Chapter Seven

Like so many of the young ladies present, Catherine wore white muslin to the Tillbury ball. Her bodice was scattered with little embroidered blue flowers and a wide blue ribbon wrapped beneath her bosom and tied behind. Three rows of ribbon of the same color traced her hem and trimmed her short sleeves.

The dress was pretty but surely unremarkable—the sleeves were not puffed, they were not fancy at all—but perhaps that would also be a problem? She hoped no one would tell her whether they were.

She wore her pearl necklace, too. She touched it, for luck and reassurance.

Lady Wisterberg had once again delivered Lucy and Catherine to the refreshment table, tossed back two glasses of ratafia, and melted away, heeding the siren song of the faro box.

Leaving the two of them alone.

The somewhat fraught mission of the season—to get themselves husbands—had introduced an unexpected note of tension between Lucy and Catherine. Neither of them overtly acknowledged it, but they both tacitly understood and regretted it. They were compensating by being too nice to each other. But Catherine suspected Lucy would be crushed if Mr. Hargrove transferred any particle of his attention to Catherine, and they both remained in suspense about whether he would ask Catherine to dance again.

And Lucy was terribly embarrassed about her godmother, Lady Wisterberg.

"I'm so sorry, Catherine, truly. She's only like this at balls where a gaming room has been arranged."

Neither said that it seemed likely that every ball would feature a gaming room, because what else would one do with all the adults who weren't dancing?

"Somehow it will all come right," she'd reassured Lucy, which was the kind thing to say. She almost even believed it. "But the onus shouldn't be on you to make introductions, and I do not hold it against you one bit."

"Good evening, ladies. You both look lovely this evening."

Lucy and Catherine turned toward Miss Seaver, who also seemed to begin her evenings next to the ratafia. Her chaperone—her mother—was clustered with other matrons on the opposite side of the room.

Instead of Mr. Hargrove, this time she had brought with her the pretty young Lady Hackworth, whose husband was a viscount. Introductions and curtsies were exchanged.

Catherine wistfully eyed the tiara perched on Lady Hackworth's complicated yellow-gold coiffure. Her own wavy hair was pinned up rather simply, and strands of it spiraled at her cheekbones.

"There are to be two waltzes this evening!" Miss Seaver announced. "And I'm dancing the first wiiiith..."

She widened her eyes playfully.

The dramatic pause was clearly designed to torture poor Lucy, who had not yet been asked to dance tonight by Mr. Hargrove. Catherine was tempted to accidentally-on-purpose trod hard on Miss Seaver's instep.

"...Mr. Richards," Miss Seaver finally said brightly.

Both Lucy and Catherine disguised exhales.

"I'm looking forward to the first quadrille," Catherine contributed.

Thanks to Lucy, Catherine had, indeed, met a few young men in the past thirty minutes. They had drifted oh so casually over to greet Lucy and had seemed quite pleased to meet her appealing new friend. Two of those young men had been anyone's definition of very attractive and the third—well, he seemed cheerful enough. Her dance card now sported three entire names. None of them were waltzes. Perhaps her season would improve just like this, in increments, the way Lord Kirke had said laws protecting children would be made.

She hadn't seen him at all today at The Grand Palace on the Thames—he was such an early riser!—but he'd been a low hum in her thoughts for much of the day. While The Arabian Nights' Entertainments had gotten off to a stirring start in the sitting room last night—Mrs. Pariseau even did the voices when she read, which was quite entertaining—it was Lord Kirke's earlier, bold, inspiring words that ran like a river through her mind as she drifted off to sleep. The soft rumble with which he'd delivered the word "vulnerable," the crisp metallic precision of the word "pique"—the choices he made about cadences and emphases reminded her of an orchestra conductor, except his instruments were words. It was impossible not to get swept up in the flow of them, the way one might be helpless not to tap a foot while listening to a waltz. It was the first time she'd understood how speaking could indeed be a gift, and how easily he could hold the House of Commons in thrall.

