Blackstone's Bride by Kate Moore Page B

smalls for her father’s measurements. He was not much above her in height, but his shoulders were broad and his arms had a lean iron strength.
    She shuddered. “Spare me. I would throw myself in the Serpentine with rocks in my pockets first.”
    “The Thames would be better,” he advised cordially. “As ladylike as it would be to drown yourself in the park, it takes a real river to be certain you’ll get the job done.”
    “My mother did not bring me into this world for the likes of you.”
    “Shall I tell you your mother’s true story? She was a beautiful Irish lass who came to London to work in a factory and listened to a honey-tongued rogue who got her in trouble and your father took her in.” He did not say that her father had not married her mother. No need to rub salt in the wound.
    “Hah! What do you know! Who was your mother? Who was your father?”
    “You don’t know anything about your mum, either. So we’re even.”
    “I know I could have been a Nan or a Susan or a Molly, but I’m none of those. My mother knew things, and she named me to be someone. Miranda, a duke’s daughter.”
    “A character in a play that anyone can see for a fistful of shillings.”
    “Well this Miranda will meet a prince’s son, too. Not some flash cove that’s gotten above himself.”
    “Not in London, you won’t. Unless you meet a royal by-blow or plan to marry an infant. No prince’s sons for that lot of brothers to King George.”
    Miranda stuck a pin through her bonnet with a savage jab. “Nate Wilde, you spoil everything.”
    * * *
    “Where’s Wilde?” Blackstone found his fellow members of Goldsworthy’s exclusive club in their usual places. Hazelwood lay on his back on one of the long sofas tossing a tennis ball in the air. Captain Clare faced the carpet, his arms pumping his rigid body up and down, like a plank bobbing in a choppy sea. Neither man answered at once. Blackstone reached out and caught Hazelwood’s tennis ball midair.
    Hazelwood snatched at the ball, his reflexes quicker than Blackstone expected, but not quick enough. “We’re having a contest, old boy. Unsporting of you to interrupt.” There was no heat in the complaint. “One hundred, Clare!”
    The captain lowered himself to the floor. “Wilde’s around the corner at Kirby’s shop.”
    “He’s in love. It’s the youth’s one weakness,” Hazelwood added.
    Blackstone looked to Captain Clare for confirmation.
    “Ah, you can’t trust the sot, but you can trust the man in uniform.” Hazelwood swung himself upright. He still wore his soiled eveningwear. “It’s true, whether you believe me or not. The lad’s deeply smitten. Clare and I have a wager on whether young Wilde can ever prevail with the fair Miranda. I say it’s hopeless. The captain is not so certain.”
    Blackstone tossed the tennis ball back. He was familiar with the chemist’s shop and the pretty young woman who handled the counter. Gold letters on the black paint at the brick front of the shop proclaimed that Kirby and Sons were “Purveyors to their Majesties the Kings of Hanover & Belgium & His Royal Highness & The Duke of Cambridge.” There were no sons, only a daughter, and whatever the legitimate trade of the shop, its main business lay hidden from the public eye in the back rooms where Kirby himself labored to produce gentlemanly apparel for Goldworthy’s lads. The shop’s position directly behind the club, facing the next street, allowed for surreptitious coming and going as the club members were fitted for their new roles.
    When Blackstone entered, he found Wilde transformed into a street rat, sitting on the long mahogany counter, behind which Miranda Kirby bent her shining head over a chip straw bonnet, to which she was applying grosgrain ribbon in a lavender hue with sharp jabs of a needle. Wilde’s fingers toyed with the end of the ribbon, and the girl jerked it out of his reach. Blackstone cleared his throat, and the youth looked up,