Jameson stared at him as though he’d grown another head. “You expect me to print more of that so soon? When I already have the devil breathing down my neck?”
Phin’s heart sank as he stepped over to Jameson’s desk and deposited his latest story on top. “I take it word of Lady Hamilton’s fury has reached you,” he said, feeling guilty. He wasn’t going to stopper up that guilt either. He deserved to feel every bit of it after the misstep he’d made.
Jameson shook his head and let out a heavy breath. “The harpy hasn’t come after me yet,” he said, jerking a hand through his hair. “But word in my circles is that she’s going after each and every printer she finds out about, trying to figure out who publishes Nocturne. She’s made no secret of the fact that she intends to sue for libel, among other things.”
“She won’t,” Phin said, though he didn’t believe it himself. “To sue would mean an admission of guilt. It would positively identify the character in the story as her daughter, and doing so would ruin the young woman’s chances of any marriage at all.” Which was exactly what Lenore had hinted at the musicale. She was as right as she was beautiful.
All the same, Phin felt sick as he spoke. He had been a blind fool and an idiot not to think everything through before publishing. But every other subject of his stories had staunchly denied they were the basis for any of his characters. Lionel had tried to warn him, but all he’d been thinking about was buying winter coats for Hazel and the girls.
“The solution is to print another issue with an even more intriguing story,” he said, jabbing his finger on the pages he’d put on the desk. “Memories are short, and the sooner London society has something else to gossip about, the sooner they’ll forget last week’s scandal.”
He had listened to Lionel on that score. It had been his brother’s idea to rush a new story into publication, and it had also been Lionel’s suggestion to make it a tale of three lovers, two of which were men, so that Nocturne’s audience would be so stunned by its audacity—perhaps even causing a stir about its legality—that not a soul would remember Lady Agnes existed, let alone that she was the subject of the prior issue.
Jameson picked up the sheets of paper with a skeptical look. As soon as he glanced over them, his eyes went round. “Are you trying to have me arrested, sir?” he demanded.
“If you haven’t been thus far, you won’t be,” Phin reassured him. “And you wouldn’t be the only printer in London publishing this sort of thing, believe me.”
“I have a wife and children,” Jameson reminded him, his jaw clenched and his body practically radiating tension. “I have to provide for them.”
“And the reason you’ve been risking so much to publish Nocturne is because I generously share the profits with you,” Phin reminded the man as kindly as he could, even though he felt as though he’d dug himself into a hole that would be next to impossible to get out of. “Things will be all right,” he insisted. “You’ll see when you read through the story that I’ve been excruciatingly careful with descriptions. It’s all innuendo and suggestion, not explicit detail, much more so than other things I’ve written.” The fact that it was all based on his direct experience was a fact that he would leave out, lest Jameson throw him out entirely.
Jameson growled, but continued reading the story. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. His frown shifted to a look of calculation. “We could increase the price by a penny or two. That would cause a stir as well, and it would provide a certain degree of insurance, in case Lady Hamilton sniffs us out.”
“I fully endorse your plan to increase the price,” Phin said with a nod. “And I invite you to keep all of that profit to mitigate your risk.” He’d give Jameson the shirt off his back as well, as long as Hazel and the girls and his father all still had shirts on their backs.
“It’s a deal, then,” Jameson said with a heavy sigh. “Now, you’d better get out and leave me to my work before I change my mind.”
Phin plopped his hat back on his head. “Immediately, sir.”
He turned to leave the office, unsure whether he felt relieved at his attempts to make things right on Lady Agnes’s account or if guilt would continue to eat at him until Lady Hamilton gave up her fight and Lady Agnes was safely married to some duke or other. Perhaps Lionel could help on that account. His brother knew everyone in London and then some.
But before he spared his thoughts for Lady Agnes Hamilton’s problems, Phin had a few more concerns of his own. He stepped back out into the blustery morning and turned his steps toward Oxford Street. Lenore was coming for supper that night—ostensibly with her fiancé, though if Phin knew anything about anything, he would be vastly surprised if Freddy Herrington had any intention of dining with them—which meant he had to make the evening a night to remember.
Lenore hadn’t felt the same sort of excitement of possibility as she mounted the stairs to Phineas’s decidedly modest townhouse since she’d stepped off the ship at Portsmouth and set foot on British soil for the first time. It didn’t matter that Phineas clearly didn’t have the funds that the rest of the crowd Freddy and Reese ran with had, or that he answered his front door himself. The second Lenore saw him dressed for dinner and groomed to perfection in the context of his own home, her heart ran riot and her unmentionable parts thrummed in anticipation.
“Miss Garret, how lovely to see you,” Phineas greeted her, taking a step back and gesturing for her to enter. “Lord Herrington isn’t with you?”
“Good evening, Mr. Mercer,” she said, stepping into Phineas’s front hall. She unbuttoned her coat and turned her back to Phineas so that he could take it from her shoulders. “I’m afraid Freddy has come down with a bit of a cold,” she said, glancing coquettishly over her shoulder at Phineas, one eyebrow arched.
“Oh, dear,” Phineas said, his tone hinting he wasn’t fooled for a minute and that they’d both known that was the plan all along. “I will be sure to have my cook send him some of her fortifying bone broth to speed in his recovery.”
“You have a cook?” Lenore asked, teasing him as he hung her coat on a peg on one wall beside his own. If the peg wasn’t a sign of Phineas’s modest finances, then nothing was. Reese had an entirely separate room just for the coats, hats, and gloves of his guests, and a butler to carry them away.
Phineas sent her a look that said he knew he was being teased. “I have a cook and a maid both, I’ll have you know. Though neither of them live in. They’re day help only.”
Lenore’s brow shot up. On the one hand, that was decidedly middle-class for a man who was set to inherit a baronetcy someday. On the other, it was a blatant admission that they were alone in the house for the duration of the evening.
“How very interesting,” she said, lowering her voice to the appropriate level of purr that a gentleman who had invited a lady over to seduce her would expect.
“I would be happy to show you their handiwork, if you’re ready,” he said, gesturing for her to follow him down the hall.
It was not lost on Lenore that the sweep of his gesture took in both what appeared to be an entrance to a well-lit dining room from which delicious scents of supper were emanating and a staircase leading to private rooms upstairs, as though it were up to her to choose which way to go. She grinned to herself and continued on to the dining room, glancing deliberately up the stairs as she went. However the night ended, she hadn’t had supper yet. Some things always took priority over others.