From Rags to Kisses by Shana Galen
Three
He should have knownJenny wouldn’t take the bait. Her level gaze remained cool and direct. Finally, he was the one who straightened and looked away. Ridiculous to be jealous of another man after all this time. Would he rather Jenny be alone? Or worse, stuck in the rookeries, shackled to a drunkard who foisted a new baby on her every year? He should be glad she had caught the eye of a viscount. Even more importantly, she had found meaningful work. She’d always had a good eye. She could distinguish the valuable from the paste far better than he, and she’d been interested in the history of items. She’d spend hours with the mudlarks, learning how they knew what century a find might come from. Aidan just wanted to find something else and pawn it so they would have coin in their pockets.
They never seemed to have enough coin.
“Take your time looking through that,” he said, moving to his desk and lifting a document. He pushed the jealousy down with practiced efficiency. He was used to the feeling of wanting what others had. It was why he was so successful in business. It wasn’t that he wanted Jenny or begrudged Chamberlayne for what he had. It was second nature to Aidan to want a horse or house or piece of land someone else owned. That’s all this was.
He lifted another document just as Jenny whistled. He looked up, and she waved the bill of sale at him. “Ye paid a fortune for this ‘ouse. This much.” She snapped the parchment. “For a ‘ouse!”
“I think I liked it better when you couldn’t read.”
“Ye shouldn’t ‘ave taught me then.” She set the folder on the cushion beside her and sipped the brandy he’d poured for her. “Just ‘ow much blunt ‘ave ye got?”
Unlike many men in his position, Aidan knew exactly how much money he had. He knew his profits, losses, and the value of his investments down to the pound, if not the penny. “Enough,” he answered because it was none of her business how much money he had, and if he told her, she’d balk.
“I doubt that.” She lifted the folder again and rifled through the papers. “Even when our bellies were full and our pockets bulging, it were never enough for the likes of ye.” Her voice was bitter.
She knew him well, but she didn’t know everything. “I daresay that was true once upon a time,” he said, pulling out the chair behind his desk. “But I’m quite content now.” Aidan managed to say it all with a straight face. He didn’t even gag on the word content.
She gave a disbelieving snort then went back to the folder and this time several minutes of silence stretched between them as she quietly turned pages and he shuffled papers from one side of his desk to the other. Finally, he surreptitiously glanced at his pocket watch.
“Are we keeping ye from something?” she asked, her gaze still fixed on the papers. How the devil had she known?
“No.” He slipped the watch back into his pocket.
“A midnight rendezvous?” she asked, finally glancing at him with a teasing look in her eyes.
That teasing look had always been his undoing. She’d been such a serious girl. But when she gave him or anyone that teasing look, it made his heart clench painfully. It did so now, and he spoke without thinking. “I wanted to go back to my office and look over a contract.”
Her smile faded. “To yer office? Is that wot ye do in the wee hours? Work?” She shook her head. “Ye never were one for any fun.”
“If you mean did I want to spend our last shillings to sit in Astley’s Amphitheater for an hour instead of eating for the next week, then I’m not any fun. But as I recall a bunch of prancing horses hardly make up for days of being cold and hungry.”
“This again?” She dropped the folder and stood, hands on hips. “Are ye really still ‘eated about that?”
“We gave up eating for a week to watch horses prance in a circle.”
“They did more than that,” she argued, “and not all of us were born the bastard of a nob and ‘ad seen it before.” She’d raised her voice. Now he stood and raised his.
“I could have sneaked us in.”
“I wanted to sit in a seat and not watch my back for once. And ye didn’t starve for a week. It were one night. Two at most.” She’d moved across the room, anger making her skirts swish as she walked. He met her at the side of the desk, looking down at her. For a moment, it was almost as though those thirteen years melted away. She was clean and smelled of flowers, but her eyes were the same and the argument familiar.
“That’s not the point, and you know it. That was our blunt, not yours. You should have asked me.”
“Why? Ye would ‘ave said no. Ye can’t fault a girl for wanting some fun.”
“I could have shown you fun,” he said. It was what he’d said all those years ago, and he said it now without thinking. Her eyes darkened to blue, her pupils dilating.
