Bored, in Uncle Crispin’s dining room before the Renshaw ball
This was the second night in a row that the Earl of Redditch had been invited to dine and the second Fliss had had the misfortune of being seated opposite him. Just as he had during yesterday’s dinner, the Earl had slurped his soup, chewed with his mouth open and used his hand to cover said mouth only after one of his many belches had escaped. Meanwhile, her uncle fawned over the fellow as if he were visiting royalty, while Daphne and Cressida quaffed the wine like it was going out of fashion.
For the sake of family harmony and out of ingrained politeness, Fliss had put on a brave face and made a concerted effort to engage with the dull conversation about canals right up until her uncle had begun to extoll her virtues to the fusty old Earl in the same way one would list the attributes of a fine horse up for sale at Tattersall’s. ‘As you can see, my niece is a sensible girl. Well read and not prone to the silly behaviour many of the younger debutantes display. The extra few years of maturity set her apart from the rest.’
Why on earth was he giving her indirect compliments when he could barely tolerate to be in her presence most of the time? Unless he was attempting to project an aura of the doting uncle? Fliss pasted on a smile and tried to think of a suitable response. She was spared the effort by the Earl.
‘I approve of sensible gals.’ He said this with a spray of pastry crumbs from the apple tart he was in the process of demolishing. ‘Can’t be doing with chits who have no common sense.’
‘Felicity has more common sense than most, my lord. She is also blessed with good health as well as a fine figure.’
Unless her ears deceived her, which she sincerely doubted as she had always enjoyed excellent hearing, she had a sneaking suspicion Uncle Crispin was doing a bit of matchmaking. Very unwelcome matchmaking. The Earl’s eyes dropped to her bosom, another one of his odious habits which made her flesh crawl, and he leered.
‘Yes, indeed. A very fine figure. So far, I find very little about Felicity which I do not approve of.’
‘My name is Miss Blunt until I give you leave to call me otherwise, my lord, and while I appreciate your approval, it is wasted on me.’
‘She’s feisty too, Rowley.’
‘Too feisty.’ Her uncle shot her a warning look down the table.
‘I like a feisty gal.’ Now the old fool was positively ogling. To her horror his wrinkled face scrunched unattractively as he winked at her. This needed to be nipped in the bud.
‘Sir, I sincerely hope you are not flirting with me. I take a very dim view of flirting at the best of times, but you are far too old to be engaging in such nonsense.’
‘Remember your manners, Felicity.’
‘My manners? Surely it is the height of bad manners to discuss a lady’s figure at the table as if she were an item available to purchase from a shop?’ She turned to the Earl and bestowed him with a sugary, insincere smile. ‘Unfortunately, I am not for sale, my lord. Not now, not ever.’
‘I like a woman with spirit.’
‘And I prefer a man with all his own teeth.’
‘Felicity...’ her uncle practically growled as his cold, silver eyes bored into hers. ‘Be pleasant to our guest.’
‘A lady shouldn’t drink spirits,’ Aunt Daphne said, waving her wineglass in the air. ‘They don’t have the constitution for it. Could you pass that bottle of wine, please, Felicity?’ Her aunt was blissfully ignorant of the tension between uncle and niece. ‘I must say, Crispin, your staff are very lax at topping up the glasses. Guests shouldn’t have to resort to serving themselves.’
‘Nor should they be insulted by members of my family.’ Uncle Crispin glared, then turned back to their guest. ‘Perhaps now is the opportune moment for us to retire with our port and cigars. It will give my niece’s hot temper a chance to cool down.’
Fliss grabbed hold of the bottle and considered smashing it over her uncle’s head, before banging it down on the table in front of Daphne and biting back the angry words on the tip of her tongue while both men stood. She waited until they had closed the door behind them before venting her anger out loud.
‘How dare he try to broker a match between me and that awful man!’
Aunt Cressida turned and blinked at her tone. ‘What awful man, dear?’
‘Weren’t you listening? Uncle Crispin has decided upon the Earl of Redditch as a potential suitor.’
‘Surely not. The man is old enough to be your grandfather. I was of the belief you didn’t want to hunt for a husband.’ Cressida appeared dumb-founded. Or wine-addled. Either way she was clearly not complicit in the matchmaking.
‘I didn’t come here to hunt for a husband! I’m quite capable of selecting my own suitors should the sudden urge appear. Uncle Crispin barely knows me, so what makes him think he will know what will make me happy or lure me to give up my position at the convent? I’ve told him as much, too. It hasn’t deterred him.’
‘Men always think they know what’s best for us, dear—’ this came from Daphne ‘—yet they rarely do. Ignore it.’
