E
vangeline gripped the banister before she pitched headlong down the stairway. Benton Gray turned her into an idiot. Her heart had been beating so wildly when she went upstairs that her brain must have been deprived of whatever it needed to think straight. That brick had spooked her more than she had let on, and when she heard the floors creak above, she had been sure she was about to be murdered.
Damn. She’d left her walking stick somewhere in the mess they’d made.
Fornicating on a table—
what
had come over her? She couldn’t blame her euphoria at seeing Ben solely on relief that she was not confronting a dangerous blackguard. For
he
was a dangerous blackguard, every inch of him. One minute she was looking at a drawing in the dust, and the next she was opening her legs to the dangerous blackguard himself.
Evangeline brushed her hair back from her forehead. She simply couldn’t lose herself to lust. Evangeline had worked too hard over the years to beat those feminine urges down. Her brief experimentation with the two other gentlemen had been an abysmal failure.
She hadn’t lied to Ben—she was happy as she was. Busy. Solving problems. But Benton Gray was a problem she couldn’t seem to solve.
She ambled over to her desk and frowned. The bag of honeyed tiles was now on her chair, and beneath it was a torn scrap of paper. She glanced around the office quickly, but no one was lurking in the corner. As she had told Ben, anyone could have visited the office, and apparently someone had while they were upstairs breaking furniture.
Evangeline picked up the note, then dropped it to the floor as if it singed her fingers.
“Ben!” she screamed. “Come down here at once!”
He took her at her word and flew down the stairs. Benton Gray was wearing his pants, just. He clutched them in front of him, bare-chested and barefoot. “What’s wrong?”
“You are not dressed!”
“Of course I’m not! You were screaming! Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course. Please go back and put your clothes on.”
“Not until you tell me why you sounded like a banshee.”
Evie flushed. It was not like her to act missish, to call on the big strong man for help. Perhaps she was overreacting, but the crudely spelled letter had shaken her.
“What’s this?” Ben bent to the floor, picked up the dirty paper and read aloud the same words she had:
This waz a warning. U better do as I tell U or U will B sorry.
“What the hell? A warning? What are we supposed to do?”
“Someone must have come in while we were—uh, upstairs. First the brick, then the Es. Someone wants to stop us.”
“From doing what?
The Times
interview you gave on our own front page today explained the change of direction of
The London List.
We’ll not be like the man holding the muck-rake in
Pilgrim’s Progress
looking down at the filth any longer. That was a very nice literary allusion, by the way.”
“Th-thank you,” Evangeline said faintly. She wished he’d at least put on his shirt or she’d never get a crack at a celestial crown. Could one still feel sexual longing after being so thoroughly pleasured?
The answer was, regrettably, yes.
Ben’s chest was broad, with a faint fuzz of golden hair strategically placed to show off his muscles to best advantage, his arms corded. Strong arms, that held her as if she would break when they weren’t trying to break down her disillusions. She didn’t need him, she didn’t
want
him in her life.
She scooped up the bag of letters and sat down in her chair. Ben went to the front door and locked it against the next intruder.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t move. Don’t answer the door to anyone.”
Evangeline nodded, shivering. The little stove hadn’t been fed since early this morning. She supposed it might be all right if she got up off her chair for that. She tossed a few shovelfuls of coal in, wishing the odor of coal wasn’t so noxious. A giant gray cloud hung over parts of London in the winter. It almost made her long for the frigid fresh air of Scotland.
She’d been happy to come to London when her father won the newspaper though. Ramsey Hall was collapsing into its own corners. The house in Argyll had seemed like a prison for all her nervous energy. While her father still roamed the tables, she was stuck like the spinster she was, with a handful of servants and a quiverful of cats. No amount of judicious housekeeping could help stabilize the walls or put enough food on the table.
Evangeline wondered what the cats were doing now. There certainly had been enough mice to keep
them
fed.
Ben returned, covered and concerned. “Let me see the letter again.”
She pushed it across the desk.
“Someone got in today to despoil the sorts with honey. I thought at first it might have been a mishap. Either you or the glassworker or the boys. But this note says otherwise.”
“Mischief. All the better to hire someone immediately and have them live upstairs. I’ll have to draw new plans.” He winked at her.
She refused to be charmed. “The ad says we’ll begin to see applicants tonight, but I think we’ll have some men come much sooner. It would be helpful to show them prospective housing.”
“I’ll tidy up the remains of the table. I know we’ve got some furnishings in my attic that can be used. You can come home with me and pick some things out and we can hire a wagon to deliver them.”
“I can’t leave the office!” Even though the paper had gone out just this morning, the workweek never really ended.
“You’ll not stay here by yourself waiting to be terrorized by some illiterate candidate for Bedlam. We’ll leave a note on the door.”
“But the advertisers—”
“Can wait. Everything can wait, Evie. We’ll be back here before six, when the interviews were scheduled. I think you need to put your feet up and have a cup of tea. A proper lunch. And if we find the building burned down when we get back, there will be one less thing for you to worry about.”
“Don’t joke, Ben! People depend on me.”
“But who do you depend on, Evie?”
His question rang in the empty air, although he had asked it softly. “Myself.”
“Today you are off the hook. We’ll send a note to your house, let Mrs. Spencer know that you aren’t coming home.”
Evangeline bit a lip. Her father expected her.
But did he? He might not even know midday from midnight.
More hours spent with Ben in the privacy of his townhouse would do nothing for her resolve to keep away from him. “Will your mother be home?”
