Wallflower Gone Wild (27 page)
Just one more day before the Great Exhibition opens! The king will personally review the exhibits before an eager public is admitted.
—
T
HE
L
ONDON
W
EEKLY
The night before Lady Penelope’s Ball
Olivia nervously knocked on the door of a town house on Curzon Street.
Young ladies do not pay calls upon gentlemen.
She smoothed out her skirts and adjusted the angle of her bonnet. She made her own rules now. Besides, Phinn would understand why she had to seek the assistance of another man. At night.
The butler answered the door and appeared surprised to find a proper lady on the front step.
“I’d like to have a word with Lord Rogan please.”
She handed the butler her card:
Lady Radcliffe.
Her name was printed in black ink on heavy vellum.
Rogan saw her immediately, of course. He ushered her into the library and offered her brandy, which she declined. Not having much time to spare, Olivia launched into her scheme.
“I’m not sure how Phinn will feel about this,” Rogan said nervously when she was finished.
“While I grant that he will put up a fuss initially, he’ll eventually see that us joining together is for the best,” Olivia said confidently.
“I do owe him . . .” Rogan murmured.
When Olivia and Rogan arrived at the Devonshire Street warehouse, they were not alone. Emma and Ashbrooke had come, too, along with an assortment of footmen and maids from the Ashbrooke residence. Some brought sustenance, wine and candles. Others had come merely to help build possibly the greatest machine the world had seen.
“Phinn?” Olivia called out into the darkness. She saw him bent over a desk, mulling over plans lit by a few paltry candles. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw pieces of the machine stacked on tables and the floor.
“Olivia? What are you doing here?” He stood and stepped toward her, pushing his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry that I am not at home, and if this is about the ball tomorrow night—”
“Shhh. I am here to help,” Olivia said.
“I as well,” Rogan said, stepping forward. The maids and footmen proceeded to light candles, which illuminated the room—and all the others who had come.
“Are you
all
here to help?” Phinn asked, incredulous.
“We await your orders,” Ashbrooke said, rolling up his sleeves.
“The pieces have all been constructed. All that remains is assembly,” Phinn said.
“Let’s lets begin,” Olivia said. “Tell us what to do.”
Phinn had always worked alone. His family had seen to it—giving him workspace far from the house that was quiet, out of the way, and too much of a bother to walk to. Work was something he did that kept him apart from those he loved and . . . life, really.
So it was a strange, warm, not altogether unpleasant feeling to see the enthusiastic faces of his friends, and his wife, ready to help. This was a gift. This was a generous gesture. This was help he desperately needed. So he grinned and started giving orders.
They worked through the night. The women organized and polished all of the pieces. The men put them into place, connecting them with each other, until the machine rose up before their very eyes.
The sun rose, too, and still the ragtag crew continued to build, because this machine was more important than anything, even much needed sleep. As the hours passed and the Difference Engine grew, Phinn realized he would have never managed this on his own. Perhaps there was more to life than work—as Nadia had so often told him. There were friends who helped a man in their hour of need, and generous and devoted wives who broke the rules concerning what women did or did not do, all in order to get the job done.
It was late afternoon on Friday, hours before Lady Penelope’s Ball, when the Difference Engine was finally completed.
“Now let’s see if it works,” Ashbrooke declared, rubbing his palms together enthusiastically.
“It has to work,” Phinn said.
“If it doesn’t, I have some ideas . . .” Rogan offered. Phinn paled. Rogan grinned.
“Someone else present the equation and pull the lever,” Olivia said with a shudder.
She had overcome her fear of this great machine in order to help him. The realization brought a lump to Phinn’s throat.
“Phinn, you do the honors.”
He was one lucky bastard.
The machine worked.
They all cheered because, by God, it worked! Ashbrooke even had tears in his eyes. Phinn clasped Olivia’s hand, needing to hold onto someone to remind him that this triumph was real. And it was all possible, he knew, thanks to his lovely and determined wife.
There was just enough time for everyone to return home, nap, and dress. A few hours later they all reconvened at Lady Penelope’s Ball. Phinn had accomplished everything he had come to London to accomplish: find a wife and build the Difference Engine. There was only one thing he had left to do . . .
