Parries and Thrusts #2
“Perhaps because I have a talent for emasculating men?” Elisha grinned. “Remember Buck? That odious boy when we were thirteen?”
“Your first conquest!” Amelia’s eyes danced. “I was so smitten with him, the way he’d swagger around the boneyard.”
“You’d manufacture excuses to cross his path with alarming frequency.”
“Until I stumbled and he couldn’t be bothered to help me up. Just mumbled an apology and started to walk away.”
“The rage I felt!” Elisha clenched her fists in mock fury. “I marched over to help you while giving him the tongue-lashing of his life.”
“He said he’d act like a gentleman when I started acting like a lady.”
“So I introduced my boot to his bollocks!”
They dissolved into laughter, the sound echoing through the small office. When they finally caught their breath, Amelia reached for Elisha’s hand.
“Any man worthy of you would treasure that fierce loyalty, not fear it. Perhaps we haven’t found our matches because we refuse to settle for anything less than souls who understand our worth.”
“Then we wait together,” Elisha squeezed her friend’s fingers.
“Together,” Amelia agreed softly.
As evening shadows lengthened across the floor, Elisha picked up her quill. Mr. Steele thought her an iceberg? She’d show him the depth of her passion—carefully controlled, elegantly expressed, but unmistakably real. Let him try to dismiss her capacity for love after her next response.
*
Metropolitan Review, 19 February 1840
Dear Mr. Steele,
I perceive that your rudimentary nature fails to comprehend my professionalism.
How could you fathom the expansive perspective I gain from my lofty perch atop the iceberg while you languish in your modest basin below?
My affections flow as richly and deeply as a cascading waterfall, a mighty river, or the vast ocean itself.
Yet I choose to nourish my beloved quietly, preserving the sanctity of my sentiments, unwilling to sully them through casual discourse with a mere stranger.
Indeed, sir, such is the totality of my devotion that I dare not speak of my beloved to a man whose entire repertoire of thoughts might be contained within a humble chamber pot. For when I love, I love with the fullness of my being, leaving no room for half-measures or shallow sentiment.
Mr. Steele, if you have truly experienced a love of such exquisite perfection as you claim, I implore you to elucidate for myself and our esteemed readers the particulars of this consummate affection. Pray, enlighten us with the depth and breadth of this grand passion you purport to have known.
I remain your most eager critic,
E. Lovelace
“‘Chamber pot,’” Edgar read aloud, his voice dangerously quiet. “‘Entire repertoire of thoughts might be contained within a humble chamber pot’.”
In the underground chamber, Hereford looked up from sorting pamphlets, eyebrows raised. “Your mysterious critic has a delightfully sharp tongue.”
“She wants to know about my grand passion.” Edgar’s fingers tightened on the newspaper. “She dares to suggest I’m incapable of deep feeling while claiming her own love is too sacred to discuss.”
Edgar’s jaw tightened. “She claims to love with ‘the fullness of her being’ while suggesting I’m incapable of the same.”
“And are you? Incapable, I mean.”
The question hung in the air between them. Edgar’s mind drifted to Lucia—the way she’d fit perfectly in his arms, the taste of tears on her lips when they’d said goodbye for the last time.
“I was capable once,” he said quietly. “Perhaps too capable.”
“Then show her. This correspondence has half of London riveted—use it.”
“Use it for what?”
“To remember who you were before guilt convinced you that you had died with her.”
The weight of truth in those words made Edgar’s chest ache. When had he stopped being a man and become merely a ghost haunting his own life?
“Your brilliant mind made Midnight Press London’s most profitable underground venture,” Hereford continued. “Who else but the Duke of Lancaster could distribute erotic literature under the authorities’ noses? Yet you act as though you’re capable of nothing but emptiness.”
“Perhaps because emptiness feels safer than the alternative.”
“Which is?”
“Feeling everything again.” Edgar’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “Risking that kind of loss twice.”
They worked in companionable silence, plotting distribution routes across London. But Edgar’s thoughts kept returning to Miss Lovelace’s challenge. She wanted to know about his grand passion? Very well.
The clock struck ten, signaling their departure for the night’s clandestine business. Edgar donned his darkest coat while Hereford checked his concealed pistol. They moved through gas-lit streets with practiced stealth, Edgar’s pulse quickening with the familiar thrill of danger.
Their contact emerged from the shadows—a grizzled printing press operator whose discretion was bought with generous coin.
“Fresh from the press,” the man said, producing a cloth-wrapped bundle.
Edgar examined the pamphlets, their pages still warm with ink. “Excellent work.” He dropped payment into the man’s palm, who vanished as quickly as he’d appeared.
“Distribution?” Hereford whispered as they walked toward their carriage.
“I’ve arranged for Royal Mail cooperation. Should expedite delivery significantly.”
“Any word on those rumors of investigation?”
“Not yet. But our literary feud provides perfect cover—everyone’s too distracted by Steele versus Lovelace to notice our real business.”
As their carriage rolled through darkened streets, Edgar fingered Miss Lovelace’s letter in his pocket. The irony wasn’t lost on him—while trading barbs about love and passion, he was simultaneously profiting from London’s baser desires.
Tomorrow, he would craft his response. The question was whether to use Lucia’s memory as a weapon against this presumptuous critic—or as the key to unlocking the heart he’d thought permanently sealed.
Miss Lovelace demanded the particulars of his grand passion. Perhaps it was time to give them to her, consequences be damned. After all, what did a dead man have left to lose?