by Vanessa Kelly, Christi Caldwell, Theresa Romain, Shana Galen
This again. Lovely. “My family never had much respect for me. Why do you think I asked Poppy to pretend to be engaged to me? I knew you’d never listen to me on my own, even if I was trying to crown you King of England.”
“You were right about that.” Bernard held the small stone in his palm. “You wanted to pack me off, away from where I want to be.”
“If you say so.” Leo didn’t have the energy to say more. The Marquess of Nithsdale…hell. He hated that the man had assaulted Poppy. Had used his size and social position to take instead of protect.
Leo would protect her, even though she didn’t want him. He had always wanted the best for her. And so he would make inquiries. Surely Nithsdale had debts. Unsavory connections. Something that would break his social power and leave him as vulnerable as he’d once found Poppy.
Not that his engagement to Poppy had been real, but it had felt real. And she had severed it. Not only severed, but chopped up and set fire to the pieces.
“I used to be a lot like you.” Bernard dropped the jade marble into his other palm, then back again.
The chair legs thumped to the floor. “Really. How was that? Two eyes, two hands, and all that?”
“I was stubborn.”
“Sorry to disillusion you, but you haven’t changed.”
Back and forth, Bernard tipped the marble between his hands. “I took others for granted. My home. The people I relied on. I didn’t appreciate them until they were no longer.”
“And what would indicate to you that I don’t appreciate them?”
Green eyes, green as the jade marble, fixed on Leo’s face. “You left.”
“And the fortune I made will, ultimately, save the dukedom from insolvency.”
“You let Poppy go.”
Leo looked toward the window, wishing Poppy were still standing before it. “That I don’t have an easy answer for. She chose to go, and I chose to let her.” He caught his uncle’s eye. “She’s been forced before.” He stared at the older man until understanding crossed Bernard’s features. Understanding, and then sorrow. “I’m not going to force her in any way.”
Once more, Bernard tilted his hand—and this time, the jade marble fell back into the dish. “Not force her hand, no. But you could tip it.”
Leo leveled a glare at his uncle. “To what end? She’s carrying another man’s child. Would you have me pack the baby off to the country and ask for her hand, pretending the child never existed?”
“Is that what you would want to do?”
“It’s not what she would want, that’s for certain. And I won’t ask her to choose between me and a child of her own body.”
“Why would she have to choose?”
When had Bernard become so calm? And so chatty? “Why wouldn’t she have to?” He shook his head. “Are you suggesting I—Uncle. You would have me wed a pregnant woman? What about Westfair and everything that’s due to it? History and legacy and propriety and all that?”
“As I said. Stubborn. Westfair won’t keep you company. Westfair certainly won’t make you laugh.”
Bernard dragged his hands through his brittle candy-floss hair. “I said I always thought you had no respect for the family, but I wasn’t fair to you. You went away because Richard all but made it impossible for you not to. And you went away for the sake of Poppy’s happiness—yes, I know what Richard asked of you. I knew only that you’d taken money when you left, but now I see how much you’ve brought back.”
Leo frowned. “Marbles to throw? A clock to interrupt everyone’s thoughts?”
Bernard laced his thin fingers together, resting them on the desk. “You’re working hard. In your own way. And if a duke can’t work in his own way, who can?”
Leo tilted his head, regarding the old man. Such a familiar face, speaking such unfamiliar words. “Why, Uncle Bernard, it sounds as though you’re trying to make peace with me.”
A belligerent expression crossed the old man’s face.
“There it is. That’s the uncle I know.”
“I told you I was stubborn too.” Bernard looked at his hands. “You know…everything you’ve done for the dukedom, six years ago and now…it’s all been bound up with Poppy Hayworth.”
“I suppose it has. But what good is that? It’s not as if there’s a ledger, and if I tick enough lines on it, Poppy will come back.”
“Why shouldn’t she?”
