E
vie supposed she might have seen it coming. Seen
him
coming. One could not expect to goad the ton’s louch-est libertine without eventual consequences.
At first skewering Ben almost weekly had seemed a fine lark. He made it so easy, he and his string of mistresses and equally ramshackle friends. It was as if he were following a pattern book of bad behavior. Disappearing under some courtesan’s skirt in a pitch-black opera box? Tick. Cavorting nearly nude in Lord Egremont’s garden fountain with Lord Egremont’s wayward daughter and several other improper gentlemen? Tick yet again.
Poor Lord Egremont. Lady Imaculata Egremont had run away again and again, probably to escape the hideous name her parents had imposed upon her. No one should have to live up to being born “without stain.” It was tantamount to ensuring that their daughter would seek all manner of staining activities. Evangeline had stopped writing about the family—it gave her no pleasure to air Lady Imaculata’s tattered chemise in public any longer. And the truth was, her readership was bored with Lady Imaculata. Unless the girl did something truly spectacular—like take vows to become an Anglican nun—she had overstayed her few minutes of infamy.
Evangeline ran an ink-stained hand through her scandalously short ink-black hair. It was so much more convenient to be shorn like a man. When she had to don wigs to go undercover, as a footman or an actor or an Oxford student, there was much less heat and itch involved. In fact, it suited Evangeline to the ground to masquerade as a male. Made her business life simpler, too. People who braved her shop door rather than sending their adverts by messenger found a conservatively dressed young man who spoke little but lent a sympathetic ear to their predicaments. In her opinion, Evangeline provided a valuable service for society. She was matchmaker, employment agency, and patron of the arts all rolled into one. If it meant burying her useless femininity under a linen shirt and starched cravat, so be it. It was not as if she had much up top to be reckoned or wrestled with anyway.
And men moved around so much more easily in society—these past two years had been liberating to an amazing degree.
“You!”
Ben looked like a thundercloud, if thunderclouds looked like rumpled golden lions. He was, regrettably, more handsome than he was ten years ago when she had fallen so thoroughly in love with him that she had lost her virginity and her wits.
Evangeline decided to see how far she could get and lowered her timbre. “May I help you, sir?”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me! You know perfectly well who I am. What the hell are you playing at?”
Evangeline put on her most vacuous expression, the one that had served her well so many times as she blended into the scenery. “I’m afraid I fail to understand you, Mr.—or is it Lord? I shouldn’t like to cause any offense.”
“You’ve caused enough offense for four lifetimes, my girl. I’m not taken in by your breeches. I’ve seen your bottom before, Evangeline.”
It had been too much to hope that he wouldn’t recognize her. As he had just so crudely stated, they had known each other
very
well.
Ben waved his arm wildly around her office. “How have you gotten away with all this?”
“Not everyone has seen my bottom, Ben. People see what they expect to see. To most, I am a young man with dirty hands and a printing press that holds the promise of their future. I’ve done very well with
The List
.”
“At my expense! What does your father have to say about this?”
“He—he is not well.” And if her poor father ever figured out exactly what she was doing with the failing newspaper he’d won over a hand of cards, likely it would send him to meet his Maker. Robert Ramsey thought the business that kept a roof over their heads and a nursing staff round-the-clock was managed by Evangeline’s pressman Frank Hallett. Frank had higher aspirations than spending every Monday cranking out
The List
—he was an actor the rest of the week and had earned a standing ovation from Evangeline every time he reported to her father.
“I should think this career of yours would make him sick! And your hair! You look worse than Caro Lamb.”
“I’m sure you didn’t come here to discuss my hairstyle, Lord Gray,” Evangeline said, her voice frosting. “And whatever the reason for your visit, I’m a busy ma—woman. You can’t intimidate me.”
Ben took a step forward. “Oh, can’t I? What would your subscribers think if they knew the publisher is a woman masquerading as a man? I daresay you might become the scandalous subject of your own front page.”
