Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

G ower House stood on the busy thoroughfare of High Holborn, one of a line of stately mansions built in the age of the Tudors on what had then been the fringes of London. The solemn brick edifice had escaped the ravages of the Great Fire and now stood like an old sage looking down on neoclassical upstarts like Westrop House, which sported the Palladian facade popular in the current century and stood in a newer square.

The Waringfords were of long provenance; they’d established themselves around the Highworth area during Saxon times. But during the interminable lecture his mother had read Leo last night about shaming the name, lowering their family, and bringing scandal down upon them, she’d mentioned that these Gowers came from Wales. They might have watched the Roman armies of the Emperor Claudius land on their shores.

Miss Lillian Gower wasn’t a lesser creature; she was something entirely different. And somehow, he had to convince her to go through with his wild scheme.

Perhaps, though she seemed out of the run of ordinary young ladies, she could be beguiled and flattered, teased and courted as much as the rest of them.

He hoped so, when this woman he hadn’t known a day ago suddenly held the key to his future. Leo tugged at the neckcloth strangling his throat.

He rapped on the door with his walking stick, and a harried-looking maid opened the portal. Interesting that Sir Lloyd did not keep a butler or porter. Leo hadn’t had a chance to ask around at his club for information, but after his surprising announcement and the alarmingly swift departure of his would-be bride, he’d been informed that Sir Lloyd was a reliable fixture at every botanical lecture and exhibit in London and could be counted on to take a subscription to any forthcoming volume pertaining to the vegetative world.

The maid squinted at his card in a fashion that suggested she neither knew, nor cared, what the print said. “Oo don’t want the missus and ’er gel, do’o? For they ain’t ’ome.”

“I am in quest of Miss Gower,” Leo replied, taking off his hat as he stepped indoors.

“Aight, then, thas upstairs, tha is.” The maid wandered off with a shrug, leaving Leo to find his own way.

The house was laid out in the Tudor plan, a tidy square with a central staircase and a cupola high above admitting the gray late morning light. Reception rooms lay to his right, drafty and dull without fires to dispel the gloom, while from the left came the sound of busy offices, kitchens and other work. There wasn’t the same separation of servants as prevailed in the Westrop townhome. No doubt in Gower House, dishes came to the table still warm.

Leo climbed the wooden staircase with its carved balustrade. Oil paintings hung heavy on the walls, dark and cracked with age. Every one was a landscape, with human figures, if any, far in the distance. He surfaced onto the first-floor landing and found two doors leading to what he would guess were bedchambers, and two doors ahead of him standing open to admit the drift of a pleasant female voice.

“Parkinson’s Theatrum Botanicum . Shall I put it next to his Terrestrial Paradise , or do you wish it with the Hortus Floridus ?”

With no one to announce him, Leo made his own way into the room, then stopped inside the doorway, astonished. He’d stepped back into Duke Humfrey’s Library at the Bodleian in Oxford, a place that in his years of study had provided solace, stimulation, and the silence he’d needed to balance a tumultuous family life and his high-spirited friends. It was as if he’d emerged from a narrow London alley into a quiet garden paradise full of gently flowing water and chirping birds.

“With the Floridus, I think,” a man replied. “Under Pliny the Elder, and on a shelf I can reach. I’m fond of that one.”

An older man stood in one corner of the room, which spanned the full front of the house. Every space of wall that was not a window, doorway, or fireplace held shelves of books, sturdy oak shelves that reached to the ceiling. They flanked the room like soldiers in formation, and in a curved niche atop each sat a plaster bust in the classical Roman style, looking down at the room with expressions of boredom, superiority, or disdain.

Miss Gower moved to a bay that held pride of place between two of the tall, sashed windows, letting in light that had grown considerably brighter since he last looked. Pliny the Elder watched with pained disinterest as she placed the large folio on a shelf next to a few other thick companions, then patted the leather-bound spine with affection.

“You ought to get a glass case to display this one, Uncle. The frontispiece alone is a work of art.”

She wore a simple cotton gown caught up with a ribbon around the high waist, gathering the loose folds in a way that brought out the lovely curve of her breasts and hips. The subtle pattern of greenery and flowers along the white cotton appeared to shimmer. A green bandeau caught up the mushroom coils of hair pinned into large, soft-looking loops. She looked like a wildflower come to life, and he entertained the sudden desire to touch her silken petals and press his nose into her subtle, heady scent.

He shook himself free of the distracting thought. The man in the antique white bag wig, dark breeches, and coat with the large skirts and enormous cuffs could only be the baronet. Leo cleared his throat.

