December 14, 1820
W
hen Evangeline got to the office of
The London List
at half eight, she was shocked to see Ben with his feet propped up on her desk, sipping from a flask that smelled very much like coffee. He grinned and looked at his watch.
“Ah. Definitely an early bird.”
“And you must be the worm,” she snapped.
“Or it could be the other way around. I was here first, you know.”
“How did you get in? I thought you lost your key.”
“Picked the lock. Just one of my many talents, my dear. Comes in handy for entering locked houses at night to ravish jaded countesses and such. I climb up trellises, too. Like a monkey.”
He looked inordinately proud of himself. She would
not
smile. “An overgrown ape, more like. I can’t imagine such structures holding your weight.” She unwound her muffler and hung it on a hook by the door—
hers
was already taken by his gray topcoat. He had fired up the coal stove, but perversely she kept her brown plaid greatcoat on. She didn’t like the gleam in his eye when he looked at her so boldly, no matter what she was wearing.
“Alas. I’ve filled out a bit since my youth. But then you know that from a week ago. You can’t have forgotten so soon.”
Evangeline felt the blush coming on. “I thought we agreed we would never mention that night—or any of our nights—”
“And days,” Ben interrupted. “We were quite shocking ten years ago.”
“Well, I am not shocking now! I’ve tried to lead a respectable life.”
Ben raised a golden eyebrow. “In those breeches? Tell me, must you continue to prance around in menswear?”
“Yes, if our working together is to go unremarked. The shopkeepers in the neighborhood gossip like magpies. They are frequently excellent sources for me.” She held her greatcoat closer.
Ben took a sip of coffee and her stomach rumbled. She’d dashed out so early to beat him here she’d not bothered with breakfast. Ben gestured toward a basket by his feet, which were still atop her desk. He hadn’t stood when she entered, and made no effort now to treat her with excessive civility, as a gentleman might do with a lady, she realized. Good. That would help to keep up the appearance that they were simply two colleagues.
“Do you care for a roll? They might still be warm.”
Evangeline warred with herself—this charming, casual,
twinkling
Ben was just who she did not want to spend time with. It was one thing when they were sparring, but with him looking so comfortable and offering her food—
“No. Thank you, my lord.”
He shrugged and dug into the basket. “Suit yourself. I’m famished.” He bit into the roll and her traitorous stomach betrayed her yet again. She looked away as he licked the flaky crumbs from his fingers, remembering what that tongue had done to her just last week.
This was not going to work. For once in her life, Evangeline questioned her judgment—she should
never
have put out that last issue of the paper naming Ben as the destroyer of
The London List.
She could have just shuttered up the shop and slipped away to care for her poor addled father, instead of trying to get in the last skewering word. Now she was stuck with trying to avoid the unwelcome knowledge that she still—despite everything—had feelings for the man. Feelings—not all positive to be sure—that disrupted her sleep and waking hours.
Ben raised the flask toward her. “If you don’t mind drinking after me, do you care for some coffee instead? I’m afraid I didn’t think to pack any cups.”
Evangeline moved swiftly to the little cupboard in the corner where she kept tea, a loaf of sugar, and a tin of biscuits to get her through the grueling, dirty days when she set type at deadline. She snatched up a delicate gilt-edged cup without its matching saucer, a leftover from a period of time when her father had been winning. Her hands shook a little as she poured the steaming liquid into her precious relic, then she took a scorching sip. She must remember to take the cup with her when she left.
“Now then.” Ben uncrossed his ankles and set his expensively shod feet on the wooden floor. “There’s quite a batch of mail already. I’ve pulled out what seem to be tradesmen’s bills, but I imagine the rest are from your constituents. Suppose we start with those.”
Ben was all business. Well, she could be, too. She set the cup down and dragged a chair to a corner of the desk. Brisk. She would be brisk and forthright. If he couldn’t follow, that was his loss.
“Every letter is opened, read, and placed in the appropriate stack. Lonely hearts in one pile, employment ads in another, for example. Replies to the numbered boxes are placed in the correct mail slot to be picked up or forwarded.”
“That seems simple enough.”
“One would think so. But sometimes one must read between the lines.” She picked up a smudged missive and opened the seal. A coin rolled out of the paper and Evie set it aside, ticking a checkmark at the top of the note with a pencil.
