Page 4 of The Wrath of the Wallflower (Revenge of the Wallflowers)

Sinjin pushed his spectacles higher onto his nose for the hundredth time and straightened up to appease the ache in his back. He reached around to press the heels of his hands into the base of his spine and worked at the muscles grown taut from hours of painstaking work over his new Lister microscope. A gift on the occasion of his last birthday from his sister, Cordelia, and her husband Lord Daedalus Whitcombe, the instrument was a wonder and had allowed Sinjin to make great progress in his botanical crossbreeding endeavors and in discovering the medicinal properties of England’s plant-life.

He had been working with stinging nettles for several months now, extracting different properties and compounding them with other ingredients in the hope of creating a powder that might be mixed into a paste for the pains of arthritis, something from which his father suffered most cruelly. As he cast his gaze around his vast conservatory, he spotted the long work table across the glass wall at the far end of this room that stretched across the entire back of his family’s London townhouse. The glass enclosed space ran from the back of the house to the mews as well. No elegant back gardens for the Perritons. Sinjin had commandeered every inch of open space behind their London residence years ago.

The latest additions to his plant collection were potted in a series of large, ornate Chinese porcelain bowls on the long work table next to the glass wall. Their location allowed them to receive as much sun as possible. He hoped the warmth and light would help the wounded daffodils and crocuses to overcome the shock of being uprooted from their Hyde Park home yesterday. He and Seamus had taken great care with them, but only time would tell if the plants would survive. And they had to survive.

“Sir?” Danders called from the doors that led into the townhouse. “Mister Sinjin, you have a visitor.”

“Give me a moment, Danders.” Sinjin removed his gloves and strode down the flagstone path set into the tiled floor.

“I am well aware of the length of your moments, Sinjin Perriton. I have no intention of standing about for an hour waiting for you to complete one of your experiments. Where are you?” Alice stepped around a large banana tree and met him just before he reached her and the butler.

“A-Alice,” Sinjin’s heart stuttered as he stumbled to a halt before her. “What a pleasant surprise.”

She rolled her eyes and brushed some dirt from his cheek. She turned back to the butler. “Thank you, Danders. You’re looking well in spite of trying to keep the Perriton brothers in check.”

Danders offered her a bow and a slight smile. “My cross to bear, my lady, though I do my best. Missus Beatty has prepared luncheon. Perhaps if I bring a tray, you can persuade this one to eat something?” He gave Sinjin a censoring scowl.

“As you say, I will do my best,” Alice said with a grin. “Yes, please send a tray. I thought I smelled Missus Beatty’s mutton stew on the way to Mister Perriton’s lair. That and some of her fresh bread and a pot of tea would be lovely.” She removed her gloves, placed them on a mosaic table bearing pots of violets, and set about tying Sinjin’s neckcloth which he’d draped loose around his neck. Danders quickly left to do her bidding.

Sinjin suddenly realized he’d greeted her in his shirtsleeves, buckskins, and boots, not a jacket or waistcoat in sight. She stood so close as she arranged his neckcloth in a perfect mathematical, he could smell the lemon and verbena scent she wore and a hint of the lavender soap she used on her hair. Today she’d dressed in an elegant silver and blue striped walking dress. The bodice was cut low enough and snuggly enough to cradle a generous portion of her rose-tinted ivory skin. He dragged his gaze away from that view only to be trapped in the blue of her eyes. She was dangerous no matter where he looked.

Their eyes met as she finished with his neckcloth and patted his chest. Time ticked slowly like drops of honey from a fresh honeycomb. She licked her lips and took a quick breath. His blood roared in his ears. Minutes passed, perhaps hours, he had no idea.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, my lady?” he finally managed to ask in a strong and steady voice. He tried not to swallow as her fingers brushed against his neck.

“Food first and then I will discuss the purpose of my visit. What are you working on today?’ She started down the path he’d taken from the table of Hyde Park flowers. He caught her arm and drew her in the opposite direction towards his research area. For some reason he didn’t want her to see the daffodils and crocuses, at least not until he was certain they had recovered from yesterday’s events. She had already wept over them once.

