Page 32 of A Waltz on the Wild Side (The Wild Wynchesters #6)

“Try to fail tonight as spectacularly as you are able,” she called out. “Your talent is worth the risk. You’re worth it. No matter what any naysayers opine. You can’t conquer your fears if you don’t face them!”

He swung himself into the carriage and slammed that door, too.

Communicating with publishers exclusively via post—and ignoring the public altogether—made Sir Gareth Jallow all the more believable as an eccentric artist. Rumors abounded that the poet was old or sickly or disabled, housebound and irascible.

The public loved him all the more for it.

Sir Gareth was a triumph. An inspiration.

No rumors whatsoever indicated Jallow might be thirty-two-year-old Jacob Wynchester, scribbling on an old notebook inside a barn. Nor would such an unveiling be greeted with applause.

If he somehow convinced the public at large that he was the man behind the magic, they would not thank him for pulling the wool from their eyes. Breathless respect for Sir Gareth would not extend to Jacob Wynchester.

Vivian didn’t understand that the only way for him to have success was by never allowing anyone to peek behind the curtain.

And he did have success! Loads of it. What had once seemed an eye-watering inheritance from his adoptive father, Baron Vanderbean, now looked like a pittance. Sir Gareth Jallow was a household name.

Granted, it wasn’t Jacob’s name, but wasn’t success its own reward, no matter how it came about?

Soon, the carriage pulled up at the meeting site for the Dreamers Guild. A privileged location. Jacob rubbed his face as he trudged up the walkway to the home of the second-most famous poet in England.

His colleagues believed Jacob to be luckless but hopeful, and filled every conversation with well-meaning but useless advice on which type of parchment or ink to use to catch a publisher’s eye, or which popular poets it would behoove him to study.

Which inevitably led to them rhapsodizing over his fictional persona. Unlike Jacob, Sir Gareth was a genius! A treasure! More influential than Shakespeare! It was exhilarating and infuriating and embarrassing.

A man without obstacles is champion of nothing , echoed Vivian’s voice in his ears. Try to fail tonight as spectacularly as you are able. You’re worth it.

Tonight, the first half hour of the meeting was devoted to speculation that Percy Bysshe Shelley would return to London to perform a reading at Vauxhall Gardens.

Although the others spoke dreamily about addressing a crowd of ten thousand, the reality of being rejected by an audience that large made Jacob want to burrow into a hole with his field voles.

Though he’d once dreamed of being the star of a show, he now preferred remaining safe in the shadows.

“Who wants to read first?” asked the group’s host.

Jacob didn’t raise his hand.

A record quarter of the assembled poets managed to read a few lines before the conversation inevitably devolved into talk of Sir Gareth Jallow, whose newest volume of poetry was to be published the following week.

On this topic, tonight the group was evenly divided.

Half believed Jallow the most brilliant mind of the century and couldn’t wait to read the new collection.

The other half scoffed that Jallow had become passé and overrated.

Now that the common folk could quote him at will, Jallow’s poems were no longer the esoteric domain of the literati.

Eventually the group wandered back on topic and managed to have the rest of the room share a few stanzas each between sips of sherry.

Everyone but Jacob. He’d refused their entreaties for so long, they no longer asked him.

Part of him wished to cling to life as it currently was. Another part of him recognized that Vivian was right. The only way to get what he didn’t have was through change.

A strange, forgotten itch crawled along his skin. An itch to try. To be seen. To be heard.

To prove Vivian wrong about him.

To make her proud.

“Well,” said one of the founding poets as the group finished the last bottle of sherry, “I suppose that’s it until next week.”

Jacob’s friends began to clap each other on their backs and shrug into their coats.

Perhaps he wasn’t ready to tell the whole world the full truth—Jacob might never be ready for that, no matter how idyllic the dream—but these were his colleagues. He’d known them for years.

If Jacob was ever going to fail spectacularly, he might as well do so here. Starting now.

“I could read a few lines,” he blurted out.

The others blinked at him in amazement.

“I didn’t know you were a poet!” said one of the newer members.

Had it been that long since anyone had asked Jacob if he wanted to read? Had the others believed him merely a hanger-on all this time, and not a fellow colleague, as he had felt about them?

“Of course we can take a moment for a junior member,” one of the other poets said expansively, despite Jacob having been present for the original founding of the group, and every meeting since.

“What are you going to read?” asked one of the new faces.

Jacob hadn’t actually prepared anything. He couldn’t quite believe he was even doing this. Did he dare? Once his poetry group knew the truth, regardless of their reaction, the secret would be out there. This could be the beginning of the end.

The others watched him expectantly.

He cleared his throat. The journal in his pocket was full of unfinished poems—he certainly couldn’t read any of that. But Jallow’s upcoming book of poetry contained lines Jacob had toiled over countless times. He could probably quote all hundred pages by heart.

