“I didn’t think you were serious about writing a novel. Besides, this is most assuredlynotfiction. This is real life. Our real lives!” He paused, realizing Miranda’s cousin had been reading it. No wonder she could hardly look him in the eyes when he’d entered the room. Every decent person he knew would be looking at him in the same way — askance and entirely shocked.
All over London!“You said you wrote only for your cousins, not the whole bloody world!”
He was striding up and down, waving the slim volume in the air. “I didn’t realize you were going to be the next Mrs. Crackenthorpe!”
“Who?” Miranda asked, rising to her feet.
“Crackenthorpe. Reported to be ‘a lady who knows everything.’ More precisely, she was the anonymous author of theFemale Tatler.”
In the deep recesses of his club, they had a framed page from the eighteenth-century publication upon the wall. Serving as a dire warning, the single sheet mentioned three highly placed individuals, basically tarnishing their reputations for all time.
“I have never heard of her,” Miranda said.
He stopped pacing. “Well, she’s long dead, thus I’m not surprised.”
“Then why mention her?” she asked, sounding agitated. “In any case, my silly little book is more likely to be compared toTown and Country Magazine. Have you ever read it or seen one?” She didn’t wait for a reply.
“It’s not published anymore, but my cousins found a stack of them, about a decade’s worth in my uncle’s library when we were children. Let’s see, once a month for a decade. That’s...,” she trailed off.
He waited for her to do the relatively simple math, but she frowned and seemed to want him to supply the answer.
“Numbers are not my friends,” she said finally, wringing her hands, “and now I’m feeling so anxious, I cannot think straight.”
“Obviously,” he said unkindly, still in disbelief over what she’d done.
Not only his own scandalous portrayal in her heinous writings, she had willfully destroyed herself, too. Her father would have to stand in line to kill him, after Lord Perrin, Mr. Waltham, Lady Sarah, Lord Pastille, Lady Penelope, and a half dozen other wronged people mentioned and exposed.
“Ten years multiplied by twelve months is one hundred and twenty,” he said, latching onto something sane and normal.
She waved the answer aside. “The magazine contained theTête-à-Têtecolumn. ‘Head-to-head,’ you understand?”
“Yes,” he bit out. “Wordsaremy friends, as you put it, even French ones.”
She stared at him, a hard stare which left him feeling like a petty man, but he was too overwrought to care.
“May I continue without being insulted?” she asked, lifting her adorable chin.
At that moment, however, he was finding it easynotto adore her. He could finally resist the irresistible Miranda Bright, who’d brought doom upon both their heads. He wasn’t sure she realized exactly what she’d done.
Philip merely gestured with his hand, indicating she should carry on.
“Each month’s column would dedicate itself entirely to a single couple fromyourworld of the titled and privileged. Their names would be left out of course, but the magazine would include little sketches. A perfect likeness of those they discussed. Can you imagine? How precious!”
“Precious,” he repeated softly, imagining the horror of an illustration of himself on the page when damning words were bad enough. And worse, what if he found his likeness linked to a lady he didn’t really care for, such as Miss Waltham. He shuddered.
“Town and Countrygave a detailed summary of each couple’s amorous activities,” she continued, “and all their questionable behavior. But it is widely understood those discussed within theTête-à-Têtewere flattered.”
He was sure his expression had turned sickly, and he was probably a distinct shade of green.
What a nightmare that publication must have been! Every last one should be found and burned.
“And you’re sure it is no longer published?” he asked with a note of dread that she didn’t catch.
“Sadly, it is not, but my cousins and I spent many hours trying to work out exactly to whom the articles were referring. Since they were twenty-year old magazines, for us it was like a riddle. But I understand the old coffeehouses of London would bustle with people reading about the month’s featured couple.”
A rake’s nightmare,he thought,and a busybody’s dream!He could imagine how the lickspittles would rattle on, ever more gleeful when they could actually see a sketch of the hapless pair. He supposed the answer was to live a life of angelic morality.Impossible!
“At any rate, my novel is nothing like yourFemale Tatler, nor even those intriguing magazines—” she began.