“Ye might have been ‘ungry that night, but ye weren’t cold.” Her voice was low and seductive.
“No, that was the night after. We were too angry that night to...” His gaze dropped to her lips.
“To do this?” Her hand slid up the side of his coat and fisted on the lapel. With the slightest tug, she brought his mouth down to hers, his lips a fraction from her own. His hands circled her waist out of habit. She was still slim, but when he stretched out his fingers, he could feel the swell of hips that hadn’t been there before. His heart beat so hard that his chest hurt. The blood pounded in his head as he brushed his lips over hers.
Her lips were soft, softer than he remembered, and her breath smelled of brandy. Her hand slid up to his neck, grabbed his hair and tugged him down into a real kiss. His mouth touched hers, and he was struck by the heat of her, but then she’d always been fire to his ice. Why had he ever let her go?
Aidan pulled back so abruptly that Jenny had to grasp the edge of his desk to keep from stumbling. He had let her go, and now she was betrothed to another man. He was kissing another man’s intended. Thank God the kiss had not gone far. They’d barely tasted each other.
“Wot are ye doing?” she asked.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I kissed ye, nodcock.”
“Then you shouldn’t have done that. Your betrothed is downstairs.”
She opened her mouth to say something then closed it again and nodded. “You’re quite right,” she said, and he could almost see her step into the persona of the viscount’s betrothed. “I don’t know what came over me. Nostalgia, I imagine.”
“You’ll tell him, of course,” Aidan said. Jenny was a lot of things, but she was not a liar. Well, until she began pretending to speak like one of the nobs she hated so much.
“I’ll tell him.” Her brow creased as though she were considering how to do this.
“Should I call my second?”
“For?” Her brow smoothed. “A duel? No,” she said on a laugh. “He won’t challenge you to a duel. I’ll tell him it was the good-bye kiss we never had. I told him a bit of our history together.”
Aidan might have preferred pistols at dawn to having his sordid past discussed over tea. He could hardly fault Jenny, though. It was her past as well.
He took a step back. “It won’t happen again. I can assure him of that myself.”
“Don’t,” she said. “I won’t be kissing you again. Ever.” She straightened her shoulders and seemed to make a decision. “I haven’t a watch like you, but I think it is time we were away. If I don’t drag Roland from the larder, he’s likely to stay all night.”
Aidan lifted a lamp. “I’ll show you downstairs.”
Jenny followed him out of the library, and as they walked, her head looked this way and that. “He will want to know if he can come again,” she said, head tilted back to look at the foyer’s high ceiling.
Aidan stopped and she almost slammed into him. “Even after you tell him...”
She gave him a wry smile. “There’s little that will keep him away from an archaeological find.”
“My secretary did say he was one of the best.”
“He is,” she said. “He’s very good, very thorough, and honest. If you have something of value down there, he will tell you.” Her tone implied that there were plenty who would say he had nothing and buy it off him for pennies then sell it for an enormous profit. Men like that didn’t last long as appraisers because it was a profession that demanded trust and honesty, but Aidan had seen greed corrupt the best of men. “But you won’t want us to come back,” she said. “We would be here all day for hours. Surely, we would be in your way. Perhaps you should send the trunks to Chamberlayne’s town house—”
“No,” he said. He didn’t know why he said it. She was right. He didn’t want people in his home at any hour of the day. He especially didn’t want Jenny Tate in his home. She’d already proved herself a temptation.
“No? Wot the ‘ell, Aidan?”
Aidan saw a nearby footman’s head snap back. Jenny must have seen it too because she said, “I mean, pardon me, Mr. Sterling. I don’t think I heard you correctly.”
He jerked his head toward the servant’s door and when they were alone again, standing at the landing of the stairs to the kitchens, he said, “The trunks are mine. They stay here.”
“No one disputes those trunks are yours, but if we take them—”
“They stay,” he said again.
She glared at him.
“And if the issue is having to see me, I assure you I am rarely here. I doubt we’ll see each other again.” He opened the door and led her down the stairs, toward the light in the larder. He found Mr. Lexum leaning against the ragged door frame, looking tired and bored. His arm was raised to shed lamplight over the figure bent above the trunk. Lord Chamberlayne didn’t even look up when Lexum greeted them.
