by Darcy Burke
Ronan braced his hands against the desk, trying to remain calm knowing that even little old Lady Waverly knew to send him money in order to get what she wanted. It made him feel like the whore he was.
Smacking the ledger shut, he shouted out to wherever his uncle was in the house, “I’ll mind you not to open my goddamn letters! You don’t live here. Remember?!”
“I’m not deaf, boy!” his uncle boomed from behind him. “And forgive me but I got rather used to opening your correspondences after you’ve been gone for thirteen months. I only realized it after I opened it. It won’t happen again.”
Ronan swung toward his uncle who stood in the doorway. “Thank you.” He paused, finding the man holding a small box with a white satin bow fussily tied around it.
Ronan shifted toward him. “What the devil is that?”
“A box with a white satin bow on it.”
Ronan rolled his eyes. “I can see that. What is it? Is it for you?”
“I don’t live here, remember? No. It’s not for me. It’s for you. It arrived when I was downstairs reading the newspaper.”
God save him if some woman was trying to wedge her way into his life. “Who is it from?”
His uncle fingered the small, ivory card tucked beneath the bow. He lowered his gaze to it and read, “To Lord Caldwell. Compliments of Lady Caroline.”
His breath caught. She didn’t. “She sent something?”
His uncle held his gaze. “I don’t know. Did she?” He turned on his booted heel and veered out of sight in the direction of the stairs.
Ronan dashed after him, skidding out into the corridor. “Is it from her or not?”
His uncle kept on walking, only with a bit more swagger. “Why? Are you going to wrestle me for it?”
Which meant it was from Caroline. Jogging in from behind the man, Ronan said, “Don’t be annoying. Hand it over.”
His uncle came to an abrupt halt and turned toward him, a rowdy grin ruffling his lips. “You’re in love with her. Aren’t you?”
Ronan’s mouth went dry. “No. I don’t…no. I’m…no.”
Those brown eyes brightened. “And that is the very best sort of love to stumble into. One you didn’t see coming. Go on. Go to her. You know how smitten the girl is. It’s disgusting.”
Ronan shifted his jaw. “She is young and doesn’t know what she wants.”
“Women always know what they want. No matter how old or young. Now matter how misguided or true it be. They know. Believe me, they know.” His uncle paused. “She is incredibly pretty.”
Too pretty. In all but three years, she had become a goddess. “I won’t argue with you on that.”
“Nice, full mouth. Imagine what she could do with it.”
Ronan glared and punched his uncle’s shoulder hard, hoping that it damn well hurt. “What the devil is wrong with you?! Don’t talk about her like that. It’s disturbing.”
His uncle rubbed his arm and ambled back. “Something tells me you’re taking her to Paris this summer to meet Beatrice.”
“Enough.” Grabbing the box out of his uncle’s hands, Ronan stared at the white satin bow, his pulse drumming. In some way, he was afraid to open it. It would be like opening the door to what she wanted: a relationship. Something he had never allowed for. Something he refused to allow for.
He swallowed, brought the box up to her ear and gently shook it, wondering what was inside. Something shifted within.
His uncle leaned closer. “What is it?”
“As you can see, I haven’t opened it yet.”
“Well then, get on it. I have a newspaper to read, you know.”
Ronan fingered the satin bow, then tugged at its end, causing the smooth material to unravel and float soundlessly to the floor. He removed the lid and found a deck of cards with a small red satin ribbon daintily tied around it. His breath hitched when he feathered his thumb over the worn edges of those cards. Buried on the side of the box was a missive.
His uncle paused. “Cards?”
Ronan’s chest tightened. “She and I used these cards to play piquet every Thursday for years.”
“How romantic.”
It was. The women he had always involved himself with had only ever sent him money. Not memories.
“Read the inscription there on the inside,” Hughes added.
Peering into the box, Ronan dug out the small card from beneath the deck and held it up. Tilting the card’s inscription which had been elegantly scribed in her hand across the smooth surface, he read, “Remember what we share. Yours always, C.”