She expected the threat, and was prepared to parry it. “I’ll stop writing about you,” Evangeline said instantly. “Then you’ll have no reason to divulge my identity.”
“Too late! You’ve blackened my name for months. How can you ever make up for the ruination of my good reputation?”
Evangeline gave an unladylike snort. “You haven’t had a good reputation since you were in short pants.”
“Damn it! That didn’t seem to bother you once.”
“I was young and foolish. I’m older and wiser now.”
“Yes,” Ben said, looking down at her with his sea-green eyes. “You’re a veritable hag. How old are you now, anyway? Thirty-three?”
“Thirty-two, my lord. Well past the age to be frightened of losing my own reputation. I’m not on the Marriage Mart, nor am I forced to seek employment as someone’s demure companion.”
“Demure!” Ben sputtered.
Evangeline shrugged. “Well, I was never that, was I? Our
affaire
proved that. The one regret of my life.”
“Only one? How can you look at yourself in the mirror after the tripe you print week after week?”
“Very easily.
The List
puts food on my table and pays for very fine mirrors indeed.” He didn’t need to know the true state of the Ramsey household. Every penny went to her father’s care and the repayment of his crushing debts. Evangeline was grateful she didn’t need to waste money on all the accoutrements that seemed so necessary to adorn the females of the London species. Gentlemen’s clothing was far more affordable. And comfortable. She doubted she’d ever go back to corsets and petticoats once—well, it hurt too much to think of what the future held. She’d have to spend the rest of her life as a withered spinster in some gray sack or other. Posing as a man would eventually prove too troublesome.
But for now, it suited her to the ground. Men like Benton Gray left her alone. Unless their tastes turned to almost-handsome boys—which had happened a time or two. Evangeline had very firmly appeared obtuse to their overtures and that had been that.
She was blessed with inordinate height, angularity, and the substantial Ramsey nose that saved her from true beauty. As a young woman she had been an abysmal failure with everyone. Except, damn his eyes, Baron Benton Gray.
Ben had been a beautiful youth, wild and impossible to resist. For several weeks, at any rate. Then her judgment returned—how could she shackle herself to a reckless compulsive gambler, no matter how lovingly he looked at her?
He was glaring at her now, his eyes stormy as the North Sea that surrounded his castle. Evangeline had seen him a great deal the past few months, although he’d never noticed the bewigged footman who’d passed him drinks—too many—or the youth at his elbow at a cockfight. He’d bumped right into her at the races the day he’d thrust his mistress on the back of his winning horse. Ben led an aimless life, one that should be exposed for all the ton to see. It was a criminal waste that a man of his wealth and instincts should be so dissolute and dissipated.
Dismissive. Disgusting. Disappointing. Evangeline could “dis” him forever, and had quite handily on her front page.
“I will cease and desist,” she said, her husky voice made even thicker by nerves. “You’ve begun to bore me anyway. Your exploits seem increasingly—I don’t know. Juvenile? Are you not getting long in the tooth to act like a fractious schoolboy?”
If she was not mistaken, he growled a little at her newly formed opinion. Evangeline thought she’d be assured of many more scandals to disseminate, but alas, self-preservation was key. If Ben dreamed of toppling her modest publishing empire, she’d better compromise. There would always be another foolish lord to write about—they were bred from the cradle to be useless idle creatures.
“Who owns this paper?”
“I do, my lord. That is to say, my family does.”
“Which means your father, I suppose. R. Ramsey. Let me guess. He won it in a game of cards, just like he won your Portman Square house all those years ago. He always was a lucky devil.”
Evangeline bit her lip. It rather depended what one’s definition of lucky was. Her girlhood had been at the mercy of the next house party, the latest card craze, the deepest den of vice. Evangeline had dutifully followed her father, learning to make do or spend madly as the circumstances dictated. There had been no debut, but she’d managed to toss away her virginity to the handsomest boy she’d ever seen—the man who was looking at her right now as though he was undressing her all over again.