“I’m not familiar with Parkinson’s work. I daresay that’s a loss on my part.”

Miss Gower turned to him with one hand lifted in the air as if she held a theatrical pose. She had lovely arms, as nicely curved as the rest of her, though the proper sleeves came down to her elbow. She wasn’t wearing gloves, and her hands were soft and round.

“Mr. Westrop.” Her voice sounded breathy. Dare he hope that was a blush on her cheeks? He oughtn’t feel pleased if he’d unsettled her, just because the sight of her was so unsettling to his own logical processes.

She moved to the bell pull in the corner of the room, as if this were the move she’d intended all along, and made use of it. “Uncle, do you know Mr. Westrop? Mr. Westrop, this is my uncle, Sir Lloyd Gower, Baronet Gower of Gileston.”

Gileston. Leo made a note to look it up as soon as he got home. There were maps in the room, one on display on a heavy oak table near where the baronet stood, and a globe on its stand before one bay, but this was hardly the time to explore the family ancestry.

Actually, since he had proposed marriage to the girl, perhaps it was.

“Westrop.” The baronet dipped his chin and regarded Leo over the rim of his spectacles. “Waringford’s nephew?”

Leo nodded in assent. He would only, ever and always, be identified in relationship to his family. Where he stood in the line of descent and, more importantly, the line of succession. He might never be known for any achievements or accomplishments or contributions of his own labor or intellect; only his name would matter and, if he were so unlucky as to inherit it, the title.

He refrained from looking at Miss Gower, afraid he might see the same calculation on her face.

“Didn’t see you at the latest lecture of the Linnean Society,” the baronet remarked.

“No, sir.” Leo sorted through his mental bank of London societies: ah, the botanical one. “I am not a member.”

“Don’t need to be to attend the lectures. Monthly. Panton Square. Last one was Smith on the botanical history of the Mentha exigua .”

“Er. How fascinating,” Leo said.

“Lillian didn’t like it.” With a harrumph, the baronet turned back to examining the tiny print of the book he held.

Miss Gower’s merry smile brought out the apples of her cheeks and pressed her eyes into little half-moons. “ Mentha exigua is wild mint. Sir James spent far too much time on a discussion of taxonomy rather than the plant’s more interesting properties.”

“You enjoy botanical lectures, Miss Gower?”

“Yes, for the most part. Sir James did tell a funny story about being briefly taken in by an American mint he found growing in a friend’s garden in Ipswich. It is not often he will admit a mistake.”

Leo wondered what Miss Gower—Lillian—would think of a lecture by the Society of Antiquaries. He’d like to take her, if it would make her eyes sparkle in the same fashion. Of course, Leo was not a member of that society, either. He would have to make a significant contribution to this field in order to be considered for a nomination, and so far, he had contributed nothing.

“Lillian is an eccentric,” the baronet said. “We used to call them bluestockings.”

“That is not quite true. I am not equipped to converse on a wide variety of subjects. Only a few.” She lowered her gaze to a table covered with neat stacks of books, her merry smile gone.

He shouldn’t take that crestfallen look so to heart, Leo told himself. He was going to be responsible for driving a great deal more discomfort her way. He’d dug a pit trap before her feet last night, and she’d blithely stepped into it. Now he had to extricate them both, and he didn’t know how.

The maid who’d answered the front door appeared in the door frame. “What, then?” she said. “That bell’s a gone off like Christmas.”

“Sarey,” Miss Gower said, “when you receive a guest, you are to ask their name and show them to the parlor. Then you are to come find one of us—my aunt, preferably, if she is at home, me if you cannot.”

“Well, he dint say ’is name, didee?” The maid cast Leo a baleful glare.

“Next time, you may ask. Now, if you would be so kind as to run to the kitchen and ask Cook for that tray for our nuncheon. Sir Lloyd has been working for hours and is quite famished, and we might offer Mr. Westrop tea, at the least.”

“But I’ve the polishing in the parlor to finish,” the maid complained. “Now I’ve to fetch for ye too?”

“It is part of the position we arranged for you to take, Sarey.”

“I reckon I might go back to Dark Lane,” Sarey grumbled, dragging herself from the room. “Least there I got to do my work lying down.”

Leo stared at Miss Gower, wondering if he’d heard correctly. Miss Gower must be too innocent to understand what sort of business he guessed the maid referred to, for she hadn’t a blush about her as she went back to the table.

He closed his mouth, deciding it was not his place to correct the behavior of her servants, particularly if Miss Gower remained unflustered as she picked up another folio and flipped open the heavy cover. “I beg your pardon for intruding on your morning,” he said instead.

