Page 23 of The Secret Identity of the Lord's Aide
In fact, it occurred to Lord Linfield, at this moment, that she was moments from tears.
“I’m sorry,” Lord Linfield said. He took a small step back, sensing he was standing a bit too close to the much shorter woman. He swallowed, bringing his hands to the chest of his suit. He suddenly felt on full display, perhaps more seen than he’d been during his speech the previous afternoon. Something about her eyes seemed to penetrate all the way through him. “I really didn’t think that through, I suppose. I just. I read through your essay and wanted to come to speak to you immediately.”
Lady Elizabeth brought her chin higher. “I’m upholding our agreement,” she said. “Know that. It involves writing your speeches to the best of my ability—something, it seems, you don’t care a lick about. What on earth happened with the pages? You were all over the place.”
“They were disorganised,” Lord Linfield stammered. “It wasn’t my fault …” Even as he spoke, he sensed how stupid he sounded. He remembered the pages flung across the study, dripping with rain.
What an imbecile he was.
“Regardless, I wrote the speech,” Lady Elizabeth continued. “And I’m in the midst of writing your next one. You don’t make it easy. It should be easy, given your remarkably good looks and your height and your deep voice. People should look at you immediately and want to bring you to Parliament, without a single glimmer of doubt. But when you get up on that stage, it seems you fall into some sort of childlike shyness.” She paused for a moment, sensing she’d gone too far. “I will be maintaining my position as Political Opinion writer at The Rising Sun. And I wrote my honest opinion regarding your speech. I will continue to write honestly. It’s up to you to show me something that impresses me. I have responsibility to my readers to tell the truth.”
Lord Linfield’s head spun with shifting opinions. On the one hand, he wanted to tear apart the contract he had with Lady Elizabeth. Tell her he didn’t need her. Tell her to go back to her frivolous writing as L.B. and say whatever she wanted to say about him. But on the other hand, he knew she would craft excellent speeches for him. He knew she was the kind of tool he so needed to propel himself forward.
And, really, it had been her words that had already done wonders to his run to Parliament. He’d been invited to the ball. He’d been lauded by countless of his father’s friends since the previous day. There had been a shift in the popular opinion of him.
“You seem to be the only person I can’t impress,” Lord Linfield finally said, his voice softer, now.
Behind him, the horses shuffled in front of their carriages. Lady Elizabeth looked into Lord Linfield’s eyes for just a moment. The gaze seemed to translate so much that Nathaniel couldn’t possibly verbalise. He longed to dive into Lady Elizabeth’s mind, know what on earth she was thinking.
“I have an offer for you,” Lady Elizabeth said.
“Another offer? My, what a lucky man I am,” Lord Linfield said, grinning broadly. How had the mood shifted so quickly from one of anger to one of promise? His heart pumped in his chest, a reminder that he was at the mercy of whatever Lady Elizabeth said next.
“I’d like to offer my services for public speaking,” Lady Elizabeth said, lifting her chin. “You need to be trained on how to address a crowd. On how to lift your phrases to ignite excitement. You need—well. You just need help.”
“And I suppose you’re the one to help me?” Lord Linfield asked, sounding doubtful. “You who, I assume, don’t spend much time in front of a crowd. You who hides behind a pen name.”
Beside him, Richard cleared his throat, appearing to reprimand Lord Linfield for speaking in such a manner. Lord Linfield paid him no mind.
“Of course I’m the person for the job. For I, Lady Elizabeth, was a trained debutante, in my day,” she said, her eyes flashing. She seemed to be playing with him. “As a man, there’s very little you must do to get through the Season. I know that. All you must do is appear.” Lady Elizabeth sighed. “And do the dances, and bow the bows. But ladies are trained. We’re trained to talk and to present ourselves in the best and brightest manner. And I can give you this training, if you want it.”
Lord Linfield hesitated. In the back of his mind, he again wondered why such a “trained” debutante didn’t have a husband of her own. Was she truly as good as her word? He began to articulate this question, before Richard, again, cleared his throat.
“I suppose I have no other answer than to agree,” Lord Linfield said. He reached forward, taking Lady Elizabeth’s hand and shaking it.
“Very well, then,” Lady Elizabeth said. “Propose a time and a place. I will arrange for Irene to accompany me.”
“Why not come tomorrow evening?” Lord Linfield asked, remembering that his mother had arrangements with a friend. Again, he felt strange about showing his hand to Lady Eloise as if it betrayed something in himself. As if it betrayed his abilities, or showed him to be weak. “I don’t want to lose another day if I’m to finally have these debutante presentation abilities of which you speak.”
“I hear your sarcasm, sir, but I tell you, you won’t regret this,” Lady Elizabeth said, giving him a daring, cutting smile. “I’ll see you at six o’clock sharp if it pleases you. Although at that time, we must give new thought to my payment. This wasn’t in the original agreement.”
Lord Linfield smirked, watching as Lady Elizabeth cut beyond him, giving him a final, side-long glance. Her skirts swept behind her, muddying in the cobblestones below. Beside him, Richard crossed his arms and then uncrossed him, seemingly perturbed.
“What is it, Richard?” Lord Linfield asked when Lady Elizabeth disappeared within The Rising Sun offices. “What are you sighing about?”
“She talks in circles around you, My Lord,” Richard said, his eyes glittering with humour. “It’s almost like watching a slaughter. I don’t think you’ll possibly win.”
“We’ll see, Richard. We’ll see,” Lord Linfield said.
Chapter 12
Lady Elizabeth returned to her desk, her cheeks flushed from the chill of the air and the volatility of the conversation. Outside, she could see Lord Linfield and his right-hand man, Richard, walking across the road, their black hats shining in the sunlight. Bess gripped the edge of her desk so hard that all the blood left her fingers.
“What’s gotten into you?” Irene hissed as she whirled past, her hair in mad curls and papers shuffling in her hands. She winked at Bess, before dropping several of the pages onto one of the writer’s desks. “You can’t possibly think this is fit for publishing, do you?” she demanded. “You’ve made three grammatical errors in the first line. Do you really think me a fool? Hmm?”
Bess grinned broadly before turning her eyes back to the blank page before her. Behind it were the notes she’d been making for Lord Linfield’s upcoming speech. She flipped her quill around in her hand, waiting for a wave of creativity to fall over her. But again, her brain was alight with thoughts of Lord Linfield: his seemingly quick wit, his beaming eyes, and the way it seemed she enraged him and thrilled him, all at once.
Of course, Bess knew that she couldn’t possibly allow herself to feel anything for him. She was a single woman, a disgraced woman. A woman without any merit in society. And allowing herself to think of Lord Linfield as anything but her employer would surely result in not only heartache, but embarrassment.
