by Erica Ridley
“It seemed warmer when I left,” she mumbled. A lot warmer.
“I’ll loan you one of mine,” Penelope said. “No arguments.”
Virginia frowned. “I thought you had already left for London.”
“Not yet.” Penelope’s eyes shone. “We were in Bristol visiting the best glassmakers in the country.”
Virginia presumed this had something to do with one of Penelope’s perfumes. She was a lady chemist, and one of the smartest women Virginia knew. Her debut cologne-water, Duke, had taken England by storm. So had Penelope. She was the opposite of Virginia in every way.
Penelope clasped her hands together and grinned. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
Virginia blinked. “Without… me?”
“Your timely words to Nicholas were not only the inspiration for his marriage proposal.” Penelope lifted two glass bottles from a wooden crate upon the floor. “You also inspired the new packaging for Duke and Duchess.”
In amazement, Virginia accepted the fist-sized perfume bottles. “Turtledoves?”
“Turtledoves.” Penelope beamed at her. “Glassblowers are hard at work copying Nick’s designs, my perfumes are more popular than ever… The surge in sales is all thanks to you. That’s why we just signed a trust giving you one percent of dividends earned in perpetuity.”
“It was just a comment,” Virginia stammered. “I’m not a chemist or an artist. ‘Turtledoves’ were just… words.”
“Words matter, and no one is more creative with them than you.” Penelope touched Virginia’s shoulder. “Your ideas are important. You are important.”
Virginia stared at the interlocking glass perfume bottles in awe. One percent of dividends earned in perpetuity. Because she’d had an idea that mattered.
“I want to open an animal sanatorium,” she blurted out.
“You should,” Penelope said without hesitation. “You are incredible with animals.”
“The castle just hired an expert veterinarian,” Virginia confessed. “He arrived today. He doesn’t care about my opinions.”
Penelope rolled her eyes. “That’s because he’s the sort of man who thinks women can’t be experts. Ignore him.”
Virginia’s shoulders hunched. “He’s had formal schooling at university. Years of paid experience.”
“And now he’s working in a two-bird aviary,” Penelope pointed out. “I’m not impressed.”
“Fifteen birds,” Virginia admitted. “I donated my collection.”
“Then he owes more to you than you do to him.” Penelope lifted her chin. “If you have a dream, you should follow it.”
Chapter 9
Virginia was at her writing desk drawing plans for her sanatorium when a knock came on her chamber door. She opened it to reveal a footman bearing a familiar wicker basket.
He held out the basket. “Mr. T requests the pleasure of your company at once.”
“I’ll think about it.” Virginia accepted the basket.
It was heavier than usual. When the footman left, she set the basket atop her bed and opened the lid. One by one, she placed its contents in a line.
Her bonnet. Her winter gloves. Her favorite pelisse. A folded scrap of paper.
She unfolded the paper. The sparse handwriting inside read only:
* * *
Come peckish.
* * *
Her heart gave a dangerous flutter. After having fled from their make-believe dinner party the night before, Virginia hadn’t been certain when she would be ready to face Theodore again. Or if he would even want to see her.
This answered one of the questions.
She slid on her pelisse and gloves and tied on her bonnet. Her heart lightened. The walk down to Azureford’s cottage seemed to take half the time as usual.
When she rapped the knocker, Swinton led her not into one of the various drawing rooms, but straight through the cottage to the rear exit.
Were they headed to the outbuilding?
Virginia frowned. She’d come peckish, but would not be eating the partridge.
Swinton turned her not toward the outbuilding, but to a wooden-latticed belvedere on the other side. Thick woolen blankets covered most of the interior. Upon its cozy surface sat two wooden crutches, one handsome viscount, and a picnic basket.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Theodore said. “And no, we cannot be trusted to behave ourselves inside.”
Virginia glanced around at the thick copse of evergreens buffeting the rear garden in total seclusion, then returned her questioning gaze to Theodore.
“It’s cold,” he said. “That helps more than you think.”
Cold, but not freezing. She stepped closer. Snow still covered the trees and grass, but the air was calm and dry.
“I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t rise to greet you,” he said. “I believe I found the most awkward way possible to lower my backside to the blanket and I’d like to spare you from having the image in your head.”
“I don’t mind awkward.” She settled across from him. “What’s in the basket?”
He clasped his hands to his chest and affected a joyous expression. “I’ve made metal braces for your elbows, knees, and ankles.”
She burst out laughing. “You did not, beast. Knowing you, that’s a basket full of ice cream.”
He did not respond.
“It is a basket full of ice cream?” she asked in disbelief. “For a winter picnic?”
“Technically, it’s April,” he reminded her. “April is definitely ice cream weather.”
He opened the lid to the basket and began to place dishes of ice cream atop the blanket.
“If you insist on normalcy,” he said, “there may also be cheese, bread, and fruit somewhere inside the basket.”
“I’ve never once been normal,” she assured him, and picked up a dish of ice cream.
Theo’s eyes sparkled with approval.
It didn’t take them long to have done with their sweet, creamy feast.
