The feeling…thecraving…formore…it ever hit him in moments like this.
Nothing would ever be enough until Imogen was his.
That was what he knew in the deepest part of his soul.
And he wouldn’t stop until he’d made it so.
CHAPTER TWO
HYDE PARK, A FEW WEEKS LATER
Beatrix shifted on the hard, out-of-the-way park bench and swept a wary eye over the stack of letters in her lap.
She’d been ignoring them, though they were a large part of the reason she’d ventured to Hyde Park on a day that threatened imminent downpour. In truth, such an outcome wasn’t an unusual prospect. London weather had defeated many a merrymaker—and writer, in her case.
Except the idea of returning home just yet filled her with a sense of gloom grayer than the sky above. The house was cold and dank. Too still and too quiet. They’d lost their last housemaid yesterday. The only servant who remained was Cumberbatch, Lydon’s ancient valet, who Beatrix took care of more often than the other way around, as he was too lofty to care for any less noble personage than the marquess himself.
She moved her attention from the stack of letters that were too stubborn to disappear and returned it to the pencil in her hand and the journal below it. Her gaze roved across Hyde Park’s lush green turf toward Rotten Row. Perhaps a few aristocratic goings-on would be worth recording. If anyonenoticed her—unlikely—they would think she sat here writing all manner of wretched poetry that tore at the soul.
A snort escaped her.
She could scarcely manage to put meat on the table twice a week.
She couldn’t afford a soul.
But society didn’t know that. They thought she held herself above them and considered herself an intellectual superior.
In fact, she wasn’t writing about herself at all. She was writing aboutthem—who was talking to whom…who was ignoring whom…who was cutting whom…what lady was laughing too hard at which lord’s jokes…
In other words, the subject matter spilling from her pencil was such mundane folderol, it was about the farthest one could fall from the exalted heights of poetry. For what she was writing accomplished the most basic task of all. It provided food for her stomach—and sometimes there was even enough to spare to put wood in the hearth.
Writing for a newspaper—a turf rag, more specifically—earned her keep.
Under the guise of a pseudonym, of course.
Further, she’d discovered a few more shillings happened her way when she mixed in tidbits of society tattle. Really, the goings-on of Rotten Row could be considered turf gossip, if she remained focused on the lords and ladies who raced Thoroughbreds. After all, several of them were here today.
There was Gabriel Siren, the new Duke of Acaster, riding his mount with such obvious discomfiture Beatrix sympathetically shifted on her bench. While he didn’t own any Thoroughbreds, he was a financial backer of the upcoming Race of the Century in September, so gossip about him would be relevant. He was riding toward Celia Calthorp, the Dowager Duchess of Acaster and the widow of his predecessor. If proof was ever needed thatthehaut tonwas a small world, here it was. Besides, gossip about the duchess was relevant, too, as her filly Light Skirt had won the One Thousand Guineas, the second major race of the season, putting her through to the Race of the Century. That could be what she and the duke had to discuss. Though, going by the intent expression on the duke’s face when he looked at the duchess, Beatrix sensed…more.
She traced a line between their names and scratched a question mark.
A thought for another time.
The Earl and Countess of Bridgewater trotted into view. As ever, Beatrix’s mouth filled with a bad taste at the very sight of the earl. He was a good enough looking man in the middle of his fifties, who many ladies found attractive. Yet, for those gifts of title and looks, the man faced the world with an ever-so-subtle curl to his mouth that couldn’t have been interpreted as anything other than a haughty sneer. Further, she didn’t like the whispers about how he treated his horseflesh.Drove them into the ground, was the common agreement. The earl was not best pleased that his favored Thoroughbred hadn’t placed in the top half of any race this season.
As for his countess, Beatrix had no opinion whatsoever on the woman. She was a beauty. Of course, she would be. Theirs would be a marriage made for dynastic purposes, which was nothing new under the sun. No young lady as lovely as the countess spent her youth dreaming of marrying a man twice her age. But if the slight curl to her ladyship’s mouth was any indicator, she would be matching her husband for haughtiness within the decade.
Beatrix’s eye that missed very little kept roaming. No sign of the Duke of Rakesley and his new duchess. Quite a little scandal that elopement had caused.
She gave her head a bemused shake. To think she’d shared a supper with them when she’d visited Somerton not two months ago without an inkling of what had certainly already been simmering beneath the surface. Not for the first time, the idea struck her that she might not be an entirely reliable society gossip.
Her gaze moved along and lit upon a newly familiar gentleman riding a gorgeous gray hunter.
Gentleman.
That was the word of interest to her.
For the man wasn’t a gentleman, however much he pretended.
