Chapter 13
NIGHT
Viveca’s head popped through the carriage door opening, and before her descent, she craned her neck and took the measure of her surroundings.
Or tried to.
It was, in fact, dark, and these being unfamiliar environs, she didn’t know where to look.
Slowly, she descended from the carriage.
Not just any carriage, actually.
She’d hardly set foot on her front doorstep when she’d noticed the conveyance parked at the bottom of the stairs, the driver standing with his hand on the door handle—waiting for her.
She’d recognized it in an instant for two very good reasons.
This was the carriage that had driven her home on Wednesday.
And this was just the sort of thing Blaze would do.
Someone should inform him that he was just as imperious as any aristocrat.
She was likely that someone.
From there, it had been a thirty-minute ride through London from the familiar West End and into parts unknown.
The streets here were darker. The air a little more dank.
Some bodies scurried with heads down. Others stood on corners with eyes that shifted.
She might’ve sailed across an entire ocean and landed on foreign shores for how different the East End was to the West.
Her feet touched the ground, and a crowd to the left caught her eye. On the wall above them, painted bright red, hung the tavern sign—The Drunken Nun. In the illustration beside the name, said nun appeared to be having a devil of a time managing both her tankard of ale and the wind in her skirts.
Well, Viveca had asked for a bawdy night, and it appeared she might be getting one.
Below the sign, several men were arranged around a single figure.
A man angled to the side and revealed the identity of the figure who claimed their attention—Blaze.
Dressed in impeccable, ostentatious peacock-blue superfine, with his shoulder propped against the stone wall and one leg crossed loosely over the other, he didn’t look like the Blaze she was coming to know, but the Blaze Jagger London knew—cocksure, too handsome, an edge of danger running up and down the length of him as his diamond stud caught the meager light.
While he spoke to one man, three others were waiting for their turn.
His gaze shifted and met hers, holding it as he pushed off the wall. With a collective groan, the men fell back when they noted the object of his attention—her, a woman.
Oh, but Blaze was so attractive, not only in his looks, but in his movement.
Simply, the man knew how to move.
Heat crept through her.
She knew precisely how he could move.
And the smile tipping up the side of his mouth as he prowled—yes, prowled—toward her only amplified everything he was.
Yet something flickered in his gray eyes.
Something that was entirely between them—of the Blaze only she knew. The others wouldn’t see it, for they wouldn’t know how.
She’d asked this man to marry her.
These last few days, she hadn’t known what to make of that or herself—and still didn’t.
But those days had been spent away from him, giving her room for thought—and doubt.
Oh yes, doubt had crept in.
Doubts about him.
Doubts about herself.
Perhaps he’d been right.
Perhaps her proposal of marriage had been motivated by nothing more substantial than a haze of lust.
But now, with their eyes locked onto each other, she was doubting her doubts.
If he’d said yes, she thought she would’ve gone through with it. She liked him, that was the thing. And he was the most interesting person she’d ever met. He was skilled, with any number of things, to be sure, but her body vividly remembered the skills he’d applied to her.
Yes, she rather thought a woman would marry this man, if only to keep him in her bed—or upon her settee, as the case might be.
Once he’d come within easy speaking distance, she said, “Shall we begin the night’s carousing?”
A dry laugh sounded through his nose.
Oh, but he was his most cocksure self tonight, wasn’t he? No one out on this street or inside The Drunken Nun would ever suspect only a few days ago it was her who’d had him on the run. For that was something else she’d realized—her marriage proposal had startled the devil out of him.
“I suppose you know what carousing entails, Miss Siren?” he asked.
Miss Siren—a condition of the night, she understood at once. One didn’t openly carouse with unmarried aristocratic ladies, not even in the East End of London.
She found herself bothered. While this Blaze Jagger appealed to a certain part of her, she also wanted him to be the Blaze she knew, too. Which was likely why she said, “That’s what you’re for, isn’t it, Mr. Jagger?”
He sucked his teeth.
Ah, she’d irritated him, too.
Good.
He opened the door and said, “Sirens first.”
The inside of The Drunken Nun was unlike the inside of any place Viveca had ever been and not very unlike what lay outside it—dimly lit by tallow candles with their distinct barnyard smell; and speaking of smells, the sour scent of ale spilled over the years and soaked into wooden floorboards; and there was all the shouting, which might’ve been conviviality, but Viveca couldn’t exactly parse it, unacquainted with this form of fellowship as she was.
