Chapter Six
The letter was waiting for him at White’s when Jasper arrived the next afternoon, looking for peace and quiet, none of which was to be had at Meltham House. Today was his mother’s at-home, the one afternoon a week when she invited every worthy matron and their eligible daughters to flood her drawing room in the hopes he’d make an appearance. He’d done his duty today, mostly to appease his mother and to make up for not having gone to the Swintons’ ball with her last night. He’d spent twenty minutes in the drawing room meeting some of his mother’s favourites from the list before he’d made his escape.
Jasper took his usual seat in a club chair at the back of the room. He turned the letter over, studying the crisp, strong hand in which the address had been written: Lord Umberton, White’s.
A rather simple address that offered not a lot of information other than that it was from her. Only Mrs Griffiths would call him that. She’d written, so soon after their lunch. The thought of seeing her again made his blood hum, like a soldier preparing for battle. But that humming was quickly tempered, two thoughts occurring to him before he even broke the seal.
First, she’d been rather ingenious to send it here in her deduction that the odds were decent he was a member—many lords were. He saw, too, that this message was an attempt to balance the power between them. If she could find him, she could level the playing field. Right now, he was the only one with a way to contact or reach her. He knew where she worked. He could contact her at any time. But she could not contact him. Not without some guesswork, which was what this was.
That led to the second realisation. The staff at White’s had known he was Umberton. If they knew, did she know? Was his element of surprise up already?
The waiter came with his brandy and the newspapers. ‘Stay a moment.’ Jasper halted him when he would have slipped away with customary unobtrusiveness. Jasper waved the note. ‘How did you know I was Umberton?’ It was not a title he’d ever publicly used. It was simply one more thing that had come with the entailment. The waiter looked nervous. ‘I am only curious, I mean nothing more by it,’ he coaxed the man to relax.
‘We didn’t know, my lord,’ the waiter confessed. ‘We weren’t sure who to give the letter to, so the manager looked it up in Debrett’s. We keep a copy downstairs for membership purposes.’
‘Very good, I like that. Taking initiative to solve a little mystery,’ Jasper complimented to assure him he’d done nothing wrong. ‘Thank you.’ He dismissed the waiter with a smile, but he was already making a mental note to find a better way, a less public way, for Mrs Griffiths to contact him.
He slipped a finger beneath the sealing wafer and read. It was good news and bad. The good news was that she was eager to meet again to start working on a legislative proposal. The bad news was that in her boldness, she’d already concocted a plan. She wanted him to take her to a ball or two for the sake of making introductions to others in Parliament who might be of help. She even had a list enclosed. Jasper sighed. What was it with ladies and lists? Perhaps it was something they were born with.
He scanned the balls she’d chosen. He couldn’t possibly comply. People would know him there. He’d be Meltham to them. There were solutions to that, though. He took a swallow of brandy for thinking. One option was to come clean with her. Telling her was inevitable anyway, it was just a matter of when. Timing was important because there would be repercussions. Most likely, he would be cut off from further participation in her investigation. She would be furious for what she would perceive as duplicity.
Originally, that hadn’t mattered to him. He’d thought to see her once, determine what she knew and what she meant to do with it. That would be it. He’d not planned on there being more to learn, more to do. He wasn’t ready to let the association go.
Be fair, his conscience nudged, you are not ready to let her go. You’re attracted to her and her saucy tongue.
The other option was that he knew where she’d be. He could make sure he wasn’t in the same place. Of course, he’d have to persuade her that splitting their attendance at events was in their better interest, that they could cover twice as much ground. He would attend events she could not get invited to and she could continue to cultivate her circles. But to persuade her, he’d have to see her. A letter would not suffice.
He gestured for the waiter. ‘Can you send an errand boy to Fortnum and Mason for a tea basket? I need it delivered to the London Tribune to Mrs Fleur Griffiths.’ He pulled out his pocket watch. ‘By three o’clock.’ Two hours from now. That should be plenty enough time to gather his thoughts and prepare for a battle of wits, a prospect that was more thrilling than it ought to be.
A thrill ran through Fleur at the sight of the tea basket delivered to her desk by a wide-eyed clerk. He was coming. With his topaz eyes, tousled curls and argumentative nature. Her pulse raced. She didn’t need a note to tell her that. He’d warned her as much yesterday at the curb. Next time our meal will be on me. He’d not liked the idea of ‘owing’ her. Well, she’d not liked the idea that by not giving her a way to contact him, he had seized control of determining when they might meet again. Clearly, her shot in the dark—or at least in the semi-darkness...many lords did belong to White’s, after all—had paid off. Her letter had reached him and this was his response: a basket brimming with every possible delicacy and utensil needed for a proper tea right down to a stone bottle of hot water and a pot to pour it in.
How much time did she have? She glanced at her clock. Fifteen until the hour. With hot water on the line, she’d guess he’d be here at three. She set about laying out the tea on the low table by the sofa where she’d slept last night. She unpacked white pastry boxes containing iced lemon scones, ginger nut biscuits and violet crèmes, boxes that contained triangular-shaped finger sandwiches of ham and chicken. There were two hand-painted teacups with matching saucers, linen napkins and two small plates meant for cakes and biscuits, all of which matched the teapot. She wondered if he meant to make a gift of the tea set afterwards? And if he did, what did it signify? Their relationship was still in a nebulous phase where they were neither business partners nor personal acquaintances. A gift at this point would make things...interesting, if not escalated.
