The Proposition (2 page)

"A jar for the mouse would be nice." He looked past her to the seamstress.

As if she wasn't listening, as if it had been her plan all along, the seamstress quickly reached under the counter and handed him a button tin, empty. He unscrewed the lid.

"How about these?" the baroness said. Beside him, she tapped her gloved finger on top of a glass case. A soft, dull click.

Mick dropped the mouse into the tin as he glanced over at what she pointed to. The case held a lot of intimate feminine things. Knickers and stockings and garters. He paused, staring at what was inside the case more from curiosity than anything else. There were some pretty things on the glass shelves. Amazing things. Lacy, thin, feminine. Not a speck of it practical.

The baroness didn't ask so much as she commanded, "Miss?" She spoke to the seamstress, a woman at least ten years older than her. "Can we please see these?"

The seamstress brought out a pair of dark pink garters ruffled with lace, heaped with bows, and weighted down with a lot of pearls the size of tomato pips. "These would make a nice prize for a hero," said the baroness, turning to dangle one off her finger.

The garter was one of gaudiest things he'd ever set eyes on. She thought they'd appeal to him though, which said what she thought of his taste.

When he didn't immediately light up at the sight, she explained, "They're expensive."

So maybe it was her taste that was on the flashy side, he thought. He shrugged. He pointed to garters still in the case that sat next to where the others had been. "These be nicer." It was more a matter of trying to straighten her out than anything else. He pointed to white ones, the color of cream. Narrower. Satin, with one creamy-pink flower on each, two tiny leaves the color of moss. Nothing more. Simple. Elegant.

She raised one eyebrow. At first he thought it was his taste that struck her. But no, it was his accent. She said, "What an amusing way you have of pronouncing things."

His sound came from a country dialect. He could actually speak a little Cornish, a lost language.

The baroness smiled at the tall, handsome mud she was keen to welter in. "These then," she said. She indicated the garters he'd chosen. The seamstress handed them to her.

On the end of her crooked, gloved finger, the baroness offered Mick a prettier garter. "Here," she said. "You take this one. I'll take the other. Then we'll meet somewhere"—her eyes lit—"and unite them."

He laughed. The rich got up to the damnedest games.

Games he'd played more than once. He thought about this new offer. The baroness here was on the pretty side. Making a rich lady happy had its moments. He couldn't complain that it'd ever been terrible.

Mick stroked his mustache a moment. It was soft and sleek, his mustache. Thick, dark, his pride. His "lionhearted virility" on display. His thumb to his cheekbone, arms across his chest, he dragged his finger down the mustache till the inside of his knuckle rested in the indentation of lips. There, he thought. The gesture did something to his head. It made his mind clear.

Against his finger, he murmured, "A yearning for mud."

"What?" The baroness in the bird hat got a puzzled look.

He took his finger away, straightening. "It be from French," he said.

Now he'd really confused her. A country man like him wasn't supposed to know beggar-all about French. He shrugged, trying to make little of it. "What it means is, I guess not, love."

He stepped away, slipping his arms into his coat, thinking that was the end of it. He smoothed his hand down the front of him and absently weighed his pocket, checking its contents. Good, still there.

"Ah," the baroness said. She added in a cynical tone, "How unusual. A faithful man."

Faithful to himself.

She continued, "So there's a lucky lady elsewhere?"

He let her think so.

She lightly hit his shoulder, a rap with her folded fan, then laughed. "Add them to my bill, will you, miss? A pair of garters for our hero here to give to his lady fair."

He looked over his shoulder, thinking to tell her not to bother, but she was out the door, just like that, with him the proud owner of a pair of fine lady's garters—and way too many lady-fairs to start trying to pick which one.

Well, hell. What was he going to do with those? he wondered. But then he thought, Well, of course. He went into the back.

The only person there was Nell, the seamstress's assistant. She sat with her blonde head bent close to the sewing machine. She was trying to thread its needle, but stopped when he entered, smiling up at him.

"Where be the lady who was trying on clothes back here?" he asked.

"She left." Nell tipped her head in the direction of a back door. When he dropped the garters onto her sewing table, her smile got bigger. "Coo, these are plush, aren't they?" She laughed, picking them up. "And about ten times nicer than those horrid things Lady Whitting wanted."

"The other lady," he said. "The tall one what was trying on dresses. She buy anything?"

"We altered some dresses for her."

"She take 'em?"

"We're sending them."

"Then put those in her package, will you?"

She held up the garters looped round her hand. They were fine. Not scratchy like the lace ones. Soft. Simple. Right diabolical in their appeal. Like the long legs he imagined wearing them.

Nell said, "I don't think she'd accept garters from you, Mr. Tremore. She's a proper lady, Miss—"

He bent, putting his finger against the girl's lips, leaning his weight, his palm down, on her sewing table. He didn't want to know a name. He didn't want to know nothing about the lady behind the screen. He already knew enough. "Tell her they're from you then."

"From me?"

"From the shop. For being a good customer, you see. No need for her to know where they come from."

There now. Perfect. Tomorrow, somewhere in London a long-legged lady would be waking around in a sweet pair of garters that were just right for her pretty legs. The idea was a little on the indecent side, but Mick felt heroic anyway for making it happen.

Then Nell blindsided him. She stood up from her chair, her face coming right up to his, and whispered, "No one would know if, well—" She murmured in a rush, "My father's asleep upstairs. He works the night shift. So does my brother. My uncle and cousins are out, and Aunt Milly is busy in front. No one would know if, say—" She paused, like she wasn't sure where to go from here. "If, say, I fixed your shirt for you."

"My shirt?" Mick looked down. "What's wrong with my shirt?"

