Chapter One of THE LOVE REMEDY
Annotations in the footnotes.
NB – I AM NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR I AM A ROMANCE AUTHOR. In the footnotes when I explain some of the old uses of herbs and oils, for the love of all that holy, please do not go out and try this stuff yourself. Instead, spend some time thanking the universe that we have modern medicine and actual doctors.
Chapter One
London, 1843
“ ‘Ow much for pulling a toof?”
Any other day, Lucinda Peterson’s answer would have been however much the man standing before her could afford.
Since its founding, Peterson’s Apothecary held a reputation for charging fair prices for real cures.[1] If a customer had no money, Lucy and her siblings would often accept goods or services in trade.[2]
Today, however, was not any other day.
Today was officially the worst day of Lucy’s life.
Yes, there had been other worst days, but that was before today. Today was absolutely the worst.
“Half-shilling,” Lucy said, steel in her voice as she crossed her arms, exuding determination. She would hold strong, today. She would think of the money the shop desperately needed and the bills piling up and the fact that she truly, really, absolutely needed new undergarments.
“’Alf-shilling?” the man wailed. “”Ow’m I supposed to buy food for me we’uns?”[3]
With a dramatic sigh, he slumped against the large wooden counter that ran the length of the apothecary. The counter, a mammoth construction made of imported walnut, was the dividing line between Lucy’s two worlds.
Until she was seven, Lucy existed with everyone else on the public side. Over there, the shop was crowded with customers who spoke in myriad accents and dialects as they waited in line for a consultation held in hushed voices at the end of the counter.[4] Not all patients were concerned with privacy, however, and lively discussions went on between folks in line on the severity of their symptoms, the veracity of the diagnosis, and the general merits of cures suggested.
Laughter, tears, and the occasional spontaneous bout of poetry happened on the public side of the counter. Seven-year-old Lucy would sweep the floor and dust the shelves as the voices flowed over and around her, waiting for the day when she could cross the dividing line and begin her apprenticeship on the other side.
All four walls of the apothecary were lined with the tools of her trade. Some shelves held rows of glass jars containing medicinal roots such as ginger and turmeric. Other shelves held tin cannisters full of ground powders, tiny tin scoops tied to the handles with coarse black yarn. A series of drawers covered the back half of the shop, each of them labeled in a painstaking round running hand by Lucy’s grandfather. There hadn’t been any dried crocodile dung in stock for eighty years or so, but the label remained, a source of amusement and conjecture for those waiting in line.[5]
The shop had stood since the beginning of the last century and even on this, her absolute worst day, Lucy gave in. She wasn’t going to be the Peterson that broke tradition and turned a patient away.
Even though today was Lucy’s worst day ever didn’t mean it should be terrible for everyone.
“For anyone else a tooth is thruppence,[6]” Lucy said as she pulled on her brown linen treatment coat. “So I’m not accused of taking food from the mouth of your we’uns,” she paused to pull a jar of eucalyptus oil out from a drawer and set it on the counter. “I suppose I can charge you two pence and throw in a boiled sweet for each of them.”
Satisfied with the bargain, the man climbed into her treatment chair in the back room, holding on to the padded arm rests and squeezing his eyes shut in anticipation. Lucy spilled a few drops of the oil on a handkerchief and tied it over her nose.
While the scent of eucalyptus was strong enough to bring tears to her eyes, the smell from the man’s rotted tooth was even stronger. She numbed his gums with oil of clove[7] as she examined the rotting tooth and explained to him what she was going to do.
His discomfort so great, the man waved away her warnings and so, with a practiced grip, Lucy used her pincers to pull out the offending tooth. [8]
Both wept. Him from the pain, she from the stench,[9] as Lucy explained how to best keep the rest of his teeth from suffering the same fate.
“You’re an angel, Miss,” the man exclaimed. At least, Lucy hoped he said angel. His cheek was beginning to swell.
She sent him off with the promised sweets as well as a tin of tooth powder [10]and, seeing there were no customers in the shop, locked the front door and closed the green curtains over the street facing windows to indicate the store was closed.
Lucy’s younger sister, Juliet, was out seeing those patients who were not well enough to visit the store, and her brother, David, could be anywhere in the capital city. Some days he was up with the sun, dusting the shelves and charming the clientele into doubling or even tripling their purchases. Other days, he was nowhere to be found. Days like today.
Worst days.
Lucy sighed a long, drawn-out sigh that she was embarrassed to hear exuded a low note of self-pity along with despair. Exhaustion weighed down her legs and pulled at her elbows while she cleaned the treatment chair and wrote the details of the man’s procedure in her record book. She’d not slept well last night. Nor the night before. In fact, Lucy hadn’t had an uninterrupted night’s sleep for nine years.
Standing with a quill in her hand, she gazed at the etching hanging on the far wall of the back room, sandwiched between a tall, thin chest of drawers and a coat rack covered in bonnets and caps left behind by forgetful patients. Drawn in exchange for a treatment long forgotten, the artist had captured her mother and father posed side by side in a rare moment of rest.
