He couldn’t go back to his old life.
He’d be damned if he was going back to Ally.
Which left him—where?
He walked back to his apartment, fuming. He nodded at Misha, who called his name. Damn, the last thing he needed was to have to talk to that creep.
But Misha was waving an envelope.
“Delivery for Sam Carson,” the Russian sneered. “Maybe it’s soccer talent.”
There comes a time in every man’s life when he knows he’s lost, and only a woman can bring him back to life. Preferably, an elderly, spinster aunt.
—From The Dulcet Duke
Chapter 31
Inside the envelope was a letter from Ally. It was written with a fountain pen on thick, rich paper: Dear Sam, I’m writing to invite you to a ball…
Then another letter came the day after, starting with, Dear Sam, The weather is lovely here… It ended with,…and that is why I am very sorry. I hope you can forgive me.
Another letter came the day after that.
At first, they were dotted with ink splatters. By the third one, Ally had managed to get the pen under control and the page was clean, beautiful, even.
After the third letter, Sam did the only thing that seemed right. He went out and bought himself a fountain pen and some beautiful paper. In his first letter to Ally, he told her about what he was doing in Manhattan. How he had gone on a carriage ride last week, alone, for old times’ sake.
In the second letter, he began telling her about work, but somehow—who knew how?—he ended with a story of when he was ten. He had managed to get himself kicked out of school just to see if anyone would notice. After being sent home late on a Friday with the family chauffeur, he had shown up at the breakfast table and his mother had jumped up in shock, not having any idea he was back in London. She had him shipped off again the next day to a new school before he’d even had a chance to see his father.
Ally lived for Sam’s letters. Sometimes, her tears streaked the ink on the pages as she read. Sometimes, she laughed so hard, she had to stop to catch her breath.
She poured her heart onto the pages of the letters she wrote, surprising herself with how easily the words came. She wrote about what it was like spending her whole life waiting and hoping. I took two-minute showers for ten years, certain that my parents would call for me as soon as I stepped under the steamy water…
Writing about her memories sparked darker thoughts, not about herself, but about her parents. How irresponsible and unreliable they had been when they were around. How she had mothered them. How she had sometimes wished she could live with her wealthy grandmother, not with them.
As she wrote page after page, she would sometimes look down and find her hand shaking with anger. All the years she had wasted, waiting for her parents to come back and rescue her, when it had been her job to rescue herself. That was what writing to Sam meant to her now— her rescue. She needed to make it right between them.
She admitted to him, in a letter written by candlelight with an unsteady hand, that she was terrified to become her mother, chasing after a man who wasn’t trustworthy but was charming and fun to be with.
A man like you, Sam. A man I could lose my heart to. But I’m starting to see now that maybe my mother did the right thing by following her passion. Maybe my father needed my mother more than I did. Maybe my mother knew she was a terrible parent, and that Granny Donny was there to take better care of me. Maybe following my father was the right thing for her to do. Following her heart. Maybe it’s about time I followed my heart.
Something about writing the letters, the scratching of the pen across the page, made Ally feel better. Seeing her words in black and white, then sealing them into an envelope and sending them away to a person who might still love her was like sending the problems she wrote about away, too. She felt lighter, more at ease. It was as if he received her words, then put them carefully away someplace safe, where they couldn’t cause her any more problems.
They wrote nearly every day for three straight weeks, and she still hadn’t told him that her parents were dead. Those were the only words she couldn’t bring herself to write.
And Sam still hadn’t said if he’d come to her ball.
Sam’s heart wasn’t in his Saturday morning games anymore. They seemed like everything else in his old life—pointless. He warmed up listlessly, taking shots on goal and missing.
A commotion on the Latin side caught his attention.
Mateo.
The goofball was wearing dark glasses and had a baseball hat pulled low over his eyes, but Sam recognized that easy gait anywhere. Sam jogged over to the enemy sideline.
