by Julia Quinn
“Is it?” he countered, holding her fast. “The facts suggest otherwise.”
“Facts? What facts?”
“You’re here, aren’t you? Coming to me just as you used to do. What else can I conclude but that you still care for me?”
“Coming here was nothing more than a tactic.”
“Yes, a tactic of seduction. Granted, it was the same tactic I used on you the day of Kipp and Cordelia’s wedding, but I wouldn’t have succeeded if you didn’t still have feelings for me. Face it, Ellie,” he added, smiling as she began to sputter, “you still want me.”
“Of all the conceited, smug, arrogant . . .” She paused, clearly having run out of adjectives, and took a deep breath. “Any tender regard I felt for you,” she said at last, “ended six months ago when I was forced to face the truth. You have no loyalty, only ambition.”
“What?” He was so startled by that accusation that his grip slackened, allowing her the chance to jerk free.
“You needn’t look as if it’s a revelation,” she went on as she stepped back, out of his reach. “You want to talk of facts? Very well. When you heard these old rumors about my father and you questioned him about it, he swore he was innocent.”
“And I suppose I should have just taken his word?”
“Well, you didn’t, did you? Instead, you went to Peel and regaled him with this . . . this gossip, and used it to finagle a position in the Home Office, even arranging to put yourself in charge of investigating the matter.”
“I didn’t finagle anything. Peel offered me the position.”
“And you took it. And you don’t find that disloyal?”
Lawrence couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So, because the Home Secretary entrusted me to investigate this, I am a slave to ambition? Because I do not choose to ignore evidence or just take your father’s word, I am disloyal?”
“What evidence? I still haven’t seen it. But whatever so-called evidence you have, it was surely manufactured by his enemies, men who betrayed him—”
“Not enemies, Ellie,” he shot back, then stopped, realizing he’d almost given Hammersmith away. Cursing himself, he took a deep breath. “You don’t really believe your father is a victim of persecution by enemies, do you?”
“Yes, I do. Papa swore to you that he was innocent. He swore it on my mother’s grave. He would never have made such a vow if he were guilty. Family is everything to us. Everything. I thought you would be part of that family, but you put your own ambitions first. That is what makes you disloyal.”
“It wasn’t ambition. It was duty.”
“You betrayed my father,” she went on, ignoring his reply. “And when you did that, you also betrayed me, Lawrence. Don’t you understand? You betrayed me. And you didn’t have enough trust in me to show me your evidence and prove your case to me.”
“I can’t show you my evidence. You’re his daughter, for God’s sake.”
“If you don’t trust me, how could you ever expect me to trust you?”
With that, she turned and fled the folly, leaving him and the cold comfort of his duty behind her.
Chapter 6
Ellie spent a long, restless night, haunted by what had happened in the garden and Lawrence’s voice echoing again and again through her mind.
You’re a devil.
She rolled to her other side, trying to banish him from her mind so she could sleep, but despite her efforts, his voice continued to taunt her.
You’re set on marrying another man when it’s clear you still have feelings for me.
“That man is so damnably conceited,” she muttered, pulling the counterpane higher around her shoulders. “And arrogant. And disloyal.”
Unfortunately, these reminders of Lawrence’s defects did not put him out of her thoughts, and Ellie appreciated that the tactic she’d employed in her attempt to regain her sixpence had rather come back to bite her.
A tactic of seduction.
She groaned in exasperation, grabbed her spare pillow, and pressed it over her ear, a futile effort.
Face it, Ellie. You still want me.
Waves of heat washed over her—the heat of embarrassment and desire. She tossed aside the pillow and flung back the counterpane, but even those actions did not cool her blood. Even here in the privacy of her room, she couldn’t hide from the events of a few hours ago.
Ellie pressed her fingers to her tingling lips, hot, dark desires thrumming through her body. She tried to suppress them, but they would not be suppressed, and as the night gave way to dawn, she was forced to face the fact that Lawrence was right.
