Minerva's Match Read online

  No, it was better to stick to subjects she understood, like soil and manure and all the other ways to enhance crops. Her father had often remarked that her choice of research was an odd one considering, firstly, that she was a woman and should study flowers, not crops, and, secondly, that they resided in London, not the country. None of that mattered to her. She liked the research more than she liked the actual dirt.

  Her attention again wandered to the man near the door. His hair was a warm brown, with lighter bits that contrasted well with his curly beaver hat. His hat seemed a little the worse for wear, and now that she looked more closely, his tweed coat could certainly have stood a good going over. The man pulled a pocket watch from his waistcoat and checked the time. Hmm, Mr. Lathrop was running late also.

  “Where in the blazes is the man?” she heard him mutter.

  There was something about his voice that seemed oddly familiar. Something about his tone of irritation as he huffed niggled at her memory. She was letting her anxiousness get the better of her. She had never actually spoken with Mr. Lathrop, so she wouldn’t recognize his voice. Still, the man’s voice was connected to a memory, but she’d be deuced if she could place it. It wasn’t as though she knew anyone in Edinburgh. But then his speech lacked an accent.

  The man turned in the next moment, and her heart stumbled in her chest.

  It couldn’t be, but here he was, the fool from the hedge maze at the duke’s house party.

  “What are you doing here?” she gasped.

  Chapter Two

  “I could ask the very same of you,” James Lathrop, Earl of Lansford, spit out. He tried to remind himself that he was speaking with a lady, but this woman had that effect on him. “In truth, what in blazes are you doing here?” He needed to be rid of her and soon. His colleague would be here shortly, should have been here almost a quarter of an hour or so ago. The man might well be a new member of the Royal Agronomy Society, but he had a keen mind, and their collaboration had yielded some good ideas, very good ideas. James didn’t want the man coming upon him arguing with this hoyden who thought she knew it all.

  “I say again, what are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “I’m here to meet with a colleague, if you must know. I will thank you to remove yourself posthaste,” the Amazon spit back at him.

  “Some ladies’ movement, no doubt. And I will not remove myself, as I am also meeting someone.”

  “I pity them. Especially if they are female, my lord.” She acknowledged his peerage with as much disdain as he felt for it.

  “As if you would know what a woman wants of a man,” he bit back at her. It shouldn’t rankle, the way Minerva dismissed him as unworthy of female attention. Her assessment bothered him all the more because it was somewhat true in his estimation. He had no real means to provide for a woman in society; all his funds went toward undoing the wrongs his family had perpetrated on their tenants. He would be lucky to have the estate out of debt before he died.

  Unlike other men in his position, he grew queasy at the idea of marrying a rich wife to cure his ills. A family history filled with drunkards and gamblers would be bad enough, but his father had taken to foisting himself on any unsuspecting woman. James refused to fall in with that part of his heritage.

  Minerva only thought him a pompous earl. He could imagine how much more her estimation of him would fall should she find out he made a living as an academic.

  She pushed her spectacles up her nose and stared at the ground under his glare. He’d won this skirmish, so why did her acting forlorn make him want to take it all back? Bloody hell. This woman dug under his skin in a way none other did.

  “What are you doing here anyway?” he finally asked.

  “I don’t see what business it is of yours, but if you insist, I am here for the Royal Agronomy—”

  “The hell you say!”

  “My lord! Whatever you might think of me, I assure you I am not a liar.” The girl was difficult and some of her ideas foolish, but in his interactions with her at his cousin Simeon’s house party, she hadn’t told falsities.

  “What fool did you get to sponsor your membership? The man must be a rebel to push for membership of a woman.”

  “Don’t tell me you are a member?”

  “I am. Give me the man’s name, and I will have a strong word with him.”

  “But my lord, he is one of the Society’s most esteemed members. His reputation is beyond reproach.”

  “To pull a stunt like this? I suspect not. Please, the man’s name if you will.”

  “My lord…”

  “His name, miss.”

  “Fine. He is Mr. J. A. Lathrop.”

  James stumbled back and sat hard on the knee wall in front of the coaching inn. The girl forged on, apparently thinking he was overcome with the power of the man’s name.

  “So you see. He is one of the most brilliant researchers in the field, a paragon. It would bode ill of you to try to undermine him.” She crossed her arms under her meager breasts to mark her point, plumping them unintentionally. Good God, the woman had no idea she was speaking about him.

  Her eyes were shining in indignation at his potential wounding of a man she’d never met. She acted as if his reputation were hers to safeguard. The thought warmed him in a way that almost made him laugh, until a thought turned that mirth rancid.

  “Oh God, Minerva.”

  “Yes?”

  “Your name woman, what is your full name?”

  “I don’t see—”

  “Just tell me your name. Your entire name.” He didn’t yell this time because he already suspected the worst.

  “Minerva Evelyn Wright. You are not given leave to use my Christian name, and I don’t see what difference it could make.”

  “You sign your letters M. E. Wright, correct?”

  She blanched and stammered. “Yes.”

  “Oh dear God, what have I done?”

