Crossed Quills (27 page)

 He turned to head for the stair to the gallery, just as the doors of the Commons chamber opened and Henry Grey Bennet came out. With him were Brougham and Burdett and two or three others.

 Bennet saw Wynn. “Selworth! Well met. I was just coming to look for you. Any luck with the Lords?”

 “None,” Wynn fumed. “Oh, they liked the speech.”

 “Damn good speech,” put in Brougham. “I’d be hard put to it to do better myself, and I’m not sure I wouldn’t bet on you against Orator Hunt, if you weren’t on the same side, more or less.”

 “Thank you,” Wynn said, “but what’s the use of speaking well if you can’t persuade anyone to take action? They don’t care a rap for the agonies of mere guttersnipes.”

 “They may not,” said Burdett, “but we do. And what’s more, you have talked enough Members into caring to pass a vote to set up a Select Committee to study the question. Congratulations!”

 As the others added their congratulations, Wynn’s spirits soared.

 “It’s a small first step,” Bennet warned, “but I’m to be Chairman of the committee and I’ll see its findings don’t gather dust in a corner. Come, let’s go and drink to your achievement and the abolition of climbing boys! Tell me, is it true you had Prometheus’s aid in drafting the speech? There are others could do with his help.”

 Parrying questions about Prometheus, Wynn accompanied his friends to the Blue Boar to celebrate.

* * * *

 Pippa was on tenterhooks. She knew exactly how long Wynn took to deliver his oration. He ought to have finished an hour ago, but he did not come.

 She made allowances for a late start. Perhaps it would take him a while to escape afterwards if everyone wanted to talk to him, to congratulate him. He did not come.

 As time passed, she grew more and more certain that the speech had been an abject failure. Wynn was reluctant to face her and tell her he had made a mull of it. Or he had delivered it perfectly but what had seemed so clever in the sitting room in Charles Street turned out to be hopelessly inappropriate for the House of Lords. He did not want to tell her she had wrecked his chances.

 It was time to change for dinner, and still he did not come. Pippa was in two minds: Should she go and hide in her chamber lest he arrive with a tale of disaster? Could she bear to be in the middle of dressing and thus unavailable if he turned up in need of comfort?

 Her mother chased her upstairs. “My love, your sitting and moping will not alter matters for better or worse,” she pointed out. “I daresay he will come in time for dinner. Your papa was wont to say nothing gave him such an appetite as making a speech.”

 As soon as she was upstairs, Pippa knew she wanted to be downstairs. Not waiting for Nan’s help, she flung on the first evening gown which came to hand, though she had decided days ago that the azure crape, made over from one of Bina’s, did not become her. She unpinned her hair, swiftly ran a comb through it, and hurriedly pinned it up again.

 “That is a mess,” said Kitty. “It is going to fall down any moment. Let me do it for you.”

 “No, it does not matter. We are staying at home this evening and not expecting visitors.”

 “Except Gil and Lord Selworth,” Kitty reminded her unnecessarily as she departed.

 If he came. Where was he?

 Pippa went down to the drawing room. At least she would not have to go out and dance, nor even stay in and try to help entertain guests. Mama and Bina had decided a quiet evening at home was a good idea after all the gallivanting of the past ten days, besides giving Lord Selworth a chance to tell them all about his speech.

 If he came. Pippa went over to the window and looked out, just in time to see Gil Chubb arriving. Alone.

 She heard Gil’s knock on the door, his voice as he spoke to the butler, his feet on the stairs. Turning from the window, she was moving towards the door when he came in.

 He glanced swiftly around the room. Seeing no one else there, he said, “Congratulations, Miss Lisle!”

 “Congrat...? It went well?”

 “Brilliantly. Almost had me in tears. I was up in the gallery, of course. Could have heard a pin drop while Wynn was talking—well, almost. “ He frowned dubiously. “Don’t know if you could have heard a pin drop while he was actually talking.”

 “But they listened? Were many there?”

 “Place was full to bursting. All the Commons came in, too. A good half of ‘em, anyway. You should have seen ‘em crowding round him afterwards—the Lords—patting his back and shaking his hand. A grand success.” Puzzled, he added, “He hasn’t come to tell you?”

 “No,” said Pippa bluntly. “You have not seen him since?”

 “Missed him somehow at Westminster Hall, what with all the people swarming about. He’ll be here any minute, I expect.”

 Kitty came in then and distracted Gil’s attention. Pippa went on hoping Lord Selworth would arrive at any moment right until they all went in to dinner.

 Then she began to grow angry.

 Rearranging the food on her plate to pretend she was eating, she let Millie’s chatter wash over her unheard as she racked her brains to think why he should stay away. Only one answer came to mind. Now that his speech had proved a triumph, he did not want to acknowledge her part in writing it. He wanted all the glory for himself.

 Pippa neither expected nor desired any public glory. She did not want Lord Selworth’s gratitude—she had worked for herself and for the climbing boys as much as for him. But she did want to know he appreciated her help and recognized its value.

 Here, where all but Millicent knew she was Prometheus, he would have to share the honours.

 So he did not come.

 At long last dinner ended. The ladies arose to leave George Debenham and Gil Chubb to an undoubtedly brief session with their port. Pippa was telling the truth when she murmured to her mother that she had the headache.

 “Go to bed, my love, and I shall bring a tisane.”

