“I cannot.” It had been so long since she’d last completed a single dance step. Not even at Mrs. Belden’s. And the only partner she’d ever known had been this man before her.
“I don’t understand,” Ainsley said, scratching at her brow. “You do know how to dance, don’t you?”
“Yes. No. Yes.” At the girl’s deepening confusion, Rowena drew in a slow breath. “Yes, I do know the steps,” she said evenly.
Ainsley clapped her hands enthusiastically. “Splendid. Well, then, Hampstead,” she said, tilting her chin at the floor. “Get on with it.”
“I cannot,” Rowena blurted. Not without risking memories of a past she’d spent so long burying. A past that every moment in Graham’s presence was slowly unearthing, leaving her confused and aching for everything that could never be. “Miss Hickenbottom and I were to visit Hyde Park for an art lesson, Your Grace.”
Ainsley’s horrified groan echoed around the ballroom. The young lady splayed her arms before her and dropped her head atop those folded limbs. “First, lessons on walking. Curtsying,” she cried. “Then dancing and forms of address and now this?”
Despite the strain between she and Graham, Rowena hid a smile. Her charge’s spirit was infectious, however. She folded her hands before her. “Da Vinci once said art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.”
Grumbling, Ainsley picked her head up. “You are using my Da Vinci against me, Mrs. Bryant. Not well-done of you.”
Mayhap not, but it was resourceful.
“I’d much rather see Hampstead’s attempt at a dancing lesson,” Ainsley unhelpfully supplied.
With guardian and ward seeming in dangerous collusion, Graham brought his arms back into the elegant position: regal, relaxed, and beautifully poised. How graceful he’d always been. Somehow, there was a new, even more refined elegance to his confident movements. Her breath quickened. “I daresay Hyde Park and art can wait until Miss Hickenbottom has a suitable lesson.” He glanced at Ainsley. “I promise you, Mrs. Bryant was fortunate enough to take dance lessons with one of the finest instructors in all of England.”
“Was he French?” Ainsley called back curiously.
“He was impossibly arrogant,” she supplied for him, earning a dangerous half-grin from Graham.
He settled his firm palm at her waist, and the heat of it sent delicious chills through her. “Undoubtedly,” he murmured in solemn assent, as she placed her right in his and the other on his shoulder.
The violinist struck his bow to the strings, and they began to dance. She briefly closed her eyes. The sandalwood scent of him filled her senses as their bodies moved in time. During the lessons she’d overseen at Mrs. Belden’s, Rowena had allowed herself to look at those sessions as nothing more than a chore. Just one more task and responsibility her future depended on. It had been far easier to view those dance classes in that capacity than to mourn all she’d lost. Not only her family and Graham... but the simple joy of dancing just to dance.
Oh, how she’d missed the joy in these steps. From the instant he had schooled her, laughing and joyous, through her first waltz, she’d been captivated by those movements, the thrill of it only deepened by his arms about her.
Faster, Graham. Faster.
“There is no shame in those backward steps,” Graham called over to Ainsley, slashing into Rowena’s memories of her girlhood urging.
Rowena glanced over at Ainsley keenly watching and tapping the tip of her boot to the one-two-three pattern. And Graham. She stole an upward peek. He was, as always, reserved and calm. In complete control, so at odds with the tumult running amok in her breast. But, then, he grinned, and her heart skittered a beat. She didn’t allow herself to fix on the regret and sadness spilling from his eyes but rather on this dizzying moment.
Graham increased the speed of their steps, and the violinist hurriedly matched his playing to those quick strides.
Her breath hastened. He remembers. Why must he show those glimpses and glimmers of who he’d been?
From the edge of the dance floor, Ainsley clapped wildly and laughed. “You are indeed a far better dance instructor than—”
“Mr. Turner to see you, Your Grace.”
They stumbled to an abrupt halt, and the violinist cut off his playing with a discordant hum of his instrument.
Jack Turner.