“New player?” he asked. “Got ID?”
Mateo/Sacco kept his head down. “I got all the ID I need right here,” he said, making an obscene gesture that sent his team into happy catcalls.
Sam put his hand on Mateo’s back and whispered in his ear, “A Russian shows up. About so high. Blond hair. Do me a favor: If he plays, humiliate him.”
“You got it, Sammy,” Mateo/Sacco said.
“Good to see you here,” Sam said.
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but I promised June.”
Sam looked around, and, sure enough, on the sidelines stood June. “Nice work,” Sam said. “How long has this been going on?”
“Long enough. Anyway, I’m not a pussy like you. You should see Ally, man; she’s miserable.”
“Really?” Sam perked up. “Tell me.” They’d been writing letters for weeks, but they hadn’t spoken. And as much as he wanted to jump into his Porsche and go out there, he didn’t. It didn’t seem the gentlemanly thing to do. Plus, something was happening with the letters that he wasn’t sure he could handle in person: He was writing the truth, writing stories and words and thoughts he might never be able to voice face-to-face.
But the game was about to start. “Later, buddy. I got more important things to do first. Like kick your butt.”
Mateo scored in the first thirty seconds, leaving both teams stunned. Then, he scored again in the next minute, easily working around the awestruck defense.
“Cool it, man,” Sam whispered. “You want to get found out?”
“I don’t know,” Mateo said. “It feels good. It’s been a long time.”
“What’d you say your name was, hombre?” The questions were starting.
“Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“Take off that hat, hombre.”
Sam whispered, “When you get murdered, I’ll try to hold them off. But we’re a bit outnumbered.”
“I’ll play defense,” Mateo said. But he couldn’t stay back, and before five minutes had passed, he scored again.
Misha, who had come late and was still on the sidelines, came into the game, took one look at Mateo/Sacco, and said, “What the hell is Sacco Poblano doing here?” loud enough for everyone to hear.
By the second half, a crowd had formed along the sidelines. It was as if the quarterback of the New York Giants had shown up, or the center for the New York Knicks. Cell phones were buzzing, people texting and taking pictures. When schoolchildren started to appear, Sam began to get worried. “Don’t you think this might get out of hand?”
But Mateo was in heaven. “What, someone will shoot me here? In Manhattan?” He had taken off the hat and the dark glasses. People were calling his name from the sidelines.
“Well, yeah. Right? They might. Wasn’t that the point of lying low?” Sam asked. He was nervous for his friend.
They went back out on the field, Mateo matched against Misha. “You’re a coward,” Misha sneered before the ball was in play.
Mateo ignored him.
“You let your country down,” he said louder. A few shouts of agreement reached them from the sidelines. Traitor. Traidor!
“Put the ball in play,” Sam insisted.
“With this weasel?” Misha said. “I refuse.” He shoved Mateo.
More cries from the sideline
s reached them, including, “Gooooaaaal,” the cry of the Colombian shooter that had become a stand-in for a cry to kill.
“He threw the game!” Misha said, raising his arms. “The World Fucking Cup. He handed it to Italy.” He shoved Mateo again.
“We earned it,” one of the Italian players said, enraging the crowd further as they took up the heated disagreement.
“Play,” Sam said.
But as soon as the ball was kicked, Misha rushed Mateo and it seemed as if half the crowd followed, shouting for another goooooaaaaallll…
Sam didn’t hesitate. He dived at Misha, pulling off the bigger man with the force of his anger. Someone punched Sam in the gut, and he staggered back, losing Mateo in the melee. Bodies seemed to be everywhere. June watched, horrified, from the sideline. Sam finally located Mateo at the bottom of three Argentines, getting pummeled and kicked. Sam tried to drag one of them off and was rewarded with a kick in the groin.
As he stumbled backward, he saw his salvation.
He had to get Mateo out of there before they killed him.
He ran for the nearest carriage, jumped onto the box, and informed the surprised driver that this was a hijacking. The terrified tourists in the back squealed.
