Read Online There Will Be Phlogiston by Riptide Publishing - Free Book Online

already made a spectacle of herself once today. She had no wish
to compound it by flagrantly disregarding her fiancé in public. She
was sure engagements were broken for far less than that.
    Having secured a marquess, if she got herself jilted
by a marquess, her life would be over. But what was the use of
being a marchioness if you could do . . . nothing?
    Less than if you weren’t.
    Later, she would deny the instinct that made her
look to Jones. Her faith in him. At the time, she was too shocked
to really notice. And, more pressingly still, in the confusion and
her distress, she had somehow forgotten that in giving his coat to
her, he had been obliged to remove it.
    Which meant he was . . . he was . . . in his shirtsleeves .
    She had never seen a man in such a state of undress
before.
    But there he was, in broad daylight, with nothing
but clinging cotton between her eyes and the bare skin of his arm.
She could see the shape of his muscles. The indentations between
them that seemed designed to fit her fingers.
    She somehow managed to work her way up to his eyes.
Found them gentle.
    “He’s right,” he said softly. “This is no place for
you.”
    “I’m not going anywhere.” She whirled round, and
pointed at the blackened streaks upon the horse’s flank. “They were
hurting her. And I wish to see it stopped.”
    The oddest, sweetest smile tugged at the corners of
Jones’s mouth. “I’ll make sure of it.”
    And even odder and sweeter still, she believed
him.
    The carriage ride home was undertaken in
silence.
    She was summoned to her father’s study the next day.
In the afternoon. Presumably because he was too busy in the morning
to call her a disgrace to the family.
    It was a lecture with which she was already
acquainted. She had heard him deliver it to her half brother once,
but she had never expected to be its recipient. She was so careful.
She tried so hard. She did everything right. Why couldn’t he see
that?
    Why couldn’t he see her ?
    She tried to let the speech wash over her—not what
he expected of his daughter, inappropriate, thoughtless,
unbecoming, an act of unthinkable wilfulness that had brought shame
on her parents and jeopardised her prospects of making an
advantageous match—but it was no use. His father’s words stuck in
her like porcupine quills, and they hurt.
    They hurt a lot.
    And she hated it. She wanted to be angry. It would
have felt so much better to be angry. A cold blue flame burning
inside her, keeping her safe and untouchable, instead of what she
was, which was small and pathetic, and on the verge of tears.
    As she was making her way back to her
room—comporting herself with the composure that befitted a lady—a
footman approached her with a letter. She had not seen the rough,
bold scrawl before, but she recognised it nevertheless. She knew
only one man who would write so carelessly. Who wouldn’t realise
his hand presented him as vulgar, untutored, and practically
illiterate. Someone to be despised.
    All it said was: Come riding with me
tomorrow—AJ .
    She had declined his calling card. (He had kissed
her at a ball.) She had no place accepting his invitation. But
accepting the invitation of an unsuitable man would make her feel
strong—wilful, as her father had claimed—in a way that crying in
her room most certainly would not.
    It was an act, of course. But what else did she
have?
    So she said yes.
    It was only Anstruther Jones, but she wore her
favourite riding habit anyway. It was navy cashmere, with an
elongated jacket one shade lighter, fitted tight to the waist and
flaring over the hips. It was trimmed in the military style, in
dark-blue silk, and it made her feel . . . wonderful.
Invincible.
    At the appointed time, she settled her top hat over
her hair, tucked her cane under her arm, and swept downstairs to
meet Jones. He was waiting for her in the courtyard with two
horses, one a soft-eyed bay, no doubt suitable for a lady, and the
other . . .
    “Oh!” She could