Silence blanketed the ballroom, thick and unending. Several inches past six feet, with a lean frame, the wan, blond-haired gentleman in the room bore but traces of a hint of the boy from her past.
He stared back at her, opening and closing his mouth as though he’d stumbled upon a ghost.
“Hampstead, your man-of-affairs is here, interrupting our fun.” And just like that, Ainsley effortlessly cut the tension in the room. The girl followed that admonishment with an insolent curtsy.
Graham was the first to move. He hurriedly released her. “Jack,” he called in greeting.
Slowly pulling his gaze from Rowena, Jack glanced over at him. Confusion lined the hard planes of his face. “You were late for our meeting,” he said finally. “I thought you’d had another...”
An awkward pall of silence descended among them that not even the usually loquacious Ainsley could break.
Rowena smoothed her palms over her brown skirts and sank into a curtsy, feeling much like a player on a Drury Lane stage without her lines. “Ja—” Ainsley flared her already hopelessly wide eyes. “Mr. Turner,” she swiftly amended. The girl was too astute for anyone’s good.
With an icy nod, Jack tersely greeted her. “Mrs. Bryant.” There was a condescending sneer to that slightly emphasized word that she’d have to be either deaf or a dullard to miss.
Graham stepped between them. “I’ll be along shortly, Jack.” The other man turned with jerky movements and exited, leaving them alone once more. “If you’ll excuse me?” He sketched a bow for each lady. There was a wealth of emotion in his eyes as he held her gaze. “Mrs. Bryant,” he finally said. “Miss Hickenbottom.” With that, he left.
Alone with her charge, Ainsley seethed. “I despise that man.”
The instructor-like response would be to take the girl to task for her unkind words for Graham’s man-of-affairs, in front of the violinist, no less. But in being away from Mrs. Belden, and in this household, set free from those constraints by first Graham and now this girl, she instead moved closer. Twelve years ago she’d have staunchly defended Jack to the death. Now, he was nothing more than a stranger. With a slight incline of her head, Rowena dismissed the balding, bespectacled violinist. He hopped to his feet, stuffed his instrument in his case, and darted off.
Memories slid forward of a long-ago day, when Graham had first been off to war. Jack’s visit to her family’s cottage. The unyielding power of his embrace as he’d forced a kiss on her... You would be lucky to have me as your husband, whore... She exhaled slowly. The frantic desperation as real now as it had been that moment. It had been solely a kiss, but the glint in his eyes, the barely restrained emotion there, had hinted at his darkness. That had been the last she’d seen of Jack. “Has Mr. Turner done something to insult you?” Rowena asked Ainsley cautiously.
“Every time I see him.”
“What has he...” Done. “Said to offend you?” she asked cautiously. Still, the tension remained in Rowena’s entire being.
“He’s offended everyone. Me. Wesley.” At Rowena’s questioning look, she clarified. “Hampstead’s butler. His valet.” Ainsley paused. “Hampstead.”
“His Grace?” Surprise pulled the question from her.
“Especially His Grace.” Ainsley slashed the air with her hand. “Don’t go here. Don’t go there. Musn’t be near people. Mustn’t have any friends.”
Questions whirred around Rowena’s mind, and she landed at no answer that made sense. “Why mustn’t he have friends?” What kind of miserable existence would Jack have Graham lead? And in the name of friendship, no less? Should I really be surprised given his disloyalty when Graham was off fi
ghting?
“Turner’s convinced Hampstead he’s mad.”
She reeled. “What?”
Ainsley nodded. “Mad. Corked in the brain. Not right in the nob.”
Rowena tried—and failed—to get words out as the pieces of a puzzle she’d put together over the years reassembled themselves. By his cold, hard exterior, she had been of the immediate opinion that Graham had shaped himself into an unfeeling duke after he’d found himself heir to that title. By what Ainsley shared now, and what she herself had witnessed on their carriage journey from Mrs. Belden’s and again at the Duke of Wilkshire’s card party, there was far more to Graham’s icy veneer. Was that why he’d never married? “How do you know this?” she ventured carefully.
