Never Kneel to a Knight Read online

  “Miss Worthington,” he said, inclining his head. “Miss Bateman, Miss Daisy, Miss Petunia, how good to see you again.”

  “Lord Kendall,” Daisy said, batting her lashes.

  “We’re having ices to celebrate Matthew’s elevation,” Petunia announced.

  Lord Kendall did not show any surprise at the impetuous interruption.

  “An excellent reason to celebrate,” he said.

  “And what brings you to Gunter’s on this fine day?” Charlotte asked him.

  “I am a devotee of their apricot ice,” he confessed.

  “So is Miss Worthington,” Petunia put in. “It was her mother’s favorite.”

  “Then I am honored all the more,” he said. He turned to Ivy. “And which is your favorite, Miss Bateman?”

  Ivy kept her gaze on her gloved hands resting on the tabletop. “It’s difficult to choose a favorite among so many wonderful flavors, my lord.”

  “Not for me,” Daisy declared. “Licorice.” She smacked her lips.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure,” he said, but his gaze did not brush hers. “I should not delay your repast. Give my regards to your brother.” He touched his fingers to his top hat and turned for the counter.

  “You did it again,” Daisy whispered to Ivy as he blended into the crowd. “Why won’t you encourage him?”

  “Why can’t you remember what Charlotte taught us?” Ivy argued, cheeks reddening. “I doubt ladies make such noises with their mouths.”

  “If the food’s as good as it is here, they do,” Daisy said.

  “Actually,” Charlotte put in, “no part of a lady should make noise associated with food. Her lips, her teeth, her tongue, or areas further south.”

  Daisy rolled her eyes.

  “And she doesn’t do that either,” Ivy admonished her.

  “From the sound of it, she doesn’t have much fun,” Daisy complained. “Perhaps I don’t want to be such a fine lady after all.”

  “That,” Charlotte said, “is your choice. But you do not have the right to behave so rudely that you endanger your sisters’ choices.”

  Daisy’s color was high, but she dropped her gaze. “Sorry.”

