CHAPTER
Eight

When Alice arrived at her lodgings, she was surprised to see Lucy’s carriage standing in the street. Visits from Lucy were never unwelcome, but today Alice might have preferred to spend the evening alone. She was still mulling over all that had happened today. What a good thing she’d come home without Douglas Shaw as an escort. Lucy might have made assumptions that would be hard to dispel.

“There you are!” Lucy cried out in admonishment, coming down from her carriage. “I’ve been waiting for you for ages. Does that ogre Mr. Henley really work you so late?”

“I took a walk after work and looked in at a few shops. If I’d known you were here, I would have come straight home.”

Lucy gave Alice a primly disapproving look. “Do you think it’s wise to wander all over London by yourself?”

“Walking around in my neighborhood hardly counts as ‘all over London.’” She added slyly, “Besides, I haven’t yet got ’round to hiring a driver for my carriage.”

This kind of jest about the disparity in their wealth normally elicited a pout from her friend. But today Lucy said, “Well, maybe someday soon, eh? Aren’t you going to invite me in? I’m longing for a cup of tea.”

“Won’t your husband be expecting you at home?”

“Not today. Mr. B. has been called away to Manchester for a few days, so I’m quite at liberty to dine where I please.”

“How refreshing that you are at liberty at last.” This time, Alice’s tone did elicit that frown. Lucy really did love her husband. That was something Alice still couldn’t understand, given that she personally found him pompous and overbearing. She did not wish to disparage her friend, however, and so to atone, she gave her a welcoming hug. “I’m glad you’re here. Come on in.”

Lucy wasn’t the only one who’d been waiting for Alice to return. The cats were sitting on the stoop, glaring at her. Lucy promptly sneezed, even though she was still ten feet from them. She claimed to be allergic to cats. Alice suspected the worst of Lucy’s reaction stemmed from her dislike of them rather than from real physical causes. Lucy preferred her little dog, Bulwer, and the songbirds she kept in cages.

Alice hurried forward, opening the parcel of stale fish. She set the food several feet from the door in order to entice them away from it. “Here are some nice bits of mackerel for you. Aren’t you going to thank me?”

The cats showed their gratitude by launching immediately into the proffered food and ignoring Alice completely. But at least they had cleared the path to the door.

Well, the doorway was almost clear. The cats had left a fresh mouse carcass on the doorstep. They had done a pretty thorough job of devouring the creature; all that was left were a few bones and the tail.

“Oh!” Lucy gave a cry of dismay when she laid eyes on it. “Oh! Oh!”

Lucy’s eyes were so wide with horror that Alice was tempted to laugh. Although she was not fond of mice—dead or alive—she was not afraid of them.

“Don’t worry. It’s not in any condition to bite you.” Alice picked it up by the tail and flung it under a nearby bush. Pulling her key from her reticule, she unlocked the door and ushered Lucy inside. “Come on, let’s get that tea.”

“How can you encourage those horrid beasts?” Lucy said as they took the stairs up to Alice’s rooms.

“They’re cats, not monsters. I rather like them. You’ll be happy to know that Miss T is not as uncouth as the other two. She doesn’t generally, er, supplement her diet.”

Lucy gave an exaggerated shiver, to which Alice could only laugh.

Miss T, being more interested in dinner than in the guest, happily followed Alice into the kitchen for the last bit of fish. Meanwhile, Lucy made herself comfortable on the little sofa in the sitting room. Once Miss T had been fed, Alice set about making tea.

When she returned to the sitting room with the tea tray, she was surprised to see that Lucy had a book in her hand. To her dismay, it was the spinster book. She let out an exasperated breath. Lucy had never shown an interest in any of her books—until today. It would have to be that book that caught her attention. Perhaps something drew her to it instinctively. Words like love and romance were sure to pull Lucy in like a magnet. She was fully absorbed in it, nodding appreciatively as she read.

“I’m astonished you remember how to open one of those things,” Alice teased, trying to hide her mortification.

Lucy gave her an impish grin. “I feel certain you never owned such an interesting book before.”

Alice poured a cup of tea and thrust it toward her friend. This brought about the desired result of forcing Lucy to set aside the book in order to take the teacup, but it did not stop her from grinning.

“If you wanted advice on how to capture a man’s attention, you need only have come to me.”

“I have no interest in anything of the sort,” Alice retorted. “I’m perfectly happy as I am.”

Lucy eyed her in disbelief. “Then why are you reading this? It certainly isn’t your usual choice.”

“I haven’t even begun reading it yet. I only just bought it last night. I noticed that there are chapters in there that purport to explain how men think, and I thought it might help me at work. As you know, most of my colleagues are men. I thought perhaps, if I had a better understanding of them, we could work together more efficiently. . . .”

She faltered. Her explanation didn’t sound very plausible, even to her. Her real reason for having bought the book—the urge to disprove its contents—no longer appealed to her, either.