‘Difficult to do when it is happening right in front of me and Uncle Crispin appears determined to be persistent. He knows my feelings on the subject and understands I will be returning to Cumbria as soon as the Season is done. I’m not sure what he thinks he’s playing at. It’s as if he hasn’t listened to a single word I’ve said.’
‘That’s where you’re going wrong.’ Daphne sloshed more wine into her glass and over the tablecloth. ‘You used words. Words are largely wasted on males and one should never try to reason with a stubborn man. They simply dig their heels in further. Men respond better to visual stimulus than anything audible. If he’s selectively deaf, which Crispin most assuredly is, deliver the same message in other ways.’
‘Are you suggesting I mime it, like charades?’ Unfortunately, the only gestures she knew for mind your own business were those deemed too unsavoury for a gently bred lady to use, but she treated her incorrigible aunts to a few of them just the same.
Daphne cackled with delight. ‘If only! You shall just have to be more devious in future. The key to manipulating the simple male mind is to appear to be compliant, but to behave in a manner quite the reverse. They soon get the message you are not to be trifled with. Show my supercilious nephew you cannot be swayed. Remember, Felicity, a lady’s actions always speak louder than words.’
Surprisingly, it was a piece of advice sound enough to have come from the wise lips of Sister Ursuline and Fliss decided it did have some merit. So much so that when her uncle and the Earl returned she held her tongue in check and proudly showed her frosty indifference until she climbed in the carriage taking them to the ball.
* * *
Jake found himself a secluded nook in the alcove and watched the proceedings from a distance. The trouble with having to socialise while working meant you were denied the opportunity to arrive fashionably late in case something happened, which inevitably left lots of time to twiddle the thumbs. He was hiding out of necessity. There were several eager young ladies and several more mature ladies who were always desirous of his company, yet he could hardly be seen flirting with one of them when he had to seduce Rowley’s niece. From his first impressions, she wasn’t the type of woman who would accept playing second fiddle and would regard evidence of his obvious philandering in a very dim light after calling him one.
Not that he was in the mood to philander. Since he had first seen her at Almack’s, the indomitable Miss Blunt had rather taken over all his romantic thoughts and, until he had slaked the powerful desire he had for her, frankly no other woman would do. Normal rakish business would doubtless resume straight after. Jake’s attention span for an affair was akin to a bumble bee’s attraction to nectar. As a bee blithely buzzed from flower to flower, Jake hopped from bed to bed. He preferred things that way. No commitments, no expectations and definitely no complicated and messy feelings to contend with. Much calmer and less problematic all around.
While love had apparently worked out remarkably well for his three brothers, Jake knew in his heart it wasn’t for him. The elder three Warriners deserved to find lasting happiness with the women of their dreams. They were good men. Worthy men. Men who had found the right path to travel and had marched down it with single-minded determination and all had reached the destination they had intended against all the odds. He admired them for that. Jake’s path meandered, largely because he had no idea where he was going. Never had. Therefore, his dreams were filled with transient lovers and as he was never quite good enough, and had been that way since birth, it was probably for the best.
He excelled at ultimately disappointing everyone he came into contact with as a matter of course—from his parents, to his brothers, to all the women he had charmed. He was the reliably unreliable Warriner, yet quite comfortable in that skin. On the exterior at least. Inside, he wasn’t as blasé about it, but then he knew bits about himself which, with hindsight, he would have changed had the die not been cast a long time ago. Once a disappointment, always a disappointment and rightly so...
Good lord, he was getting maudlin. Another irritating side effect of twiddling one’s thumbs was excessive time for introspection. Something he staunchly refused doing for exactly this reason. It served no purpose. The clock could not be turned back, but he could do everything in his power to avoid becoming his father, even though those character traits were as imbedded in his body as firmly as his identical bright blue eyes and jet-black hair. He used those characteristics to do good rather than wreak havoc, although lying to women and using his innate charm to seduce information out of them was perhaps not the dictionary definition of good. But he was working with the limited arsenal of attributes God had given him. Attributes which would rapidly deteriorate with age. A depressing thought indeed.
At this rate, he would sour his mood, which would seriously impair his ability to be charming and seductive, two things he did excel at and always had. Two things he now used for the good of King and country to great effect. That thought cheered him slightly. Jake was about to risk a quick dash to the refreshment table, when the air in the ballroom shifted. That was the only way of explaining the peculiar sensation which directed him to turn to the staircase the very moment Miss Blunt sailed down it. And, by God, she looked stunning. So stunning he forgot to breathe until the air he had been holding in his lungs all came out at once.
