Page 12 of Enticing Odds (The Sedleys #5)

Christ, but he felt antsy.

Matthew shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, not paying a care to traffic as he picked his way across the street. His mind was a muddle, his body tight and waiting. But for what?

That blessed release.

No. Stop it , he silently admonished himself, squashing the thought as soon as it arose. Instead he focused on his feet. Oh dear—the shine was gone from his shoes. Earlier that morning they’d been gleaming and sharp; he’d had the housemaid clean them up last night, even instructing her to use the whole damn tin of Sedley’s Satin Black Boot Polish if need be. But now, only halfway to his destination, they were already dusty and dull.

He stifled a groan.

He never should’ve walked. He ought to have hailed a cab and arrived at the Athenaeum like a proper gentleman. But he wasn’t a gentleman, now, was he? He didn’t even have a valet to tend to his shoes. Here he was, just one of the city’s hundreds of thousands of pedestrians, shoulder to shoulder with every office clerk and shopgirl who refused to splash out a paltry sixpence for the omnibus.

He was painfully middle-class. But even worse…

Dr. Matthew Collier was a sordid, thrill-chasing reprobate. A man who would stake his entire savings on card games, and use his skills—underhandedly if necessary—to minimize his losses and maximize his gains, smirking confidently all the while. A wicked man who concealed himself with ease under a cloak of civility, politely offering his aid to a widowed noblewoman. Teaching her son , for fuck’s sake, to follow in his footsteps. And then turning around and frigging himself to such a shocking fantasy. All because she trifled with him.

Matthew blew out a sigh, and twisted his giant form so he might skirt around an elderly couple making slow progress along the pavement.

No, that wasn’t why he’d done it.

He could resist a trifling. Ever since he’d first come to London as youth and filled out his tall form, he’d been the recipient of plenty of suggestive smiles and teases about the supposed size of his prick; evidently his considerable size and strength suggested something commensurate in his drawers.

None of those women had tempted him in the least.

His mood darkened as he charged forward, not caring who he might push past.

Was it her hair, and the way it gleamed in the light? Her dark, penetrating eyes, her low and velvety voice? Or those magnificent tits? Perhaps it was the way her dimples appeared when she smiled wide, rare occurrence that it was. Matthew found himself wondering if she possessed another pair of dimples, positioned seductively above her rear, at the base of her spine: the dimples of Venus. And then another image burst forth, equally horrifying and delicious, of him spilling upon her, upon those dimples, if they did indeed exist under all her skirts and smallclothes and—

A man’s shoulder crashed into his, coming from the opposite direction, spinning him halfway around.

An inelastic collision , his mind inanely stated as he stumbled. Matthew found his balance and straightened up, an apology for his carelessness on his tongue when he heard a rough, familiar voice.

“And where are we off to today, Doctor?”

“ You ,” Matthew choked out.

“Ay, me.”

Before him stood Charles Sharples, not an arm’s length away, wearing a battered bowler hat and a sinister grin. He was dressed in an almost amateurish attempt at modernity: a wilted sack suit that had seen far too many washings, with a large gold watch chain hanging from his waistcoat, anchored by a cigar cutter.

The flow of pedestrian traffic spilled around them, a river of people split into two channels before converging again on the other side of this monetary dispute.

Matthew swallowed and adjusted his spectacles. That watch chain, he thought unhelpfully, was spectacularly gaudy. His pulse was racing.

“Shall we walk, Doctor?”

Egad, that sounded like a threat. Matthew glanced about; no one paid them any mind, save a few brief dirty looks for obstructing the path.

“Thinking of running?” Sharples chuckled. “A big, strong fella like you, scared of a poor, soft sod like me? I suppose I ought to take that favorably.”

Matthew’s thoughts were scattered; no good options presented themselves. He couldn’t fight, not here, and he couldn’t run. He had an appointment for lunch.

At the Athenaeum!

So he set his jaw, his chest constricted with anxiety, and started walking.

Sharples fell in alongside him, so close that their arms brushed against one another. Matthew did his best not to recoil.

“And where are we off to today, then?”

Matthew didn’t answer. If only he could be cold and calculating now . Where had his baser instincts gone? Fled to wherever his bollocks had, no doubt.

“Paying a call, perhaps?”

When he still didn’t answer, Sharples reached into his coat. From his periphery Matthew surmised he was lighting up a cigar, which the ensuing noxious aroma soon confirmed. Filthy habit , he silently reproached, although even his unspoken rejoinder felt timid and feeble.

