Page 22 of The Hellion is Tamed
“We’re not solving this problem with gin, Mac. And you’ve tried solving it with half the women in this city. It’s time to findyou. Maybe this woman can help you do that. She’s one of us. A beggar, at heart. Supernaturally gifted, as you are. You have nothing to hide, no one to hide from.”
He closed his eyes and allowed the rookery’s tenacious essence to seize his senses. The sound of carriage wheels striking pitted cobbles, a hawker selling sweets beneath Josie’s window, fried fish and laundry soap drifting into his nostrils, stale smoke and the Thames battling for control on his tongue. “I found it unpleasant, investing my heart. The return wasn’t agreeable. And as an Alexander, I’ve been taught all about agreeable returns. I run a business, a successful one, based on nothingbutagreeability.”
Josie went to her knee beside Simon. Paper crinkled as she removed the sketch from his hand. “Is the girl you’ve been waiting on to return for ten years the lost cousin of the duke I’ve read about in the newspapers? I know you’re very close to him, almost like a brother, you’ve said. Is she the duchess’s new project you speak of? The woman all of London is desperate for a glimpse of?”
Simon opened one eye, fixing it on his oldest friend. If he loved Josie in that way, if she lovedhimin that way, life would be so much easier. “She’s going to bring me down again if I let her. I spent years wondering where she was and why she didn’t come back. I still don’t know. Foolish, perhaps, but it pains me.”
Josie rocked back on her heels, Simon’s sketch of Emma fluttering to the faded carpet. “Your answer to finding your lost love is to create a life for her well above your own? Placing her out of reach, should the ruse be accepted? A future with some posh toff? When she could be withyouif you’d let yourself figure out who youare.”
“It will be accepted,” Simon whispered and levered to his feet. Did Josie think that made himhappy? He didn’t want to imagine what would happen should Emma become an overnight success, whichwasthe plan for a duke’s cousin. A prosperous future, a future that would never include marrying a viscount’s bastard. “There are downsides. She’s headstrong, not one to let a few meaningless rules get in her way. Reckless, impulsive.” He crossed to the window, rain falling in sheets and sending a river of filth racing along the street to accumulate in the half-choked drains. “She’s also intelligent. Shrewd. Capable. Sensible, I suspect, beneath the swagger. She’ll deceive them all and laugh while doing it.” He tracked a raindrop down the dirty pane with his thumb, his heart stuttering in his chest. “It might even be amusing to watch.”
If only he believed that.
“But what about you, Mac?”
Simon pressed his palm to the glass and stared at a life he’d left behind, a citadel of the underworld living among theton.
What about him?
He’d keep coming back to this very spot, even if it defied his family’s strategy to secure his happiness.
And he’d go on loving Emmaline Breslin, he supposed, against his goddamn will.
Chapter 7
“He didwot?”
Emma collapsed on the edge of her bed, a tricky endeavor in the gown she wore. The bustle jutted out from her bottom like a bundle of straw, at the perfect angle to balance a tea tray on. How had fashion come tothis, she wondered and watched her maid, Mollie, strut around the room like an actress ready to break into song. Emma questioned where on earth they’d found the girl. She knew nothing about employing domestics and running fine households but guessed Mollie belonged in Mayfair even less than she did.
And that was saying something.
Emma fell back on the bed with a sigh, marveling at the comfort of the feather mattress shifting beneath her. The most snug bed she’d ever settled upon, without question. “He left me. In the ballroom. Yesterday, during my lesson that wasn’t a lesson but a chance for him to bloody one-up me. When I’m a woman who doesn’t like to be one-upped.” She socked the counterpane, pretending it was his rock-hard jaw. “At the end of a waltz. Walked away, ran more like it, before I even had the chance to curtsey. And I’d been practicing that curtsey for days!”
