I learned two important lessons at my debut last night. The first was that simply because society deems a man to be a gentleman, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he will feel obliged to behave like one. The second was that spectacles are, apparently, invisible to the male of the species if your bosoms err on the large side …
—from the diary of Miss Venus Merriwell, aged 19
Thanks to all the excitement of her new nephew and all the extra work that his arrival had entailed, it was the evening before Christmas Eve, a week later, when Vee finally had some spare time to visit the orphanage. Her sudden absence had left the reverend and Mrs. Witherspoon in the lurch, and although she had always intended to be away over Christmas and New Year’s to visit Shropshire, she had left too many things undone thanks to the unexpected birth, and that wasn’t fair.
A quiet evening tying up all the loose ends would be a more productive use of her time rather than trying to do them during the daytime.
At least that was what she had convinced herself and told Olivia to explain away coming here so late when she could have easily done so several hours earlier. That the lateness of the hour also helped her avoid a certain next-door neighbor she wasn’t keen on seeing anytime soon wasn’t entirely unintentional. The handsome cheat usually disappeared in a hackney to head to his hell in the docks well before seven o’clock so there was no chance of them colliding at five to the hour.
She’d seen neither hide nor hair of Galahad since the morning the baby had been born, thank goodness, as she still had no earthly idea what to say to him after her outrageous behavior at the dinner. At the time, she had justified it with: What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If he could take advantage of a person, seduce them to get what he wanted, and still sleep at night, so could she. Using that contentious building had seemed a fitting way to get some revenge.
Tit for tat, especially as that stupid building mattered to him more than she had. At least they now both had a good reason to feel embarrassed around the other. One that would go some way toward making her feel a bit better about her own pathetic enthusiasm to be seduced, even if it did nothing to fix her aching heart.
However, as she also firmly believed that two wrongs never made a right, no matter the circumstances or provocation, she didn’t feel the slightest bit better about her outrageous behavior yet. There was no denying that some of it had been caused by her mortification at Olivia’s matchmaking and Minerva’s implication that Vee was wearing her heart on her sleeve—again—and they all knew it was broken.
Neither excused her using her wiles to distract him from the game quite as shamelessly as she had. Worse—if indeed her behavior could have been worse that night—she had wanted him to want her, and not just to teach him a lesson. The first moment she had witnessed his eyes darken with desire, she’d wanted to see how far she could push him. To see if she could push him far enough for him to be compelled to act upon it the second he got her alone. Wanted him to want her more than he wanted those buildings. Wanted to matter so much to him that he would get down on his knees and beg her forgiveness. Not because she wanted to laugh in his face or slap it when he tried to kiss her, but because she wanted him to kiss her! Throughout the entire game, her lips had tingled with anticipation as the need in his gaze had caressed her body until she could hardly stand the wanting herself.
If all that didn’t bother her enough, the annoying, niggling voice in her head had joined her foolish heart and kept telling her that he hadn’t deserved it. That there was more good in him than bad. That she should, perhaps, try giving him the benefit of the doubt for a change. Try to forgive and forget—at least partially. His casual regard for her tender emotions in Brighton aside, was she really going to hate him for all eternity because of a building?
If she had been counseling one of her students on a similar problem, she would tell them to turn the other cheek. To rise above it. To find a way to love thy neighbor, or at least to coexist peaceably with him, because hate was a destructive and malevolent emotion that festered. It wasn’t worth the effort unless it was directed toward the most heinous individuals who threatened you or yours with real harm.
Galahad was a lot of things, most of them currently detestable, but he wasn’t Genghis Khan. Nor was he as awful as her father had been, and she couldn’t muster the effort to loathe that wastrel with every fiber of her being anymore because indifference seemed so much more fitting and comfortable. Indifference didn’t make her heart ache or her innards tense constantly. It allowed her not to think about it. Nowadays, months could pass before she gave her worthless sire even a passing thought, and when she did it was more like an April shower than a thunderstorm. A passing annoyance that dissipated quickly rather than a cause to batten down the hatches. Indifference toward Galahad would certainly be an improvement on the way she felt about the thoughtless wretch now—exhausted, worthless, wronged.
