The Suffragette Scandal (The Brothers Sinister) (37 page)

It was at that point that Amanda realized something very important. Between planning for the demonstration, reconciling with her sister, and the enjoyment of spending a little time afterward with Genevieve, she’d failed to notice one thing.

“Oh, no,” she groaned, putting her head in her hands. “I was going to say, when we’re both back in Cambridge. But I just realized.”

“Oh dear.” Genevieve caught on, too, and she too grimaced. “You live with her. Will she…” She paused delicately.

“Will Free throw me out?” Amanda shook her head. “No. She wouldn’t. But I’m not sure how I feel about living with a newly married couple. Things might be a little awkward.”

More than a little, she suspected. Free had kissed Edward in public. God only knew what might happen behind a door.

“What will you do?”

“Spend more time in London. It would make sense, given what I write about.” Amanda swallowed. “But I suppose it’s just as well. It will mean seeing my sister more. And Maria says Toby wants to see me—I haven’t seen my eldest brother in ages.”

But it wasn’t the thought of Maria that had her heart pounding. She didn’t look at Genevieve, but she blushed anyway.

“You could see me more, too,” Genevieve said.

Her tone was light and…and…

And no, oh
no,
Amanda was not going to even think of what else it was. Unbidden, though, the word whispered in her mind.

Flirtatious.

It was almost flirtatious, and Amanda had been trying her best to see everything Genevieve did in the light of friendship, not flirtation. It wasn’t working so well any longer.

“That would be very nice.” That sounded rather too stiff.

Genevieve reached out and set her hand on Amanda’s knee. It was a light, gentle touch. A
friendly
touch. That’s all it could be. “Good. Then that’s settled. I should like to see more of you.”

Amanda’s mouth had gone dry. And Genevieve’s hand didn’t move. It rested there, poised on her leg. “Yes,” Amanda said awkwardly. “I’d like to see…more of you, too.” That pause made her sentence sound like a double entendre. Which it was. Mostly unintentionally done, on her part. She felt her face flush violently.

And then Genevieve moved her hand up a few inches—a distance so meaningless to her, so burningly painful for Amanda. That inch transformed the place her hand rested from the knee to the thigh.

If Genevieve had been at Girton College with Amanda, among women who regularly whispered of such things, Amanda would have known precisely how to take that hand. She’d have taken it in her own and kissed it.

But Genevieve had gone to an elite, proper finishing school. She’d spent all her time in polite society with ladies who were…well,
ladies.
The possibility that Amanda might have been burning with unrequited lust quite likely did not occur to her.

“Do you think,” Genevieve said, “that you might ever want to stay with me while you’re in town?”

Amanda jumped up, pulling away from the heaven of Genevieve’s touch.

“No!” Her voice was a high-pitched squawk. “No, I do not think that is a good idea. You’re very sweet. And a good friend—a wonderful friend. But you’re so…ah…”

Genevieve sat in place, a faint blush on her cheeks.

“So innocent,” Amanda finished.

Genevieve snorted. “I’ve spent the last ten years as social secretary to Mrs. Marshall, who runs a hospital and a charity on medical ethics. What about that position makes you think that I’m
innocent?”

Amanda swallowed. “I don’t mean
innocent
innocent. I just mean… That…” She swallowed. “Not all women are alike. Some of us don’t wish to marry because we want other things from life.”

Genevieve stood and came toward her. “I haven’t married,” she said. “I want other things from life.”

“
Different
other things,” Amanda muttered.

“I try to dress demurely and speak politely.” Genevieve was coming close—too close. “I don’t do those things, Amanda, because I’m
too innocent.”

She stood so close that Amanda could see that her skin wasn’t really perfect. She had faint freckles on her nose—three adorable, kissable freckles.

“I do them,” Genevieve said, “because you have to pretend to be proper on the outside when you aren’t. When you want
different
other things.”

Oh, God.

It was too much. She’d been trying
not
to see Genevieve in this light for months now—trying and failing. She’d never failed so badly as she did now. She’d never hoped as painfully as this, either. Her heart was racing.

“You see,” Genevieve said, “I’ve always admired you. But these last months—listening to you talk of Parliament, watching you slowly gain confidence as you returned to society. I’ve found myself admiring you more. And more. And hoping that maybe…you might admire me, too.”

There was no mistaking her meaning now. Not when Genevieve took Amanda’s hand in her own and pressed it to her heart.

Amanda swallowed. “How did you know what you wanted? I didn’t truly understand it myself—not until Girton, until someone else explained.”

Genevieve simply looked at her. “I understood,” she said, “because I met you.”

Amanda felt all aflutter—foolish and happy, giggly and alight.

“I met you,” Genevieve said, “and suddenly everything my sister had ever said to me about her husband—it all made sense.”

Amanda couldn’t help herself. She reached out and cupped Genevieve’s cheek, running her thumb along those freckles on her nose.

“So let me repeat my question,” Genevieve said. “I know that I do my best to be proper. But do you think there’s a chance that you might want to be improper with me?”

Amanda’s thumb found Genevieve’s lips—pale pink, so perfectly sweet. She swept her fingers over them. Genevieve’s lips parted.

Amanda leaned down. “I’m mad for you.”

Genevieve smiled, looking up. Amanda could feel her breath against her lips, warm and sweet.

“Good,” Genevieve breathed.

Their lips met. Genevieve dropped her hand, but only so she could bring her arms around her. And all Amanda’s last fears came to a thundering, crashing, delicious halt.

“Good,” Genevieve murmured against her lips once again. “I’m mad for you, too.”

T
HE CARRIAGE
R
OBERT HAD HIRED
from the station pulled up to a stop in front of Free’s parents’ house.