“Fliss says you’ve friends in high places. Lady friends and the like.”

Matthew felt a jolt of panic. Still, he made every attempt to school his features, to appear impassive.

“Ah, struck a chord, did that? Not just a friend or a patient then. Something more? Now, calm down, I can see your big ol’ nostrils flaring. Like an ox, you are,” Sharples said around his cigar. “Wouldn’t want to meet you in a dark alley.”

“Hence crashing into me in broad daylight,” Matthew muttered, finally finding his tongue. How dare he suggest… how dare he even mention her!

“See? You’re a smart lad.”

Sharples clapped a hand upon his shoulder, to Matthew’s disgust. Feeling fractionally bolder, he shrugged it off.

“But me, you see, I’m smarter. I’m craftier.”

Matthew snorted at that assertion. He doubted this man had ever read a word of Hippocrates or Euclid, let alone—

“Take your fine lady friend, for instance. Fliss is rather certain of the fancy crest on her carriage. Thinks he could pick it out. He’s a damn fool, but I’ll allow he’s a good memory. Would be a few days’ work, asking around at all the mews and stables. But I reckon I’ll find her all the same.”

A sudden rage consumed Matthew, blinding him in a red fog. His brain contained no words, only raw emotion. Like a lion he pounced, seizing the villain by his lapels and shoving him against the nearest brick wall. The cigar fell to the ground.

“You bloody oaf!” Sharples cried as he reached up to claw at Matthew’s hands and wrists, all to no avail. Matthew only twisted the fabric tighter and higher, raising the man to his toes. “Hands off! This is my new clobber!”

“Now you listen to me, you vile scum,” Matthew growled.

Sharples shut his trap. His face had turned a satisfying shade of mauve.

“I beat your game fair and square. That’s more than I can say for the way you operate, you filthy cheat. But that’s a matter between you and me.” Matthew could feel his blood pressure escalating, his carotid artery throbbing in his neck. He shoved Sharples back against the wall again. “Don’t you dare go near the viscountess!”

All at once, Sharples’ expression changed. A victorious glint flashed in his eye.

Shit . That had been the absolutely worst thing to say. A tragically amateurish mistake, revealing his hand like that. And not just to Sharples—but to himself.

Did he… care for Lady Caplin? Perhaps in a way that went deeper than his unholy fantasies? He thought of the handkerchief, hastily locked away in a drawer of unspeakable obscenity.

With that memory, every ounce of his courage evaporated, leaving him once more the shy and cerebral Dr. Collier of Marylebone, not the Matthew of the medical tent, who pried lead balls from human flesh and patched up soldiers for their return to the battlefield.

Spooked, he released the bastard. When had he ever used his brawn for this purpose? Matthew stepped back, appalled at his own behavior.

Sharples made a show of dusting off his front and his sleeves, then of shrugging into his jacket.

Matthew wondered meekly if he ought to apologize, to inquire if the man was alright. He nearly did, but then Sharples spoke.

“My new suit! I ought to add it to what you owe!”

“How…” Matthew cleared his throat, “how much was it?”

“Why, nothing. I pinched it, didn’t I?” Sharples craned his neck and leaned forward, searching for his cigar in the muck, but it seemed a crossing sweeper had snagged it as they scuffled. “One hundred and thirteen pounds, Doctor. And a cigar, I should think. Hell, make it a whole box, and I’ll forgive the suit and all other associated costs. I’m feeling charitable,” he said, chortling at his own poor attempt at humor.

Matthew narrowed his gaze.

“The August bank holiday, if you’ll recall. Just ask after me. They’ll all know where to find me.” Sharples produced another cigar and gestured toward Matthew with it. “And if you do forget, I might have to see this viscountess for myself. Fliss said she was a looker. Sounds nice, if I’m bein’ honest. Awfully nice, all highborn and such.”

Matthew’s fury roared back to life, screaming at him to grab the man and shake him senseless.

“Well, must be off, I think.” Mr. Sharples withdrew his watch and clicked it open. “I’ve a lunch waiting. But next time,” he hissed, sticking his new cigar between his teeth. “Next time I won’t be so obliging.”

He sauntered away.

Matthew watched him cut the cigar as he walked, then strike a match. And then he was gone, disappeared into the crowd. Although Matthew reckoned he saw a puff of smoke float upward from somewhere in the mass of humanity, as Sharples made his way to wherever it was criminals lunched.

