Page 47 of A Waltz on the Wild Side (The Wild Wynchesters #6)

Viv dropped her pencil back onto her kitchen table only when her fingers cramped up too much to continue holding on any longer.

If she couldn’t sleep anyway due to her worries about Quentin, she’d inadvertently been handed the best distraction on the planet: The theater manager would soon be casting her suffrage reform play.

He might not be expecting Viv’s ten-page outline detailing her best suggestions on cast, costumes, acting, stage decorations, timing, and audience participation, but if he adopted even a quarter of her advice, it might actually be a good performance.

She stretched out her indented and sore fingers before picking up the pencil again.

Viv still hadn’t quite recovered from the shock that Jacob was Jallow… and that he didn’t see anything wrong with the subterfuge. Or maybe part of him did, and that was why he had hidden the truth even from his own family.

For her part, Viv needed to believe that skill and effort were enough. That it was possible for people to get what they deserved without artifice. She took each rejection as a personal challenge. The world could do its best to keep her down, but each slap in the face only made her try harder.

The pencil fumbled from her clumsy, swollen fingers. She sighed rather than bend to collect it from where it had rolled off the table and across the floor, likely breaking the freshly sharpened nib in the process. Rufus would fetch it.

She couldn’t entirely blame Jacob for not taking her same route.

She had no doubt that he’d tried hard to make it as a poet as his true self.

Then likely glanced around at his poetry group and thought My work would be in shops and lending libraries across the country by now if I were one of them .

Which would naturally lead to the next logical thought: Who’s to say I’m not?

It’s words on paper. Nobody has to know .

Sir Gareth had probably been an experiment. Jacob likely anticipated more favorable reception than he’d received on his own, but no one could ever have predicted his pseudonym would soon be sweeping across England, building a following as dense and fanatic as those who worshipped royalty.

Viv understood all that. How you might try a thing, and have that thing get away from you.

What she couldn’t understand was keeping the lie going, long after it was necessary.

There could be no arguing that Jacob’s words hadn’t resonated with his countrymen and women.

The author of those poems was indisputably talented, no matter whether he was called Sir Gareth or Mr. Wynchester.

It was time for Jacob to accept the accolades he was due.

Which was why she hadn’t yet left her home this morning.

She’d commissioned a gift for him, but it wouldn’t be ready until—ah!

She leapt to her feet and grabbed her spencer from its wooden hook.

After bending to give Rufus a final pat goodbye, she tossed her recovered pencil onto the pile of notes for her play.

The play Jacob had arranged to be performed onstage, written by Miss Vivian Henry.

If only he believed in himself half as much as he believed in her!

She hurried out the door and off toward Fleet Street, tying on her ducal bonnet as she walked. Maybe Jacob was starting to have more faith in himself as a talented writer. He hadn’t lied when she guessed the truth. And he didn’t ask her not to tell anyone else. Maybe he was starting to come around.

Jacob knew who he was and how hard he worked, but was scared to let others know. He needed an easy way to bridge the gap.

She would help.

“Here you are, then,” said the shop assistant.

“Thank you.” Viv tucked her small parcel into her reticule, then turned her feet toward Islington.

She could hardly wait for the world to know both of their names. Mr. Jacob Wynchester, poet. Miss Vivian Henry, playwright.

It would be easier for him than for her, of course.

Male, British, handsome, wealthy, already a proven talent.

Every person who knew Sir Gareth Jallow’s name could just as easily learn Jacob’s.

They likely already did know it, but in his role as Wynchester rather than poet.

He was already famous, no matter what happened next.

For her, everything was riding on a single night’s performance. If her script failed to impress, she might never be given a second chance.

That was always going to be true, but she’d imagined at least having the advantage of a theater manager who believed in her. Someone who had chosen her script from a stack of hundreds. Someone who would do everything in his power to make her opening night a roaring success.

The theater manager doing the favor for Jallow hadn’t even responded to Viv’s letters. His assistant had confirmed the date of the show, but there had been no grand welcome, no invitation to put their minds together, no information about what plans or progress they were making.

“They don’t have a plan,” she muttered under her breath. “I will send them the plan.”

Giving advice was easy.

It was whether the recipient would accept any of it that was always in question.

