Page 78 of The Ladies Least Likely

“Forgive me,” Mal said. “Amaranthe, this is Mr. Stephen Oliver, one of the Benchers of the Middle Temple and by far our favorite reader. Mr. Oliver, this is Miss Amaranthe Illingworth, a—friend to the Duke of Hunsdon.”

She wished he hadn’t put it that way. It sounded like she was a courtesan. She might as well be, plumed in a duchess’s gown without the rank or birth to deserve it.

Oliver flicked a gloved hand in the air.

“Favorite reader, my foot. No one comes to the lectures. Having them bound to force something between the students’ ears.

Nothing but a meal requirement to be called to the bar!

And thumb a few books!” He shook his bewigged head.

“Law was a serious business in my day.” He fixed a stern look upon Mal.

“What topics do your readings specialize in, Mr. Oliver?” Amaranthe asked, since Mal looked at a loss for words.

“Commentary on Blackstone,” Mr. Oliver growled. “His compendium’s all right, now that it’s finally issued, but needs some clarification here and there.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with the work.” She wasn’t lying; she’d seen the volumes spread out on the table in the library of Hunsdon House. “What an excellent ambition, to preserve your knowledge for your students. I find Mr. Karim’s work of the highest standard.”

The man’s gimlet eye focused on her. “Shopping with the Moor, are you? A literary lady?”

No lady at all, Amaranthe thought but did not say. Mr. Karim, bustling through from the back room, saved her from reply. “Here it is, Mr. Oliver! Half calf over paper boards, with gilt stamping. I used the basic Coptic stitch for the binding, though you’ll see that?—”

“Yes, yes, all in order.” Oliver reached for the hefty volume. “Send the invoice to my lodgings, of course.”

Mr. Karim’s face fell. Clearly he would much rather have coin in hand than send a bill that could be ignored.

“Can I interest you in something else? I have copies of Mr. Macpherson’s history of Great Britain, the Comte de Mirabeau’s essay on despotism, in French, of course, Mr. John Wesley’s address to the American colonies?—”

“And the Secretum Secretorum ,” Mr. Oliver said in surprise, his gaze falling on the sheets of parchment stacked neatly on the counter. “A fine copy, and a neat hand.”

“Miss Illingworth is responsible for that fine hand.” Mr. Karim’s expression grew animated. “I have promised another patron the right of first refusal, but if you are interested, sir?—”

“A copyist?” Mr. Oliver glared at her again, and Amaranthe guessed why students avoided his lectures. “I suppose it don’t take much to follow the lines.”

“No, it does not.” She gave him a bland smile.

“That reminds me.” Mr. Karim cleared his throat. “Miss Illingworth, here is that Arabic grammar I promised to loan to you, to go along with the dictionary. Perhaps it will aid in recognizing the Kitab al-Asrar , should you happen to come across it.”

“ Ashkuraka, ” Amaranthe murmured as she took the small book, thanking Mr. Karim in Arabic just to see the look on Oliver’s face.

It was, to her surprise, a calculating look, and he turned it quickly on Mal. “A learned lady! Grey, I didn’t think you had the wits to attract a woman of intellect.”

“Er,” Mal said, breaking his uncharacteristic silence. “Indeed?”

“Indeed not. We all had you pegged as a worthless lie-about, living off the duke, and made bets on how soon you’d hare off if a better opportunity presented. Kicking up larks with that Vierling, for instance—it don’t look well on you, hanging about with the likes of him.”

Oliver scrutinized Amaranthe once more. She hoped her bonnet was not askew and she did not have the dust of the street on her hem.

“But if you were, say, to have a wife to support—you’d look a deal more serious to the Benchers,” Oliver said. “A clever woman settles a man, teaches him how to go on. A good wife keeps a man’s head clear, if you understand me.”

Amaranthe stared at the barrister, keeping her expression neutral. She caught his meaning, all too well, and from the look of gathering thunder on Mal’s face, he understood, too.

“I appreciate the hint, Mr. Oliver,” Mal said through gritted teeth. “I shall take your remarks under careful consideration.”

“See that you do.” Oliver adjusted his wig and tucked his book under his arm.

“I told the Benchers you were smarter than Froggart, but that one just announced his betrothal, and a man needs an income if he’s to support his wife.

” Oliver glared at Mal once more. “Show us you’re serious, and I’ll have a good word for you when the next call comes, Grey.

Duke’s throw or not,” he added for good measure, and Mal’s face shuttered completely.

“You can’t begin to comprehend my gratitude,” he ground out.

Oliver tipped his hat to Amaranthe and strolled out the door.

Amaranthe tucked the small Arabic grammar into her valise.

If she was not mistaken, Mr. Karim was encouraging her to produce a fake original of the much-coveted advice of Aristotle to Alexander; to her knowledge, Arabic copies of the manuscript had never reached Britain.

And he had all but begged her to locate Hunsdon’s copy of the even more esoteric chemical treatise likewise known as the Book of Secrets .