He decided to go with the two-stanza poem on page sixty-six.

Short. Visceral. Powerful.

“Something I’ve been working on,” he said hoarsely. “It’s called ‘Irrational . ’”

When he finished, the room was preternaturally silent. The others regarded him with expressions ranging from confusion to awe.

“Splendid!” The newest poets burst into spontaneous applause.

“Derivative at best,” sniffed one of the old guard as he looked down his nose at Jacob. “It is one thing to admire a better talent, and another entirely to copy Jallow’s style as if it were your own.”

“I did no such thing,” Jacob said evenly.

Those who had praised him before glanced at each other, their smiles fading.

“Rumor has it ‘Sir Gareth Jallow’ is a pseudonym,” their host said with a hearty clap to Jacob’s shoulder. “Maybe Mr. Wynchester really is Jallow.”

The others joined in the laughter.

Jacob remained silent. Purposefully silent. Meaningfully silent. And then remembered that silence was far from spectacular. To fail spectacularly, he would need to say the words aloud. All of them.

“It’s my pseudonym,” he replied quietly. “I trust you will not reveal the secret.”

The poets’ laughter crumbled like week-old bread. The room went preternaturally silent.

“No,” whispered their host. “Impossible.”

Jacob shrugged. “You don’t have to believe me now. But you’ll find that poem halfway through the new volume of poetry releasing next week.”

Each syllable of his murmured reply echoed through the room like cannon blasts.

“ Is it possible?” squealed one of the new poets.

Jacob gave a tentative smile. “You’ll find out one way or the other next week.”

“Be serious,” said one of the more famous poets, as if Jacob had just confirmed the existence of flying dragons. “Are you really—”

“Quote another!” begged one of the novices. “Anything. What’s on page forty-two?”

So Jacob recited another poem. And another. And another. Until there could be no doubt.

He braced himself.

The resulting cacophony was deafening. And mixed.

His colleagues’ reactions were neither as vicious as Jacob had feared, nor as laudatory as he had dreamed.

The cruelest ones said this was precisely why they had never respected an over-esteemed blowhard like Jallow in the first place.

His poetry was as fake as his identity, and just as disappointing.

In response, their host burst out laughing. This time, not at Jacob, but at his own doubt. He pulled Jacob into his arms for an embrace that was part hug, part garlic crusher.

In fury, those who had never liked Jallow—or who could not reconcile the veneration of their hero with the ordinary human before them—donned their top hats and abruptly left the meeting.

Some without a single word of goodbye, and others with parting shots so sharp, Jacob would need more than Vivian’s reinforced leather armor to shield himself from the wounds.

Half of those still present were visibly reserving judgment. Convinced by the evidence, but uncertain how to react to this new information.

The rest, however, had no such misgivings. They looked at Jacob as though he’d just admitted to taking his afternoon tea from the Holy Grail, when not slicing the accompanying cakes with the Excalibur sword.

“Out of the way,” said a chap called William, previously the most renowned of all the poets present. “I owe Jacob a fist to the gut for hiding this from us all these years.”

“Me next,” called one of the others, and cuffed Jacob lightly on the back of the head. “Take that, Sir Pseudonym!”

Handshakes and good-natured chiding abounded as the other remaining poets crowded around Jacob.

“Obviously our meeting isn’t adjourned just yet,” said their host. “I’ll ring for champagne. You’re not going anywhere until we have the full story.”

“It can’t leave this room,” Jacob said firmly. “Sir Gareth’s identity must remain a secret.”

Part of him worried that those who had already left would not be so faithful.

The ever-humbling cut of logic, however, promised they’d be the last to spread the word.

Either they didn’t believe him in the first place, or they resented him for his accomplishment.

They would never breathe a word that might make him more famous.

“If I had half the success you do,” said their host, “I’d shout the truth to everyone who made the mistake of glancing in my direction.”

Jacob shook his head. “Swear to me. No one can know, until and unless I choose to divulge my identity of my own free will.”

They all gave their word, if reluctantly. Revealing Jallow’s true identity would have been the coup of the year for any of them.

“Can I get a quote from you to help me promote my upcoming anthology?” asked one of the poets.

“Can you give advice on my drafts?” asked one of the novices.

“You buy the wine and champagne from now on,” interjected William.

They all laughed.

Just like that, the room was restored to its easy, happy mood.

Rightness bubbled through Jacob’s chest along with the champagne. He hadn’t realized how much being acknowledged would mean to him. How badly he’d needed to be seen, to be believed, to be valued. He never wanted this sensation to end.

In the end, he hadn’t needed anything more than his own words to prove himself. At least, not to his true friends. With the others, Jacob’s confession had failed spectacularly—but now that was over. The sutures, removed. His scars would heal, and he would emerge stronger than ever.

Or at least be able to limp off in a new direction.