Chapter 18
“You were rude,” Beck said for the third time as he followed his sister into the guest room despite her sigh of annoyance.
“Teddy, if you can point to a single untoward thing I said or did, I will happily apologize,” she shot back without even turning to look at him. “I did not say a single thing amiss.”
“Vix,” he snapped, watching her back go up. “I was standing right next to you. You were rude.”
“To whom?” she hissed, spinning around with her eyes narrowed. “Your very dear friend? The ginger one who addressed a total stranger by her childhood nickname? That is the one you are up in arms about, isn’t it?”
“Hannah,” he said, kicking the door shut behind him so the contractors below would not overhear.
“Yes, you were particularly horrible to her, but all of those women are worthy of your regard. Perhaps you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be treated like an insect by someone in an expensive coat, Vix, but I haven’t.
Watching you do it to people I care about has turned my stomach. ”
She gave a humorless laugh, flinging her hands up in the air.
“Oho,” she said. “A morality lesson from Tod the swindler. Do you know what I went through to get back here, Teddy? I needed a soft landing from you, not another moralizing, frowning, controlling cog in the wheel of Society telling me how I ought to behave.”
He scoffed, his jaw dropping open as he shook his head in disbelief. “Well, if you’d tell me what the hell happened, maybe I could adapt my mannerisms to suit your particular needs, my dear.”
“It’s none of your business!” she hissed, throwing herself onto the stool of the little vanity table in the corner. “If you’d written back to a single letter I’d sent you since I started that cursed job, perhaps you would already know. Did you even open them?”
He frowned.
She made a little face, wrinkling up her nose and tilting her head. “That’s what I thought.”
He took a breath, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose and glance skyward in the hopes that their mother was hovering somewhere up there, and willing to help him speak to this little monster.
“Who is she?” Vix asked, her voice a little softer. “The ginger girl. Your mistress?”
His eyes popped open. Clearly, Mama Beck was not at home today. He lowered his head, leveling his sister in eyeshot, and said slowly and clearly, “She is the woman I am going to marry.”
They stared at one another for a long, pregnant beat.
“Oh,” she said after a moment, two little spots of violet embarrassment arising on her cheeks. “Why didn’t you say that, then? My very dear friend. I wouldn’t be surprised if she shows up here and slaps you.”
He sighed heavily and crossed the room, dropping himself on the corner of her bed.
“Because, Vix, it is complicated. No official announcement has been made yet. I need to speak to her family and the church and the law to make sure we can marry properly. Otherwise we will have to elope. If I could shout it down every street in Clerkenwell, I very damn well would.”
“The law?” Vix repeated, her dark eyes widening. “The church? Teddy, is she already married? A criminal? Who have you gotten entangled with?”
He laughed. “A Jewish woman.”
“Oh.” She pressed her lips together, blinking a few times and folding her hands in her lap. “I … that makes my rudeness even worse, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said with a laugh, dropping his hands onto the mattress. “It really does.”
Vix sucked in a breath and nodded, straightening her shoulders. “Right. Well, I will have to make amends, of course. Shall I accompany you to the Flaming Fox this evening? I could purchase a small gift en route if that is the thing to do.”
He blinked at her, hazy images of the giggling, mischievous girl she had been before he’d sent her off to be polished playing around this elegant, icy thing seated on the stool opposite him.
“Perhaps another time,” he said carefully.
“We have to merge our ledgers on the building that’s being erected, and it’s going to eat up most of the night.
That was what I was trying to show you when we walked all the way to Clerkenwell today, you know. The building.”
“Ah, yes,” she said with a little flash of her teeth. “The charity hospital. Teddy, I know I am not terribly involved in your business doings, but I confess I am very puzzled as to how a water leak in the Vixen led to you razing a tenement square and building a healing house in its place.”
“Well,” he replied, leaning back on the guest bed, already piled high with the assortment of satin-tufted quilts she’d brought from Reading. “If I tell you my story, you will have to tell me yours. That has always been our rule, has it not?”
She frowned. “We’ve outgrown such things.”
He barked a laugh at that, shaking his head.
“The devil we have. Keep your secrets if you must, little Vix, but then you will have to wonder about mine too. I’ve got all the time in the world.
