Page 84 of The Ladies Least Likely

“You’d be provided for, Anth.” Joseph reached for the nearest dish and lifted the cover. “Oh, Brussels sprouts! Just the way I like them. If you keep Mrs. Blackthorn, I’m moving in with you.”

“Yes. Well.” Grey was blushing; she discerned the ruddy glow to his face even in the candlelight. “I flatter myself that I would be able to—er, meet your considerations. Once I know what they are.”

Oh, the nerve of him. The absolute brass! Arrogant, overweening, dominating man, to assume that she would throw herself gratefully into his arms at the merest suggestion that he required a wife, and?—

He looked glumly at the table, seating himself with a deliberate slowness.

He was as embarrassed as she was, Amaranthe realized.

And in no way confident that she would say yes.

His guardedness, that resignation she’d seen him in before, thumped her in the chest. He expected to be denied what he wanted, purely because he was a bastard, not through any other fault.

“I told you this wasn’t the way to go about it, Grey,” young Hunsdon said, examining Amaranthe’s expression.

“I said all along you need to court her.” Ned lifted the lid off the dish nearest him, and his eyes closed in rapture as the steam rose to his nostrils.

“But you can’t stay here unless you’re married, can you, Miss Amaranthe?” Camilla asked. Amaranthe managed a smile, recognizing the logic of a child, that marriage was the only possible relationship between a man and a woman.

The only respectable relationship, true.

If they married, she would see him every day. They would ride about together on their errands and stroll together through parks, her hand tucked under his arm. There would be meals with the children and evenings with wine and conversation.

There would be the marriage bed, of which she knew next to nothing.

He would belong to her. And she would belong to him.

Amaranthe gazed at her plate, helpless against the surge of raw longing that roared through her with that thought.

She looked up to find everyone watching her. Joseph was curious, the children pleading and anxious, and Grey?—

He was wary, and a touch desperate, and embarrassed, but there was that smolder in his eyes yet, and it flared as his eyes moved to her chest, then back up.

He wants you to say yes .

The thought forced breath from her body. He was not thinking this through. He saw her as a means to an end, his end. No one had asked her what she wanted.

“You must give me time to consider,” she said. She couldn’t bear to crush the children’s hopes. Not here, on what was possibly her last night with them.

“Yes, of course.” Grey exhaled. He was relieved she hadn’t rebuffed him before everyone. “As long as you wish.”

“Perhaps you ought to go with Miss Illingworth to visit her cousin the baronet,” Hugh suggested. He handed his plate over as Grey carved the joint of roast beef. “Then it could all be done properly, with his permission.”

“She hasn’t decided yet if she’s going,” Ned huffed.

Joseph looked up. “I’m the one he should ask for permission!”

“I am of age,” Amaranthe said sharply. “I shall decide for myself, thank you.” She took a long draught of wine, longer than what was prudent. It tasted delicious.

“I imagine the news would delight the baronet,” Hugh said. “That his family is to be allied with the Delavals.”

“And the Greys,” Grey said calmly, making a long, clean cut in the haunch before him.

“Of course.” Hugh flushed.

“I wonder that you didn’t live with your cousin, if he was a baronet,” Camilla piped up. “His house must be grander than the one you have now.”

“I did live at Penwellen for a while, after our parents were carried off by the fever.” The wine seeped through her, making Amaranthe’s blood warm and her limbs feel fluid.

The dish beside her held prawns in butter, a delicacy she loved nearly above oysters.

Mrs. Blackthorn had outdone herself tonight.

She must take care the wine and the fare did not loosen her tongue unduly.

“Typhus,” Joseph said, helping himself to a mushroom ragout.

“So here I am, starting my third year at Oxford, when all of a sudden who knocks up my door but my sister dragging along a maid with a belly—” He caught Camilla’s wide eyes.

“That is to say, er, in the family way. And what does she tell me but she is no longer welcome at Penwellen, and has come to Oxford because her old schoolmistress has a connection who might employ her as a copyist. How am I to lodge them, when I’ve nothing but student chambers?