Constantly moving, and yet always time for a smile for whomever was in pain or in need of a sympathetic ear, her mother had been a woman of great faith in God and even greater faith in her husband.[11]
“We work all day so we can make merry afterwards,” her father would tell Lucy when she complained about the long hours. Indeed, evenings in the Peterson household were redolent with the sound of music and comradery, her father loving nothing more than an impromptu concert with his children, no matter their mistakes on the instruments he’d chosen for them.
The etching was an amateurish work, yet it managed to convey the genuine delight on her father’s face when he found himself in company of his wife.
Nine years since her parents died of cholera, a loathsome disease most likely brought home by British soldiers serving with the East India company.[12] When the first few patients came to the apothecary with symptoms, the Petersons had sent their children to stay with a cousin in the countryside to wait out the disease. Lucy and Juliet had protested, both having trained for such scenarios, but their father held firm.
Her parents’ death had come as less of a shock to Lucy than her father’s will. Everything was left to her; the apothecary and the building in which it stood as well as the proprietary formulas of her father and her grandfather’s tonics and salves.
She had been eighteen years old.[13]
“What were you thinking back then, da?” she asked the etching now, the smell of vinegar and eucalyptus stinging the back of her throat. “Why would you put this on my shoulders?”
Her father stared out from the picture with his round cheeks and patchy whiskers, eyes crinkled in such a way that Lucy fancied he heard her laments and would give her words of advice if he could speak.
What would they be?
A yawn so large it cracked her jaw made Lucy break off her musings and remove her apron.
Exhaustion had played a huge role in her string of bad decisions the past four months. Ultimately, however, the fault lay with her. Lucy’s guilt had been squeezing the breath from her lungs for weeks.[14]
On the counter, slightly dented from having been crushed in her fist, then thrown to the ground and stepped on, then heaved against the wall, sat a grimy little tin. Affixed to the top was a label with the all too familiar initials, RSA. Rider and Son Apothecary.
Rider and Son. The latter being the primary reason for this very worst of days.
The longer she stared at the tin, the less Lucy felt the strain of responsibility for running Peterson’s Apothecary and keeping her siblings housed and fed. Beneath the initials were printed the words, Rider’s Lozenges. The ever-present exhaustion that had weighed her down moments ago began to dissipate at the sight of the smaller print beneath which read “exclusive.” The more she stared, the more her guilt subsided beneath a wave of anger that coursed through her blood. “Exclusive patented formula for the relief of putrid throats.”[15]
Exclusive patented formula.
The anger simmered and simmered the longer she stared until it reached a boil and turned to rage.
Grabbing her paletot from the coat rack and a random bonnet that may or may not have matched, Lucy stormed out of the store, slamming the door behind her with a vengeance that was less impressive when she had to turn around the next second to lock it.
Exclusive patent.
The words burned in her brain, and she clenched her hands into fists.
One warm summer afternoon four months ago Lucy had been so tired, she’d stopped to sit on a park bench and had closed her eyes. Only for a minute or two but long enough for a young gentleman passing by to notice and be concerned enough for her safety to enquire as to her well-being.
While the brief rest had been involuntary, remaining on the bench and striking up a conversation with the handsome stranger was her choice and a terrible one at that. Lucy had allowed Duncan Rider to walk her home. Not questioning the coincidence that the son of her father’s rival had been the one to find her vulnerable and offer his protection was down to her own stupidity.
Now, as Lucy barreled down the rotting walkways of Calthorpe Street[16] she barely registered the admiring glances from the gentlemen walking in the opposite direction or the sudden appearance of the wan November sun as it poked through the grey clouds of autumn.
Instead, her head was filled with memories so excruciating they poked at her chest like heated needles rousing feelings of shame alongside her resentment.
Such as the next time she’d seen Duncan when he appeared during a busy day at the apothecary with a pretty nosegay of violets. He’d smelled like barley water and soap[17], a combination so simple and appealing it had scrambled her brains and left her giddy as a goose.
Or the memory of how their kisses had unfolded in the back rooms of the apothecary, turning from delightfully sweet to something much more carnal. How kisses had proceeded to touches and from there even more and how she’d believed it a harbinger of what would come once they married.
A shout ripped Lucy’s attention back to the present and she jerked back from the road, missing the broad side of a carriage by inches. The driver called out curses at her over his shoulder, but they bounced off her and scattered across the muddied street as Lucy turned the corner onto Greys Inn Road.
Halfway through a row of dun colored stone buildings, almost invisible unless one knew what to look for, a discreet brass plaque to the left of a blackened oak door read
Tierney & Co., Bookkeeping Services[18]
Lucy took a deep breath, pulling the dirty brown beginnings of a London fog into her lungs and expelled it along with the remorse and shame that accompanied her memory of Duncan holding her handwritten formula for a new kind of throat lozenge she’d worked two years to perfect.
