Chapter 6
The thing was, Rhys didn’t have a day he was particularly keen to get on with.
For he’d found that the day he wanted to have, well, he was having it.
Except…he now had in his possession all the information he needed to start moving forward and earning Papa’s ring back.
He knew the blonde’s name—Miss Tilly Birdwell.
He knew for whom she worked—Lady Percival Bretagne—and, by extension, where she lived, for a lady’s maid lived in the household of her employer.
Strictly speaking, no more facts were required for him to be able to send a note informing her of his noble deeds.
He could part ways with this woman right here on this stretch of Piccadilly sidewalk.
But he found he didn’t want to part ways with her.
Simply, there was something about Miss Tilly Birdwell.
And, nay, it wasn’t her looks or her figure or her appeal to both eyes and other parts of the body.
Well, it wasn’t only that.
It was her.
This woman held a light inside her.
As someone who had spent the last year in the dark—and the ten preceding that, frankly—he wanted to bask in that light a little and perhaps understand it some.
She came to a sudden stop before a shop—The Pantheon of Play. His eyebrows winged together. “You’re shopping at a toy store?”
Miss Birdwell tilted her head to the side, observing him from a distance that allowed for the possibility that he’d gone daft. “It’s the Christmas season, ain’t it?”
His brow gathered. “You mean, December?”
Her head tipped to the other side. “You don’t celebrate Christmas?”
“My family gathers for Christmas Eve supper, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Her mouth turned down at the corners. “No gifts, then?”
Discomfort traced through Rhys. “My family believes gifts are for the—” He couldn’t finish that sentence, of course.
Miss Birdwell heard it anyway, and instead of taking offense, a laugh sprang from her.
“Gifts are for us vulgar lower classes, innit?” Even as her smile teased, her eyes looked inclined to take pity on him.
“It’s all right, Lord Rhys. I’m a servant in a grand household, and I’ve heard worse from your lot. ”
A surprising urge to defend reared up inside him. “Do Lord and Lady Percival not treat you—”
Miss Birdwell reached out and did the most surprising thing: she placed a calming hand on his arm.
“Not them. Lord Percival and Isabel are the best of the best. And his pa the duke is, too, along with the duchess. Now, the duke’s heir and his wife, Lord and Lady Exeter, who live in the west wing of the house, they have a way of thinking about us of lower consequence that can come out in their words every so often. ”
Ah.
Now Rhys knew something more about Miss Birdwell.
She was a tactful, forgiving sort. He’d met Lord and Lady Exeter on a few occasions, and they likely weren’t deserving of such grace.
“Now,” said Miss Birdwell, pushing the shop door open, “let’s buy some toys.”
Let’s buy some toys.
It wasn’t the buying of toys part that lit a spark of excitement inside him, but the let’s part.
No longer was she attempting to exclude him from her day.
He’d become part of it.
After Miss Birdwell had exchanged greetings with the shopkeeper, Rhys asked, “Who are these children you’re buying gifts for? I wasn’t aware that Lord and Lady Percival have any.”
“Well, the good Lord hasn’t seen fit to bless them with sprigs,” said Miss Birdwell, “but we have lots of little ones in our circle. There’s Miss Bretagne from Lord Percival’s first marriage, but she’s a lady full-grown now, isn’t she?
But then, Miss Bretagne has the twin brothers from her mam’s second marriage, so they’re part of the circle.
Then Miss Bretagne has cousins on her mam’s side, Miss Lavinia Asquith and Mr. Geoffrey Asquith—also twins, mind you—though they’re grown, too, which ain’t to say they wouldn’t want gifts, y’know? ”
Rhys nodded, not exactly knowing. “I suppose.”
“Then there’s other cousins, too. The French ones from Isabel’s sister, Eva, who is a French aristocrat now, and has three sprigs of her own.”
Rhys had yet another question, and he needed to ask it delicately, for he didn’t wish to offend. “So, all these gifts are for the family of your employers?”
Miss Birdwell brightened. “Oh, and my friend Nell, who is a duchess now and has her own two sprigs.”
Rhys found himself nodding again. “And Nell’s sprigs.”
“Family comes in all forms, don’t it?”
Against his will and whatever sound judgment he possessed—which, admittedly, had always been in short supply—Rhys was impressed by this woman.
There was no artifice to her.
“That’s quite a lot of people to buy for,” he said, neutrally.
Her smile turned brilliant. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
That hadn’t precisely been his point, but he saw hers—and liked it better.
A lot of people to buy for was a wonderful thing in her world.
And so it was, one hour later, Rhys was stepping outside the Pantheon of Play weighed down by six boxes of varying sizes. Felt more like juggling.