Stubborn? That was putting the matter mildly. Leo’s teeth were on edge. “Because she doesn’t want to. Poppy knows I wanted to marry her. I’m the one who invited her out and who chased after her at Vauxhall. More than once.”
“An impressive list. But that won’t keep you company or make you laugh either.”
Leo rolled his eyes. “I never thought it would. I’m just telling you that if she wanted to stay, she would have.”
“Would she?” Bernard looked up, and his eyes were like a mirror. “Does she know you wanted to marry her, or that you want to?”
Leo goggled. “She…”
“She came after you, Leo. Today. She came for you, so I’d think well of you and you’d be free of her.”
“But…”
“But if you can’t finish a sentence, I won’t. And if you don’t look beyond the dukedom, I won’t think well of you either.”
“But I…” Leo silenced himself. Thought about it. So many times he and Bernard had faced each other, hostile because of their differences. Yet they were all the family left to each other, and damned if Leo hadn’t always wished that those who shared his blood would respect him. “Everything you’ve said about the worth of Westfair, and how I am a disappointment…”
“Everything I’ve said about Westfair is true. But it’s nothing without someone you love.” Bernard attempted a smile, rusty. “Otherwise, you wind up like me, clinging to responsibilities that aren’t even your own.”
His smile fell, and he looked every one of his seventy-five years and more. “Since you came back, I’ve been seeing you through the old eyes still.”
“You have old eyes,” Leo said. “I didn’t expect anything else.”
“Not so old they have become fossil. I was wrong. Poppy’s kindness showed me how unkind I’d become. And you’ve been showing the family all along what sort of a man you are. Why you left, how you came back. What you’re doing to solve the problems Richard left behind.” Again, he tried out the creaky little smile. “You know, you’ve been away from Society for six years. What do you truly care for it?”
An idea began to grow in Leo’s mind. Just a germ, but it carried the promise of something bright. “Do you mean, Uncle, that I ought to marry who I wish?”
“If a duke can’t marry who he wishes, who can?”
Poppy was a gentleman’s daughter. And if he married her at once, there would be no question that he accepted the child as his own.
And yet. “What if she bears a son?”
Bernard raised his brows, as if to say, The decision is yours.
For it was, for all Leo hadn’t taken his role as duke to heart yet. He wasn’t just the black sheep, prodigal brother anymore. He was His Grace the Duke of Westfair, and the world gave a great weight to decisions made by such a person.
“If she bears a son, then we’ll raise him as a Billingsley,” Leo decided. “As dear as if he’s our own blood.” He shoved to his feet. “I have to find her. Where is she now?”
“Didn’t you hear that part? She’s performing tonight at Vauxhall. It’s the grand ball.”
Leo cast a glance out the window. It was late afternoon, the sun in a lazy fall toward the horizon. Even so, it would be hours before dark, hours more before Poppy took to the tightrope.
Hours enough to complete an errand? Yes, he thought so. If he hurried.
“I have to go,” he blurted, already striding toward the door.
“I thought you might need to,” said Bernard. “Go on, then. I know you’ll be back. And Leo?”
Leo turned, questioning.
“I’ll sign whatever you need me to.”
Leo recognized this as an outstretched hand. An attempt at a bridge. And so he offered the same in return. “I don’t need you to sign anything, Uncle. It was only ever so you’d feel secure enough to leave. But if you feel secure enough to stay…well, that’s all right too.”
He turned back to the door, then thought of one more thing. “But never compare me to Richard again.”
As he left the study, Bernard’s creaky laugh sounded in his ears.
* * *
The fireworks would begin at the stroke of midnight, and once again Poppy would perform on the wire with their colorful explosions in the sky. Below, London’s elite and less wealthy would be dressed in their best for the prince’s grand ball, the climax of the recent celebrations.
