Chapter Four

“T hese look very good,” Mr. Meade assured Jess as the printer looked through her most recent set of watercolor paintings of rare plants and flowers. “Exactly what Sir Percival had in mind, I’m certain.”

Pride warmed her chest, yet it was a bittersweet compliment. The pictures would never be noted as hers. Her name would never appear on them, and she wouldn’t receive any recognition in the book Sir Percival Demmings had commissioned to impress his fellows at the Royal Society. If any prints were made from her drawings, she wouldn’t receive any credit or pay for those, either. She wasn’t even allowed to sign them. The most she could do was secretly weave her initials into the greenery surrounding the flowers. She knew those initials proved her work, if no one else ever would.

“I’ll have the rest done soon,” she promised.

That is, she hoped she would. Creating the paintings and drawings wasn’t easy. It required hour-long carriage trips to the royal gardens at Kew, then hours of frantic drawing and painting while the light held, followed by an hour’s carriage ride home and even more touch-ups once she was back in the townhouse, which she, Amanda, and Aunt Matilda rented specifically because the tall, wide windows gave her a place to create her art. Her art was the only way she had of earning extra money for herself. Auntie had an annual allowance from her late brother that kept them living comfortably, if a bit frugally, and she refused to let Jess use her money for any of the household expenses, which meant she had been able to save almost all the money she’d earned from her art. But Jess didn’t care about the money. She loved her art, and it brought her joy to capture the beauty of the flowers and the unique details of plants that most people would never have noticed.

Yet she yearned to be known as an artist in her own right, not someone who was little more than a secretary for gentlemen botanists.

Someday, she promised herself, she would be.

“Bring the rest by when they’re finished,” Mr. Meade commented a bit absently as he held up a pastel drawing of pink rhododendrons and studied it closely. He gave a faint grunt of approval. “Very good…very good indeed.”

She knew better than to ask, yet she couldn’t resist. “Good enough perhaps to someday have my own book of prints?”

Mr. Meade chuckled, as if he found the idea amusing. “The world isn’t ready for a lady artist.”

Jess bit her tongue even as the litany of names of accomplished women artists dashed through her head…Louise Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Rosalba Carriera, Mary Moser, Angelica Kauffmann, Artemisia Gentileschi, and most of all Maria Sibylla Merian, who was not only a painter and illustrator but also a biologist and explorer… But Jess had never been one for restraint and blurted out, “You’ll be sure to let me know when the world is ready, then, will you?”

Which only made him laugh harder.

She refused to let her shoulders slump and held her spine straight, despite the sting to her pride. Aunt Matilda was right, she supposed, that she should be grateful to have her illustrations in print at all. Still, the unfairness of the world grated, especially when she was just as good an artist—if not better—than most male illustrators.

But that fight would have to wait for another time. She had more pressing matters at hand.

“And the other?” she asked.

“Hmm? Oh! Yes.” Mr. Meade set down the drawing on his large printer’s desk and opened the center drawer to fish out a handful of banknotes. He counted out what she was owed, then closed and locked the drawer. He slid the notes across the desk to her. “You’ve certainly earned it. I’ve no doubt Sir Percival would agree.”

She picked up the banknotes and tucked them safely inside her reticule. She hadn’t meant the money, so she corrected as casually as possible, “Were any letters delivered for me?” She smiled almost apologetically as she fastened up her leather portfolio to leave. “You said I could have messages sent here while I’m working on the book.”

The two things weren’t related at all, but she didn’t dare let Mr. Meade know that. If she were to communicate with the former Bow Street Runner she’d hired to investigate Lucien Grenier, she could only do it via letters, and she couldn’t risk that someone might find out what she was doing if the letters came to her home. Servants talked, after all— especially those servants hired only for the season—and she couldn’t afford even a whiff of scandal to be connected to Amanda until she was good and married.

“Of course.” He stepped around the desk to a set of shelves fashioned out of broken printer’s trays and removed a letter lying in the bottom hole. He held it out to her. “Here you are.”

As she took it, a quick glance told her it was the message she’d been waiting for and one that would cost her half the notes she’d just tucked into her reticule.

“Good day, Miss St Claire.” With a nod, Mr. Meade opened the door to his office. He escorted her through the print shop to the front door and the hired hackney waiting for her.

“Back to Mayfair please,” she called out to the jarvey as she stepped into the carriage and closed the door after herself.

Alone in the compartment as the creaking carriage rolled forward through the busy streets, she set her leather portfolio on the bench beside her and took out the letter. She cracked the seal and unfolded it, then held her breath as her eyes skimmed over the information.

Her hopes plummeted.

Jonas Stevenson, her hired investigator, had found nothing new about the Duke of Crewe that Jess could use to force him to marry Amanda. The only information he had found involved prostitutes, widows, gambling losses, and illegal fights in the rookeries of London—all what she had known about already. But he would be happy to keep looking if she wanted to extend her retainer.

“Yes, I think I will,” she muttered to herself.