Wounded.
In many ways it would be easier if he was a completely thoughtless wretch to his core. He had previously been such a good egg regarding the unfortunate incident with the pigeons as well as refusing to press charges at Billy’s attempted theft of his watch. All evidence confirming her heart’s forlorn hope that he wasn’t quite as ruthless and selfish as her battered ego and bludgeoned heart wanted to believe.
Furthermore, to give credit where credit was due, Galahad’s calm presence during Diana’s labor had kept Giles’s irrational panic in check—and unlike all the other gentlemen present, he had not needed to be told what to do or when to do it.
She supposed she had to thank his annoying business mind for that. His tendency to plan ahead and think on his feet.
Drat him for being a cool head in a crisis!
That morning, when they were all exhausted after the long night of labor, en route to her bedchamber to get some rest, Vee had accidentally caught sight of him visiting Diana before he left. Watching him, unaware of her presence, tenderly holding their new godson in wonder with unmistakable tears in his emotive green eyes showed her yet another side to his complex character she wished she wasn’t now privy to. All those seemingly conflicting facets made him difficult to dislike even though she desperately wanted to, and irrespective of how much the less rational parts of her still wanted him.
Double-drat him.
Galahad Sinclair was more than a puzzle. He was a much-too-attractive and appealing enigma, and she had never been more confused about a man in her life. The only thing she wasn’t confused about was her overwhelming desire not to have to face him anytime soon.
As she alighted from the carriage, she spied Tommy Claypole emerge from the darkness of Mercer Street carrying a large parcel.
“What are you doing out here in the dark?”
“’Ello, Miss Merriwell!” He offered her his best toothy grin. “You’re here late.”
“I have a mountain of paperwork and lessons to plan for the New Year.” She pointed at the parcel, recognizing the distinctive robin’s-egg-blue wrapping as coming from Fortnum. “What’s in there?”
“Fancy sheets, though sadly not mine.” He jerked the package upward toward Galahad’s attic, where she was surprised to see candlelight illuminating the windows. “For Mr. Sinclair’s new bed. He’s adamant you can skimp on most things, but good sheets should never be compromised.”
Fancy sheets? A new bed? “He’s moving in? Here?” That was news to her. Unsettling news. “Why?”
“He says it makes no sense to pay rent to someone else when he owns his own roof nowadays, and apparently the Albany costs an arm and a leg and he’s counting his pennies.”
“Well, the Albany is in Mayfair.” Where everything cost at least ten times what it did in Clerkenwell. “And Mayfair is expensive.”
Tommy nodded. “And he don’t exactly need to be in Mayfair anymore when his business is here now, does he?”
Vee supposed that made sense, although it added to her cringing sense of foreboding. “Surely he isn’t moving into a building site?” That seemed a bit extreme, as well as awkward, but before Tommy could answer the man himself strode out.
“Is that the last of the delivery, Tom…” He stopped mid-stride. “Venus…” His handsome face was part surprised to see her and a greater part uncomfortable.
She sympathized because, thanks to her scandalous and wanton behavior, she was instantly discomforted, too. The flirtatious and seductive behavior that, according to her eldest sibling, had been the first time she’d truly lived up to her hideous name. Thankfully, in all the other excitement, only Minerva had noticed the lengths she had gone to in order to distract Galahad from the game.
“I heard Shropshire got canceled.” There was no disguising the tinge of disappointment in his tone that that was the case.
She matched her peeved expression to his, determined to appear indifferent to his blatant lack of enthusiasm to see her even though she wanted to howl at the moon.
“Giles didn’t want to risk it. He wants his wife within spitting distance of a Harley Street physician if complications arise. Never mind that my unstoppable sister was out of bed the day after little Gethin came into the world and has been in the finest of fettles ever since. But hence we are all now celebrating Christmas in Berkeley Square.” Thank goodness it was dark and he couldn’t see the hurt barricaded behind her eyes. “Olivia is livid that you refused her invitation, by the way.” Vee, however, was relieved. She needed as much space between her and the confusing, befuddling man in front of her as possible until she was over him. “She is determined not to take no for an answer.”
