Page 103 of The Ladies Least Likely

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A maranthe had, to Mal’s knowledge, been in town four days now.

He knew because Joseph Illingworth presented himself on the doorstep of Hunsdon House the day after their return.

The lad’s eyes were bloodshot and he reeked of strong coffee and spirits, but he insisted he was prepared to return to lessons.

He said little of Amaranthe but that she had begun a new project.

Mal waited for her to call, to inquire about the children, or to see about her servants, who remained yet at Hunsdon House.

When four days elapsed with no note and no sign of her, Mal donned his favorite blue cloth suit with the silver buttons, pulled on his tall black boots, and set out for George Court.

He was not sure how he would find her or, for that matter, how she would receive him.

They’d established an unquestioned intimacy in their travels to Cornwall.

She’d met and been embraced by his family. She’d kissed him until he saw stars.

She’d found the long-hidden, long-sought document that turned everything he knew about his life on its head.

And she’d agreed to marry him, hadn’t she? He’d been a fool not to secure a promise from her before he left Bristol. He’d allowed worries about Sybil’s return and the resurrected court case to take over his mind and had taken this rather important decision for granted.

She wanted to marry him, didn’t she? She must.

Mal had learned from a long life of taunts and whispers not to let his concern show on his face.

So he adopted the most carefree attitude he could muster as he turned from Coventry onto Rupert Street, lifting his hat at all the finely dressed ladies and enjoying their appreciative stares.

They wondered at him, who he was, where he came from.

He wondered himself. It was exhilarating and strange to walk through the world with this small but significant difference.

Everything the world could know and value about him had changed, and yet he was exactly the same person.

Before, he would have inwardly laughed at these women, admiring a man they didn’t know was a bastard.

He would have mocked them for being fooled by a fair form and face.

But he was a duke’s throw no longer. His mother had been betrayed and abandoned, true, but she had not thrown herself away on an empty promise.

She’d been properly wed, and it was only the weakness of her beloved—or the overbearing power of her love’s father, the second duke—that had parted them.

How his grandfather, the old duke, would roll in his grave to know the marriage he’d forced upon his son, a proper marriage to an earl’s daughter for the purpose of begetting a proper heir, was not legally valid.

And the bastard son of the haberdasher’s daughter in Bristol, a boy of low birth and only the thinnest gentlemanly facade, was the duke in truth.

Mal had no intention of making that known, of course.

If Amaranthe married him, he would be called to the bar, and he was willing to work for his keep and hers.

Hugh, with his punctilious manners and grand airs, had been reared to the dukedom.

Mal needed only to glance in the library and see the lad’s golden head bent over another tome of exotic travels to know he belonged in this world.

Same with Ned, gnashing his teeth and muttering as he declined Latin nouns.

And darling Camilla, feet swinging from the stuffed chair as she sat side-by-side with her bosom friend, the servant girl Derwa, reading aloud and pointing to the letters.

He would do whatever it took to keep them safe and sheltered.

He’d failed them miserably before; he would be more careful in future.

Mal was surprised to recognize the young girl striding down the street toward him. She carried a basket of violets over one arm and, if he was not mistaken, she wore a pelisse he had seen Amaranthe wear. She gave him a saucy grin and a wink as she neared him.

“Wasson, me ’andsome?” she said, which he recognized now as the Cornish greeting.

“I saw you in St. Paul’s. What are you doing here?”

“Miss likes her violets and oranges,” the girl replied. “Ought to wear a spray of ’em for her, you should.” She plucked a small posy from her basket and tucked it into his top buttonhole, then stood back with her palm out. “Might give ’er a smile.”

“Oh, very well.” Mal gave her thruppence. “You’ve come a long way to deliver violets.”

“I’s an errand girl now, I is,” the girl said loftily. “Know my way about town, don’t I? Rather useful party, that makes me.” She dipped him a small curtsey and strolled off, whistling.

At his knock Amaranthe’s door was flung open to reveal the dark-haired maid, her face flushed with fury and her apron askew. “I’ve decided to seek a new position!” she barked by way of greeting. “D’ye know of one?”

“What’s amiss?” Mal asked, taken aback.

“That Joseph!” Her dark eyes flashed with fury. “As if Miss Amaranthe don’t have enough to worry about, doing the work that supports us all! Who among us hasn’t had our heart broke? But no, he must pile foolishness upon foolishness and cause us all no end of worry!”