“This way. I’m working with stinging nettles so you cannot help me, but I can show you my new microscope.” He escorted to the long table covered with detritus from his various experiments with the stinging nettles, Urtica dioica .

“What on earth are you doing with nettles?’ Alice asked as she began to study the various items on the table.

“Careful.” Sinjin took a large mortar and pestle from her hand. “These are dried and ground up nettle leaves. If you spill them on yourself, we’ll have to dunk you in Mama’s ornamental fish pond.” He nodded in the direction of the large round pool and fountain at the center of his conservatory. He found the sound of the fountain soothing and good company as he spent most of his time in London alone in his beloved glass house.

“I cannot believe you have pots of nettles growing in the same place as your beautiful roses.” She clasped her hands behind her back as she walked the length of the table peering at the items on display. When she bent over his journal, smudged with ink smears and dirt, she smiled. “I see your penmanship has not improved. Thank goodness I have been reading your letters for years or I would never be able to decipher them.”

“I must endeavor to make my own notes as the person who used to keep my journals so neatly ran off to London and never returned.” Sinjin had been obsessed with botany since he was a boy and Alice had followed him about carefully recording all of his observations. Those journals traveled with him everywhere. Thank goodness they were safely tucked away on a bookcase next to his desk upstairs in his bedchamber.

She leaned against him as they reached the microscope. “You are the one person I regretted leaving behind, Sinjin. Especially these last two years as things went so terribly wrong.”

He glanced down at the top of her head, her golden hair arranged in coils of braids. The temptation to press his lips to her silken crown nearly undid him. He cleared his throat and indicated the glass cover onto which he’d mounted a single nettle leaf. He placed the slide onto his microscope, adjusted the lens and invited Alice to look with a nod of his head.

“Oh, my goodness,” she gasped as she peered into the eyepiece. “Are those hairs on the leaf. Nettles have hair?”

“Not exactly. Those little hairs are like barbs or thorns on other plants, and I believe they are the reason all one must do is brush against nettles and the stinging and itching is unbearable. The leaves shed those hairs, and they stick to the flesh causing that itch that used to send us running for the lake behind Perriton Grange.”

She straightened from the microscope, the bell of her laughter echoing throughout the conservatory. “I had forgotten about that. It was terrible, wasn’t it?

“The worst. I still have nightmares about us jumping from that tree into that patch of nettles.” Sinjin’s breath caught at the sparkle in her eyes and the true joy in her face.

“You two were covered in splotches for days,” Danders said as he came around the corner bearing a small tray whilst one of the footmen followed with a larger tray. The butler led the way into the more garden-like section of the conservatory where a round mosaic table and some wrought-iron chairs with thick embroidered cushions sat next to the fish pond and fountain. He went about setting the table for them. “It was a miracle neither of you suffered a broken limb from that fall.” He tsked and shook his head. “How you two survived to reach your majority is one of life’s great mysteries.”

Sinjin and Alice didn’t say a word and tried desperately not to look at each other as they knew they would dissolve into gales of hilarity. Poor Danders had rescued them both more times than Sinjin could count. Once he and the footman had arranged the luncheon to the butler’s satisfaction Danders bowed, shook his head once more and promenaded in his customary stately fashion out of sight, trailed by the grinning footman.

For the first several minutes Sinjin and Alice tucked into the delicious mutton stew and bread right from the oven slathered in sweet, fresh butter. Neither of them spoke. She poured their tea and added sugar and milk just as they had always liked. He was amazed at the ease and comfort conveyed by the simplicity of dining with someone who knew him so well, someone with whom he’d shared so many similar meals over the years.

“Such a pity we cannot find a way to dump that bowl of dried nettles in Lord Earden’s drawers,” Alice suddenly said once she’d polished off her bowl of stew. She immediately took a large bite of bread as if she regretted what she’d said.

“Alice, I must apologize for what happened yesterday. I should have chased Earden and his band of toad eaters off the minute I saw them.” He cut his lemon tart into small pieces and didn’t raise his head to check her expression.

