by Julia Quinn
He knew anything involving Ellie’s future could also involve her father, and if she was hatching some scheme to rescue that scoundrel, Lawrence needed to find out what it was and stop it. He’d spent over half a year building a case against Daventry, and he wasn’t about to see all his good work undone, not now, not when the earl was so close to receiving his comeuppance.
“She’ll arrive soon enough, I expect,” Miss Beatrice Heywood was saying as Lawrence paused on the other side of the yew hedge. “She’s probably been detained by some relation of Thornton’s who wants to welcome her into the family. Or perhaps the vicar’s wife has pulled her aside to remind her of her duties to the parish now that she’s properly wed.”
Ellie groaned. “If it’s the vicar’s wife, we’ll be here for ages. She holds on to one’s pelisse while she talks to prevent any possible escape.”
“Why such concern about time, Ellie?” asked the duchess. “Are you in haste to be away?”
“I am. I have an important engagement in London this very evening, and since Lady Wolford also wishes to return to town today, she has agreed to take me in her carriage. But she made it clear that if I’m not back at Wolford Grange by one o’clock, she will depart for London without me.”
“Be patient,” Miss Heywood advised. “Cordelia will be here any moment, I’m sure.”
“I hope so, for I should hate to leave without saying good-bye. Especially since she’s promised to bring me the sixpence.”
That silly old coin? Lawrence rolled his eyes. Good Lord, was that what this was all about?
In their schooldays, Ellie and her friends had fancied that an old sixpence they’d found might have the magical power to find them husbands, but that was hardly worthy of a clandestine meeting scarcely an hour after Cordelia’s marriage ceremony. And why, he wondered, feeling uneasy for reasons he didn’t wish to explore, should Ellie be so concerned about matrimony anyway?
Her next words gave him a bit of clarification on that question.
“Lord Bluestone is coming to Portman Square to dine with Papa this evening, and I simply must be there.”
Viscount Bluestone? That pompous ass? Lawrence made a sound of disdain between his teeth and regretted it at once.
“What was that?” Ellie demanded. “I thought I heard a noise.”
“My, you are anxious, aren’t you?” The duchess laughed. “This Lord Bluestone must be extraordinary indeed to put our Ellie on tenterhooks.”
This time, Lawrence was able to suppress any vocal expression of his opinion, but only with a good deal of effort. Bluestone was as extraordinary as cold porridge and about as intelligent. That Ellie, whose wits were as sharp as her tongue, might have developed a tendresse for the fellow was ridiculous. It was, he told himself firmly, absurd.
“I have cause to be nervous,” Ellie said, interrupting his efforts to dismiss notions of Ellie and Bluestone. “The viscount indicated at the Delamere ball that I have quite caught his fancy.”
“I should hope so,” Miss Heywood said, laughing as Lawrence’s attempts at denial collapsed. “Bluestone claimed three dances with you. Or so I heard?”
“You heard rightly, Bea. Over refreshments, he mentioned his duty as the next duke and his need to marry well, and in nearly the same breath, he said Papa’s invitation to dine was fortuitous. Oh, ladies, if he were to offer for me—”
She stopped mid-sentence, but the excitement in her voice had been unmistakable, leaving Lawrence strangely off-balance, as if the world had just tilted a bit sideways.
He leaned in closer, but before Ellie could reveal anything more, hurried footsteps sounded on the flagstone path, and another voice came to Lawrence’s ears.
“I’m so sorry I was delayed,” Cordelia said as she joined the other three, her voice breathless from running. “It was Mrs. Cranchester. She simply would not let go of my sleeve.”
“We suspected as much,” Miss Heywood told her. “And Ellie’s been like a cat on hot bricks in consequence.”
“I’m glad you’ve arrived at last,” Ellie told her friend. “I must be away, ere I shall miss my ride to London.”
“A circumstance I could not lament,” Cordelia replied. “Oh, Ellie, I should so like to steer you from this course.”
“Is that why you were so adamant about seeing me before departing for Mallow Hills?”
