Page 2 of Tall, Dark and December (The Rake Review #12)

CHAPTER TWO

WHERE A RAKE RECEIVES AN UNWELCOME SURPRISE

H e’d planned on his governess being ugly.

Horse-faced, as Deke had predicted. At the very least, wrapped up tight, a gift no one in their right mind would want to open. West had been promised someone so proper they cracked. Not a female with a face suited to poetry and hair a glorious, honied shade he’d instantly imagined spread across his sheets.

West didn’t like surprises.

The chit was twenty years younger than expected and a thousand leagues more attractive. Glancing around the neat parlor he’d been escorted into, he ignored the tug of awakening slithering through his body, though it wasn’t easy. “Lady Colbrook?”

In reply, the earl’s daughter, dangling by a thread from society’s quilt according to his erstwhile valet, glanced up without a hint of wonder at meeting him .

Rolling his shoulders, West soundlessly laughed at himself. He wasn’t used to his appearance going unnoticed by females from nine to ninety. In his world, attractiveness usually recognized the same and spoke to it. He rarely met a woman who didn’t force hers into the conversation immediately.

“I’m Lady Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook,” she said after a brief examination, her eyes hidden behind spectacles that did nothing to smother her splendor. “Mr. Whitaker, I take it?” Slipping a timepiece from her pocket, she glanced at it. “I was told to expect you an hour ago.”

Review of his punctuality imparted, she gestured to the armchair across from the desk she sat behind. One of those hulking varieties every English home he’d visited possessed. It was a family piece, he’d wager, moved from more palatial environs to the small residence on the outskirts of London that circumstance and a niggling scandal had forced her into. Islington was respectable but no Mayfair. He’d done his homework before arriving, though he’d never thought to inquire about his governess’s looks .

Faintly cautious, another telling reality, West decided to dodge giving a bow that wouldn’t impress and moved to the chair she’d indicated. The air surrounding him as he dropped into the buttery leather was salted with her scent, a decidedly floral wash, nothing camphor and mothballs about it. The scowl twisted his lips before he could stop it.

Lady Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook tilted her head in question, then made everything worse by removing her spectacles to wipe the lenses with a cotton square. His apprehension multiplied into a quiet roar. Her eyes, a luminous shade near the color of burnt amber, flicked over him, assessing. Regrettably, she couldn’t hide the intelligence swimming in her gaze any better than she’d hidden her attractiveness.

Which made the package almost perfect, in his estimation.

West wasn’t impressed by titles or royalty or anything these damned Brits were, but by God, he was, on the rare occasion, impressed to speechlessness by beauty and brains.

“Go ahead, look,” he managed when she continued to stare, a habit his starched valet claimed was the height of uncouth. “I’m the latest novelty dumped in your lap because being related to a peer evidently allows a man to leap certain social barriers if he suffers through sufficient tutelage first. I’ll exercise this luck of the draw because it’s good for business. You should start off understanding that’s the only reason I’m here.”

Much to his satisfaction, his brash comment washed away a trace of her self-possession, leaving her lips, also relatively fetching in the scheme of things, slightly parted. With knotted movements, she deposited the cloth on the desk and replaced her spectacles before speaking. “I apologize, Mr. Whitaker. I wasn’t judging.”

He hooked his ankle atop his knee, then wrestled his gloves from his hands, one sodden, kidskin digit at a time. At least he kept from removing them with his teeth . Rain was coming down in sheets outside her tidy abode, and his every article of clothing was wet, damp being the predominant state of being in this country. “Of course, you were. It’s the English way. Courteous cuts, granted, but after a thousand or so, they start to bleed.”

She halted, the glow from the wall sconce anointing her in luscious radiance. Hellfire , but she was gorgeous. “Let’s be reasonable, shall we? You’re an American. Lost brother to a duke. Handsome. Wealthy. Things making you, perhaps tactlessly, a curiosity.”

Ah , finally something in this exchange he could work with. West flashed a grin he’d been told was wolfish by a countess last week, a word he hoped to wiggle into conversation as he rather liked it. “You think I’m handsome?”

Lady Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook didn’t labor over his heckling, her gaze slicing to the folded sheet on the desk he assumed held his review. “There’s only so far one can travel on good looks, Mr. Whitaker, before they become a liability.”

He paused, allowing his deduction to settle in his gut. This sounded like advice from a woman suffering the same burden. West nodded to the gossip rag, guessing they had to discuss it. “I figure you read the nonsense that got me into this mess.”

