The Italian Roof Garden of the Criterion Restaurant, London, 1920
"Pardon me, mind if I cut in?"
Without waiting for a response from Molly's indignant partner, the strange man seized her round the waist and began dancing her toward the edge of the crowded dance floor. The newly christened Italian Roof Garden - the transformed ballroom of the Criterion - was the most popular dance-and-dinner club in London, but a masher was a masher and Molly had no interest in letting one of them take advantage of her.
She resisted his hold even as her original partner - the Honourable Sir Bertram Downton- Bridgerton - laughing relinquished her to the stranger's hands with a jeering laugh and a "What ho, Scott, isn't she a bit young for you?"
While Molly glared at Bertie for his cavalier abandonment of her to a stranger - well, apparently not a stranger to him but certainly a stranger to HER - her new partner continued dancing her away from him. When she turned her angry look on this 'Scott' person, he leaned down - he was considerably taller than either her or her former partner - and hissed in her ear, "For God's sake, Miss Hooper, do be quiet. I've a proposition for you - and no, not the kind you're thinking of."
She gaped up at the stranger, finally taking in his appearance as she automatically followed his lead, noting absently what a splendid dancer he was - and how splendid his features were! Dark, slicked back hair, cat-like eyes of an indeterminate shade between blue and green, aristocratic nose (and bearing), plush, Cupid's bow lips...She realized she was gaping and snapped her lips closed, raising an inquisitive eyebrow as she decided it was best to play along with him - for now.
Then she snapped them open just as quickly as she realized by which name he'd called her. "My proper title is Lady Hooper," she said, mustering the sort of frosty dignity she'd learned to emulate so well in recent months.
"Your name is MISS Margaret Anne Hooper, known by your family and closest confidants - which, by-the-by, are sadly lacking at the present time - as Molly. Your father is deceased, leaving your family in dire financial straits, causing you to leave University, where you were studying medicine, in order to ease the burden on your mother. She is incapable of supporting you and your younger siblings on her salary as a lady's maid, a position she took out of pure desperation and which does not allow her to raise said younger siblings without considerable help from you."
"Who- How-" Molly stuttered out, stunned by the rapid-fire manner in which her dance partner had shot out those - surely they weren't guesses, they were far too accurate for so inaccurate a word. So how… "You're a detective," she breathed out, stiffening in his embrace and staring wildly about the room for the nearest exit as panic overtook her.
"Do calm yourself, Miss Hooper," the stranger snapped, tightening his grip on her hand and waist - all while continuing to move them smoothly about the dance floor. "I am a detective, yes, but not the sort you believe me to be. I am not here to arrest you for your dubious skills as a golddigger, I am here, as I said before, to make you a proposition. One that will be to our mutual benefit."
"Who are you?" she demanded, panic receding only slightly at his words - words which she could only assume he meant as reassurance, although she felt far from reassured.
"To this crowd, I'm William Scott, escorting Lady Smallwood while her husband is occupied elsewhere with hush-hush government doings." He gave her a cynical smile. "To my family and close confidants - the latter of which I, too am sadly lacking at this time - I'm Sherlock Holmes, impecunious younger son of the Earl of Sheffield."
"Escorting Lady - you're a gigolo!" Molly hissed accusingly. "And you have the, the unmitigated gall to accuse ME of being a golddigger!?"
He gave her an amused look. "But you are a golddigger, Miss Hooper, and I mean no disparagement by pointing this out. You're seeking a wealthy husband in order to save your family and I am escorting women of a certain age to glittering social functions in order to alleviate their boredom and, yes, relieve them of a portion of their wealth for purely selfish purposes: to whit, in order that I might pursue my detectival interests without having to beg money from my trust fund, which is under the supervision of my brother Mycroft until I come of age. Said age being thirty, according to my grandmother, a cursed five years in my future - or…" He paused, giving her a smile she could only describe as predatory… "if I become engaged for a minimum of six months, long enough to show serious intent to marry."
The music changed to something more fast-paced, and in a daze Molly allowed Mr. Holmes to escort her to her table. She'd deliberately chosen one in an out-of-the-way location, partially hidden by two enormous potted ferns; the fact that Holmes led her to it without hesitation told her that he'd had his eye on her before she'd begun dancing with Bertie, which increased her unease.
As he pulled her chair out for her she snatched up her clutch, holding it to her chest as she said, "This has all been very interesting Mr. Ho - uh, Mr. Scott," she corrected herself at his chastising look (despite the fact that no one was close enough to overhear them), "but I'm afraid it's all been a misunderstanding. I, ah appreciate your offer - proposal - kindness in, ah considering me…"
"No misunderstanding, Miss Hooper," he interrupted her crisply. "I applaud you for using your own name, false title notwithstanding, but then, since matrimony is your aim rather than simply defrauding these upper class idiots out of their fortunes, a false name would be pointless."
Slowly Molly sank into her seat, staring up at him as he took the seat next to hers. Her heart beat like thunder in her chest; how did this man know so much about her?
Perhaps reading her fears in her face, he deliberately lounged in his chair - elegantly, her distracted mind noted with some distant appreciation, if not envy - and softened his expression. "Let me assure you again, Miss Hooper, that I am not here to turn you over to the police, or even to expose you as a fraud. By doing so, of course, I have already provided the ammunition you would need in order to expose me as well, would you not agree?"
