The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister #1)(45)

“Well,” he said, just behind her, his voice low and amused. “You know what they say. ‘Paste not, want not.’”

She blinked. “Puns,” she said, without turning around, “are the lowest form of humor.”

“Not when a duke utters them.”

She held up a handbill for him to paste and then slapped it against the wall, holding it for a moment to be sure that it would adhere. “Are you a duke?” she asked. “I had thought you were a dead man.”

His Grace, the Duke of Clermont, showed no sign that he’d heard her. Instead, he held the paste pot in his hand and smiled. “Shall we proceed to the next corner? Miss Peters and Miss Charingford are already outpacing us.” His eyes slid to hers. “Outpasting us,” he corrected.

She was not—absolutely not—going to be seduced into laughing with him and making inappropriate jokes about paste. Minnie compressed her lips and stalked down the street.

He followed. “Is something…wrong? Did you read my letter?”

“Yes,” she said. “I read everything you wrote. And I’m furious with you.”

“Now, now,” he admonished, “don’t be pasty.” He gave a chuckle—one that terminated as she turned to him and he caught sight of her expression. The smile slid off his face. “Oh. You really are angry. Did I do something wrong?”

Did he do something wrong? She wanted to punch him. “Your latest masterpiece. I cannot believe what you said.”

His nose wrinkled. “Why? Because a strike would hurt your friends? Because you don’t care about the conditions under which workers labor? Or do you think I shouldn’t have written them? That I should keep silent, stew in my own thoughts—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said in exasperation. “If I thought you shouldn’t be writing those damned handbills, I would already have shown your letter to the town magistrates. Sometimes, I want to scream, too—scream as loudly as I can, and never mind who hears me. I’m angry because you used my words in your latest endeavor! My words.”

He blinked. “Oh.” He bit his lip. “That. Well, in a manner of speaking, I suppose I did. Why wouldn’t I? They were good words.”

“Don’t split hairs. Did you not hear Stevens talk? He has already accused me of radical sentiment. Why would you use a phrase you heard from me? Don’t you understand how impossible my life will be if suspicion falls on me?”

With the workers in the factories until the evening whistle sounded, the streets were calm. A few women were out, trudging to the greengrocer; a harried laundress marched by with a sack on her shoulder. The rhythmic rumble of the machinery a few streets distant somehow made the streets seem quiet, blanketing all other noises.

“I’m terrified,” she said, “and you have nothing to fear. It’s not fair.”

Across the cobblestones and ten yards up, Lydia and Marybeth were placing handbills in a methodical way.

“Well?” she demanded, shaking a handbill at him. “Don’t waste time. I need paste.”

“Miss Pursling,” he said formally, “I do apologize.”

He’d worn darker, rougher clothing for this outing—trousers of gray wool and a matching coat, the fabric coarse but the cut still perfect. Around his neck, he’d wound a soft, maroon scarf. His garb made him look not like a duke, but like some towheaded scoundrel—roguish, and maybe a little wicked. The kind of man who’d tempt a girl to walk outside with him at night, and who’d sneak her sips of heady spirits from a flask. It would be all too easy to become tipsy around him.

He sounded sincere and she wanted to believe him. “You’re sorry for endangering me?”

He looked sincere, too, with that slightly embarrassed smile. Then he looked up at her. He swirled the stick in the pot, then brought up the wooden stick, a big glob of paste stuck to the end.

“No.” His words were mournful, but there was a twinkle in his eye. “Not for that. For this.”

So saying, he flicked the stick at her midsection. She barely had the chance to lower the handbill in defense. The edge caught the glob of flying paste, breaking it in midair, spattering paste all over.

She stared at him in disbelief. “I had not realized,” she said frostily, “that we were allowing twelve-year-old boys to take seats in the House of Lords.”

He winked at her, then turned to the women on the other side of the street and waved. “We’ll be at the pump through the alley there,” he called out. “We’ve had a bit of a paste emergency over here.”

“A paste emergency!” she huffed. “A paste assault, that’s what we had.”

But he was already taking her arm, leading her down a narrow gap between two buildings, into a dingy courtyard where a pump stood. He took off his jacket before working the pump handle; she could see the form of his muscles through his shirtsleeves. She was terrified, and he was showing off.

“For the record,” he said, as he worked the pump, “I am twenty-eight, not twelve.”

“Congratulations.”

“Indeed. I’ve got you all alone after all.”

He smiled at her again, and she felt speared by lightning. Minnie looked away. The pump let out a hollow whistle, signifying that the water had almost arrived.