“This isn’t about her becoming a duchess, is it?”
“Winnifred is all I have.”
Imogene flinched. Lines drew taut above the bridge of her delicate nose, breaking through the typically flawless perfection of her face. “Don’t forget about your countess.”
“She is a friend, a dear friend, and nothing more. After you and I lost our last son”—he paused when her breath hitched, feeling the tightness of it in his own lungs—“you withdrew from me. You didn’t even look at me, let alone speak to me, and I needed someone to confide in.”
“I needed someone, too. I was in agony.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “And I blamed myself for it every single moment of every day.”
She stared at him in confusion, eyes wide. “But I thought . . . you blamed me. That I had failed you as a wife.”
He shook his head and took a step toward the barrier between them. “I was certain it was my fault. It was as though the Fates had decided that one man could not have it all. That he had to endure unendurable pain to deserve what he’d already been given. And because of my selfish desire to have wealth, happiness, and a house filled with our children, I might have lost everything.”
Imogene took a step forward, too, anger and anguish in the flash of her eyes. “You could have told me your fears instead of distancing yourself from me. I am your wife, after all. The countess is not.” She poked him in the pocket. “‘For Julian, and the love that was lost but can always be rekindled . . . if you but speak the word. Your countess.’ Explain that!”
“Don’t you understand? That engraving is about you and I. Yet, I knew that if we had consoled each other, you’d have been carrying my child again before your body and heart had healed. I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk losing you.” On the admission, he uncurled the fists at his sides and reached out for her, cupping his hands over the slender curve of her shoulders and feeling a tremor roll through her. “I’d rather there be coldness between us as we pass in the halls than never pass you in the hall again.”
“You stupid, stubborn man,” she said, swatting at his chest, tears glistening in her eyes. “I hate you.”
He dared to draw her into his arms. A rush of pure joy shuddered through him when her body yielded against his in an achingly familiar embrace. “I know.”
Her cheek rested above the hopeful beating of his heart. “‘. . . if you but speak the word.’ What is that word, Julian?”
“Genie,” he said softly. It was the name he’d called her so long ago, back when pulling her into his embrace hadn’t been such a hard-fought battle.
A sudden sob wracked her body. She clung to him, crying in his arms as he pressed kisses over her hair, her temple, her cheeks.
Then finally, after so many years of wanting, he eased his mouth over hers.
Chapter 30
Before dawn the following morning, Winnifred jolted awake, gasping for air. She’d had a terrible nightmare of being suffocated by a stack of one hundred thousand coin-filled pillows that reached to the clouds, and Mr. Woodbine sitting on the very top with Lady Stanton.
She couldn’t breathe, even without wearing a corset. Standing, she crossed her bedchamber to open the sash, but the cool air did nothing to ease her tremors and anxiety. Her wedding was tomorrow and every time she thought of it, she felt ill.
Usually, she could calm herself with the knowledge that this wouldn’t be a typical marriage. Mr. Woodbine wanted nothing to do with her. She would be free to live her life, unmolested by her husband.
At least, after the first obligatory night.
She gripped the sill and put her head outside, taking in big gulps of fetid air. Here she was on the precipice of selling herself in marriage to a man she did not—and would not ever—love, and she didn’t even know how much the odious man stood to gain.
How many holidays would he take with Lady Stanton? How many jewels would he buy her with Winnifred’s dowry?
She told herself that it didn’t matter. This wedding would happen regardless. And yet . . . she had a pressing need to know how much she was worth.
There was one way to find out.
After another steadying inhale of the dewy morning air, she snatched her dressing gown from the foot of the bed and swept downstairs to her father’s study.
She didn’t know precisely where she would find her wedding contract, but she knew it had to be in one of his desk drawers. Proof of that seemed to be in the scrawled note resting on his blotter: Mr. Woodbine, eleven o’clock.
Splendid. It seemed her nightmare would arrive this morning.
And this morning Asher is sailing away, her brain reminded her, needlessly. Both she and her shredded heart knew very well that he was leaving today. That she likely would never see him again unless by chance at some distant point in the future.
It would be years after his return from making his fortune. They might pass on the street without even knowing it. Sit across from each other at a dinner party as if strangers . . .
Winnifred clutched the front of her dressing gown, pressing a fist to the burning ache and emptiness threatening to spill out. Then she forced herself not to think about that future, but to focus on the more immediate one instead.
She rifled through one side of the desk, frantically searching. It yielded nothing, and so she moved on to the other side.
In the top drawer, she found another stack of ledgers, a handkerchief and a book of poetry. She found the last object quite peculiar, considering the desk belonged to the least romantic-minded man to ever walk the earth. Putting that incongruity aside for the moment, she replaced each item as she’d found it.
Yet when she reached for the wrinkled handkerchief, the fold slipping open in her grasp, she realized it wasn’t what she thought at all.
It was her letter.
The paper had turned soft and cloth-like, the ink barely visible. The salutation and the first paragraph had all but disappeared. The second paragraph, however, was still clear as if freshly penned. Then again, she recalled feeling the words with utmost vehemence, so perhaps she’d given them additional ink.