After all, her plan was going remarkably well so far. All kinds of rumors were spreading about Crewe and creating confusion among the ton about exactly how dark his character truly was. According to the gossip sheets Aunt Matilda loved to read, everyone looked at him differently now. Mamas who would have previously hidden their daughters behind their skirts the moment he walked into the building, as if his very presence would corrupt them, now gave him welcoming smiles and sent him invitations to their soirees. He’d been invited to join several Westminster committees by respectable members of Parliament who previously wouldn’t have given him the time of day, and several gentleman’s clubs who once would have refused his membership application were courting him to join. Across London, the beau monde now considered him just another reformed rake.

Jess should have been pleased. Not only was she hitting him where it hurt him most, but with every bit of his reputation she rehabilitated into respectability, she also helped Amanda by improving the standing of her future husband.

But Jess also knew the road ahead would be difficult for her sister, even under the best of circumstances, and that knowledge ate at her more than she wanted to admit. Even turning the Duke of Crewe into a canonized saint wouldn’t eliminate that completely.

What on earth had Amanda been thinking by going off alone with that devil in the first place?

The carriage slowed as it reached the end of Paternoster Row, to turn onto the wider avenue running past St Paul’s churchyard.

Without warning, the carriage door flew open. Jess gave a soft gasp as a large body swung inside and landed on the bench opposite hers. A very large, very male body.

“Hello, pet.” Lucien Grenier, Duke of Crewe, offered her a charming grin. “Fancy meeting you again.”

Speak of the devil … Jess’s heart leapt into her throat and lodged itself there. “Leave,” she somehow managed to croak out around it. “Leave this instant!”

“’Fraid I can’t do that.” He settled back against the faded squabs and kicked his long legs out diagonally across the compartment. “You see, while you were inside the print shop, I paid your driver well to slow down so I could climb inside, and I wouldn’t want to let good blunt go to waste.”

“You….paid him to…” She blinked her suddenly wide eyes, then slammed shut her mouth as she glared at him. “That’s despicable!”

He quirked a brow. “Says the woman who’s been spreading lies about me.”

Her heart skipped. He knew.

“At first, I thought it was your sister who was after me,” he said as casually as if discussing nothing more distressing than the weather. “But I heard she’s left London, which means it’s you who’s been working to ruin my perfectly good reputation.”

“Your reputation is as black as pitch,” she corrected.

“Which makes it so perfectly good as far as I’m concerned. The question is…” He leveled a hard gaze on her that belied his teasing banter. “Why?”

Oh, he was infuriating! “You know why.”

“Truly, I don’t.”

She wrapped her hands in her pelisse to keep from leaping across the compartment and scratching his eyes out. “You ruined my sister.”

“I did no such thing. You’re the only one who saw us together that night.” He summarized pointedly, “No witnesses, no scandal… Ergo, no ruination. So why the devil are you annoying me?”

“You ruined her,” Jess repeated and leaned forward on her seat. “You seduced her and left her…” With child. She couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud. Not to this horrible rake.

“I left her in her sister’s loving care and sent her away, perfectly fine and as pure as the driven snow. Well,” he amended with a shrug of his broad shoulders, “at least I thought she was pure. I wouldn’t know.”

“How dare you!” Her fingers clenched the pelisse so hard her knuckles turned white. “My sister is one of the most respectable and proper young ladies who—”

“Which is why I left her in your care instead of convincing her to send you away and remain behind with me.” He clucked his tongue. “Do try to keep up, will you?”

Just one scratch, just one claw at his eyes… It would feel so good! “You ruined her, and now you’re going to do the responsible thing by marrying her.”

“No.”

Jess blinked, unprepared for such a blunt answer. “No?”

He leaned forward to imitate her confrontational posture and repeated with mocking exaggeration, drawing out the single syllable word into twenty, “Nooooooo.”

Chuckling at the way Jess gaped at him, he eased back on the bench, removed his hat, and tossed it onto the cushion beside him, revealing a head of thick, chestnut curls. How many women had run their fingers through his hair? Better yet, how many had wanted to yank it out of his scalp the way she did?

She knew now why Amanda had succumbed to him. The man was certainly one of the most handsome gentlemen she’d ever laid eyes on. And the blasted devil knew it, too.

But she would not fall for his charms.

She pulled in a deep breath, praying she could force down the embarrassment—and fury—heating her cheeks, and repeated, “You ruined my sister, and now you will marry her.”

His eyes shined with amusement. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll ruin you .”

Her soft words landed like cannon fire in the suddenly very small compartment, and for a long moment, he said nothing, only moving a critical gaze over her from bonnet to slippers, as if sizing up an opponent. Good. Because she planned on giving him the fight of his life if he didn’t do the gentlemanly thing.

“I don’t know why your terrible reputation is so precious to you, Your Grace.” She did her best to ignore the hard thumping of her heart against her ribs and the tingles stirring at the backs of her knees. “But you covet it. You take pride in being the blackest peer in Westminster. A gambler’s gambler and frequent guest at London’s most notorious brothels. Seducer of innocent ladies. Scapegrace. Blackguard. Rakehell.”

“My! Such compliments! You’re going to make me blush.”