“If you’re speaking of that horrid Mr. Clapper, I don’t think any book could explain him,” Lucy said with a sniff. “As for other men, I’ve only read a few pages and have already seen some fairly accurate information.” Setting down her teacup, she opened the book to find the place she’d been reading. “‘He thought he had loved, until he cared for her, but in the light of the new passion, he sees clearly that the others were mere idle flirtations. To her surprise, she also discovers that he has loved her a long time but has never dared to speak of it before, and that this feeling, compared with the others, is as wine unto water.’”

She clasped the book to her heart with a dreamy smile. “Mr. B. was like that. There were so many other fine ladies of his acquaintance. Some had set their caps at him, and one or two had even turned his head a little. But the moment he saw me, a mere middle-class girl walking in the park, he fell in love. Every other lady he had known paled in comparison, and he would not rest until he had married me.” She finished this last sentence on a sigh.

Lucy was a good-hearted soul, generous and unfailingly honest; this was one reason why the friendship they’d forged as girls had withstood the test of time. Yet their views of the world were very different. The passage Lucy had just read made Alice feel more queasy than entranced. She didn’t want to think of men as passionate beings. She preferred to dwell on the fact that by and large they were rational, clearheaded, and concerned about things in the world that truly mattered.

“You said Mr. Bennington is out of town?” she prompted, wanting nothing more than to stop talking about that book. “How long will he be gone?”

“Nearly a week! That’s one reason I’m here. I miss him terribly whenever he goes away. But this time I shan’t be lonely. I’m going to have a dinner party the day after tomorrow, and you, my dear friend, are invited.”

“A dinner party without your husband present? Are you sure he’d approve?” Lucy was usually more mindful about protocol—especially as she’d extended every effort to win the grudging respect of the upper-crust ladies and gentlemen who made up Mr. Bennington’s social set.

“Nothing to cause scandal, I assure you. This is a very exclusive dinner party. Fred’s ship is sailing the following day, so I thought we three could enjoy a fun dinner together before he leaves. Do say you’ll join us. Fred will be ever so happy to see you.”

Alice looked at her askance. “Are you sure about that?”

Fred was Lucy’s brother. He and Alice had not enjoyed one another’s company for years. It began with an incident when they first met, shortly after Lucy had begun attending Miss Templeton’s School for Young Ladies. Being five years older than Lucy and already working as an apprentice, Fred had been sent by their parents to escort his sister home for a school holiday. Alice had embarrassed Fred—she’d bested him about some bit of knowledge in front of another schoolgirl he’d been hoping to impress. Alice couldn’t even remember the details of what she’d said, but she’d sent the other girls into a round of dismissive titters. Fred had retained a grudge ever since.

It didn’t help that, in addition, he had grown into a taciturn man with few interests outside of his work in the merchant navy. Like his sister, he hadn’t bothered much with books after leaving school. Alice could think of many things that would be more preferable—not to mention less painful—than having to make conversation with Fred Arbuckle for an evening. She was pretty sure he felt the same way.

“Now you’ve got that look on your face,” Lucy remonstrated.

“What look?” Alice belatedly attempted to rearrange her features.

“I wish you and Fred could get along. It would be so perfect if you and he were to—”

Alice held up a hand. “There’s no use trying to play matchmaker between me and Fred.”

Lucy looked affronted. “Why not? What’s wrong with him?”

There was plenty wrong with him, in Alice’s point of view. But to state those things aloud would only hurt Lucy’s feelings. “As I said, I’ve no desire to get married. Even if I were so inclined, Fred has no interest in me. He never has, and I’m sure he never will.”

Lucy set down her teacup. “If you want to know how to get along with men, I can tell you an important key—one that will be in that book, too, if it’s worth the paper it’s printed on. It’s the wise old adage that ‘one can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.’”

“Perhaps.” Alice wasn’t prepared to concede the point.

“I know you and Fred haven’t seen eye to eye for some time. But he is my brother, and you are my best friend. Won’t you come to the party—as a kindness to me, at least?”

It was generally impossible to resist her friend’s earnest appeals. Alice heaved a sigh. “Yes, I’ll come.”

“Oh, thank you!” Lucy threw her arms around Alice with such fervor that she nearly knocked them both over. She sprang up while Alice was still righting herself. “I must be going so that I can begin the preparations. Why don’t you wear your new scarf to the party? It’s ever so becoming.”

“Yes, why don’t I?” Alice echoed. It was pointless to argue.

After seeing Lucy out the door, Alice returned to her sitting room and plopped down on the sofa. Opening the spinster book, she began to sift through it. Maybe it had some advice for how to survive an evening with an incalculable bore.

Miss T wandered into the sitting room and jumped onto the sofa. As Alice reached out to pet her, she came across this line in the book: “Men are like cats; they need only to be petted in the right direction.”