Before she could bang the Wynchesters’ knocker, the butler opened the door wide. The corners of his blue eyes crinkled in his usual friendly smile.

“Welcome, Miss Henry, do come in.”

“Thank you, Mr. Randall. How do you do this morning?”

“Very well, indeed. A bit of a late start for you, isn’t it? There might be a few lime cakes left in the sitting room. I believe you know your way.”

“I do, of course, but—are the others there? Specifically Jacob?”

“I believe he’s in the garden, teaching a hawk to speak French.”

Of course he was.

Viv thanked the butler and hurried through the house, bypassing the sitting room and the dining room and a dozen other doors and parlors until she reached the servants’ entrance in the rear that led to the garden.

Before opening the door, she stopped to straighten her skirts and smooth her bodice and fluff her bonnet.

She might not be ready for a romance until her career was stable and her cousin was back home…

but she also wasn’t a big enough fool to repel the handsome gentleman with the big heart and the stray hedgehog collection.

Assuring herself she was as presentable as could be expected after a sleepless night and a two-mile walk, Viv stepped outside into the Wynchesters’ garden.

Six-foot-high stone walls delineated the sides of the property. The barn was in the very rear, but there was no need to go that far today. Jacob was crouched beside a flowerbed, holding an ungloved hand out toward a bird of prey.

The tawny sparrow hawk was perched on the lowest branch of the nearest tree, watching Jacob intently from two enormous black eyes deep set within an absolute explosion of fluffy brown feathers.

The bird looked soft and cuddly, but Viv was not fooled.

That cotton-fluffiness hid a two-foot wingspan, and talons that could rip a fleeing squirrel in two.

She held perfectly still so as not to interrupt.

“ Venez à moi ,” Jacob coaxed. “ Je vous offre une souris. Venez, venez, venez .”

The hawk rustled its feathers and let out a lusty hoot.

Nothing else moved.

Jacob sighed and glanced over his shoulder at Viv. “ Viendras-tu ?”

“ Mais bien s?r .” She hid her smile as she walked over to join him. “Mr. Sparrowhawk isn’t responding to come here yet?”

The hawk let out another hoot and flew directly to Jacob’s outstretched hand.

“Only in English,” he answered wryly. “I think I’ve learned more hawk language than Athena has learned French.”

“Oh?” Viv arched her brows. “And what has Athena been saying?”

“Mostly ‘Why did you interrupt my day for this?’ and ‘You lied about having a mouse in your pocket, I’m not falling for your tricks.’”

“You scoundrel,” she scolded him. “One should always carry a mouse in one’s pocket.”

He brightened. “Do you have a mouse on you?”

“Of course.” Viv lifted her bulging reticule.

He clutched his free hand to his chest. “See that, Athena? I told you the perfect woman exists. She is both our fantasies come to life.”

Viv was overcome with the desire to kiss Jacob right then and there. She restrained herself out of respect for Athena. Today Viv had been jesting. There was not in fact a mouse inside her reticule. Only Sally. Maintaining a safe distance was perhaps the wiser course.

“ Envolez-vous !” Jacob told the hawk.

Athena stared at him in silence, then let out an ear-splitting shriek.

“Oh, go off to bed, then.” He gave his wrist a flick.

The hawk flapped her wings, hovering inches above Jacob’s unprotected fingers, then soared up into the sky before banking hard and circling back to swoop inside the upper bird-window of the barn.

Jacob brushed off his hands. “What can I do for you?”

“I came to do something for you .”

His eyes sparkled. “Does it involve kissing?”

“No,” she said firmly. “No kissing until Quentin is safe and sound.”

Jacob’s eyes widened with interest. “And then we’ll enjoy unlimited kissing?”

“Don’t make assumptions,” she said haughtily, then grinned. “Yes. I do plan to enjoy it.”

“How do I know if I will?” he asked, all innocence. “Perhaps I forgot what our previous kisses were like. A small reminder would help to reorient me. Maybe a taste of tongue, then perhaps a little squeeze or two of your—”

“I’m only giving in to shut you up,” she informed him as she pressed her lips to his.

“Mmrmph,” was the only response, his lips smashing against hers as he wrapped his arms about her and hauled her close.