“Don’t you dare apologize. You had nothing to do with what happened. I shouldn’t have turned into a watering pot and run away. I should have dragged those three off their horses and drawn their corks.” She reached across the table and squeezed his hand then plucked one of the pieces of tart from his plate. He watched her drop the crust and lemon curd into her mouth and lick her lips to capture all of the filling. If she kept this up, he would be the one diving into the fish pond.

“I would have loved to have seen that,” he replied.

“Don’t tease. Thanks to you I punch as well as any man.” Her indignance was endearing as the devil. “It would be no less than they deserved.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “I was not casting aspersions on your ability to give those three a drubbing. However, we are in London now, not Surrey. An earl’s daughter who is also a duke’s niece participating in fisticuffs with three gentlemen would send the gossip rags into a frenzy. I should hate for us to appear as caricatures in print shop windows. Reggie says they never get his hair right.”

She tossed a piece of bread at him which he caught and popped into his mouth. “If I cannot take my revenge publicly perhaps, I should find a way to do so without anyone knowing it is me.”

Sinjin stopped chewing. He took in her face, the tone of her voice. She was in earnest. This was no jibe or fantasy such as those they had shared lying in a field if wildflowers weaving childish revenge plots against those who teased or insulted them. “What could you possibly have in mind, Alice Lister?”

She shrugged. “I spoke in jest. What could I, a mere woman, have in mind to wreak a revenge on those three so humiliating they might never show their faces in London again? I would not know where to start. I would need someone clever, someone who thinks like a gentleman and knows what might cause another gentleman the most embarrassment.” She stared across the table and batted her eyelashes like some cow-eyed debutante at her first ball.

He snorted. “Don’t bat your eyes at me, my lady. You are up to some mischief, and you want me to join you.”

“Not at all.” She filched another piece of his tart and made short work of the delicious bit of confection. “I want you to lead the fray.”

“Me?” Sinjin’s voice went tight. “You would not allow me to meet Earden at dawn, but you will allow me to plot some sort of humiliating revenge on him, Stanton, and Weatherly?”

“You will not meet anyone at dawn for my sake, ever. Promise me.” She reached across the table and took both of his hands in hers. “Promise.”

“I promise,” he said, her fervor causing his stomach to flip and his breath to quicken. “I promise, Alice.”

“Good.” She released his hands and sat back in her chair. “Should you wish to help me in my quest, I would be most appreciative. You did say we should seek adventure whilst I am here in London for the Season.” She smiled at him, that secret little smile that always led to trouble when they were children, like falling out of trees into nettle patches or turning a piglet loose in the middle of Sunday services.

“Adventure, yes. The mayhem of delivering a well-deserved comeuppance to those three miscreants, without being caught? That is another matter entirely.” He said the last bit slowly as even now his mind was turning over possible ideas. The very notion smacked of madness and scandal and every sort of thing that might go wrong. Then he glanced back up at Alice, her expression so hopeful and so very sure of his ability to help her. His brother, Frederick, would say the lady played Sinjin like a fiddle at an assembly dance. He’d be all too correct as well.

Sinjin had been screwing up his courage to tell Alice how he felt about her since they were twelve or thereabouts. She’d never said or shown in any way that she might return his feelings or that she saw him as anything more than a brother or a dear friend. To say the words to her would change everything, and he could not bear for her to pull away from him. Perhaps…if he showed her the depth of his feelings…

“It would have to be something they would never suspect,” he mused. “Something of which we can feign complete ignorance.” He removed his spectacles and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Something public and—umpf!” He nearly fell backwards, chair and all. Alice had leapt from her chair and wrapped her arms about him before he could blink.

“Oh, thank you, dear Sinjin! I knew I could count on you.” She kissed him hard on the mouth, tasting of tea and lemon tart. He clasped her about the waist instinctually and held his breath. She froze and appeared to be equally amazed by what she’d done.

“There is nothing I would not do for you, Alice,” he said softly, before he lost his courage.

“Oh. Sinjin.” She touched her fingertips to his cheek. Her steady rapid breathing pushed her breasts against his chest, and he shifted slightly so she might not feel the very clear evidence of his arousal. Slowly she lowered her arms and stood upright. “You are such a dear friend.” She took a deep breath and a step back. With a brush at her skirts and another step back she smiled wickedly. “Now, what do you have in mind for my trio of tormenters?”