But he'd also said "arse" in the sitting room, and this delighted her almost more than his little speech.

Suddenly, as if she'd conjured him, through the milling ballroom crowd the man himself appeared.

The four of them stopped talking at once.

He deftly maneuvered through a clot of matrons blocking his path, then vanished again into another room.

His expression was remote and abstracted. He didn't look their way at all.

Catherine slowly released her breath.

They all spent a moment of silent, almost reverent appreciation in the aftermath, as though they'd spotted a mythical beast.

Lady Hackworth leaned toward the other young ladies confidingly. "I heard Lady Clayton say that she wanted to climb Kirke."

Catherine nearly reared back. Lady Hackworth's nose was turned up at the tip, which made her look as though she was literally sniffing out gossip. Her eyes were a startling shade of near turquoise.

She didn't know what "climbing him" meant, precisely, but it sounded as though it had something to do with sex and her cheeks went hot.

She was hardly completely naive about those matters. She knew which body parts were inserted where during sexual congress when it came down to it. But she was indignant on Lord Kirke's behalf. It was the first time anyone she'd known personally had been so shockingly, cavalierly discussed and she was surprised at her impulse to throw herself, metaphorically, bodily in front of him. Especially since she barely knew him, and she was absolutely certain the man had no trouble protecting himself. Furthermore, he'd outright told her he was scandalous.

"She wants to climb him because he's tall, like a tree?" she said, furrowing her brow. She wanted to see how far Lady Hackworth would go to explain herself.

Lady Hackworth laughed merrily. "Oh, my dear! You are too, too much."

"Perhaps you shouldn't repeat that sort of thing," Lucy bravely suggested, confirming to Catherine that she, too, thought it was about sex. They exchanged a swift glance of solidarity.

"Oh, my little gooses," Lady Hackworth, who wasn't much older than the two of them, soothed, sounding genuinely contrite. "I didn't mean to upset the two of you. It's just something silly I heard and I was making conversation. And it's a compliment to the man, truly. One day, if you're lucky—as lucky as I am—you'll understand."

There was little Catherine loathed more than this sort of condescension.

"He hasn't danced at a ball in a decade. What I wouldn't give to waltz with him! But it's probably also a mercy. I think a girl might crumble into ash." Lady Hackworth gave a theatrical little shiver. "When he looks at you, it's hard to know whether to cross yourself or lie back and hike your skirts. Perhaps both," she mused. "I've heard he's very good."

Argh!Appalling! Were these words actually emerging from Lady Hackworth's mouth? Did everyone in the ton talk like this? To young women?

Was... this the collective opinion of him?

Catherine didn't dare ask.

And yet... upon consideration, perhaps this did actually go a long way toward explaining how one felt in his presence.

She could hardly vociferously defend his honor without betraying some special knowledge or acquaintance. And she knew much better than to reveal they were staying in the same boardinghouse.

"Has he looked at you, then, Lady Hackworth?" Catherine said, instead. Feigning innocence again.

"How could he resist?" Lady Hackworth said airily, lightly, and waved her fan beneath her chin. She smiled to imply she was jesting.

Catherine couldn't object to her insouciant confidence. But her stomach was unsettled now.

"It's indeed a struggle to imagine how he could," she said politely, just a little dryly, which endeared her to Lady Hackworth and made Lucy shoot her a mischievous glance.

Ratafia was the sort of liquid nonsense he normally avoided, but Kirke had been later than usual to arrive at the Tillbury crush—he'd had a long day of constituents and builders—and he'd arrived thirsty.

He regretted his impulse to taste it at once. Some fool had laced it with whiskey. The whole bowl needed dumping, or the Tillbury ball was going to be remembered for brawls, possibly between young ladies. The footman charged with serving the stuff had probably gone off to relieve himself, leaving it unattended.