“It’s to save one of your own,” Sam told the driver. “Mateo. Drove an old gray-and-white mare. White carriage with chrome?”
“Hey, yeah. He drove for Torredo Stables. Nice guy,” the driver said. “Where’s he at?”
“At the bottom of that pile. They’re trying to kill him.”
“Not on my watch,” the driver said. “Hold on!” he called to the tourists. He hawed to his horse and drove the carriage to the field, bumping hard over the curb. “C’mon, girl, you can do it,” he urged his beautiful black horse.
The driver rode the horse and carriage to where Sam pointed. The confused fighters looked up just long enough for Mateo to bolt. Sam yanked Mateo into the carriage as June jumped in the other side. The driver flicked the reins, and the horse picked up speed. The carriage creaked and listed over the rough grass while the fight continued on the field.
The last thing Sam saw was Misha going down under the Polish goalie, who’d hated him for years.
Mateo wiped the blood from his mouth. “How was that for a comeback?”
“Well done,” Sam said. “But enough about you. About Ally. I want to hear everything, fast, before they catch up and finish you off.”
“You know, Sammy, how I told you it sucks to be a hero?”
“Yeah?” Sam looked at the bloody man. A dark circle was blackening around one eye, and his shirt was torn almost in two.
“Well, it’s not true. It’s actually a lot of fun.”
The letter came the next day telling Sam what Mateo and June had already told him: Ally’s parents had died nine years ago, and she hadn’t known until that night on the beach.
So Sam took out his fountain pen and began to write. But instead of starting with Dear Ally, he wrote something else, instead:
Prologue:
Sam Carson defied his family and friends when he married Hana Smith, daughter of a plumber and his Irish wife. Sam was twenty-one and instantly disowned by his titled family. He and his beautiful wife set off for America with nothing and no one. But they didn’t care. They were in love.
Hana died two days after they arrived, a victim of a virulent strep infection that they had neither the experience nor the money to treat.
Sam was alone in America. He wrote his family, but they refused to respond. He was dead to them.
He vowed to make himself never need another human. He grew rich and self-sufficient. But what he didn’t realize was that Hana’s death had killed something inside him. It was impossible for him to love anything or anyone. Until one day on Central Park West, when everything changed…
When all else fails, have a ball.
—From The Dulcet Duke
Chapter 32
The day of the ball, the tent crew arrived at dawn. Ally and her grandmother watched from the upper porch in awe as twelve men struggled against the wind to set up the most enormous white tent Ally had ever seen. Maybe she had gotten a little carried away. But her grandmother had told her to spare no expense, and for the first time in her life, Ally obliged her.
More trucks began to arrive as the sun rose: Zimmerman Event Lighting, Bogart’s Generators, Portfeld’s Tables and Chairs. Freddy, the event planner from Freddy’s Festive Fetes, arrived to boss everyone around. He shook Ally’s hand and paused only long enough to ask if any of the guests were allergic to nuts, to roses, to wheat, to elephants?
Elephants?
Ally didn’t remember the elephants. She hoped he was joking as he kissed both her cheeks and ran off to direct the small army. He had a stack of invitations in a see-through purple plastic envelope under his arm, which he passed out to everyone he met. What would the college kids next door wear to a nineteenth-century gala? Salvatore the tailor had come twice in the last two weeks to make sure Ally and Granny Donny were suitably attired, and he’d return today with the final dresses.
Ally kept a lookout for Sam, but he was nowhere. He had never RSVP’d, and Ally hoped against hope that he would come. This was, after all, for him. She felt like an anxious schoolgirl.
Groups of curious people came out to watch, and a frenzied energy buzzed in the air. Everyone Freddy could catch received an invitation. Even the seagulls screamed and swooped, as if they were after their own invites.
But where was Sam?