Umberton arrived at three, dressed in a jacket of blue superfine and a top hat, a walking stick of blackthorn finished with a brass knob in his hand. He looked like a gentleman out for an afternoon stroll rather than someone making a business call. Is that what she saw because that was what she wished? That this was more than a business call? Fleur smoothed her skirts, suddenly conscious that she was wearing the spare dress she left here for occasions like last night when she didn’t go home. It was a nice dress of bright blue cambric patterned with pink and yellow flowers, the short sleeves and scooped neck trimmed in the palest of ivory lace, but it was not a fancy dress, something that had not bothered her until now.
‘Your tea has arrived.’ She gestured to the table as he took off his hat and made himself at home. ‘It is quite lavish, more like a meal than a snack.’ She led the way to the sofa, acutely aware that there would be little separating them beyond the voluminous layers of her skirts. Every fibre of her being seemed to be intensely aware of his presence today in new ways. Perhaps that was due to the new thoughts that had plagued her last night.
‘I remembered what you said about meals being merely fuel. I guessed you might not be in the habit of fuelling up as regularly as you ought.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Am I right? Did you skip breakfast this morning? Perhaps even lunch?’ He sat, crossing a long leg over one knee. If their closeness on the sofa was of particular note to him, he gave no sign of it.
‘You are very intuitive, Lord Umberton.’ She settled her skirts. ‘You are close. I skipped dinner last night after our lunch together. I woke up ravenous, but I only had time for a sweet bun and coffee and I skipped lunch.’ She waved a hand towards her messy desk in explanation. ‘Too much to do. So, yes, I am hungry.’ She gave him a considering look. ‘I do not know if I find your intuition endearing or downright intrusive.’
‘That makes two of us, then. Your intuition sent a letter to hunt me down at my club.’ He smiled, eyes warm. ‘We are two people who value their privacy and yet we’ve invaded each other’s on multiple occasions now.’
‘The letter was more deduction than intuition,’ she corrected, reaching to pour the tea. ‘This is a pretty teapot, by the way. What do you intend to do with it after today?’ No time like the present to address that particular elephant in the room. There were others, of course, a veritable herd of them, but she’d start with this one.
He took the cup and added his own cream. Ah, so he liked cream in his tea and his coffee. ‘I mean to leave it here in case we have tea again.’ His eyes were on her over the rim of his teacup as he took a small sip.
‘Do you think we will have tea again?’ Fleur queried carefully, understanding full well that after two meetings, today was a watershed of sorts, determining how they would go forward.
‘We’ll see. I like to be prepared for eventualities.’ That was no answer at all. He took another sip of his tea and filled his plate with items from the tray. ‘I wasn’t sure what you liked so I ordered a bit of everything.’ He gave a boyish wink as the food piled up on his plate. ‘I’ll tell you a secret. I skipped lunch, too. Today is the day my mother hosts at-homes at the town house and I wanted to make my bow and get out of there as fast as possible. Eating would only have delayed my departure.’
‘What’s wrong with your mother’s at-homes?’ The reporter in her immediately sensed a story, a point of interest, or was that the woman in her who wanted to know more about this man with the quiet manners and powerful personality? Where was the line between the two roles?
‘They’re full of women with daughters who want to marry me.’ It was clear he said it without thinking and they both laughed. ‘I’m sorry, that came out a bit arrogant and unfeeling.’ He gave an abashed smile that was all too endearing.
‘It was honest.’ Fleur reached for a violet crème. ‘Do you expect to marry this year? If it is not too personal to ask,’ she added, but she suspected it wasn’t and that he would answer since he’d brought it up. Perhaps because it weighed on his mind and he wanted to talk about it—he just needed an opening and perhaps a stranger to tell.
‘Do I expect to marry this year?’ He shook his head. ‘If only it were that simple. I just have to put it on the calendar as if it were another appointment, as if it were as easy as going to Tattersall’s and selecting a horse for this year’s hunt season.’ He gave a self-deprecating chuckle that communicated the opposite—that this was no laughing matter. ‘I can’t seem to bring myself to reduce it to such a common denominator. Perhaps it would all be easier if I did. My mother has a list, you see.’ The spark was back in his eyes.
‘Tell me about the list,’ she prompted out of some type of morbid curiosity. Was she trying to convince herself this fellow was off limits?
‘Well, there’s Lady Claudia Shipman, daughter of the Earl of Coventry. She has a horsey face and fortune and nothing in common with me.’ He devoured a ham triangle in a single bite. ‘Then there’s Aurelia Dunston...’ The list went on with him regaling her with a brief biography of each of his mother’s candidates. He’d make a good news writer, she thought. He had a knack for picking out salient details without going off on a tangent.