“ ‘Dear Mr. Ramsey, I do hope you can assist me again, although truthfully your previous assistance with my employment does not have much to recommend it. I am enclosing the cost for one week’s worth of advertising and the accompanying postbox. It is all I can afford since I was dismissed from my current position. I was lately the Basingstokes’ governess—not for very long, fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be. I am afraid I cannot get a reference, either, for Lord Basingstoke has not been not able to write since I slammed his hand in my bedroom door and in any event would not have been predisposed to sing my praises since I refused to become his mistress. I know winter is upon us, but I would very much like to be settled in a proper Christian home before Christmas. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I remain most sincerely, Elizabeth Amelia Sturgess’—”
“Good Lord! You’re not going to print that as is, are you? Basingstoke will have us charged with libel.”
“I’m not going to print it at all, nor am I going to take this poor child’s money. This is where the job gets tricky, Ben.” She laid a hand on the unopened mail. “I can hope that somewhere in these letters is Elizabeth’s next situation. If I printed every request, the paper would be five times its size, and I’d have to order newsprint by the forest.” Evangeline stood, went to a wooden cabinet, and pulled open a drawer. “I may have something that didn’t come in time to make the classified section last week. Let’s pull out both the matrimonial and governess files.”
“Matrimonial!”
“Yes, Ben,” she said patiently. “I met Elizabeth Amelia Sturgess the last time she sought a position—she came here to the office. She’s a sweet, gentle girl, loves children, and is very pretty. If it’s not Lord Basingstoke, it will be some other father or oldest son who has designs upon the new governess. Best to get her suitably married before her immortal soul is imperiled. Wait a moment! I may in fact already have the perfect candidate for her.” Of course—Lord Maxwell needed a wife immediately. And here was Lizzie, who might be just the balm that would ease him out of his shyness. The girl was wholesome and natural, very unlike the usual society miss that so terrified him. Evangeline smiled, imaging Lord Maxwell saying, “I d-dd-do.”
Ben stared at her as if she’d grown an extra head.
“I told you I had an unusual advertising system.”
“You have no sensible system at all! This is madness. We could be at this
forever
.”
“I agree. And you thought all I did was spy on you. Pass me the ink and pen, Ben.” She wrote as she spoke, her elegant handwriting rapidly covering a sheet of paper. “I’m writing to Miss Sturgess to see if she’d like her request fulfilled in a slightly alternate manner. I’m afraid after you bought the paper I dismissed my usual errand and delivery boys, so I hope you won’t mind going round to her lodgings yourself to deliver this. If she’s amenable, bring her back here at once. Make sure she’s suitably dressed to meet a viscount. In the meantime, I’ll go through the rest of the correspondence.”
“A viscount. Why am I not surprised?” Ben mumbled. “I’m the publisher, Evie, and a stranger. Should you not be the one to deliver the tidings that Miss Sturgess is about to come up in the world?”
“Look at the mess on my desk, Ben.
Our
desk. The sooner I can work through all this, the better. You don’t want to be here with me until midnight, do you? And more mail will come in later.
And
tomorrow and the next day—you’ll have plenty of time to learn the ropes.”
Ben put his hat on his golden head. “I feel like I’m swinging from one already.”
Miss Sturgess was just as Evie said—very pretty, with shining light brown curls and darker eyes. And also as unhinged as Evie, since she read the letter, nodded, disappeared for an unconscionable amount of time while Ben paced the foyer of her boardinghouse, and emerged down the stairs dressed in the first stare of fashion. For a girl who earned her living educating sticky-fingered urchins, the dress was a surprise.
Miss Sturgess must have caught his look of admiration, for she said, “Lady Basingstoke gave me a few old dresses out of guilt, as if bribery would make me hold my tongue. Her husband is a beast. Shall we go?” He helped with a serviceable cloak that did not match the elegant finery underneath.
Ben extended an arm. The girl did not come up to the middle of his chest. He thought her a plucky little thing—he knew Basingstoke, though not well. The man was overfond of drinking and dining, and looked it, rather like a bloated Vauxhall Gardens balloon. It seemed he had sexual excesses as well if he was interfering with his staff. No doubt Lady Basingstoke would be widowed in short order, perhaps at her own instigation.
“Are you acquainted with the gentleman I am to marry?” Miss Sturgess asked, a stray curl blowing out from underneath her bonnet across her faintly freckled nose.
“You really are considering it?”
The girl nodded calmly, as if proposals fell in her lap on a daily basis.
“I know absolutely nothing about your potential groom—or much of anything, I’m afraid,” Ben replied, helping her into his carriage. “I’m rather new at this publishing business. Ev—Mr. Ramsey is somewhat unorthodox, I’m finding.”