Ainsley snorted. “Mrs. Bryant, I’ve been here with not even a companion underfoot. It took but two conversations between Hampstead and Turner to know.” She proceeded to tick off on her fingers. “One, His Grace has episodes. Two, Turner thinks he’s mad, and three, he’s managed to convince the duke he’s mad.”
What a cross the war had given him to bear. And how she despised it was a pain that would always be with him.
“And, now, Turner’s pushing Hampstead to wed a miserable, cold, unfeeling lady who wants nothing more than his title.”
That brought Rowena’s head snapping up. “What?” The word emerged on a breathless exhalation, dulled in her own ears by her suddenly pounding heart.
“Lady Serena. Wilkshire’s daughter.” The flawless, golden beauty playing a game of whist with him and the duke. All the breath stuck in Rowena’s lungs, frozen and painful. “I’m certain the schemer wants nothing more than his title.” Her charge firmed her lips and her eyes blazed with fire. “She is not his swan, Mrs. Bryant. Wholly unnatural and wrong for a person to go about marrying anything other than their swan.”
“Indeed,” she said, her voice faint. He was going to marry, and by Ainsley’s admission, he’d already selected the very woman he’d make his future duchess. That nasty, seething jealousy reared like a serpent inside, poised to strike.
“Mrs. Bryant, are you all right?”
No. The concerned inquiry, followed by a touch on Rowena’s forearm, brought her attention to the girl.
She forced a smile. “Fine,” she assured her. She had no place sitting here chatting with her charge about Rowena’s employer. “Come,” she urged, standing in a noisy rustle of taffeta skirts. “We agreed to an art lesson in the park.”
Ainsley eyed her warily. “And you promise it doesn’t involve anything French?”
“You have my assurance.” She waggled her eyebrows. “For today, at least.”
With Ainsley’s laughter echoing from the high ceilings, Rowena and her charge started from the ballroom. While Ainsley prattled on with a flurry of questions about the manner of artwork she preferred and despised, Rowena’s thoughts wandered.
Whom Graham married, and whom he considered friends, and how he lived his life were not her affair.
Yet, with every step, that silent assurance rang hollow.
Chapter 17
Having Jack stumble upon him dancing with Rowena was certain to elicit the other man’s shock. What Graham was wholly unprepared for as he entered his office was the visceral rage.
“What is the meaning of this?” Jack said by way of greeting, as soon as he closed the door.
No one else would have dared such an insolence in his presence. This, however, was Jack; a man he’d known since they were boys of seven, who’d also seen and stayed with him when he’d been reduced to tears and terror—over Rowena... the nightmares.
“Jack,” he drawled in icy tones that raised a dull flush to the other man’s cheeks.
His friend gestured to the books scattered about the desk.
Momentarily taken aback by that focus on the books and ledgers and not the earlier meeting with Rowena, Graham motioned to a nearby chair. “Please, sit.”
The other man had been as grounded in his hatred as Graham himself. So much so that he’d done everything to quash talk of the woman they’d once called friend.
But, then, Jack had been unwittingly deceived, too.
Strolling over to the sideboard, Graham set to work pouring himself a glass of brandy. Snifter in hand, he carried it over to his desk and sat.
“What in blazes is going on with you, Hampstead?” Jack unleashed. “What transpired in Wilkshire’s parlor in front of all Society has been written about in every scandal page. I spent the morning fielding angry questions from the duke about your intentions for his daughter.” He laid his palms on the one spare space on Graham’s desk. “I spent my morning assuring him that despite your lack of attention for his daughter that you intend to move forward with a formal arrangement.” His mouth tightened. “Only to come by to visit after last night’s fit”—Graham flinched at that shameful reminder—“and find you...” He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Dancing with her? And your desk in disarray. My God, man, what is happening to you? I don’t even recognize who you’ve be—”
“We were deceived, Jack,” he interrupted, and the other man ceased talking mid-speak.
A sound of impatience escaped him. “Of course we were. That is the point I sought to make.”
“Not by Rowena,” Graham clarified.