He took a few steps into the adjacent game room to see if any other servants were in evidence and observed about two dozen people clustered at tables, happily popping faro boxes or inspecting the hands dealt them in five-card loo or whist.

He saw Lord Farquar's wife, a small, solemn woman to whom he was apparently genuinely devoted, next to Lady Wisterberg, who was wearing an expression so rapt it was clear that nothing else in the world existed for her in that moment but her hand of cards.

Kirke absently felt in his coat pocket for the shilling he'd made certain to tuck there earlier today. Just in case.

"Kirke. You must be bored indeed if you're contemplating gambling." Pangborne was suddenly at his elbow. "How is your mouth, by the way?"

"Still capable of forming words, I'm sure Farquar will be happy to hear," Kirke said, ironically. "Thank you for asking."

Pangborne laughed. "Just thought I'd tell you that I've spoken to representatives of the Printer's Guild regarding apprenticeships for at least twenty boys from Bethnal Green," Pangborne finally said.

Kirke took this in wordlessly, with some surprise.

Pangborne was a Tory. And he hadn't been persuaded to do this as a result of witnessing one ridiculous drunken episode at a ball. Likely he'd been thinking about it for some time because, in his way, Kirke just would not relent.

It's how they did it until they could actually pass a law: they eroded the edges of the problem. Came at it from different angles. Attempted to cut off the sad, endless supply of orphans available for exploitation by placing them in apprenticeships that would pay them a fair wage and feed them properly instead of the indentured near enslavement of the textile mills. Instilling awareness and shame and a sense of responsibility into the voting and business-owning populace, until by the time the law was passed the notion of exploiting children for gain would be distasteful at best, very out of fashion at the least, and God only knew the ton loved its fashion.

"Very good to hear it," he said simply. "It's an excellent start."

Kirke liked to think the previous ball was the straw that tipped the balance. Which was why Pangborne was telling him now.

And no doubt there was something else in it for Pangborne, too. An exchange of favors, a promise of votes. It didn't matter. It was simply how their world worked.

Kirke suddenly recalled Pangborne had a son.

He hesitated, then ventured, "How old is your son now? Theodore, isn't it? How is he?"

"Seventeen." Pangborne sounded surprised. And a little touched that Kirke remembered.

"Do you recall what you liked to read at that age?"

Pangborne's eyebrows flicked, and then he gave a short laugh. "I tried to avoid reading. It was a bit of a struggle for me, frankly. I liked riding and shooting. I was a thoroughly unexceptional young man. Typical in most ways. But my son is a reader. He likes to read novels, God help me. Robinson Crusoe. Rob Roy. He's a fine but not excellent shot. Won an archery competition, however."

"You must be proud. A gentleman can never go wrong by perfecting one's aim. Something Farkie ought to have spent more time doing."

Pangborne laughed. And then he was quiet a moment.

Kirke decided to be direct. "You've got something else on your mind, Pangborne."

Pangborne twisted his mouth wryly, then sighed. "I've been trying to decide whether to tell you what I've heard. You may already know, anyway. Bertram Rowley is thinking of running for your seat. The plan is to, ah, emphasize the moral differences between the two of you. As of course Rowley is pious as the day is long, and so forth. Allegedly spotless of character."

"Ah," Kirke said ironically. "And it's alleged I'm none of those wonderful things." He paused. "I must admit, it's not a bad approach."

Pangborne grimaced. "He's a first-rate prig."

In other words: the strategy would be to imply that someone who was as allegedly scandalous as Kirke could hardly get the job done, so busy was he with seduction and so forth.

It had been tried before.

The difference this time was that Bertram Rowley was outrageously wealthy, thanks in part to investments in textile mills. He could finance a campaign entirely on his own. He could all but buy his parliamentary seat, if enough voters could be persuaded.

Kirke mulled this new development darkly, and with a certain relish. Anyone who wanted to come for him was welcome to it.

But damned if he wasn't a little bloody tired of developments.