“He is a very helpful man,” Miss Sturgess said, settling herself against the squabs. “Although placing me with the Basingstokes was a bit of a misfire. I’m sure this new scheme will be better.”
Ben hardly knew what to say to that, so he sat back, letting the hot bricks do their best against the frigid December air. Yes, becoming a viscountess was likely better than becoming a governess or unwilling mistress, and he could see this little bird making someone a happy husband.
He was soon robbed of his silent meditation. “Forgive me for being blunt, but you are the infamous Jane Street Jackanapes, are you not? I thought you were closing the press down.”
“The road to damnation is paved with good intentions,” Ben said wryly. “My plans have altered.”
“I’m so glad! When I read the last edition Tuesday, I feared all was lost. A young woman without a respectable background and references has very little opportunity, you know. I have no family to fall back on—I have no idea who my parents are, actually—and limited skills. I cannot, for example, trim a hat—my feathers droop instantly. My needlework is atrocious—” She leaned forward, her cheeks pinking. “I shouldn’t tell you, but I’ve altered this dress with pins and they are presently sticking quite uncomfortably in places I’m loath to discuss. But I had a good education at the foundling home. The matrons let me stay on to teach the little ones until their benefactor died and they had to close. Such a shame, as there are always so many more orphans than money.”
This artless speech touched Ben’s heart and made his head spin a little. He’d never given much thought to foundling homes, other than to make sure none of his mistresses was required to place a by-blow in one. He thought the fine-boned Miss Sturgess the likely result of a society gentleman and some unlucky lady, and wondered if this might be a fly in the ointment of Evie’s plans to elevate the girl to the peerage. But Evie exuded confidence and had been at this mad business much longer than he had.
Miss Sturgess chattered happily all the way to the office as Ben rapidly reevaluated his understanding of exactly what services
The London List
provided. And then it hit him.
Evangeline Ramsey was a
romantic
. A modern-day Don Quixote tilting at the windmills of British life, organizing everyone into the little cubbies he’d seen on the wall, turning Miss Sturgess into Cinderella with the stroke of a pen. For all Evie’s viciousness with him, she was a Fairy Godmother—or, in their minds, Fairy God
father—
to the rest of the world.
But who was going to make
her
wishes come true?
December 16, 1820
S
omehow word had spread that the paper was back in business, and the volume of correspondence seemed to quadruple. Ben’s eyes had crossed trying to make sense of the misspelled letters, and his hand was numb from turning three-page pleas into ads of under twenty-five words. Evie had actually praised him on three occasions for his brevity and wit, and he’d been as pleased as a pup with a good ear-scratching.
He didn’t know how Evie had done all this by herself and still had time to infiltrate the ton to sweep up its dirt and write about it. He was exhausted after one full day of it. But they were both to get a reprieve from the endless tedium this morning. Viscount Jeremiah Maxwell was marrying his bride by special license that Ben himself had gone to considerable trouble to acquire and pay for in a private ceremony at St. George’s. Ben and Evie were the only guests, with Ben serving as the best man to the apparently friendless Maxwell, and Evie standing up for Lizzie Sturgess. Ben had been present when Evie not only introduced his future wife to the viscount but revealed that she was in fact a woman. Maxwell had fainted to the floor, which Ben did not think was a particularly good omen for the success of his marriage.
“We still need a feature article for the front page,” Evie said as she climbed into his carriage. Beneath her cape she was in the dress with the red ribbons again, and looked pretty enough to be a bride herself. Her hair was covered by a smart velvet bonnet trimmed with a bunch of cherries and lace, and her cheeks were flushed with the cold.
“You’re not going to write about me.”
“Of course not! I told you I would not, and I keep my word. I suppose I could do an article on Lord Maxwell and Lizzie’s wedding. It’s like a fairy tale come true, isn’t it?”
“I suppose. Poor Maxwell. The fellow’s absolutely rigid with fear around the fairer sex, isn’t he? Can’t get out three words in a row. I bet he’s still a virgin.”
Evie swatted his arm. “Well, so I should hope is Lizzie, so they’ll teach each other. And she talks enough for both of them. She’s very patient and cheerful—I think it’s a perfect match!”
Ben was not so sure, but at least the man would get his great-aunt’s money upon his marriage, and in his experience money went a long way to easing one’s problems. He’d been fortunate in his investments himself, rich enough to buy the newspaper with the intention of tossing it away. The best-laid plans . . .