“I’ll just test it out for you, shall I?” he’d said, eyes roaming the page. Duncan and his father had long searched for a throat lozenge remedy that tasted as good as it worked. Might Duncan be tempted to impress his father with her lozenge? His lips curled up on one side as he read ,and Lucy recalled the slight shadow of foreboding moving across the candlelight in the back storeroom where they carried out their affair.
“I don’t know,” she’d hedged.
Too late. He’d folded the formula and distracted her with kisses.
“I’ve more space and materials at my disposal. I know you think this is ready to sell, but isn’t it better that we take the time to make sure?”
It might have been exhaustion that weakened Lucy just enough that she took advantage of an offer to help shoulder some of her burdens[19]. However, the decision to let Duncan Rider walk out of Peterson’s apothecary with a formula that was worth a fortune was due not to her sleepless nights; but a weakness in her character that allowed her to believe a man when he told her he loved her.
Now, six months later, somehow Duncan had again betrayed her.
Having already lost the lozenge formula to Duncan’s avaricious grasp, Lucy had been horrified to find a second formula missing. She’d come up with a salve for treating baby’s croup[20], a remedy even more profitable than the lozenges. What parent wouldn’t pay through the nose to calm a croupy baby?
Lucy was certain that Duncan must have found out about her work and stolen both the formula and ingredient list for the salve.
This time, Lucy would not dissolve into tears and swear never to love again. This time, she was going eviscerate her rival and get her formula back.
Then, she would swear never to love again.
“And that is why I would like you to kill him[21]. Or, perhaps not so drastic. Maybe torture him first. At the very least, leave him in great discomfort. I have plenty of ideas how you might do this and am happy to present them in writing along with anatomically correct diagrams.”
Jonathan Thorne[22] blinked at the incongruity of the bloodthirsty demand and the composed nature of the woman who issued it.
He almost blinked again at the sight of her face when she leaned forward and into the light but stopped himself at the last second.
None of that, now.
Never again.
He’d been in the back room when he heard her come in off the street, asking for Henry Winthram[23], the tenor of her husky voice sounding sadly familiar.
The sound of a woman almost drained of hope.
“Miss Peterson, I appreciate your, erm, enthusiasm?” Winthram said, now.
Henry Winthram was the newest and youngest agent at Tierney’s and with his raw talents, he’d also brought along a decade’s worth of experience handling a mind-boggling array of poisons, explosives, insecticides, and scientists.
Winthram brought the woman into the small receiving room.
“Tierney and Company are in the business of helping clients solve burdensome problems,” Winthram explained.
“It would relieve me of a great burden would you take care of Duncan Rider,” the woman said quickly.
“I’m not gun for hire, Miss.” Winthram informed her, sounding offended.
“Of course, you’re not. I’m sorry, Winthram. I don’t want him murdered,” the woman apologized. “I do tend toward hyperbole when I’m angry.”
“You don’t say.” Winthram’s head turned when the floorboards squeaked as Thorne came into the room from the hall where he’d been lurking.
“Allow me to introduce you to one of the senior agents,” the young man said without bothering to hide his relief. “Mr. Jonathan Thorne, I’m pleased to present to you to Miss Peterson, the owner of Peterson’s Apothecary.”
For close to thirty years, the brass plaque affixed beside the front door of Tierney & Co. had advertised a bookkeeping service but in fact, the five agents working here, Thorne and Winthram among them, did little to no accounting.
The books they balanced were more metaphorical[24].
Whenever the government had a domestic situation that could not be resolved through official channels and might lead to some embarrassment of the extended royal family or members of the government, Tierney’s received a visit from a bland, middle-aged functionary who pushed an envelope across the desk then disappeared. Shortly thereafter, a certain dignitary might find himself transferred back home after his superiors received information about said dignitary’s unsavory predilections. A palace servant might suddenly leave their post the day after a cache of love letters were returned to one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting.
On occasion, Tierney’s would agree to take on discreet services for an ordinary citizen who has been wronged. A widow will suddenly receive her late husband’s back wages, or a poor family’s home be spared a tax rise.
The request by an apothecary owner for the assassination of a rival apothecary was certainly out of the ordinary, but the fact that the apothecary owner was a woman — an almost preternaturally beautiful woman — might have been more unique in Tierney’s history. Except, since Henry Winthram began working here, extraordinary women had been showing up in droves. [25]
Thorne nodded at Winthram and steeled himself to impassiveness before he walked to the ladder-back chair where Miss Peterson had just risen to her feet and presented her hand in greeting.
There were some ladies of the most elite circles of British Society who used to come and watch Thorne when he was a famous prize fighter. They would scream for blood and shout for pain alongside the common rabble from behind the safety of long cloaks and heavy veils. Afterward they would remove their veils and ogle him as though regarding an animal let loose from a menagerie.[26] Thorne hadn’t cared. When he was drinking, he hadn’t accounted himself much better than an animal.