“Deep in concentration, I see,” Jenny said, taking the lamp from Lexum who looked happy to lower his arm for a moment.
“There are quite a number of letters and journals here,” Chamberlayne said, indicating he had heard them after all. “Fascinating. I haven’t had time to read them yet...” He looked up. “Did you discover when the house was built?”
“Yes, 1728,” she said. “One of the first houses in Grosvenor Square.” She glanced at Aidan when she said it.
“Hmm.” Chamberlayne lifted a paper and squinted at it. “That’s interesting. Mr. Sterling, I’ve only had a cursory glance at these items, but I think we have something quite interesting. There may be nothing of value, except historically speaking, but I’d like to have a closer look.”
Aidan waved an arm. “My larder is at your convenience.”
“Shouldn’t have said that,” Mr. Lexum murmured under his breath.
“Brilliant!” The viscount held out his hand and Aidan shook it. As he looked into the smiling face of Jenny’s betrothed, he wondered if the man could tell Aidan had kissed his bride-to-be just moments before. “I promise to keep you abreast of anything and everything we find. I’m happy to give daily reports.”
To the side and slightly behind the viscount, Jenny shook her head vehemently. Aidan pressed his lips together. “I am afraid I am rarely home, but you may report any progress to my private secretary, Pryce. I will have Pierpont give you his card.”
“Very good, sir.” He looked longingly over his shoulder at the trunks.
“We should leave Mr. Sterling to enjoy the rest of his evening,” Jenny said. “And I do believe my bed is calling to me.”
“Of course, my dear,” the viscount took her hand. “I will take you home.”
Aidan had a sudden image of the viscount in bed with Jenny, but he pushed it away. She was not his. He had made the decision to let her go, and he did not regret it. He had everything he could want now. He’d done the right thing—for both of them. After all, she would soon be a viscountess.
The small group departed, and Aidan stood in his foyer and debated going to bed himself. And if he did that, he’d lie there, alone, remembering the kiss and the past. He didn’t want to think of the past. He wanted to think about the money he would be making in the future. “Pierpont,” he called. “Have my coach brought around.”
***
THE NEXT MORNING, JENNYsat at a desk in Chamberlayne’s sunny parlor. His artifacts were kept in the library, away from heat and light, but this adjacent room was used to store notebooks, brushes, shovels, and even pickaxes. She had moved several pieces of pottery into the sunny room to catalogue them. The pieces were from an excavation in the countryside a few weeks ago. Though Roland preferred that the pieces be kept in the dark, she preferred to work in the light, and this morning he was happy enough not to object. He had a large sack open in the center of the room and he was going from drawer to drawer and shelf to shelf, picking items he might need to study Aidan’s find. They’d travel to Grosvenor Square after noon. She and Roland might wake early to work, but no one expected a man like Aidan Sterling to receive them before midday.
“I am certain he is already up and at work,” she said, choosing her words carefully while noting the item number of the shard in front of her. The upper-class accent was becoming more second-nature to her. “He never was one to lie abed.”
Chamberlayne paused, and she looked up a moment later to see him watching her draw the pattern of the pottery in the notebook. He lifted his teacup from the edge of the desk and sipped. Then he sat across from her. “I believe I have only had glimpses of your past with Mr. Sterling. Perhaps you should elaborate.”
She replaced the quill in the stand. “I think you’re right, especially after what happened last night.”
Roland raised a brow but didn’t interrupt.
“I kissed him,” she said.
“Was that wise?” he asked. “I’d rather you kiss men after we wed.”
“No, it weren’t wise,” she said, scowling as she heard herself slip into her old dialect. “I wasn’t thinking, I just did it. Afterward, he asked if I would tell you, and I said yes. Now I suppose he expects you to throw down your glove or whatever men do before dueling.”
Roland looked horrified, and Jenny bit back a laugh. “I told him I would explain everything. It was just a good-bye kiss. No need to call your seconds.”
“I could play the role of the jealous fiancé, but I don’t know how convincing I might be. Surely I can affect a cool demeanor when I next see him, though.”