The countess must have nodded, for Ellie went on, “It’s useless, Cordelia, for I am quite determined. Bluestone would be an excellent match for me.”
To Lawrence’s mind, that point was worthy of spirited debate, but he couldn’t very well pop up over the top of the hedge like some ruddy jack-in-the-box and take up the issue. And even if he could, he acknowledged in chagrin, he had no right to do so.
“Why such concern, Cordelia?” the duchess asked. “From what I understand, Bluestone is a gentleman of wealth and property, and he certainly comes from an ancient, powerful family. If he has fallen in love with Ellie and she with him—”
“That’s just it,” the countess interrupted. “Love has nothing to do with it.”
Relief swept over him at that declaration, relief so profound, he closed his eyes. But Ellie’s next words opened them again and underscored the brutal fact that her heart was no longer his concern. “If I marry Bluestone,” she said, “I shall save my father from ruin.”
So, he’d been right then. Lawrence straightened away from the hedge, letting out his breath in a slow sigh. It wasn’t surprising that Ellie intended to rescue Daventry from his well-deserved fate, for Lawrence knew, better than anyone, the blind loyalty she felt toward her parent. But to save him by chaining herself for life to a prig like Bluestone? Of all the harebrained, infuriating, idiotic ideas—
“Wait.” Miss Heywood’s voice, sharp and incisive, cut into this stream of exasperated thought. “Ellie, you don’t love this man, but you are thinking to marry him?”
“Exactly,” Cordelia answered before Ellie had the chance to do so. “And how could she? Bluestone’s thick as a brick, not at all worthy of our Ellie.”
Lawrence concurred wholeheartedly with that sentiment, and he applauded Cordelia for her good sense. He only wished she could impart some of that good sense to Elinor, who seemed to have lost all of hers.
“We’ve already discussed this, Cordelia,” Ellie said impatiently. “As I have assured you again and again, my mind is made up.”
“But Ellie,” put in the duchess, “marriage without love, or at least affection, is such a dismal prospect.”
“A fine declaration from the woman who once declared she’d never marry for love,” Ellie replied. “And I don’t have the luxury of waiting to fall in love, Anne. Nor do I have the desire. One episode of that disease was enough for me.”
“Lawrence Blackthorne isn’t every man.”
“Well, thank heaven for that,” Ellie countered, and Lawrence felt those words like a blow to the chest.
“But since we are talking of Mr. Blackthorne,” she went on, all her loathing for him in her voice as she said his name, “he is the reason I have no time to lose. He has persuaded the Home Secretary to launch a formal investigation of my father. All those ridiculous rumors from the war will be dredged up again, and Papa’s name dragged through the mud. What if by some miscarriage of justice, Lawrence manages to persuade Peel’s committee to have Papa arrested and brought before the House of Lords? I am not so naïve as to think his innocence would be enough to save him.”
His innocence? Lawrence stirred with impatience. The man was guilty as hell.
“Yes, but Ellie,” Lady Thornton put in, “you don’t know that he’ll be arrested. There would have to be evidence, and from what you’ve said, Lawrence doesn’t have any.”
Oh, he had evidence, all right. Lawrence set his jaw grimly. He just didn’t have enough of it in hand yet to make his case to Sir Robert Peel. But he soon would, and when he did, Daventry would not only be arrested for his crimes during the war, he’d be convicted, and Ellie would have
to face the truth at last.
“Even if he has no proof,” Ellie said, returning Lawrence’s attention to the conversation, “the mere fact of a formal investigation would be enough to convince many in society that those old rumors must be true. No smoke without fire—that’s what people will say. I can’t bear to see Papa and our family endure such humiliation. No, I intend to have this stopped now, before any of it can taint his reputation.”
“I’m in a fog,” Miss Heywood said. “How does marrying Bluestone stop anything?”
“Bluestone’s father, the Duke of Wilchelsey, is on Peel’s committee.”
And, Lawrence, finished for her in his mind, the duke wouldn’t want the good name of his daughter-in-law’s father to be ruined by scandal.