Over time the tally of his fights wrote themselves on his face; ears that puffed to the side like lopsided mushrooms, a poorly sewn cut high on his left cheek that left him with a permanent sneer, a bent nose; all these conspired to change his appearance so much that his own mother had difficulty recognizing him and the ladies no longer simpered at him. Instead, they would hold their gaze in such a way that took in the whole of him without having to examine his face too closely.
A technique Thorne employed now as he bowed over Miss Peterson’s hand, his eyes taking in her plain day dress of a faded India cotton print with a shawl collar up to her neck, her sturdy but well-worn boots, serviceable gloves, and ten years out-of-date straw bonnet, none of which could have provided much warmth on such a windy day.
What he didn’t do was stare directly at her face. Beauty like Miss Peterson’s elicited a reaction.
Thorne preferred to remain impassive.
She would be accustomed to some response, what with her perfectly round eyes and irises so dark blue they resembled the Mediterranean on the morning of a storm, full lips the color of a bruised rose petal and cream colored skin pulled taut over high cheekbones.
Fascinating how each person’s face contained the exact same elements but in one person, Miss Peterson for example, they were arranged so as to make a man stammer and blush, shuffle his feet and work to wet his suddenly dry mouth.
Fascinating and dangerous.
Miss Peterson took her seat and Thorne rang the bell for a servant to build up the fire and fetch another pot of hot water. When he judged Miss Peterson’s blood lust to have calmed, Thorne took a chair from against the wall and set it and himself in between Winthram and Miss Peterson.
“You must know Winthram from his days as the doorman at Athena’s Retreat,” Thorne said.
Miss Peterson sat straighter in her chair, clasping the strings of her reticule tight in her hands as she shot a worried glance at Winthram who held up a hand to ward off her concern.
“The agents at Tierney’s already knew about the club before I came to work here,” Winthram assured her. “They’ve worked with Lord Greycliff and Mr. Kneland before[27].”
That would be the Viscount Greycliff. His stepmother, the former Lady Greycliff, had used the money left to her by Greycliff’s late father and converted a series of outbuildings behind her townhouse into a club. Most of London believed it to be a ladies social club where women with an interest in the natural sciences would gather for tea and listen to lectures on subjects as varied as the proper means of cultivating orchids or how to use botanicals for better housekeeping.
Behind closed doors, however, women scientists used three floors of hidden laboratories to further their work in fields as varied as organic chemistry, ornithology, and experimental physics. When Lady Greycliff had come under threat last year, a former counter assassin, Arthur Kneland, had been hired to protect her. [28]
Much to Thorne’s amusement, the intimidating man had not only gone and gotten himself shot for the umpteenth time, but he’d also fallen in love with the lady and now tried desperately to keep the scientists from wreaking havoc on the club and one another. On occasion, Kneland would help Winthram with small missions both to keep himself sharp and pass on some of his skills to the younger man.
Having poached Winthram from the duties of doorman to serve as one of their employees, Tierney’s had not entirely reckoned with the fact that the women scientists who had relied on Winthram to help them with their experiments now came to him for help with other quandaries.
Women scientists lived highly eventful lives[29].
“I use the laboratories of the Retreat since our space at the apothecary is taken up by our supplies and treatment room,” Miss Peterson said now. “For years I worked to create the formula for a throat lozenge that reduces the swelling of a putrid throat as well as soothes the pain. I planned on patenting the formula, but—”
Despite his best effort, Thorne let his gaze rest on Miss Peterson’s face, perhaps assuming the anguish contained in her voice would diminish the luminosity of her beauty. In fact, it added to it, and Thorne redirected his eyes to her clenched hands and listened to her tremulous voice and any clues it might provide.
“Before I could bring the formula to market myself,” Miss Peterson continued, “I showed it to Duncan Rider. The son in Rider and Son Apothecary.”
Unexpectedly, she launched from her chair and began pacing the room. Accustomed to the demure responses of the occasional gentlewoman or the humility of the domestic servants who sought their services, Thorne was taken aback by the ferocity in her manner[30].
Winthram showed no sign of surprise and Thorne presumed this behavior was common among women scientists.
“Once I realized what that fungus-sucking tumor[31] of a man had done to me—”
Thorne swallowed a laugh and nearly choked while Winthram nodded his head in appreciation of the insult.
“—patenting my formula, I pleaded with him to do the right thing and either put my name on the patent or fulfill his promise to marry me. He did neither. I was tempted then to do him bodily harm, but I refrained.”
“Most likely for the best,” Winthram offered.
Miss Peterson stopped mid-stride, pointed a finger at the poor boy’s head [32]and leveled a ferocious glare at him.
“Do you think so, Winthram?” Her voice rose now, and she advanced on Winthram who sensibly leaned back in his chair, realizing it would have been better to keep his mouth shut until the end.
“Do you think so? Let me tell you, as bad as it is that thieving pustule now makes a fortune from my hard work, today I learned something even worse. He has somehow come into my home and once again stolen my work. My formulas for a new croup salve have disappeared.”