To Ally’s dismay, she was sick with fevered anticipation. She retired to her room and lay on her bed, fanning herself and trying not to swoon like a maiden.
And it wasn’t even noon.
Watching the proceedings but not being a part of them made Ally edgy. She played a round of gin rummy with Granny Donny until June and Mateo showed up. He still looked awful, both his eyes blackened and an angry slash over his lip. June told Ally what had happened, and Ally’s anticipation to see Sam ratcheted up a notch. June and Mateo left for a walk on the beach, and Ally paced the house. Finally, after organizing all the seashells in the huge decanter on the mantel by color and size, Ally caught sight of the vintage wedding dress that Sal the tailor had delivered an hour ago along with the other dresses for the ball.
Ally fingered the fabric of the antique wedding gown.
She really shouldn’t.
But then, why not? What else did a princess do when she was waiting for the ball to begin? She had, after all, already retired to her bed once with nervous agitation.
She took off her sundress and put on the delicate gown. Sal had done a masterful job, and it fit her perfectly.
Oh, what the heck? She put up her hair and then sneaked into Granny Donny’s room and borrowed a string of pearls. The finishing touch was her mother’s pearl drop earrings, which Granny Donny had given her as a birthday present.
She slipped back into her own room, breathless as a schoolgirl, and looked in the mirror. I look pretty good. The weeks of sun and hard labor had made her tanned and thin. What if he doesn’t show?
She took the fragile lace veil out of its box and tried that on, too. She pulled the veil over her face and walked down the center of her room, pretending it was an aisle. Who would give her away if she ever got married? The thought made her stumble in her bare feet. But she recovered. She was getting carried away. Marriage? She didn’t even know if Sam would dance with her.
She went out on the balcony and watched the activity.
She longed for Sam. She wanted to tell him that she’d been a fool. That she had finally felt in her own bones how unhappy her mother would have been without her father. How she finally understood that her mother had left her because she loved her and she knew that Granny Donny could give her a stable life. She didn’t blame her mother anymore for leaving. In fact, now, through loving Sam, she understood that her mother following her father was an act of love, not stupidity. She forgave her parents. And it felt sublime.
When Ally appeared on the deck in a wedding dress, Sam dropped his binoculars. He’d been watching the proceedings from behind the dunes; he wanted to make an entrance befitting a grand duke.
Seeing Ally in that dress, he thought he would want to bolt like a wild animal. But instead, he felt an entirely different emotion: love.
She is the one.
And tonight, they would finally waltz.
By eight o’clock, the makeup people and hairstylists were gone, and Ally, Granny Donny, and June had updos worthy of a period movie. Their faces were glowing and powdered. Their gowns were impeccable. The caterer had the grills going and the tables set. The twelve-piece orchestra had set up their instruments, and Ally could hear them tuning in the distance. The sun was just starting to set as someone threw on the lights in the tent.
It was time for the ball to begin.
But she still hadn’t seen Sam.
Sam stood at the water’s edge, his heart pounding. He could throw himself into the waves and swim for England. He could bail out and go back to his old stupid life.
Or he could do this.
His palms were sweating.
He picked up a shell and threw it into the ocean. “Goodbye, Hana. Wish me well.”
And then he walked slowly toward the music.
“Where’s Sam?” June asked Ally.
Ally couldn’t take her eyes off her beautiful friend. Long curls dangled past her shoulders and smaller curls framed her beautiful face. She wore a baby-blue dress that made her look radiant. “I have no idea. Maybe he’s making out with a cute waitress.”
“No way. I read his letters.”
“June!”
“Sorry. But you left them out.”
Mateo approached them.
“Looks like your prince has come,” Ally said. “My God, Juney, are you blushing?”
Mateo let out a long slow whistle. “You look amazing,” he said to June. He held out his hand and she took it.
“Your duke will come,” June said over her shoulder. She walked with Mateo to the dance floor, and they started to waltz.
How to Tame a Modern Rogue Page 23