His uncle let out a low whistle. “There goes her reputation.”
Ronan’s fingers crushed the edges of the cardstock, remembering the way she had felt in his arms that night in the alcove. It didn’t feel dirty. It felt…pure. Real. And the way she had looked up at him as if her very soul were about to break almost broke his own. No one had ever looked at him like that. But then again, she didn’t know what he really was: a whore. She deserved better.
His uncle paused. “So what happens next?”
Ronan shoved the card back into the box. “Nothing happens. You know I’m not the marrying sort. And God forbid she finds out about how I make my money. I’m not doing that to her or myself. I’m not.” He cleared his throat, refusing to think about it. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He shouldn’t. “I’m going to your champagne party. Send an invitation to Theodosia, will you? She and I have an agreement.”
His uncle eyed him. “You are damn difficult to understand. One moment there is a fire in your eye for the girl and the next moment you are stone cold.” He muttered something, then shook his head and left.
Ronan swallowed. There were times he wished he had it in him to tell his uncle why he was willing to take money from women but not much else. But the last thing he wanted was to be treated differently and say his shame aloud.
Ronan squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a headache coming on.
Lesson Eight
Minimize the amount of spirits before an encounter.
It leads to fewer complications.
-The School of Gallantry
Days later, evening
When the Hawksford house had at long last grown quiet, Caroline was about to peel back the coverlet of her bed and crawl into its comforting warmth, when she paused. She blinked. For there, sitting primly atop her embroidered pillow and coverlet was a sealed parchment. A letter? It was a touch larger in size than what she was used to seeing in a letter.
It also bore no inscription and was as blank as unpainted plaster.
The candle she had set in its holder on the bedside table wavered, shifting the soft, circular golden light from the flame across its surface.
She glanced about the shadow-ridden bedchamber and pressed the open flaps of her pale pink robe against her white cotton nightgown beneath, feeling as though someone were watching her. Her eyes moved past the drawn curtained windows, the small dresser, the mirror and the porcelain washing basin, and finally rested on the closed door.
The humming silence made her fully aware that she was in fact alone and that everyone in the house, including her mother, her brother, her sisters, and all of the servants had long retired.
She squinted. Her lady’s maid had mentioned a letter earlier. One that had arrived with the request that it be delivered into no one’s hands but hers. This had to be it.
Reaching out, she picked up the sealed parchment. Recognizing Caldwell’s seal, she frantically broke the wax holding it shut and unfolded it. An invitation with a lone black ribbon knotted around it, slipped out from beneath a short missive.
She froze. Only champagne parties had black ribbons knotted around the invitation. And given the sort of family she grew up in, she knew full well what they were. Her brother and her father had been guilty of attending a few. They were incredibly exclusive, reserved for only a select few chosen by faceless men, and it involved far, far more than champagne. It involved secret, promiscuous revelry between
men and women that caused respectable society to curse the very existence of champagne itself.
She swallowed and turned the missive toward the light of the candle, wanting to know why Caldwell would have invited her.
Recognizing his writing all too well, she read:
I acquiesce to being yours and look forward to our first night together.
Come to me. I will be waiting.
Ronan
She glanced up, her heart pounding in a way she had never known. It was happening. It was finally happening. Her. Him. Them. He was kneeling.
She paused. But why like this? And in secret?
Unless he knew Alex wouldn’t be accepting of them. Unless he had tried to talk to Alex and Alex had outright refused him. Her brother had been unusually gruff and close-mouthed toward her as of late. Which he never was. What if—
She fingered the missive, her hands trembling at the reality of what she was holding. Caldwell wanted her. He wanted her enough to go against her own brother’s wishes and make her his own to ensure it. She slowly rounded her bed toward the nightstand. Ronan. He had signed the missive Ronan. He’d never signed anything with his birth name before. Which meant… “I will be there with open arms.” She kissed his name not once, not twice, but thrice.
