“Hmm,” Ajax responded, feigning an interest in a sparse pastoral scene featuring a stile over a dilapidated stone wall. “Forcing my hand, Rokeby? Ruthlessness doesn’t suit you.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” the publisher responded, his small eyes a bit sadder than usual. “But while writing is a mere…” he pressed his lips in a tight line, searching for the most inoffensive way of putting it, “artfor you, Mr. Sedley, we atThe Monthly Reveldo indeed have a business to run.”
Ajax worked his jaw, wishing Rokeby would leave him be. Hehadbeen hiding, dodging Rokeby’s letters and visits for months now, avoiding the dressing-down he now endured. He could feel the man’s scrutiny, hear the disappointment in his voice. He wanted to shut down and leave the gallery without another word. Instead, he made a quip.
“I suppose we can’t all have boot blacking fortunes funding our various endeavors, can we? I apologize heartily for that, but alas, it’s just the luck of the draw, isn’t it?”
Rokeby looked down at his footwear. “It truly is a solid shoe polish.” He looked up, adding nonchalantly, “Use it myself, actually.”
Ajax laughed despite himself, despite the wretched old git who’d concocted the first Sedley’s Satin Black Boot Polish and then fathered him just before buggering off. And despite his much older brother, who’d turned the business into the manufacturing empire it was today, all the while wishing very much that Ajax himself would bugger off. At least they’d allowed him a respectable income, if nothing else.
“Come on, then.” Rokeby turned away and headed for the exit. Ajax followed, furrowing his brow as he stared at the publisher’s back, trying to work out the exact lines that would placate him in this moment. But the panic of an imposed deadline had wheedled its way into his heart, and his mind was muddled and slow.
Out on the sidewalk, Rokeby turned and regarded Ajax in a paternal sort of way. Ajax wasn’t sure why it affected him so, but it did. Enough that he decided to be blunt. “I’m terribly sorry. I just don’t have a story. Not yet.”
Rokeby sighed, and patted his belly with the gloved hand resting there. “I figured as much.”
Ajax felt the color rising in his cheeks. “I promise, I’ll dream up something, some tawdry melodrama the readers will devour. It’s just this confounded city, I can’t…” He grimaced, recalling the absolute mess his life had become. “I can’t think in London.”
“The unfortunate thing of it is, Sedley,” Rokeby pinned him with an intense stare, “when it comes to kidnappings and ghosts and ravishing, the readers are ravenous for the next bit of whatever pap you come up with.”
“I thought we were calling it art?” Ajax interjected, only slightly offended.
“Whatever one calls them, your stories do nearly as well as our most popular author—who actuallyisa lady, mind you, not just some rake with a generous monthly allowance and a ridiculousnom de plume.”
“You helped select ‘Bathsheba Toombs,’ if I recall correctly.”
“It doesn’t matter. And popular though your stories may be, none of it will matter if you stop writing with only three works to your name.” Rokeby turned, squinting at the people bustling by and the vehicles clogging the road. “Because the readers will forget, and they’ll move on to someone new.”
Ajax could see the pediment of the theater at the edge of his vision, the wordsTheatre Royal Haymarketadorning its frieze.
“And so shall we.” Rokeby looked back at Ajax and offered him a wan smile, his eyes sympathetic. “Think on it, Sedley.” He moved to hail a hansom cab.
Ajax watched him until Rokeby had climbed into the cab and offered a perfunctory nod. Watched while the driver searched for his opening amid the congestion and then went for it, the horse trotting off to the magazine’s headquarters, no doubt. And then he looked back to the theater before him and stared at it, memorizing the six Corinthian columns, the five arched doors. He ran a hand over his mouth, rubbing at his tidy mustache. Think on it? Wasn’t that the problem, really?
All Ajax did was think on things. Far too much. With a heaviness about him, he glanced back at the gallery, wondering if he should return to purchase the small, captivating painting by the lady artist. He decided against it. It would be there next time.
And for now, he just wanted away from this cursed street.
Susanna stared at the blank note paper before her, but the words did not come. She sighed, a quivering, scared sort of exhale that caught the notice of her charge, fifteen-year-old Lady Matilda de Vauville.
Lady Matilda looked up from her own work—conjugating irregular French verbs—and shot Susanna a pained smile. “Would you like me to look at it?” she offered.
Susanna laughed ruefully. “I haven’t even started.”
“Oh,” Lady Matilda said, and set down her pen. Her eyes wandered about the schoolroom of Puxley House. It was a sunny, cheerful place under usual circumstances, but today the atmosphere was that of a wake. For Susanna was leaving.
Well, she would be if she could manage to pen her resignation. “I’m afraid I have no experience at this,” she said. Her cheeks colored a little as she realized the same statement might apply to both her quitting her employment as well as the specific reason why. She had no sensual experiences of which to speak, and romance? She had never marked it for her, not even when her father’s curate had indicated his interest. She’d never expected to be shot through the heart with Cupid’s arrow, never expected to make a cake of herself for a handsome face. Susanna had always been levelheaded about these things. That is, until she’d met the Earl of Clifton.
It had been extreme luck on her part that Mr. Pritchard, her previous employer, had maintained an amicable acquaintance with Francis de Vauville, having frequented many of the same social engagements while running in adjacent, slightly overlapping circles. And how fortuitous that the earl had made mention of his sister’s need for a new governess just as Mr. Pritchard’s youngest, Jane, was ready to be launched into society. But when Susanna had first met the Earl of Clifton at his country seat, the imposing Corvath Keep, for her interview, her luck had seemed very bad indeed.
For he took her breath away, towering over her with a glowing, golden charm. And when he smiled, as if for her and only her, she’d nearly lost all composure. She was besotted. But that was fine, perfectly fine; she knew earls didn’t marry governesses, despite what her beloved, well-worn yellowbacks often portrayed. She was content with admiring him from her prized vantage point alongside his younger sister, dreamingabout his light blue eyes before she fell asleep each night. Nothing need come of it.
Until a few weeks ago, when suddenly the young lord had taken notice ofher. She didn’t know why, for she could barely think at all when he so much as looked at her, let alone smiled at her or, in a way she’d never dared dream, touched her arm. If she’d had her wits about her, she’d have realized it was nothing more than a dalliance, something to amuse him. But her heart thudded and her cheeks flushed, and she allowed herself to imagine them falling in love.
For a time.
“You’re not cross with me, are you, Miss Abbotts?” Lady Matilda asked, cutting into her thoughts. The girl’s expression was solemn, and she looked much older than her years despite her fashionable magenta dress.
