Chapter 13 #2
“All right, then Cassius will murder me.”
“There’s too much talk of murdering between men.”
“I won’t disagree with you there.”
She paused. “So, you will take me?”
“Yes, but if you really want to hear, the only way to do it is as Caroline Lamb did and one of my cousins”
Her eyes widened. “How?”
“Dressed as a boy.”
She let out a laugh. “Indeed?”
“Indeed,” he said.
“Then we best find some clothes.”
He let out a beleaguered sigh. “For you? Anything.”
She drew in a breath, so grateful for him. So grateful to be on this new path. So grateful to know that her world was so much bigger than she’d imagined. But most of all, she wanted to see the halls of power, to see if there was any way a lady could change them.
“They are a bunch of buffoons,” Alice said, her face a mask of astonishment.
“I tried to tell you,” he said, as they headed out of Parliament and stood on the pavement.
“The speeches… Good God. And these are the men governing us?”
He nodded. “Now you understand my skepticism.”
She huffed out a breath and tugged at her cap.
They’d dressed her as boy, with clothes from his Grandaunt Estella’s theater.
And she looked exceptionally fetching. They couldn’t be out long, for she was not the best at passing as a young man.
She had the body of a delicious young woman.
The oversized clothes helped, but if anyone looked too closely for too long, they might deduce her real sex.
“I need tea,” she grumped. “Or cake. Or a brandy.”
“Fresh air will do for now,” he said, tugging her along the road that led by the Thames.
The air was not particularly fresh here, but they had to get moving.
Her face twisted. “I still can’t believe it,” she railed. “I fear for the country with those lot in charge. Do they actually believe the words coming out of their own mouths?”
“It’s hard to say,” he placated. “I really did try to tell you it’s appalling. My uncle is one of the only truly articulate and caring people there.”
She shuddered. “What right do such nincompoops have to govern any of us?”
He cleared his throat and pointed out the frustrating reality. “Well, they have the right of primogeniture, of course.”
She snorted. “They come to power just because of blood. It’s ridiculous.”
“And blood is very important in this country,” he said.
“It shouldn’t be,” she hissed.
“I agree,” he sighed, wishing it could change but knowing the futility of wishing. “Who knows?” He grimaced. “Maybe three dukes down the line and the Duke of Westleigh will be promoting the ideas of conquest and starving the poor.”
“Don’t say that,” she yelped, giving him a horrified look.
He raised his hands in supplication. “I don’t think it could ever happen. I’m just…being contrary.”
“Well, cease. I’m still recovering from that smarmy group of self-satisfied, self-serving toads,” she said.
“Now you know you don’t like politics,” he said. “There is nothing to be done.”
“I didn’t say that,” she countered swiftly. “I said I didn’t like it in there. I quite like Lady Upperton. I think she’s got the right way of things. Perhaps if we can change enough people’s minds in day-to-day discourse, Parliament could change.”
“You are suggesting that you can change the great leviathan of England?”
“Why not?” she demanded, seemingly undeterred. “There have been civil wars and revolutions before.”
He groaned. “Please don’t say things like that. My family has already been on the cusp of revolution once or twice. Sometimes I think that my uncle might lead a rebellion himself.”
She laughed. “Well, he wouldn’t be the first duke to have attempted to do so.”
As they strode down through the thick crowd of lords and ladies, sellers of flowers, milk, and costermongers, she gazed about.
She sighed. “A lady like me is so seldom allowed to see the real world. We’re kept in hot houses, like oranges in an orangery.
This is really what London is like, isn’t it? ”
“Yes,” he said. “The filth. The smell. The injustice. The bustle of people. It’s terrible and wonderful at once.”
“Your sisters know,” she suddenly said. “They understand what London’s like, don’t they? And your father and your grandfather.”
He nodded.
“Why don’t you spend time there?”
“Oh, I used to,” he replied, making sure she was able to weave towards where his coach was waiting a few streets over. The last thing he’d wanted for anyone to see was her getting out of his vehicle. Too many suspicions might arise. “A great deal, and I still do go. But I’ve been so busy.”
“So busy seducing the ladies,” she teased.
“There you are again, schooling me on what matters.”
“You like it though, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” he replied softly.
“I enjoy it very much when you tell me what a bounder I’ve been.”