If he was honest with himself, he’d enjoyed the last few days even if he wasn’t sleeping much. Evie’s work ethic was alarming, and he had no wish for her to think him a slacker. He’d been almost too busy to pay much attention to the curve of her arse in her trousers, or the way the masculine scent of sandalwood did not entirely mask an underlying feminine allure.
But she smelled of roses today—she was all woman. Ben shifted in his seat, willing himself to think of something other than bedding her.
They were getting along far too well. He actually missed her in the middle of the day when she went home for lunch with her father. After his arm-twisting visit to Doctors’ Commons, he’d tried to eat at his club yesterday, but had been swamped by people who wanted to know what was happening with
The London List
. After three bites of roast beef, he’d given up and gone back to tackle the books.
Truth was, he didn’t know what he was going to do with the paper. Now that he knew the work it entailed—and they had yet to actually print the damn thing—he could not imagine spending the rest of his life at it just to prove a point to Evie. Right now, he didn’t even remember what that point had been.
To convince her he could be a serious man? To annoy her? To have a legitimate reason to spend more time with her after they had parted for all time? He swallowed back a sigh.
Opposite, Evie was composed, obviously not having a family of demented squirrels playing leapfrog—or would it be leap-squirrel?—in her mind. She radiated a happiness that he’d not ever seen in her. Weddings tended to do that to women, even for an unconventional woman like Evangeline Ramsey.
For a man, they were usually the mark of doom.
At least he didn’t have to worry about finding a wife right now—he was far too busy, and so he had told his mother. She was still spending most of her time at Lady Applegate’s, which was just as well—she had been perceptive enough to be suspicious of “Mr.” Ramsey when she met him, and had quizzed Ben unceasingly when he went to tell her of his change of heart about the paper.
He was now partners with the one person who had come perilously close to ruining him.
Perhaps she already had.
But now he and Evie were on the way to a wedding, after which Evie would begin to show him how to set type. In two days’ time, they’d be slaving over machinery, hand-cranking the press until it spit out sheets of black-and-white hope.
“What a lovely day,” Evie said, interrupting his squirrels.
“Rubbish. It’s arctic outside, and looks as if it might snow again.”
“Nonsense. And if it does, London will be all the prettier for it. A dusting of snow covers up its less savory aspects.”
“Evie, I can’t believe we’re talking about the
weather
.”
“Don’t be such a gruff old bear. I thought it was a safe enough topic. You seem preoccupied.”
Yes, he was. Wondering what to do with his life and the woman who sat opposite.
“I’m tired.”
“Oh. Did you have a late night off dazzling one of your lightskirts with your mighty . . . sword?”
“Don’t be vulgar.” He’d fallen into bed just after he came home from the office, tiny numbers and letters imprinted on his eyelids. He’d dreamed of schoolmasters seeking new situations and jewelers advertising their gems. And Evie, standing just out of reach, the sandalwood lingering in the air between them. She was wearing neither her dress or her trousers and had bedeviled him all through the night.
“Well, if anyone could spot vulgarity, it would be you.”
“Yes, yes. I’m the darkest sinner. Do you never get tired of totting up my faults?”
Evie cocked her head as if she were thinking deeply. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“You’ve kept me so busy these last two days I’ve no time for sin. That should give you satisfaction.”
“It might.” She stuck her tongue out at him.
He wanted that tongue to do something altogether different from taunting him—perhaps something that it had done on the floor of his study the week before last. She had licked him clean and quite out of his mind in the wee hours of the morning. He had been, in fact, so witless that he’d agreed to never touch her again once she had finished him off. For really, they could bring each other nothing but trouble, wasn’t that so?
And he could have kept his vow had she not plastered his purchase of the paper on the front page, causing him no end of headache with the rabble at his door. Even his own mother had refused to speak to him when she thought he intended to shut down her premium source of gossip. What else was he to do but hobble along with the paper until he found a buyer to take it—and Evangeline Ramsey—off his hands?
He might even lose it in a card game. That would be a fitting punishment for her.
“Tell me more about Maxwell. I’ve not seen him about.”
“Well, he’d never darken the door of
your
favorite haunts,” Evie said with some scorn. “He’s far too honorable. And shy. He was brought up in the back of beyond somewhere by his dragonish great-aunt, who was awfully anxious that he marry. I told you the terms of the will.”
“Aye. What would the dragon say to him marrying an impoverished governess who’s most likely a bastard?”