She did still want him, in spite of everything. She thought of the day they’d met, when she’d stood soaking wet and spitting mad in the middle of a Berkshire stream, staring into the handsome, laughing face of the boy on the riverbank. She’d lost her heart to that boy, and even now, nearly fifteen years later, she still hadn’t gotten it back.
What a humiliating realization.
Still, it didn’t change anything. Ellie sat up, flinging back the bedsheets in defiance, and got out of bed. Last night was over, she reminded herself as she tugged the bellpull to summon her maid. No matter what stupid desire for him might still be lingering within her, Lawrence could never be hers. He could never be part of her life. He was the enemy, determined to ruin her father, and the only hope she had of stopping him was to marry Lord Bluestone, but that plan seemed to be slipping out of her grasp, a possibility that was only further emphasized a short time later when she went down to breakfast and found no letter from the viscount by her plate.
As she sorted through her other correspondence, she tried to tell herself the fact that he had left her no word before leaving didn’t mean a thing. His departure had been precipitated by a tragedy, and she couldn’t expect him to think of penning explanations for her benefit in such circumstances.
And yet, even as she reminded herself of these things, her sense of foreboding only deepened, and she was impelled to go through her correspondence again. But a second search proved futile, and at last, she shoved her letters aside with a sigh.
“Oh my dear, you mustn’t worry,” Bunty said, correctly interpreting the meaning of that sigh. “Bluestone did depart for Somerset only yesterday. He’ll write before long, I’m sure.”
He’s not the sort for letters.
Ellie sighed again, a sigh of aggravation. This business of remembering every scrap of Lawrence’s conversation had to stop or she’d go mad.
“I’m sure he will,” she replied, trying to sound as cheerful as possible, but when she looked up, she found her father’s concerned gaze watching her over the top of his newspaper, and she had to look away again at once. “Have all the papers arrived?” she asked, desperate to change the subject.
“They have,” Bunty replied. “Your father has Punch. And I have the Times. But the other papers are just there,” she added, gesturing with her own paper to the stack at the end of the table.
Ellie glanced at the other two papers, but she couldn’t work up a scrap of interest in either. Her own problem seemed far graver than any news of the day. She began reading her letters, but that exercise was no more effective a distraction from her problem or the cause of it.
She’d never believed—not really—that the coin had the power to control the ability of her and her friends to marry, but recent events had given her cause to wonder. Ever since Lawrence had taken the sixpence, her matrimonial plans had gone awry. She feared that if she didn’t get the coin back, rumors about Peel’s committee would start flying about, and both she and her father would become social pariahs, subject to all manner of condemnation and ridicule. Papa might even be arrested.
She tried to shake off such a gloomy scenario. Everything that had happened to waylay her plans was likely nothing more than coincidence. But even so, she thought with renewed indignation, there was the principle of the thing. The sixpence was hers, damn it all, and Beatrice’s, too. Lawrence had had no right to take it. A
nd if she didn’t get the coin back and she didn’t marry, it would be just like Lawrence to bring it to every party or ball she attended from now until kingdom come, waving it in her face and crowing about his victory.
It wasn’t to be borne.
Perhaps she could burgle his house. Ellie considered that possibility as she ate her breakfast, but after several minutes, she was forced to set the idea aside. Granted, he probably only carried the sixpence with him when he knew he’d have the chance to tease her with it, but still, burgling his house would never work. His aunt had at least a dozen servants.
Perhaps she could write to him, offering another bargain? The problem was that, try as she might, she couldn’t see Lawrence agreeing to any bargain she might propose. Why should he? A trade of some sort seemed an equally remote possibility. What did she have that Lawrence might want?
The moment she asked herself that question, Ellie’s lips began to tingle, and her body flooded with heat. For heaven’s sake, she thought, and reached for a newspaper to hide behind. Reliving last night’s events was an exercise in humiliation she could well do without.
Bunty’s chuckle of laughter interrupted her thoughts, and Ellie seized on the distraction like a lifeline. “I didn’t realize the Times could be so amusing, Auntie Bunty,” she said, peeking over her paper to look at the woman opposite. “What are you reading?”
