Suzanne Robinson (2 page)

As she sped past Stanhope Gate, Mattie fed the engine more gas. The ends of her scarf flapped wildly, and she gulped in deep breaths. She was going to make this stretch in record time! She was approaching Grosvenor Gate, her pedal foot almost on the floor, when a dark flash appeared in the corner of her eye. Her foot came off the gas pedal, and she grabbed the outside brake with one hand. Mattie and the Panhard swerved, barely missing a chestnut Thoroughbred as its rider hauled on the reins. She heard the horse scream as the motorcar continued its careening circle, jumped a curb and stopped. Mattie was thrown against the steering wheel. Her hat and veil slipped over her face, and the engine stalled.

Mattie fell back in the seat while she caught her breath and her vision cleared. Her shaking hands pushed her hat back and pulled the knot in her veil loose. Behind her she heard shouting and the clatter of hooves on pavement. Somewhat recovered, Mattie tore her hat from her head and jumped out of the Panhard. A continuous stream of curses greeted her. She was relieved at the sight of a costermonger rushing after the Thoroughbred. The horse was dancing down the street with alarm but was unhurt. The cursing rider, however, was buried under a cascade of lettuce, squash, melons, and tomatoes—lots of tomatoes.

What she could see of the man seemed whole. She must have missed him completely, if only by an inch or two. Mattie folded her arms over her chest and watched him flail at a rain of peaches and strawberries that were sliding from the top of the costermonger’s cart onto his head.

Had his hair not been seeping with squashed tomato, the stranger would have been blond. His riding outfit had the elegant cut of Saville Row, but the effect was marred somewhat by lettuce-leaf epaulets while tomato pulp stained the starched purity of his shirt. Mattie forgot her outrage at the man’s carelessness and chuckled. The swearing stopped. The rider paused in the act of wiping his face and gave her a look of outrage that belonged on Banquo’s ghost when confronting Macbeth.

“Bloody hell, woman, you should look where you’re going. You almost killed me. You must be a
blithering fool.” Mattie opened her mouth, but the rider held up a hand, noticed it was holding a squash and dropped the vegetable. “No, don’t answer. I can see you’re one of those ghastly New Women. Driving infernal motorcars, probably screeching about the vote and other absolute rot. It’s obvious you’re a blithering fool.”

Tossing a lock of jet-black hair over her shoulder, Mattie drew her brows together. “What are you so all-fired huffy about? You’re the one who doesn’t look where he’s going. You must be blind as a posthole not to have seen me coming, and I’m not fixin’ to let you cuss at me for something that’s your own blamed fault.”

The rider was staring at her, open-mouthed. “Dear God, what kind of beastly accent is that?”

“I don’t have an accent. You’re the one with the accent. You sound like you’ve been eating lemons for breakfast, all pinched and tart.”

At this the rider lunged to his feet, only to slip on a melon rind and crash to the ground on his posterior. Mattie clapped her hands together and laughed, which elicited another colorful blasphemy from him.

“You look like a piglet in a mud hole!” Mattie chuckled again, but her mirth ended abruptly when something wet and cold smashed her in the face. “Ugh!” She wiped her eyes and looked at her hands. They were covered with tomato. “Why, you ornery priss-pants, I’ll …” Words failed, but Mattie took action. She scooped up a handful of red melon pulp and hurled it at the rider’s newly cleaned face. He
ducked, but Mattie followed with the contents of her other hand. This time the melon hit him in the ear.

The rider lunged at her, keeping his footing. He would have had her if the costermonger hadn’t rushed up with the Thoroughbred in tow.

“Sir, I caught him, I did. He’s all right.”

Mattie’s opponent clenched his fists, gave Mattie an acid glare and took the reins. His face lost its harsh lines the moment he turned to the horse. His voice took on the quality of a father soothing a lost child.

“There, old chap, you’re all right. Yes, you are. You’re just fine. Pay no attention to the harpy and her infernal machine.”

“Harpy!”

The horse tossed his head and widened his eyes while the rider turned on Mattie.