“Good Lord, what’s he done?” Mal imagined mayhem.

“He’s at the Blue Posts,” she snapped. “Again. Miss went to fetch him afore he rolls under a table or starts a fight as he has every night this week.”

“Is Mr. Illingworth no longer a fit tutor for my brothers?” Mal asked, though he was thinking aloud.

“He ain’t fit to comb a dog!” The maid stomped into the house, talking to herself in a language he didn’t recognize. Mal backtracked to find a crowd gathered at the end of the court, spilling into Rupert Street, and he guessed what he’d see before he drew near enough to have his suspicions proven.

Joseph stood in the street with his fists up like a man pretending to be a pugilist, bawling insults, while a second man lunged toward him, swinging.

Between them Amaranthe stood with her arms out, demanding they both stop this instant, while the crowd frothing about them offered the opposite encouragement.

Mal saw only that Amaranthe was in danger. He grabbed the second man by the collar of his coat and with a firm shove sent him sprawling onto the cobbles. He then reached across Amaranthe to grab Joseph’s neckcloth and gave the lad a good shake.

“I hope you’ve paid your shot, Illingworth. You’re going home.”

The crowd objected to this, calling for a resolution to the quarrel, one that would involve one or both men showing their blood. But Mal’s look, and his size, quelled the enthusiasm.

Joseph writhed in Mal’s grip. “He insulted Susannah!”

“He doesn’t know Miss Pettigrew from a mule,” Mal said. “Miss Illingworth, if I may request your assistance?”

Amaranthe gripped her brother’s arm and helped Mal haul him under the arch into George Court, where interested passersby stepped aside to let them pass.

“You!” Joseph panted, swinging an ineffectual fist at Mal. “I ought to call you out. No doubt you encouraged him! You’re his friend, ain’t you? And who knows what he’s done to my poor Susannah!”

“What’s he raising a breeze about?” Mal asked Amaranthe over Joseph’s head.

Her face was set in tense lines, and she looked tired. Joseph answered before she could.

“Your friend,” he howled. “The captain. Shows up in his uniform and makes her a leg, and the next thing I know she’s away to Gretna Green with him.”

“You’re talking moonshine,” Mal said shortly.

“Captain Vierling whisked Miss Pettigrew away from the chapel where she was to wed Joseph and has carried her to Scotland to be married,” Amaranthe translated.

“Viktor?” Mal was astonished. “Did he even know the girl?”

“He’ll know her now!” Joseph cried. “He did something to make her set her cap for him. She led me on a merry chase, but him—” He sagged between them, deflated. “She ran off with him in an instant.”

Mal opened Amaranthe’s door and shoved Joseph into the house, leaving her to escort her brother upstairs and settle him. He went into her parlor to wait.

The room was cluttered in a way he found appealing, with a fresh stack of parchment on one chair and bottles on a small shelf, ink waiting to be mixed. He wondered what errands the costermonger was running for Amaranthe. Shopping? Contacting booksellers? Something else?

Her Book of Hours sat displayed on a gilded stand atop a small table, given pride of place, and a manuscript lay open on the small desk next to her chair.

It was the rather hefty tome Ned found in the Hunsdon library.

Mal remembered how Amaranthe’s face had transformed as she looked at it.

He’d thought at the time that he’d give a great deal to be the reason that starry, wondrous look entered her eyes.

He’d seen her wear that expression since, soft and dazed, as if her feet had left the earth.

She’d worn it after he kissed her. He smiled to think of her bending over this manuscript with the same loving attention she’d shown her Book of Hours and drew near to see what part she was reading.

She wasn’t just reading. There was a parchment page secured to her work easel by the small wooden bar, her penknife and quill lying beside it.

It was a title page, heavily decorated with foliation that looked vaguely Moorish in inspiration, with many loops and swirls.

The Book of Secrets , the title read in large, black, heavily embellished script, or Kitab al-Asrar .

Some foreign letters stood beneath this, Arabic he presumed.

Written by Muhammad al-Razi , followed by more Arabic letters.

And in smaller print at the bottom: Englisht by Theocratus in 1532.

Amaranthe was making another book. But it did not have her name on it.