Evangeline could feel the color leach from her face. “Perhaps you can step in front of a brewer’s wagon then, or induce one of your fake French mistresses to murder you. If the unthinkable happens, I would never ask you for a single penny to support a child. I would certainly never marry you!”
“I haven’t asked. Recently,” he said, his lips a flat, angry line.
Evangeline was dizzy from the shift of their physical bliss to emotional warfare. Ben radiated fury that was almost touchable, his hand still fastened on hers like a cockle. She had made a dreadful mistake coming here.
“This is a ridiculous conversation. Let’s just forget this night ever happened.”
“Drunk, were you? So in your cups you consented to fuck me?”
“Yes, exactly! What was your excuse?”
Ben dropped her hand and she pulled back, trembling from cold and temper.
“I was not drunk, Evie, or in any way addled. Except, perhaps, by you.”
Evangeline grabbed up the clothes within her reach and mashed them to her chest. She didn’t think she could stand quite yet. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. When I held you, I forgot the reasons why I shouldn’t.”
“They are legion.”
“Yes. You’ve tried to ruin me with your poison pen, Evie, and for that I should not forgive you.”
“D-don’t then.” She shivered despite the cozy rumble of the fire.
He raised himself up on an elbow, his sweat-slicked skin glowing in the flickering light. “I don’t have enemies. No one except you, that is. What have I ever done to make you hold me in such contempt? I admit I didn’t know what I was doing with you when I was twenty, but surely you cannot hold me responsible for failing to satisfy you all those years ago.”
Oh, he had satisfied her. Ruined
her
for other men. Why that was, when he was just an aimless, brainless—
There were all those books now, so perhaps he wasn’t the dim creature she thought him. But he was not a serious man. He was a rake and a gambler.
And a man too lovely for her own good.
“You have nothing more to worry about. You own the paper, and I cannot bother you again.”
He actually
chuckled
. “Your very existence bothers me, Evie.”
“Do I need to fear that you’ll murder me in my bed?”
“That’s not precisely what I’d like to do in your bed, God help me. Let’s part as friends.”
His chiseled lips were turned up, as though he hadn’t a care in the world and they hadn’t just said the most dreadful, cutting things to each other. What was wrong with him?
“I’ll get dressed and then we can shake hands if you think that will mean anything.”
“As one gentleman to another? I’ve got something else in mind. Something far better than a handshake for you to remember me by.”
Evangeline was never quite sure how the rest of it happened, but her clothes were forgotten in a jumble as he kissed her. Everywhere. And she, God help
her,
followed suit, tasting the salty come on his cock until he spilled again as she came apart beneath his tongue. He was wicked and evil, and his concept of friendship was entirely foreign.
After, he woke his sleepy driver and nearly had to carry her to his carriage, her legs were so weak. But Ben sent her off alone, which was a blessing. Her mind was as useless as her legs.
December 12, 1820
B
en was dreaming. He was vaguely aware it was probably his own hand on his rock-hard cock, but he preferred to think he was inside Evangeline Ramsey, her long sinuous body brushing against him instead of the linen sheet. The dream was taking a particularly poignant turn when he woke to the sight of his mother standing over him, brandishing a clutch of newspapers in her hand. When they came down upon his head, he hastily removed his hand and tucked a pillow over the tented bedsheet.
Damn it.
He felt like an errant schoolboy. What on earth was his mother doing monitoring his self-pleasuring? He was thirty years old—he’d not had a woman in a week. Evangeline. And it was, by God, barely light outside. What the hell time was it?
“Mama! Is something wrong?”
“You tell me! What is the meaning of this, Benton?”
Ben could feel himself turning red. “Now, Mama, men have urges, you know. And I believe I was asleep. You cannot hold me responsible for my nocturnal—”
“Not that, you stupid boy! This!” She shook the papers again and he rolled away from further abuse.
His mother was rarely angry. Since the death of her husband, she emanated nothing more heated than a strong sense of relief. Even when Bad Ben had been at his worst—which was often—his mother had been remarkably calm. She was not calm now, quivering in indignation, and still in her dressing gown.
“I’m afraid I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“You have put
The London List
out of business!”
“I have. I should think you’d be pleased. You’ll be much more able to digest your breakfast on Tuesday mornings.”
Wait. Today was Tuesday. There should be absolutely nothing in his mother’s plump hand, but it looked very much to Ben in the dim light that his mother had a raft of newspapers there. How many? Seven? Wasn’t that the number he’d been paying for so that his entire staff could mock him weekly?
Ben’s jaw twitched. “What’s that you’ve got there, Mama?”