With no balance pole, Poppy was determined to avoid the near-disaster of the previous night—although the brothers Barrett had complimented it as wonderfully exciting. Poppy had contrived a substitute pole from a spade, to the handle end of which she had tied an ax-head. It wasn’t nearly as long or as heavy as what she preferred, but she’d taken a few practice steps on the wire and felt steadier than she had on her own.
Now she had only to wait for the moment, to perform as though she carried her heart within. As though she hadn’t left it behind her once again in Leo’s keeping, knowing it was for the best that she ask for nothing in return.
It was better to perch on the tiny platform, shivering in the summer wind, above all of that.
So long had she stood, then sat, then stood again, waiting for her cue, that at first she credited the voice to her imagination. “Poppy!” came a call, backed by silvery strings. “Poppy!”
But no one here called her Poppy. Except…
Gingerly, she leaned forward to peer over the edge of the platform. No one was calling her name from the ground, and she sat back on her heels, unaccountably disappointed.
Then the call came again, slightly closer. “Poppy!”
Behind her! She pivoted, then looked down the stretching height of the mast.
And her mouth fell open. Leo Billingsley, Duke of Westfair, who had been afraid of heights all his life, was making his way, rung by rung, up the mast. With an eight-yard wooden pole strapped to his body and sticking up like the branch of a great tree.
She pressed her hands to her mouth, strangling a cry. She must have uttered some sound, for he looked up at her. Just for an instant, but even in that flash she could see the unusual paleness of his strained face.
“Hullo, Poppy,” he called up. “Forgive me if I don’t look up or down. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
His progress was halting and slow, so it was several minutes before he reached the top of the mast. They were minutes of an orchestral piece, calm and sweeping, as Poppy bit her nails and wondered whether it was better to climb down to him—and why he was here at all.
Then he was up to the top rung, his head tipped up at the level of her knees. The pole fastened at his back reached high into the night sky.
Leo closed his eyes, breath coming short and harsh, but somehow, he managed to sound like his glib, delightful self.
“Sorry that took so long. I thought you might need this. I hope it’s the sort you like. I had the broken pieces from the night of the masked ball, and I brought them to a carpenter who said he could make a pole just the same.”
“Oh, Leo.” Her voice broke. She drew the balance pole from its binding, hand over hand, testing its pliant length. Turning it horizontally to stretch across the span of her arms, its own weight drawing the ends downward.
Then she set it down across the platform, holding it gently in place with one slippered foot.
“It’s not right?” Leo’s face fell.
“It’s exactly right. It—it feels like a part of me.” She wrapped her hands around her bare arms. “Thank you. It’s a lovely farewell.”
His hands were tight as claws on the top rung, yet he managed to look affronted. “A farewell? Poppy, it’s nothing of the sort. A farewell gift, I’d give to you on the ground. I’d wait as long as possible to give you a farewell gift.”
She sank to the platform, keeping a careful hold on the balance pole. “But you are going to Sussex.”
“Only if you go to France. Well—perhaps I’ll go to Sussex even if you don’t go to France, but above all, I’d like to go where you go. I can be Westfair just as well from Sussex. Or”—he eyed her thoughtfully—“from farther away.”
She smiled, wistful. “Not from as far away as France.” But the idea was a sweet one, all the same. “What is this, then, if not a good-bye? More of your unwarranted kindness?”
“Nothing of the sort. It’s a bribe,” he said. “No. Forget I said that. It’s an engagement present, if you’ll let it be.”
“An engagement…” Her hand fluttered before her abdomen. “No. It can’t be. Leo, I can’t marry you while I’m pregnant with another man’s child.”
“Answer me honestly, Poppy.” His green eyes were bright in the starry lamplight of Vauxhall. “Did you ever choose to be with a man before me?”
“Did I choose? No. But—”
“Then your child must be my child too. It is the only possibility. And since that’s the case, you must see that we ought to be wed as soon as possible.”
The music had altered; the bell had rung for the start of the fireworks. “I don’t understand.” She wanted to understand, and badly. “You are a duke. You need the best for Westfair.”