He pulled Olivia into an embrace in a darkened corner of the ballroom—because he could, and because his lovely wife wouldn’t mind at all.
“I love you, Olivia, with your own rules,” Phinn murmured. He had felt the words for so long, and it felt right to say them.
Olivia gave him that smile he always longed for, wrapped her arms around him and said, “I love you too.”
At Lady Penelope’s one hundredth anniversary ball, one of London’s Least Likely broke the rules, scandalously and passionately kissing London’s most notorious man in a secluded corner of the ballroom. It was perfect.
Except for one thing: Where was Prudence?
Seven years later
T
he estate in Yorkshire was not the desolate, remote, and terrifying place that Olivia had feared. Radcliffe Manor was a lovely and rambling old stone house surrounded by beautiful gardens, vast lawns, and a forest. There was plenty of space for their four children to run, play, and have adventures.
There was no dungeon. She had checked.
That did not stop her from casually mentioning the possibility of a dungeon whenever one of her children misbehaved.
She and Phinn spent half of the year in London and the other half in Yorkshire. Life in the country was not the vast and lonely expanse of solitude she had feared. Guests came to stay frequently, the neighbors weren’t that far and they came often for visits. Between her visiting friends, four rambunctious children, and husband, Olivia was so busy she had hardly any time for embroidery at all.
She did, however, find time to paint, although no one was ever permitted to see the portraits of Phinn she had composed.
Phinn had taken over the East Wing of the house as a workspace. His sons and daughters would tear though in the midst of games, disturbing his focus, but he didn’t mind. Just as often, he put them to work polishing lenses or sorting through tools.
However, when his wife interrupted his work, he closed the door to his study. And locked it.
“What is keeping you busy now?” Olivia would ask, wandering through his workspace, looking like a vision, with her fair hair and luscious figure.
Sometimes Phinn told her about his latest project. More often than not he just smiled, pulled her into his arms and murmured, “You, dear wife.”
T
he Difference Engine is widely considered to be the world’s first computer. The inventor was the Englishman Charles Babbage, who had the idea
in 1821
while reviewing a set of mathematical tables riddled with errors. “I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam,” he is said to have exclaimed. This brilliant mathematician, inventor, philosopher, and charming man about town spent thousands of pounds of his own money as well as government funds to design and build a machine to reliably perform mathematical calculations.
While Babbage is considered a pioneer of computing, he’s also known for failing to build the machines he designed—though not without making an incredible effort to do so. He teamed up with Joseph Clement, who was both a highly skilled toolmaker and a talented draftsman. They labored for years to build the machine before having a falling out.
Clement’s role in building the machine was the inspiration for Radcliffe. I took the great liberty of imagining a different sort of relationship for Radcliffe and Ashbrooke (who is inspired by Babbage) and indulged in the even greater liberty of making my fictional heroes’ efforts a success. One last liberty: the Great Exhibition did not actually take place until 1851, but I thought my heroes needed their own equivalent of Lady Penelope’s Ball.
The Difference Engine wasn’t built until 1991—just in time for the two hundredth anniversary of Babbage’s birth—when a dedicated team from the Science Museum in London endeavored to build it once and for all from the original plans—and to finally discover if it would work. (It did! Brilliant!)
I am completely indebted to Doron Swade’s book
The Difference Engine: The Quest to Build the First Computer.
It was a marvelous and riveting account of Babbage’s life and the modern day quest to build the engine using Babbage’s original plans.
As I embarked on a series of interconnected historical and contemporary romance novels (of which
Wallflower Gone Wild
is the second, after
The Wicked Wallflower
), I was deeply pleased to learn that the computer—of all things!—could be a link between Regency London and modern day New York City. The heroes of my Wallflower series will succeed where Babbage did not (because it’s my fictional world and I said so). The hero of my contemporary series, The Bad Boy Billionaire, is a brilliant tech entrepreneur who, like so many men and women today, carry on the pioneering work of innovators like Babbage.
Many thanks to Sara Jane Stone, Amanda Kimble-Evans, and Tony Haile, for reading early drafts of this manuscript. I am also indebted to Caroline Linden for allowing me to use
50 Ways to Sin,
the naughty book her characters read in her novel
Love and Other Scandals.
