“Do the nobility really control ninety-five percent of the wealth? That figure seems high. One would think that the industrialists’ holdings—”
“Oh, no,” Stephen said with an easy smile. “I just made that up right now.”
Miss Marshall set a hand on her hip. “Stephen Shaughnessy,” she threatened. “You may write a satire column, but by God, you will write an accurate satire while you’re working with me.”
“I was standing here the whole time!” Stephen said. “You saw me. I didn’t have a chance to go and look up facts. Besides, it’s much more fun just making things up about lords. That’s what they do in Parliament; why shouldn’t I have the opportunity to return the favor?”
“Stephen.” She glared at him, doing her best to look annoyed, and Edward wanted to laugh out loud.
Thus had all his interactions with Stephen played out—trying not to laugh when Stephen said the things he did. He was impossible to reprimand. But…
“By the by,” Stephen said, “what is the difference between a viscount and a stallion?”
Miss Marshall shook her head. “What is it?”
Stephen gave her a broad smile. “The first is a horse’s arse. The second is an entire horse.”
She buried her head in her hands. “No. You cannot distract me with terrible jokes. You are supposed to be looking up facts. Shoo!”
But Stephen didn’t stop. “What’s the difference between a marquess and a paperweight?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“One of them can’t do anything unless a servant helps it along. The other one holds down papers.”
Miss Marshall simply looked at him and shook her head. “They’re getting worse.”
“Is there an entire series of these uncivil jokes?” Edward put in. “And if so, can I hear more of them?”
“Uncivil?” Miss Marshall looked about the room and then leaned in. “Oh, Stephen is being very civil, Mr. Clark. Very welcoming to you. Stephen and I don’t tell lord jokes around just anyone.”
Stephen leaned in. “As a fine point,” he pretended to whisper, “I don’t tell lord jokes around Lady Amanda. She’s a halfway decent sort. It’s not her fault her father’s a marquess.”
“Yes,” Miss Marshall put in darkly. “It was her mother’s. Marrying a lord. Hmph.”
Edward blinked at that. “Miss Marshall, are you trying to tell me that you didn’t dream of marrying a lord when you were young? That you didn’t play at being a lady, imagining what it would be like to be waited on hand and foot? I thought every little girl with any inclination at all to marry dreamed of catching the eye of a lord.”
“God, no.” She looked horrified. “Farm girls who catch the eye of a lord don’t end up married. If we’re lucky, we don’t end up pregnant. No. When I was a girl, I wanted to be a pirate.”
That brought up an all-too-pleasant image—Miss Marshall, the rich, dark red of her hair unbound and flying defiantly in the wind aboard a ship’s deck. She’d wear a loose white shirt and pantaloons. He would definitely surrender.
“I am less shocked than you might imagine,” Edward heard himself say. “Entirely unshocked.”
She smiled in pleasure.
“A bloodthirsty cutthroat profession? Good thing you gave that up. It would never have suited you.”
Her expression of pleasure dimmed.
“You’d have succeeded too easily,” Edward continued, “and now you’d be sitting, bored as sin, atop a heap of gold too large to spend in one lifetime. Still, though, wouldn’t it solve ever so many problems if you married a lord? James Delacey could never touch you again if you did.”
Stephen’s eyes narrowed at that. Miss Marshall’s expression changed from amused to serious.
Edward didn’t know what he was thinking, asking her about marriage. He wasn’t a damned viscount. He refused to be one. And whatever odd flutterings he may have felt in her presence, whatever odd imaginings he had harbored, he wasn’t going to marry her.
And yet… It was tempting, too. While he hadn’t been paying attention, his mind had constructed a might-have-been, a world where he’d never been cast out, where he’d never had to make his heart as black and hard as coal. If he’d been Edward Delacey, he might have courted her in his own right. Edward Delacey, dead fool that he was, could have had the one thing that Edward Clark never would.
Miss Marshall snorted. “God, no,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I’d rather carry a cutlass.”
“Ah, but think of the advantages.”
“What advantages?” She looked around her. “I’ve built something here. It’s a business that is not just for women, but for all women. We print essays from women who work fourteen hours a day in the mines, from prostitutes, from millworkers demanding a woman’s union. Do you think I’d give this up to plan dinner parties?”