It was a good plan, he was forced to admit, but one he intended to nip in the bud. The question was how. Before he could consider any possibilities, however, Miss Heywood spoke again.
“But Ellie, if you don’t love Bluestone, you are putting your happiness and your future at risk—”
“Future?” Ellie interrupted, a note of bitterness in her voice. “What future? My most marriageable years were wasted waiting for Lawrence Blackthorne, and I’m now twenty-five. If people become convinced Papa was a war profiteer, spinsterhood shall be my future. Papa’s shame will be mine as well. It will be the same for my cousins, my aunts, my uncles—all my family will suffer humiliation and disgrace.”
“You don’t know that,” Cordelia pointed out, a sentiment echoed with murmurs of agreement from the other two, but Ellie’s next words made it clear their counsel was futile.
“You’re darlings, all of you, to be concerned about me, but there is no need. I appreciate fully the course I am choosing. To protect my family, to secure their future and mine, and to preserve my father’s reputation, I am quite willing to marry Bluestone, if he’ll have me. Which reminds me . . . did you bring it, Cordelia?”
“I did.” The countess paused, and Lawrence worked a finger between the dense yew branches with care, pushing a few of them aside to peek at the ladies on the other side, and he watched as Cordelia held out the sixpence to her friend. “Here it is, though under the circumstances, I ought to refuse to give it to you.”
“I’d rather you wish me the luck of it.”
“I want you to be happy, Ellie.”
“I shall be content.”
That wasn’t the same thing, and a glance at the countess’s face told him he wasn’t the only one who appreciated the difference. But Ellie took the coin before her friend could say anything in that regard, and the silver gleamed in the sunlight as she held it up in her fingers.
“Something old,” she said softly.
The duchess curled her gloved fingers over Ellie’s. “Something new.”
Cordelia lifted her hand, hesitated a moment, then placed it over that of the duchess. “Something borrowed.”
“Something blue,” Ellie said and pulled her hand out from under the others, the sixpence still caught in her fingers. “Let’s hope it’s Lord Bluestone.”
It won’t be, Lawrence vowed. Not while I breathe air.
“I have to go back,” Cordelia said, interrupting his thoughts. “Kipp is sure to be pacing by now, for he wants us to arrive at Mallow Hills before dark.”
“We shall accompany you,” Miss Heywood said, laughing, “so you shall be safe from Mrs. Cranchester until you can be bundled into the carriage and taken off to Thornton’s estate.”
Ellie, to Lawrence’s relief, demurred from this plan. “I shall take leave of you here, for as I said before, I must return to Wolford Grange at once. Cordelia, I wish you a lifetime of happiness in your marriage.”
“Oh, I do hate it when you take the high road this way,” grumbled the countess, “for it obligates me to do the same, and I don’t wish to, not in this instance. Can’t you save your father some other way?”
“And defy the sixpence?” Ellie countered, a lightness in her voice that Lawrence could only hope was forced. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Now, my dear friends, I really must go.”
Farewells and expressions of good luck were exchanged, along with a few more attempts by Cordelia to talk Ellie out of her plan. But eventually, the other three moved off toward the house, talking among themselves, and Lawrence once again peered through the opening he’d made in the hedge, thinking to determine which path Ellie was taking out of the garden. To his surprise, however, he found that in spite of her desire to be away, she hadn’t moved. She was staring thoughtfully at the sixpence in her hand, giving Lawrence the opportunity to study her in his turn.
She’d left her hat behind, he saw at once, and that was a pretty fair indication of her preoccupied state of mind. A lady would never dream of venturing out of doors without a bonnet, and as far back as Lawrence could remember, Ellie had striven to be the perfect lady—polished, elegant, and always comme il faut.
He was one of only a few people who understood the girl beneath the carefully constructed façade—a girl who was both terribly insecure and fiercely loyal, a girl who had always sensed her father’s weak and greedy character but had never been able to acknowledge it, not even to herself.