Footnote
*
The Wicked Wallflower
Discover the secret love story behind
Wallflower Gone Wild!
Meet Jane Sparks . . .
She’s a modern-day girl trying to make it in the big city—while writing a novel shamelessly based on her own romantic misadventures.
Do become acquainted with Duke Austen. . .
He’s a bad boy billionaire with the kind of smile most often found on rogues in romance novels.
Don’t break the rules . . .
What began as a fake engagement quickly became something much more real and intense. Jane is falling for her bad boy billionaire but can’t be sure if he wants her—or her good girl image. But Jane’s shocking scandals conflict with Duke’s attempts to be good . . . and the stakes have never been higher.
Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from
The Bad Boy Billionaire’s Girl Gone Wild
Minetta Tavern
New York City
D
uke and I slipped into one of the intimate red leather booths in the back. The restaurant was small, dimly lit, and decorated in the style of an old school steakhouse. Duke ordered a glass of Macallan 18, and I could tell I annoyed the waiter by ordering only water.
“So are you feeling faint?” Duke asked, apropos of nothing.
“What are you talking about?” That champagne and dancing from earlier had gone to my head.
“The Ashbrooke Effect,” he explained. When I looked at him blankly, he explained: “As in the Duke of Ashbrooke. As in the hero of your novel. I’m assuming he’s based on me. Vain, I know. But tell me, Sweater Set, am I making you weak in the knees?”
“I’m sitting down,” I replied, as I started to get his references to my novel.
Oh dear God, he had obviously read my novel, which was based on us.
Suddenly, my knees did feel weak, even though I was sitting, because I had been counting on the fact that billionaire boys don’t read romance novels. Of course, Duke had to be the exception to every rule.
“You look a bit flushed,” Duke continued, and I could feel the blush of mortification flaming across my cheeks.
“I’ve been drinking,” I said, and took another sip of water. Frantically, I tried to recall the things I wrote and—I closed my eyes.
“Feeling breathless?”
“I’ve been dancing,” I replied. But really, how was I supposed to breathe when this guy had read the novel about us—that I had poured my heart into?
“Is your heart pounding with anticipation?” His voice was real low now because he had cuddled up next to me in the booth and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me even closer.
“Yes,” I gasped. “Yes.”
My heart was pounding, I was breathless, and a little bit dizzy.
“I’m surprised you read it,” I said, taking another sip of water.
“I had to know what everyone was talking about,” he replied. “And then I had to be able to converse intelligently about it with the author.”
“I didn’t think you’d read it,” I muttered.
“So you never thought that I would find out that you described me as ‘so handsome that he sucked all the attention in the room toward himself, as if he possessed his own personal force of gravity.’ ”
“No, of course not.”
Otherwise I wouldn’t have published it.
“Or described yourself as a plain wallflower?”
“Nope. And this is embarrassing,” I said.
“It’s a good book, Jane,” Duke said. “No matter what happens, know that. If it didn’t . . .”
“If it didn’t what?” My brain snapped to focus.
“It complicates things,” Duke said reluctantly, shifting so he wasn’t holding me so close anymore.
“Because of Augustus?” I remembered the articles I read about their big—and overlooked—product launch because everyone was talking about my book and the anger of the big and overlooked investor.
“Yes,” Duke said grimly. “But not just him. I’m a private person, Jane.”
I couldn’t help it—I burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny about that?”
“You share everything about yourself online! You’re in the papers, the blogs, on Twitter, Instagram, and on social networks I’ve never even heard of!”
“Yeah, but I notice I never tell them anything really personal or revelatory about me. It’s all about Project-TK or the industry.”
“It’s true, isn’t it? You don’t tell anyone what you’re thinking or feeling. No one really knows you, do they? Even me.” I remembered being so frustrated knowing which articles he’d read, or having seen pictures of meals he ate, but having no idea how he felt about me.
“I told you things, Jane, that I never told anyone else. And now I see them published for everyone to read and make assumptions,” Duke said.
I glanced up at him. His expression was inscrutable, but I saw the tension in his jaw. He took a sip of his whiskey.