Oh, blast it. Lunch.

Matthew’s heart nearly exploded in panic, all notions of vengeance dashed as quickly as they’d risen.

The Athenaeum.

Matthew spun on his heel and made haste.

A lump rose in his throat as he approached the club. He knew the building well enough that he could sketch it from memory—the Roman Doric columns, the frieze near the top that called to mind the Elgin Marbles. And atop the portico, Pallas Athena standing sentinel, her spear in one hand, the other open, beckoning forth thinkers, philosophers, scientists. Matthew approached in a daze, hardly believing the possibility, however remote, that he might one day be counted among them. The waiting list, he knew, was astounding. Some candidates had been waiting for thirty years.

But Lady Caplin was well regarded. Everyone knew and respected her. And her brother was a member.

Matthew felt a twinge of shame as he thought of the way he had come to regard the lady, of the way the mere mention of her by Charles Sharples had caused him to lose his composure. But he tried to forget these worries as he entered the hallowed doors, reminding himself that his desire for her was inconsequential, that nothing would ever come of it. For she was a viscount’s widow, and a viscount’s mother, not to mention a baronet’s daughter.

No, a viscountess was not for him. Not even if she might fancy him.

“May I help you, sir?” the hall porter asked, not bothering to disguise his skepticism.

Oh, and a baronet’s sister, too. Matthew swallowed and smoothed down the front of his waistcoat.

“Good day. Er, I’m meeting a member for lunch. Sir Frederick Catton.”

The porter stared at him blankly for an interminable moment. Matthew began to fret, worrying he’d already blundered somehow, already forfeited his one chance. But eventually the porter spoke again.

“And your name, sir?”

“Collier. Dr. Matthew Collier.”

The porter produced a visitors’ book and opened it to the current page without so much as a glance.

“Sign your name here, if you would.”

Matthew resisted the urge to let his eye wander to the lines of handwriting above the blank space where he wrote. He’d scarcely lifted the pen from the last letter of his name when the porter pulled the book away and snapped it shut.

“Excellent, sir. Truscott will see you to the strangers’ reception room.”

The porter nodded to Matthew’s left, where another expressionless man, nondescript in his hair, face, and dress, had materialized. Matthew did his best not to startle.

“Right this way, sir.”

He followed in silence, his thoughts careening about, wondering what might be on the other side of the walls of the hall they walked down. Dining rooms? Dressing rooms? The library? He knew, as a guest to the club—a ‘stranger’ in club parlance—he would not be allowed admittance to the club rooms proper, only the strangers’ rooms, but he could not help but dream. Just to be anywhere within, to be this close to the storied library, to have one’s name written in the visitors’ book… well, that was something special indeed.

Truscott deposited him in a sparsely furnished room and instructed him to be at his leisure while he waited. How he should do that, though, was a mystery, for besides a pair of utilitarian wooden chairs and a matching table, the only contents of the room were a weighing machine and an empty cast-iron umbrella stand, bereft of purpose.

Matthew sat and studied the umbrella stand. It was in the form of a frog, sitting atop a drip-pan fashioned as a lily pad. He thought he’d seen a similar one somewhere once. Perhaps at his tailor’s?

All in all, the room would not be out of place at his own club, but Matthew did not care. It only whetted his appetite; how delightful the restricted areas of the club must be, in contrast to this humdrum interior.

The door opened. Truscott again.

He led Matthew back out to the hall, then into another room not far from the first. In one corner a mop leaned against the wall, its bucket turned upside down alongside it. The furnishings here were just as spartan as those in the previous room, if slightly more numerous, with the primary difference being one table in particular, upon which a lunch was laid and a well-dressed gentleman sat, already starting on his soup.

The man appeared as gray and somber as his fine-quality suit; a man unimpressed with everything and disinclined to seek out anything other than more of the same. For a moment Matthew hesitated, thinking there could not possibly be a world in which this person was a relation of the vivacious and charismatic Lady Caplin, but then Truscott led him to the table and pulled out the chair opposite the soup-eating man.

“Sir Frederick Catton?” Matthew asked, still wondering at the lack of resemblance.

“Ah, Dr. Collier. Well met.” Sir Frederick glanced up from his soup for a moment, nodding his head in acknowledgment.

Matthew sat.

“This is my first time in the strangers’ rooms,” said Sir Frederick. “Never needed to receive visitors here. Fantastic, isn’t it? A club is a man’s home, and yet there are corridors and quarters completely unfamiliar to him. How positively odd.”