He stacked the dishes inside the basket and moved it aside in order to lie back with his hands laced behind his head.
Virginia did the same, but in the opposite direction. She could see him if she lifted her head, but this way she could keep her gaze on the clouds overhead rather than the handsome man at her side.
“Do you like Christmas?” she asked after a moment.
“The town?” Theodore paused, as if considering his response. “I like you. I haven’t seen the town. In a sense, being anonymous here is harder than being away at war.”
She frowned. “In what way?”
“On the front lines, we still received letters and news of home.” His eyebrows drew together. “It’s unsettling not to have contact.”
Virginia could not disagree more. She thanked her stars every day that no one from London ever tried to contact her. She was not going back to that asylum.
Another terrible thought slammed into her. What if her parents numbered among Theodore’s acquaintances when he returned to London? What if he inquired about her, and they had nothing nice to say, other than getting rid of her being the best thing they could ever have done?
“I don’t mind the lack of contact,” she said. “No one cares what I do. I can only be tolerated for short periods.”
“That is a horrible thing to say.” He jerked up on one elbow. “Why the devil would you think that?”
“It might have taken even longer to figure out, had so many helpful individuals not seen fit to say so directly. Lord Munroe, Lady Voss, my mother…”
“Wait. What?” Theodore shot up straight, his jaw hanging open. “Who are your parents?”
“You don’t know them,” Virginia said, and prayed it was true. “They’ve only a baronetcy to their name.”
“Lady Underwood and Sir Hubert are your parents?” he said in disbelief. “Horrid ones, from the sound of it.”
Virginia closed her eyes in mortification. “You know them.”
“I haven’t had the pleasure. But I recall the names from Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage. Does your family live with you in the castle?”
She shook her head. “They live in London. I live in the castle.”
He stared at her. “How does something like that happen?”
His question seemed to stretch out between them, a razor-sharp whip of words and implication, capable of snapping back to break her in two.
Virginia kept her eyes closed and concentrated on the evergreens rustling in the breeze. She would not lie to Theodore. But to answer meant sharing secrets she guarded for a reason. If her own family found her unlovable and not worth their attention, Theodore might feel the same.
But she couldn’t keep him anyway, Virginia reminded herself. This was why. He might as well know the truth.
“It’s not their fault,” she said at last. The wind stole each word; made it colder. “Not completely. They have a little money but no sons. The baronetcy and our entailed home will go elsewhere, leaving my mother and sisters homeless and penniless. Making it essential to marry well, starting with the eldest daughter.” Her throat stung. “It was my responsibility to wed quickly and upwardly so that my younger sisters could do the same.”
Even with her eyes closed, she could feel Theodore staring at her.
“You had a Season,” he said in growing understanding.
She nodded. “Part of one. It didn’t go well. Since my parents couldn’t be rid of me that way, they had to find another.”
“What other way?” Theodore demanded.
Virginia swallowed the old hurt. “It’s natural. All baby chicks must be thrust from the nest when it’s time to fly.”
“When they are ready to fly,” he corrected. “Good bird-parents don’t banish their baby chick to a castle on the opposite side of England because she had a bad first Season.”
“They didn’t.” Virginia’s voice cracked. “They sent me to a lunacy asylum on the other side of that forest.”
“They what?” Theodore’s growl was low and deadly.
A breeze blew through the lattice. Its chill was nothing compared to the cold inside. “An unmarriageable daughter is of no use to anyone. My reputation no longer mattered.”
“What about your future?” he growled. “Your life?”
“I couldn’t have one.” She opened her eyes, but did not look at him. “Not when I stood in everyone else’s way. The eldest must marry first. My parents told everyone I had contracted a strange disease and was being looked after in some hospital.”
“But there was no strange disease.” His nostrils flared. “And no hospital.”
“Maybe there was. Maybe I’m the strange disease. I’ve been peculiar since birth, and my parents could not wait to wash their hands of me.” Virginia’s heart clenched. Telling the story had not made it easier.
“Why up here?” Theodore asked as the wind ruffled his hair. “This distance requires weeks of travel every time they visit you.”
“It would,” she agreed. “If they had visited. My parents needed me as far away as possible. It would have been risky to send me someplace close by, like Ticehurst or Bedlam. Too many people visit for the great sport of laughing, mocking, and poking sticks at inmates. They didn’t want their friends to recognize me.”
His hand brushed her cheek. “You do realize that this is not an acceptable way to treat one’s child?”
“Have you ever been in a madhouse?” she asked bleakly. “They’re crowded. Every one of the inmates is someone’s child.”
He pulled her into his arms and held her close.
“It’s fine,” she said hoarsely, determined not to cry. It had never helped before. “All sorts of animals abandon their young. Rabbits, house sparrows, cuckoos…”
“To the devil with that,” Theodore said. “And to the devil with your family. You’re not a house sparrow. No one can take care of themselves in a madhouse.”
“I learned that the hard way,” she whispered. “I tried to run away every single day. It took three years to finally happen.”