He must have had his heart in his throat, climbing to a place that terrified him, but where she felt safe. He gave her the means to walk away from him on a wire, secure as ever.
“You are wiser than I am.” His face was gilded by moonlight, familiar as night itself. “It was easier for me to concoct a scheme than to make things right. But you were never satisfied with less. You dance on a wire, and you charm my uncle. You do things I never thought possible. My brother respected you. I want to be better because of you. I love you, Poppy, and if our engagement were real, I could imagine no greater joy.”
Her heart thundered so she could hardly hear her own voice. “But Leo, we—”
“And since you are so wise,” he broke in, “and you know that Westfair requires the best, then you must know that includes you, Poppy, as Her Grace the duchess. If you’ll agree. I know you have your heart set on a cottage in France—”
“I have my heart set,” she interrupted, “on you. If your plans can change, so can mine. Are you sure Ubie won’t mind?”
He waved a hand, a gesture that caught him by surprise and made him waver and grimace and clutch tightly again to the rung. When he collected himself, he replied, “My uncle loves you better than he loves me. And if he ever changes his mind about that, can you doubt that I’d boot him aside?”
The sky lit in green and gold and red, and she fairly burst with joy. Perhaps there was a crowd below, cheering as she kissed the Duke of Westfair. Or perhaps they were the only people in the world.
A particularly loud boom drew her back to the present. “Leo.” She breathed in the scent of his skin. “I have to perform now. Will you be all right climbing down?”
“As opposed to following you across the wire?” he asked dryly. “I’ll take the first option.”
“Then I’ll see you on the ground.”
“If they’ll allow me through. Did you know your guard went off and got married? He’s back now, and his bride is keeping the crowd away with a vengeance.”
A memory rang like a faint bell. Her guard, flirting at a distance. “Is she a rather plump woman who laughs a lot?”
“Indeed, she is.”
Maybe the guard had never had to be bribed to leave his post. Maybe he left of his own accord. She wasn’t sure which reason would make him a worse guard, but at this point, it didn’t matter. She unfolded slowly to her feet, like a bloom, then bent to take up the balance pole in both hands.
Leo looked up at her, smiling. “Poppy H
ayworth, the earth is too ordinary for you.”
“Nonsense,” she laughed. “There’s much to love about the sky, but all my favorite people live on earth. Or they will, once one of them makes his way down the mast.”
And as the Prince Regent’s fireworks turned the dark sky to spangles of brightness, she held out the pole and took a step—and there was the rope, right where she expected it to be.
Here was her farewell to Vauxhall, with a leap and a twirl and a joy that soared. But it wasn’t the end at all.
It was a beginning. And now that midnight had passed, it was a new day.
Epilogue
* * *
Three years later
Sussex
“The duchess,” Bernard grumbled, “is sliding down the banister again.”
Leo looked up from his stack of correspondence. “If she does it, then I don’t have to.”
Poppy twirled as she entered the drawing room. “All the better to join you for tea more quickly. You know perfectly well you find me charming.”
Leo discarded his quill and stood up from the writing desk. “I do indeed.”
“Oh, I suppose so. But you are late even so,” Bernard pointed out. “Yet tea is at the same time every day.”
“So it is,” she said mildly. “But little girls don’t always finish their stories about ponies when one expects, and baby boys don’t take kindly to being separated from their meal.”
The daughter born five months after their marriage had, Leo supposed, given rise to much gossip since Leo hadn’t been in England at the time of her conception. Or had he? Whenever someone attempted to pose the question, he feigned ignorance. Innocence. Because surely someone outside the family would not pry into a duke’s most personal affairs.
His devotion to their little girl—named Clara, after Poppy’s mother—was not feigned in the slightest.
Two years after Clara’s birth, a fine son was born. The future Duke of Westfair was a hungry baby with a smile for everyone and a remarkable ability to soil his napkin just after it was changed.