“Surely if you asked, you’d be admitted?” Matthew couldn’t fathom that there would be any place members would be barred from, save personal quarters. Plenty of bachelors rented rooms at their London clubs; it was a fabulous bargain if one could nab it.

“What, and see the club kitchen?” Sir Frederick guffawed. “No, I’d prefer to leave it an enigma. Far more interesting that way, don’t you think?”

Matthew nodded as if he understood. He didn’t. And he felt very unsophisticated for it.

A bowl of soup of his own appeared before him.

“I have to say I was shocked when Lady Caplin requested—nay, demanded —I set a lunch date with you. Said you’re keen on membership. Why, she even suggested she’d secretly pay the entrance and annual fees, were you to be admitted.”

The man sounded bored, but incredulity was plain on his long, narrow face. He pinned Matthew with a withering stare.

“A rather handsome gift to make, don’t you think?”

Matthew could feel the heat on the back of his neck. Footing the costs? He could barely endure her flirtations; how was he to accept her financial backing? The idea humbled Matthew to his core. He picked up his spoon.

“It would be, yes.”

He prayed that would be the end of it, but he could feel the man’s eyes on him as he brought the soup to his mouth.

Oh. That was good. And it mere soup! Matthew’s mouth watered. This put the mean fare of the Transom Club decisively to shame.

“My sister mentioned you’d done her a good turn. I wonder what deed, then, is deserving of such a gift?”

Matthew halted, holding another spoonful of soup just over the bowl. So Lady Caplin hadn’t explained the nature of their association? He’d better follow her lead, then. He wouldn’t wish to divulge more than she would want her brother to know. He would sooner flagellate himself than defy her and risk her scorn. But then what? Matthew loathed lying, not to mention that he was terrible at it. Still, Sir Frederick raised his brows as if to say, “Well?”

Matthew furrowed his brow. What could he say? What did a viscountess need with a mere doctor?

“I’ve…” he began, casting about for something, anything. “I’ve agreed to… inspect…” Finally it came to him, something not far from the actual truth. “Her library. She asked me to inspect the collection, wishing that there be no gaps in knowledge, for the education of young Master Caplin.”

“Oh,” said Sir Frederick, sitting back in his chair. “It is a tremendous collection,” he admitted.

Matthew released his breath, and took another delicious bite.

“I could’ve sworn she was up to something…” Sir Frederick muttered. He looked back to Matthew, his expression hard. “She’s slippery as an eel, I tell you. Always scheming. One day I’ll sort it all out.”

Matthew swallowed. Just as he hadn’t expected Sir Frederick to be so dreary, he certainly hadn’t expected him to regard his sister so cynically.

“Why don’t you just ask her?”

Sir Frederick recoiled. “Ask her what?”

“Whatever it is you wish to know.” Matthew supposed he should refrain from shrugging, even in the strangers’ rooms, meanly appointed though they were.

“And why would I do a thing like that, Doctor?”

Matthew felt his ears burning as he set back to his soup. He hoped, if the day ever came when he stood for election, that he would somehow learn how to fit in here. For at the moment he was floundering.

And lying. He could practically hear Aunt Albertine’s droning voice in his head, reading flatly from Proverbs.

Well. He would have to tell Lady Caplin of his deceit, lest she be caught out by Sir Frederick. But that meant facing her alone once more.

He ate another delectable spoonful and prayed that their next meeting would not take place in the conservatory. It was enough to drive any man mad, the humid air and the sweat running down her neck, her—

“What did you say your club was?”

Sir Frederick’s censorious tone brought Matthew back to the here and now. His stomach sank to the floor.

“Er… the Transom Club.”

“Never heard of it.”

Matthew thought of his humdrum little club, with its solicitors and retired newspapermen, and his heart hurt.

“Oh,” he said weakly.

Just then, before either man could utter another word, the mop in the corner decided it had had enough, and fell to the ground with a spectacular clatter, knocking away the empty bucket, which rolled along its edge in a meandering, snake-like manner until it came to rest just before their table.

Sir Frederick sighed.

“None of those upstairs, I can assure you.”

“It’s…” Matthew began, fumbling for something positive to say. Unfortunately, it ended up being, “It’s a fine specimen, as buckets go.”

“Yes, well.” Sir Frederick sneered.

Matthew decided to hold his tongue for the rest of the meal.