[1] Until the discovery of anti-biotics, there were very few actual “cures” to most ailments. Instead, many apothecaries’ offerings were more “pain relief” often in the form of opium tinctures and sometimes simply alcohol with a medical label.
[2] This common practice in England disappeared from London much earlier than it did in rural areas. In the ledgers of apothecaries from the 1700-1800’s, one can find items such as eggs, chickens, and even pigs, in the space mean for payment.
[3] Ok, you know we’uns is just cant for little (wee) ones. Right? Tell me you figured that out and don’t think the man has weuns running around at home. I don’t know what weuns would be – an image of an Oompa-loompa just popped up in my head.
[4] The population of London was and has been since trade began in its ports, very ethnically diverse, as all major port cities and capitals generally are all over the world. I try hard to write history in color, rather than black and white.
[5] Old-timey contraceptive. Not joking. Yup. 1850 BC or thereabouts. Also, honey. Served the same purpose as spermicidal gel.
[6]In today’s currency, a thruppence, or three pence, is worth 0.0417 US dollars.
[7] Oil of clove is an age-old numbing agent when applied to the gums. NOT TO THE TOOTH ITSELF.
[8] You may think it odd that Lucy is playing the role of dentist, but apothecaries filled many roles back then. There actually weren’t even dentists! You could get a tooth drawn, a wound cleaned, and tea for your headache all at the same place. Needless to say this was a contributing factor to the high mortality rate back then.
[9] Ever smelled a rotten tooth? As noted before, there were no dedicated dentists until about 1860 and if you didn’t want to go see an apothecary you could also get your tooth pulled at the barber’s.
[10] In the 1840’s toothpowder contained soap. There were toothbrushes at the time but brushing teeth daily was not a thing until much later.
[11] I cut out a lot about the parents. It’s difficult sometimes to know what to keep and what is too much information. Suffice to say her mother was a consistent church goer and her father not so much.
[12] Cholera was once a scourge of large cities, a diarrheal illness caused by bacteria and found in unsanitary water supplies. A cure wasn’t found until the end of the century, however, in the 1850’s, a link was proven between water pumps and the disease.
[13] It was incredibly unusual for a man to leave his estate to a daughter rather than a son. Also, until the divorce laws were changed in the 1860’s, a woman’s property became her husband’s too once they were married.
[14] Oh, Lucy. Take a breath, please. We all know women like Lucy, don’t we? At some point, I think we’re ALL Lucy.
[15] ‘Putrid throat’ can refer to either diphtheria or strep. I was tempted to add a list of anti-bacterial ingredients, but I know my limits. Hot sex, that I can write. Medical cures? Not so much.
[16] Small side street off King’s Cross Road in Clerkenwell.
[17] Barley water is still a soft drink in the UK, barley soaked water with sugar and lemon. Used for hydration and digestive health. The sugar probably cancels that last one out.
[18] Yes, there is a story behind Tierney & Co., and someday maybe I will tell it.
[19] Yes, exhaustion certainly, but Lucy is like most of us who are certain the world will end if we aren’t doing everything!
[20] Most parents will remember how fun croup can be (sarcasm. Not fun. Not fun at all.) Today we have steroids and nebulizer treatments if it gets bad, back then it was steam and earplugs.
[21] I really wanted to just say that, or maybe add some gross, gory ways, but my editors thought people would not know that Lucy was exaggerating so I threw in the part about leaving him in discomfort. Would you have, though? Wouldn’t you have known she was exaggerating?
[22] The minute I pictured my hero, his name came to me.
[23] Yay! For those of you who don’t know Winthram, he features most prominently in the first book of my Secret Scientists series, A LADY’S FORMULA FOR LOVE. I had to bring him back he was a fan favorite.
[24] I should write a series about the exploits of agents with Tierney’s except I would have to put in clues and I am terrible with clues. They are always so obvious. This is part of the reason I started writing romance – I sucked at mysteries.
[25] I like to imagine all the members of Athena’s Retreat coming to call on Winthram and complain about the rotating cast of doormen/women, or asking his advice, or just generally driving him up a wall.
[26] This was indeed the practice, as women of the upper classes could not be seen in such a violent and crass public spectacle.
[27] Ok, so here I introduce the secret scientists to new readers. This is always a struggle because I want all my books to be stand-alone but then I have to think of how to impart information about the club in an succinct but not-boring manner.
[28] Did this confuse those of you who know that there have been two Lady Greycliffs? I figure the only solution is for you to go to your library and request the Secret Scientists series.
[29] Thorne is the king of understatements.
[30] Ladies did not pace. They were reserved and polite in all occasions. Lucy would not be considered a lady. She is a shop owner, so while she would have some respect, she would not be afforded all the courtesies extended to a member of the aristocracy or upper-class.
[31] Favorite new insult.
[32] I was going to have her tap her pointer finger against his forehead but thought it might make her seem annoying. For the record, tapping a finger against someone’s forehead is, indeed, highly annoying. Or so I’ve heard.