But she’s never told me why she left in such a harum-scarum fashion, and we’ve not had a word from Penwellen before Favella writes to ask her back. ”

Once again Amaranthe was the cynosure of all eyes. Cool air wafted across the exposed skin of her chest. Grey seemed conscious of her bared skin also.

“Reuben stole a book from me,” she blurted.

The wine was making the top of her float away, and the thoughts she normally kept in order spilled out with it.

“I had just acquired a Book of Hours,” she said. “Fifteenth-century French translation, Gothic script on vellum parchment, beautiful illuminations.” Her throat ached. “It was a girdle book made for Lady Willoughby de Broke. Her husband Sir Nicholas died in Callington and is buried there.”

So much for guarding her tongue, but at the quiet attention of her company, Amaranthe let the story pour out.

“I worked for Mr. Finney for years making copies of this and that for him, all to earn this book. My first acquisition for my antiquarian bookstore. That very day Reuben took a fit into his head and—and cast Eyde and me out of his house. And he took my Book of Hours as well.”

Joseph laid down his cutlery, staring in astonishment. “Anth! You never said! Why didn’t you demand it from him?”

“I asked you, if you recall, to direct Favella to send my things to you in Oxford,” she answered. “I wrote again, through our solicitor, when we took up lodgings in London. Reuben declined to send my possessions.”

Her wine glass had mysteriously refilled; she hadn’t felt Davey at her elbow, but she took advantage and chased the first glass with half of the second. It did not taste so delicious this time.

“Why didn’t you have Mr. Illingworth march down to Cornwall and demand your book, if you valued it?” Ned asked, puzzled.

Amaranthe stared into her wine. She would miss all this when she returned to her quiet house.

The wine, the conversation, the glow of dozens of candles warming and softening the elegant room.

She would not miss people looking so closely at her all the time, Grey most attentively of all.

His eyes seared her skin as if she had splashed hot butter from the prawns.

She had no ready answer for Ned’s question.

She depended on other people as little as she could.

It was her custom to take care of Joseph, not the other way around.

And she didn’t want her brother knowing what Reuben had done, what he had suggested.

He wouldn’t know how to address the offense any better than she had, and Reuben’s vileness would poison him the way he had poisoned her.

With the wine came the sudden heat of rage. She wanted to storm to Cornwall. She wanted to tear Penwellen apart with her bare hands until she found what had been taken from her.

Reuben could never return her innocence, though.

She could never take from her mind the memory of his hot thick body pressing against hers, his rotting breath, his damp hands.

The memory intruded every time another man drew close to her.

Even Grey. She wondered if there would ever be a time when the shadow of Reuben’s offense would fade.

How could she marry Grey if his every touch called up the spoiled ghost of Reuben?

“You must go,” Camilla said. She looked from Amaranthe to Joseph. “You should take her back to Cornwall now, Mr. Joseph, and get her book back. She worked so hard for it.”

“Er.” Joseph shifted in his chair. “But I’m engaged to tutor your brothers, you see. I’ve a whole lesson on classical antiquity planned. And, well, there is a certain young lady who has expectations of me. I fear she wouldn’t wait if I went haring off to Cornwall.”

Amaranthe tightened her fingers around her glass. Best not to finish the rest. Davey saw his job as keeping her glass filled to the brim, and the wine was not watered as far as she could tell. If she did not restrain herself, she’d be sliding under the table by the second course.

“Miss Pettigrew wouldn’t allow you a fortnight away to visit family?” she asked, trying to keep the brittleness from her tone. “Are there so many other suitors vying for her hand, Joseph?”

“Not suitors, but other matters,” he said, shifting in his chair. “She has interested herself in many causes of reform. I must exert myself to stay at the front of her mind, as it were.”

Grey made no audible response to this, but Amaranthe glanced sharply his way. He was still at his task of carving the roast, but she sensed by his manner that something in him reacted strongly to Joseph’s protestations.

Even Hugh said, “I thought you mentioned Miss Pettigrew’s family lived in the West, Mr. Illingworth. You could take Miss Illingworth to meet them, and then proceed to Cornwall.”

“I’m not persuaded I have the leisure for such a journey,” Amaranthe said. “I’m engaged to deliver a manuscript.” She had other commissions to earn. And travel was expensive, besides.