“Not at all, only I hope you do not mind if Uncle and I carry on. If we do not get these titles sorted, Uncle will forget his organizing principles, and we shall have to begin again.”

Leo did mind, as a matter of fact. How could she be so calm when he had just ruined her life?

“Mrs. Merian’s Metamorphosis of the insects in Surinam,” Miss Gower said. “With The Aurelian , which is mostly moths and butterflies, or with Terrestrial Paradise, because of the prints?”

“Put her under Varro,” the baronet replied. “High up, since I won’t be likely to read it.”

“Uncle, for shame. Mrs. Merian is the reason we know insects have a reproduction cycle and aren’t simply spontaneously generated by mud. Her engravings are a work of art.” She traced one with a loving finger.

“It’s insects, and its Surinam. A place I am very unlikely to visit, and a subject of inquiry I am very disinclined to care about.”

“Very well.” She headed for the ladder leaning against one case.

Leo leapt to be of service, appalled that her uncle should leave a woman to clamber about the shelves on her own. “Allow me to place the book for you, Miss Gower.”

The corners of her mouth dimpled as she regarded him. Lord help him, those dimples were going to be the death of him. They were like tiny elf darts pricking beneath the skin, driving him to distraction.

“He’ll want it between Sowerby’s colored figures of mushrooms and d’Ardène’s treatise on hyacinths. Are you familiar with those works?”

Leo surveyed the shelf. “I can blunder my way through Latin titles, Miss Gower. Third in classics at Wadham College, if my fame has not preceded me.”

“How is your Dutch, Italian, German, and French?”

He regarded her with surprise. “You read all of those languages?”

“Bluestocking,” the baronet called from his corner. “Let the girl have her head.”

“And her ladder, apparently.” Leo placed the wooden apparatus where she directed. “Hold this for you, shall I?”

“If you must. I suppose assisting in libraries is all in the round of your usual morning calls?”

Leo braced the ladder as she stepped onto it, and a cluster of sensations smacked him in the face. The gleam of delicate skin along her neck and throat. The scent of geraniums floating like a cloud, beneath it the fresh, clean cut of soap. The gentle brush of fabric against his hand as she climbed inches from his face. He was lucky the ladder wasn’t high enough that he’d have the chance to see up her skirt. He’d come undone.

“Very rarely do my morning calls involve interesting employment,” Leo replied.

“Yes, well, I need some project to occupy me while my parents are gone. Now if Uncle puts the books back where we’ve placed them, I’ll be satisfied.”

“Curtis’s last volume of the Flora Londinensis has an index, praise the man.” The baronet snapped shut the book in his hands. “Where did we put the other five?”

“Under Tacitus,” Miss Gower called. “Third shelf.”

The baronet turned to the wall behind him. “I don’t see it.”

“They’re— oh! ” She leaned to point, and her shoe slipped off the rung of the ladder. Without thinking, Leo shot up a hand to keep her from falling. His palm closed around the soft, round globe of her bottom, nestled in glossy cotton.

Warm, yielding woman. A bolt of lust shot through his gut, exploding like a firework in his nether regions, clouding his brain.

“I’m fine,” she said breathlessly. “I have my feet.”

He blinked. She was indeed secure on the ladder. Quickly she shoved the book into place and began to back down.

Move your hand, man . He slid his palm over her backside, up to the small of her back. The chivalrous thing to do. Make sure she didn’t topple as she clambered down. The scent of geraniums pulled all thought from his upper stories.

She gained her footing on the floor and glanced up at him, her face mere inches from his.

“I’m fine,” she whispered.

Put your hand down. Stop touching her . It took conscious effort for him to lift his hand from the smooth, warm slope of her back, to resist sliding that hand around her hip or up to her breast. Leo was a man known for his control, but Lillian Gower tempted him in a way he hadn’t been tempted in a long time.

Last night, he’d funneled every bit of his desperation into his gaze, firing his urgent plea at her from across the room.

And she’d answered, as if she understood his dilemma. She’d said yes.

Now, with that rose blooming in her cheeks again, he couldn’t think of practical solutions to untie the Gordian knot he’d created. He wanted to find where else that blush showed, and what more he might do to cause it.

No . He had to stop noting Miss Gower’s blushes and dimples, and sparkling eyes, and fearsome intelligence. Because all of these added up to indications of a perfectly fascinating and innocent young woman whose future he had just smashed under his boot, because he had made a proposal that was going to ruin her.

Lusting after her would make everything else supremely difficult.

“We must discuss our…arrangement,” Leo said, reality dousing the fire of fantasy.

She stiffened. He needed that, and the sense of something tearing when she stepped away, taking her heat with her.