She would have sworn Mr. Karin was both innocent and above her machinations, but perhaps he was in a position similar to hers. She would sort it out in her mind later. Her more immediate concern was that Mal looked consumed by wrath.

“Married!” he muttered under his breath as he conducted her out the door. A street boy held the reins of the pair hitched to the curricle, and when Mal tossed him a coin, he caught it deftly, bit it to test the metal, and shoved it deep into a dirty pocket.

“Married!” Mal seethed again as he steered them through the noisy, crowded intersection with Cheapside and into the quieter environs of St. Paul’s Churchyard.

“Stop, please,” Amaranthe murmured as she saw the trio of young girls standing in the shadow of the great church, delivering their singing patter to passersby.

“Grey, pause here.” She put a hand on his sleeve to get his attention, and the firm warmth of his arm sent a shock from her fingers to her head.

“Oranges! Get yer oranges ’ere!” a young girl bawled near them as Mal slowed the horses. She tilted her basket in their direction and caught Amaranthe’s eye. “One for thruppence, two for a kick!”

Amaranthe smiled at her accent. “How many for a dozen?” she leaned over to ask.

The girl’s eyes flared wide. She was scarcely older than Derwa, her round, childish cheeks blooming pink under the ties of a loose white cap, her apron thrown over one arm as she balanced the heavy basket against her hips.

Costermongers started young and typically began with watercress, herbs, and flowers.

This girl was already a seasoned hawker if she were selling fruit.

“Three bob, miss! Lovely, are’em?”

“They look delicious,” Amaranthe agreed, probing her pocket. She didn’t dare give the girl as much as guinea for fear of exposing her to thieves, but she did have some smaller coins. “What’s a Cornish party like yourself doing upcountry, I ask?”

“ Aree fah! ” the girl cried, smiling widely. “Where you to, then?”

“Callington,” Amaranthe said, and laid two crowns in the girl’s upturned palm. “For you and your family, mind.”

“Right proper, miss,” the girl breathed, handing over a dozen oranges. Her gaze lit on Grey.

“All right, me ’andsome! Violets for your trouble? Lavender for your strife? You’ve a maid worth the wooing, I might say.” She whistled to two other girls, even younger in age, being spurned by the impatient passersby they tried to interest in their own baskets.

“I’m not his wife.” Amaranthe laughed, dispensing pennies to the two younger girls in return for a small, fresh bouquet of violets and lavender and a set of shy thanks.

Their sweet, canny faces pinched her heart.

She’d been a pampered darling at their age, and only later learned what a woman must do to survive in a trade.

“Hear me now. You’re a long way from our fair land, and if you ever need a friend, look you for Miss Illingworth in George Court, just off Rupert Street.”

“Get on, you!” The orange girl waved with admiration as Mal urged the horses to walk on. “We won’t forget that, miss.”

“Your accent comes out when you speak with them,” Mal observed as the costermongers returned to their work. “As it does with your servants.”

“You can take the cheel from Kernow, but not the Kernowak from the cheel,” Amaranthe said, tucking her oranges into her bag. At his puzzled look, she smiled slightly. “Cornish. It’s a dying language, I fear.”

Mal set their course for Hanover Square. “If I were to marry, and be called to the Bench, I would be able to support a wife to pursue whatever scholarly inclinations she wished.” He cast her a sidewise look.

“Don’t be daft,” Amaranthe said. “Though you’ll think I am, when I tell you how much Mr. Karim paid for my Secretorum .”

“How much?” he asked.

She told him.

“And how did you come by a copy of the Secret of Secrets?”

His profile was as hard as the marbled facade of St. Paul’s, and Amaranthe’s stomach twisted. He was a man who had chosen the law for his profession. He would not lightly dismiss the skirting of it.

“A previous employer of Joseph’s.” That was more or less true. “They permitted me to make a copy for my own reference.” That was patently untrue. The library would never have allowed the borrowing if they’d known what she was about, and Joseph would have frowned upon her thievery, too.

“And you sold it for our benefit. That is indeed very kind in you.” A muscle jumped in his jaw, as if he were grinding his teeth together. “I will, of course, repair your loss at the earliest opportunity. I ought to have bought your produce from the costermongers as well.”

“Those were purchases of my own,” Amaranthe said coolly. “Derwa adores oranges, and I might use the rinds for any number of things.”

“Of course,” he said. “But you paid those girls enough to feed themselves and their families for a fortnight. Largesse seems to be a habit of yours.”

He was sunk in bitterness, she could see. Perhaps his male pride was offended that she had succeeded in raising money where he had not. Well, it was a very stupid male who didn’t acknowledge that his life ran on and because of female labor, beginning with the one who had birthed him.

They rode in silence back to Hunsdon House, with Mal muttering only under his breath now and again, “Married!” as if the condition were a curse.

The bumpy road jostled them together often, his firm leg pressing against her skirts, his hard shoulder and arm occasionally pressing against her side.

Amaranthe allowed that she was only human and couldn’t help the warmth that shot through her every time their bodies touched.

But she was not the type to take fancies into her head. Malden Grey was not for her, and the sooner she could escape his company, the better for her peace of mind and heart.