“Well then,” Robert said. “Shall I wait here?”

It was ridiculous. Free was a grown woman. She ran her own business, managed fourteen full-time employees and many more writers. And right now, she wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up in her mother’s arms.

But now was not the time for that. She turned to Robert. “Come in,” she said simply. “And thank you for last night and this morning. I feel…”

Not better, not by a long ways. But she felt more at peace.

Robert and Minnie had given her a long explanation of how they spent their time. Minnie had stayed awake with her until one in the morning. Minnie had her own set of difficulties: She felt anxious in crowds and being a duchess hadn’t cured that. So they’d adapted. They had made it work.

Free didn’t want to be a viscountess, but it was rather too late for that now, though. The only questions were what sort of viscountess she wanted to be…and how she would get on with her viscount.

Robert was watching her, wondering how she would end her sentence.

“I feel more important,” she said.

He turned his head away and smiled—a shy smile, as if he were actually embarrassed by her gratitude. “You’re welcome, Your Fierceness.”

For a second, she wondered if he would mind if she hugged him. Then he shifted in his seat, looking down at his hands, and she was fairly certain he wouldn’t.

She slid across the seat and put her arms around him. “Thank you,” she said again. “For being my brother when I needed one.”

He brought his hand up to pat her back. When she pulled away, he coughed into his hand. “Of course,” he said. But his voice was just a little too rough. “Of course.”

“Come in,” she said. “My parents will be happy to see you.”

He sat up straight. “I don’t know… That is… It’s a little more complicated than that. I don’t want to impose, and given the rather odd history between our two families…”

“Come on,” Free said, with a roll of her eyes. “If you’re not by my side, I’ll burst into tears when I see my mother, and that will be very embarrassing. After all that I’ve been through in the last few days, you can’t subject me to that.”

He looked at her for one second. Oh, the man definitely did
not
have younger siblings if he actually believed a word of that. He was far too susceptible to a touch of guilt.

“Oh, very well,” he said in a put-upon voice. “If you insist.”

But he didn’t look put upon. He looked pleased. He handed her down from the carriage, unhitched the horses, and tied them up. When that was all taken care of, he offered her his arm and conducted her up the path to the house.

It occurred to her, as she knocked on the door, that something was amiss. In all the time they’d been dawdling on the road, somebody ought to have seen them. But neither her father nor her mother had appeared.

Too late to wonder. She heard a noise inside, and then her mother opened the door.

Free’s heart stopped. Her mother—oh, God, her mother. Her eyes were dark. Her face was lined. Free hadn’t seen her look like that since Aunt Freddy passed away years before. It had taken her mother a few months to lose that look about her, that grief-stricken look that said the world had betrayed her. Now it was back, and the only thing that Free could think was that something awful had happened. She gasped.

“Oh, thank God,” her mother said.

“Oh, no.” Free spoke atop her. “What on earth is wrong? Is it Laura and her baby?”

Her mother gasped and put one hand over her heart. “What’s the matter with Laura?”

“It
isn’t
Laura? Then…”

There was a moment while they stared at each other in confusion. Another moment, when her mother let out a breath. “Free. I was worried about
you.”
/

“Me.” Free looked around. “Why me? I’m…”
Perfectly fine,
she had been about to say. But she wasn’t. She didn’t know what she felt any longer.

And then her mother put her arms around Free, pulling her close. It was utterly ridiculous. Free had made her own way for years. She was far too old to bury her head in her mother’s apron and bawl. But somehow, when her mother held her, the sound of her breath, the feel of her shoulders, the distinctive smell of her soap… They all combined to mean something like comfort. Comfort had been in short supply in recent times.

And then her mother whispered in her ear. “I don’t care what your father says. Say the word, and I will walk back into the kitchen and stick a knife in his back.”

Free pulled back. That sense of comfort withdrew, leaving her uncertain. “Who are you planning to kill?”

“He’s in there.” Her mother gestured to the house with her head. “Claridge.”

Free’s hands turned cold.

“And I swear to God,” her mother continued in that low voice, “I did not raise my daughters to become some filthy lords’ playthings. I have no idea what happened, what hold he has over you, but if he’s done a damned thing to hurt you, he’ll pay. They can hang me. I—” She stopped, took a deep breath, and looked to her right.

Just as well that she’d stopped talking. The thought of someone stabbing Edward in the kidneys didn’t make Free feel any better.

But her mother was looking at the man standing next to Free. “Oh,” she continued, in an entirely different voice. “Your Grace. How…ah… How unexpected to see you.” She brushed at her skirts and grimaced.

What flitted through Free’s mind was nothing rational. She had nothing to say to comfort her mother. What occurred to her instead was this:
What’s the difference between a lord and a bit of algae?

She’d never heard that particular joke. Still, she didn’t have any difficulty coming up with her own answer.

One of them’s a slippery, slimy, disgusting thing. The other is necessary to the proper functioning of freshwater ponds.
It was deeply, impossibly inappropriate. She was fairly certain that this was proof that her tenuous hold on calm rationality was slipping from her grasp. Another five minutes, and she’d start staring off into space, laughing at nothing at all.

What’s the difference between a lord and a pile of horse manure?
It was too easy.
One of them smells terribly; the other, applied judiciously, increases the productivity of fields.

But then, she could have said the same thing about ladies. And now she was one.

Next to her, her mother and Robert were still talking. “You mustn’t talk that way,” the duke was saying. “I’ll do it, if it must be done. They’d have to go through the Lords to hang me, and there are extenuating circumstances. Such as the fact that Claridge is a lout. They’d never convict me. But…” He frowned. “No, sorry. Before I agree to commit a crime with witnesses present, I really ought to talk to Minnie. She’ll have a better idea.”