"I'm not concerned," he said easily. Which wasn't entirely true. "If I may ask—why are you telling me this?"

Pangborne paused to consider this. "Better the devil you know? Things would be dull without you, Kirke. We'll accomplish less. And Rowley is, in fact, an idiot."

Kirke nodded. This was merely true.

"Perhaps now would be a good time to give a particularly spectacular speech."

Kirke stifled a sigh. "Thank you, Pangborne. The notion hadn't occurred to me."

Kirke told Pangborne he'd see him in the library later, and slipped out of the game room. He presently found a footman who was willing to do two things: dump the ratafia, and wrestle Lady Wisterberg away from the game table in time to get Keating back to the boardinghouse by curfew.

He might not ever write another speech, he thought dryly, but damned if that wasn't a satisfying night's work.

He slipped up the marble stairs and turned left at the top. He passed three doors in the hallway, heading for the alcove near a window where he knew he could sneak a cheroot and contemplate the vexing vicissitudes of his life in peace.

He stopped abruptly, assailed by a surge of irritation.

His destination—a bench in that alcove next to an enormous, frilly potted plant—was occupied. By a woman.

His first swift impression of her—a delicate profile, the generous swell of breasts outlined against a muslin bodice, the creamy skin of her throat revealed by her dark uplifted hair—rushed his senses and tightened the bands of muscle across his stomach. He could not recall the last time a woman had stolen his breath.

A second later he realized it was Keating.

He went motionless. Stupid with surprise.

More than a little disconcerted.

He was blankly still a moment, then a strange, quiet anger seeped in on her behalf. His chest felt tight. He didn't know why he should find uncomfortably poignant a pretty young woman taking refuge alone near a plant at a ball. It just seemed... such a bloody pity. An unconscionable waste. She ought to be dancing and reveling in the music and her beauty and the newness of London.

He pivoted a half step to leave her with her thoughts just as she turned and saw him.

Her lovely face was at once ablaze with delight and surprise.

He stopped. And then found himself moving toward that light.

He did so slowly.

"Good evening, Keating." He gestured to the plant. "I see you're with family again."

"Oh. Yes. Good evening, Lord Kirke. I am a bit abashed that you have found me again near green things." She flushed.

"Am I intruding upon your solitude?"

"No. But thank you for inquiring. Were you looking for some solitude and found me here instead?" She stood and smoothed her skirts. "I apologize, and I will find another place, if so. It's just... that it's peculiar to feel alone in a ballroom absolutely crowded with people. I am a bit nervous, and I felt very conspicuous, although every third woman here tonight is in white muslin."

"While that may indeed be true, your sleeves strike me as exceptional."

Her lips curved in a somewhat rueful smile. "I'm beginning to feel quite foolish about hiding near plants, to tell you the truth." The pink in her cheeks had darkened.

Sympathy panged him with surprising force.

He hesitated. "If it will make you feel any better... I confess it's a habit of mine to find a moment alone when I'm obliged to spend hours in a crowd. Especially before or after a speech. I have a favorite bench in a little park just outside the Commons. It's tucked between two scowling lion statues. Passersby can scarcely tell the three of us apart."

He'd never, ever confessed this to another soul.

In revealing this he felt strangely as though he'd just inappropriately removed an article of clothing. It occurred to him that he seldom shared the minutiae of his life with anyone. And yet thousands of people all over England thought they knew him. The anonymity at the eye of fame had long suited him.

But he was pleased when she smiled. She absently waved her fan beneath her chin and studied him, her eyes soft and sympathetic and curious.

"Are you ever nervous before you give a speech?"

"I'm often deadly nervous." He'd never confessed this to another soul, either. He doubted anyone even suspected. "But the nervousness seems to evaporate once I get started, and then once I've momentum, it's almost better than—well, it's tremendously satisfying."

She pulled in a deep breath, then exhaled at length. As if she'd found relief in his words.

