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“How did you deliver such a good punch?” she asked, crossing her arms. Lord Northrive laughed heartily.
“You never been in a fight before? I thought you had a brother.”
“Our mother was always very good at keeping us from fighting. So…” she paused and took up a fighting stance, as though she were one of the boxers in the ring that they had just watched. “Care to show me?”
“Hmm…” He made a show of considering her question for a minute. “Very well, I hope you are ready for this….”
***
“You really must be more careful, Miss,” Sherborne said, pushing Violette in the back to help her up the stairs.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Shh!” He urged her. “Your voice is higher-pitched than usual.”
“Nonsense,” she said, adopting a comically gruff tone. She chuckled at her own light-headedness. From the port she had consumed that night, she was feeling particularly light on her feet, and she had a feeling she would have struggled to get up the steps of the gentleman’s club had it not been for Sherborne pushing her up.
Once they reached the landing, he unlocked her bedchamber door and pushed her inside. She wandered in, uncertain where her feet were heading, until she felt Sherborne lightly take her arm and direct her toward the bed, where she happily fell onto it, in a dazed state with a silly smile on her face.
She was thinking of how Lord Northrive had taught her to box a little in the street outside the alehouse. The brief touches they had shared with him showing her how to make a fist and deliver a hard punch had made her shiver with excitement. Of course, they hadn’t actually hit one another, it was simply a sparring match, but she already felt more protected than she had done before, knowing a little now of how to fight.
“You are taking a gamble, Miss. A huge one!” Sherborne said in a panicked tone.
“One thing I have learned since I have come up to London is that a gamble is rather fun. Why must men only be the ones who are allowed to gamble?” she complained, sitting up again. “We ladies should be allowed as well.”
“I agree, but this is a different kind of gamble altogether.”
“Oh, tush.”
“You will be in the basket if this ever gets out!”
“What does that mean?” she asked, looking to him with curious eyes.
“It means in trouble,” he said, hurrying back to the door. “Miss, think about what you’re doing with Lord Northrive.”
“I do not know what you mean,” she said innocently, rolling over on the bed, deciding she was happy to sleep in her clothes in her drunken state.
“Oh really? I have enough sisters to know when a woman is looking at a man with more than a little attraction.” Sherborne’s words made her sit up again and look sharply toward him.
“I am not…” She trailed off, realising that in her dazed state she couldn’t even argue against it. She did like Lord Northrive, an awful lot. “I am doing nothing wrong.”
“What of Lord Northrive? What if your friendship continues like this? Face it, Miss, this can only end one of two ways,” he said, reaching for the door.
“What does that mean?” she asked, calling to him.
“It means that either Lord Northrive will never return your affection, believing you are a man, or he will, and then later down the line be very disappointed when he discovers you are a lady rather than a man.”
“Sherborne!”
“Good night, Miss,” Sherborne said, hurrying through the door and heading to his own chamber for the night.
Violette didn’t have the wherewithal to argue with him. She laid back down on the bed instead, thinking on what her fake valet had said. There was truth in his words, sadly. As free as Violette’s situation now was, she was placing herself in a dead end too. She could never tell Lord Northrive that she liked him whilst she was pretending to be Mr Victor Blake.