Spoiler Alert!
**Spoilers ahead for those of you who haven’t read A Lady’s Formula for Love!**
Did you finish A Lady’s Formula for Love and wonder what happened after Violet proposed to Arthur? Well, I had a little bit of fun imagining how Arthur and Violet’s nuptials might go. Would there be explosions? Tarantulas on the loose? When I sat down to write it, I assumed there would be hijinks. What I didn’t know, was that Grantham would be the first character to pop into my head. Then came Grey and the three men goof balled across my brain until I wrote the epilogue below.
Epilogue: A Lady’s Formula for Love
It was the perfect day for a wedding.
George Willis, Earl Grantham, was not overfond of weddings. In his experience as an unmarried peer, weddings were a gamut of sighing young women, wily mamas, and uninspired breakfast fare. Still, his best friend, Lady Violet Greycliff, soon to be Mrs. Violet Kneland, was getting shackled at this wedding and thus Grantham had no choice but to attend.
Walking down Knightsbridge Street he admired the bright blue of a late Spring sky. A warm breeze softly nudged his cheek and the last of the tulips edging a fenced green nodded their heads to him. If one were to shackle oneself to a genius chemist with a penchant for explosions, today was a good day for it.
It therefore came as a surprise when Grantham turned the corner and beheld the groom walking rapidly away from the well-kept townhouse where the wedding was supposed to take place – Grantham squinted at his timepiece – in fifteen minutes.
While Violet was one of Grantham’s oldest and dearest friends, her soon-to-be-husband, Arthur Kneland, was less of a friend and more of a friendly rival. Their strained relations were because Grantham had himself recently proposed to Violet. Not out of any misguided sense of romance, but more out of convenience. She had declined his proposal in favor of marriage to Kneland.
On the one hand, Grantham didn’t begrudge her. If Violet wanted to go through the trials and torment of falling in love and then the bother of marrying the person with whom she’d fallen in love, well, to each their own.
On the other hand, Arthur Kneland was not the man Grantham would have selected for Violet. The son of a farmer, Kneland had recently retired from his employment for the government as a counter-assassin. A scandal in his youth had kept Kneland from England’s shores for twenty years and despite a recent commendation from the Queen and the support of Violet’s titled and highly popular family, the odor of that scandal still clung to the man.
No matter. Violet loved Arthur and wanted to marry him and whatever Violet wanted, Grantham would get for her.
Having heard that some men become skittish before the wedding, Grantham knew he ought to approach Kneland carefully, offer him some manly solidarity and gently coax him back where he belonged, at Violet’s side.
***
“The feck do you think you’re going, you tiny bastard?”
When an enormous hand came from behind to clap itself on Arthur’s shoulder, a surge of satisfaction roared through his blood and reflexes honed after twenty years of dangerous missions snapped into action.
Seconds after the earl had come up behind him, Grantham was sprawled on the sidewalk.
“Hallo, Grantham,” Arthur said, fighting to keep a smug grin from his face. “Nice hat.”
It had been a nice hat before Arthur had grabbed Grantham’s meaty claw and flipped the earl over his shoulder and onto the ground. The beautiful black satin topper had rolled off the earl’s head and now lay in a puddle on the side of the road.
Pity.
“You have all of three seconds to start running, Kneland.” Grantham, to his credit, appeared unembarrassed by his prone position, Instead, his expression was one of open geniality as he rose from the ground and began brushing himself off. “For when I catch you, I shall kill you.”
Ah. The sibilant hiss of rage in those last few syllables brought a surge of joy to Arthur’s chest. This is what he wanted. A fight. A stupid, thought obliterating, teeth shattering fight.
“Or, you can move your miniature feet and get your dour little self back to your wedding.” Grantham paused and looked over at the townhouse behind them.
Beacon House.
The house where Lady Violet Greycliff had lived with her late husband, the Viscount Greycliff. She had moved there directly from her family home in Lincolnshire, owned by her father, the Viscount Grange.
Earls and viscounts – why there was even a Duke in attendance this morning. All gathered to watch one of their own wed a scandal ridden commoner.
“I’d rather pummel you into oblivion,” Arthur said hopefully.
Grantham scratched his chin, glancing between Arthur and Beacon House with exaggerated consideration.
“I would let you throw the first punch.”
Grantham raised a single eyebrow at Arthur’s enticement, then shook his head slowly. “No. Violet would be upset with me, which means her papa would be upset with me, which means her sisters and mama would be upset with me.”
“The youngest sister with the lisp . . .”
“Poppy,” Grantham supplied.
“Yes, Poppy.” Arthur nodded. “She’s here with her fellow students from the Yorkshire Academy for Exceptional Young Women.”
“I know. My sister Lizzie is among them.” Grantham shuddered “There were six of them to dinner last night. Those women are terrifying.”
The travails of Grantham’s dinner parties were irrelevant to Arthur’s current woes.
“She’s invented a tasteless poison that kills within seconds,” he told the earl.
