Chapter Seven
T he day promised to be warm, and Lark found no fire lit in Lady Melforth’s green drawing room. He set his package down and stood in front of the hearth to wait for Viv. The clock on the mantel ticked a very few measured ticks before she burst into the room.
“Where is it?” She crossed to him in a rustle of lavender skirts, her dark eyes flashing with indignation. Her gaze narrowed to the package he’d laid on the round table at the end of the sofa. “What have you done with it?”
“Good morning, Viv.” Lark patted his side where an inner pocket of his brown wool coat held the little book, willing her to come closer. “It’s here.”
“You took it.” She halted, facing him, dark eyes ablaze with anger, skirts rocking from her movement, stirring the air, bringing him the faint flowery scent he already recognized as hers.
“You left it in the coach. I kept it safe.”
She cast a puzzled glance at the brown paper package. “What’s this then?”
“Fresh plasters and linen. Will you do me the favor?”
“Your valet didn’t change the dressing?”
“He’s squeamish about blood.”
Her expression turned skeptical. “You should dismiss him. ”
“ He didn’t shoot me.”
She looked at him then, taking in the plain brown coat, the red and gold swirls of his waistcoat, and the deeper chocolate silk of his tie with its diamond pattern of reds and blues. As a rule, he played down any flash in his attire, but her scrutiny went beyond the hasty appraisal he was used to.
“Fair enough,” she said, “but I need my notebook back.”
“Today?”
“Of course, today.”
“If the tide is right, I thought we could take a boat up the river to picnic.”
“A boat? Up the river?” She looked away. “I have work to do.”
He caught an odd note of unease in her voice. “We could look at the ruins of Parliament. Did you see the fire?”
She turned back to him, her curiosity plainly piqued. “I wasn’t in London then. Did you see it?”
“From the bridge.” Rook had had easy pickings that October night as crowds of Londoners gawked at the monstrous flames consuming the Palace of Westminster. But for Lark, the fire had been the deciding moment. He’d left his old life behind that night. “Help me change the plaster, and we’ll be on our way.” He shed his coat and laid it over the sofa arm.
Her skeptical gaze returned to him. “You’re distracting me again. Why should we go up the river to see the ruins?”
“The best view is from the river. And you don’t know London at all if you don’t know the river.” The trick with Viv, he’d discovered, was to keep going until she stopped him. He worked the buttons of his waistcoat until the sides hung open and drew the little book from his pocket .
She snatched it and clasped it to her chest. Her eyes closed briefly, then flew open again. “Did you read it?”
“Would you let me?”
“My writing is private.”
“Maybe it’s merely…dull.”
“Dull?”
“And earnest—full of graves and grimy streets. Don’t ladies want to read about the pleasures of London?”
“Pleasures?”
“Picnics, parks, gardens, shops?”
“I haven’t… We haven’t ignored those things. One of our walks is through a park.”
It was his turn to look skeptical. “I’ll wager you’ve never been to one of Mr. Green’s balloon ascensions at Vauxhall.”
“No, but…ladies may stroll in the parks without any special guidance.”
“Because you went to Babylon Street to find your pickpocket, you think pickpockets don’t go to parks? Don’t go where ladies carrying purses go?” He watched to see whether she’d blush again over his reference to that purse.
“Is that what pickpockets see? Walking purses rather than women?”
That was a question he’d best not answer. “I thought your plan was to publish your guide to the world?”
“When it’s been revised and edited.” She slid the little book into a pocket of her skirts.
“So, someone will read it?”
“Yes, but not…”
“Not a man you might have written about?”
“If I did write about you, none of your acquaintance would recognize the portrait.”
“Still a man might not want to appear ridiculous in one of your stories like a figure in a print shop window.” He removed his waistcoat and laid it on top of his coat. His shirt had been pristine when he’d put it on, now he feared there would be a spot of blood from the unchanged plaster. His sham courtship was proving costly.
“You’re bleeding, and yet you worry about the sort of figure you’ll make in a guidebook for ladies?”
“A man has his reputation.”
“Really, men think that we women are the helpless ones. Let me send for some water and towels.” She strode to ring the bell pull, and the ever-prompt Jenny appeared and was duly sent off, wide-eyed, to retrieve the needed items.