“The last edition ever of
The London List,
according to the publisher, a young gentleman named”—she squinted at the print—“Mr. Ramsey. He says you lied and cheated him out of the paper so that you could continue your wicked ways and keep your indiscretions to yourself. Fat chance of that! You are a byword, Benton Gray, of loose morals and louche behavior and I don’t know what else. And now you’ve taken advantage of a poor old man. I’m disappointed in you, Ben.”
Ben did not know which of his mother’s sentences to address first. Clearly he had underestimated Evie. Should he have sent her flowers after that unbelievable night last week? Locked up the newspaper office? Taken a pickaxe to the press? He’d given the business barely a thought as he’d tried to reform himself.
Well, fuck reformation. His own mother thought he was beyond salvation.
“I am sorry you hold me in such low esteem, Mother,” Ben said, his tone as frosty as the white haze on the windowpane.
“Oh, don’t go all haughty baron on me, Ben. I’m sure there’s more to this story than is printed on the page. Why don’t you tell it to me?”
Ben lifted his chin and folded his arms, remembering his father in just such a pose before the apoplexy took him to warmer climes. “As you can see, I am not dressed. If you will give me the courtesy of a few minutes, I shall meet you downstairs in the dining room.”
His mother bit a lip. “Very well. Severson seemed most anxious to talk to me about something when we met on the stairs. The man is agitated, and that’s not like him. Don’t be long. Here, perhaps you should prepare your defense.” She tossed a single copy of the newspaper on his bed.
He was not going to pick it up and read Evie’s lies. He may have deserved some skewering before, but he had done nothing now but ensure that she and her father could live in the lap of luxury for the rest of their days. He’d even found that fop Frank Hallett at the theatre and paid him more than a year’s wages of severance pay.
But nothing was ever enough for Evangeline Ramsey.
He could have her prosecuted for trespassing. For surely she had entered
his
building and used
his
ink,
his
paper and
his
machinery to produce this latest calumny. Damn the black-haired witch.
Ben conveniently forgot just what his dream black-haired witch had been doing to him not a quarter of an hour ago. His ardor was definitely depressed now—finding one’s mother hovering over one when one was at the
non plus ultra
was a withering experience.
He splashed some chilly water on his face, not bothering to ring for his valet. There was no point to shaving—he’d go right back to bed once he’d dealt firmly with his mother, but he did manage to get into fresh clothing. A glance in the mirror told him his golden stubble and disordered hair only added to the dangerous look he was trying to cultivate. He was not about to be called on the carpet by his mother—if she didn’t care for the life he was living, she could go back to Scotland and be damned.
This was all Evie’s fault. Even in his sleep she was a distraction. Ben had hoped that one night would get her out of his system for good, but apparently that was too much to hope for.
He didn’t take the stairs in his usual bounding pace, but one could delay the inevitable but for only so long. When he got downstairs, there seemed to be some disturbance outside on the street, but he walked resolutely into the dining room to get this over with.
His mother was not there. Lord, if she was decking herself out for the day, he might be alone until luncheon. Callum was nowhere to be seen either. Ben wondered how the reading lessons were going, and debated if he should take a hand in them himself. He had more than enough time now that he was trying to give up his wicked ways.
He lifted silver lids and started putting food on his plate, not that he was remotely hungry. As he sat, there was very audible banging at the front door below, most unseemly for a neighborhood such as his. And it was devilish early for guests. Perhaps poor Lady Applegate had taken a turn for the worse.
Ben swallowed a mouthful of hot coffee and was just about to cut into a thick slice of steak when the dining room door burst open. Six or seven strangers in varying stages of dishabille and obvious disgruntlement stared at him from the doorway, a red-faced Severson elbowing his way through the throng. After some shoving and curses from all quarters, the butler quelled the motley crowd with his perfected
froideur
and turned to his employer.
“I am sorry, my lord, but I was unable to prevent these—
persons
from entering. Callum has the door barred from the rest of them.”
Ben put his knife down, although perhaps that was unwise. He picked it up again. “The
rest
of them?”
“Aye. Easily a dozen more, sir.”
There was more pounding. And a rather distinctive shriek.
He knew that shriek. He’d heard a version of it a week ago when Evangeline Ramsey had come apart in his arms. But he doubted his ex-lover was fornicating on his front steps. He rose.
“Severson, would you please admit Miss or Mr. Ramsey as the case may be. Now, ladies and gentlemen, what may I do for you before I call the watch?”
“Oi, there’s no need of that, guv. We’ve come to talk some sense into you.” This from a rather large man in workman’s boots and a threadbare cap. The others nodded in agreement.
“Indeed. And in what way am I deficient in sense, my good man?”
“You’ve shut down
The London List,
my lord,” said a diminutive, spinsterish looking woman. She, at least, was dressed like a lady, unlike the rabble that had accompanied her. She was garbed in plain and neat brown from head to toe, but seemed fully at peace with her comrades-in-arms.