“If you think that’s unnerving you should hear about what the rest of them are up to.” Scoffing, Grantham retrieved his hat and examined the mud staining the brim. “’Sides, Poppy invented her first tasteless poison ages ago. That’s nothing new.”
“Apparently she’s improved upon the formula. It makes a man vomit his own intestines up before dying.”
Grantham blanched but recovered swiftly. “Did she tell you that as you were sneaking out the door to avoid marrying her sister?”
Taking the hat from Grantham’s hands, Arthur brushed the burgundy silk hatband off with his handkerchief. “No. She told us about it when she heard that Lord and Lady Innis had sent their regrets and would not be attending today’s event.”
Grantham scratched his head. “Odd. I saw Innis this week at a meeting regarding the education reform bill we are writing together, and he seemed well enough.”
“Hmmm.” Arthur paid particular attention to the hat while he spoke. “Their declination follows on the heels of Mr. and Mrs. Ashland’s regrets as well as Lady Berlington’s.”
Violet had set the replies aside and waved a hand with nonchalance when she’d gone through the mail.
This was why Arthur had been reluctant to marry her, no matter how much he loved her.
Status mattered. Rank mattered. Wealth mattered.
Violet had it all.
Arthur had none.
If Violet wed him, she would take his name. No matter how much polishing Arthur had done by swallowing his pride and accepting accolades from Queen Victoria for actions performed in the course of his duties, that name would always carry a hint of tarnish.
“I was a fool to think the ton would forget what I did – even after twenty years,” Arthur said. “If I go through with marrying Violet, she loses her title and, with that, some of the protection she’s lent to Athena’s Retreat.”
Behind the townhouse lay Violet’s brainchild. A series of outbuildings she’d had reconstructed to create London’s first social club for ladies and – behind closed doors and a series of very unsafe locked doors – a haven for women scientists.
“She considers the club and the women in it her responsibility. I cannot be the reason she loses the Retreat. I just want for her. . . she deserves . . .” Arthur broke off.
What was the use in talking? He’d just uttered more words than he usually spoke in a week, and they still couldn’t convey the way his heart contracted when he saw Violet frown at number of invitations returned with regrets.
Grantham yawned. “Yes, yes. I’ve heard your sweeping declarations of what Violet deserves from a man and even more sweeping declarations of your love for her.”
What nonsense was this? Arthur’s declarations hadn’t merely been sweeping.
They’d been heartrending.
“Those words brought Violet tears of joy,” Arthur boasted.
“I’d like to see your tears,” Grantham said. “But more than I want to punch you, I want to see Violet happy. So, get your tiny Scottish arse inside that house and marry her.”
“Why don’t both of you get your unmentionable backsides into the house before I am overrun by women of the scientific persuasion?” Arthur’s friend, and Violet’s step-son, the Viscount Greycliff, known to friends as Grey, walked over and regarded them with a frosty glare.
A healthy respect had grown between Arthur and Grey while they worked together on various clandestine missions over the years. Arthur considered him a friend although their relationship had become somewhat strained as of late when Grey discovered that Arthur and Violet had anticipated their marriage vows.
Good thing Grey didn’t know on how many occasions, or positions, or locations in the house they’d been “anticipating.”
“Get back inside Arthur,” Grey said now. “Violet is waiting. Do not force me to drag you in there.”
“I could simply pick him up by the collar and toss him if you’d open the door for me,” Grantham offered.
The musky odor of male braggadocio scented the air and acted like a drug on Arthur’s senses.
“You could try,” Arthur replied, doubt dripping from his words.
He released the catch on the small sheath he wore beneath his sleeve and his second favorite blade slipped into his hand. A fraction of a second later, Grey had a blade in his hand as well, most likely the one he kept in a hidden pocket of his jacket. Obvious, but effective.
“The two of you are pathetic. You know what they say about small knives?”
With that, Grantham pulled out a three-foot-long curved blade with a wrapped leather handle from behind his back.
Oh, for feck’s sake.
Arthur and Grey exchanged glances.
“For what exactly are you compensating?” Arthur asked.
“A machete? To a wedding? How very outre,” Grey drawled.
Grantham’s face fell and he pouted. “Never mind that. The point is not the impressive size of my knife. The point is that Kneland has five seconds to get it into his thick, oddly shaped head that it doesn’t matter what society thinks of him.”
He pointed the blade perilously close to Arthur’s chest. “I see you and Violet together and it makes me . . .”
For an instant, sorrow swept over the man’s face and Arthur wondered who had hold of the earl’s heart.
Dropping the machete to his side, Grantham sighed. “Let’s just say you lead a fellow to believe there might be something to all that folderol about love.”
The sincerity in Grantham’s voice touched Arthur deeply despite the attempt at levity in his pronouncement.
In direct contrast, Grey’s words were encased in frost.
“You compound Violet’s burden do you leave her now. The scandal of your marriage pales beside the scandal of being jilted at the altar. Love has nothing to do with it.”