I am my own person. I have my own mind and my own beating heart that cannot be owned by you or any man. I deserve more than to be handed over like a sack of money. So I must away for my own sake.
A tear dropped from her lashes, bleeding into the page with tiny thistle-like lines. And suddenly she knew—again—that she could not marry Mr. Woodbine.
Yet, after insisting that she’d changed her mind and having Father make all the arrangements, she couldn’t simply bow out. And she was nearly positive that there would be no way to run out on this wedding.
“You stupid, foolish creature,” she said to herself. “You’re in a veritable pickle now.”
Winnifred laid the letter inside Father’s desk and closed the drawer. Then, slipping back upstairs, she began to pace the floor of her bedchamber.
How could a person call off a wedding without actually being the one to call it off?
Well, obviously, it would have to be Mr. Woodbine. And yet he’d proven to be all too eager for her fortune, even willing to marry the cow, as he’d so poetically put it.
Hmm. She thrummed her fingers together, thinking. Her stomach churned riotously, burning the underside of her heart, as if she were on the precipice of life imprisonment. Or worse . . . the gallows. She could practically feel the noose around her neck. For a stay of execution, some women had been known to plead their bellies. If only she . . .
She stopped on a gasp.
Yes! That might do the trick. After all, Woodbine would hardly want to marry a woman if she was carrying another man’s child. Which she wasn’t. Or, at least, she believed she wasn’t.
She splayed her hand over her midriff, wishing she’d never fallen in love with Asher. Wishing she didn’t love him still.
Pinpricks of tears stung her eyes, blurring the walls of her bedchamber. Dimly, she wondered if she would carry this heartache w
ith her for the rest of her life, like a broken limb that had healed but was left misshapen and without function.
A maid tapped on the door and came inside to sweep the ash from the hearth and light the fire, and Winnifred rushed to the washstand to splash water on her face, pretending she wasn’t crying. She knew how servants would gossip and didn’t want word traveling back to her parents.
“Thank you, Millie,” she said to the maid. “Would you please send Abigail up after she’s breakfasted with the others? I should like to get dressed, for I am anticipating a call this morning.”
“Very good, miss.”
As soon as the door closed, she blotted her face with a flannel and eyed the tufted pillow on the stool in front of her vanity table. Hmm.
* * *
That morning, Asher and Avery helped Bates stagger drunkenly into the carriage waiting outside their townhouse.
“Come on, you big lump,” Avery said, rolling his brother onto the tufted velvet bench.
“I think I’m in love,” Bates slurred, his hat tumbling to the floor. “Prettiest opera dancer I’ve ever clapped eyes on. Hers were green, you know. Green and so very pretty. And she could sing like a lark. Holt, you should have joined us. Did I tell you her eyes were green?”
Asher turned away, his mind picturing peridot green surrounded by cinnamon bands, his memory hearing the voice of an angel, and his heart ripped into shreds.
He looked skyward as if for a bolt of lightning to put him out of his misery. But the sky was clear and cloudless.
The perfect day for sailing.
Yet when he thought about stepping onto the ship a few minutes from now, his stomach roiled in protest, even though he hadn’t imbibed in a single drop last night. He was as sober as the grave. After leaving Waldenfield’s, he’d returned here, packed his two satchels, and waited for the dawn.
He was ready to leave London behind. It couldn’t happen soon enough. The last thing he needed was another reminder of Winn and all that he’d lost.
“Lord Holt!”
At the sound of his name, he turned to see the familiar face of his driver, or at least the parts that weren’t covered in yellowing bruises. And he was walking with a limp, as well—Lum’s handiwork, no doubt.
“Portman! I’m so glad to see you,” he said honestly, striding along the pavement to shake his hand.
The driver doffed his weathered hat, eyes downcast. “I canna tell you how sorry I am for leaving you that day, my lord.”
Asher felt a twinge in the center of his chest, but shook his head. “Think nothing of it.”
“But that’s why I’m here, my lord. It’s pressing on my very soul. I need to explain what made me do it. I just canna live with myself if you sailed away thinking the worst of me.”
From the carriage he heard Bates singing off-key, and then Avery leaned out the open door. “Holt, I hate to interrupt, but we mustn’t delay.”
Asher looked at Portman’s troubled countenance and knew he couldn’t leave him like this. Turning to Avery, he said, “Go on ahead. I’ll take a hackney in a minute and meet you there.”
The conversation didn’t take long. After a handful of reassurances that he had no intention of putting Portman in irons, Asher bade him to leave those memories in the past where they belonged.
Unfortunately, the instant before he rode away in the hackney, Portman slipped something through the open door that was more tangible than a mere memory that might dissolve away in time.
“Just so you know, I was never gonna keep it,” Portman called out as the carriage jolted into motion.
Asher looked down and expelled an oath. It was Winn’s missing pearl necklace. What the devil was he supposed to do with this now?
He slipped the pearls into his pocket and vowed to put them out of his mind until he could find an errand boy.
Then he arrived at the docks. Yet, he didn’t expect to see the Hollander twins standing about with their trunks piled beside them. “Why have you not boarded the ship?”
“It seems that our ship”—One turned to point toward a vessel off in the distance—“set sail without us.”