“Alas, my mother is still with her sick friend. But that’s probably just as well. She was rather intrigued with you after she met you last week. Peppered me with some sharp questions. The old girl sometimes forgets I’m all grown up.”
The “old girl” hadn’t seemed so old to Evangeline. Ben must have been a sore trial to her over the years, always getting into one scandalous scrape or another. It was a wonder she wasn’t white-haired and wizened.
So, no chaperone. Evangeline shook her head. “I don’t think going to your house is a good idea.”
“Well, I’m not leaving you here alone, and that’s a fact. Put on your coat.”
There was no point to arguing, and Evangeline discovered she didn’t have the heart for it anyway. Benton Gray was wreaking havoc with her well-ordered life, and there didn’t seem to be a thing she could do about it.
He fiddled with the damper of the stove while she took her coat off its peg. In a minute they had locked up and nodded to the little chestnut-seller on the corner. Impulsively, Ben bought some of the hot treats, shoving them into Evangeline’s pockets to keep her warm. He flagged down a cab and they were off.
Today there was no flirtation in the seats—he sat opposite her, looking worried.
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you need to ask? Ever since I bought
The List,
there’s been trouble of one kind or another. I wonder if I should increase the staff at my residence. If someone is threatening the office, they may target my home as well. I’ll tell my mother to stay at Lady Applegate’s until we get this straightened out.”
“Oh.” He must be concerned for his mother. Despite his gentle teasing about her, she knew they were close.
“You look tired, Evie. Even the circles under your eyes have circles.”
“Thank you,” she said dryly. “You didn’t seem to notice them a little while ago.”
“I was overcome by gratitude that you didn’t slay me on the spot with your deadly cane. Where is it, by the way?”
“I left it upstairs.” She examined her left-hand glove, which needed a stitch or two. “We cannot do what we did again, Ben. You know it as well as I do.”
“So you’ve already told me. I’ve a good memory. I’ll try to control my animal urges if you try to control yours. Now, don’t glare at me like that—you don’t frighten me. Much. Let’s talk about what it takes to outfit a suitable lodging for a pressman.”
Evangeline had set up many a home for herself and her father over the years, and despite her general disinterest in domestic arrangements, began to rattle off a sizeable list. To her surprise, Ben had pulled out a silver pencil and notepad and jotted everything down with unexpected organization.
When they reached his house, he forgot himself and extended a hand to help her out of the carriage. “Ben,” she growled, “your butler is watching.”
“Severson needs a good shock. The man thinks he knows everything about me. To see me being helpful to a frail colleague who’s forgotten his walking stick—”
“Do stubble it and put your damn hand down.”
Ben grinned and obeyed. Of course Evangeline’s boot touched a patch of ice on the pavement and she wobbled for a perilous moment before she righted herself.
“See? I could have saved you there.”
“I don’t need saving!”
“That’s what you think. Come on.” Ben jogged up the steps. “Severson, tell Mrs. Hargreaves I’ve brought Mr. Ramsey home for lunch. His sister was just here Saturday and raved about the refreshments she whipped up for that wedding. Striking family resemblance, what? Although I do think
Miss
Ramsey is prettier.” Ben clapped her on the back in manly camaraderie and practically threw her up against the console in the hallway.
Callum appeared to take their outer-clothes. “Good afternoon, Mr. Rams-Montague.”
Severson lifted a silver eyebrow. “That’s Mr. Ramsey to you, boy.”
Evangeline realized the lad remembered her from that night two weeks ago when she’d turned up foxed. “Th-that’s all right. He’s my c-cousin. We look a great deal alike.”
“Yes. Mr. Ramsey comes from a large family, and it’s getting larger by the hour. Have lunch sent up to us in the attics, Severson. We shall be working on a special project. Call around for a carter for later this afternoon—say, around three. We should be done by then, eh, Ramsey?” He whacked her on the back again. This time she was prepared and stopped herself before she hit the stair railing.
Another silver eyebrow was raised, but the butler merely nodded regally.
“You are a terrible liar,” Ben said as they climbed the stairs. “How did you manage to go underground to get all your exclusive stories?”
“I can so lie! But I’m better with a prepared script.”
“I’ve always found it’s important to think on one’s feet. To be ready for anything.”
“Bully for you.” The stairs were endless, but they finally reached uncarpeted pine at the upper reaches of the house. “Is your poor old butler going to have to trot up here?”
“He’ll probably send Callum or John. Right this way—duck your head, there’s a good fellow.”
The doorway was low, but the room Evangeline entered was high-ceilinged and lit by a pair of exquisite oriel windows complete with window seats. To think that such a lovely architectural detail was wasted on furniture under Holland covers and neatly stacked trunks. If Evangeline lived here, she’d make this a garret and write to her heart’s content in the hush from the street noise. The attic was warm, swept, and smelled of the bags of lavender hanging from the rafters, a far cry from the space above
The London List.
But they were here to transform it. She lifted a corner of glazed cloth to discover a tufted brocade chaise in perfectly good repair. “This is much too grand, Ben.”
“I’m sure we’ll find something that will do.” He stripped the linen from a club chair and sat down. No cloud of dust followed. This was the cleanest attic Evangeline had ever seen.
“There’s so much up here. Where should we begin?”
“First we’ll have lunch. It shouldn’t be long. Cook—Mrs. Hargreaves, that is—always has something going— she must get rid of three times as much as I ever could eat in a day.”