“You’re not a bounder! You’ve just forgotten that there is more to life than being a rake. For whatever reason. And I’m here to remind you of how wonderful you actually are.”
He swallowed. How she had indeed schooled him thus. And how she had changed over these weeks, from a young lady who had not known her true worth to one who dared to wish to command life.
“I want you to take me to your family’s school in the East End next.”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon? I thought you would want to go back to the publishing house or Lady Upperton’s.”
“I do,” she said. “I think I’m finding a way of combining all my interests, thanks to you.
You see, for me it’s all coming together now, like pieces of puzzle.
What I love. The power of the printing press, the importance of Parliament, and the ability to change people’s minds in lectures with Lady Upperton.
And of course, now I truly want to see for myself who needs the most help.
And your sisters, your father, your grandfather know best about that. So, I must go.”
His heart pounded in his chest. Once, he’d been so certain that their alliance could end in her regret because of scandal.
That did not give him fear now. His fear was her regret would come when she burnt herself out by trying to change a system that refused to change.
And he would have helped her to that misery.
But how could he deny her? He had to try one last time.
“Surely, you wish to spend your life with books. They make you happy. They won’t make you cry bitter tears.”
Her face softened. “Oh, Deimos, there you are, trying to protect me. Just as you said you would. But I’m not actually certain that I want to work in the publishing house because books are something that I love dearly, and I don’t want them to ever become my work,” she said.
“I have a terrible feeling that if they did, I would not be able to enjoy them as much.”
He gaped, realizing that she wasn’t going to choose the easy thing.
She was going to choose the hard road. The road that mattered.
And in that moment, he admired her more than anything in the whole world.
She made him long to be better, to be more.
And he knew he had to be more now, for he refused to disappoint her.
Again, he’d thought he’d be teaching her about the world. How mistaken he was. It was she who was teaching him that, though it might seem hopeless, a shallow life where one just hummed along would always be empty. Being a rake would never ever be enough.
“Most people think that they should pursue their passions for their profession.” He groaned, even as he knew that she was never going to do as expected.
She frowned as she avoided stepping in a puddle. “I’m not entirely certain that’s a good idea,” she said. “I think perhaps people’s profession and passions should be separate, because if they are, then the work never becomes a burden. Their passion can always remain just that. Their passion.”
“How did you get to be so wise?” he asked, longing to pull her in his arms, but knowing they’d have to wait until they were in the coach, where he could pull the curtains and have his way with her.
“Reading,” she teased. “And, of course, my time with you, and my mother, and the rest of your family.”
“You are a student of the universe,” he said. “No wonder my family loves you.”
“Do they?” she asked, her eyes brightening.
He stopped before his coach, and as soon as the footman had the door open, he waited for her to climb in, lest he give her true identity as a lady away.
Once she was inside, he was sat opposite her, and they were rattling down the road, he leaned forward and said quite earnestly, “Come, Alice. Of course you must know that they do. Every day they keep giving me the most terrible trouble.”
“And why is that?” she asked.
“Because you haven’t married me yet.”
She groaned, then teased, “Oh dear, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you such difficulty. I should marry you at once, just so your family doesn’t bother you anymore about it.”
“Indeed, you should,” he drawled playfully as the coach rattled down the road.
She gazed out the window as they passed an old Christopher Wren church. “Should we?” she breathed. “Should we just do it? Should we make everyone stop talking and marry?”
“Perhaps that would be the very best of ideas,” he said, hardly daring to believe she was saying it. “That would make me very happy.”
“Truly?” she asked, whipping her gaze back to him. “Marrying me would make you very happy? You could have anyone, Deimos. You are—”
“Cease, my love,” he growled as he grabbed her and hauled her into his arms before he pulled the curtains swiftly shut.
“Yes, perhaps I could have anyone, Alice, as you say, though that sounds terribly wrong. If I put my mind to it, I probably could. But I want you, and no matter how hard I seem to put my mind to it, you have resisted.”
“It’s because,” she said, searching his face, “I don’t want you to regret this.”
He slipped her cap from her head and slid his fingers into her bound hair. “I warned you that if we did this, you might have regrets, and now you’re afraid of my regrets. Are we both so terribly afraid of regret?”
She bit her lower lip. “I suppose we are.”
“Not anymore,” he vowed.
She nodded. “Not anymore.”
Then Deimos kissed her. Kissed her, making her his, leaving all his fears of regret behind.