“Miss Pettigrew’s family might look kindly on your suit were they to know your family is friendly with the Duke of Hunsdon,” Grey remarked.

Amaranthe narrowed her eyes at him. The children took the bait at once.

“Oh, I say,” Ned exclaimed. “Cracking good idea, Grey! You marry Miss Amaranthe, and Mr. Joseph might have his pick of Miss Pettigrews.”

“And you would get to see the baby if you went to Penwellen,” Camilla said.

“Has it escaped everyone that I have not accepted Mr. Grey’s suit?” Amaranthe said, her voice overloud.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Hugh asked. “Because he is my father’s bastard?”

Amaranthe’s eyes flew to Grey’s face, taut and expressionless.

“That is not the basis of my hesitation,” she told him.

“You ought not tease Miss Illingworth, Hugh,” Grey said, not meeting her eyes.

He laid the large carving knife aside, and Ralph carried the platter of cuts around the table, serving them all in formal style.

Grey took a large draught of his wine. It was courtesy for the men of the table to drink in toast to each other, but Joseph ignored his glass, and Grey was not a man to be constrained by formality in the best of circumstances.

Davey leapt forward with the decanter before the bottom of Grey’s glass touched the cloth.

“Indeed,” Grey went on, “we owe Miss Illingworth a great deal for all she has done for us this week. We ought rather be thinking of ways to reward her, instead of harrying her about her plans.”

“By all means,” Hugh said, taking the reproof in stride. “Miss Illingworth, please advise us how we may demonstrate our gratitude for the very great service you have done us all.”

In for a penny, in for a pound. Amaranthe swilled the last of her wine and cleared her throat.

“I would like to borrow the manuscript that Ned found. For a short time,” she said. “I wish the liberty to read it through, and it’s rather a weighty tome.”

Best make no mention of the plan she was forming to copy out parts of it and sell them separately.

Alchemical treatises, astrological tracts, and arcane medical lore fetched very dear prices in certain specialty shops.

She could envision the look on Mr. Karim’s face when she mentioned she’d found the Book of Secrets he coveted. That, and more.

Much as she adored Mr. Karim, it was time to start establishing networks and contacts of her own. This book gave her the power to do so.

But somehow, Grey’s ice-blue eyes, riveted to her face, told her he would not approve of her methods.

“You wish to read it!” Ned exclaimed. “ All of it?”

“It’s an unusual book,” Amaranthe said. “Someone went to a great deal of trouble to find rare and arcane treatises, some of them now lost or impossible to locate, and then bound the copies into an organized collection. I believe it’s of great interest, and possibly great value.”

The young duke brightened. “How much value?” he asked.

“I cannot yet say, but I can show it to Mr. Karim and some other antiquarian booksellers I know.”

Malden’s face grew shadowed and he looked away, avoiding her eyes. Amaranthe’s stomach, filled with wine, sloshed uncomfortably. She couldn’t shake the certainty that he knew what she planned to do with that book.

Somehow he’d discovered she was a thief and a liar.

That she copied manuscripts that weren’t hers and sold her copies under the noses of their owners, enriching herself at their expense.

If he had found out, he could expose her.

There would be fines, possibly time in the bridewell for such subterfuge, if not worse punishment.

Even small robberies could be hanging offenses under English law.

“In that case,” Hugh said, “I should be happy to let you have a look at it. You can tell us if there is, say, enough of value to—” He glanced at his sister. “Ah, remedy our current financial situation.”

“You mean how we’re broke because Sybil took all the money,” Camilla said matter-of-factly, helping herself to the last of the buttered prawns.

“Yes, that,” Hugh muttered, looking at his plate.

Amaranthe didn’t take the opportunity to remind Camilla she should address her stepmother by her title, despite her feelings. She had been granted access to this priceless book, but the victory felt hollow.

Grey wouldn’t extend an offer of marriage—if offer it was—to a woman he knew to be a thief and a liar. If he suspected her of forgery, the last she’d see of Malden Grey was him hauling her before a magistrate.

The thought of the possible consequences for her crimes ought to terrify her more than the knowledge that Grey wouldn’t want to marry her if the truth were known. But the thought of losing his regard hurt Amaranthe more than anything else.