“I have to work. I tried to explain that to her when I called the other day, but you know Olivia.” He had called upon Giles and Diana three days ago, managing to catch them in the only two hours that Vee hadn’t been there, too. That avoidance was either sheer coincidence or entirely by his design. After the way she had tormented him with her cleavage, Vee could not help suspecting that it was the latter—that he wasn’t any keener about seeing her on the back of her overtly come-hither performance as she was him. “My den of iniquity needs me.”
“Not until at least ten o’clock it doesn’t, Mr. Sinclair.” Tommy’s interruption earned him a glare spiked with daggers. “Muldoon will have everything so well in hand.” Oblivious of the reluctance of his temporary master, the boy gestured toward Vee with a tilt of his ginger head. “Christmas is a time for families, Mr. Sinclair, and you should be with yours. The Den can spare you for one night.”
Embarrassed to be caught in what appeared to be yet another lie, Galahad shuffled from foot to foot. “Muldoon wants the night off himself to be with his family.” Another pointed look passed between the man and the boy, and this one Tommy caught.
Short.
Because it clearly surprised him. Or baffled him. She knew the boy well enough to know the innocent but rapidly blinking eyes were a sure sign Tommy knew more than he was letting on.
“Who is Muldoon?”
Vee asked the question to Tommy, but it was Galahad who answered. “He works for me. Behind the bar and the like.”
She suspected the “and the like” was a line to fob her off to avoid any further explanations or talk of Christmas, so she filed it away to ask Tommy the moment they were alone. “How are the renovations going?” She gestured behind, pretending not to notice how the abrupt change of subject relieved Galahad. “I see the roof is all finished.” Even under the hazy moonlight, the new slate shone.
“Indeed it is. No more leaks, for me or your orphanage.” He rocked on his heels, clearly wishing he was anywhere else.
“Splendid … splendid.” Good gracious. Thanks to her short stint as a temptress and the knife still lodged in her heart, this conversation was like pulling teeth.
As if he realized that, too, he blew out a breath and gestured awkwardly behind. “Care to see inside?”
No! I want to curl up into a blushing, humiliated, wretched ball and avoid you for all eternity. “All right.”
“All righty…” His pained smile pinned in place, Galahad held the front door open for Tommy to pass with his parcel, then swept his arm toward it in wary welcome. “To set your expectations, it’s still an unholy mess almost everywhere.”
He wasn’t lying.
The dim lamps that lit the stairwell revealed that the necessary destruction of the renovation was in full swing. Here on the bottom floor, several of the connecting walls that separated the three buildings were gone. Scaffolding supports currently held up the ceiling, but it was impressive how much those missing walls opened up the space.
Galahad picked up a lantern and wandered farther in, pointing to the now long back wall, using the building works to distract them both from their discomfort. “The bar is going to stretch all the way along here. All wood, but the wall will be covered in fancy mirrors to maximize the light. I’m having all the countertop brass for the same reason, with big crystal chandeliers above. Huge, ostentatious clusters of sparkles running all the way to the stage.” He lifted the lantern toward the wall between their buildings to point out the location.
“A stage?”
His answering smile was faraway, as if he could see past all the piles of rubbish and debris to how it would all look. “For the musicians. Not an orchestra-sized stage but large enough to house four or five performers simultaneously to give the place a party atmosphere. Lively fiddlers and banjo players rather than those sedate string quartets the aristocracy favor that would only send everyone to sleep.”
“Which I cannot help but notice puts all that lively fiddling directly next to my classroom.” Vee hadn’t meant to sound snippy, because she really was trying to be polite and indifferent to do her part to banish the awkwardness, but all that boisterousness mere feet away from the orphanage’s dedicated place of study was a major cause for concern.