 “It is not bad enough to need rest, only quiet. I shall go up to the sitting room.”

 Mama nodded understandingly. “I am certain there is an explanation,” she said.

 Indeed there was, and Pippa had guessed it. By now he had probably persuaded himself it was all his own doing. After all, when it came to politics, what had a mere female to offer?

 The others went into the drawing room. Pippa continued up the stairs to the sitting room, where she slumped into an easy-chair. Tears pricked her eyelids, but she refused to let them flow. Crying would only worsen her headache, and he was not worth it.

 How could she have believed he was different from all the rest, that he respected her talents and was glad to see her make use of them? No doubt all along—or at least since he guessed she was Prometheus—he had told himself he was humouring her while he did all the real work. He was deluding himself, as he would discover when he tried without her, but nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand contrived to delude themselves that they were superior beings.

 Only Papa was different. Even Mr Cobbett had not liked to admit that a woman was capable of taking on the mantle of Prometheus. Only his friendship for Benjamin Lisle had persuaded him to consider Pippa’s articles, though once convinced of their value he remained a staunch friend.

 A letter from him, from America, had arrived yesterday, when Pippa was too busy putting the final touches to the dastardly viscount’s speech to pay much attention. Now she needed something to distract her thoughts.

 She went to sit at the desk, unlocked the drawer, and took out Mr Cobbett’s letter. Holding it so as to catch the fast fading light from the window, she reread it. He intended to resume publication of the Political Register, writing from America, and he wanted Pippa to start writing articles again. What should she write about? Her mind was still full of chimney sweeps.

 Chimney sweeps and Wynn Selworth. Again she felt the prickling of tears, tears of anger, not of heartache, she told herself.

 She concentrated on the view. Chimneypots silhouetted against a dusky pink sky, so many chimneypots, every one needing to be swept, every one an instrument of torture to a small, terrified child. She would start an article with that view, and lead on from climbing boys to other injustices equally capable of solution by men of good will.

 Men like Wynn Selworth. How could someone of such generous principles prove so perfidious? And having betrayed her, would he next betray his principles?

 Pippa sat musing unhappily, the twilight deepening about her. When she heard the door open behind her and a soft glow suffused the room, she assumed Mama or Bina had sent a footman up with a branch of candles.

 “Thank you,” she said without turning.

 “Wrong way round,” said a slurred voice. “
I’ve
come to thank
you
.”

 “Wynn!” Pippa swung round. “Lord Selworth, I mean.”

 “Wynn’ll do nicely.” He stood leaning against the doorpost, his flaxen hair in wild disarray, cravat loosened, candelabra in hand.

 “I thought you were a footman,” she said inanely.

 “Met him on the stair. Said I’d bring you this.” Beaming, Lord Selworth gestured with the candelabra. As candles wobbled and flames flickered and flared, Pippa sprang to rescue it. “Sorry. A trifle bosky—just a trifle, mind!”

 “You had best sit down.” She took the candelabra to the desk and set it down.

 He was close behind her. “Come and sit with me,” he begged, taking her hand and tugging her over to a sofa. “Got a lot to say to you. Lots and lots.”

 The hours of anxiety burst forth. “Then why did you not come sooner?” Pippa demanded angrily, withdrawing her hand from his clasp.

 “Tried. Tried and tried and tried. Every time I got to the door, someone else came in, same thing all over again. Congrat...you know, drink to your success—my success, that is, only your success too. Pro-me-the-us,” he said with great care. “All his doing. Yours. Had a deuce of a time answering all their questions.”

 “You did not tell them who I am? Who Prometheus is?”

 “Not that bosky. Anyway, wouldn’t give you away if I was drunk as a wheelbarrow. Want to keep you. All for myself.”

 He recaptured her hand. However bosky he was, his smile was the same as ever, and had the same effect on Pippa.

 “Wh-what do you mean?” she faltered.

 Lord Selworth looked surprised. “Marry you,” he said. “Marry me. Pippa, do say you’ll marry me? Be a viscountess, and it’s the only way I’ll be sure of an endless supply of brilliant speeches. Do say you will?”

 It was exactly what she wanted, was it not? A gentleman who truly appreciated her abilities and was not reluctant to admit it. So why the sinking feeling, as if her heart were heavy enough to plunge all the way to the tips of her blue kid slippers? Why the catch in the throat, making it impossible to speak, to accept Lord Selworth’s flattering offer?

 “Dash it, I nearly forgot.” He slid from the sofa and thumped to his knees before her. “I adore you, you know. Life won’t be worth living if you won’t marry me. I’ve loved you for ages and ages and ages....”

 Gazing into his hopeful, slightly bloodshot blue eyes, Pippa knew he spoke the truth. Touching his lips with her finger to stop the string of “ages,” she murmured, “Oh Wynn, I have loved you for simply ages too,” and she kissed him.

Historical Note

Henry Grey Bennet’s Select Committee produced a Bill to abolish the use of climbing boys, but there was no time for a hearing that session. The following year, 1818, the Bill passed the Commons. In the Lords, Lord Lauderdale made a funny speech which killed it.

Though the practice gradually decreased, little boys continued to be forced up chimneys until it was at last banned in 1875.

Copyright © 1998 by Carola Dunn

Originally published by Zebra (0821760076)

Electronically published in 2007 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

     http://www.RegencyReads.com

     Electronic sales: [email protected]

This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.