“I’m all right,” he said, dragging himself up to his feet. “He sucker-punched me, by God! So much for fair play! Where is he? Where’s the English bastard?”
“Don’t worry about him,” said Patience. “Our friends have thrown him out.”
“I hope they kicked him around a bit first!” Molyneux said bitterly.
“Hush!” Taking her handkerchief from her décolleté, Patience dabbed at the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Molyneux tottered suddenly and had to sit down.
Mrs. Adams hurried over. “Are you all right, my dear?” she asked Patience. “I should not have invited him in! But I thought he knew you. He seemed an English gentleman.”
Suddenly, Patience was furious. “Will you look after Mr. Molyneux for me, ma’am?” she said, giving Mrs. Adams her handkerchief. “I would like to give that
English gentleman
a piece of my mind!”
While by no means gentle with Max, the Americans had refrained from kicking him around. They simply dragged him past the gates and threw him down on the hard cobblestones.
“And don’t come back, you English bastard!”
From his new home in the gutter, Max could hear them dragging the iron gates closed.
“Wait!” cried Patience, running out into the street.
She almost stumbled over Max. “Oh! Did they hurt you, Mr. Purefoy?”
“No, Patience! I like it here in the gutter,” he replied, sitting up.
“Lady Waverly, if you please,” she said coldly. “We’re back in England now. Perhaps that will help you remember your manners.”
“Your friends were not very polite to me,” he complained. “My stockings are quite ruined.”
“Well, it serves you right, you brute!” Patience snapped. “You are rude and arrogant and—and just as vile as I thought you were! You could have hurt Roger!”
Max looked up at her, scowling. “You mean I
didn’t
hurt Roger? That is a disappointment.”
“You cold-cocked him when he wasn’t looking,” she accused him. “I ask you, is that cricket? And you call yourself an English gentleman!”
“Well, I am half Italian,” he reminded her, getting up to his knees. “It comes out when I am in love. He’s lucky I left my stiletto in my other coat.”
Patience caught her breath. “In love?” she echoed softly. “In—in love with
me,
sir?”
“No! In love with Roger,” he snarled, now on his feet looking down at her.
One of the Americans chose this moment to call to her from the embassy gates. “Best come back in, miss, so we can close the gate. Best leave that varmint where he is.”
Max surged forward. “Varmint? Who are you calling a varmint, my good fellow? You may find me at Jackson’s boxing parlor in Bond Street any day of the week, good sir! Better yet, why don’t you come out here and fight me now, you bloody Yankee-Doodle dandy?”
“Stop goading them,” Patience snapped, following Max into the square. “It’s not fair. You know they can’t leave their post. It would cause a diplomatic nightmare for poor Mr. Adams!” She sighed, her anger dissipating. “I realize that you were—that you were jealous of poor Roger, but that is no excuse for behaving like an oaf.”
He scowled at her. “Jealous of that—that boy?”
She raised her brows. “You were not jealous? I thought, perhaps, you were.”
“No, indeed,” he sniffed. “I hit him for the sheer pleasure of it.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “I’m glad you’re not jealous, because I mean to dance with him all night!”
“You can go back to Pennsadelphia or whatever and
marry
the crown prince of New Jersey for all I care!”
That made her laugh. “If you do not admit this instant that you are jealous that’s just what I’ll do,” she threatened.
Max gave the matter some thought. “Perhaps I was a little jealous,” he admitted. “But the madness has passed, thankfully. I am myself again.”
“Oh, Max, you are such an idiot,” Patience said tenderly. Taking his face between her hands, she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
“What was that for?” he breathed.
“You know what it’s for,” she answered, twining her arms around his neck, and brushing her lips against his neck, her eyes closed as she gave herself up to a feeling of exhilaration.
Rather abruptly, he took her in his arms, and kissed her roughly. Patience gave him her mouth, pressing her body against him. “I think we have found something the English do with their mouths open,” she murmured, laughing.
Lord Milford had fallen asleep with his head on the windowsill. Isabella’s howl of rage woke him. “Wh-what?” he gasped, jumping up, a red hand printed on the side of his face.
“They are kissing,” Isabella sobbed. “In full view of the street!”
“Who is kissing?” he asked, peering out into the square. He could see the lady’s crimson gown, but not her face. Her companion was even more obscure. “Good God! A streetwalker! A streetwalker in Grosvenor Square.”
“She came from the American ambassador’s house! ’Tis one of the Americans! I saw her face as she ran after him!”
“What do you care if some American is kissing a streetwalker?” he said, amazed. “I’d rather they not do it in front of my house, too, but I ain’t going to weep and wail and gnash my teeth.”
“You fool!” she snarled. “It is Mr. Purefoy kissing one of the Americans.”
“He did not stay long,” Milford commented. “Do you recognize the lady?”
“It is Lady Waverly or Miss Prudence. I can’t tell them apart!”
“It cannot be,” said her brother, pressing his nose against the window. “They are all at Sunderland House tonight. Everyone is there, except us.”
Isabella ignored him. “One of them must have attended the vile gathering at the American embassy,” she murmured. “Instead of the ball. That is why he came here. He must have been furious to have his generosity thrown in his face.”
“He doesn’t look furious.”
Isabella winced. “Is he still kissing her?” she whined.
“Oh, yes,” he said appreciatively. “But is it Miss Prudence or Lady Waverly?”
“What does that matter?” she snapped. “Perhaps he means to have them both.”
“Well, he can only marry one of them,” Milford pointed out.
