“Daisy takes any chance she can to needle me.”
“That is the way of siblings, I fear,” he said.
“When my mother died a few years ago,” she said, “the role of mothering went to me. Daisy had a hard time adjusting.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
She inclined her head. “It is hard. My father isn’t the most attentive parent. But life goes on.”
“I lost my mother five years ago. Influenza. I suspect it is not the same, as she treated me more as a…” He trailed off, his insides twisting.
“As?” Poppy prompted.
“As her pet, truth be told.” He grimaced. What man wanted to admit being treated as a precious thing by his mother? “She doted on me, but whenever I opened my mouth to express an opinion, she closed her ears. The idea of me was far preferable to her than the actual man.”
He’d never told a soul about his mother, but it hadn’t occurred to him to keep it from Poppy. He knew her on some fundamental level that put him at ease and yet filled him with a gripping sense of anticipation.
They were silent for a few steps, and then she did something that had him nearly faltering. She laid her hand upon his arm. The gesture was what any young lady might do when being escorted, but he felt it as though she’d stroked her fingers along the whole of him. Pleasure rippled through him like a shockwave.
Aside from the brusque care of his nanny and occasional pats on the back from his brother, he’d never been touched. Not deliberately, not from someone seeking any meaningful connection. His mother might have bussed his cheek now and then, but she’d never laid a finger on him. As for his father? The very idea of a tender touch from him was laughable. Oddly, he hadn’t realized this lack of touch until he’d received Poppy’s. Now he wanted to purr, demand she touch his chest, anywhere and everywhere.
Poppy appeared oblivious to his struggle. “From the moment I was born, my mother had expectations of who I should be and how I should act.”
Winston cleared his throat and focused on their conversation. “Did you object to those expectations?”
Her thin shoulders lifted. “How should I know? I’ve only now begun to live my own life. Nor were they necessarily bad expectations. They were simply…” She shrugged again. “Hers.”
He needed to tell her everything. Damn. Damn. Damn.
Winston took a breath and pressed his arm closer to his side, trapping her hand there. Not very gentlemanly, but he didn’t release her. “The other night, when we met, I did not give you my full name. I don’t know why…” Her eyes were on him now, boring into him in that direct way of hers, and he forged on. “That isn’t correct. I do know.” Damn. “My father is the Duke of Marchland.”
She walked on for a beat before speaking. “As in Marchland, cousin to the queen and one of the oldest titles in England?”
“Yes.” His collar felt too tight. “I am his second son. Winston Hamon Belenus Lane, to be exact.”
The hand at his arm gripped harder for one moment before slipping away. He felt the loss acutely.
“Mmm.” She kept walking, not altering her pace, but not looking at him either. She glanced at the distant waters of the Serpentine where small canoes were out in droves as people took in the pleasant spring weather. Light danced off the water, and she squinted. “My father was born in the East End. Bethnal Green, to be exact.” He winced at the way she mimicked his speech and the meaning behind it. “My mother was the seventh daughter of the Earl of Lister. But he disowned her when she chose to marry my father.”
“Did she regret the decision?” A sinking feeling labored his steps.
“Yes.” Again her eyes scanned the park, looking everywhere but at him. “Eventually, she realized that their worlds were too far apart.”
“Perhaps it was not their worlds but their temperaments that were at odds.” He was grasping at straws but he did not like the expression on her face nor the hard set of her shoulders.
Finally, she turned to him. “My lord—”
“Winston.”
“Lord Winston. What is it you hope to accomplish by walking with me?”
Unable to take the cold way in which she spoke, he caught hold of her hand and tugged her beneath the canopy of a willow tree. Quiet surrounded them, and her bright hair turned bronze in the shadows. She glanced pointedly at his hand clutching hers, but he did not let go. “I want to get to know you.”
Beneath her straight red brows, her brown eyes studied his face. “What is the point of getting to know someone whom you could never…” She sucked in a sharp breath, and her jaw went tight. “With whom you could never have a relationship?”
“Says who?”
Her brows snapped together. “Do not be obtuse. A duke’s son and a merchant’s daughter live in separate spheres. They do not commingle.”
“To my knowledge, there is no law against it.”