“I’ve thought about that, and believe it or not, I intend to be a considerate neighbor. Mr. Evans is going to reinforce all the walls between us, make them all a foot thick to muffle the sound. It’ll be padded, too, in case all that additional brick doesn’t stop everything. And there’ll be absolutely no fiddling during lesson times. My business will open after yours closes for the day.” He held up his palm solemnly, his unusual eyes dancing. “I swear your students won’t even know that I’m there.”
At her I’ll-believe-that-when-I-see-it look, he grinned as he walked to the very center of the space and spread his arms wide, managing to look both boyish and sinfully handsome at the same time. “Right here will be the staircase. I’ve got an architect working on all the important structural details, but I can tell you it’s going to swoop.” His hand whooshed an arc in the air while his eyes danced with barely contained excitement. “It’ll punch its way through all three floors and look impressive. Wider here at the bottom so everyone can get to the gaming tables on the floor above and getting narrower and narrower the higher it climbs to the third floor, because only my most prestigious clientele will be allowed up there.” He rubbed his thumb and fingers together to let her know that “prestigious” meant the richest rather than the titled. “I want it to be seriously exclusive. By invitation only.”
“A private club within a club. That’s different. Sinclair’s most definitely will be unique.”
“I’m not calling it Sinclair’s. I know it’s my name and I know that’s how you name clubs here, but it doesn’t feel right.”
“Then what are you going to call it?”
He shrugged. “I still have no idea. It can’t have a tavern’s name as it’s going to be more than a tavern, and I don’t want it to sound like a crusty, aristocratic gentleman’s club because it won’t be one of those, either.”
“Especially if you come good on your promise to allow women.” That, she had to concede, would be novel.
“Of course I’m going to allow women. I want this to be a place where all those stupid divisions in society don’t matter. Where a duchess can rub shoulders with a docker and a marquess can lose his shirt to a modiste, where everyone is equal…” Conscious he was getting carried away again, he chuckled. “Or does that sound too American and revolutionary to your British ears?”
“It sounds positively Arthurian actually, as that was exactly how he ran Camelot.” Out of nowhere, an idea popped into her head. “What about The Round Table? The original Galahad was one of King Arthur’s knights, after all, so there’s a tenuous link to you, too.”
“The Round Table…” He pondered her suggestion with genuine interest. Or at least he did a good job of acting interested. “That might work. It’s certainly a much better idea than The Powder Puff.”
As that reminded Vee of her scandalous behavior over the card table, she changed the subject. “And the fourth floor?”
“Is all mine.” Like an excited little boy, he dashed back to the narrow stairwell that Tommy had disappeared up. “With the roof in such a state it needed immediate replacing, it made sense to have Mr. Evans work from the top down, so most of the progress so far is in my apartment.” The rickety old stairs creaked in protest under the weight of his boots as he hurried up them, expecting her to follow, which she did irrespective of the impropriety of an unaccompanied single lady technically visiting the home of a bachelor. Albeit a partially constructed home and her fitting only the loosest possible definition of a lady. It was difficult to see anything on the dark second and third floors beyond the piles of rubble ready to be removed, but the attic floor was a very different story. That had been gutted. All the old roof struts had been replaced and the high, angular eaves were already boarded awaiting plaster. The old plaster on the outside walls had been stripped back to the brick. As they had downstairs, the original walls between the three buildings had been taken down, but instead of leaving one huge open space, on this floor it had been partitioned with naked wooden batons marking out the new layout of the rooms.
Only one had been boarded toward the orphanage end. In the center of that new wall hung a door. The young oak was bare still, and unvarnished, furnished with a sedate but shiny brass doorknob so polished Vee could see her own face in it. As there was no sign of Galahad’s new bed, she presumed beyond the solitary door was his bedchamber. Being so close to his sheets was unnerving.
“What do you think, Miss Merriwell?” A grinning Tommy moved to stand beside her while she took it all in. “It’s going to be right smart, isn’t it?”
“It certainly looks that way.” She gave a smile to the boy and then to Galahad, forcing it not to falter. “But it’s a bit spartan right now. When do you plan to move in?”
