Chapter 5
Tilly had awakened this morning at her usual time thinking today would be an ordinary day like any other.
Only much better, as it was December and the Christmas season was now fully upon them.
She adored Christmas—the anticipation…the merriment…
the food…the gifts. Now, she enjoyed receiving a gift as much as the next person, but what she loved most was observing her folk through the year and finding the perfect gifts for them.
So, today was to have been split between lady’s-maid errands on Old Bond Street and picking up gifts in Burlington Arcade that she’d ordered special.
The point was she’d had a fun day ahead of her.
Until this man—a lord—had muscled and squirmed his way into this cab with her.
Now her fun would have to wait until she’d done something about him.
For here was Brighton, returned like a bad eel pie, in the form of one determined, massive, entitled lord.
She saw what he was trying to do—use his lordly power to bully her. So many lords were bullies, like the right was bred into them.
Before he’d tried that tack, she might’ve felt a little sympathy for his plight and perhaps would’ve been inclined to accept payment for his pa’s ring. For the fact was that bloody ring was proving impossible to sell.
None of the pawnbrokers in the East End would touch it.
Too fine, they all said. And none of the jewelers in the West End would deal with her once she opened her mouth and they heard the Cockney pouring out.
A Cockney chit shouldn’t be holding a ring like that.
Must be stolen, they all thought. And there was the bottom of it—no one was willing to stick their neck out for a ring belonging to a nob.
A real conundrum, this ring had proven itself.
Put another way, this wastrel lord crowding her cab bench with his broad shoulders and thick thighs and too handsome face might’ve been the answer to her prayers.
Then he’d gone and tried to bully her.
And the thing was this: these last nine years, no one had bullied Tilly Birdwell.
And she’d liked it that way.
So, she wasn’t going to make it easy on him.
“It’s the ring of an earl, you say?” she asked, all breezy like. That way, he wouldn’t see her coming.
He exhaled in a great rush. “His signet, yes.”
Didn’t this too-handsome lord just brim with impatience?
Well, Tilly wouldn’t be hurried. “So, it’s a noble ring.”
He searched her eyes, clearly trying to parse where she was going with this. “Aye.”
“And how did you lose it again?” Toying with a lord was fun, wasn’t it? “The first time, that is.”
He hesitated, his eyes gone suspicious. “In a card game.”
“You lost it ignobly, then?”
“If you want to put it that way.”
Now, now, wasn’t that a sore spot she’d touched?
She gave a little one-shouldered shrug that brushed along his arm. “Then there’s one way you’ll be getting the ring back.”
The scowl trenched across his forehead said he didn’t much trust either her words or the cheery way she’d spoken them. “And how’s that?”
She spread her hands wide, like she’d seen magicians on the street do when they revealed their final trick. “You’ll have to earn it…” Oh, how she liked making him wait for her next word… “Nobly.”
That frown line would become permanent if he wasn’t careful. “Pardon?”
Her smile couldn’t contain itself. “If you do three noble deeds, I’ll hand your pa’s fancy ring over.”
His mouth opened, then closed.
Her offer had clearly knocked him speechless.
“Three noble deeds, milord,” she repeated in case she hadn’t already made herself perfectly clear.
In the general sense, lords had trouble absorbing what they didn’t want to hear.
Given his silence, Tilly felt she had leave to go on… “You see, there’s something I’ve always wondered. Why are aristocrats called nobility?”
A few seconds of silence ticked past before he came to and realized she’d asked a question—and expected an answer. “Never thought about it.”
That got a good laugh out of her. “You wouldn’t now, would you?”
His jaw tensed and released. “Fair play.”
“And here’s the thing,” she continued, “in my experience of noblemen, I’ve only ever seen a few being noble.”
His brow lifted, dry humor glinting in eyes that were more silver than blue. “Even a few?”
All right, he’d started playing along with her, but for some reason, it left a slick of sour in her mouth. This lord needed a few life lessons. “Do you know Lord Percival Bretagne?”
Of course, he would.
All nobs knew each other.
He shrugged. Now it was his shoulder brushing hers, and, lawks, there were more than a few muscles beneath that greatcoat of his. “Can anyone really know a man like Bretagne?” he asked. “If the rules aren’t of his making, he feels no obligation to play by them.”