  “You, my lord? I don’t see what any of this has to do with you. I won’t tell Mr. Lathrop, and you can just go away.”

  “Would that I could. Miss Wright, what is my given name?”

  She blushed, prettily, he noted as if outside himself, but this wasn’t the time for such things.

  “I believe it is James, my lord.” She wouldn’t look him in the eye over this breech in decorum.

  “Yes, Miss Wright. James Alistair, after my mother’s father, James Alistair Lathrop.” She started to swoon, so he tugged her down beside him on the wall.

  “But you’re the Earl of Lansford.”

  “Yes.”

  “But how do you—”

  “Quietly.”

  “This is a nightmare.”

  “Finally, something we can agree on.” They both sat dumbstruck for some minutes. Until he started to laugh, and once he’d started, he couldn’t stop. Tears streamed from his eyes. His most promising protégé, the one he’d been so eager to meet, was the selfsame woman who gave him fits. If she were just a woman, it would be bad enough, but that he’d sponsored this particular woman was beyond comprehension.

  “I fail to see the humor in this,” she said.

  “As do I. I’m afraid you’ll just have to find your chaperone and go back to London.”

  “I don’t have a chaperone.” That got him to stop laughing.

  “Why, in all that is holy, not?”

  “I’m not ton and expect never to marry regardless. I can take care of myself. I was going to meet him, er, you here. I thought I could stay with you. With your reputation, I expected you to be old, fatherly even.”

  Blast! Should he remind her that “fatherly” men had some idea of how to do a particular deed, otherwise how would they get fatherly? And he’d been hoping to bunk in with the lad, er, lady. Bloody hell. “That was shortsighted. Did it not occur to you that I was expecting a man?”

  “Honestly? No. I have very feminine penmanship.” He had noted the same, but thought the man must employ a woman to act as his scribe. Of course,
the blush that stole across her cheeks gave proof to her deception. He should be livid, but couldn’t bring himself to yell at her. Somehow her daring spoke to him, roused a part of him he’d kept hidden in the shadows. More the fool him.

  “Well, nonetheless, I will put you on the next coach back, and that is the end of it.” It didn’t sit well leaving her to travel all that way on her own, but she’d obviously planned to do it at the end of the conference.

  “Oh.” It was barely a word, but the sniffles that came after it might well have been knives for all the damage they did. However, in no time at all, she pulled herself together and glared at him. It almost made him smile. “I think not, my lord.”

  “Can you stop referring to my bloody title? Call me Mr. Lathrop or just James. No one here knows about the other.” She blushed again. Her blushes moved her from plain to rather pretty. Then he considered what she’d said. “And what do you mean, you think not?”

  “I mean that I don’t have the full fare to travel to London. I fully expected to win the prize for best presentation. I need that money my lord, er, Mr. Lathrop. You assured me that it was all but won.”

  Bloody hell. In his enthusiasm, he had written that. He’d been sure of them winning. His, er, her, work was that good.

  “I thought you were a man!”

  “I fail to see what that has to do with the strength of my ideas.”

  “Ah, but you can’t present your ideas, can you?” That made her squirm.

  “Well, no. That is why I was so thrilled to have the esteemed J.A. Lathrop present them.”

  Bollocks! He had written that he would since he, er, she had said she was uncertain about being here to do the presentation herself. Perhaps “nightmare” wasn’t a strong enough characterization.

  “You aren’t going to present my work now, are you?” No money, no way to get home, and the only thing she was worried about was whether or not her work was going to be presented to a bunch of gentlemen she’d never met but whose approval she wanted. To be considered a colleague. His estimation of her rose if for no other reason than that he understood her now. God help them both.

  “Our work. I did have a hand in it after all, though yes, your contribution was… irreplaceable.” That got his first smile ever from the chit, and damned if it didn’t light her eyes, so that what had been plain, almost colorless and hidden behind spectacles, now shone opalescent and mesmerizing. He couldn’t help but stare, spellbound. When he forgot to breathe and finally remembered himself, he sucked in a gasp. “Yes, I’m still willing to present our work. It is that good.”

  She smiled wider and blushed. Her blush combined with her hypnotic eyes could lead a man to make a fool of himself. “So it will win the competition?”

  James shook his head. He never should have written that he was sure of it. But damn it all, he needed that money too. “We stand a good chance, but it was never a sure thing. So what were you going to do with your half of the purse?”

  “Invest it first, along with some other funds I have saved. I want… Never mind, you’ll think me foolish.”

  What little he’d ever thought about the girl, foolish was not how he’d describe her. Annoying, argumentative, too smart for her own good—in short, exactly the words his peers used to describe himself—but never foolish.

  “Tell me. I won’t laugh.” Somehow this little intimacy was suddenly important to him.

  “Fine. Remember, you promised not to laugh. I want to buy a cottage with a little bit of land so I can test some of my theories. If the investments do well, I’d like a glasshouse so I can control propagation. And there is a microscope I want.”

  “Surely, you could marry and get the same?”

  She laughed at that. “And have a husband who wants me to give up the work that interests me? Besides, I am not blind, and I have at least one decent mirror.”