“Nothing makes you blush because you have no shame.” She couldn’t stop herself now that her true feelings for him rushed out. “Even worse, you have no one and nothing in this world who truly cares about you or what happens to you. I would say that makes you pathetic, except that you enjoy leading such an empty, cold life that you’d probably take pride in it.” She shook her head. “The truth is that if you fell into the Thames and drowned, no one would care except the men at White’s, to check the book to see who won the bet over how you died.”

He didn’t move when she leveled those charges against him, but she would have sworn she saw his smile turn hard, his dark eyes gleam cold. Had he been any other man, she might have said her barbs pricked him. But not him. This man had no honor to damage.

“You have no idea of the kind of man I truly am,” he murmured, his eyes not leaving hers.

“And I don’t want to know except for how to use it against you to keep my sister from ruin,” she returned in the same low, cold voice. “I would do anything for Amanda. Even take on an irredeemable devil like you.” She tilted her head as she studied him. “Do you know they call you the Duke of Disgrace behind your back?”

“They call me a lot of things, Jessamyn.”

The sound of her given name twirled up her spine. “I’m Miss St Claire to you.” She flashed him a crocodile smile. “Until we become family when you wed my sister.”

“And you want to shackle your sister to—what was it?—a scapegrace, blackguard, rakehell, gambler’s gambler, and seducer of innocent ladies? That’s an odd way to show sisterly love.”

“I’d marry her to Lucifer himself to save her reputation.” She cast a glance over him, then sniffed dismissingly. “But I suppose that wedding you is the same thing.”

He laughed, but something about the sound struck her as stilted.

“So let me be clear, Your Grace. I have every intention of taking away what you hold most dear—your black reputation—one piece at a time.” She forced herself to lean casually back against the squabs when she was anything at that moment but calm. “But I will offer a truce. I’ll stop my attacks against you if you marry my sister. Refuse, and I’ll turn you into the most respectable English aristocrat since Alfred the Great.”

“You can’t.”

“I’ve done a bang-up job of it so far. In fact, the latest on dit claims you just funded a new Bible school in Cheapside. You even donated twenty Bibles to the cause because you believe every child should be instilled with solid Church of England values. The Bishop of London plans on commending you personally himself.” Well, that last was a bit of a fib. But she had spent the last of her advance for Sir Percival’s book to buy the Bibles as a gift from the Duke of Crewe, and the local parish was exceedingly grateful. She shrugged. “Go ahead and deny it. Shout it out into the wind! After all, the more you protest, the more everyone will believe it.”

He answered with a shrug of his own. “Maybe I don’t care what people think of me. Maybe I’m perfectly fine with letting my reputation be cleansed. After all, ladies love a reformed rake.”

“Ah, but you do care, and that’s all that matters to me. I won’t stop attacking you until you marry Amanda.”

“If I married every gel who claimed I compromised her, I’d have more wives than an Arabian sultan.”

Jess didn’t find his comment amusing in the least. But Crewe gave a low chuckle, whether at his own joke or her consternation she couldn’t have said.

He curiously moved his gaze over her. “You can imagine my surprise when I discovered who must have been behind my sudden explosion of charitable generosity,” he commented thoughtfully. “Except that I expected my enemy to be your sister, not you.” He added in a low murmur, “Not some beautiful bluestocking.”

Her heart skittered at the compliment, and immediately, she hated herself for it. “If you think—”

“But a pretty face won’t sway me into jumping into marriage.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, to drive home his point. “Let me be very clear. I have no intention of marrying anyone, especially not your sister. So you can do yourself a favor and stop all this charitable nonsense right now, or you’ll force me to do something you’ll regret.”

A threat. Jess had never taken kindly to those, and she wouldn’t start now with this man. “I’m not one of your courtesans or merry widows, Your Grace. You cannot cow me.”

“Believe me, Jessamyn.” This time, the sound of her name was a purring murmur that shot straight down to her core and began to gently pulse there like a flickering flame. “The last thing I want from you is to be cowed.”

“Then our war continues.” Jess raised her chin. “Because I won’t stop until you surrender.”

“Good, because I do so love surrendering to a beautiful woman. In every way.”

Heat spiked in her cheeks. “That isn’t at all what I meant, and you know it!” Her voice emerged far huskier than she’d intended, due to her fury, she was certain. “I would never —”

He lunged forward and captured her mouth beneath his.

Jess was too stunned to move, too startled to react. Her mind went blank, and the only awareness she had was of his large body hovering over hers, not touching her except for his mouth. But what surprised her most was how soft his sensuous lips were as they moved cajolingly against hers, how the masculine scent of him filled up her senses.

Slap him, a voice inside her screamed. Slap him!

But her foolish heart simply ignored it and beat away wildly, enjoying this wholly improper kiss from a notorious rake. A tingling warmth seeped through her, all the way down to her fingertips and toes, and she softened against the squabs behind her as any resolve to stop him dissolved away.

Yet there was nothing seductive about the kiss. Even with Jess’s limited experience with men, she recognized it for what it was—

A warning.

When he finally broke the kiss and sat back, his gaze dropped to her mouth, still open in surprise. He languidly brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. “Never say never, Jessamyn.”

Then he was gone as quickly as he had appeared.