Tilly took his meaning, but she also understood Isabel knew her husband, through and through, and had experienced naught but good from him.
And that good in Lord Percival, Tilly had been the recipient of it, too.
So, she had something to say to this lord and was feeling a mite righteous about it.
“Lord Percival was the Savior of St. Giles, did you know that?”
His brow lifted a scant mite. “I didn’t.”
“There,” she said, sure as a barrister. “There was a nobleman being noble when he shut down all them dens of iniquity.”
The thing was, it wasn’t only Isabel who had saved Tilly nine years ago. Lord Percival had been there that night, too.
The lord crammed at her side snorted. “I don’t see myself becoming the Savior of St. Giles.”
“Well, I wouldn’t recommend losing any sleep over it,” she said, all het up.
“Not many men, noble or otherwise, can be Lord Percival Bretagne.” She’d picked up on how the world saw Lord Percival—and she knew the world was dead wrong about him.
He was loyal and true and noble. “And there’s Hope House, too,” she continued, unable not to now that she’d got going, “that he established to help all the doxies what wanted out of the life. Those women learn skills there that help them out in the world. Their sprigs, too.”
If a snort could be sardonic, this lord’s was. “A real paragon of virtue, that Lord Percival.”
“But he’s not a paragon.” Here was what Tilly had been working up to say. “That’s the point. He’s a man. One doesn’t need to be a paragon to be a good man or a noble man.”
The man beside her had gone silent, and Tilly saw with no small amount of satisfaction that, at last, her words had their intended effect and struck up a war behind his eyes. Finally, he said, “Three noble deeds?”
She nodded, attempting not to let her surprise show. She’d expected him to keep trying to bully her. But that look in his eyes communicated something different as he extended his hand. She took it and gave it a shake. “Three noble deeds,” she said, her courage of a sudden turning into bravado.
It was his hand.
The feel of it, specifically—big, strong, masculine. Even through his gloves and her gloves, warm. A hand full of capability and strength.
It wasn’t simply knowledge of those sensations—but awareness of them.
A shiver traced through her.
Nine years it had been since she was alone with a man who was touching her.
She’d made sure of it.
She even expected the little animal being who lived inside her to scream, Run!
But it didn’t.
Another surprise, that.
The cab began to slow, and Tilly startled back into the present and snatched her hand back.
A quick glance out the window told her they’d reached her first destination, Old Bond Street.
She cleared her throat and clutched her reticule, any excuse to avoid his eyes.
True silver, that was their color. Not a clear silver, but opaque with dark gray ringing the irises.
Those eyes should’ve been cold, but they weren’t.
Neither were they warm.
Yet heat burned within.
The sort of heat that could burn straight through a woman, if she wasn’t careful.
Lawks, this lord was a dead knocker, wasn’t he?
This wasn’t his first time sharing a carriage with a woman, either, for the instant the vehicle stopped, he edged past her—this carriage truly wasn’t big enough for the two of them—and opened the door before jumping down to the cobbles, his hand extended to help her descend.
It was the rare occasion that Tilly felt like a lady, but the feeling stole through her as she allowed those long, masculine fingers to take her hand—and there was that strength and warmth and capability.
Feet solidly on the ground, she reclaimed her hand and said, firm, like a lady would, “I have business to attend to.”
With that, she brushed past him.
Heavy footsteps thudded behind her. She exhaled a sigh that implored the universe for patience, then swiveled around. “Don’t you have a day to get on with?”
“We have yet a few matters to get straight between us,” he said, as if the universe had granted him all the patience she’d asked for. “I still don’t even know your name.”
She saw two things at once.
Determination in his eyes—and the fact that he was right.
Perhaps she could give him her name, and he would be on his way.
Likely not.
“You can wait for me here.” She indicated the patch of sidewalk beneath his feet. “I’ll be out in ten minutes.”
But as she entered Mrs. Marlow’s Millinery, she heard now-familiar footsteps following. Did the deuced man think she was looking to escape through the alley?
She shook him from her mind—or, more like, attempted to—and set about her business. She liked this millinery. Mrs. Marlow and her girls didn’t put on any airs, and they had a genuine understanding of the vital functions a hat must perform all at once.