It seemed absurd to view his weaknesses as strengths simply because she'd found comfort in them. To suddenly be grateful to have something to offer her.

"It strikes me as a very brave thing," she ventured, eyes starry, "to stand up before so many people to speak, even when you're so nervous."

He wasn't prepared to concede he was brave in any sense of the word. Nor did he particularly want to encourage adulation. But it was difficult not to bask a little in the admiring light in her eyes. "Perhaps."

The ensuing pause was the perfect moment for him to make his bow and take his leave.

Somehow this intention failed to communicate itself to his legs.

"Lord Kirke?" she ventured. "I've something a bit delicate to ask of you."

He stiffened warily. Hell's teeth. He should have obeyed his instinct to bolt.

Her face lit with amusement. "My goodness. Your expression! I apologize for putting it that way. It's just... I know that Lady Wisterberg is not a suitable chaperone..."

"Good manners prevent me from outright agreeing, Keating," he said dryly. "But I suspect you have guessed my views on the matter."

She cleared her throat. "I'd hoped... I'd hoped you would not mention it to anyone. Her... ah... delinquency, that is."

"Because you'd be obliged to leave London as you are essentially unchaperoned at balls."

"Yes."

"Very well, then. I promise I will not report it to the magistrate in charge of monitoring maidens."

She gave a soft laugh. "Thank you. It's just... I find that I do not want to leave London just yet. Not until I've... well, I'd like to see it through. I should like to give the season my very best effort."

"I approve of your ambition, Keating. And in light of your aspiration, I likewise feel compelled to advise you that you should not reveal that I am currently living one floor above you."

She paused. "I gathered that," she replied gently.

The pause was interesting. This made him wonder, ironically, which rumors she'd heard about him. And whether what she'd heard had repelled or intrigued her.

On the whole, it was probably for the best that she not take to thinking of him as her pet MP.

"But please do have a care about wandering off alone. Not every man is as harmless as I am."

She studied him in silence for a moment.

"Harmless," she repeated thoughtfully, and so quietly it was nearly a caress. "Ha."

It was also almost a question.

He offered her a patient, enigmatic smile and did not reply.

A little silence stretched.

She cleared her throat. "Will... will you be dancing tonight?" she asked, somewhat shyly.

"Good God, no, Keating. In my view, dancing is for the spouse seekers, the inebriated, the terminally cheerful, and the very young. And I am none of those things. I never dance at balls."

Her smile gradually grew wider as his list went on. "Surely you're not very old."

"I'm thirty-five."

"Oh. Well. I stand corrected, then."

He smiled, and shook his head slowly.

"But... then... why do you go to balls?" Her brow furrowed. "If I may be so bold?"

"To make friends," he said.

She laughed. Which delighted him.

"Ah, but you wound me, Keating. In truth, men will often let down their guards when surrounded by pretty women and loud music and free liquor. Alliances are born, confessions are made, and all sorts of useful knowledge can be gathered. It's as valuable as a night at White's. Sometimes more so. Relationships of all sorts are the most important part of my job."

She listened to this solemnly. "Is that why you didn't duck in time when Lord Farquar swung for you? Because your guard was down?"

Her sky blue eyes were wide with faux innocence.

"If blue was not so decidedly your color, Keating, I would call you out for such insolence."

She merely smiled happily, basking in his feigned outrage. "Duels. Just one of the many, many things that only men are allowed to do."

He snorted. "Yes, it's desperately unfair that young women can't go about challenging each other to duels. Think of the carnage over sleeves."

"I imagine you're right. But poisonous subtlety as a weapon has its limits. And I've no practice at that, either. So far, I'm a failure as a crocodile."

"The possibility of a duel is admittedly a useful sort of option for a man to carry about in his masculine quiver, so to speak."

"The threat of sudden death?" she said lightly. "I imagine it would be."

"Mainly because Farquar knows that I would shoot him if I called him out for hitting me. And now he's on his back foot, which is precisely where I like my political opponents. Uncertain and beholden to me."

