Virginia Henley (23 page)

“You don’t mean to tell me you actually send that child clambering up chimneys?”

“No, ’ee sits in the parlor eatin’ bread an’ ’oney, while I do the dirty,” the sweep replied with typical cockney sarcasm.

“I want to draw you both.”

“Sod off, mister!”

“I’ll pay you a shilling.”

“
Two
bob . . . chimbley sweeps is lucky.”

Alex agreed but had more sense than to give him the money before the drawing was complete. When she looked closer at the little boy, a lump came into her throat; she could see that his knees and elbows were covered with burn scars beneath the soot and that his hair was badly singed. But it was the child’s look of hopelessness that made her eyes flood with unshed tears.

After Alex paid him the money, she could not bear to watch the sweep take the child into the brewery. “My God, Sara, house chimneys are bad enough, but the thought of the tall factory chimneys is unendurable!”

“Sweeps are wicked, cruel masters. They starve the boys, so they’ll stay undersized, and I’ve heard tell they light fires under them to make the poor little mites climb faster.”

“Let’s go home, Sara; I’ve seen enough.” Sadly, Alex turned toward the river to find a ferry.

When the two young women entered the house, the first person they encountered was Dottie. She swept them with an arch glance and said to the maid, “Though you make an attractive couple, don’t allow the young bounder to talk you into eloping.”

“Oh, Dottie, please don’t cavil at my wearing Rupert’s clothes. They make it so much easier for me to go about London, and I did have Sara with me, as you advised.”

“If you think I’ve never impersonated a male, think again. I advise a little discretion though. Don’t allow Christopher Hatton to see you in trousers, if you expect to become Lady Hatton.”

“I encountered the most heartrending situation today. I saw a chimney sweep who had a little helper no older than five or six.”

“London is chockablock with social injustice, darling. Child workers, particularly climbing boys, should be against the law. I read in the paper there’s a hearing tomorrow in the House of Commons on that very subject.”

“Then I shall attend!”

“Ah, then they’ll have an audience of one. Unfortunately, there isn’t an iota of interest in reform, which can be blamed directly upon His Royal Haughtiness.
Ninny
would be a more apt sobriquet than
Prinny,
I warrant.”

“I made a sketch of the sweep and his climbing boy, but I want to do a few more while they are still so vivid in my mind.”

“And I had better get the soot specks off the viscount’s marino wool jacket if we don’t want him to have apoplexy,” Sara murmured.

 

At that moment, the least of the viscount’s worries was his jacket. He had been riding in the park for an hour, hoping to encounter Olivia Harding, but feared he had missed her. He was about to ride over the Serpentine bridge toward Rotten Row, when he saw her riding in an open phaeton beneath a parasol. Rupert removed his hat and gave her a warm greeting, and he was both surprised and pleased that Olivia ordered her driver to stop.

“Rupert, how very romantic of you to remember I would be in the park in the afternoons.” She closed her parasol and handed it to the maid who sat across from her. “Can I persuade you to come and ride with me?” She patted the seat beside her, fanned her lashes to her cheeks, then raised them to gaze at him with large brown doelike eyes, by far her prettiest feature.

“It would be my pleasure, Mistress Harding.” Rupert dismounted. “May I tie my horse behind the carriage?” He climbed in, sat down beside her, nodded to the maid, and placed his hat on the seat.

“Rupert, you have my permission to call me Olivia. Longtime friends permit liberties.” She smiled coyly, then shared her carriage rug with him by placing it across his lap.

He was about to protest that he didn’t need its protection on such a warm day when he felt Olivia’s hand upon his thigh. He flushed slightly and glanced at the maid but saw that her attention was riveted upon Hyde Park’s trees. He quickly covered Olivia’s ungloved hand with his, then was at a complete loss whether to move it or not.

Olivia, however, was not at a loss. She quickly turned her hand into his so that their palms met, then she gave his hand a meaningful squeeze.