  Charlotte inclined her head, but Daisy’s look had drifted to the counter, where Lord Kendall was accepting his ice. He turned to glance in their direction. But his gaze did not rest on Charlotte or Daisy. It lingered on Ivy.

  ~~~

  What was it with these lords? Matthew spotted the fellow making eyes at Charlotte and his sisters the moment he returned to the shop. Lord Kendall still didn’t look happy with his lot. And why not? He had power, privilege, and that coat, navy though it was, looked as if it had cost him a pretty penny. He could have his pick of the ladies. Why the long face?

  Of course, anyone looking at Matthew might have asked the same question. Smile, Charlotte had told him. Easier said than done. Remembering how his stepmother had mistreated his sisters always put him in an ill humor. Harding’s manipulation hadn’t helped. Matthew was spoiling for a fight; he recognized the burning feeling in his gut. Better to take it out on a short, swift walk than poison someone else with his bile. He pasted on a smile and made himself return to the table just as the waiter brought the frozen treats they’d purchased.

  Charlotte took a bite, mouth wiggling as she must have rolled the taste around on her tongue. The tiniest bit escaped those pink lips. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to reach out and brush it away. He shoved the spoon into the little bowl so hard it clinked against the crystal.

  He was just thankful conversation remained on the delight of the ice, until they returned to the carriage.

  “Well, that was a disappointment,” Daisy said, shifting on the bench until Tuny’s shoulders squeezed together. “We didn’t see anyone of consequence.”

  “Not true,” Charlotte said, calmly tugging up the cuff of her glove. “Lord Kendall spoke kindly to us, that doyen of Society Lady Midmarsh was watching across the room with evident approval, and the dark-haired fellow we passed as we left was none other than Lord Byron.”

  “The fellow who wrote Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage?” Daisy cried.

  Not many hadn’t heard about the dark and dangerous lord. Matthew hadn’t been impressed—a rather sickly looking fellow, for all he was a devotee of the Gentleman. “You read that drivel?” he asked his sisters.

  “We purchased a copy when it came out in March,” Ivy explained.

  “So did most people in London,” Charlotte assured them. “After today, taking into account the attention you’ve received from the ball and the walks in Hyde Park, I think the next step is for us to schedule an at home.”

  Tuny frowned. “At home? We’re usually at home.”

  “Unless we’re promenading in Hyde Park,” Daisy said.

  “An at-home is a time a lady schedules to receive friends and acquaintances,” Charlotte told them. “Covent Garden is a bit out of Mayfair, but I think we’ve whetted their appetites sufficiently that a few might attend. You can talk with them, enjoy their company, offer them refreshments.”

  “What would we offer them?” Daisy asked, glancing around. “Ivy doesn’t know how to make those little cakes they served at the Carrolton ball.”

  “Cinnamon buns,” Tuny said dreamily.

  “Something better than those,” Daisy insisted. “I don’t see Lord Kendall going into raptures over cinnamon.”

  “Well, there is Matthew’s cake,” Ivy mused.

  “That’s ours,” Tuny protested.

  “Actually, it’s Matthew’s,” Ivy reminded her.

  Matthew waved a hand. “Feed it to whoever you like. I’ll be too busy practicing to appreciate it properly.”

  Charlotte’s mouth tightened. Had he broken some other rule he didn’t know, or was she still stewing about the fight?

  She put a hand on his arm to hold him in the carriage as they drew up before the house.

  “Go ahead in,” she told his sisters. “I’d like a word with your brother.”

  Tuny accepted that. So did Ivy.

  Daisy cast him a snide glance. “You’re in trouble now,” she said before heading for the house.

  “I’m in trouble?” he challenged Charlotte. “I thought a lady wasn’t supposed to be alone with a gentleman in a closed carriage.”

  Charlotte raised her chin. “You and I were alone in a closed carriage for hours when we were chasing after Worth and Lydia.”

  “That was different,” Matthew allowed. “They were stuck in a runaway balloon, so it was an emergency, and I wasn’t considered a gentleman then.”

  Her chin came down. “You have always been a gentleman to me, Matthew.”

  He didn’t believe her. She’d become so accustomed to having him around she didn’t question his role. He knew better.

  “What did you want?” he asked.

  She rubbed a hand along her grey poplin skirts. “You and your sisters have spoken about Mrs. Bateman, your father’s second wife. I gather she wasn’t a pleasant person.”

  “She made my sisters into her personal servants, beat them, and threatened to send them to the poor house if they didn’t perform to her satisfaction. If my father left my sisters any money, she spent it. I pray I never meet her again, for if I do, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

  She blanched, and he wanted to call back the words. Why had he reminded her of the Beast of Birmingham?

  Something brushed his hand, hesitant, gentle. Glancing down, he saw Charlotte’s fingers over his own.

