Chapter 2
Nell permitted Miles to assist her to her feet. The pale-faced horror she’d felt on seeing Reverend Pettiman in the hall rapidly gave way to an ungovernable rush of anger. “Of all the despicable tricks! What is a member of the parish council doing here?”
“I have an interview with him,” Miles said, sounding as infinitely calm and rational as he had when the clerk had burst in on them.
“What? But…why? I said I’d answer your questions. There was no cause to—” Nell stopped herself, hearing the shrill note of hysteria creeping into her words. She brought her voice down to a normal register. Whatever else happened, she was not going to panic. “This was uncalled for, sir.”
Miles’s hand remained at her elbow. “Unfortunate, certainly, insofar as timing, but I wouldn’t say it was uncalled for. When you wouldn’t agree to meet me, the logical next step was to seek out another person affiliated with the charity school.”
“Logical, you say? And I suppose it was logical to ask your clerk to close the door after we were discovered together?”
“It seemed the reasonable course until I’d assisted you up,” Miles said. “It was either that or have the whole of my office witness you flat on your back.”
A blush threatened. “But the reverend did witness it. If you only knew— Oh!” She gave a startled cry as his hand left her elbow, feeling her leg give way beneath her for the second time today.
Miles’s arm was instantly around her waist, strong as a band of iron. A fierce concern darkened his brow. “Did you injure yourself?”
She glared at him, heat stealing into her cheeks despite her best efforts to contain it.
He was holding her far too close. Her bosom was pressed indecorously to his side, and her skirts—already rumpled beyond bearing—were crushed against his legs.
“Yes,” she said tightly, drawing as far back from him as she was able.
“Some time ago. If you would be so good as to help me find my cane?”
He stared down at her, frowning. “Your cane,” he repeated.
“It was leaning against the chair beside me. It must have fallen when I jumped up.” She looked around the office, exerting every resource she possessed to quell the rising tide of panic that clawed at her throat.
That had been Reverend Pettiman out there. The Reverend Pettiman. The same insufferable man who had the gall to dictate official Academy policy to Miss Corvus. And now he had seen Nell with a man under her skirts.
How on earth was she to explain it?
Miles helped her back to her chair. His hand remained at her waist until she was seated, even as he scanned the room for her missing cane. “It’s there,” he said. “Beneath the desk.”
“If you wouldn’t mind—”
“Of course.” He promptly retrieved her cane. His eyes lingered a moment on the raven’s head handle. “Here you are.”
“Thank you.” She took it, feeling at once more herself.
She hadn’t always used a cane. Indeed, when at the Academy, she generally refrained from relying on one.
But it was different today. The train to London had rattled dreadfully, the streets were uneven and unfamiliar, and the chances of stumbling while climbing in and out of a hackney cab had been exponentially greater than the risk of losing her footing on the Academy’s staircase.
The last thing she’d wanted was to end up in a heap on the ground.
And yet, despite all precaution, that’s exactly where she’d found herself.
Closing her fingers around the handle of her cane, she took a deep, steadying breath.
Nothing could be gained by losing her composure.
This was a catastrophe, to be sure. And one of epic proportions.
But it wasn’t beyond mending. All she had to do was think rationally, and—more importantly—behave rationally.
“I don’t suppose you have any sherry?” she inquired.
Miles didn’t blink at the request. He went behind his desk. Opening a drawer, he extracted a small silver flask. “Will brandy suffice?”
“It will do nicely, thank you.” She held out her hand to him. “If you please?”
He passed her the flask, watching her with that same inscrutable expression as she uncapped it and took a swig straight from the spout. It scorched down her throat like wildfire, setting her midsection alight.
She grimaced mightily. “Ugh.”
“Better?”
“Quite.” She screwed the top back onto the flask and returned it to him. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind fetching Reverend Pettiman?”
Again, Miles obeyed. If Nell didn’t know better, she’d suspect he was humoring her.
He crossed to the door and opened it. “Higgins!”
The same clerk who had escorted Nell to Miles’s office, and who had burst in on them mere moments ago, trotted forward. He was a stocky young man, with neatly pomaded hair and a highly polished pocket watch. “Yes, sir?”
“Where did you put my next appointment?” Miles asked.
“The gentleman in the beaver hat? He left, sir.”
“Left?” Miles echoed flatly.
“I did explain things to him,” Mr. Higgins replied.
