Barbara Metzger (17 page)

“Fine, fine. Why don’t we go visit his office? You can get a look-see at the place and show him the pages. That way he can get the presses rolling, ha-ha.”

“Right now, in the rain?” Sydney wouldn’t get in Bella’s carriage with that impossible coachman on a clear day. She surely would not trust his driving on slippery roads with bad visibility. “I, ah, felt a tickle in my throat and thought I should stay inside today, the weather being so foul and all.”

“Right you are, dearie. ‘Sides, if I take the book to him on my way home, you’ll have a decision that much sooner. And if Mr. Murray can call in person, so can Mr. Chesterton.”

* * * *

Mr. Oliver Chesterton was not quite what Sydney had expected in her daring new partner. Then again, he certainly was dressed creatively.

Chester refused to wear his own clothes when Bella insisted he had to look ink-stained, and the only chap his size to die that week was a Macaroni who’d succumbed to wet pavement and high heels. They managed to get the wheel marks off the checkered Cossack trousers. So there Chester was for his appointment with Miss Lattimore and her five hundred pounds, in black and white trousers, a puce coat, and cherry-striped waist. He had a huge boutonniere and shirt collars starched so high he could barely turn his head. His thin hair was slicked back with pomatum, and a rat-brown mustache was affixed under his nose. The false hair tickled, so he’d kept trimming it until the thing looked more like a rattail on his lip. He wore thick spectacles to make him look more bookish. Like Bella said, now he could stop looking for Lord Mayne behind every bush; he couldn’t see the bush.

Before he left, Randy had spattered him with ink and then dipped each of his fingers in the pot. Everyone knew printers had ink under their fingernails, he said. Bella said he looked more like an acrobat she saw at a fair once, who walked on his hands right through the cow-judging tent.

If it weren’t for the glasses, the ink, and Mrs. Ott’s recommendation, Sydney would have thought him a park saunterer at best, a cardsharp at worst. She supposed his nasal accent was from Yarmouth, and his reed-thin frame a result of investing his life’s savings in his business. He was assuredly not a reference for Bella’s cooking.

Bella made the introductions and Mr. Chesterton reached out to shake her hand, curiously with his left. When that awkward moment was past and Mr. Chesterton found his seat, he got down to business. For a thousand pounds he would publish the book and she would keep all profits. For five hundred, they would split the earnings.

“I do think the manuscript has great possibilities, Miss Lattimore, so I would be willing to gamble,” Mr. Chesterton offered. Mrs. Ott snorted into her tea. “But I do need the money in advance, you realize. I need to buy tickets—I mean, type faces.”

This was a big decision. For once in her life Sydney wasn’t eager to leap headfirst into unknown waters. Perhaps the fact of Chesterton leaving ink stains like pawprints on her mama’s good china had something to do with it. Perhaps Lord Mayne’s lectures had finally paid off. Then again, perhaps she only needed more time to decide between the five-hundred or thousand-pound arrangement.

Sydney told her guests that since it was such a major investment, she would have to consult the general and, no, she did not feel the need to inspect the premises.

“Thank you for coming in person, Mr. Chesterton,” she told him, holding out her hand. She held out her left hand, assuming there must be something amiss with his right.

Chester never saw her hand at all. “I won’t need to call again, will I? I mean, you can just send a check. Unless you change your mind about visiting us. Ma—Madam Ott can bring you.”

Chapter 17

Trust and Treachery

The general did not like any of the choices. Either that or he had something stuck in his throat. Wally, on duty that day, did not like the cut of Chesterton’s jib. And Winifred did not understand the dilemma at all.

“But, Sydney, if we do not have enough money for the rest of the Season, why don’t we just go home?”

“Because we would never have the chance to leave home again. Because Grandfather’s pension will not be ours forever, and because you have the opportunity to make a good alliance.”

“But what if I do not want to make a fine marriage, Syd? What if I thought being an officer’s wife would suit me better, or a gentleman farmer’s?”

* * * *

A pox on both the Mainwaring brothers, Sydney thought, ripping up another note to the viscount. Drat the smooth-talking rake who could turn a girl’s head, and drat his younger brother too.