“I daresay she wouldn’t like it, but she’s dead. There were no caveats as to the legitimacy of the bride, just that Lord Maxwell marry before Christmas of this year. We’ve cut it a bit close, but here we are, on the way to the wedding.”
“How long have you been trying to matchmake?”
“He came to me at the end of the summer in a panic, right after the old woman died. I’m afraid I had difficulty finding suitable candidates for him.”
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t find a whole ballroom of mamas who wanted their daughters to become a viscountess.”
“I won’t tell you then. But the Season was over, and the Little Season’s crop of eligible young ladies was disappointing. Lord Maxwell was picky.”
“Fainted a lot, did he?”
Evie grinned. “The poor man is absolutely terrified of women—he literally cannot speak coherently. Even the chance to become a viscountess was dimmed for the three girls I thought somewhat worthy of the title when they met him. It will take someone with a backbone to draw him out.”
“And any girl who breaks Lord Basingstoke’s fingers between the door and the jamb qualifies.”
“Lizzie is very remarkable in her own way. She’s never had a proper home, and will be grateful to him all her life.”
“Grateful. Somehow that does not strike me as what a man needs to hear.”
“Oh,
men
.” Evie waved a gloved hand. “Men don’t know what they want until a woman tells them.”
“Indeed? That’s a novel thought.” And a bit disquieting. Ben did not care to think he’d been manipulated by the women in his life to making his choices. He was pretty sure he’d done any number of things no decent woman would approve of, but then he’d not been especially interested in decent women’s approval of late.
“Of course the key is to make the man think that
he
thought of whatever it is first,” Evie continued. “With some skill, any woman can make a man eat from the palm of her hand.”
“You know this from experience, do you? Have a damp hand and cadre of conquests to prove your assertion?”
Evie blushed primly. “A lady does not disclose such things.”
“This is the most absurd conversation. You cannot make me eat from the palm of your hand or anywhere else on your body.” Delectable as it was. Ben imagined a strawberry placed
just so
and a muscle in his cheek twitched. A veritable banquet.
“I wouldn’t bother trying! You are not the sort of man I’d even try to convert. It would be a hopeless, thankless task.”
“Beyond the Pale, am I?”
“Entirely.”
“Irredeemable? Bound for hell in a handwoven handbasket?”
“That’s between the Lord and yourself. I wouldn’t presume to judge.”
“Ah, but you’ve judged me for most of two years. Did you expect me to just roll over so you could continue your onslaught?” His fist hit the seat, a cloud of dust billowing up. “Wait a minute! Did you
intend
for me to buy
The London List
in some sort of elaborate, expensive hand-eating? Is that part of your diabolical master plan to punish me?”
Evie was as white now as the snow that had just begun to fall. “I never dreamed you would go to such lengths, as you well know! It’s not to my advantage at all to be saddled with you!”
“Who is saddled with who?” Or was it whom—Ben was too angry to care. “You are in my employ, Miss—Mr.—whoever you are Ramsey.”
“Fine! Fire me and then see how you muddle through till Tuesday. It brings me no joy to have to spend day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute with you. One second is too long to find myself in your company.”
“For once we agree on something.” Ben’s lips snapped shut. All the squirrels were in an uproar in his head, urging him to have the last, final,
killing
word, but he wanted to see what other absurdity Evie would lob back at him.
But she sat silent, as frosty as an ice maiden in her white gown.
And continued to do so until his carriage stopped in front of the church. Without waiting for his driver to descend, collapse the step, and open the door, Ben pushed it open into the wind and jumped down, leaving Evie to fend for herself in the carriage.
He strode into the vestibule and down the aisle, appreciating the irony of being in a rare towering rage in an alleged place of peace. The interior of the church was dim and cold, the altar flower-less, presided over by a large painting of Christ and his disciples lying around on couches at the Last Supper. They looked a good deal more comfortable than Ben felt. There was no sign of either the bride or bridegroom.
The heavy church door slammed behind him, and he turned. Evie did not meet his eye, but marched toward him, clutching her ratty fur-trimmed cloak to her breast.
“We should have picked up Lizzie,” she said to a carved box pew.
He studied the stone squares beneath his feet as if they were quite the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. “I thought Maxwell was going to fetch her.”
“Yes, but what if he got cold feet and didn’t? And it’s unlucky to see the bride before the ceremony. Where is the blasted vicar?”
“How the devil do I know? I’m not even sure why I’m here.”