I am not the only reporter here who has gone undercover for a story. What about Mr. Owens’s report on the Bow Street Runners?”

“That was weeks ago,” Owens said dismissively.

“You were impersonating an officer,” Eliza persisted.

“Well, has anyone asked Grenville how he obtains access to Parliament?” Owens questioned hotly. All heads swiveled in the direction of the grouchy old writer with the hound dog face.

“I don’t pretend anything, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Grenville stiffly protested. “I sit in the gallery, like the other reporters.”

“And after that?” Owens questioned. “Getting ‘lost’ in the halls like a ‘senile old man’? Bribes for access to Parliament members?”

“We all do what needs to be done for a story,” cut in Lady Roxbury, who had once disguised herself as a boy and snuck into White’s, the most exclusive and
male
enclave in the world. “We’re all potentially on the line if authorities start looking into the matter. But they cannot possibly because then every newspaper would be out of business and we’d all be locked up.”

“Except for Miss Swift. She would be safe, for she never does anything wicked,” Owens added. Everyone laughed. Even Knightly. He’d wager that Dear Annabelle was the last woman in the world to cause trouble.

Chapter 3

What to Wear When Attracting a Rogue

L
ETTER TO THE
E
DITOR

I deplore today’s fashions for women, which play to men’s baser instincts. Unfortunately, Gentlemen do not seem to share my dismay. I fear for the civilized world.

Signed, A Lady

The London Weekly

I
F
there had been the
slightest
doubt in Annabelle’s mind about the dire need to enact her campaign for Knightly’s attention, this afternoon’s events had dispelled it. Even if she’d been quaking with regrets, consumed by doubts, and feverishly in a panic about her mad scheme, her exchange with Knightly would have cleared her head and confirmed her course of action.

Mission: Attract Knightly
must now commence, with every weapon at her disposal. It was either that or resolve herself to a lifetime of spinsterhood. The prospect did not enthrall.

The rest of the staff had quit the room; the Writing Girls stayed. Annabelle remained paralyzed in her place.

“He hadn’t read my column,” she said, shocked. Still.

She needed to say the wretched truth aloud. If she needed any confirmation of what Knightly thought of her—or didn’t—this was all the information she needed. Her own editor,
a man paid to look at her work,
didn’t even read it. If it weren’t for the thick stack of letters from readers, she might have flung herself off the London Bridge, that was how lonely it felt.

Lord above, it was mortifying, too. Everyone else knew why she sighed when Knightly walked in the room. She was sure they all knew about her inner heartache during her brief exchange with him. How could Knightly not see?

He hadn’t read her column, and it had been about him!

“Annabelle, it wasn’t that terrible. I’m sure he doesn’t read all of our work either,” Sophie said consolingly. “Certainly not my reports on weddings.”

“It’s not just that,” Annabelle said glumly. “No one thinks I am wicked.”

Julianna, who was very daring and wicked, grinned broadly. “So they shall be all the more speechless when it turns out you are! I loved your column on Saturday. Knightly may not have read it, but the rest of the town did. Your next course of action is being fiercely debated in drawing rooms all over town.”

“Indeed?” It was strange to think of strangers debating her innermost vexations.

“There seems to be two schools of thought,” Sophie replied. “One suggests that you simply confess to him your feelings.”

“I am terrified at the thought,” Annabelle replied.

“Then you may be interested in the other method . . .” Sophie paused dramatically. “Seduction.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” Annabelle scoffed. “That would be wicked, and you heard Owens; I never act thusly.”

“He’s an ass,” Julianna retorted.

Usually Annabelle would have admonished her friend’s coarse language. Instead, she said, “No, he’s right. I am Good. Therefore, I am not interesting. Why should Knightly take notice of me? There is nothing to notice!”

Wasn’t that the plain old truth!

The mirror dared to suggest she was pretty, but all Annabelle saw was a riot of curls that were best restrained in a tight, spinsterish bun atop her head. She did have lovely blue eyes, but more often than not kept her gaze averted lest she draw attention to herself. Furthermore, her wardrobe consisted entirely of brownish-gray dresses made of remnant fabric from her brother’s cloth-importing business. To say the cut was flattering or fashionable was to be a liar of the first order.

She might dare think people would see beyond her disastrous hair and hideous dresses. Most of the time she couldn’t.

“Oh, Annabelle. You are rather pretty—so pretty that he, like any red-blooded male, should notice you. Unless he’s not . . .”

“See, I am blushing at your mere suggestion!” Annabelle squeaked.

“We do have work to do,” Julianna murmured.

“What do your letters say?” Sophie asked, picking one up.

Annabelle scowled and grabbed the first one, reading it aloud.

“ ‘Dear Annabelle, in my humble opinion a low bodice never fails to get a man’s eye. It plays to their rutting instincts, which we all know they are slaves to . . . Betsy from Bloomsbury.’ ”

“A trip to the modiste! I love it.” Sophie clapped her hands with glee. But Annabelle frowned. Beggars ought not be choosers, yet . . .

“I want him to notice me for
me
; who I am as a person. Not just bits of me.”

“You have to start with certain parts. Then he’ll attend to the rest,” Julianna replied. “Come, let’s go get you a new dress.”

“You must wear it for my party later this week,” Sophie said, then adding the most crucial detail: “Knightly has been invited.”

The opportunity dangled before her like the carrot and the horse. Never mind that the analogy made her a horse. The facts were plain:

There was something she might try (thank you, Betsy from Bloomsbury) and an opportunity at which she might do so (thank you, Sophie, hostess extraordinaire).

She had made that promise to her readers, and it would be dreadful to let them down. She did so despise disappointing people.

Annabelle twirled one errant curl around her finger and mulled it over (Swifts were not known for their quick decisions). She supposed there were worse things than a new gown and a fancy ball. For her readers, she would do this.

Not one hour later, Annabelle was standing in the dressing room of Madame Auteuil’s shop. A previous customer had returned a lovely pink gown after a change of heart, and Annabelle wore it now as the seamstresses took measurements for a few alterations.

“I don’t think it quite fits,” she said. It wasn’t the size per se, for she knew it would be tailored to her measurements. It was the dress itself.

It was silk. She never wore silk.

It was pink, like a peony or a rosebud or her cheeks when Knightly spoke to her. She never wore pink.

The pink silk was ruched and cinched and draped in a way that seemed to enhance her every curve and transform her from some gangly girl into a luscious woman.

Annabelle wore simply cut dresses made of boring old wool or cotton. Usually in shades of brown or gray or occasionally even taupe.

The Swift family owned a fabric importing business, which dealt exclusively in plain and serviceable cottons and wools guided by the rational that everyone required those, but so few indulged in silks and satins. Blanche generously provided Annabelle with last season’s remnants for the construction of her wardrobe.

This silk, though, was lovely. A crimson silk sash cinched around her waist, enhancing what could only be described as an hourglass figure. It was a wicked color, that crimson.

Madame Auteuil stepped back, folded her arms and appraised her subject with a furrow of her brow and a frown on her lips. She had pins in her mouth and Annabelle worried for her.