Blaze leaned close and spoke into her ear, “Take that corner table over there.” He jutted his chin.
Suddenly adamant, she shook her head. “I’ll be placing my order with the barkeep.”
He opened his mouth, undoubtedly to protest, then closed it and shrugged, once he’d comprehended the determined glint in her eye. Ordering at the bar was surely part and parcel of a night of carousing, wasn’t it?
Blaze cleared a tight spot for her at the bar, and she wiggled into the breach between unconcerned bodies. He signaled the barkeep, who clearly knew him, and waved the man over. “The little miss here would like to order directly from you, Fred.”
Fred the barkeep’s mouth turned down as he cocked a waiting ear toward Viveca. She cleared her throat. “I’ll have a pint of your finest ale, good sir.”
Fred’s eyebrows nearly lifted clean off his forehead. His head whipped around, and he addressed Blaze. “What’s this? Ye be bringin’ a right proper lady into me establishment, Blaze Jagger?”
A cocky smile tipped at the side of Blaze’s mouth. “Define proper.”
Fred remained uncharmed.
“I don’t see what me being a lady has anything to do with anything.” Viveca plunked a solid guinea onto the scarred oak bartop. “Doesn’t my blunt spend just as well as anyone’s?”
Fred again addressed Blaze, this time with a plea in his brown eyes.
“Now, Blaze, ye know ’twas only a fortnight since that lordling took a dive off the roof and cracked his noggin open, all melon-like.
The Runners have only just stopped comin’ ’round.
The Nun don’t need proper ladies comin’ in and stirrin’ it all up now. ”
Blaze nodded. “All right, Fred, you’ve made your point.”
Viveca opened her mouth to protest, but only got as much as, “Now, wait a minute,” out, before Blaze took her arm and led her through the humid, overcrowded taproom.
Outside, he released her, but kept walking.
She had to scramble to keep up with him. Once at his side, she said, thoroughly piqued, “How is a lady supposed to carouse, if no one will allow her to carouse?”
Without breaking stride, he glanced at her. “Well, a lady could keep her pretty pink mouth shut for starters.”
Oh.
He was right.
But she didn’t feel inclined to confirm it for him.
She was still bothered.
As they walked down the narrow street that would’ve been an alleyway in Mayfair, Viveca couldn’t help noticing just how many people knew Blaze Jagger. Further, he returned every greeting to a one, even had a few quick side conversations.
Once there was a break, she asked, “Is it possible you know everyone in London?”
“Haven’t met the king yet.”
“I’m sure you’re on your way.”
She pointed up at another tavern sign—The Crooked Rook. “What about this one?”
Blaze slowed his pace. “Not my favorite establishment, but all right.”
Not half an hour later, they were back on the street.
“How was I to know I wasn’t supposed to dance on the table?” she exclaimed. “The other women were dancing on their tables.”
Blaze got them on the move again, this time down a quieter street. “But that’s their turf.”
“Turf?”
“Ever wondered what a real strumpet looked like?”
“Not especially.”
“Well, now you know,” he said. “With your little table waltz, they got the impression you were muscling in on their territory.”
“Territory?” Viveca snorted, a measure of her umbrage fading. “How primal.”
Blaze nodded. “I have news for you, Miss Siren. In our deepest, darkest hearts, we human folk are made of nothing but our primal impulses. Everything else about us is just gloss.”
“Are you a cynic, Mr. Jagger?”
“Speaking from my lived experience of this old world.”
She glanced up. The sign above read The Rose & Crown. “This one looks quieter.”
“Not much carousing here.”
They stepped inside, and Blaze’s words were immediately proven out. Several patrons were spread throughout, but it wasn’t crowded. Nor was it loud or the air too drenched with beer sour. “You go and sit quietly over there.” He was pointing at a table in the corner. “And I’ll get our drinks.”
Viveca thought it might be wise simply to nod and do as she was told—for once.
A few minutes later, Blaze returned with two dainty glasses filled to the brim. Her brow crinkled. “Are those cordials?”
“The owner’s sister has a pear and apple orchard out in Devon and makes some spirits on the sly,” said Blaze. “Try it.”
Viveca took a sip. It tasted of apples and pears and fizzed ever so slightly on her tongue. “Oh, I love it.”
“Thought you might.”
A string of silent beats of time ticked out between them as they enjoyed their cordials. It wasn’t precisely carousing, but it might be her favorite moment of the night.