And he was the man destined to force her eyes open. He’d accepted that brutal fact six months ago. His position then had been one of lowly barrister, his only ambition to become worthy of marriage to an earl’s daughter, but fate had put him in the path of a certain arsonist, the first crumb in a trail leading straight to Ellie’s father, and once he’d learned the truth about Daventry, there had been no going back.
Ellie stirred, bringing his attention back to her as she held up the sixpence in her fingers to study it. Without a bonnet, her profile had no shield from his view, and he could plainly see the turned-up nose, plump cheek, and dimpled chin he’d known since childhood. Sunlight glinted on her wheat blond hair, reminding him of another sunny afternoon—a cold, bright afternoon in January—when the only girl he’d ever loved had expected him to forgo his honor and ignore the truth.
Tightness squeezed his chest as he remembered the bitter words they had exchanged that day. In the end, she’d chosen loyalty to her parent over her love for him, and he’d chosen honor and duty over his love for her. Neither of them could alter their course now.
He shut his eyes, striving to lay aside the past and put his priorities back in order. Countless men had died because of Daventry’s greed, and although Ellie might be willing to marry a man she didn’t love in order to save her father from the consequences of his actions, Lawrence wasn’t about to let her make the sacrifice. Soon, he hoped to have the final piece of evidence to make his case and prove to Ellie and the world what sort of man Daventry really was. In the meantime, however, he had to prevent her from marrying the son of the Duke of Wilchelsey.
He looked at her again, watching as she tucked the sixpence carefully into her skirt pocket, and he was reminded of just how much sentimental attachment she and her friends had to the coin. An idea sparked to life in his mind.
For his own part, he was a rational man. He believed in facts and science, not silly things like lucky charms. He knew black cats and broken mirrors did not decide one’s fate, and coins had never found anyone a spouse unless those coins arrived in the form of a dowry. But though he had teased Ellie and her friends about that sixpence many times during their childhood, he had never quite convinced them it had no power to find them husbands, and that failure might work in his favor now.
Lawrence watched Ellie for a moment longer, considering, then he straightened his cravat, raked a hand through his hair, and brushed the stray bits of yew from his coat. For what he intended to do, he needed to look his best.
Chapter 2
Ellie wasn’t a particularly superstitious person, but the sixpence was different, and with that particular coin securely in her pocket, she felt a sudden, overwhelming relief. She and her friends may have fancied that the sixpence would bring them husbands in a girlish spirit of joie de vivre, but it
was a notion that had proven true for both Anne and Cordelia, and Ellie could only hope it proved true for her as well.
At the Delamere ball, when Bluestone had made his admiration and his intentions so plain, she had appreciated at once what it could mean for her family, and she had seen her future, clear as daylight. Lawrence was determined to ruin her father, so determined that he’d forsaken her for duty’s sake and broken her heart. Now she had the power to stop him by marrying another man. She thought of Lawrence’s love of chess, a game at which he had trounced her many times, and she smiled to herself.
Checkmate, Lawrence, she thought, patting her pocket. Checkmate at last.
A slight cough interrupted her thoughts, and Ellie looked up to find the object of them standing a dozen feet in front of her. The sight of him, leaning negligently against the gnarled trunk of a plum tree, his arms folded across his wide chest, obliterated Ellie’s satisfaction and relief at once.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Well, I am Thornton’s groomsman.” He straightened away from the tree and started toward her. “I daresay my attendance at his wedding wasn’t any great surprise. You must have seen me inside the church.”
“You know quite well what I mean. What are you doing here, skulking about the garden?”
“Taking the air?” he suggested with an innocent demeanor that didn’t fool her for a second. “Admiring the roses?”
“Or spying on me,” she accused as he halted in front of her. “Poking and prying into my family’s affairs does seem to be your favorite sport these days.”
“Now, Ellie,” he began, but she cut him off.
“Do not call me Ellie. I am Lady Elinor to you, Mr. Blackthorne.”
If she expected this reminder that she was a peer’s daughter to set him down a notch, she was disappointed. “Is that sort of formality really necessary between friends? After all,” he added, moving a bit closer, “we’ve known each other half our lives.”