Her gaze was direct and snapped with impatience and intelligence. It made him hot and breathless. She glared. “There is a social law, and you well know it.”
A gust of wind rushed over the grass and whipped about them, and a long strand of her vibrant hair broke free from her practical bun to tickle his nose. Gently, he tucked it back behind her ear, not quite touching her, but wanting to. “Social laws are broken all the time.”
“To ill effect.”
He smiled then. “It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it?”
She scowled. “What is?”
“You picking away at my logic, and me finding new ways to prove you wrong.” And he could not wait.
She blushed beautifully. “You talk as if we’re to have a future.”
“Because we will.”
She frowned. “It won’t… I’m…”
“You’re what?”
She huffed out a breath. Most unladylike. Most refreshing. “My life is complicated. I have responsibilities.”
He moved just a bit closer. “I would not ask you to forgo them. I simply want…” So many things. He touched her cheek, a fleeting caress. “When I’m with you, I have no name,” he whispered. “No title. It’s just me. Just you. I want to keep that feeling, to keep you with me.”
There. He’d said it. And her nose wrinkled. “I don’t…” She paused, appearing utterly confounded by him. Confusion, he gathered, was a new thing for Poppy Ellis. And though the flush in her cheeks grew redder still, she spoke plainly. “Men don’t usually fancy me.”
He knew what it cost her to say it, and instinctively, he knew she was trying to scare him away by her admission. London society maintained a pack mentality; the undesirables were culled. What she did not know was that her brutal honesty made him admire her all the more.
He held her gaze with his. “This man does.”
Chapter Four
Jack Talent was going to be a problem. Mary had known this as soon as she’d seen him sneering at her from the deck above when she had embarked with Mrs. Lane. He always looked at her as if he knew something about her that others did not. As if he saw inside of her soul and found her lacking. It rankled. Who was he to pass judgment upon her without so much as a by-your-leave? Or scowl at her when she knew he was guilty of his own crimes? Worse still, he was now at Inspector Lane’s side. No doubt he would soon be whispering vitriol in his ear, much as he’d done with Ian Ranulf.
She would not let him. Not with so much at stake. Thus when she spied the arrogant tilt of Talent’s dark head weaving through the crowd, she followed. It was an easy task; the man held little regard for those around him and simply cut through the slower-moving people like a scythe through dead grass. Mary moved just as quickly, but delicately, having long ago learned to slip and twist through a crowd without gaining any more notice than one would give a gentle breeze.
Talent turned a corner, headed, if she could believe it, toward the shuffleboard deck. Laughter and the sandy scratch of disks over wood lifted and faded in the wind. Talent touched the brim of his hat and nodded to a pretty young lady who looked quite fetching in a white polonaise with sea blue ribbons. The golden-haired girl smiled coyly back, and Mary almost rolled her eyes. Yes, dear girl, engage with the devil. See how that works out for you.
Coattails fluttering in the breeze, Talent moved on, circling a massive smokestack and heading to the windward side of the ship. On cautious feet, she followed, her senses alert—
He slammed into her without warning, taking her back against the wooden hull of a lifeboat. The craft creaked in protest, but then he was against her, stilling it. His big hand covered her mouth. As though she would scream. The fool.
His accusing eyes narrowed. “Following me, Miss Chase? Might want to be a little less obvious about it.” He cocked his head. “Your scent is all over the wind.” He leaned in for a sniff. “Cinnamon and spices. And here I thought you were supposed to be a proficient spy.”
She merely stared back.
A smarmy snort left his lips. “What? Nothing to say?”
Oh, was she to talk with his brutish hand over her mouth?
Something in her expression must have conveyed this, for he let her go, stepping back two wide paces. She knew better than to believe the action was out of respect or even fear. No, he was simply giving himself enough space to fight should she attack. Mary almost laughed.
“Why are you here?” She wouldn’t bother with indignation; it would only please him.
Talent crossed his arms over his chest. “Now that’s my question, merrily.”
“Do not call me that.”
He laughed, if one could call the ugly sound a laugh. “What? Do you not flit through London, making certain everyone sees you as a merry bit of fluff?”
She hated him. Truly. Her spirit stretched along the walls of her flesh, yearning to escape and show this man how “frivolous” she could be. But she’d worked too hard to fail now.