He shivered. “I don’t blame you for coming here instead of going to London.”
“I didn’t mean to do that, either,” she admitted.
The night she’d escaped, Virginia had been terrified. Leaving the asylum was the first decision she’d made for herself. She was unprepared for the weather, for the loneliness, for the unexpected surprise of kind strangers.
A caravan of tourists was heading further north to take their holiday in a village called Christmas. They had assumed her carriage had broken down and offered her passage. Virginia had swallowed her terror and accepted.
She kept her mouth shut the entire journey. She could not risk being odd or funny or peculiar. Any time she was too wrong, people tossed her aside like rubbish. But Christmas hadn’t. It had welcomed her as if it had been waiting for her right here Virginia’s entire life.
Mr. Marlowe not only gave her the run of the castle and a room of her own, but a generous allowance. It wasn’t just that Virginia didn’t want for anything. For the first time, she awoke each morning without fear.
“The best part about Christmas is that here, I can live as I am. There are no expectations except my own. It’s the most freedom I’ve ever had.” Her voice shook. “I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
“Only a blackguard would ask you to.” His lips twisted. “I’m surprised your parents allowed you to stay.”
She lifted a shoulder. “They don’t know I’m out of the madhouse.”
He stared at her. “How long have you lived here?”
Even the wind was quiet in anticipation of her response.
“Six years,” Virginia admitted in a small voice. She could practically see him do the sums.
“Your family dropped you off at a lunacy asylum nine years ago and haven’t noticed you are not still there?”
“No one’s come looking for me.” Her cheeks burned at the admission that no one missed her. “I’ve stopped worrying I’ll be sent back.”
“Maybe they did have a change of heart,” Theodore suggested after a moment, his tone hopeful. “Maybe they came to visit, couldn’t find you, and have been desperately searching for you ever since.”
“I asked Mr. Marlowe to let me know if any notices were ever posted in the papers. If my parents were looking for me. None ever came. Eventually, I stopped asking about the past and started over instead. At first, I had nothing. Now I do.” She gave a wobbly smile. “I have Duke, I have my friends, I have my afternoon constitutionals…”
His gaze was unreadable. “I’m not certain ‘afternoon constitutional’ is a possession.”
“They are the most precious possessions I own.” She swallowed. “I walk outside every day regardless of the weather because I can. Because it proves I’m free.”
“I stand corrected.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and cuddled her close. “There is no greater possession than freedom.”
“Nobody knows,” she whispered. “Except you. I didn’t tell anyone but Mr. Marlowe about the asylum, and I told no one at all about London. I didn’t want my friends here to look at me the same way people had back there. Wondering what made me so backwards. Why I couldn’t be fixed.”
“You don’t need to be fixed,” he said fiercely. “There is nothing wrong with you. You are perfect just as you are.”
Virginia didn’t answer. There was no point. The lie was pretty, but they both knew it wasn’t true. It was the reason they could never be together.
He released her from his embrace and struggled to his feet. “Stand up.”
Her mouth went dry. This was it. The moment when he sent her from his home, never to speak to her again. “What are you going to do?”
He held out his hand. “What are we going to do.”
She rose on shaky legs. “What are we doing?”
He placed her hand on his shoulder. “We’re going to waltz. I want my first dance after years of battle to be with
you.”
Her heart leapt.
“I thought you wanted Lady Beatrice to be your first dance,” she stammered.
“I haven’t thought about her at all.” His eyes were serious. “I’m hoping to dance with my cousin. It’s her first season, and Hester is afraid she’ll spend it without a single name upon her card.”
Virginia’s pulse skipped. “That’s the news from London you’ve been missing?”
He nodded. “She’s a sweet lass. She deserves all the dances she might wish. I must get healthy in order to stand up with Hester without embarrassing her. Other than my ruined face, of course.”
“She won’t be embarrassed.” Virginia touched his cheek and smiled. “You don’t need to be fixed, either.”
She could not believe this moment was happening. She had confessed her darkest secret: that the only way she enriched anyone’s life was by staying out of it. And his response had been to pull her into his embrace.
Their waltz was slow and halting. Virginia did not mind. She’d had to live most of her life in such a manner. This moment was magical.
She was dancing with the man of her dreams. Not in a crowded ballroom, filled with too many bodies and too much perfume and dripping candle wax, but outside, amid the natural beauty she so cherished.
Theodore’s knee buckled. Virginia and the metal brace caught him before he fell.
“Shall we sit back down?” she asked.
“I’m not ready to let you out of my arms.”
“Try this.” She stepped closer, wrapping both arms above his shoulders and pressing her body to his for support.
“How am I supposed to lead you about like that?” he said gruffly.
“Don’t,” she said simply. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He lowered his arms to encircle her waist.
Instead of the wide steps of a waltz, they rocked side to side, slowly, peacefully. Not to the insistent three-beat rhythm of an orchestra, but to the lazy afternoon breeze and the thumping of their hearts.
“This is not how waltzes work,” he whispered into her ear.
“I know.” She lay her face on his chest. “It’s nicer.”