She tried another sheet of stationery. She couldn’t even decide on the salutation!
Dear Lord Mayne,
or
My dear Lord Mayne?
Stuff! Where was the cursed man when she needed him? Brennan said he was back in town. Wasn’t it just typical of the contrary cad to make her write to ask his advice, when
he
was the one always mouthing propriety at her? Even Sydney knew it was totally improper for a young lady to be writing to a gentleman’s residence. And heavens, she did not want to write this letter!

It was humiliating enough that she needed his money, and worse that she needed his name for entry to the publishers. Now she needed his advice as a man about town, and swallowing all the pages she had shredded would be easier than swallowing her pride. It wasn’t that she wanted to see him, she told herself, just that she needed to see him. And he hadn’t called.

She started again:
Your Lordship.

* * * *

Forrest Mainwaring despised gossip. He hated it worse when his name was mentioned. He was not in town over two hours when the gossip caught up to him. Something about his protégé, Miss Lattimore, of course, but how much of a hubble-bubble could even Sydney get into with the general’s memoirs? He needed another day to track his friend Murray through the coffee shops before he had his answer. A partial answer anyway.

The next morning he went for a hard ride on a half-broken stallion. Later he worked out at Gentleman Jackson’s. After luncheon at White’s he took on Brennan in a fencing match at Deauville’s. Now, he felt, he was ready to face Miss Sydney Lattimore. He was too physically and mentally drained to lose either his temper or his self-control.

He hadn’t counted on the joy written on her face when she flew down the stairs to greet him, wearing a Pomona green muslin gown that swirled close to her rounded limbs. His traitorous body overcame exhaustion and rose to the occasion.

“You came!” She beamed, for she never had gotten around to posting a note. “You must have known I needed your advice.”

Her smile made him feel like a slug for putting the visit off so long. Hell, he would have put it off for a lifetime rather than tie himself in knots like this. Nevertheless, he flicked a speck of lint off his sleeve and drawled at his most blasé, “Never tell me the indomitable Miss Lattimore has at last recognized the need to consult wiser heads about something.”

She giggled at his affected manner, and his resolve to keep his distance fled. Ignoring her chaperone, the general fast asleep in his Bath chair across the room, Forrest sat on the sofa next to her instead of the chair opposite. He draped his arm across the back, where he just might touch the nape of her perfect, graceful neck. What was lower than a slug? He sighed, got up, and moved his seat. Polishing his quizzing glass, he wondered, “This mightn’t have anything to do with a certain manuscript, would it?”

“Yes. You see, I’ve had this wonderful offer, but it is not quite wonderful, I think, and I thought—” But she never wrote the note, asking him to call. Uncertain, she asked, “That is, how did you know? I suppose my pea-wit of a sister mentioned it to Lord Mainwaring.”

“She may have, but that’s not how. I merely had to visit my club to hear your name—and mine—on everyone’s lips.”

Sydney felt the need to inspect her kid half-boots. “I, ah, didn’t think you’d care. That is, no one would speak to me otherwise, and you said how much influence you have, and it was not dangerous, illegal, or scandalous, so I cannot see why you mind.”

“It’s not so much that I mind, poppet, as I do not understand what you were trying to do. No one does.”

The “no one” was ominous. Sydney rushed on. “What is so difficult? I was trying to get the general’s memoirs published, and received nothing but insults at first, your name or not. If certain persons were so quick to inform you I was trading on our acquaintance, for which I do apologize since you don’t seem best pleased—but then, you never are, are you?—they should also have mentioned the poor treatment I received. Why, if they wanted money, those publishing gentlemen should have been above board about it like Mr. Chesterton, instead of maligning the general’s work.”

As usual when dealing with Miss Sydney Lattimore, the viscount felt he was missing something crucial. Perhaps he’d been watching her lips too carefully and hadn’t heard an important fact. Then again, he’d always believed she was the one missing something important, in her brain box.

“Hold, Mischief. I spoke to Murray and he had only high praise for the general’s writing.”

“You know Mr. Murray?”

“Yes, he’s a good friend. He was eager to ask me about the manuscript, knowing I had an interest in this quarter. He was most desirous of talking to the general or finding out if there were any notes, or anyone else who might be able to finish the work.”

“F-finish it?” The color had left Sydney’s face, leaving a row of freckles across her nose.