He was an entertaining storyteller, too. It had been a long time since she’d enjoyed a conversation this much. Too many of her conversations in the past year had been exercises in verbal fencing, protecting herself against probes into the business and the situation Adam had left her with. She could not afford to give too much away.
She poured the last of the tea, dividing it between their cups. The tea tray was down to a few lavender crèmes and ginger nut crumbs. ‘It seems as though your mother has a certain type of woman in mind for you.’ Obedient, pretty, young, a blank slate for him to write on, to fill with his opinions and purposes. ‘But what do you prefer for yourself?’ It was clear from his tone that those things did not appeal to him. They’d not appealed to Adam either, although she knew very well that those traits were greatly desired by most men.
He reached for one of the remaining lavender crèmes and popped it into his mouth. He made a sour grimace. ‘Yuck.’ He turned aside and spat the morsel into his napkin, taking a swallow of tea to wash away the taste. ‘Do you like these? Truly? They taste like...soap.’
She laughed. ‘I like them. They’re...airy...sweet...floral.’
‘I prefer floral in my flowers, not my sweets,’ he countered, mischief in his eye.
‘Some say if clouds had a taste, lavender crèmes would be it.’
‘No, absolutely not,’ he argued with a laugh. ‘Clouds do not taste like soap.’ He smiled and retrieved the last crème. ‘I guess that means this last one is for you.’ He leaned forward, offering the crème. Her pulse quickened at the realisation. He meant to feed it to her. She answered his smile with a coy smile of her own, leaning towards him to allow the liberty, the flirting, the lingering of his fingers at her lips, sending a jolt of awareness down her spine, his own topaz gaze meltingly warm, less teasing now and more tempting. The atmosphere in the room changing with the electricity conjured at his touch.
She should not have pressed, knowing full well the question served a dual purpose. ‘You haven’t answered me yet. What sort of woman do you prefer?’ In the interim since the asking it had become a loaded question and he pulled the trigger.
‘A woman who knows her own mind, who has her own opinions—well-formed opinions, of course. Anyone can have opinions. Not all are worthy of consideration.’ His voice was quiet with an unmistakable husk to it, proof that he felt it, too, the current of awareness connecting them.
‘Those kinds of women can be difficult. Demanding. Determined. Are you sure you wouldn’t want an easier woman?’ Her own voice was also quiet as if they were exchanging secrets. They were weaving intimacy between them with their words.
‘Your husband didn’t mind such a challenge, why should I want any less?’ It was a bold question with a bold implication—that she was the sort of woman he sought. An intimate compliment indeed, with intimate opportunity. He filched a remaining ginger nut hidden among the crumbs and broke it in two, feeding her half.
‘Will you tell me about him?’ He brushed a crumb from her lip with his thumb. ‘We’ve talked about the women who seek to capture me. But what of you? What sort of man was man enough to win you?’ The last was said with a chuckle, but it was asked in earnest. This was no joke.
‘A bold man.’ She smiled, in part because he’d asked. Perhaps he’d sensed that she needed an opportunity to talk about this as much as she’d sensed his need to give voice to his mother’s matchmaking efforts. In part she smiled from memory, recalling Adam’s courtship over eight years ago.
‘We met at Lady Brixton’s first ever literacy fundraiser, which she holds during the Season. Adam was very passionate about literacy and early education for children. He believed no one was too young to learn to read and he was appalled at the conditions of the poor, which prevent any opportunity for education.’ She paused. ‘Lord Brixton is the Duke of Cowden’s son—do you know him?’ Her uncle had once hoped for an alliance there—Brixton for his niece. But Brixton had eyes only for Helena Merrifield and Fleur had been swept off her feet by Adam.
‘I know Cowden, not so much his son, though. I know Brixton only by name as he won a seat in the Commons recently. Our paths have not had a chance to cross yet.’
‘Then we should make a chance. Brixton should be on our list for the dam legislation,’ she digressed from the personal, offering them an opportunity to bring the conversation back to business. But he didn’t allow her to take it. The second half of the ginger nut popped into her mouth.
‘I believe we were talking about you, not Brixton,’ he scolded with a tease, his voice a low, intimate tenor. ‘So, you met your husband at a fundraiser. Then what?’ Was it wrong that she wanted his fingers to stay on her lips? To want those fingers elsewhere—on her neck, in her hair, on her body. God, she was lonelier than she’d ever been.
She gave a small smile, their eyes holding. ‘Then he kissed me and that was it.’ She wet her lips, wanting to stay in the present, not wanting to be dragged into the past. ‘You can tell a lot about a man by the way he kisses.’ She made the conversation an invitation. This was not as much about Adam any more as it was about her loneliness. If Umberton kissed as well as he looked, maybe she could drive away the loneliness for a while. She’d be willing to try.
His fingers stroked her cheek and lingered, cupping her jaw. ‘I would like to kiss you.’ His lips hovered beneath her ear, his words quiet but bold, turning her blood from warm to hot.
She turned into his touch, catching his wrist with her hand and pressing a kiss to his palm. ‘Not if I kiss you first,’ she whispered, reaching for him, her hands in the luxurious dark mop of his hair, pulling him to her.