AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What? Nonsense. Of course I will not dance.”
Arthur was relieved. He was a good dancer. But partnering Miss Grandison must be rather like guiding a great frigate through a crowded channel. The potential for mishaps was high.
“You can do something for me, however,” she added.
Her tone made Arthur wary. He knew, because Miss Grandison had told him, that she was a lady bent on revenge, itching to punish her brother for past humiliations.
“Have you seen John?” she continued, confirming his suspicion. “He’s been peacocking about town bragging that his daughter is to be a duchess. As if he’d arranged the match all by himself, when in fact he did nothing.Less thannothing. My brother is odiously full of his own consequence.”
Arthur thought this was probably a fair assessment, but that didn’t mean he would be pulled into their quarrel. He was sorry that Miss Grandison had been drenched by an upended punch bowl in the year of her come-out. He was even sorrier that her brother had known of the plot to humiliate her, had done nothing to help, and had later pretended to have no connection to his beleaguered younger sister. The man was clearly an ass. Arthur actually wished Miss Grandison well in her quest to make her brother regret his sins. But he wouldn’t be a party to her plot.
“I need a gentleman who can reach John inside his club,” she continued. “White’s, that is.”
“Reach?” repeated Arthur.
“As a woman, I am barred from entry,” she said. She gave him a look. “As you know.” Her expression revealed what she thought of this exclusion.
Which many men saw as one of the chief benefits of their clubs, Arthur thought. Some avoided the females of their families for days on end.
“So I need an…agent to further my plans,” she added.
Visions of mayhem filled Arthur’s mind. What schemes would Miss Grandison require of her…henchmen? He tried to remember when a member had last been expelled from White’s. Hadn’t there been someone who cheated at cards?
“Well?” Miss Grandison was nearly his height and built on heroic lines. She challenged him eye to eye with a glare that might have quelled a riot.
It was best to be clear. If he hedged, the request would only rise again. “No,” said Arthur. He left it at that. Any embellishment might open a path to argument.
“I see.” Her tone sought to freeze him into a block of ice where he stood.
He couldn’t laugh. And to walk away would be rude. “Do you remember young Tom?” he asked as a diversion.
“Of course I do,” replied Miss Grandison. “There is nothing wrong with mymemory, Macklin.” Her emphasis on the word made it clear that she wouldn’t forget his refusal to do her bidding.
“He’s appearing in a play at the Drury Lane Theater next week.”
“Is he? Well, I’m sure all his friends will be interested to see him on the stage.” Miss Grandison turned away. “Excuse me, I must speak to our hostess.”
Arthur hardly noticed her departure as the comment took root in his mind. All of Tom’s friends would want to see him perform. Of course. And Señora Alvarez was one of Tom’s friends. Ergo, she would wish to attend the play. Mightn’t he make certain that she could do so? In a manner befitting her noble bearing?
If this also gave him an opportunity to be in her company, where was the harm in that? There was none. The occasion would be unexceptionable.
His mind filled with plans to make this vision come true. Everyone he needed was at the ball tonight. He would speak to them before the evening closed.
* * *
Sitting in her parlor just before going up to bed, Teresa reviewed the plans she had put in place to solve the problem of Dilch. She had grown weary of his threats and his lurking in the street to taunt her. But even more, she had hated being saved by the sudden appearance of an earl the last time Dilch had accosted her. That was not her life now. She did not rely on any man’s protection, and most particularly not an annoyingly attractive nobleman. She’d vowed to take care of the neighborhood bully herself, and now she was ready to do so.
The wretched Dilch saw her as a helpless woman, an easy target. He had no idea what she’d been through in her life or what those years had taught her. He was also oblivious to the sentiment building in her neighborhood. Everyone was tired of the man’s posturing and attacks. Ending them simply required some organization, which Teresa was happy to supply. And so she had proceeded—gathering information, recruiting allies, and finalizing her plans.
Dilch didn’t actually live on her street. Teresa had set her maid, Eliza, to follow him home one day, and she’d discovered that he had rooms in a run-down place a little distance away. His wife and her mother lived there with him. They were not long-term residents. They’d taken the chambers less than a year ago. No one Eliza spoke to knew them well, or expressed any liking for Dilch.
The man came to their street to amuse himself, Teresa had decided, like a gentleman visiting his club. It was too bad that his idea of enjoyment was intimidating small shopkeepers into enduring his pilfering, cuffing children, and harassing any female unwise enough to enter his orbit. He liked to catch Teresa as she set out for the theater workshop at about the same time each day, walking along at her side murmuring salacious insults. And he had been even worse since she struck him with her bag of vegetables. Though not as much as one might have expected, she’d noted. At heart, he was a coward, and thoroughly despicable.
And yet he had no notion howsmallhis depredations were. Teresa had seen villainy on a much larger scale. Despite his burly height, Dilch was a contemptiblelittleman. Which didn’t prevent him from being a menace. A number of Teresa’s more vulnerable neighbors were afraid of him. One old woman who walked with two canes had stopped leaving her rooms altogether because she feared meeting him and perhaps being knocked to the ground.
And so Teresa had made a few visits, taking Eliza along to add to her consequence and wearing a gown of restrained elegance. She’d spoken to the retired prizefighter who ran a pub at the far end of the street and was endearingly passionate about justice. She’d called on a builder who lived a few doors down. Dilch had made the mistake of bullying this man’s two small sons while he was out at work and then laying hands on their mother when she tried to protest. Teresa had spoken to the pugnacious wife of the greengrocer and a woman who took in laundry two houses down. All of these had passed the word to their friends. The whole of the street was aware and ready to act. They had only needed a leader, and they’d welcomed Teresa’s assumption of that position.
It was rather like what Tom had told her about organizing a play, Teresa thought as she pulled on her gloves the following morning. All was ready; people were in place. She wore her costume of a widow’s somber black in a cut and fabric that implied more riches than she possessed. They were ready to act in every sense of the word.