Her mouth kicked up on one side, her crooked smile the first hint of mischievous he’d seen. He hated he was drawn to it. “I imagine most of London has read it. Lord Danvers was tossed from every club in Town while vying to be listed. In fact, he’s most displeased a Yank, as he called you, managed to capture The Rake Review’s December slot.” She tried to smooth out her smile, but it bloomed, making his blood kick in his veins. “It’s become something of a contest among a certain set. Congratulations on your win.”

Unable to face her provocation when he couldn’t turn the tables and provoke right back, West got to his feet to prowl her parlor. He preferred to hold dicey conversations while pacing. Plus, you could tell a lot about a person from looking at the items they surrounded themselves with. Grubby boots belonging to someone with small feet sat cock-eyed in the corner near a forlorn table housing a vase of wilted flowers. A painting of a hound on one wall, a dour ancestor from years prior on the other. Crossing to the bookcase, his favorite spot in any room, he smoothed his fingertip down a creased leather spine. The books lining the shelf, unlike most, looked read. This room felt… homey. Lived in. Definitely not something he was used to.

“Shall I ring for tea?” she asked, her chin propped on her fist in surprising casualness as she watched him roam. Nothing about her was adding up. “While we go over the particulars? Although I only have two servants, and one has an irksome hip and the other a touch of rheumatism, so I usually serve myself.”

Resigned, West ambled back, eyeing the armchair like he was set to face a dental procedure in it. “I’ve had enough tea to sink a ship already this morning, so thank you, but no.”

“You don’t have to do this, Mr. Whitaker.” She gave a dainty shrug, her chin barely lifting from her fist. Female tedium was another novel experience. “No one is forcing you to work with me. I have a surfeit of clients awaiting instruction. A waiting list, as it were.”

“It’s business,” he shot back and reclaimed the seat with a decided lack of enthusiasm. “If following the rules, so many of them I can’t keep up, helps me secure financial backing, then I figure I’m forced to do it.”

Her lips twitched, holding back another of those devilish twists. “Our association is confidential, should you be worried, as my services aren’t publicized for various reasons. I’ll admit I’ve never tutored a man before.”

He shrugged, a sturdier effort than her delicate one moments ago. “Consider me your philanthropic project. An unpolished Yank in need of training. By the end of our sessions, I’m sure I’ll be inserting ‘by Jove’ into every conversation.”

Picking up her quill, she tapped it atop the open ledger before her, deep in thought. “I’ll draw up a list of topics to review. We can start with titles, acceptable subjects of conversation, and decorum differing from what you may be used to at home, not a single ‘by Jove’ on the roster.”

His gaze fell to her hands. Slim fingers, the nails neatly trimmed, pale-pink crescents at the base. The dab of paint staining her thumb, a bold streak of crimson, was a curiosity.

When he was rarely curious about women. Lust, yes; interest, no .

He’d tried to form more lasting associations once or twice, but if women had desires beyond the ones they sought to soothe with him, they didn’t share them. Naturally, Lady Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook would never tell him what made her tick. Their arrangement meant her taking him apart like one of his engines—not the other way around.

Noting his studied regard of her hands, she glanced at the gloves sitting in a neat fold at her side as a trace of color lit her cheeks. It was the first indication she was hiding something in her pristine package. “The Duke of Mercer’s valet mentioned the need to complete your instruction quickly, so we’ll meet three times a week if that’s acceptable.”

West inclined his head, copying Brixworth’s move to a T. If he made more of an effort with these people, less training would be required. “He’s actually Mercer’s majordomo, whatever in Hades that is.”

“We’ll add an explanation of English staff and expressions to avoid using in formal conversation,” she murmured and made a notation. Then, frowning, she drew her quill along a page edging its way from beneath her ledger.

West squinted. The sheet held rows of numbers, his favorite thing.

Coming to his feet, he circled the desk until he stood directly behind her. “What’s this you’ve got?” Her scent— lavender? —penetrated his senses, reminding him that getting this close might be a mistake and was surely a protocol blunder. Moreover, not having seen her from behind the protection of her desk, he found a more diminutive woman than he’d envisioned.

Another bit of bad luck because petite women were his type.

Waving him away, she tucked the sheet beneath her ledger. “It’s merely a miscalculation.”

Closing his eyes because he’d seen enough, the numbers swam into view.