“I sort of already did. Two days ago, in fact. My tenancy at the Albany comes to an end on New Year’s Eve, so I’m slowly migrating all my belongings over.” He shrugged despite being obviously delighted by that. “For the first time in my life, I’m sleeping under my own roof and in my own bed and not somebody else’s. As to it being spartan, I’m going to have to disagree with you. Look, Venus—” Amused, he pointed to a small cluster of furniture entirely lost in the middle of the cavernous space. “Aside from a bed and a huge new closet, I’ve also got this desk and a chair. What else does a man need?”
Both pieces were made of the same shade of oak as the door. The green leather top of the desk and on the seat pad of the chair were incongruous amid the still-drying pink plaster on the outer walls and the skeleton wooden frames dotted all around them. “Food? Water? Something to put them in?”
“If that’s a hint you want tea, then I have to tell you this is going to be a coffee-only household because I hate the stuff.” He even pulled a gagging face that made her laugh. “I have no clue why the British put so much stock in it. It’s vile. Viler than vile. The worst drink ever invented.”
She blinked, stunned. “Why, after four years of knowing you, is this the first I—or any other member of my family, for that matter—have heard about it?”
“Well … um…” The tips of his ears reddened, and she found that unintentional honest reaction rather … charming. Who knew that Galahad Sinclair—smooth, suave, sweet-talking, ruthless businessman Galahad Sinclair—had it in him to blush?
“You never turn down a cup, Galahad. Never.” Which struck her as ridiculous the more she thought about it. “I even know exactly how you take it. The merest drop of milk and two heaped sugars. Sometimes even three.”
He winced, sheepish. “The more it tastes of sugar, the less it tastes of tea.”
“Why on earth didn’t you say something sooner?”
“I didn’t want to seem impolite and … well, I’m the foreigner here and tea is your national drink, so I guess I always try my best to blend in.”
She scoffed in surprise. “You drink it to blend in?” He had clearly not been built for blending. If you lined up a hundred silent gentlemen in a row, he would stick out like a sore thumb, and that would have everything to do with his golden good looks and broad shoulders and not with his accent. Although to be fair, that accent and the silky deep tone it was drawled in guaranteed he would always be noticed the second he opened his charming mouth. By the ladies at least, herself included, as it was rather alluring. Combined with his obvious physical attributes, it was deadly. “Even though you loathe it?”
He nodded, plainly embarrassed. “My ma always said it was bad manners to refuse hospitality if it was offered, and in my defense, none of the family has ever offered me coffee as an alternative else I’d have taken it. Grabbed it with both hands actually, while weeping tears of joy that I was spared the hideous ordeal of tea.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Miss Merriwell?”
At Tommy’s question she glanced again around the empty space. “You have a kitchen and a range, too?”
“Not yet.” Tommy snorted as if she was daft. “Mrs. Witherspoon said that he can use the orphanage’s, but she makes it for Mr. Sinclair whenever he fancies one.”
“Does she indeed?”
As Mrs. Witherspoon had always had a soft spot for a charming man and had been quite beguiled by the one standing before her, she could well believe it. “Clearly more than this attic has changed in the days I have been absent. And talking about absent…” Vee searched around the space again. “Where is your brother? Isn’t he supposed to be Mr. Sinclair’s other indentured servant between the hours of six and eight? And Billy?”
“Oh, they’ll be back soon. They’re helping Muldoon with the beer delivery. Many hands make light work and all that, and without our help Muldoon has to keep going up and down like a bride’s nightgown.”
“I’m sorry?”
Galahad nudged the boy with his elbow. “That’s not a phrase you say in front of a lady.” For good measure he nudged Tommy again. “In and out like a fiddler’s elbow would be a more appropriate choice of British colloquialism in front of Miss Merriwell.”
