“You have to eat with your hands.” She tore off a piece of naan, scooped some of his curry onto it using her thumb and the tip of two fingers, and popped it into her mouth. Her entire mouth burned. But she did not twitch a muscle as she swallowed. She looked at Alworth with a challenge.
“Fascinating,” he murmured, and proceeded to stare at his food.
“What’s the matter?” Pen taunted. “Too noble to eat with your hands? Too barbaric a custom for the lofty British?”
Alworth, after another moment’s hesitation, imitated her, and gingerly tore off a piece of the bread.
She watched him awkwardly stuff a heaped handful of the curry into his mouth. His eyes widened and gradually filled with tears. A dull red colour spread over his cheeks. Several beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. He swallowed and wheezed violently into the napkin he’d pressed into his face.
This was when Pen’s cockiness left her. “Well. I hope you enjoy your meal. I really must go.” She got up. He disregarded her and continued coughing. She edged her way out of the restaurant and ran.
Wonderful. First, she’d run him over, nearly dashing out his brains. Then she’d attempted to kill the man with curry. He’d been nice to her. He’d bought her her favourite childhood dessert. He’d wanted to converse with her. And she’d rewarded his niceness by making him eat the spiciest curry that existed on earth. Why, Pen, why?
Sometimes Pen suspected there were screws loose in her brains, indeed.
The next morning,after she’d had a plain breakfast with black coffee and dry toast in the coffee room below, Pen studied her pale face in the dim mirror that hung in her attic room.
A boy’s narrow face stared back at her, with a pointed chin, big, dark eyes and a generous mouth. She recoiled.
This wasn’t her.
Had she made a terrible mistake disguising as a boy and coming to London? Should she have done so as a woman? But no. She would have been awfully limited in her movements. A woman alone on the streets of London? Unthinkable. No, the charade was necessary. It was also safer. For as long as she was going to be in London alone, it was better to do so as a man. The freedom of being able to do whatever she wanted was too delicious. No chaperones, no petticoats, no sitting around sewing, simpering, and twirling sunshades.
She frowned at her image. “Plan B, Pen. Plan B.” The problem was that she did not have any Plan B. There was only Plan A.
Find Marcus. Marry Marcus. Live happily ever after with Marcus.
Simple, and to the point.
Now there was an obstacle to the first leg of her plan.
Marcus had disappeared.
She could, of course, turn to her very good friend, Lucy, the Duchess of Ashmore. Who had a mansion in Grosvenor Square and who, no doubt, would be more than willing to help her find her elusive guardian. Knowing Lucy, with her energy and resourcefulness, she’d single-handedly overturn every single cobblestone in London until they found him.
Except Lucy was currently residing with her family in Ashmore Hall in Oxfordshire. Even if she were here, she’d promptly put her back into petticoats and drag her from one ball to another. Because she was a duchess, and this is what duchesses did. And Arabella, her friend and Lucy’s sister-in-law, who also happened to be a duchess, would introduce her to one duke after another. For her to marry.
It was a running joke among her friends that they would all marry dukes. It was, they said, fated. Three of her friends had already done so. All because Arabella had, years ago, thrown four copper farthings into a Celtic wishing well, one for each friend, wishing for each of them to marry a duke.
But Pen would never marry a duke. She’d been already back then, pig-headedly determined to marry her guardian, who was not a peer. So, she’d clambered after her coin and promptly fallen into the well, dragging down Arabella with her.…Things had taken their toll from there. Lucy was expelled…and somehow ended up marrying her duke anyhow. As did Arabella. Last thing she’d heard, her friend Birdie had married a duke in Scotland as well.
Pen snorted. Coincidence. A fluke, a happy stroke of luck for her three friends. She was happy for them, from the bottom of her heart. But this fate was not for her, thank you very much. She needed no season, no husband hunting, none of the things the ladies customarily did to find themselves shackled in a ducal golden cage.
Her eyes fell on the letters strewn across her bed. Last night, she’d reread each letter and fallen asleep over them. They were repetitive, maudlin letters, and Pen was relieved Marcus had never read them.
Nonetheless, it stung that he hadn’t received a single missive she’d written with such painstaking care. Each letter asking when he would come visit, when she could finally come and live with him. Not that she’d been unhappy at the seminary; not at all. She loved her friends Lucy, Arabella, and Birdie. She loved Miss Hilversham, the headmistress, who hid a kind, understanding heart behind her strict facade.
After a moment’s hesitation, she gathered the letters, threw them into the fireplace and watched them burn.
How old had she been when she’d first fallen in love with Marcus? She’d been a child. Nine? Maybe ten. Marcus must’ve been, she calculated, twenty-five. Maybe twenty-six. Maybe older? In truth, she didn’t really know his exact age. She just knew she loved him. Had loved him ever since he’d strolled into her life that hot Indian summer day. She’d been crying because—she couldn’t even remember why. Was it because her kitten had run away? Back then, she’d still been able to cry over minor things like that. What a baby she’d been.
Then a gorgeous man with black hair, green eyes, a dimple in his chin, a cheeky smile on his face, had sauntered into the courtyard, hands in pocket. “Hello, Princess,” he’d said, as if they’d known each other for ages. He’d shown her card tricks, and made a coin appear from behind her ear, only to toss it into the air to make it disappear again. He’d made her laugh.
He sat with her on the floor of the yard, cross-legged, and taught her how to play vingt-et-un, patiently explaining to her the rules. She’d loved him fiercely ever since.
“Where did you learn to play ving-et-un so well, Marcus?” she’d asked him, after he’d beat her for the third time in a row.
“At White’s, of course.” She watched his slim fingers shuffle the cards.
“What is that?”
“A men’s club in London. Nothing for you, Princess. Now. Do you want me to teach you how to play picquet?”
White’s.
Staring into the attic room’s mirror, Pen’s eyes widened. She slapped her forehead. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?
She would find Marcus at White’s!