Asher absently patted his waistcoat for the watch he did not have. It couldn’t be too late. He’d spent a mere five minutes with Portman. “Surely the captain couldn’t leave without those who hired him and his crew.”
“We were equally mystified,” Two said, seemingly sober as he took a step toward Asher and offered an envelope. “Then we were approached by your father’s driver and given this.”
“My father? What does Shettlemane have to do with this?” Alarm and dread riffled through his blood in hot and cold waves as he cracked the seal and skimmed the letter. Then his shoulders slumped in defeat.
He staggered brokenly over to the trunks, sinking down on one of them.
“‘My dear foolish boy,’” Asher read aloud. “‘I am proud to say that you played an excellent hand. You have learned well. I never would have suspected that you could keep such a prize hidden—so well and for so long—from the man who taught you all he knows. In fact, I do believe you might have been on this very ship before I knew anything about the treasure. Which surely would have happened, if it wasn’t for the drunken boasting from one of your acquaintances to Lady Clarksdale. I cannot recall which of the brothers it was”—Asher paused to spear Bates Hollander with the same look his brother was giving him—“but you should warn him about being more discreet in the future. After all, one never knows whose interested ears might not dismiss such a fable as Lady Clarksdale had done.’”
Avery thunked Bates on the back of the head. “You idiot!”
“‘It was doubly fortunate for me,’” Asher continued, “‘that the ship’s captain you hired was an acquaintance of mine years ago when I’d served my duty in the Royal Navy. After that, it was a simple matter of bartering and coming to an agreement of how we will split the treasure. Quite the boon for me, I should say.
“‘However, because of your clever deception and clear need for one more lesson from your father, I put the sale of Ashbrook Cottage in the hands of my solicitor. Think of that the next time you don one of your blasted black cravats. Additionally, I have informed my steward that if you so much as set your foot anywhere near the threshold, every servant will lose their post.’ Signed with a flourish, ‘The Marquess of Shettlemane. P.S., Seabrooke still expects to collect £2,000 from you.’”
Asher let the letter fall out of his hands and simply sat there, staring out toward London with the bitter, briny scent of the sea permeating every breath.
He truly had nothing left now. Not even hope.
Chapter 31
It was nearly half past ten when Winnifred was informed that she had a caller. What a day for Mr. Woodbine to be early! Her maid had only just finished dressing her hair with silver combs to match her slate-gray dress—a stark color for a desperate purpose.
“Might I have a moment, Abigail?” Winnifred asked with quiet reserve, while inside, her pulse was rabbiting. She wondered if she was going to get away with her deception. And yet, she had to. Mr. Woodbine must call off their marriage!
Resolved, she grabbed the tufted pillow as soon as her maid left and then stuffed it up her dress, nearly rending the seams at her waist in the process.
Downstairs at the parlor door, she noticed that the evidence of her child was sliding gradually toward her hip. She made a hasty, wriggling adjustment. Then, after drawing a calming breath, she walked into the room.
“Good day, Mr. Woo—”
She stopped, shocked to see the dark-haired figure standing across the room.
It wasn’t Mr. Woodbine at all.
Asher Holt turned away from the window. But it couldn’t have been him. She knew he was gone. Had sailed away and out of her life forever.
For a moment, he simply stared back at her, with those cinder-dark eyes. His hands were curled at his sides, tension in the lines of his tailored dove-gray coat.
The two of them might
have been a matching set of figurines. And like a porcelain statuette, she wasn’t breathing. Her heart had stopped as well.
It became quite obvious that she’d died in that moment—either from shock or heartache, she wasn’t sure.
“Winn,” he said in a low greeting.
Her heart started up again. She tried to take in a deep breath, but she was back to busks and tight laces. “Asher . . . or, rather . . . Lord Holt. I thought you were on a ship.”
“Clearly, I am not.” He didn’t elaborate, but reached into his coat and withdrew a slender parcel wrapped in brown paper. “I thought you should have this.”
She wondered what it could be. A gift in hopes of reconciliation?
But he didn’t hand it to her. He only moved half the distance between them and laid the object on the oval table in front of the settee. “After being barred from entering these past days, I never imagined I would be ushered inside this morning. Otherwise I wouldn’t have wrapped it.”
The icy hardness in his tone enveloped her as she took the steps toward the table. Not here to reconcile, then. He was obviously angry, which irritated her. Of the two of them, she had far greater right to every hard-hearted emotion.
It was too easy to remember how he’d curled his fingers around her father’s money.
Picking up the parcel, she unwrapped it stiffly to find the last thing she expected. A four-strand pearl necklace.
“Portman delivered that to me this morning,” Asher said evenly. “He apologized profusely for abandoning us, and said he would have brought it sooner, but his wife had their child and he has been distracted and sleepless. Additionally, he also believed I was prepared to have him taken away in irons.”
This necklace wasn’t even on the list of her top two thousand worries, and the day it went missing seemed like a lifetime ago. “I hope you left him with peace of mind.”
Asher nodded. “I told him that there was nothing to fear, and that we’d fared well enough on our own.”
Lord Holt Takes a Bride Page 26