“The advertisements column. I always find it most entertaining. Listen to this.” The older woman leaned a bit closer to Ellie across the table, holding up the paper. “‘Experienced lady’s maid seeks well-paid post with gentlewoman. Willing to travel in her mistress’s service.’ I daresay she would,” Bunty added, looking up. “Who wouldn’t? I wonder if these girls realize how cheeky they appear? Well-paid post with gentlewoman, and willing to travel, indeed!”
“But if she is experienced,” the earl put in, looking up from Punch, “wouldn’t she be entitled to expect a well-paid post?”
“Of course not, Daventry,” Bunty countered. “Don’t be absurd.” With that, she returned her attention to the paper in her hand, leaving the earl looking utterly confounded.
“No experienced lady’s maid would advertise in the Times, Papa,” Ellie explained as she gestured for the footman to pour her more tea. “Not if she has letters of character.”
“I don’t see why not. An advertisement seems a perfectly sensible way to go about finding a post.”
“But not for a lady’s maid,” Bunty said. “Not in the Times. The only paper suitable for such advertisements is La Belle Assemblée.”
“Ah.” Enlightened at last, Daventry lost interest and returned his attention to his own paper, while Bunty resumed sharing snippets from the London Times with Ellie.
“‘False teeth for sale. Genuine hippopotamus ivory.’ Why anyone would want someone else’s discarded teeth, I can’t imagine. ‘Portraits painted by talented young artist. Prices reasonable.’ And an address in Soho—well, we know what that means, don’t we? Portraits, indeed!”
“I’m not even going to ask,” Daventry murmured from behind Punch, his wry voice making Ellie smile.
“‘Respectable young woman desires correspondence with worthy young man. Intention, matrimony.’ You see, Daventry? It’s just as I told you. Cheeky, these girls. Bold as brass nowadays. What can one do with them, I ask you?”
“I am impelled to take issue with that point,” the earl put in, lowering his paper a notch. “My Ellie is a model of propriety and modesty. Nothing overly bold about her.”
Once again, Ellie felt her body tingling and her face growing hot, and she ducked behind her newspaper as Bunty hastened to reassure her father about her virtuous nature.
“Of course, I wasn’t referring to dear Ellie, Lord Daventry. Why, she’s as modest and proper a girl as any father could hope to have.”
Ellie grimaced, feeling neither modest nor proper, for last night’s events—Lawrence’s arms around her and the bold way she’d pressed her body against his and parted her lips beneath his—were all still vivid in her mind. Her behavior, she appreciated in hot chagrin, had been downright wanton.
“‘Experienced first housemaid wanted,’” Bunty’s voice reading advertisements once again floated past her. “‘Impeccable letters of character required. Apply in person, Seventy-eight Cavendish Square.’”
Ellie jerked upright in her chair and lowered her paper, diverted at last from last night’s embarrassing events. “Seventy-eight Cavendish Square?” she asked, feeling a jolt of excitement. “Seventy-eight?”
“Yes,” Bunty answered, seeming surprised by the sudden animation of her voice. “Why do you ask?”
At once, Ellie donned an expression of disinterest. “No reason,” she lied, once again taking refuge behind the Daily Mail. “No reason at all.”
Two hours later, Ellie stood in the belowstairs sitting room of Mrs. Pope, housekeeper to Lady Agatha Standish, hoping she looked convincing as the sober, respectable, and thoroughly fictional housemaid Jane Halloway.
Mrs. Pope was a redoubtable woman of sixty-odd, whose stout proportions and iron gray dress conveyed the impression of an unsinkable battleship, and under her shrewd blue gaze, Ellie had to fight the urge to wriggle like a guilt-ridden little girl. Mrs. Pope, she appreciated, looked as if she ate deceitful housemaids for breakfast.
Still, Ellie thought, she was an earl’s daughter, and there was little the housekeeper of Lawrence’s great-aunt could do to her. If caught, she would simply claim it was all a prank. And it wasn’t likely she’d be caught.
