“And clearly you’re one of those rare people who believes in giving lost and abandoned little boys second chances. Why is that, Galahad?”
In lieu of answering he pretended to be outraged. “Can you keep your voice down? Sayin’ things like that is goin’ to ruin my ruthless and scandalous reputation.” To ensure that her question remained unanswered, he loaded the books into the carriage first and then the boys. Last of all he helped her up. If he experienced the same ripple of awareness at the brief contact as she did, he hid it well. “You boys be good for Miss Venus, or you’ll have me to answer to, you hear?”
Instantly Tommy Claypole grinned at that unwitting revelation while she cringed. “Your name is Venus? Venus after the planet…” He wiggled his ginger eyebrows suggestively. “… or Venus after the goddess oflove?” As a ferocious blush bloomed on her cheeks in confirmation, he threw his freckled face back laughing as if her unfortunate name was the funniest thing in the world while Galahad winced at his unintended faux pas.
“Sorry, Miss… er… I assumed they knew.”
“We didn’t,” said Tommy in between fits of hysterics as he rolled around the bench seat with his brother. “When anyone asks her, she always insists that her name is just Vee.”
As if all his Christmases had come at once, the rapscallion gaped with his finger pointed. “Which by my reckoning makes you adespicableliar, too, Miss Merriwell!”
Chapter Nine
Minerva is dragging us to Hampshire on a quest for forty pounds. I think posing as a man’s fiancée for money while fraternizing with him unchaperoned in the middle of nowhere is grossly improper and have told her so…
—from the diary of Miss Venus Merriwell, aged 17
It was odd.
Gal knew it was odd as he stared sightlessly into his barely touched whiskey glass. He had envisioned this moment, yearned, planned, and prepared for it for so many years, he had assumed tonight would be a night for celebration and excitement. An opportunity to pat himself on the back and feel proud of his achievements. Feel elated to have doggedly chased his dream and to finally have everything in the palm of his hand to make it a reality.
To finally be happy.
Content.
Satisfied.
Instead, and irrespective of the signed deeds tucked safely in his saddlebag and locked in his usual room upstairs, exactly as he had been at every significant, pivotal moment in his life thus far, he was subdued and introspective. More than a little overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of it all, truth be told, and desperately alone. So alone it swampedhim. He couldn’t explain why, when he had been alone for so long now that being at peace with it came as naturally as breathing.
Usually he liked it.
His work meant he was always surrounded by people, so some genuine solitude was such a luxury he rarely ever sought company elsewhere unless he had to. He supposed it would be easy to seek some here to drag him out of this dark mood. Brighton was a party town, and The Lanes and the seafront were peppered with noisier inns than this one, filled with visitors out for a good time. There was no end of people to make merry with, except he already knew he wouldn’t. Celebrating his lifelong ambition with strangers seemed sadder than sitting here and staring into his glass alone and overwhelmed.
He blamed the speed of the transaction, his mad dash to Brighton, and his significantly lighter bank balance for unsettling him. Until yesterday when he had received Mallory’s express, Gal hadn’t expected to sign anything until the middle of December. However, thanks to Mrs. Leyton-Brown’s meticulously organized affairs and the straightforward nature of the sale, it transpired that her dynamic young solicitor had no problem turning it all around in a record three weeks once his fee was trebled. Mallory must have moved mountains to get it done so fast.
But then Mallory was desperate.
Mrs. Leyton-Brown, God rest her, had thought she was doing her nephew a favor by leaving him the solid investment of an extensive property portfolio over money. After Venus had let slip that the wealthy widow had left the orphanage money, he had made some subtle inquiries and had been delighted to learn that the old woman had apparently divvied up all the substantial funds she had in the bank to her favorite charitable causes, which she assumed needed them quicker than her hedonistic nephew did. He was glad Venus’s was one of them. He was gladder that Mallory was left conveniently rich in land rather than funds, so still technically in debt up to his debauched eyeballs. Without Gal’s help, although he had been sorely tempted to assist, word had soon leaked out that the reckless lord had had a windfall and his creditorshad lost their patience, so that meant he urgently needed Gal’s money to pay them if he wanted to keep his bones unbroken.
Hence the hasty transaction, yesterday’s messenger hammering on the door of the Albany at the crack of dawn and Gal’s unplanned, last-minute race to Brighton after only two hours of sleep. An interminable, miserable, and freezing journey over mud, slush, snow, and ice he hadn’t minded for a second because of the bright light at the end of the tunnel. A journey that had allowed him to be waiting outside the solicitor’s office first thing this morning with a severely hung-over Mallory the moment the man unlocked his doors.
He had no doubt Mallory was out there somewhere celebrating, but that fool had been out celebrating last night too before he had even known Gal would arrive, when any sensible fellow knew that a game wasn’t over until the last card was played and you could never be certain what that last card was until it was flipped.
Thankfully, Gal had flipped a trump.
That thought instantly made him think of Venus, and for the first time this evening he smiled. The look on her pretty face when he had beaten her at cards was a memory he treasured and had revisited often this past week. That and the way she had looked at him after he had given Billy a reprieve in Piccadilly the day after. As if she was finally seeing him for who he really was and liked what she saw.
It had felt strange showing her a glimpse of the real him.
Disconcerting, when he usually kept that private for his own protection, but also both empowering and humbling because she had let some of her guard down too. That unfamiliar sense of kinship had felt nice. Unsettling. Significant too, although he had refused to allow his mind to wander down that dark path too far.
He had seen her only the once since, when Giles and his wife had dragged him to the theater to watch some god-awful singer named Lucretia de Vere warble her way through an opera. Because the woman on the stage was some sort of acquaintance of both the Sinclair and Standish families of old, Venus had been at the performance, too. Theyhad been in opposite boxes and so only really collided for a few minutes during the interval, but she had smiled across the theater a time or two when she sensed him watching, and with absolutely no malice at all. Which meant he was hopeful they were making some headway toward improving their relationship, and grateful she hadn’t caught him watching her as frequently that evening as he had been. Especially when his eyes had drifted her way incessantly to drink in the bewitching sight of her, then for reasons best known to themselves had absorbed every detail to sear into his memory to recollect at will.
The mouthwatering coral gown.
The loose tangle of copper-gold curls piled atop her head.
The way she tried and failed not to snigger impolitely whenever Ms. de Vere’s substandard voice wavered or hit a note wrong, and the way her fine eyes sparkled when she gave in to it.