Had that ever happened to him before?
Jake couldn’t recall it if it had.
Miss Blunt was a vision in forest green. A dour choice for most women, but a statement on her. The plainness of the colour was lifted by the daringness of the cut. The bodice clung to her upper body and hung off her shoulders. One single, fat, jewelled pendant rested above the tantalising glimpse of cleavage on display. Once again, there was a faraway look in her eyes as she floated into the ballroom, almost as if she didn’t care where she was or who was around her.
His throat clenched when he realised his wasn’t the only head that had been turned. Every man she floated past gazed appreciatively at her, not that she appeared to notice, a few young bucks even going as far as nudging their companions and hungrily grinning at the sight. Jake wanted to throttle every one of them.
Her chaperons appeared at her elbow and then Crispin Rowley materialised and took up the rear as the party moved to a free spot in the furthest corner. Jake had to crane his head to keep watching, something a man trying to be inconspicuous shouldn’t be seen doing, yet he did it anyway. He couldn’t help himself. Jake could watch her all night and never get bored.
Rowley left to fetch the ladies’ drinks. When he returned, he handed Miss Blunt a card along with her glass. Words were exchanged and her expression changed from faraway to annoyed. She went to say something to her uncle, but he marched away mid-sentence, leaving her glaring after him as he disappeared into the crowd. The Sawyer sisters appeared to sympathise. They patted her arm and tried to distract her, but for the next twenty minutes Jake was forced to suffer seeing her distressed when she should be smiling and he willed her to break free of her charges so he could seek her out and make it all better.
Being rebellious at heart, she eventually did slip away and backed herself into the opposite alcove and out of his eye line. Like a man possessed, his feet began to move instinctively and he found himself skirting the perimeter of the room to find her. She was hidden behind a pillar. Well hidden, yet his intuition pulled him to that exact spot without any trouble. Her back was turned away from him and she was staring intently at the card. His eyes devoured the expanse of golden skin on her back; the loose honeyed tendrils of hair which curled seductively at the nape of her neck. The rest of her glorious hair was casually piled on top of her head, giving him the distinct impression that the removal of one or two strategically placed pins would send it tumbling around her shoulders. Enjoying himself far too much to interrupt, Jake rested his own back against another pillar close by and savoured the beautiful sight.
She sensed him.
Turned around.
Then guiltily tore the spectacles from her face.
Spectacles!
He hadn’t been expecting those. Spectacles which did peculiar things to his nether regions.
‘No. Leave them on. I rather like them.’
Good lord—now his obligatory nightly fantasy involving this Cumbrian temptress would include those spectacles...and nothing else.
‘Mr Warriner, we’ve spoken about the flirting.’
‘We have indeed, Miss Blunt, but I am incorrigible.’ The knowing grin he shot her was all male arrogance. ‘Stifling my natural instinct to flirt with a beguiling woman would be as futile as suggesting I give up breathing. You are going to have to suffer it, I’m afraid. Especially as you are beguiling and have a fortuitous habit of lurking in the same alcoves as I do.’
She stiffened her perfect shoulders and sniffed. ‘I am not lurking, Mr Warriner. I am pondering. You are lurking.’
‘Sounds important. What are you pondering?’ He pushed himself away from the pillar and sauntered towards her. ‘And might I suggest you ponder in those spectacles. There is something about a beautiful woman in spectacles. It gives her an air of the superior...the stern schoolmistress...the prim and proper governess...’ He flicked his wrist as if tossing the flirting aside. ‘But I digress. You are hiding again and I am intrigued to know why. It’s a fault of mine. I need to know everything about everyone.’
‘I am avoiding the Earl of Redditch.’
‘A very sensible thing to be doing, if you want my opinion. The man is a dreadful bore.’
‘He also smells like feet.’
He laughed at that wonderfully blunt summary which perfectly matched his own from just a few hours before, enjoying her brutal honesty and the half-smile she tried to cover. ‘That he does. Has stinky Redditch taken a shine to you?’
She pulled a face of disgust and made a great show of shuddering. ‘Unfortunately, yes. Even more unfortunate is my uncle’s persistence in foisting the man upon me. He has even gone as far as pencilling the Earl’s name on my dance card for the first waltz—’ she waved it angrily in front of his face ‘—and I am currently in two minds about what to do about it.’
‘And what are the two warring parts of your clever brain saying?’
‘The cowardly half thinks I should remain hidden during that dance and then have it out with my uncle later. The rebellious half wants me to dance it out of spite—but with a partner of my own choosing—and then have it out with my uncle later.’