When he opened them, West found her gazing over her shoulder, thunderstruck. Damned if he hadn’t been wooed by his own conceit into performing his party trick. “It’s fifteen pounds, three shillings. You have thirteen listed.” He drew a circle in the air around the supposed error and stepped back, away from the lady. “In the second row there.”

She gave him another decisive appraisal, the pleat between her brows growing. Perhaps he wasn’t adding up for her any better than she was for him. “How old are you, Mr. Whitaker?” After a second’s delay, she released a faint, dismayed exhalation, having asked a question she likely shouldn’t.

Strolling to the armchair he had no intention of inhabiting again, he picked up his gloves and wrestled into the damp kidskin while striving to appear unaffected. The air was charged with tension he wasn’t comfortable with or used to. Not with so-called colleagues. “Twenty-five,” he returned, casting her a fleeting glance. “Don’t think this is the first time I’ve answered the question. I left the equivalent of what you’d call a workhouse when I was fourteen, and the undertaking caused me to assume certain responsibilities before most. So, if I seem impatient during this process, maybe that will help you understand why.”

They turned at the slam of a door down the corridor.

“My sister,” she said and, bracing her hand on the desk, pushed to a stand.

His governess was slender, elegant, nothing unusual aside from her one-in-a-thousand face. Yet, there was something unusual, an aura crackling about her like lightning.

“I can’t meet here three times a week.” Decided, he gave the damp kidskin a bruising tuck between each finger. After all, couldn’t he make demands when he was the client? It was a verdict he’d committed to only seconds ago, but he wanted these lessons to be held on his turf. “My work involves compiling data at frequent intervals, requiring me to be at the warehouse with the equipment. Often overnight.”

The quill fell still in her hand as she debated the change in plans.

Before she could disagree, he added, “Also, what shall I call you? Lady Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook is quite a mouthful.”

She shook her head, nonplussed, trying to keep up. “Warehouse?”

His laughter rippled across the distance separating them. If he kept her as on edge as he felt , there might be a nugget of fun buried somewhere in this arrangement. “Limehouse.”

“ Limehouse ,” she said as she would a curse.

With a jaunty tilt, West settled the beaver hat he’d tossed aside when he entered the room on his head. “I’ll send a carriage to gather you, your escort a bruiser no one would dare lay a hand on and the coachman I employ one better.” With any other woman, he would have added a wink to drive home his point, but Lady Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook seemed the kind to waste a lifetime of flattery. “Nicer than Prinny’s rig, I can guarantee.”

She shifted from slipper to slipper, the gentle sway of her skirt drawing his gaze to her trim hips. “I’ve never been to Limehouse.”

He gave the top of his hat a reassuring pop. The gusts whipping down her lane had nearly lifted it from his head on his way in. “There’s a first time for everything, right?”

Her gaze narrowed, suspicion about his motives catching up with her. “I’ll concur if this is a requirement. Since your country’s rules are more relaxed, and you’ve agreed to tread the way of mine to foster your interests, you may call me Lady Penelope.”

Penelope . West shrugged into the greatcoat he’d rejected relinquishing to the aging butler at the door. She didn’t look like a Penelope. And he had no intention of calling her Lady anything. He was saving the niceties for people with funds to invest, not an associate he was set to argue with at every turn. “There’s a reason for the warehouse. I needed room, and Limehouse provided the space to get dirty. Not like I can build steam engines in Mayfair.”

“Dirty,” she whispered as her chin dipped. But he caught the word and the tone. Mischievous, as if they had secrets between them—when, of course, they didn’t.

Sensing again she was more than she appeared, the nickname hit his brain like a shot of liquor.

Go ahead, West, you know you want to.

Digging in his pocket, he came up with a coin. It gleamed in the light, having been cast at the Philadelphia Mint just last month. West had pilfered it from a cooling case during his private tour with the facility’s engineers. Strolling to the desk, regaining control his tutor had no clue she’d stolen from him, he slid it across the scarred surface. “Lady Liberty. Introduced in 1816, replacing the Classic Head design. My engines will allow these to be printed under steam power. Financed, in part, by the integration of your fine lessons.”

Her gaze met his, shifting the ground beneath him as he sought mightily to conceal it. Her eyes deepened in color, going from molten honey to a dark, quelling sepia.

A weaker man would find himself distracted by such a change.

Good thing he wasn’t a weak man.

With a slim finger, she edged the coin her way like she would a burning ember. “Penny,” she said in a breathless rush, in answer to a question no one had asked.