“Just blame it on the woman,” Jenny said. “That’s what men always do.” She lifted her quill again and held it above the inkwell. “In this case, I am at fault. I did kiss him.”
“Why?” Roland asked, taking the quill from her and replacing it before she could wet the nib with ink. “I mean, he’s an attractive man, yes, but you manage to refrain from kissing other attractive men. Why him?”
She shrugged. “It won’t happen again. He’s the last man I ever want to kiss.” She made a motion to end the conversation.
“Oh, no, Miss Tate. I think it long past time we had a discussion about Mr. Sterling and his role in your past.”
“You always said you would never pry into matters that didn’t concern you.” She lowered her voice to sound like him.
“But now you’ve kissed him, and we’re to spend the next several weeks in his house. This matter does concern me.”
She couldn’t argue. Well, she could, but Roland would win. He was right. She did owe him an explanation. The problem was Aidan’s history wasn’t really hers to tell. She supposed she could keep to the parts that pertained to her or were common knowledge. “Fine, I’ll tell you how we met.”
The door to the parlor opened and Oscar poked his head in. “Good morning. Why the serious looks?” he asked.
Jenny rolled her eyes. Oscar Lexum was like a bloodhound. He could scent gossip two miles away.
“Jenny was about to tell us how she and Mr. Sterling first met,” Roland said. “Sit down.”
Like a child with a new book, Lexum rushed to a chair and sat, hands folded in front of him.
Jenny leaned back and closed her eyes, not because it was difficult to remember, but because it was all too easy. She always felt that the rookeries lingered at the edges of her existence, waiting with long fingers to drag her back down.
“I thought he was dead,” she said, and painted a picture of the filthy street in Spitalfields where she had seen him lying in a mud puddle, barefoot and motionless. “But then he woke up, and as much as I wanted to leave him there, I couldn’t.”
“You always had a soft heart,” Oscar said.
“No, I didn’t. I’d stepped over plenty of half-dead children before. I don’t know why I didn’t just leave him.” She gazed out the window, not seeing the view of the garden but those filthy streets and that little girl who’d been clutching her mother’s skirts and watching her. “He was ridiculous. He didn’t belong there. He gave me his hand to shake and told me his mother was dead and his father was an earl. I thought he was lying. Everyone in the rookeries has a Banbury tale like that.”
“What made him different?” Roland asked.
Jenny thought back. So much had been different about him. “He asked about me—if I was an orphan. No one had ever asked about me before, or cared.” She laughed at the next memory. “And then he asked if we could be friends. I didn’t even know what a friend was.”
“Your first friend,” Oscar said, smiling.
“It wasn’t like that at first. We were partners in crime. He would distract the costermonger, and I would swipe an apple or a plum.” She held a piece of pottery, rubbing it as she spoke, and she set it down now.
“How did he distract them?” Oscar asked, leaning forward.
“He’d stand up and give speeches. I didn’t know what they were then, but he had whole sections of Shakespearean plays memorized. He’d stand on a chair or the pedestal of a statue and start yelling, ‘To be, or not to be? That is the question.’”
Roland and Oscar exchanged a look.
“He did,” she insisted. “I know it’s difficult to believe now, but he wasn’t always so stuffy and serious.” He hadn’t been that way at all once she had started to know him. He’d been funny and silly and such a change from the people she knew, who had all been worn down by poverty and want. Of course, over time, he was worn down as well.
“He’s the son of an earl?” Oscar asked. “Then shouldn’t he be Lord something?”
“The bastard son,” Roland said. “Cranbourne acknowledged him but apparently didn’t think to provide for him in his will. It sounds as if the new earl was not aware of him. But he found Sterling a few years later and took him in, yes?” He looked at Jenny.
That was exactly what had happened. Aidan couldn’t wait to be rid of her. She clenched her hands at the rush of rage. “You asked how we met,” she said coolly. “That’s how we met.”
“I asked about your history,” Roland corrected. “I asked why you kissed him.”
Oscar gasped. Jenny rolled her eyes.
“And now I need to know what, exactly, we should do about your obvious attraction to Mr. Aidan Sterling.”