Lark pulled the ends of his shirt from his trousers, conscious that Viv’s gaze had come back to him. He didn’t want her thinking about his useless valet. “You don’t feel an obligation to those you portray in these accounts?”
“What obligation should I feel?” She turned away and opened the package, laying out the linen and plasters with brisk efficiency.
He had a moment to doubt the wisdom of letting an angry woman change his bandage. “Shouldn’t you ask permission of your subjects?”
“London is my subject. My stories are…illustrations of…of the types one meets.”
A knock on the door signaled Jenny’s return. She set towels and a water basin on the table. “Should I stay, miss?” she asked, looking at Lark with his shirt hanging out.
“No thank you, Jenny. I’m just changing Mr. Larkin’s bandage. Could you ask Mrs. Brandle to make a small picnic for us?”
Jenny bobbed a curtsy, and retreated.
“Am I a type?” Lark asked.
“I don’t know. Yet. Show me your side.”
He turned and lifted his shirt, fixing his gaze on the window. From her silence he knew at once what she was seeing. The unchanged bandage was ugly. There came a ripple of water in the bowl and a whisper of muslin. Viv’s skirts brushed his legs in the same instant that she pressed a warm, wet towel to his side. He stiffened in response, and she put a steadying hand to his waist. His heart lurched, and he sucked in a breath.
“What do I know of you after all?” she asked. “I suspect that for all your lofty connections to a duke, you are, in fact, an actor, capable of playing a part at a moment’s notice—helpful gentleman, rejected suitor, ardent lover—whatever the moment calls for.”
She was dangerously observant and very near, though not as close as he wanted her to be. He stood in an intoxicating little cloud of her presence, as disorienting as a thick fog. Under the flowery fragrance was another slight thread of a scent, warm and elusive, woven into the layers of fresh silk and linen, that was simply her . “Why an actor?”
“You could have been coming from Wych Street or Drury Lane when we met.”
She was obviously in no fog. Her thinking was clear and analytic, her memory precise. He didn’t like it. “You only think that because you fell asleep during my thrilling life story. ”
“Thrilling, is it?”
“And full of pathos.”
“Tell me, then.”
“On our picnic. In your story, did you give me a name?”
“You’re curious, are you?”
He was. The name she’d given him would tell him something about how she saw him. “I didn’t read the notebook, Viv. I’d rather have you read it to me.”
“It’s just notes.” She removed the damp cloth from his side.
“I could make helpful suggestions.”
“I have Lady Melforth for that, thank you.”
“But Lady Melforth wasn’t there. On Babylon Street.”
She looked up, and their gazes met. A flicker of interest appeared in her eyes. He knew he’d got her thinking. She did want to share her writing.
“I’m going to pull away the old plaster now,” she said.
Lark just had time to grip the edge of the mantel when she tore the plaster off. For a moment, his head swam, at the mercy of sensations, cold air against stinging skin, and above all, the firm press of her hand at his waist. She turned away to discard the old plaster. Then her fingers pressed lightly around the aching place in the middle of the sting, and her voice came again. He thought he detected a quiver in it, as if she were not as detached as she appeared to be. “The stitches are holding. You can thank Dr. Newberry for that.”
Lark did not want to thank Dr. Newberry.
“The bleeding’s not bad, but you are a little bruised around the wound.” Her fingertips traced a circle on his skin setting it tingling. Again, she dipped a cloth into the basin. “ Do you really think you can manage a boat ride?”
“If you wrap the new plaster securely.”
“Very well.”
He forgot time as he gave himself up to her ministrations, her hands smoothing the plaster in place and winding the strip of linen around his middle. Her elusive scent wound around him, too. Her garments whispered with her movements.
Then she stepped away, as if she’d been wholly unmoved by their nearness. “You’ll do,” she said. “Let me collect my things, and we’ll be off.”
“Wait,” he said. “Did you give me a name in your notes?”
“A name?”
“Newberry said you give your subjects a name.” Lark thought she blushed.
“You have to tell me your story, remember.”
“On our picnic.”
“Oh, very well. Winkworth,” she said and slipped through the drawing door.
“ Winkworth? ” he called after her.