  Her dismissal of her looks didn’t sit well with him. Of course, at the house party he’d dismissed her out of hand, but that was different. He never had any intention of marrying, so he hadn’t really been looking.

  “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

  “Really? An agronomist who knows nothing of the birds and the bees? Attraction is key to catching a mate’s eye. As far as attraction goes, I don’t exactly have the”—she waved her hands up and down her torso— “plumage a woman needs to catch a rich husband. What plans do you have for your half?”

  “If we were to win, I intended to use the money to buy a communal plow for my tenants. My estate is tillable, but it needs a special plow to deal with the heavy clay that litters the area. Such an expense is beyond the wherewithal of any single crofter.”

  “That is very generous of you. I would think though, as an earl, you could just purchase one if you chose.”

  “Perhaps if my ancestors had been less profligate and hadn’t bled the tenants and the coffers dry, I could, but as it stands now, the land is almost fallow but for the gardens keeping the tenants’ families fed, and I am not willing to make them give a share of that to me.”

  “What do you live on?”

  “My salary from the college, and I reside in the apartments there so that I don’t keep staff or have to manage a household.”

  “But surely Simeon—”

  “Oh make no mistake, my cousin is more than willing to lend me money, but I refuse to be beholden to one more creditor.” And his pride couldn’t take the hit.

  “Oh. Well, we’ll just have to win the competition then, won’t we? I’m going to get a room for myself. It will eat into the money I have for the fare home, but when we win, it won’t be an issue.” She stood then and brushed the wrinkles from her skirts. “I’ll just get my bag and… Oh, oh no!”

  Chapter Three

  “No!” she yelled as she spun, looking around them.

  “What in blazes are you going on about?” James asked.

  She could barely hear him for the woozy roaring in her ears. How could she have been so careless? Stupid, stupid girl.

  “My bag. It’s gone!”

  “Bloody hell. Didn’t it occur to you to hang onto the thing?”

  “I’m sorry. I was in shock that the man I was forced to endure for the longest house party on record was the selfsame man I thought… Never mind what I thought. My money was in that bag.” Her blood was boiling, and the man had the nerve to act like she was somehow complicit in the bag’s abduction.

  “All of it? Surely you kept most of it in a purse on you?” He gave her a searching look, and Minerva thrust her arms wide.

  “I hate reticules. I’m always forgetting them somewhere, and they make it difficult to hold a book so I can read.” James just shook his head at that. Her attitude softened when she thought of him as James. James thought she had wonderful ideas and did good work. As the arrogant earl, he thought she was a ninny-hammer of a woman, as if being that half of the species was crime enough. Unfortunately, with her bag being stolen, she was like to agree with him at the moment.

  “What are you going to do?” James looked at her, his mouth nearly hanging open.

  She quelled the rising panic. “Find Katie.”

  “Who is Katie?”

  “An Heiress.”

  “Oh, so she’ll have your fare for the trip home.”

  “No. She is the newest Heiress of Eris.” At his questioning look, she added, “a girl’s club we’ve kept going from finishing school. She is Colin Campbell’s sister. He recently kidnapped, er, married one of the Heiresses. You met them at Simeon’s house party. The redheaded giant? That was Colin, who married my friend Louisa.”

  “They married? They were barely civil to each other.” He was aghast.

  All Minerva could manage was a shrug. The Heiresses had all talked at length about how none wanted to marry, and now half had gone and done it anyway. First Eleanor had thought to use Simeon to cause a scandal. Well, she had certainly managed that. Half a season of subterfuge, and now she was married to the man. And claimed to
have never been happier. Colin had thought he was courting Louisa, but she hadn’t known it. And now they were happily married.

  Well, that certainly wasn’t going to happen to her. She was made of stronger stuff. She had to be. She didn’t have Eleanor’s privilege, or Louisa’s finances, and none of them were as beautiful as Virtue. Even their Atalanta, Katie, had some combination of all of those advantages. All she herself had ever had was her intelligence, even if it was packaged in a female body. But right now, she just needed a place to stay.

  She heard a traveler tell his groomsman to take the horses around to the stable. If need be she could sleep there. “I need to speak to the innkeeper.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “I don’t know what they have to do with you. You only need worry about presenting our work and winning that prize.”

  “I feel no small amount of responsibility for this mess. If I had realized you were a woman—”

  “You would never have invited me here. I dare say, even from corresponding with you. Better to not encourage that sort of behavior. Yes?” She stood with her hands on her hips, daring the man to tell the truth.

  “You’re correct.” He couldn’t look her in the eye. He was no different than her father or any other man she’d known. “And the field would be a sorrier place for it.”

  The breath left her lungs in a sigh. Tears pricked the back of her eyes, and she stood gaping at the man. “You mean that?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do, Miss Wright.”

  She wanted to memorize every single detail of this moment. A man, better, a colleague, no, a leader in the field, thought she had ideas worth contributing to her field. He truly didn’t think she was some silly chit aping her betters. She couldn’t breathe. The tears rolled down her cheeks despite her determination to stop them.