“But it isn’t in and out, is it?” Tommy flicked his finger left and right. “Because the cellar is downstairs, and we have to keep climbing up and down it to load the barrels in it.” The finger flicked north and south this time. “So up and down like a…”
“It wasn’t so much the turn of phrase I took issue with, gentlemen, more the location.” Vee skewered Galahad with her stare, staggered that he had thought this appropriate. “Sydney and Billy are at the docks?”
Galahad shot Tommy another withering glance before he turned to her placating. “Before you hit my new roof, which I can already see you are on the cusp of doing, know that I cleared it with the reverend first.”
“He gave permission for a trio of impressionable young boys to work in your den of iniquity?”
He nodded, folding his arms as if offended. “He happily granted his permission once he’d checked the place out, and the boys like working there.”
Galahad might have been Tommy’s sworn enemy a week ago, but tonight apparently he had switched his allegiance, because he moved to stand next to him in solidarity. “It’s true, Miss Merriwell. We do. In fact…” He nudged his new best friend. “Perhaps now is a good time to ask her, Mr. Sinclair, seeing as the reverend says the final decision is hers?”
In response Galahad glared at the boy as if he couldn’t quite believe what was coming out of his mouth. “You really need to learn to pick your moments, Master Claypole, as I can assure you this really isn’t it.”
Vee folded her own arms and glared at them both. “Ask me what?”
“Mr. Sinclair has offered the three of us apprenticeships!” Tommy could barely contain his joy at that. “And although we’ll be splitting our time between here and The Den to begin with, we all get our own rooms downstairs.” He pointed to the bare floorboards beneath his boots. “In the staff quarters, so I’ll always be right next door to the orphanage in case you or the reverend or Mrs. Witherspoon need me. Isn’t that brilliant?”
“Well … I … um…” It was Vee’s turn to stutter noncommittally now. “I’m not sure that working in The Den would be…”
The muscles in Galahad’s folded arms bunched tight. Enough to make her ponder them inappropriately. “She’s going to say no, Tommy, so brace yourself. A flat-out no because she disapproves of me.”
“Well, I…” She wanted to say no for precisely that reason, and would have said no to Galahad most vociferously if his bulging biceps hadn’t disconcerted her and Tommy Claypole hadn’t stared beseeching.
“Please, Miss Merriwell.” The boy clasped his hands together ready to beg. “Mr. Sinclair thinks I have the potential to do well in the innkeeping trade and I genuinely do love the work…”
“Well, I…” Her gaze wandered to Galahad’s distracting muscles again until she wrenched it away. “I need to think upon it.” If the Reverend Smythe had gone, and he wasn’t alarmed, perhaps … Or was that stretching the benefit of the doubt too far?
“You wouldn’t need to think upon it if you saw it, Miss Merriwell.” Tommy tugged at her sleeve. “At least come and see the place like the reverend did. You could come tonight…”
“Um … well … tonight I have to…” Vee was almost certain the absolute last person she wanted to spend any more time with was Galahad Sinclair, especially now that she knew his biceps were as potent as his kisses, but Tommy’s pleading eyes combined with her burning curiosity to solve the puzzle that was Galahad overruled all her reservations and the words came out before she could stop them. “I suppose that I could come and check out the establishment now.” Good gracious, that sounded much too keen! “If it means that much to you, Tommy, and isn’t an inconvenience to Mr. Sinclair who likely has better things to be doing, of course.”
Tommy’s expectant eyes swiveled to Galahad’s, which had instantly narrowed at that unexpected offer. “Can she, Mr. Sinclair? You don’t have anything better to be doing, do you?”
“Now?” He seemed horrified at the prospect. “Well … er…”
“Unless now would present a problem and not give you enough time to hide the bulk of the debauchery?” Vee was pleased that the question made her sound less eager.
“We ain’t got nothing to hide, have we?” Tommy tugged at Galahad’s sleeve, forcing her gaze there again—heaven help her—and forcing him to see the hope etched upon the boy’s freckled face. Hope that clearly got to him.
“We don’t. Everything’s all aboveboard.” Two intensely peeved green eyes locked with hers in resignation. “So I guess I’ll go hail us all a hackney.”