“Must we? Here’s Sarey with a tray, and Uncle needs his nuncheon. You are welcome to sit with us, but I see no reason to trouble him with Banbury stories.”

With lies and untruths? A tight knot cinched his throat. “I was under the impression that you accepted my offer.”

“And I was under the impression that we were getting up a play. Put the tray on this table, Sarey. Uncle, come take your tea, and while you’re about it, decide whether you want Woodville’s Medical Botany next to Gerard’s Herball or the De Materia Medica .”

He wouldn’t call it sharpness, because there wasn’t a single sharp thing about her, but there was a defined edge in her voice. If she were a battle maiden with a shield, she’d be raising it and pointing her spear at him.

She’d taken his outstretched hand last night. She must know they couldn’t avoid the consequences.

“I wasn’t acting.” The words, laced with desperation, tumbled out of him like rocks down a hillside.

She had a jaw as sweetly rounded as the rest of her, but he detected a stubborn tilt to her chin. “I was.”

She swept to the table where Sarey had banged over a glass frame holding a delicate pressed plant as she struggled with the tea tray. Leo followed, feeling like a shark in shallow waters, cruising after its prey. She was so tender, so exposed, it was cruel of him to strike. “What do you mean?”

“I gather that your mother tried to invent a betrothal for you, and you invented one of your own. It’s not real. I imagine everyone there understood that.”

“There will be talk. There is talk.” Quite a lot of it, last night after she left, and a continuing harangue from his mother.

She waved away Sarey, who listened with wide and fascinated eyes to their conversation, then sat beside the tea tray like a young lady who had been trained to her duty and would do it, steel in her backbone, fire in her eyes.

“I think it should be clear to everyone that it was a preposterous suggestion. If there was any interest in the beginning, I’m sure it’s already blown away like seeds on the wind.”

Leo stood like a prisoner at the executioner’s block whom the priest had visited and left, taking hope with him.

She didn’t want him .

It was absurd. This shouldn’t be what sliced into him, not with everything else at stake. But her easy dismissal of him, of what he’d offered, stunned him like a blow to the head.

“I need you to playact a bit longer,” he said.

He wanted, for the sake of his crumbling pride, to be enough to tempt Miss Lillian Gower. Without the title, without any accomplishments to his name, he wanted her to look at him and be tempted.

But to what?

“You’ve tied your garter now, girl!” came a shrill voice from the hall. The disagreeable-looking woman who had been with her last night charged into the room, waving a sheet of paper as if she were drying the ink.

“Hello, Aunt Giles,” Miss Gower said, her tone calm, but her hand trembled as she cut the tart. “What is the matter?”

“It’s in the Morning Post .” The older woman slapped the paper down on the nearest table. “Every piece of it.” She cast a spiteful glance at her niece. “Including a bit about how your headgear was not quite à la mode . And that his mother is more surprised than anyone. And you were stuffing your face with a treat—I am so mortified!—while the future Marquess of Waringford proposed to you.”

“Eh? What’s this?” The baronet, in the process of dragging chairs to the table, looked up. “Lil’s got an offer?”

The aunt registered Leo’s presence without a flicker of an eyelash. “Yes, indeed, sir. Your grandniece is engaged to marry him .” She stabbed a finger into the newsprint. “It’s in the paper. So there’s no getting out of it, girl, despite what you think.”

Miss Gower’s profile resembled the wooden prow of a sailing ship, expression serene, face lifted in determination as she met the advancing army, breasts rising on a wave as she drew a long breath.

“ The Morning Post ? That is unfortunate. Nevertheless, I am sure we can deal with the one or two people who will prove curious.”

Leo saw at a glance what she meant to do. She intended to put it about that, in the light of day and free from the smoky candles and fortified wine, she and Leo had regretted their giddy moment and decided they would not suit. They meant to go their separate ways, no harm done. And he’d be right back where he began.

No, worse off, because she didn’t want him.

Sarey staggered into the doorframe, cheeks flushed, cap askew as if she’d been tugging it. She clutched a dusting cloth to her bosom, her eyes round as shillings.

“Miss, they’s a whole flock of fancy morts bunching up the doorstep, and I know I ain’t gonn’ta member a one of their names. Where’m I to put’em all, then?”

Comprehension dawned over Miss Gower’s features the way some ancient Trojan scout must have looked when he saw the Greek ships pulled up on the beach before Troy: the army had come, and it could destroy them.

If she yet realized all she stood to lose, because of him.

He didn’t have the right, but Leo clasped her hand and tugged her to her feet.

“Come with me. We need to talk.”