“Ashbrooke . . . he’s just made up,” I said. It wasn’t a total lie. Ashbrooke was fictional. He was just inspired by Duke.
“And Sam or Bennett or whoever?” Duke turned to face me.
“All right, so I used a bit from
my
personal life.”
“Did I ruin your date the other night?”
My heart was pounding again as I whispered, “What if I said no?”
“Everyone thinks you’re mine,” he said. “And I’m starting to believe it, too.”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing,” I said.
There was something he was keeping from me. I could tell. It was there in the way he refused to meet my gaze and instead took a long sip of his expensive whiskey. It was in the way I had a sudden tremor of fear. All teasing aside, the success of my fictional book was causing real problems with Duke and me.
“Duke . . .” I rested my hand on his arm and tried to soothe away the tension I felt there. “I just wanted to write. I had something to prove to myself and to everyone. You understand that. I know you do.”
He gruffly agreed.
“I could unpublish it, I guess.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Because I
could
do it didn’t mean I wanted to diminish my accomplishment in order to raise his.
“No, I wouldn’t ask that of you,” Duke said strongly. “It’s just that Grey is pissed that all the media attention was focused on my fiancée’s ‘smutty bodice ripper’—his words not mine—instead of our new product launch.”
I looked into his eyes and there was no denying the truth.
“He’s not the only one pissed,” I said softly. “You are, too.”
Duke set down the now empty glass of whiskey hard on the table, making the cutlery clink and the candle flicker.
“I just worked so damned hard to build it. It was a huge risk and everyone was skeptical but I believed and I made my team believe, too. And now . . . for what? People aren’t talking about it, which means they’re not using it.”
“I’m so sorry.” I was. I positively ached with remorse. I just never thought anyone would actually read my book, let alone people in the tech industry. “If it weren’t for that blogger overhearing Roxanna talk about it, this wouldn’t be an issue. I didn’t plan this. I wouldn’t ever plan this. I am so sorry.”
“It complicates things. The reason we’re together is so that your good girl image can make me seem like an upstanding, responsible guy. And now you wrote this book that has everyone thinking we’re a sham. And then there are pictures of you dancing on a banquette.”
“What?” I gasped. He grinned wryly and handed me his iPhone. The picture was dark, but light and clear enough: I was standing on a banquette with Roxanna beside me, we were both singing along to the song, waving our arms and sipping our glasses of champagne.
“That was from two hours ago!”
“I don’t want to do this, Jane but—” There was a tense moment of silence when the waiter arrived with another glass of Macallan, which Duke immediately sipped from.
“You’re going to pick your company over me,” I said flatly. Why, why, why did my heart ache to say the words? I knew from the start that things between us were just pretend. Except somewhere along the line my feelings for him became all too real.
He gazed down at me, blue eyes full of sadness. That was what started to undo me—he did
care
. But I had fucked things up.
The champagne buzz was starting to wear off and a headache was taking its place.
“I want you both,” he said softly. “But things can’t go on like this. I can’t ask you to give up your work for mine. But I can’t slack off on Project-TK now. We’re prepping for the IPO, Jane. Twenty billion dollars are on the line here. This is bigger than me and you.”
“I get it,” I murmured. And then, gazing into his eyes, I confessed: “I just don’t like it.”
This was the closest we’d come to talking about our feelings. What remained unspoken, but was finally understood, was that this was no longer just an act for either of us.
I could see it in his eyes. This guy liked me. Wanted me. Was tortured because of it. I could also see that his brilliant, billion dollar brain was coming up with an alternative course of action.
“Or . . .” he murmured, eyes lighting up. “We put the word out that we’ve broken up.”
Telling people we had broken up wasn’t the same as
actually
breaking up.
“Just thinking as a novelist here and not a jilted pretend girlfriend—do you think a breakup right now will really quiet all the rumors that we faked a relationship so you could score a hundred and fifty million dollar investment?”
“You wouldn’t be a jilted girlfriend. We could still see each other in secret.”
“A secret romance,” I murmured. “I’m the one that’s supposed to come up with that stuff.”
“Fodder for your next book,” he said with a grin. “What do you say, Jane? Want to be my secret lover?”