He reached for his cup of tea, nearly knocked the damned thing over, and finally gulped the entire contents at once. He retrieved his serviette from his lap in order to check the falls of his buckskins and then wiped his mouth before he stood and dropped the linen piece onto his chair. Sinjin winged his arm at her and she threaded her arm though his.

“Your idea about dumping nettles in Earden’s drawers is a good one, but as I have no intention of having my hand anywhere near his…person, especially not when he breaks out in hives, I suspect we cannot use these.” They had reached his work table and he used a thick piece of toweling to pick up the bowl of dried nettle leaves she’d nearly brushed against.

“What if we could put dried leaves on their clothes in some other way?” Alice mused as she began to study his latest notes on the properties of Urtica dioica .

“There’s the problem.” He brushed his hand over the top of his head and then patted the pockets of his buckskins. “But the dried leaves don’t sting.

Alice sighed and reached into the pocket on her walking dress. She placed the spectacles on his nose and pushed them into place. “You left them on the table.” She returned to reading his notes and suddenly pointed to a passage. “Is this true? You tried rejuvenating the dried leaves with water and the little hairs were released? Did they sting?”

“Like the very devil. I made the mistake of wiping up the mess and drying my hands on the cloth I used to…Alice? What is it?”

She’d begun to walk back and forth along his work table, a habit of hers from childhood. When she had latched onto a thought and worked to spin that thought into an idea, she paced. “If,” she said when she came to a stop next to him. “The dried leaves are somehow secreted into the clothes and the wearer begins to sweat, might that encourage the little hairs to awaken and begin to sting the wearer?”

Sinjin turned the notion over in his mind. “Again, we encounter the question of how we get the leaves into their clothes without the risk of them suspecting us. And where they will be when the leaves began to do their work.” Once again Alice got that frighteningly brilliant look in her eyes.

“I know someone who might be able to help us. Is Seamus about?” She marched to the far back of the conservatory where a door led to the mews. Alice had only to call the boy’s name and he came scurrying up the path to do her bidding. Sinjin knew exactly how the stableboy felt.

“You know Dickie Jones, do you not?” Alice asked Seamus. “And his sister, Olivia?”

“That I do, my lady.” Seamus doffed his cap. “Dickie lives with Lady Camilla down the square these days. Shall I fetch him for you?” Sinjin studied the lad’s face and wondered if he himself appeared so calf-eyed when he gazed at Alice.

“What I would really like is for you to find Dickie and for the two of you to take a message to his sister at Goodrum’s. I’m going to ask her to come here and I should like for you two to escort her safely. Can you do that?”

“Of course, my lady.”

She bestowed a beatific smile on him and went back to Sinjin’s desk for paper, quill, and ink to write her message to Olivia Jones. Sinjin knew Miss Jones as she was the only person Frederick and Reggie would allow to touch their laundry. He never gave the condition of his clothes much thought, but he had to admit she was something of a magician when it came to removing the various stains from his own clothing.

“Seamus.” He beckoned the boy closer. “You must promise for my sake and for Lady Alice’s sake that you will not speak to anyone about us sending for Miss Jones or anything else we ask you to keep to yourself. Understood? And you must ask Dickie Jones to do the same. Yes?”

Seamus glanced up the path to Sinjin’s desk. Alice came back to them and handed Seamus a sealed missive. “You can count on me, Mister Sinjin. I won’t let you down.”

“Good lad.” Sinjin extended his hand which the stableboy shook with all of the solemnity of a gentleman giving his word. He jammed his cap onto his head, gave Alice a bow and was out the door and trotting toward the mews lane than ran around the back of St. James Square.

“Now,” Sinjin said as he took Alice by the hand. “We have some experiments to conduct if this revenge adventure is to be a success. Are you ready to act as my secretary and assistant, Lady Alice?”

“Always, sir. Always. I cannot wait to see how this turns out.” She pulled a stool over to his work table and organized quill, ink, and his journal next to the microscope.

“Neither can I,” Sinjin muttered dubiously. “Neither can I.”