“Do you mean you never read it, you goosecap? You were trying to peddle a book you never read?”

“I—I read the first few pages. There wasn’t time, and I knew all the adventures anyway. The first chapter was full of dry-as-dust details.”

“Then you would not have liked the rest of the book any better, Mischief, for they were all the same chapter! According to Murray, some gave more attention to the battles, some to other generals’ viewpoints. But they were all the same chapter!”

Sydney did not understand. She was worrying her lip in that way she had of driving him to distraction. Forrest got up and turned his back on her to inspect a Dresden shepherdess on the mantel. “The general was a perfectionist, it seems, not a writer. He could never get the facts to come out like the exciting stories he used to tell his granddaughter, but he kept trying. Over and over. Murray says he would have done fine with a little guidance. It’s too late now, isn’t it?” he asked quietly.

Sydney just nodded.

“I’m sorry, Mischief,” Forrest said, returning to her side, and she believed him.

She forced a tremulous smile. “It was a good plan, though, wasn’t it?”

He raised her hand to his lips. “One of your best, sweetheart.”

Sydney felt a glow spread through her—and then a raging inferno. She snatched her hand away and jumped to her feet. “Why, that miserable, contemptible, low-down—”

“Murray? I swear he didn’t—”

“No, Mr. Chesterton, the publisher! He liked the book! He said it was sure to be a best seller. He was going to print it with brown calf bindings and little gold corners—with my money! Why, that maw-worm was trying to diddle me out of my whole bank account! He must have heard how green I was from those other publishers, the bounder. Wait till I see him again. I’ll—”

“Chesterton? You don’t mean Otto Chester, do you? Pale, thin, nervous-looking chap?”

“He was pale and thin, but his name was definitely Oliver Chesterton. Why? Who is Otto Chester?”

Now the viscount was up and pacing. “An insect that I should have squashed when I had the chance! He’s the associate in 0. Randall and Associates. You remember, the backroom banker. Otto Chester is the double-dealer who cheated Bren, then handed his forged markers to Randall for collection. I never thought he’d have the guts or the gumption to—”

“To come after me for the money you stole from them!” Sydney screamed.

“I did not steal the bloody money,” he shouted back. “I told you, they got it dishonestly, so they were not entitled to the blunt!”

“Well, I’ll just inform them of that fact the next time they come to tea!”

The general jerked awake and looked around to see if they were under attack. Sydney tucked the blankets back around his knees and turned his chair so he could look out the window. She grabbed Forrest’s sleeve and dragged him to the other side of the room.

The viscount pried her fingers loose before his superfine was damaged beyond repair. “They are not coming anywhere near you. I’ll see to that! And they’ll be dashed sorry they ever tried, too.”

Sydney clutched her hands together to keep from wringing them like a tragedy queen. “Couldn’t I just give the money back? If I had it to give, I mean. What I haven’t spent? Maybe they would go away then.”

The viscount took on the expression a cat might wear once it has the mouse between its paws. “They’ll be going away for a very long time.”

Sydney laughed nervously. “Here I thought they were your partners. Can you imagine?”

“Don’t start that again, Mischief. Fiend seize it, do I look like an Otto?”

Healthy, tanned, strong, and confident, he did not resemble Mr. Chesterton in the least. She shook her head and smiled up at him.

He brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek. “Thanks, sweetheart. Now, listen, I do not want you even to think about contacting this dirty dish or giving him a groat. I’ll track him down and take care of everything. You don’t have to worry. Trust me.”

* * * *

Trust me.
Isn’t that what the snake said to Eve? Besides, how could she trust a man who was branded a rake by his own lips? By his own lips on hers, if she needed more proof! She still was not sure he wouldn’t hold her to personal repayment of the loan—very personal. She wasn’t even sure she would refuse!

Of course she would, Sydney told herself firmly. On the other hand, it would be far better if she could dissolve the worrisome debt and never let the question come up. She wondered, alone in her room, what might happen if she were independent and able to meet Forrest more as a social equal. Not that Miss Lattimore from Little Dedham could ever be the equal of the lofty Lord Mayne, but a girl could dream, couldn’t she? She’d once tamed some wild kittens. How much harder could it be to reform a rake?