“Yes, I have. And if you wait a minute, Miss or Mr. Ramsey—depending—will be able to provide proof that I am not the monster she—he—painted me out to be.” The group stared at him as if he’d lost his mind, and he was afraid he might be in the process of doing so.
“You robbed a poor old man,” said a freckled youth, who looked much too young to read a newspaper.
Ben gritted his teeth. “I did no such thing. He was well-compensated for the sale of his enterprise. Ah, E— ’ere ’e is. At last. Would you kindly retract the fiction you printed in this morning’s paper?”
Evie was flanked by Severson on one side and a rather oily-looking fellow on the other. She was in trousers, a tartan scarf wrapped practically up to her nose. She had the grace to look ashamed, as well she should be.
“I tried to stop them,” she mumbled through the wool.
“Not very successfully. I thought we had an agreement,
Mr
. Ramsey.”
“You never said I couldn’t publish a farewell edition.”
“I never said you
could
. I suppose you have another key to the building.” Ben held out his hand. He wasn’t quite sure where his was, having had no interest in setting foot in the premises last week, or ever again, for that matter.
“I—I need to get back in to get the last of my things.” Her voice was not as husky as it might have been, and the oily fellow shot her a suspicious look.
“Then I’ll have the distinct pleasure of escorting you. The key, please. I seem to have misplaced mine. How convenient there’s another. You’ve saved me the trouble and expense of hiring a locksmith for
my
building.”
Evie dug into a pocket and handed over the heavy metal key with reluctance.
“See here, Ramsey. Don’t let him bully you.”
“It’s all right, Lord Fitzhugh. He’s fully within his rights.”
Fitzhugh.
Ben had heard the name before, although the face was not familiar. Evie’s champion was slender, dark-haired, and had a neatly trimmed moustache over rather damp lips. His clothes were exquisite, and Ben had an urge to knock him into the sideboard and cover him with shirred eggs.
Fitzhugh spoke up, his voice plummy. “You are right. ‘He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.’ With my backing, you won’t need this barbarian. We’ll establish an entirely new newspaper, something that will eclipse
The London List
and set all these good peoples’ grievances to rights.”
There was a murmur of approval from the little clot of people in the doorway. Even Severson looked pleased, damn him.
Ben felt an unaccustomed wave of something that felt a lot like fury. “Let me get this straight. You plan on founding another scandal sheet?”
Evie looked him in the eye, a martial gleam in hers. “Only if you refuse to resurrect
The List
. You don’t have to report on the gossip, but these people deserve an outlet for their needs.”
“Their needs? Just what might they be?” Ben asked, his voice arctic.
“I have been corresponding with a Mr. Jefferson through a box at the paper each week,” the little brown spinster said. “If there is no paper, there is no Mr. Jefferson. He has no way to find me, as I naturally did not use my real name in my correspondence. I’d like to get married, my lord.” She opened up her reticule, pulled out a scrap of well-worn newsprint, and began to read. “ ‘A respectable mature bachelor, intelligent and sober, is desirous of immediately marrying some neat, plain, economical woman, between the ages of thirty and fifty. Reply to Mr. Thaddeus Jefferson, Box 81.’ He seems like a most amiable gentleman, and I was just about to arrange to meet him at the British Museum. We share an interest in antiquities.”
Ben suppressed a snort. This Mr. Jefferson was probably an antiquity himself.
“I’d watch out, dearie,” said a vulgarly dressed woman in the back. “He probably wants to tie you up and cane you or some such thing. And when a man claims to be sober, you can bet he drinks like a fish every chance he gets.”
The spinster colored. “Well, I’ll never find out, will I? Lord Gray has ruined my life!”
“And mine,” said the freckle-faced boy. “I was this close to being hired by Lord Meacham. He’s got the best stable in Dorset. He was to tell me where to meet him when he came to Town, but now I’ll never know.”
“And I’m looking for my Bertha,” the workman said. “She left home two months ago. I’ll take her back, no questions asked.”
“Oh, you’re the one who wrote those affecting couplets,” the spinster said. “ ‘Please come home, my sweet Bertha. Life without you has no mirth-a.’ ”
Mother of God
. These people had to get out of his house. He didn’t begin to want to know why the whore was here.
“Very interesting, all of it. Perhaps you all will allow me to discuss this over breakfast with E—Mr. Ramsey. If you would kindly disperse, sh—he will notify you of our decision.”
“You heard his lordship. Move along now,” Severson said severely, probably trying to earn back Ben’s trust. Not for a minute did Ben think the butler had legitimately been bamboozled by this unprepossessing group.