Miss Birdwell gave him an up-and-down appraisal and laughed. “That doesn’t count as one of your three noble deeds, so don’t go getting any ideas.”
A low, rumbly chuckle of his own joined hers. He’d never met a woman like her. This woman’s angle on life was different from anyone’s he’d ever known.
“Now,” she said, pointing across the covered walkway of Burlington Arcade, “I need to pop into that silversmith’s shop for a dog collar for Miss Bretagne—”
“A dog collar for Miss Bretagne?”
“Not for her,” said Miss Birdwell, still smiling. “For the spaniel puppy she’s getting for Christmas.”
“Ah, that makes more sense.”
Another laugh escaped Miss Birdwell. “Wouldn’t she just make a sight showing up to one of them fancy balls wearing a dog collar?”
While she “popped in” to the silversmith’s, then the goldsmith’s beside it—“for a pair of earbobs for Isabel”—Rhys continued holding the boxes of toys and waiting.
As Burlington Arcade was frequented by the haut ton, he was recognized by a few passersby—a nod from the gents…
a quick cut of the eye, followed by a private little smile from the ladies.
But as Burlington Arcade was mostly frequented by the proper end of society, he wasn’t on conversational terms with any of them.
Those of the ton with whom he was on conversational terms tended to occupy the opposite end of the spectrum—the wastrels, rotters, and tossers.
When Miss Birdwell returned, she was holding two small boxes and her smile, which he’d come to understand was just how she always looked—which he more than liked.
Some place inside him responded to her smile.
And he understood.
He couldn’t pack her and her boxes into a hackney cab and end this day.
He thoroughly wracked his brain until a simple, perfect solution came to him. “Shall we have tea?”
“Tea?” Her brow crinkled, and her smile faltered. She looked as if she didn’t know how to interpret the suggestion. “With you?”
“Why not with me?”
“Well, you’re a…”
“A lord?”
“Well…” She shrugged one shoulder.
“Please don’t hold that against me,” he said, trying for lightness, but underneath sincerely earnest. “I promise I don’t bite.”
Unless you ask, he didn’t say.
Didn’t even know where that came from.
Well, that wasn’t precisely true.
It had come from the rake that, plainly, wouldn’t mind having his way with the delectable bit of sweet that was this Miss Birdwell.
He’d become decently skilled at suppressing his inner rake this last year.
But here he was, suddenly desperate for a private hour with this woman—even fifteen minutes would do in a pinch.
Head tipped to the side, Miss Birdwell considered him with her little smile. “And where do you propose we take tea?”
“Mivart’s, of course.”
Her eyebrows made a break for Burlington Arcade’s vaulted glass ceiling. “Mivart’s?”
“It’s no more than a few streets away.”
“You’re all right to carry them boxes all that way?”
“Bracing exercise.”
She gave a little shrug and started walking, but almost as quickly stopped in her tracks before a mullioned window. “Oh.”
“What is it?”
“It’s vacant.”
“Was this shop a favorite of yours?”
She shook her head and waved his question away. “Wouldn’t it be something to have a shop in the Burlington Arcade?”
Rhys understood there were a great many unanswered questions floating around in the ether that he’d never once pondered—and this was one of them. “Hmm.”
Miss Birdwell hardly noticed his response—or lack thereof. “It’s the perfect location for a shop for ladies.”
“Why for ladies?” he asked, wondering if he’d missed something—likely. “Don’t ladies shop everywhere?”
Incredulous blue eyes rounded on him. “For ladies.”
As if that cleared anything up.
But he nodded, anyway.
She pointed down the long stretch of the arcade.
“You’ve got all these shops here. Then beyond, you’ve got Piccadilly.
” She pointed the opposite direction. “You’ve got Old Bond Street.
” She pointed yet another direction. “Then New Bond Street. So many milliners, dressmakers, shoemakers, and jewelers all around.”
He didn’t know how to react in the face of all her passion.
And that was…new.
His past self—and his present self, to be honest—knew exactly how to handle a woman’s passion…inside a bed.
But never had he encountered this level of passion outside it.
Well, he had.
The sort of passion that involved beds could be had as easily outside it.
But the passion of Miss Tilly Birdwell was a different sort altogether.
Her eyes burned with the fervor of a Renaissance saint, as she said, “An entrepreneurial spirit could make something of it.” Then she snorted and shook her head. “A gel like me couldn’t have a shop here.”
“Why not?”
“You would ask that, wouldn’t you?”
“Me?”
“A lord.”
He supposed he would never live that condition down.
He would always be a lord.