  “Please, Matthew,” she murmured. “Be careful. I know you are not the brute people make you out to be, but others will judge you by your words and actions.”

  “They judge me just by my look,” he said. “Anything I do reinforces their beliefs.”

  “Or refutes them,” she insisted. “Your sisters have this opportunity to better their lives. Don’t you want that for them?”

  Matthew recoiled. “Of course I do. They dese
rve the best. But I can’t help who I am, what I’ve done. It will always be a part of me.”

  “Is that what you want?” she murmured, gaze on their hands.

  “Doesn’t matter what I want.”

  “It does! It must!”

  Surprised by her vehemence, he pulled away. “Charlotte, Miss Worthington…”

  She shook herself, as if trying to regain her composure. When she spoke again, it was with her usual polished calm.

  “You are master of your own destiny, Sir Matthew. Unfortunately, even in our enlightened times, that makes you master of your sisters’ destiny as well. If you care about them as much as I suspect you do, you will find a way to call off this fight. And if you don’t, I will find a way to call it off for you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  She’d shocked him. Charlotte could tell by the way his dark brows rose. She thought he might protest, even order her to desist. But he merely inclined his head and left her.

  Truth be told, she was rather shocked by her behavior as well. He’d hired her to educate him and his sisters on the intricacies of Society, not to lecture him on his pastimes. Why had she taken him so thoroughly to task?

  The question troubled her as she returned the coach to Worthington House and walked the short distance to Meredith’s. She hadn’t known she’d be working for Matthew when she’d asked the employment agency owner to find her a position, so she could say with a clear conscience that she had not intended to bring herself to his attention.

  Perhaps she merely hated to see him trapped in this persona of a beast when she knew him to be the finest of men. Surely it had been righteous indignation, zeal for his sisters’ future, that had made her speak the way she had.

  At least he understood the stakes now. It was quite possible that he would move to rectify matters. That didn’t mean she shouldn’t try to do the same. She was the expert on Society, after all.

  And so she sought out Lord Harding.

  A lady never called on a gentleman—she must remember to tell Daisy that—but nothing said she could not discover his haunts and put herself in a position of bumping into him there.

  “Harding,” Mr. Cowls mused when she broached the subject the next morning before breakfast. She had made sure to be up ahead of Meredith and Fortune, for just this opportunity to converse with the sage butler.

  “Yes,” Charlotte encouraged him when his gaze continued to focus on the pink medallions on the wallpaper behind her. “A viscount like my brother, I believe. From Yorkshire.”

  Mr. Cowl’s distinguished nose twitched. “Not a fellow I would introduce to anyone I claimed a friend, Miss Worthington.”

  That did not sound good. Lilith had said he beat his servants. Perhaps that wasn’t aimless gossip after all. “May I ask why?”

  “A decided streak of cruelty,” the butler said, moving at last to hold out a chair for her at the dining table. “I recall a horse having to be put down after he took out his spleen on the poor mare. He has risen to some notoriety this Season when he managed to enter the prince’s circle. I do not expect him to stay there long, and I imagine he will lash out at any who he might see as taking his place.”

  Which would explain why he was so determined to fight Matthew. “And if one hoped to have a private word, purely to ensure the safety of another friend?” Charlotte asked, sitting on the chair he offered.

  “I believe Lord Harding generally makes an appearance at White’s before starting on his evening entertainments,” Mr. Cowls said, scooting her up to the table. “What may I bring you for breakfast this morning, Miss Worthington?”

  She’d requested eggs and eaten them, but her mind had remained on her purpose. She would make sure she was on St. James’s not far from White’s, at the proper time, even if it was when most ladies had long fled.

  She took Enid with her. The energetic dark-haired maid, dressed in black from her bonnet to her practical shoes, had a scowl to rival Matthew’s. Few of the gentlemen strolling past did more than cast Charlotte and Enid a curious glance before tipping their hats politely and hurrying on their way.

  To give herself something to do, and a reason for being on the street, Charlotte stepped into Harris and Company and ordered scented shaving soap. She wanted the house to be ready for Worth when he returned, after all. She then strolled down the street toward Berry Brothers and Rudd, as if interested on seeking their advice about wine.

  “Busybodies,” Enid declared as they passed the bow window of White’s gentlemen’s club. Charlotte caught a quick glimpse of two fellows studying her before turning her face resolutely forward. Unfortunately, she and Enid had to stroll the pavement twice before she sighted the dusky green of Lord Harding’s personal carriage. It pulled up before White’s, and the door opened to allow him to step down.

