To beguile him.
Good lord.
He’d spent his formative years working as a bullyboy at Mrs. Pritchard’s gentlemen’s establishment in Whitechapel. It had been the first job he’d found in England, the only one that had allowed him to keep Mira with him. There, he’d been surrounded by attractive women—outright professionals at their trade—and none of them had ever affected him as deeply as Miss Maltravers had. Certainly not by the mere touch of their hand.
If this was a sample of her erotic skill, she’d soon be as much in demand as Catherine Walters herself.
The prospect left a sour taste in his mouth. He downed another swallow of brandy.
“What else?” Mira asked.
He flashed her a questioning look over the rim of his glass.
“If not a lady or a courtesan, then what is she?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I mean to find out.”
Two
Evelyn crept through the back door of her uncle’s town house in Russell Square. Uncle Harris gave his staff a half day on Wednesdays and Sundays. It was how she’d managed to sneak away this evening unobserved. Still, one never knew when a stray maid or footman might be lurking about. It was best to be careful.
She ducked through the empty kitchen and tiptoed up the winding servants’ staircase and down the dark third-floor hall that led to her bedchamber. Slipping silently inside her room, she shut the paneled door firmly behind her, sagging against it with a breath of relief.
It had been over half an hour since she’d left Doyle and Heppenstall’s, and yet her stomach was still fluttering wildly. She felt rather like she had as a girl when encountering a particularly difficult fence during the annual hunt at Babbington Heath. There was a low throb of fear in her chest coupled with an overwhelming swell of giddy anticipation.
This jump will not beat me, she’d often thought.
And nor would London.
Lighting a lamp, she removed her soiled skirts and jacket. Having missed the omnibus in Bond Street, she’d been obliged to walk most of the way home. It was only a little more than a mile and a half. Not a great distance for one who was used to striding about the Sussex countryside. London, however, was far dirtier than Combe Regis. All the smoke and soot. It clouded the evening sky and blotted out the stars. Her hem and cuffs were filthy with it.
She washed her face and hands and changed into a faded blue day dress. It took but a moment longer to tidy her unruly hair and drape an old cashmere shawl round her shoulders. Having done so, she exited her room and made her way downstairs.
For her first season to be a success, she’d need more than a stylish habit or two. She’d need an entire wardrobe. Not refurbished hats and gowns, and not dresses made with drab fabric bought at a bargain. She required the best. And the best would cost money.
It was past time she broached the subject with Uncle Harris.
Located on the first floor, adjacent to the library, her uncle’s study was his private domain. The door was always shut, a light glimmering from within at all hours of the night and day. He rarely emerged, and on those brief occasions when he did, he looked—or so it seemed to Evelyn—rather like a mole popping its head up out of its underground burrow to squint blindly into the sun.
“Remember,” Aunt Nora had said before Evelyn departed Combe Regis, “my brother is a scholar. Nothing exists for him besides his work. You must take pains daily to remind him of your presence, else he’ll forget you’re there.”
Evelyn had promised that she would, but since arriving in London last week, she’d found it far easier to leave her uncle to his own devices. She much preferred her independence. The same independence she exercised at home.
Unfortunately, there were some things for which Uncle Harris was necessary.
She rapped lightly at his study door.
“Who’s that?”
“It’s me, Uncle,” she said, cracking open the door. “Evelyn.”
Harris Fielding was seated behind an enormous, and very untidy, carved mahogany desk, the surface of which was covered with so many books and papers that her uncle himself could scarcely be seen. Only the top of his tasseled cap was visible.
“Evelyn?” He repeated her name as if he’d never heard it before. “Ah, yes. Diana’s girl. Come in, come in.”
Evelyn entered and came to stand in front of his desk.
Her mother, Diana, had been Uncle Harris’s youngest sister. She’d died when Evelyn was but fifteen, a result of exhaustion, the village midwife had said. Too many children in too short a time, not all of them living. The final birth had done for her. Baby Isobel had lived, but Mama had slipped away, closing her eyes as if to rest for a moment only to never wake again.
Her death had been the start of all their problems.
She’d been their lodestar. Their ballast. Strong and pragmatic, setting the wisest course for all of their lives. Without her, things had swiftly fallen apart.
Naturally, Papa had been no help at all. Consumed by guilt, he’d consoled himself with travel, never remaining at home for more than a few days at a time. Evelyn and her sisters had been left in the care of Aunt Nora—Mama and Uncle Harris’s spinster older sister. She was a dear, sweet lady, but not the cleverest of the family.
“I’ve missed dinner again, I realize,” Uncle Harris said. “It’s this dratted paper of mine for the Antiquarian Society. Won’t write itself, you know.”
“You needn’t disturb yourself on my account,” Evelyn replied. “I do very well on my own.”
In fact, she’d only seen her uncle at dinner twice since her arrival last week. Even then, he’d left the table early, wandering out of the dining room and back to his study in a state of abstraction.
He peered up at her over the clutter on his desk. The light from the oil lamp glinted on the lenses of his half-moon spectacles. “You’re settling in, I trust? Your room and so forth?”
“Thank you, yes. I’m quite comfortable.”
“And that horse of yours?”
“He’s settling in as well. My groom is looking after him.”
“Good, good. Nora said you had a fellow. Groom, manservant, general dogsbody. What’s the chap called?”
“Lewis,” Evelyn said. He’d been her father’s groom long before he’d become hers. Indeed, it was Lewis who had accompanied Hephaestus back to England as a two-year-old after Papa had died in Spain four years ago.
“And you’ve spoken to Mrs. Quick about obtaining a . . . what do you call it?”
“A lady’s maid? Yes. She told me that I might use Agnes during my stay.”