Memorizing the date and address on the invitation, which she knew she had to burn lest her brother see it, she took up the candlestick holder by its looped ear, and walked over to the hearth on the opposite side of the room. Lingering before the hearth, she sent up a soft prayer that Caldwell, or rather, Ronan, would at long last be hers. As she had always dreamed.
She stuck the edge of the invitation into the flame of the candle. The flame quickly spread, curled, and blackened the parchment, sending wisps of white smoke up into the air.
Caroline tossed it into the hearth and watched it burn until all that was left were a few charred, glowing brittle pieces. Setting aside the candle onto the mantle, she held up his missive, dreamily admiring the words ‘I acquiesce to being yours’ and whirled her way back toward the bed. Flopping onto the bed, she bit back a squeal and excitedly thudded her bare feet against the mattress in disbelief.
Pausing from her thudding, she slowly pressed the missive bearing his birth name against her chest. No one and nothing was going to keep them apart. Not even her brother. She whispered aloud, “I love you, Ronan. I love you so much.” His birth name sounded so perfect and heavenly upon her lips. She was never calling him Caldwell again. It would always be Ronan. Her beloved Ronan.
She bit back a fantasy-laced smile knowing he was hers.
At long last, Ronan was hers.
***
Thursday evening, 10:28 p.m.
When guilt about keeping her missive a secret had finally gnawed at Caroline to the point of anguish, she had asked her mother a day before her set rendez-vous with Ronan if she could attend said champagne party. Her mother’s eyes widened and grabbing her face hard, said, “Your brother would maim you and me if I agreed to such a thing. What is wrong with you? No.”
And that was the end of it.
Though not the end of Caroline going.
Only after she had finished the last ounce of port from her mother’s sideboard did Caroline realize she was drunk. She had meant only to quell her nerves.
Instead, she had drowned them.
Her brother had already left for the club, as he did every Thursday night when there wasn’t a social gathering to attend, and he wasn’t expected to return until his usual one in the morning. As for her mother? The poor dear had gone to bed early with a blistering headache she had been suffering from the whole day.
Which meant…the night was hers.
She bit back a hiccup. Maybe she shouldn’t have drunk the whole decanter. Adjusting the white satin bow below the thin lace which trimmed the shoulder of her rose-colored, gigot sleeves, she ambled toward Mary’s room trying to trudge past the swimming effects of port. Ensuring the governess, Mrs. Peterson, wasn’t anywhere in sight, Caroline pushed open the door, hurried in and fumbled to shut it behind her.
It was going to be a long night.
Anne, Elizabeth, Victoria and Mary sat one by one on the edge of the bed, their stockinged feet dangling and each pertly positioned at different heights, all dressed in matching nightdresses and ruffled nightcaps.
It was so adorable.
Anne paused, leaned far forward on the bed and sniffed in Caroline’s direction. “Are you wearing perfume?” She leaned back and waved an open-palmed hand before her face. “You’re likely to make Caldwell faint. You smell like too many flowers in bloom. Eck.”
Caroline mockingly wrinkled her nose at her. “I do not,” she drawled, her words feeling as though they were swimming. She fought against it. “Men like perfume. It’s a new jasmine fragrance out of Paris. I bought it yesterday with Mama when we went shopping.” To ensure she wouldn’t smell like nutmeg. She wasn’t a scone, after all.
“Wear less of it next time,” Anne retorted, still waving an agitated open-palmed hand. “Because there is no need to bring all of Paris to London.”
Mary shoved Anne hard, causing Anne to stumble forward on the bed with a squeak. “Leave off. She smells better than you.”
Anne sat up and glared at Mary. “How about I buy you a casket so you can sleep in it every night?”
Mary paused. “How much do you think one would cost? IAre they expensive? Do you know?”
Caroline groaned. “For heaven’s sake, Anne, don’t give her ideas.”