“Damn it, woman. Will you be quiet? Only a savage spooks a horse like that.”

“What in Sam Hill do you mean calling me a harpy, you no-account skunk?” Mattie scooped up a tomato and aimed.

“Here!” The costermonger rushed to her and snatched the tomato. “Who’s going to pay for me cart and vegetables? Look at it. There ain’t a whole piece of fruit nor nothing in the whole lot.”

“The harpy will pay,” said the rider as he led his horse around the cart.

“Ha! The accident was your fault, not mine,” Mattie said. She glanced at the costermonger. “The dude will pay.”

The vendor looked from Mattie to the rider. “Someone’s got to pay, or I’ll be getting a copper, I will.”

“An excellent idea,” the rider said as he mounted his horse. “When he comes, just explain to him that the harpy was motoring on Park Lane over thirty miles an hour and caused the whole thing.”

“Why, you—”

Elegant brows raised. “Do you deny you were going that fast?”

“I’m not in the habit of telling tales. I know how fast I was going, but you just trotted right into the street without looking.”

Ignoring her, the rider leaned down and handed the costermonger a card. “Cheyne Tennant is my name. Should you need my testimony, you can reach me at that address.”

“Where are you going?” Mattie demanded. “Come back here!”

She sprang across the space that separated them and grabbed the reins. The horse shied, but she hung on. Tennant swore and grabbed her upper arms. Hauling her against his leg, he steadied the horse and bent down to spit out each word.

“My dear young lady, I have no intention of allowing you to shriek at me in the middle of Park Lane. If I were you, I’d pay this poor man and go home where you belong.”

For a frozen second they stared at each other—a Montague and Capulet stare. Then something
changed. His gaze faltered, darted to her mouth, her neck, lower. When his glance lifted to her eyes, Mattie felt a strange warmth kindle in her chest and spread through the rest of her body. Never in her born days had she seen eyes like that. If a magic spell took shape, it would take the form of those eyes—a sapphire charm, one moment blazing, the next freezing. Then Cheyne Tennant blinked rapidly, as if coming to his senses from unconsciousness. Mattie felt his hands loosen their grip, and she plummeted to the ground. She landed on her ass, her skirts flying up to her knees.

“Ow! You idiot, that hurt.”

“Then I would suggest we’re even.”

Tennant kicked his mount lightly and trotted off before Mattie could think of a sufficiently nasty retort. She scowled at him as he vanished down Grosvenor Street, even contemplated jumping into the Panhard and chasing him. What if she caught him? Recalling the results of her last attempt to accost him, she thought better of the idea.

“What about me cart, miss?”

Mattie retrieved her purse from the motorcar and paid the man a sum that would allow him to buy a new cart and several loads of vegetables and fruit. Tennant had her; she’d been going far faster than motorcars were allowed in England, and no one would question his word should she quibble. Despite his disheveled appearance, Cheyne Tennant was a gentleman, she was sure of it. Even though Mattie had been raised in Texas and New York, his rank
screamed at her—in the refinement of his language, in the way he rode a horse as if he lived on one, in the spare elegance of his clothing and most of all in his manner. Cheyne Tennant had the air of someone born to privilege, that unstated but nevertheless unquestioned assumption that he had a right to command. And beneath the refined elegance lurked a trace of ruthlessness that persuaded Mattie she shouldn’t confront him on her own.

So she was left to fume at the injustice of his accusations. Mattie closed her purse, then hesitated, turning back to the costermonger.

Holding out a pound note, she said, “The dude gave you his card?”

The vendor eyed the note, snatched it, and handed her the card. “It don’t do to mess with his kind, miss. No profit in it.”

Mattie wasn’t listening. She was staring at the card. In expensive embossed printing it read, “Mr. Cheyne Tennant, 23 Sussex Place.” Nothing else. No title, no initials after his name.

“Dang. The way he acted, I thought he was at least a sir.”