The words shocked Arthur to his core.
How very wrong.
“Love has everything to do with it,” Arthur objected.
He felt her then, in the doorway of Beacon House.
Arthur didn’t have to turn around to know what expression Violet wore. Her beautiful brown eyes would be clouded with worry, her thoughts split between the chaos that followed with the arrival of her family and the formula she’d been working on only hours before.
For the wedding ceremony, she wore a morning dress of robin’s egg blue. Buttercup yellow ribbons cascaded from the back and tiny pink and green flowers were embroidered between the rouching at the front. Right now, the skirts of that dress would be clenched in her gloved fist as she bit the corner of her bottom lip while trying to decide whether to leave Arthur be or come after him.
He would always know where Violet was and whether she was happy or anxious. Fed or starving. Awake or asleep.
Violet was his heart.
Violet was his heart.
The truth of those words and the utter stupidity of his worries crashed over Arthur. He closed his eyes against the force of his shame.
His fear of losing what he loved the most almost cost him that love.
Spin straightening with resolution, he spoke to Violet, even though he faced his friends.
“I made a mistake, listening to all the noise that surrounded us,” he said raising his voice so she could hear him. “The voices that say, ‘you are not enough and will never be.’”
Violet’s shoe scuffed the wooden walkway behind Arthur, and he turned, reaching out to grasp her gloved hand. Thin layers of kidskin separated them, but he could feel the heat of her, feel the rightness of her, through the material.
“That noise drowned out the quiet voice within me, the one that tells difficult truths,” he said. “The one that encourages generosity over greed and kindness over cruelty. I made that voice so very small it went unheard for years until I met you.”
Violet’s family now spilled out of the townhouse and surrounded them. A few feet away, the secret scientists of Athena’s Retreat gathered, dressed in their best gowns, excited to watch the nuptials of one of their own. In the street behind them, carriages rolled by and the clattering of horse hooves against the cobbled road echoed off the buildings.
They all faded into the background while Arthur spoke aloud his vows.
“That small voice reminds me that I can be enough despite my shortcomings. It says we are all worthy of love and being loved. Love has everything to do with how we treat one another and how we treat ourselves.”
The women surrounding them were constantly being told they were wrong to want to be more than society would allow them, wrong to want to follow their passion, wrong to look differently or act differently or think differently than everyone else.
They didn’t listen, and neither should he.
“I was a fool to believe that a love so strong could not overcome the narrow minds that would place us in boxes with labels not of our choosing. I promise never to let the noise outside bury the voice within me, the one that tells me every day how much I love you.”
Arthur paused then. Partly because he’d said so many words, he wasn’t sure if there were any left in him.
Mostly because Violet had gripped his hand and moved ever closer to him as he spoke and now stood only a hairsbreadth away, cheeks rosy and beautiful round eyes wide and glistening with tears.
“It won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever comes to us without a good deal of work.” She looked up at him and Arthur’s heart took to banging against the wall of his chest, most likely wanting to jump right out and settle itself in her hand where it belonged. “I love you, too, Arthur. I promise to listen to that small voice within myself as well.”
Heedless of their surroundings, Arthur closed the last of the distance between them and sealed that vow with a kiss.
**
Grantham watched as Arthur and Violet walked arm in arm back into Beacon House. Violet’s parents, Lord and Lady Grange, followed behind them and the ladies of Athena’s Retreat went next, many of them touching handkerchiefs to the corners of their eyes.
“I’m still going to punch him,” he groused to Grey as they secreted their blades and straightened their cravats. There didn’t seem to be any help for his topper, but no one would notice. Not after that spectacle. “Imagine, making such a beautiful speech about the impact of love on one’s self-worth at a wedding.”
“Now he’s gone and made every unmarried woman here stare at every available man with hearts in their eyes,” Grey complained in solidarity. “Watch yourself, Grantham. You’re like a piece of bloodied meat dangling over a lion’s cage. Look at the way those students from the Academy are staring at us.”
Indeed, the young women stood like a pack of starving wolves confronted with the sight of a wounded bunny. The tallest of them licked her lips in anticipation.
“Which one of them can make you vomit up your intestines?” Grey whispered.
Having grown up with the Grange sisters, Grantham waved away Grey’s concerns. “That’s Poppy. She’s not the real threat. The real threat is the tall one, Eleanor. She’s an engineer. Makes her own hunting traps. Man will be walking along minding his business when snap.” Grey jumped when Grantham snapped his fingers. “He’s never seen from again.”
“Don’t you think since he’s fallen in love, Arthur’s gone and lost his edge?” Grey asked out of the corner of his mouth as they sidled past the young women, trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible until they reached the safety of the house. “Did you see how long it took him to get his blade out?”
“You and I will never end up like that,” Grantham assured him.
The chances of one of them falling in love were about as great as the chances of horseless carriages on the street and folks flying around in the sky.
Yes, indeed. If there was one thing Grantham could be certain of, it was that he and Greycliff had nothing to be worried about.