Her actions aroused him instantly, and much to his embarrassment he hardened and lengthened to within an inch of their clasped hands. Trying to be discreet, he slowly slid their hands away from his groin but in doing so found that their clasped hands now rested in Olivia’s lap. “Forgive me,” he begged.

Olivia gripped his fingers tightly to prevent their escape. “I love it when you are impetuous,” she whispered intimately and dragged his hand across her thigh to rest upon her plump mons.

Rupert’s cock began to pulse wildly, and he was thankful for the lap robe. He had enjoyed a fair number of sexual encounters with various
women
, but this was the first time he had ever crossed the forbidden boundaries with a debutante of good family. It slowly began to dawn upon him that perhaps sensuality was something a good girl could possess. The thought excited him beyond measure and gave him the courage to explore this new idea. Almost imperceptibly, Rupert stroked his thumb across Olivia’s pubic bone, and he watched with delight as her pupils began to dilate. As he felt the heat of her feminine core radiate upward into his hand, he pressed down and applied a circular motion. He was rewarded when Olivia began to squirm with his toying and teasing and drew in a long, quivering breath. Her obvious arousal made his cock buck uncontrollably, and he knew that part of his excitement was due to the forbidden factor of what he was doing, especially while sitting directly across from her maid.

Olivia opened her legs to give him greater access. She looked up into his eyes and said breathlessly, “Rupert, I want you to come inside.”

His mouth went dry at the blatant invitation.

“I want you to come inside . . . for afternoon tea.”

Rupert blinked and realized that they were drawing up before the Harding town house on Clarges Street. After a moment of panic, he grabbed his beaver hat to cover himself, scrambled from the carriage, and helped her down from the phaeton.

Olivia turned to her maid. “Have a groom take care of his lordship’s horse, Emily.” Then she took possession of Rupert’s arm and held him captive until he was in the Harding parlor. When she saw that the room was empty, she moved against him and lifted her chin in invitation.

Rupert dipped his head and sought her lips. Her mouth clung to his and her lips opened softly, sweetly, luring him inside. He almost came out of his skin when he heard a woman clear her throat.

“You are just in time for afternoon tea, Lord Longford. May I take the liberty of calling you Rupert?” Annabelle asked archly, extending her hand.

Since he had taken some liberties of his own, Rupert could hardly refuse. He bowed low over her hand and relinquished his beaver, which he no longer needed now that his cock had shriveled.

While they waited for tea to be served, Olivia chatted incessantly about how thrilling her ride in the park had been, and Rupert felt a measure of relief when the tea cart was rolled into the parlor. He found himself at a disadvantage, however, holding a cup and saucer in one hand and balancing a plate of watercress sandwiches on his knee when Lord Harding happened upon the scene.

“Don’t get up,” Harding ordered him. “Paying your addresses to m’daughter, are you m’boy?”

“Yes, sir; that is, with your permission I hope to pay my addresses, Lord Harding.”

“You’re not
toying
with Olivia, are you Sheffield?” Harding bent an agate eye upon him, and Rupert wanted to slide under the chair, hearing the verb her father had chosen.

“I assure you, my lord, my intentions are completely”—his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth—“honorable.”

“Ha, ’course they are; my little jest! Let’s see now, you inherited your grandfather’s title, what?”

“Yes, sir; Viscount Longford,” Rupert said lamely.

“Which carried a substantial inheritance, I understand?”

Before Rupert could decide whether to answer in the affirmative or the negative, Annabelle arose from the settee and swept her daughter from the room on a flimsy pretext, which meant that they would leave the men alone so that they could discuss money matters.

Rupert swallowed hard and remembered the advice his best friend, Kit Hatton, had given him. “I came into my inheritance when I was eighteen, sir.” Rupert did not tell him that he had gone through it like a dose of salts, as Dottie so graphically put it.

“So, you are in the marriage market, are you, young sir?”

“The subject of a prospective bride has crossed my mind, Lord Harding; however, I wouldn’t deprive Olivia of the fall and winter entertainments. I don’t believe these things should be rushed.”