She reached out, casually resting her hand on his chest. "It has a hole."

"No, it—"

Yes, it did: He looked down and watched her put her fingernail through a smooth place where the linen was worn. His shirt had a fingernail-sized hole before he had the presence of mind to grab her hand and hold it.

She let out a soft sound, more satisfaction than distress. He watched her lower her eyelids as a little smile spread on her face.

Oh, fine. He laughed, a single burst. Well. Nellie girl here was surely unexpected. He'd been wooing her all week with little success—till he'd caught a mouse then been propositioned by a baroness.

And at least
she
knew the difference between pretty garters and gewgawed ones that were only costly. But
…
what was wrong? She was … too short, he decided. He wanted longer legs all of a sudden.

He was shaking his head no, pushing her back, when Nell got hold of his trouser button. She was going to pull the damn thing off, if he wasn't careful. He took hold of her hands again. She resisted, and damn if she didn't like resisting. She wanted to fight him, but in that way women sometimes wanted to. She wanted to lose.

So how did he win without winning? This wasn't going well.

Then it complicated. "Nellie?" Her aunt wasn't nearly as busy as Nell had thought. "Nell? What are you doing—"

Old Nellie here was making fast work of what buttons were left on his shirt, was what she was doing—she'd popped two off, the clumsy girl.

And, from here, the whole situation went to bloody effing hell.

Chapter 2

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E
dwina Henrietta Bollash was sitting in Abernathy and Freigh's main tearoom, quietly eating the best scones and cream in London, when a very undignified racket rose up outside in the street—like the caterwauling of a dozen cats and dogs fighting over butcher scrap. Inside the room, a little chorus of teacups clinked on saucers. Heads lifted, faces turning, as the noise grew louder, closer. Then quite suddenly—chairs scraping back in alarm—the ruckus burst though the tearoom doors.

A tall, half-naked man—his frock coat open, his shirt partly out and mostly undone, his trousers unbuttoned at the top—careened into the room. "Blimey!" he shouted as a furled umbrella behind him whooshed through the air, narrowly missing his head.

The weapon was wielded by a woman who chased in after him. She yelled, "You blighter! You—you—you ratcatcher!" as she attempted to thrash him with her umbrella.

Another man, then two more charged in behind the woman, a parade of ranting people all of whom seemed intent on catching the fellow for reasons that did not sound for a minute friendly.

"When I get me 'ands on you…!"

"We'll be makin' meat pies out a' ya!"

"Yer dirty ferrets can pick yer bones when we're through…"

Edwina laughed at first, at the surprise, the unlikely spectacle that had claimed the crowded, dignified tea parlor.

A young woman charged in behind the others. She wept and called to the rest—something about nothing having happened like they thought. Ah, Edwina concluded, young lovers caught
en flagrante delicto.

More people entered. Another man raced in behind the crying girl. After him, two well-dressed gentlemen trotted in, though once inside they immediately stepped back against the wall as if to watch—the wild goings-on apparently bringing in the curious from the street.

Edwina herself came to her feet. Other patrons of the teahouse rose, tried to move back, yet it was hard to tell which way to turn in order to stay out of the fray. She was stranded in the midst of clamor that grew around her. Over the sound of ladies' shrieking and men's "Now see here!" carried the righteous exclamations and bitter complaint of the fleeing fellow. His pursuers shouted after him, promising mayhem, while he narrowly avoided it, cursing them and dashing round one table then the next. He left behind him a trail of quickly vacated chairs and tables and clanking, shimmying china.

His adversaries, less spry and more worked up, whipped against people and objects he avoided, rather like the tail of a cyclone. They knocked chairs sideways, overturned a table, then sent one man sprawling. When they grabbed for the frisky fellow over another table, they ended up pulling off the table linen. They sloshed over countless teapots and tossed clotted cream onto the floor by the bowlful.

At this point, an apron-fronted waiter joined in, then another waiter. Mr. Abernathy himself materialized from the back offices, his glasses on his forehead. The stout little owner frowned, then waved, trying to organize his staff; he gave chase, too.

Thus pursuers multiplied. Then divided—Mr. Abemathy and the waiters split up, darting round a table from two directions in an effort to corner a fellow who couldn't be cornered: His frock coat and shirt flapping open on his bare chest, the man vaulted the dessert trolley (with nary a cream puff disturbed). Everyone in pursuit, from both sides and behind, collided at the cart—catching their prey only insofar as to spatter the backs of his leaping boots and trousers with crème anglaise. Every last pursuer went down, their limbs floundering like spatulas in a concoction of mixed pastries. As they rose, they were covered in berries, cake, cream-puff cream, and biscuit bits.

Edwina laughed outright. Even though it wasn't funny, of course. No, no. It was awful that Abernathy and Freigh's famous Saturday afternoon cream tea should become a free-for-all. She put her hand to her mouth, stifling the laughter that wanted to break out.

The leader of the parade headed for the front door in the lull, and would have made his exit, but a bobby came in just as the fellow was about to run out. "Dia-
bol-
ical!"
he said emphatically as the bobby spread his arms, blocking the doorway.

The fellow swerved back into the room. The umbrella-flourishing woman—who now looked familiar somehow, as if Edwina would know her in a different context—landed a good swipe as he sailed past. "Ai! That 'urts, loov," he said.

The vaguely familiar woman led the pack again and, for a brief moment, was close enough to deliver several more thwacks on the man's forearm as he protected his head.

"Stop! This be blewdy insane, ye silly old cow."

Edwina tilted her head, her interest shifting. The man had the oddest speech pattern. Beneath a strong dose of East Side London lay a country idiom that rarely left the southwest tip of England. A mishmash of Cornish and Cockney. Remarkable.