‘My condolences to your uncle. Whichever you decide, he is in for it regardless.’
‘Although I doubt he will listen. Uncle Crispin is stubbornly ignorant of my feelings. When I speak, I am convinced his ears fill with wool, because he always does what he thinks I want regardless of my repeated assertions to the contrary. Why do men do that, Mr Warriner?’
‘I hope you are not tarring us all with the same brush, Miss Blunt? Some of us listen.’
‘You certainly don’t. I’ve asked you not to flirt and yet you still do it.’
‘I’m not flirting now. I’m listening.’ Although Jake wanted to flirt. Instead he lifted the dance card and leaned conspiratorially towards her. ‘I wonder why he wants you to dance with Redditch? The man is rich and titled, to be sure, but no more so than half the men in this ballroom. Did he give you any idea as to his motive?’
‘Aside from telling me to be pleasant to the old fool I was not apprised of the purpose. My uncle is irritatingly sparse with his conversation.’
‘Perhaps they are old friends?’
‘I believe theirs is a business relationship. It is the main topic of conversation during the interminable dinners I have had to sit through.’
Jake’s ears pricked up with interest. ‘Who else was invited?’
‘What difference does it make who else was there?’
Good lord, she was sharp and he was clumsy. ‘It doesn’t. As I just said, I’m simply a curious soul by nature. Was there any delicious gossip? I’ll bet there was.’
She huffed and shook her head, the motion causing one stray gold ringlet to bounce enticingly by her cheek. ‘If only... I’m afraid the conversation was as deadly dull as it always is. They talked of canals.’
Leatham had been right, then. ‘Canals? Gracious, that does sound dull. Tell me, are you now an expert on the subject?’
‘By default and quite unwillingly, yes—but I was brought up to believe it is the height of rudeness to snore at the dining table.’
‘That it is.’ He was on to something, but had to tread carefully. ‘Although I doubt it is dull enough to help me.’
She folded her arms across her chest, something which did wonders for her figure. ‘Help you?’
‘Indeed. I’ve been suffering through a bout of insomnia, Miss Blunt.’ Largely caused because of her. ‘And am in dire need of some mind-numbingly boring things to think about in the wee hours to alleviate the problem. Indulge me with your dull expertise on canals. It might come in useful later tonight when I am tossing and turning and wistfully yearning for you. Only the dullest facts, if you please.’ Jake assumed a stance of a man ready to learn and it earned him another smile.
‘The Regent’s Canal will be almost nine miles long on completion later this year.’
‘A painfully short canal, then. Hardly worth all the bother of building it. Go on.’
‘Although painfully short, it will link the Grand Junction Canal with the docks in the east of the city.’ Docks which sat on the Thames and flowed conveniently out to sea. Smuggling boats could bring their contraband right into the city and then transfer it to barges to send it inland. Smaller boats wouldn’t even need to unload. They could sail on unencumbered by the Excise Men.
‘That is dull.’ Jake pretended to yawn. ‘Go on.’
‘The canal will have three tunnels, the longest of which is at Islington, which is already built, and runs to nine hundred and sixty yards, which I think you will agree is a very long tunnel indeed Mr Warriner.’
A lovely, long, dark subterranean place to unload unseen. Not that Rowley would even need the tunnels. The fetid stench of most canals meant people tended to avoid them. ‘Long and deathly dull, Miss Blunt. I already sense a good night’s sleep coming on. I shall probably regret asking, but feel that I must—why on earth are the pair of them discussing an unfinished, painfully short canal over their soup? Does one of them have shares in it?’
‘I cannot tell you about that, Mr Warriner, as that is the most interesting part of the story and it might undo all of the good work we have done thus far to ease your sleeplessness.’
‘Tell me anyway, because now you have me intrigued.’
‘New investors had to be sought a few years ago when the promoter of the canal, a Mr Thomas Homer, embezzled all the funds. The Earl of Redditch snapped up a significant stake in the venture for a steal, or so he says, and is very smug about his brilliance for he has a magnificent fleet of barges which he intends to use on that same canal.’
Transferring goods to and from the docks would be a lucrative business indeed for any canny investor. ‘And your uncle has plans to invest in this venture?’
‘Apparently, one cannot have enough barges, Mr Warriner, or so the stinky Earl of Feet claims. Uncle Crispin is one of three investors bidding to extend the fleet. So until the deal is sealed, he is doing his upmost to fawn over the old fool and I am expected to be pleasant to him and endure my uncle’s flagrant attempts at matchmaking.’
‘Does your uncle invest in other canals that you know of?’