“That’s an Alexander for you. Probably had a p-p-prior engagement, if you gets my drift.” Mollie sniffed and rubbed her forearm beneath her nose, something Emma noted the girl did when she wanted to slow her speech and take hold of her stuttering. “Simon, ah, he’s known for ‘em. Engagements with females that is. It’s the way with the men in that family. Or so the chatter says. The ladies love ‘em, they do.”
“I don’t care what engagements he has,” Emma seethed, giving the counterpane another punch. Cad. Bounder.Rotter. He could show that birthmark on his arse to every wench in London for all she cared. But he would not turn his back and ignore a curtsey she’d spent hours perfecting.
“Course you do, missy. Can’t help w-w-who you like, even if he is a scoundrel who sees spirits. I heard the lower house staff talking about his latest ghoul, Henry. And the duke and his fires, the duchess and her mind attic. Land sakes, this house is peculiar. I listen, quiet like, so folks talk right in front of me. The s-s-stutter makes them think my mind doesn’t work well. But you have your own odd talent, so that evens it out if you do favor him. The oddity that is.” Mollie flung open the wardrobe doors and grabbed a nightgown, giving it a clumsy unfurl before tossing it over her shoulder and turning to Emma with a pitying expression. “I seen the way you looked at him that one time, when he popped in at breakfast. You’re sunk but good. Maybe you could use your fancy disappearing act onhimthe next time”—she snapped her fingers—“poof, into another room with ya’. Take that for leaving me unaided on the dancefloor!”
Emma’s cheeks burned to realize the way she felt about Simon was noticeable. Rising to her elbow, she shifted atop the massive bustle as she struggled to kick off her slippers. Lovely silver ones she was coming to adore. Even if they pinched. But she loved them almost as much as she loved her beautiful gowns, except for the dreadful corset she had to wear to squeezeintothe gowns.
This life, this grand, grand life, was one she feared she could get used to. “Mollie, may I ask how you ended up in a duke’s household of all places?”
Mollie whimpered and crumpled to the crimson velvet settee. “Do I n-n-not please as a lady’s maid? I’m learning to say the H in all my words and not belch and keep my opinions to myself cause I’m not paid to share them. Lowly, they are, truly in the mud, what I think. I told Miss Josie a showy place such as this was aiming too high. Mayfair! T-t-too high, indeed! I woulda been h-h-happy with that stinking-rich banker who needed a scullery maid. But, no, Miss Josie had to place me with a duke!”
Emma scooted to the edge of the bed, the slipper dangling from her left foot dropping to the floor. “Goodness, Mollie, that isn’t what I meant. You’re brilliant. I’ve never known a better lady’s maid.”
Mollie’s brow cocked high as she sniffled. “Have you known another lady’s maid, missy? I’m guessing not. I reckon the cousin of nobility fib is stretching it, though you have my promise, I’ll never tell a soul you aren’t what they say you are. To the grave, our secrets. Mine andyours.”
Emma shook her head and laughed softly, kicking her other slipper free. How was she to dupe the entire of London if she couldn’t dupe a servant?
Mollie snickered and gave her nondescript black skirt a cheery pluck. “That’s the way of it. We both mean to make the best of this splendid opportunity.” Her voice dropped to a ragged murmur. “Leave the bad behind.”
“Was it bad?” Emma whispered, grasping with a dull ache how lonely she was. Forhome, even when 1802 hadn’t been splendid in any way. When she’d had to watch her back, worry every minute about how she was going to pay the next month’s rent, food, candles. Steal when forced, lie all the time. Be nastier than she wanted to be, every single day.
But she missed the apple tarts her neighbor, Mrs. Watkins, made for her once a month. Missed the aroma of wheaten bread coming from Sampson’s bakehouse on the corner. Missed the children, gap-toothed, their faces streaked with dirt, their clothing riddled with holes, who’d smiled at her as she strolled the docks. She missed her scruffy pillow and the quilt her mother had made for her when she was seven. She missed her favorite boots, the ones that had holes in the soles that she patched twice a year.
The tricky part: she hadn’t expected to be offered a new life—and then only have seconds to decide whether to accept the offer.