Maybe that was the key. If she could get Fred talking about something he liked, she could simply smile and nod, and her mind would be free to think of other things. It wouldn’t be as entertaining as being alone or in the company of someone who was truly interesting. But if it smoothed the waters between them, that would be a welcome change. One that Lucy would appreciate a great deal.

As she continued reading, Alice realized she hadn’t once thought about this book today. Her interactions with Douglas Shaw, for example, had been easy and entirely natural. If only all men were as simple to get along with as he was—not dour like Fred or irritating complainers like Archie. This book must be designed for people who had no common ground on which to communicate. Otherwise, life was fairly straightforward, as far as Alice was concerned. Say what you mean and be friendly—or at least, make the jests in a good-natured way. That was exactly how things had been between Alice and her brothers. Aside from the occasional squabble that was inevitable among siblings, they’d all gotten along swimmingly.

Although she supposed, if she was honest, there had been a number of times when she’d had a more . . . well, complicated reaction to Douglas Shaw. The admiring looks he gave her at something she’d said or done, and the odd sensations she’d had while sitting so close to him in that hansom cab. Then there was that moment in the filing room, when she could have sworn he’d been flirting with her. . . .

In her distraction, she must have rubbed the cat the wrong way, for Miss T let out a yelping meow and tried to nip her hand.

Alice pulled back just in time to avoid the cat’s teeth. “So sorry, my dear!” She gently smoothed the cat’s ruffled fur. “Don’t be angry. And don’t worry, I won’t forget what you taught me.” She addressed the cat as if it were the real Miss Templeton. “I have no intention of going down that road. I enjoy working with him. That’s all.”

The cat rested her head on her paws and began to purr, as if in total agreement.

The best things about Douglas Shaw were the kindness he’d extended toward her by offering that cab ride and his genuine interest in her as a person. At work, he was clever in business and adept at solving problems. Those were the qualities she could admire in him. As for the rest, those had been mere physical responses, nothing more. She’d only known him for two days. Given time, those feelings would probably go away.

She had no plan for what she would do if they didn’t.

Douglas arrived at his boardinghouse with time to spare before dinner. He checked the table in the foyer where the landlady set out the tenants’ mail. One envelope of fine parchment with a wax seal stood out immediately. It was addressed to him. He took it into the parlor to read before going upstairs to his room.

Hal was also in the parlor, seated by the window and reading his copy of the Illustrated Police News. He lowered his paper as Douglas entered. “I see you’ve got mail.” He waggled his eyebrows. “It looks very important.”

Douglas sat in the overstuffed chair opposite his friend. “Care to take a guess what it is?”

Hal tossed his paper on the table next to him. “All I can say is, I’m exceedingly disappointed it does not smell of fine perfume.”

“Naturally you took it upon yourself to check.”

“It had to be done,” Hal answered with a grin.

Douglas broke the seal on the envelope and pulled out the card inside. It was finely embossed with gold lettering. He read it, then met Hal’s eyes.

“So when is the dinner party?” Hal asked.

“A week from Friday.”

“Excellent!” Hal rubbed his hands together. “You’re on your way now, Shaw. From here on out, you’ll be hobnobbing with important people. I only hope you’ll remember your humble friends from time to time.”

Hal kept talking, but Douglas wasn’t really listening. He was still marveling that he held this invitation in his hand, that it was addressed specifically to him. He’d been fairly certain this was coming, yet he still couldn’t believe it was here. It represented a significant milestone.

To think that it had arrived today, after the very interesting time he’d had at work. Alice McNeil was such a pleasure to work with. He was looking forward to more of that in the days ahead. What a breath of fresh air she was, after dealing with Archie and the inept telegrapher Alice had replaced. Henley really had made the right choice in hiring her.

“Well, have you?” Hal asked.

“Have I what?” Douglas said, realizing he hadn’t heard the question.

“Have you got a proper suit for the occasion? Carson knows a good tailor. Says the man works quickly, too.”

“That sounds like what I need.” Douglas stood up. “I’ll have a chat with him about that tonight.”

He went upstairs to wash up and prepare for dinner. A half hour later, he happened to meet Carson as they were walking toward the dining room.

“Hal gave me the good news,” Carson said. He gave Douglas a friendly slap on the back. “You’re a lucky man, Shaw, getting to spend an entire evening with the renowned Miss Rolland.”

“Hmm? Oh, right.” Douglas realized he’d spent the past half hour thinking through the logistics of the dinner party—reviewing what he would wear, what he knew about the men he was likely to meet there, and other such considerations. He hadn’t thought once about the woman who was supposedly his primary reason for going.

But then, he hadn’t even met Miss Rolland yet. He had no doubt things would change considerably once he had. Besides, he had no idea what to expect from her or how to prepare. He only hoped she would be as easy to talk to as Alice McNeil. That would make it a very pleasant evening indeed.