She glanced down as the other woman’s silent scrutiny lengthened, reassuring herself that her appearance was convincing. She’d borrowed the dress of plain gray cotton, sensible black boots, and knitted white gloves from a maid in her own father’s household, and her bonnet of unadorned straw was the plainest, oldest one she owned. There was nothing about her appearance that might expose her as a fraud. And she intended to accomplish her mission here and be gone before anyone could appreciate that she had little familiarity with the specific duties of housemaids.
“You were thought of quite highly in your previous post,” Mrs. Pope commented, looking up from the letter of character in her hand, her voice so dry that Ellie feared she might have overdone the praise of her abilities.
“Lady Elinor Daventry is a generous lady, ma’am,” she murmured.
“Humph.” That sound of skepticism took Ellie back a bit, but the housekeeper spoke again before she could speculate as to its cause. “I confess, I am curious. Why did the earl’s housekeeper not provide your reference? That is the usual way these things are done, you know.”
Ellie, who hadn’t known any such thing, nodded. “Yes, ma’am, but Mrs. Overton is . . . ahem . . .” She coughed, inventing quickly. “. . . laid up.”
“She is ill?” Mrs. Pope’s brows lifted a fraction. “Too ill to write a character?”
It did sound unlikely. “Broken arm, ma’am. So, of course, she can’t write anything at present, and she asked Lady Elinor to compose my character. Lady Elinor didn’t mind a bit,” she added truthfully. “She’s ever so nice, Lady Elinor.”
Mrs. Pope, much to Ellie’s chagrin, gave a dubious sniff. “If you say so, though there’s few in this house who would agree. A more fickle little minx was never seen, if you ask anyone here. Jilting a nice, handsome young man like Mr. Blackthorne . . . disgraceful, that’s what I call it.”
Stung, Ellie opened her mouth to refute that inaccurate and most unfair account of her break with Lawrence, but thankfully, Mrs. Pope spoke again before she could defend either her actions or her character.
“In light of that, I’m a bit concerned how you would fit in here, Jane. Your high opinion of your former mistress does you credit, of course, but it won’t go down well in this house, as you might understand.”
Ellie swallowed her pride and forced herself to offer the meekest possible reply. “No, ma’am. But,” she added, pressing a hand to her bosom and striving to look the pictu
re of earnest sincerity, “if I might address your concern, I feel strongly that my first loyalty should always be to my present employer.”
“I see. And you’re sure you won’t miss living in the country most of the year? This house is Lady Agatha’s only residence.”
Ellie’s eyes widened in a pretense of innocence. “Oh no, ma’am. I prefer London. As I said earlier in our interview, my aunt who lives here is ill, and being so far from her for most of the year is the very reason I decided to leave the Earl of Daventry’s employment and seek a position in town.”
Much to her relief, Mrs. Pope gave a nod. “Very well, then,” she said as she folded the letters and stood up. “The post is yours. You will share with Betsy, second housemaid. I will introduce you to her, and she will show you your room. You can meet the remaining staff at luncheon.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ellie couldn’t help a grin and a gleeful little skip as she followed the other woman out of the sitting room. This part of her plan, at least, had been easy as winking. Her only regret was that she wouldn’t be able to see Lawrence’s face when he discovered the coin was no longer in his possession.
Perhaps at the next ball, she would be able to show him where it had gone, and as she contemplated the idea of standing across the ballroom floor from him, flipping her sixpence into the air and giving him the same sort of smirk he’d given her, she found it an enormously satisfying prospect.
Lawrence stared out the window of his carriage as it made the turn at Charing Cross, but though he was only minutes from his offices at Whitehall, his mind was not on his work.
That fateful January day when he had broken their engagement and walked away, he’d been sure he’d never hold her in his arms or taste her lips again. He’d striven to get over her, and he thought he had, but now he knew he’d only been fooling himself.
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the seat, reliving yet again those intoxicating moments in Lady Atherton’s garden. Even eleven cold and sleepless hours later, he could still feel the soft press of her lips and taste the sweetness of her mouth. Just the memory of her body against his was enough to send desire flooding through him and rekindle all the yearning he’d spent the past six months keeping at bay.