Jack hooded his lashes. “I don’t understand,” he said carefully.
It had been foolhardy to believe Jack would be so willing to welcome her within their fold. Taking a deep breath, Graham proceeded to tell him everything Rowena had revealed. When he’d finished, the hard planes of Jack’s face remained set in an unforgiving mask.
“I don’t believe her. She was a liar and a schemer and—”
“I saw the note, Jack,” he said impatiently. “It was in my hand.” A letter forged by his father to keep them apart.
All the color leeched from his friend’s cheeks. Jack brushed a shaking palm over his mouth. Then he let it fall to his lap. “Listen to yourself, Hampstead. She has neatly fed you lies, and you’ve so easily believed them, because you want them to be real,” he said with an earnestness that met his troubled eyes. “I understand that. She always had a hold on you. The lady is attempting to wheedle her way back into your affections.”
Fighting his exasperation, Graham grabbed a ledger and stood. “Look at this.” He held the book out.
“What?” Jack asked, not even looking at the aged leather record kept by the late duke’s man-of-affairs.
“Look at it.” He forced the book into the other man’s hands.
Muttering to himself, his friend took it with all the enthusiasm of one being handed a burning coal. Jack skimmed the page, and then glanced at him over the top of the ledger. “What am I looking for?”
Graham tipped his chin. “The thirtieth of September.”
Returning his scrutiny to that page, Jack moved his gaze down the column—and then froze.
“There is an unmarked column, with nothing more than a monetary value,” he said, reclaiming his seat. “A fifteen-pound sum.” Fifteen pounds each month is what they’d sold their souls and their daughter’s life for. Burning with the need for liquid fortitude, Graham grabbed his glass and took a swallow.
Several lines creased his man-of-affair’s brow, as he puzzled over that same portion of the ledger. “Perhaps your father’s last man-of-affairs was sloppy. Perhaps he was in a hurry and failed to make the necessary notation—”
“Rowena’s parents received a monthly payment for their cooperation.” He set his glass down hard. And their silence. Loathing filled him for the woman who’d given birth to Rowena, who’d so easily abandoned her to the cold world.
What should she have done, Graham? Defied the duke who threatened her family...?
Filled with a restiveness, he grabbed another book. He shoved it over. “Take it.”
Reluctantly, Jack swiped the ledger off the edge of Graham’s desk.
“The thirtieth—”
“I see it, Hamps
tead,” his friend said curtly.
If that were the case, then, why could the other man not truly see? Because Jack had lived more than a decade believing a lie. Graham had naively failed to consider just how difficult it would be for the obstinate man to set aside a lifetime of wariness where Rowena was concerned. To give his fingers something to do, he picked up his glass and rolled it between his palms. “She doesn’t wish to be here.” And I do not want her to leave.
Jack thinned his eyes into narrow slits. “As I told you when you returned with her. She sees a way to become your duchess. This is all part of her scheme,” he said at last, returning the book. “There are no markings as to where those funds went.”
Graham stared back incredulously. “Surely, you are not indicating that Rowena knew the precise amount paid her family, and then that same sum should be marked each month in my father’s old ledgers?”
“I know you were always weak where she was concerned,” Jack said bluntly.
Graham fell back in his seat. The other man believed Rowena’s was nothing more than a ruthless game, orchestrated by a clever schemer. I would have believed that very thing about her a short while ago. But everything had changed. Just as she said, however, he should have believed in her, regardless of those notes.
At his silence, Jack hardened his mouth. “I understand you wish to return to the way we were as children.” He held Graham’s gaze squarely. “But we are no longer children, and we can never go back.” We can never go back. But mayhap they could begin again. His friend pulled his shoulders back. “Find another companion for the girl.”
Battling down the furious energy inside, Graham took another drink. If Jack hadn’t stood beside him through the darkest times in his life, he would have tossed him out on his arse long ago. “I’ve already told you, the matter is settled. Rowena is staying.”
Schooling the Duke (The Heart of a Scandal, #1) Page 22