“Said as how the lady must have come over in a faint, and that we keep the door closed on account of the feral cat, and how you’re a gentleman of the utmost integrity.
But the man wasn’t interested in facts, sir.
He asked if I took him for a fool, then he hurried off, muttering something about needing to write a letter before the next post went out. ”
Nell’s stomach sank. Good gracious. The reverend wasted no time, did he? And to think, she might have been being ravished in this room!
With an effort, she stood from her chair. Her leg was still throbbing, but she could manage with her cane. Just.
Miles flashed her a piercing glance. “A moment, Higgins.”
“Yes, sir.” The newspaper clerk dutifully remained in the doorway, pointedly avoiding Nell’s gaze as he awaited his orders.
Miles returned to Nell. His deep voice lowered, pitched for her ears alone. “You’re going?”
“I must,” she replied under her breath. “If Reverend Pettiman is thinking to report me for wanton conduct—”
Miles made a scoffing sound. “Hardly that. It was an innocent encounter. Wholly explainable, though admittedly embarrassing to all parties involved. The reverend must have realized that on some level.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “How do you come to that conclusion?”
“If he thought your virtue was in danger, he’d have stormed in to rescue you. He’d never have left while we were still…doing whatever it was he imagined we were doing.”
Nell was beyond blushing. “Yes,” she said emphatically, “he would.”
“I disagree,” Miles said. “It makes no sense.”
“Not if you understand his motivating force. These suffocating rules of behavior that men like Pettiman espouse aren’t about protecting women. They’re about punishing them. He’s more concerned with me being held to account for some imagined moral crime than he is in saving me from being ravished.”
“I can hardly call what happened—”
“You might have been doing anything, and rather than burst in and demand you unhand me, he rushed off to telegraph my crimes to…whom? The other members of the council? The gentlewomen who contribute funds to the school? Miss Corvus herself?”
It was the latter possibility that alarmed Nell the most.
She turned toward the door. “I must go.”
“If you insist,” Miles said. “I’ll see you back to Mr. and Mrs. Royce’s house myself.”
“I’m not staying with Mr. and Mrs. Royce.”
His brows knit. “I thought—”
“I had planned to, but they were called to Paris unexpectedly. Mrs. Royce’s former employer, Madame Dalhousie, is ailing and she asked for Mrs. Royce particularly. They won’t be back until Friday.”
Miles didn’t appear to care about the Royces’ whereabouts, or about the precarious health of Madame Dalhousie. “Then where—”
“At a ladies’ hotel in Commercial Street.”
His dark gaze sharpened to attention. She may as well have informed him that she’d taken lodgings on the moon. “The East End? Are you out of your senses?”
“Not at all. I have business there.” Had business, Nell silently amended. Given what had just occurred, she could no longer reasonably hope to complete her assignment.
“I am not escorting you to one of the worst slums in London,” Miles said.
“Forgive me, but I don’t recall asking you to.” Yanking her veil back down over her face, Nell crossed to the office door.
Mr. Higgins moved aside, allowing her to pass through it.
She didn’t look back.
· · · · ·
Miles stared after Miss Trewlove for a moment, before rallying himself. “Higgins—”
“Shall I send one of the lads ahead to fetch your carriage, sir?” Higgins asked.
“Sharpish,” Miles said. “And bring me my hat and coat.”
“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” Higgins dashed off at a trot.
Miles exited his office, shutting the door after him.
Bob Flack, Higgins’s junior, hovered nearby. He was gawking at Miles, jaw slackened, as though he’d just made the jarring discovery that his esteemed editor in chief was not the highly principled man he’d believed him to be.
Miles’s conscience twinged. But there was no time to correct Flack’s misapprehensions.
Ignoring the man’s air of disappointment, Miles looked him straight in the eye.
“See that this door remains closed, and the cat left undisturbed,” he commanded.
“I’ll be back within the hour.” With that, he stalked down the hall after the swiftly disappearing figure of Miss Trewlove.
More was at stake than her reputation. Miles had his own to think about.
He had come to the Courant over a decade ago as a junior reporter.
He’d worked his way through the ranks, toiling night and day without complaint—diligent, relentless, reliable—first advancing to a position as an investigative journalist, then a foreign correspondent, then an assistant editor, then a city editor, all the way up to the position he occupied today as editor in chief.
His staff looked up to him. They believed in him. He was seen by them, just as Higgins had described him, as a gentleman of the utmost integrity.