Anne edged up a fist and shook it silently in Mary’s direction.
Mary stuck her tongue out.
Caroline pointed at them both, trying not to make her arms sway. “Enough. I don’t need this right now. I have a hired hackney waiting for me outside.”
Victoria rose from the bed and quieted her voice, coming toward her. “I’ll retire into your bed like we planned and bury myself in the linen. I’ll sleep there until you get back. You don’t have to worry about Mama or Mrs. Peterson finding out. They never peer in on us after nine. You should, however, be home before Alex returns from the club at one. Because he always checks in on us. Always. No matter the hour.”
“I know.” Caroline had snuck out of the house many times to sit by the river at night or to secretly escape to their father’s cottage in Surrey when she missed him, all of which she managed without being caught. But she had never snuck out of the house for a man who wasn’t her father. She felt guilty. Or at least she had when she’d started on her first glass of port. A hiccup escaped her, startling her.
Her sisters all stared.
They knew she only ever hiccupped whenever she drank.
“Are you tipped?” Anne echoed.
Caroline winced. “Only by an ounce.”
“An ounce?” Victoria piped. “You’re hiccupping! And your words are a touch slow.”
Caroline rolled her eyes. “I only had five or…or six glasses of port. I had to. I’m nervous.”
“Five or six?” Victoria blinked. “Why would you drown yourself during the most glorious moment of your life? Don’t you want to remember anything? And why would you be nervous about meeting Lord Caldwell at this party? It isn’t as if you’ll be alone with him. Aren’t you simply meeting him there?”
Caroline leaned heavily against the door, knowing it was time she confessed her sins to those she loved. “Actually, I will be alone with him. I’m meeting him at a champagne party. He invited me to go.”
Mouths opened.
Elizabeth choked out, “You’re going to a…champagne party?!”
Mary slapped both hands against her cheeks and didn’t move.
Victoria’s green-blue eyes widened as she hurried toward her. “Women debauch themselves there,” she said in a shrill voice. “I once heard Papa tell his own valet during breakfast that men and women who go to champagne parties end up in trees naked with whip marks all over their bums.”
This is why she never drank port. “I know that.
”
“Do you?” Anne glared. “If Alex doesn’t get to you first, society will hang you by the strings of your corset and make an example of you.”
Mary crossed her arms over her chest. “I usually never agree with Anne, but I will have to in this. I foresee a funeral.”
Elizabeth popped up off the bed, marching toward Caroline and pointed at her as if she were Satan. “You never told us you were going to that sort of party. I’m telling Mama. And let me assure you, the headache she retired into bed with is about to get worse.”
Knowing she was seriously outnumbered, Caroline clasped her hands together and begged, “Please don’t tell Mama. Please. She already told me I couldn’t go. And I have to go. I have to! Caldwell is expecting me. If I don’t go, it would be no different than making him think that I would allow Alex and Mama to come between us. And I won’t do that to him. I won’t abandon him at a time when he finally has the courage to kneel.”
Elizabeth stared. “And what happens if he debauches you at that party and doesn’t marry you? What then? What becomes of you then?”
Caroline swallowed. “He wouldn’t do that.”
Anne puckered her lips. “Men do things we don’t expect them to do. Our own brother is a good example of that.”
Caroline tried not to panic, knowing Anne was right, but she had to believe that Ronan had a greater plan. He would never debauch her and leave her. Never. Debauch her and marry her, yes, but never debauch her and leave her. “If I become his in that way – and I want to and I can and I will, for that is what people who love each other do – no one can deny us. No one. Not Alex, not Mama, and certainly not all of you.”
They stared her down, those green-blue eyes anything but understanding.
“He will marry me,” Caroline insisted.
They continued to stare her down.
“I know he will,” Caroline added.
They still stared her down.
“It’s Caldwell,” she argued. “For heaven’s sake, I have known the man since I was thirteen!”
