No need. If I get lost, Ill whistle for you.
Like a hound. She affected a sigh, though glad that his aloof, cutting mood had not lasted long. Has any woman received a more romantic proposition?
A mercurial man, her husband, for now he was grave. I know little of romance. If its pretty words and poesies you want, youll have to find them in the pages of a novel.
I dont read novels. Besides, she added, smiling, I think were doing well enough on our own. We do not need a histrionic novelist to tell us how to behave.
Never did trust writers. A bunch of Grub Street scribblers paid to lie. Affable, he offered her his arm. Shall we go up to dine, my lady wife?
She placed her hand on his sleeve, and felt anew the jolt that came from touching his solid, sinewy form. Lets. And Ill provide direction, should we get lost en route. At the least, she knew how to navigate the house. When it came to her husband, she found herself continually redrawing the map.
Leo never anticipated the pleasures of a meal at
home. Until last night, his evenings had been spent in the company of his fellow Hellraisers. They had earned their name honestlyif such a thing could be done with honesty. Though he didnt possess the privilege of birth, he had that other opener of doors: money. With it, in the company of gently born scoundrels, he had experienced all that London had to offer. Wine, carousing, music. Women.
His taxonomy of women separated them into discrete categories. The demimondaine was the sort he knew best, and as a man of business, he appreciated the clear directives by which they led their lives. Some men liked to pretend that courtesans truly held affection for them. Leo was not one of those men. For all his manipulations at Exchange Alley, he liked dealings honest and with clear intent. So he paid courtesans for their time, their company, and never flattered himself that they found him handsome or charming. Only wealthy.
There were the wives and daughters of rich merchants and men of trade, but he seldom interacted with them. His ambitions lay elsewhere, even if he could increase his fortune tenfold by making a strategic marriage. Money he could make entirely on his own. He didnt need a wife to bring him that.
Also in his catalog were the women of the aristocracy. Staid matrons. Sly-eyed widows and bored, neglected wivesthese were the sort who invited him into their beds, curious for a taste of the lower orders. He was happy to oblige. It gratified Leo to know that he vigorously pleasured women whose husbands sneered at him.
The delicate young ladies who played fortepiano and, by design, knew little of the world beyond the circumference of Mayfairthese he knew least of all. Wealth he possessed, but not reputation or bloodline, and genteel girls gave him wide berth. He did not mind overmuch, discovering in his limited conversations with them that they had been carefully instructed to have no opinions or use beyond silk-gowned broodmares. In his nights with the Hellraisers, the shortest portion of the evening was spent at aristocratic assemblies, for the company was dull and circumscribed, especially the young women.
Leo was young. And a man. When it came to female company, he wanted anything but dull and circumscribed.
To his surprise, this evening he learned that his young, aristocratic wife was neither of these things.
Why not invest everything into a single trade? she asked, pouring him another glass of Bordeaux. Concentrate all your interests in the development of a single productperhaps even fund its advancement.
Limiting ones investment into only one commodity means disaster comes when that trade fails.
It might not fail, though, and the lions portion of its profits go to you.
His smile was fashioned from witnessing many a disaster. Mr. Hollidays gift showed him nothing else. At one time or another, most everything fails.
How grim.
Many things are. But not this conversation. For the past hour, as Anne had plied him with a cold supper, she had asked him many questions about his endeavors in Exchange Alley. She knew little of business, nor how one might buy and sell shares of things that only existed in theory, yet her mind had proved agile and eager for information.
Even the other Hellraisers had not shown as much interest or enthusiasm for his work.
Candlelight gilded her smooth face and the soft expanse of skin above the neckline of her peach silk gown, and her eyes were emerald one moment, topaz the next. He watched her hands as they floated over her wineglass, lively as birds.
Desire surged, low and tight in his belly. Pleasant in its demand and, surprisingly, pleasant in its deferral. He liked feeling it, the anticipation of what might be. For a long time, he had wanted certainties about the future, and thanks to the Devil, there were things about the future he knew with absolute authority. So he actually enjoyed not knowing entirely what the next few moments, or days, might bring. Including the pleasure of his wifes body as he came to know her heart and mind.