"Only if what you've told me about yourself is the truth," she managed.
"Oh, it is," he replied easily. "Lady Smallwood, for example, knows exactly who I am and why I'm acting as her escort for the evening, being an old friend of the family. She caught me at my, er, pastime at Lady Catherine de Burgh's ball, called me out on it - and offered to pay me double what the old bat was paying for my company."
"And these women, their husbands simply...look the other way?" Molly asked, scandalized both by Sherlock's admitted actions and by the way her so-called social superiors were behaving!
Sherlock laughed. "Why shouldn't they? This way they don't have to attend boring social functions when they've more important matters on their minds - finances, government secrets, their mistresses - all while knowing that their wives are in the safest of hands."
"A handsome younger man is hardly 'safe hands' for any lady," Molly pointed out, folding her arms across her chest and attempting a sneer.
He laughed again, louder this time, and shook his head. "My dear Miss Hooper, how delightfully prim you are! Although I appreciate the fact that you find me handsome, believe me if those stodgy old bores thought I was any sort of threat they would never allow me near their wives. They're all under the impression that I'm, hm, how to put this delicately? That I'm - "
"A bit light in the loafers?" Molly offered as the truth dawned on her. "Or is the proper term 'musical'? That's the one my mother uses. Although," she added thoughtfully, " I'm not quite sure how accurate such a term might be, music being so universally loved, rather than favoured by any particular..."
"Homosexual," Sherlock interrupted her as she floundered to a stop, having become hopelessly tangled in her own conversational tangent. His expression seemed to display true interest as he studied her. "The conventionally accepted word is homosexual. And I must say I didn't expect a properly raised young lady such as yourself - current husband-hunting activities aside - to know anything about such, er, lifestyles."
Molly shrugged, inexplicably pleased to have surprised him. "My uncle liked to wear grandmother's pearls beneath his ascot. Sadly he rather impulsively gifted them to a young man who'd caught his fancy, or else Mama might have sold them to cover my father's funeral costs."
"Well I can assure you I am not interested in wearing pearls, nor am I interested in being fancied by anyone - male or female," he was quick to amend. "No, Miss Hooper, I'm not of your uncle's persuasion but I find it useful for people to make such assumptions of me. Including," he added with a wicked glint in his eyes "Lady Smallwood. She thinks she's helping keep my 'dreadful secret' when in fact, all she's doing is helping me circumvent my controlling brother's grasp."
He grinned, and Molly couldn't help but grin back at him. "Before I agree to anything, Mr., er, Scott, I must ask how you knew so much about me?" Lowering her voice she added, "How did you discover who I am?"
"Aside from the fact that I'm a master of what I've coined the deductive arts - it was obvious to me that you were playing a part with which you weren't entirely comfortable from the moment I laid eyes on you - I'm also rather good at, shall we say, the light-fingered arts?" He nodded at her clutch - black and silver, to match her gown and the dyed ostrich feather on her headdress - then, one by one, described the items he'd found therein, much to Molly's consternation
"A mourning brooch, very old fashioned, the type worn by a dutiful child rather than the ring a wife or lover might have made out of the deceased loved one'd braided hair," he recited. "A matching hairbrush and powder case - silver-plated rather than real silver, but close enough to pass for the real thing should anyone spy them. Lip-paint and rouge. And most interesting of all, a small notebook containing notes on anatomy and physiology, dating to the spring term of this year. All clues telling a very particular story - including," he added, somewhat smugly, "your true station in life, rather than the precarious lie you've allowed the unmarried gentlemen you've been targeting to believe - 'Lady Margaret'."
Molly blinked at him, knowing she was gaping like a cod-fish. She knew she should feel outraged by this violation of her privacy, but in fact she found herself...rather relieved at her deception having been found out in this manner, rather than by one of her - marks, she believed the word to be. "And my mother and younger brothers? How did you deduce them?"
He made a dismissive motion with one hand. "If you were on your own with no family to support, you would have returned to your medical studies instead of turning to husband-hunting as a pastime. Admittedly, your mother's position as a lady's maid was more of a logical leap than a true deduction, but it was based on sound facts, such as your access to the particular class of men in which you hold an interest. Had your mother's reduced circumstances had forced her into becoming something along the lines of a shop clerk or seamstress, the scheme might not have occurred to you."
"So," she said after a moment, "what exactly are you proposing, Mr., er, Scott? I presume you want to come to some sort of arrangement - to our mutual benefit, I believe you mentioned earlier?"
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and grinned. "Yup," he said, popping the p as if to emphasize the vulgarity of the word. "My proposal is this: you and I will pretend to be engaged long enough for my brother to release my trust fund to me in full - and I will find you the perfect wealthy husband, one who will suit you and your needs to a T." He offered his hand. "Do we have a deal, Miss Hooper?"
Molly hesitated only a moment before extending her hand. "We do indeed, Mr. Holmes." Before he could grasp her hand, she retracted it.. "As soon as I've verified you are who you say you are," she said firmly.
His delighted laugh and soft clap of the hands told her more than words that she'd impressed him - and that she would undoubtedly discover him to be exactly who he claimed he was.