“There,” he said at the end. “You’ll do very well.”
“Do you think so?” Andrews smiled hopefully.
Of course he didn’t. Edward would have to introduce himself to Alvahurst to make sure everything went off as anticipated.
“Of course you’ll do well.” Edward clapped the man on the back. “I know you’ll do well, because I’ll know the instant you set one foot wrong.”
He could feel Marshall’s eyes digging into his back, but he escorted Andrews from the room and called a footman to take him out of the house.
He turned back. “There. Now was that so bad?”
Marshall was shaking his head in disapproval. “You knew it was him,” Marshall said.
“He was one possibility.” Edward shrugged.
“But you said you had proof. And you mentioned his mother and his wife. If you didn’t know…”
“I knew something about every possible subject.” Edward looked over at Marshall and frowned. “I just mentioned his mother and his wife. He filled in the rest himself. Come, Marshall. These are standard intimidation tactics—threaten small, and let the target’s imagination cast the necessary shadows.”
“Standard intimidation tactics?” Marshall asked. “What are you? And what are you doing with my sister?”
Edward smiled at him. “One of these days, you’re going to realize that your sister doesn’t need a man who follows the rules. There are too many rules and only one of her. Keep your brotherhood of left-handed do-gooders, Marshall. Your sister needs a man who is actually sinister. Now if you’ll excuse me…”
“Where are you going?”
Edward simply smiled. “Someone has to make sure that Andrews performs—and that Delacey takes the bait.”
“But—”
“Complain to your sister,” Edward said. He felt only the slightest twinge of his conscience as he said it. “She’ll take care of everything.”
Chapter Thirteen
THE EVENING OF THE SOIRÉE did not start out as ghastly as Free had feared. She’d expected whispers about her paper, and numerous sidelong glances. Those were certainly in evidence.
But Amanda joined her, looking stately in cream and pearls. Several of the women here had come because they enjoyed the newspaper, and she and Amanda were swarmed. They were bombarded with questions about what it had been like to have a university education. Still others asked her surreptitiously whether she thought that a lady—no, not the speaker herself, of course; they were all only asking for friends—might perhaps choose to take on duties that until this point had been seen as strictly within the male purview.
Yes, yes, it was all possible, Free told them. Hard as well, but then difficulty was the seasoning of life.
She even joked about men trying to discredit her, and received laughter in response.
All things considered, it was not the worst evening she had ever had. She was even almost enjoying herself. And then, halfway through the night, she thought she saw someone.
It was a trick of the light, an impossible, unbelievable thing. But there, between the column and the terrarium, she thought that she saw Edward Clark in the room. The shape of his nose; the way he held his glass. The light glinted off his hair.
She’d not seen him this last week except in passing—a few minutes here, a few minutes there, scarcely enough time to tell each other what they’d done, and for him to take her hand.
That touch of glove on glove, hand in hand, had brought her back to the floor of her office and the dark velvet of that night when he’d kissed her. But he’d let go and left every time.
Edward wasn’t supposed to be in the ballroom. Not that he would let a thing like what he was supposed to do stop him. Not that she cared that he was upsetting the plan.
In that bare, shining moment when she beheld him, Free felt herself light from within. She couldn’t help herself—she smiled, bright and welcoming, and that was nothing to the sheer pleasure that flooded through her. Finally, someone she could have a proper conversation with, someone who would make her laugh, who… who…
He turned toward her, and all that incandescent joy became ice-cold inside her. The man wasn’t Edward. How could she have thought it? At that angle, with those shadows on his face and the light in his hair—but she’d been so, so wrong. This man was softer, rounder, completely dark-haired instead of having threads of white scattered through his hair.
He looked nothing like Edward, nothing at all. How could she have made such a mistake? And this was not just a mistake; it was a horrifying one. The man she’d mistaken for her Mr. Clark was precisely his opposite. He was, in fact, James Delacey, the soon-to-beseated Viscount Claridge, and the author of her current misery. What a dastardly illusion. It was like biting into a strawberry expecting sweetness and getting a mouthful of dirt instead. Free took a step back.
But he’d seen her. He’d caught her looking at him in that instant, caught that initial flush of happiness on her. He frowned, and then slowly, he started toward her.
She wasn’t going to flee from his presence as if she were a partridge. She’d come here tonight to defeat him; he’d learn that soon enough. Free folded her arms and watched him approach.
He stopped a few feet from her. “Miss Marshall.”
She inclined her head, refusing to pay him more than that bare courtesy.
He tilted his head and smiled, as if remembering a private joke. “Your brother has a lovely house,” he said. “When your newspaper fails, as I suspect it soon will, I know you’ll be well taken care of.”
“Fail?” Free said. “How odd. I don’t even know what that word means, except when I use it to describe you. No doubt you are more intimately familiar with the implications.”
His face grew dark. “Careful, Miss Marshall,” he said in low tones. “I will love it when you’re forced to depend on your brother. How badly will it rankle you to rely on a man, when you once had your own independence? Just think, my dear. You could have relied on me instead.”
An angry flush rose in her cheeks. “Is that why you wish me harm?”
“Miss Marshall, harm comes to you because of who you are.” He shrugged. “Not because of me. A woman in your circumstances should expect to be hated.”
“And what circumstances are those?” she asked. “So far as I am aware, the only circumstance of note is that you made me an offensive proposition and I refused. From that, we come to all of this?”