And unless you’ve got your next governess stationing arranged and haven’t told me, I suspect you do as well. ”
“No,” she said with a sniff, turning her head toward the window. “I shall never work as a governess again. It is disgusting, Teddy. Very sticky.”
“Sticky,” he repeated, trying to hide his smile. “The children, or…?”
“Ugh.” She raised a hand, manicured fingers folding down elegantly toward her palm. “Do not ask. It is not for you to bear.”
“Vix, I helped amputate a man’s foot not two weeks ago,” he chuckled. “I assure you I can bear it.”
She did not even blink. “And yet.”
“So what will you do instead?” he pressed, openly laughing now as he settled back against the headboard. “Service, you think?”
“Certainly not,” she returned, looking deeply affronted. “Governess was a step above maid, and even that was intolerable.”
“Vix, you have to use that education I paid so dear for,” he replied, his voice easy but his message true. “Unless you want to buy in here at the Vixen? It is named for you.”
“It is not,” she sniffed, though she could not hide the smile in her voice. “No, nothing so sordid. No offense.”
“Offense?” he mocked. “Whyever would one take offense?”
She ignored him, pushing herself to stand and pacing toward the window, bracing her hands against the sill and looking out at the white coating of the ground below.
“There is nothing for it,” she said with a shrug, her breath fogging against the glass.
“Only one vocation will suit me, and I will need you to assist me in securing it.”
“Oh?” He frowned. He regretted even asking that much, the one, ambiguous syllable.
She sighed and nodded, her glossy hair flashing in the light. “Yes, I need a wealthy husband. Someone respectable, Teddy, who can house me well and take me to the finest places. I don’t care how you find him. Buy him if you must. It is what must be done.”
“Oh, is that all?” he said, his voice gone thin with sarcastic panic, staring at her like she was a stranger. “Just wealthy and respectable, then? Ugly all right? Old?”
“Ugly is fine,” she said, turning to him with a calm on her face that ran a chill up his spine. “Old might be preferable. No one with airs of a great romance, please. I cannot tolerate it. I want security and status, not another child to govern.”
“Vix!” He came up off the bed, his feet hitting the ground so hard, it likely rained plaster down on the poor workmen belowstairs. “What the hell is this?”
“This is my wish for my future?” she shot back, crossing her arms and lifting her chin. “I would thank you not to shame me for it!”
He opened his hands toward her, like something might appear inside that would convince her this was a road to folly, helpless and without words to convince her otherwise.
“Teddy, please,” she said with a sigh, crossing the room and putting a single warm hand on his wrist. “If you take a moment to really consider what I’m saying, it will not horrify you so.
It is an elevation. It is comfort. It is happiness.
And if you follow my instructions, it comes without the risk of a bunch of horrid dramatics once some handsome fop finds a mistress and breaks my heart, doesn’t it?
I’ve watched that particular story unfold more times than I can count since leaving school.
It’s practically tedious at this point.”
He swallowed, his throat gone dry, his eyes searching her face for some hint of a joke, some promise that she was teasing.
“I trust you to choose someone worthy,” she said, more softly. “I trust your judgement. Elsewise, I suppose I could just go marry Matthew and be done with it.”
“What!” he said, finally winning a wide, sharp grin from her and a peal of tinkling laughter.
She shook her head, dropping her hand from his wrist and spinning away to sit down. “Me?” she said, giggling. “A parson’s wife? I beg your pardon. He was simply the most startling example I could think of quickly.”
“Vix!” he barked, his heart thundering, but she just kept laughing.
“Oh, your face. No, no, Matthew is unsuitable entirely. I want someone who can get me invited to Almack’s at the very least. Titles would be good, but not necessary.
I want to meet my former employers on ballroom floors and rub my finer gowns and larger jewels in their upturned noses, Teddy. Do you understand?”
“I understand that something is very seriously wrong with you,” he mumbled, watching her bend down to check her reflection, still chuckling as she tucked her hair back into order. “I am going to talk you out of this.”
“Oh, Teddy, I just told you I don’t want to deal with any more tedium,” she said with a disappointed click of her tongue. “Or texture. Now, begone. I should like a nap, and I need to figure out how to win your bride back over before I spend the rest of my life with a new sister who hates me.”
He gaped at her. “Did you just—”
“Begone!” she said again, pointing to the door, fully the governess.
And he did.
Because she was very good at that.