  “My lord,” Charlotte said, nose in the air, as she passed. Enid sniffed disparagingly at him.

  He removed his top hat and fell into step beside Charlotte. “Miss Worthington. An unexpected pleasure and an unaccountably cool reception. Have I offended you?”

  Charlotte kept her gaze on the way ahead. “Deeply. I considered you a gentleman, sir, but any fellow who insists on fighting cannot belong to that celebrated status, despite an age-old title and respected family name.”

  “Ah, the fight.” He shook his head, sunlight catching in the gold of his hair. “Forgive me, my dear, but pugilistic displays are for gentlemen. I wouldn’t expect a lady to understand.”

  Charlotte jerked to a stop, forcing him and Enid up as well.

  “Understand?” she asked, in a tone of voice Worth had once complained blew from the Arctic. “I understand, sir, that you are endangering a gentleman’s newly won prestige, and with it the reputation of his three younger sisters. I understand, sir, that you endanger his life as well. Do you plan on endowing his sisters should something happen to him? Will you see the youngest raised to womanhood? Help the older two find suitable husbands?”

  He held up his hands, lifting his top hat high. “Peace! I had no idea the fellow came encumbered, but it doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter?” Charlotte sputtered.

  “No,” he insisted, lowering his hands. “Very likely Sir Matthew will win. Should he choose to wager on the outcome, he may come away a richer man, well able to support his new title.”

  A wager? Matthew risked his capital on the Exchange, but that was hardly the same as gambling on the outcome of a sporting event. Did he need money badly? His house wasn’t in a fashionable area, and he had given her the smallest of budgets to see his sisters into Society. A shame His Royal Highness’ generosity had extended only to Matthew’s title. Sometimes when a man was given a title, an estate came with it.

  “I will allow that the money truly doesn’t matter,” Charlotte told the viscount. “I am more concerned about your and Sir Matthew’s reputations. It is widely accorded that a gentleman does not fight in public. Demanding that he do so demeans both Sir Matthew and yourself.”

  His smile was no doubt meant to be kind, but she found it infuriating. “As I said, these are matters for gentlemen to decide. I appreciate your concern, Miss Worthington, but I have risked much to arrange this fight, and I cannot cancel without having my honor impugned. Give my regards to Sir Matthew and his sisters.” He slipped his hat back on his head and turned for his club. Enid glared after him.

  Oh! Why were some men so pig-headed? Her father had refused to see a physician, insisting that he would recover on his own. By the time her mother had changed his mind, his condition had been too far advanced for treatment. Worth had hidden away from Society after John Curtis had plagiarized his work. Only Lydia’s return to Worth’s life had pulled him out of his self-imposed isolation. Matthew seemed certain he had to honor his word and fight. Lord Harding was equally certain it was a matter of honor. Why wouldn’t they both simply speak to the prince, convince him of another course of action? Could none of them see the damage they did?

  Maddening—the l
ot of them! It would serve them right if she just washed her hands of the entire affair and walked away.

  But she couldn’t walk away. She had a duty to Ivy, Daisy, and Petunia. She owed it to them to make sure nothing happened to their brother. They had already lost mother and father.

  “Shall we go home now, miss?” Enid asked, shifting on the pavement and setting her black skirts to swinging.

  “No,” Charlotte said, eyes narrowing. “There’s one person none of them will argue with. We’re going to Bond Street to see the Gentleman.”

  Enid goggled, but she hurried to wave over their carriage.

  Gentleman Jackson was just locking the door of his salon when Charlotte and Enid arrived. She had never seen the fellow, only heard him described. It was said his physique was so sublime artists and sculptors begged to use him as a model. He was shorter than Matthew and heavier, if the cut of his peacock blue coat was any indication. As he lifted his hat in acknowledgement, she saw that his forehead sloped back toward his dark hair, and his ears stood out on either side of his face.

  He replaced his hat and turned. Charlotte moved to block his path.

  “Mr. Jackson, please forgive the intrusion. I’d like to speak to you about a mutual friend.”

  He glanced from her to Enid and back. “Oh?”

  “Yes. Sir Matthew Bateman.”

  “The Beast of Birmingham,” Enid put in helpfully.

  Jackson inclined his head. “I know Sir Matthew. I recommended him to your brother, Miss Worthington.”

  She hadn’t been sure he would know her. They had never been formally introduced, after all. But she shared the same auburn hair and grey eyes as her brother. It wouldn’t have been difficult to guess her family.

  “I remember,” she told him. “I’m sure you’ve heard, then, about this wretched fight between him and Lord Harding.”

  “I have,” he said, tone darkening. “And I like it no better. Sir Matthew has requested my help in preparing, and I will do what I can to see the fight well fought.”