“That house is gone now. As you can see, we’ve come down in the world.”
“But still close enough to your victims.”
“The paper does a lot of good as well! Just last year we reunited Lord Pennington with his childhood sweetheart.”
“If I recall, the poor soul died on his wedding night.”
Evangeline showed a few teeth. “But he died happy.” The truth of it was Lord and Lady Pennington were married a full week.
“I’m sure Lady Pennington is happy as well living it up on her widow’s jointure. She was some sort of dairymaid, wasn’t she? If a sexagenarian can be called a maid.”
“She was a farmer’s widow. A lovely woman.” The kind of woman Evangeline wished had been her own mother. Warm, practical. They took tea together every other week at Pennington Place. Lady Pennington never batted an eye when Evangeline turned up in her high shirt points and carefully tied cravat. The woman fed her advice and lemon scones she made herself much to the consternation of her cook.
“I wish to speak to your father.”
Evangeline swallowed hard. She should have known she couldn’t get rid of Benton Gray so easily. “What for?”
“I can only assume he doesn’t know the lengths you’ve gone to get your ‘news.’ I’ll not reveal your methods,
Mr.
Ramsey, but I’ll buy the paper from him. For enough to set you both up comfortably—and purchase you some skirts.” He paused, his full lips twitching. “Although those breeches flatter you enormously.”
“Stop looking at me like that!” Evangeline cried, feeling a hot blush sweep from her damp forehead to her throat. Benton Gray always unsettled her. To have him looming in her little office was enough to make her sweat. Despite her perspiration, she snatched up her discarded jacket and put it on.
“How the devil have you passed for a man? Your acquaintances must be blind.”
“Most of my custom is done through the mails. And you cannot see my father. As I said, he is ill.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.” Ben reached for her pen and a piece of paper from her neatly arranged desk. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to read his scrawling script upside-down. He sanded his missive and folded it, leaving it in the middle of the desk. “Please give this to your father. It might make him feel better.”
“He doesn’t want to sell the paper,” Evangeline said, stubborn.
“He will. And you should hope he does, for I’ll not keep your secret, Evangeline. You must be stopped. At all costs. Fortunately for me, I have money to throw away. You’ve been watching me do it for two years now, haven’t you? That’s when I was ‘discovered’ by your roving reporter. You, I presume.”
“You were hard to resist, my lord. So very conspicuous,” Evangeline snapped.
“At least I’m not sashaying about London in
skirts,
Evangeline. You—you are unnatural.”
“How dare you criticize me? With your penchant for nude frolicking and—necrophilia for all I know.”
Ben raised a mocking golden eyebrow so high Evangeline fought her desire to bat it down. “Necrophilia? That’s a stretch. One moonlit dance in the churchyard on All Hallow’s Eve does not make me a grave robber. I assure you my partners are very much alive. And
satisfied
.”
“Hah!” Evangeline could not seem to manage a more suitable riposte. Even when Ben was a stripling, he’d been a satisfying sort of fellow. His large hands, his gentle mouth, the sweep of his tongue—
But he paid his partners now. All five of them she’d kept count of these past months. The fake Frenchwoman Veronique was just the latest in a long line of expensive courtesans he kept in his little house on Jane Street. She’d lasted longer than the others, though, so there must be some depth there beyond her fluctuating French accent.
No, not depth. He wouldn’t appreciate depth. Benton Gray was as shallow as he was genial. Although in truth he didn’t look especially genial at the moment.
Evangeline smoothed down the lump of sleeve beneath her padded jacket. While her shoulders were broad for a woman, a little tailoring was necessary to complete her transformation as a young gentleman. In an hour she’d go home for lunch and change into something insipid and muslin and check on her father. She most certainly was not going to upset him with any sort of business transaction with Baron Benton Gray.