He supposed he'd said it in order to make certain she did not take to viewing him as anything like cuddly or benevolent or benign. He also—and this surprised him—was trying once again to impress her, as he had last night, because she was clever, and he realized with some surprise that he considered her worth impressing.

She took this in, her face ever so faintly troubled and thoroughly fascinated. He was accustomed to seeing this expression on women.

"Would you, indeed? Shoot him, that is?"

"Well, yes. If I'd agreed to duel him, certainly. The alternative is that he would shoot me, and we can't have that."

"Have you shot anyone before?"

"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to, Keating."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Yes," he said evenly.

She was quiet.

"The man in question objected to the way I expressed my views on the way he'd been deceiving orphan children into working for his textile mill—they are promised things that never transpire, like adequate food and pay, and are tricked into agreeing to work for him until the age of eighteen. Admittedly, I was, ah, colorfully blunt and rather personal." He smiled ruefully. "I may have disparaged his parentage. And he called me out. I thought it was best to address this in a way that no one could misunderstand or forget. And this is how Farquar knows I'm just mad enough to perhaps do it, and that I am a very good shot. Shooting someone in order to kill them is one thing. Shooting to wound them in order to make a point is another." He smiled faintly. "That takes a special kind of skill."

"Well," she said uncertainly.

"I've only needed to do it once," he said. "Though funnily enough, there's something about me that people want to challenge."

"Funnily enough," she repeated after a pause of exquisitely perfect duration.

He found himself smiling at her again, and she was smiling at him, for the most peculiar instant he could not feel his feet against the floor.

"Will you be dancing this evening, Keating? Or should I assume your placement by the greenery is an indication of how your season is going?"

"I do have a few names on my dance card tonight," she said cheerily. "My friend Miss Lucy Morrow made the introductions. Lucy is dancing with Mr. Hargrove, a young man she's known for quite some time and I believe would like to marry. I believe it is the same man Miss Seaver would also like to marry. She has known him nearly as long."

He shook his head gravely. "I foresee pistols at dawn for all of them in the future, Keating."

She smiled at this, more fully this time.

"What about you?" he asked suddenly. "Will you be throwing your hat into Mr. Hargrove's ring?"

"I haven't yet decided. I've only danced with him once. I know a good deal about him, however, because he talked and talked about himself. He scarcely took a breath. He shot the most grouse at a house party a fortnight ago. His horse is named Benjamin. And so forth."

"Well, it helps to be armed with information about a person before you marry them. Thoughtful of him to supply you with it."

She quirked the corner of her mouth. "Thoughtfulness is a good quality in a man." She absently touched her necklace then. He noticed she did that now and again, as if to reassure herself it was still there.

A swift glance told him the pearl dangling from it had vanished into her cleavage.

Unbidden he imagined gently sliding a finger into that shadow between her creamy breasts, looping a finger beneath the chain, and slowly, gently gliding the pearl out.

Momentarily his head emptied of thought as though blasted away by lightning and his groin tightened.

Shaken, he turned his head away from her abruptly.

Men, he thought, darkly, were simply base, there was no help for it.

He stared down the hall, the direction from which he'd come, for a few silent moments. Someone ought to look after Keating's welfare, and looking after her welfare meant maintaining propriety, and that meant the two of them ought not be alone.

He returned his gaze to her. Her eyelashes were thick and dark, and he could see the little shadows they lay against her cheek when she turned her head. He stared at them. And suddenly those shadows felt like the subtlest, softest of traps. He could not move away if he tried.

"I know nearly everyone in the ton. I might be able to help narrow your choices, in the name of efficiency," he offered casually.

He shoved to the back of his mind the little voice that told him this suggestion was not entirely altruistic. Because the truth was worrisome: he wanted an excuse to hear her thoughts. About nearly anything.

"Oh!" She looked up at him gratefully. "That might be helpful. Thank you."

She handed over her little dance card.