“Since the Season started, I’ve already turned down two offers for my daughter’s hand. A young woman with eight thousand a year will be snapped up quicker than a trout fly.”

“Amazing how small a dowry will attract fortune hunters, but with a father as diligent as you are, my lord, I am sure Olivia will be safe until the end of the year.”

Harding’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.
Does the young devil know my daughter’s shameful secret?
Both he and his wife suspected the culprit was that rakehell Nicholas Hatton, who had just bolted across the channel to fight Napoleon. Until he had shot his father, they had anticipated a marriage between Nicholas and Olivia, but after that fateful weekend, it was out of the question. Harding sighed heavily. “To my way of thinking, the social whirl and being presented at Buckingham Palace fills a young girl with conceit. I’d prefer it if Olivia avoided the entire thing, what?”

Against his better judgment, Rupert clenched his fists until his fingernails dug into his palms, and he doggedly clung to Kit’s advice. “I’m sure Olivia would be disappointed, my lord.”

“Not a bit of it. She’s not one of your flighty girls with her head in the clouds. I might see my way clear to increase her dower to ten thousand per annum for an early wedding. Your grandmother, Lady Longford, for all her wealth would not sneeze at that amount, what?”

Rupert slowly uncurled his fingers and let out his breath.
Kit was right! And perhaps Dottie can persuade him to raise it a bit. By Jupiter, with that much per annum I’ll be able to own a racing curricle and matched pair!
“My grandmother does not discuss her wealth with me, Lord Harding. The viscountess is extremely closedmouthed when it comes to her money and investments.”

“Yes, yes; rightly so, rightly so!” Harding got to his feet. “Annabelle! Ah, there you are m’dear. We must issue a dinner invitation to Lady Longford immediately. Who knows, soon we may be one happy family, what?”

Rupert felt sure that Dottie would be impressed with the progress he had made; he had even impressed himself! Moreover, once the betrothal was a
fait accompli,
she would give him the other half of the money she had promised him.
Every little bit helps!

When he returned to Berkeley Square, he found his grandmother in the dining room sipping an aperitif before dinner. “You will be receiving a dinner invitation from Lord and Lady Harding. I am paying court to their daughter, Olivia, and naturally they want to be assured of our wealth from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”

“I may be an old gray mare, but I’m not ready for the knacker’s yard quite yet. May I say well done, my boy? You have outdone yourself; Harding has money to burn! What’s the catch?”

“
I’m
the catch, Dottie. I shall make Olivia Harding the Viscountess Longford. Lord Harding was so eager that he promised to up Olivia’s dowry for an early wedding.”

Alex, who had just come into the dining room, heard her brother’s news. Like mercury her mind flashed back to the night of the masquerade ball when she had seen the harlequin slip off to the lake with a female who had sounded like Olivia. “Oh, Rupert, you haven’t gotten her in trouble, have you?”

“In trouble? What the devil are you talking about?” Rupert was in high dudgeon at his sister’s insinuation.

“Early
weddings
are often the result of early
beddings,
” Dottie explained dryly.

Rupert suddenly recalled Kit’s words:
“I have no proprietary feelings for her, but Nicholas certainly had. Their relationship was becoming so serious, I thought they’d make a match of it.” Does Kit have suspicions? Is that how Kit knew Harding would throw money at

me for an early wedding?
Rupert immediately closed his mind to such unsavory suspicions. Not only was Olivia considered to be an innocent young lady but he didn’t want to examine circumstances too closely; beggars could not be choosers. “I know everyone thought Olivia would make a match with Nicholas Hatton, and I know that tall, dark, dangerously virile men play havoc with ladies’ affections, but I assure you Olivia did not lose her heart to him.”

Complete silence blanketed the dining room. Dottie tried not to look cynical. Alex tried not to look devastated.

Alex, attired in Rupert’s clothes, sat in the House of Commons, furiously scribbling notes about the evidence that was being given to the Parliamentary Committee on climbing boys. Then she wrote her article for the
Political Register
before she left the House.