Princess Charming by Beth Pattillo

informers.
    “I can’t tell you.”
    “Then I suppose we’ll have to wait here until Crispin returns. Perhaps, when I escort you home, I can share our little adventures with the duchess. I’m sure she would be most interested to know how you passed the night.”
    “You wouldn’t!”
    “Oh, indeed, I would.”
    She hated smug men. They crossed their arms across their muscled chests, smiled with self-satisfaction, and watched one dangle like a worm on a hook.
    “Very well.” She paused, uncertain where to begin. “What do you know of the Luddites?”
    “Rabble-rousers,” Nick replied shortly, his brow furrowed in disdain. “Framework-knitters in Nottinghamshire who terrorized their employers when they would not meet their outrageous demands.”
    Of course it had been too much to hope that he would see beyond the propaganda the government had spread. “Good, honest men,” she shot back, “who starved while their employers engaged in ruinous speculation and destroyed the quality of their work.”
    Nick frowned. “There was no excuse for their lawlessness. The militia were called out, and the dragoons. They disturbed the public peace, and if they were treated harshly, it was no more than they deserved.”
    “Their children were starving!” Maybe it was better that he didn’t comprehend the justice of her cause, since his lack of sympathy for the poor rendered him far less attractive. A thick heaviness settled in her stomach.
    “What have you to do with the Luddites?” His frown had disappeared, to be replaced with a look of doubt.
    “Nothing. The fictional Ned Ludd is long departed, but there are some who still believe in reform. If Parliament can be brought to see the need for universal suffrage—”
    His jaw dropped. “Allow every field laborer and vagrant the vote? We have only to look across the Channel to France to see the consequences of that.” He began to pace in front of her, and Lucy felt a strange lurch in the vicinity of her heart. She had been right, after all, to put a stop to his kiss.
    Lucy took a deep breath as she marshaled her arguments. “Every man should have the right to participate in the government that rules over him. You, of all people, should understand that. Lady Belmont will probably sack you once she discovers what has happened.”
    His face had gone white, but Lucy didn’t wonder at his response. Sometimes the strongest opposition to reform came from the very people it was intended to help.
    “I don’t believe you.” His words were clipped, his spine straight and unyielding. “Even those crackbrained reformers would never allow a young woman to put herself at such risk. Suffrage is the prerogative of men. Why would you fight for rights you will never share?”
    Her answer was little more than a whisper, a wish locked so deep in her heart she rarely ever let herself dream it. “Perhaps one day I will.”
    “You are a fool.” He said the words as calmly and as plainly as if he were commenting on the weather. “Reform can never succeed, not until human nature changes. Reform is merely a clever word to conceal the real purpose—revolution.”
    His contempt was better for her purposes, she knew that, but it hurt nonetheless. She struggled against the need for his good opinion. He was a means to an end, nothing more. She couldn’t allow him to be more. Lucy glanced toward the window and then at Nick again, refusing to cry. She hated that she felt disappointed in him. “We will never resolve this, and you did make a bargain.”
    Small white lines fanned around his mouth. “Yes. I suppose I did.”
    When he came toward her, it was as if he could barely stand to be in her presence, and though she knew his distaste shouldn’t hurt her, it did. He moved next to the wall and laced his fingers together, reluctantly offering her his help. “I’ll boost you up. If you can open the window, then we can be rid of each other that much sooner.”
    This time when Lucy stood next