Mattie tapped the card against her teeth for a moment, then slipped it into her purse and started the Panhard. She got in, backed it off the curb and drove slowly back to the town house. No sense hurrying. She was already dreading her next important engagement, the Duchess of Bracewell’s dinner. When was that? Next Thursday. Dang. She wasn’t looking forward to spending endless hours in the company of
people to whom ideas, books, music, and art were little more than props on the stage of their useless, frittering lives.

As she turned a corner, she slowed the motorcar and cursed silently. She’d done it again. Another lost battle in her war to improve. Why couldn’t she have reacted in a more ladylike manner? Because Mr. Tennant had been so blamed ornery, that was why. Still, there had to be something wrong with her. Every impulse, every instinct she had seemed to be wrong.

“I guess I’m just naturally unladylike,” she said to herself as she steered down the street.

Otherwise she wouldn’t find it so hard. The trouble was that only part of her wanted to reform, for her papa’s sake. The other part wanted to drive fast and speak her mind. She grinned as she remembered how exhilarating it had been to zoom down the road this morning. By the time Mattie sighted the tall plane trees of Green Park, she’d forgotten her ire. She was late, and Mama would be up. Sighing, Mattie wished, as she had countless times before, that she hadn’t made that promise to her father. If she hadn’t, she could be at home in New York right now racing her Panhard and pursuing her interest in politics, and she probably wouldn’t care about her lack of good character.

But she had promised, and she would have to do her best to keep her word. She was old enough to remember the early days on the ranch in Texas. The sultry, brain-frying heat, the dust that got into every pore, the vast distances to anywhere that made a
body feel so blamed lonely. Papa had punched cows for years as a rancher, enduring the heat, the bone-jarring work, and the bad trail food. But when he came home, he’d show up on the doorstep with a grin and a joke to make her laugh. He’d sweep her up in his arms and whirl her around in circles while she laughed.

“That’s my little mockingbird. Give your pa a hug, Mattie girl.”

Mattie drove the Panhard into the stable, shut off the engine and lowered her forehead to the wheel. She missed Papa so much her heart hurt. He was worth a million fancy-dressed dudes like Mr. Cheyne Tennant. She missed Papa so bad it seemed there was a hole in her, a bottomless shaft of pain, and emptiness that had become a part of her so that she’d never be whole again. The idea of fulfilling Papa’s last wish seemed to assuage the pain when nothing else would. How long had he been gone? Almost three years now.

It wasn’t fair. A fine man like Papa died, but useless fops like Tennant would live to be a hundred. And if she ever saw him again, she’d tell Mr. Cheyne Tennant just how poorly he measured up to Marcus Bright. Papa might not have worn clothes like he was royalty, but he could at least look both ways before he crossed a street.

 
2
 

Still dripping with tomato and melon, rigid with anger, Cheyne marched up the steps to his front door in Sussex Place north of Mayfair and pressed the bell. He ignored the stare of a passing cabbie, then caught a glimpse of himself in the beveled glass door and cursed the young woman who’d nearly killed him.

“The little savage,” he hissed.

His valet and personal assistant, Alfred Mutton, opened the door, raised his eyebrows and snorted. “You’re a sight. Fell off your horse into a bloomin’ dustbin, din’t you?”

“I’m in no humor to be mocked.”

Cheyne brushed past Mutton and hurried upstairs. He had thrown down his gloves and riding crop and was jerking at his cravat when Mutton sauntered into his dressing room. The valet pushed Cheyne’s hands aside and began unknotting the material.
Mutton was as far from the usual gentleman’s gentleman as a mule is from an Arabian, but he suited Cheyne, whose requirements were hardly those of an ordinary gentleman.

Mutton was a big man, thick-boned and fleshy. His face bore the scars of a youth spent in the rookeries of Seven Dials and Whitechapel. Dark hair thinned on the top of his head to reveal a white dome. His cheeks ballooned out while his eyes sank into his skull so that he seemed to be squinting all the time. His size, his huge, knobby-knuckled hands and his rough face caused respectable visitors to hesitate on Cheyne’s threshold, uncertain if so crude a person could possibly be in the service of a son of the Duke of Bracewell.

“You going to tell me what happened?”