“There’s no need to state the obvious,” she said coldly. “Can’t you do something?” she cried, stamping her foot. “I’d like to throw a bucket of cold water on them!”
Milford opened the window and leaned out, crowing, “Cock-a-doodle-do!” at the top of his lungs. “That’s how we did it at university,” he explained sheepishly to his bewildered sister.
Isabella hastily closed the window and put out the candle to preserve their anonymity, but she was glad to observe by the moonlight that her brother’s outburst had achieved the desired effect.
“Good heavens!” Patience gasped. “What is that? A rooster?”
“A friend,” said Max. “It means we have been seen. Run!”
“What?” she said, laughing. “I don’t care who sees!”
“You will care very much when your sister reads about it in the newspaper,” he said.
Patience started guiltily. “Pru! Oh, Max! Pru will never forgive me.”
“You leave her to me,” he said. “Hurry, my dear! Back to your embassy before the watch catches you.”
“But, Max!” she protested. “Aren’t you jealous?”
He grinned at her. “Should I be?”
“No!”
“Then go!” he commanded. “I will call on you tomorrow.”
The following morning, Pru stumbled down to the breakfast table to find her sister scanning the columns of the newspaper. “Did you just get in?” Pru asked, bewildered. “Isn’t that the same dress you wore last night?”
Patience blushed, self-consciously smoothing the neckline of her crimson velvet gown. To make it appropriate for day, she was wearing it over a high-necked muslin chemise with long, gathered sleeves. “Yes,” she said. “I liked it so much I thought I’d wear it again.”
“Crimson velvet is vulgar,” said Pru.
“It’s one of yours,” Patience said, frowning.
“I bought it in Philadelphia, before I knew any better,” Pru answered. “Red velvet is for curtains,” Pru declared. “Curtains and courtesans.”
“Dolley Madison wore a red velvet gown,” Patience said coldly. “I’m sure you don’t mean to criticize our First Lady!”
Pru got up to fill her plate at the sideboard. Trudging back to the table, she plunked herself down in her chair. Suddenly, her green eyes widened. “Are you reading the
society pages
?” she asked incredulously.
Patience’s face was bright pink. “I thought there might be some mention of Mrs. Adams’s reception,” she said.
“Is there?” Pru said doubtfully.
“No, there doesn’t seem to be,” Patience replied, trying not to show how vastly relieved she was about
that
. “It is all about the ball at Sunderland House.”
“Well, of course it is. Who cares what happens at the American embassy?”
“Who, indeed,” Patience murmured. “Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Oh, yes!” Pru said eagerly. “Even if Max only danced with me twice. He said it wouldn’t be proper to dance with me a third time.”
“You were not a wallflower, I trust?”
“Wallflower!” Pru said hotly. “No, indeed! I never lacked for a partner. But none of them were as agreeable as Max. I really do think I must love him—I miss him so much when he is not there.”
Patience stared at her sister in unhappy silence.
“What?” Pru said at last.
“You can’t be serious,” said Patience. “In love with—with Purefoy? You never said you loved him before.”
“I don’t think I fell in love with him until he went away, just before Christmas,” Pru said thoughtfully. “At least, I didn’t realize until he had gone that I loved him. I’d grown so accustomed to him taking me out every day in his curricle.”
Patience sighed in relief. “Is that all? I can take you out in a curricle, if that is what you want. You just get bored without someone to entertain you.”
“Perhaps,” Pru replied, with rare sense. “But last night, I was privileged to see him in his own element—master of Sunderland House.”
“Was the duke not at home?”
“Of course he was,” Pru said impatiently. “But he is nothing more than a dried up old bean in a chair! Everyone treats Max as if he were the duke already. You should have seen how they fawned over him! If I were his wife, I would be the Queen of London. They would fawn over me.”
“If you were his wife—!” Patience exclaimed.
Pru bit her lip. “You would not stand in my way, would you, Patience?” she said anxiously. “By law, you are my guardian, and by law, I would need your permission to marry before my twenty-first birthday. You wouldn’t make me wait, would you?”
“I don’t know where all this is coming from,” Patience said, taking a sip of her coffee in an attempt to soothe her rattled nerves. “Has Mr. Purefoy asked you to marry him?”
“Not yet, but he will.” Pru seemed very confident.
“Was Lord Banville at the ball?” Patience asked.
“Oh, yes,” said Pru. “I danced with him twice. He was extremely disappointed that you weren’t there. He asked after you in the most
particular
way. He brought his mother with him, of course,” she added, laughing.
After breakfast, Patience retreated to the drawing room. Taking out a sheet of paper, she took up her pen. She knew very well what she wanted to say—what, indeed she
must
say—but for several moments, she could not decide how to begin.
“Dear sir” would not do, of course. Much too cold. “My love”? Too hot.
“Dear Mr. Purefoy”? Perfectly ridiculous after the events of the night before.
“Dear Max”? As if she were addressing an old friend?
Yes, that would have to do.
“Dear Max—”
Her hand trembled as she wrote, sending a fine spray of ink across the page, but she soldiered on, dashing from one phrase to the next.
Do not come today—I cannot see you. Be assured my feelings remain unchanged—Pray, give me time to explain all to my sister. She will be greatly astonished when I tell her, and—I fear—none too pleased with me.
Yours ever and always—
Patience
Blots were everywhere on the page, but, she thought, it was still legible. Setting it aside to dry, she found a wax wafer in the drawer and set her brass seal over the burner to heat.