Once a Wallflower, at Last His Love

by Christi Caldwell

  Her sister knitted her eyebrows into a single line. “You were not…” She glanced around and dropped her voice to an angry whisper. “…doing whatever it was that got Elizabeth into trouble?”

  The journal fell out from Hermione’s arm and her eyebrows shot to her hairline. She closed the distance between them and whispered back, “What are you on about, Addie?” She glanced around. Though there was but a handful of servants remaining and all of them loyal, Elizabeth’s secret was not one she’d share with anyone, let alone a member of the household staff.

  Addie’s shoulder lifted in a quick, jerky motion. “Hugh said we’ll all be ruined. He said you’re probably making the same mistake with your duke that Elizabeth made with Lord Cavendish, and that you’ll never make a match then because dukes don’t marry the daughters of impoverished baronets just one step away from ruin. He said—”

  Hermione took her by the shoulders. “Whoa,” she said calmingly. “First, Elizabeth made no mistakes where Lord Cavendish is concerned.” Their eldest sister was a beautiful soul whose innocence that vile cad had taken advantage of. “Second, do not listen to Hugh.” She had quite a few things to say to her growing ever-more-truculent brother when she found him.

  “So you won’t go making a cake of yourself as Hugh said you were going to do?” Addie tapped a finger against her lips almost contemplatively. “Because Hugh said you were lovesick for the duke, and you’d likely do something foolish just to be his duchess.”

  Hermione’s skin still burned from the scorching press of Sebastian’s lips upon her. Hugh, for his young years, was remarkably close to the mark in all his charges and fears. “I will not do anything foolish.” Though in actuality, she already had—on more scores than she could ever admit to her young sister. “I went out alone because I was in need of inspiration.” And the perfect place to conjure the story of an affable, charming duke was by the edge of the river where he’d towered above her, his expression a blend of annoyance and concern.

  Her sister frowned. “Well, I still cannot imagine why you’d not bring me along, even if it is early and I detest morning as you should. I am so very lonely with you gone and hate London and miss the country and…”

  As her sister prattled on, Hermione’s mind wandered back to her recent exchange with Sebastian. All her initial plans to meet a duke and conduct very valuable research for her latest novel had proven unnecessary with the powerful nobleman invariably ending up…well, wherever she happened to be. It made one wonder if Aunt Agatha had been correct, and mayhap there was more. There had been a waltz, and now three kisses (three passionate kisses) and—

  Addie pulled at her arm. “Hermione, are you listening to me?”

  She gave her head a shake. “Er, yes…” she lied.

  “He will not provide for Elizabeth?”

  She blinked. “Who will not provide for Elizabeth?” she asked slowly.

  Her sister threw her arms up and directed her gaze upwards. “You weren’t listening, which really isn’t like you. You’re the sensible sibling and I’m in desperate need of a sensible sibling. But—”

  Hermione took her sister gently by the shoulders. “What are you talking about, Addie?” She gave a slight shake.

  The dreaded name tumbled from Addie’s lips. “Lord Cavendish.”

  Oh, the blackguard. Surely Addie was mistaken.

  “Hugh overheard Aunt Agatha and Papa talking about it.”

  Hands still on her sister’s slight shoulders, Hermione turned her around and guided her toward the stairs. “How many times must I tell you not to worry about Hugh’s words?” She would worry enough for the both of them. Nay, all of them.

  Her sister paused, one foot on the bottom step. “Promise?” She shot a searching glance back at Hermione.

  Hermione marked an X upon her heart. “I promise upon all the stars in the sky, and all the fish in the sea, all the sand upon the seashore—”

  “And all the frogs in the ponds,” her sister finished the childhood pledge. She smiled. “I knew Hugh was wrong.”

  “Here.” Hermione thrust her book into her sister’s small hands, distracting her from more questions that required Hermione to lie any further than she already had. “Run this to my chambers. I have to speak with Papa.”

  Her sister sprinted up the stairs. Hermione stared after her until she’d disappeared down the corridor, and then she started for her father’s office. Surely Hugh was wrong. Except, the other alternative was that Papa hadn’t managed to locate and speak to the young nobleman who’d stolen Elizabeth’s virtue.

  She paused outside her father’s office. Since Hugh’s outburst several days ago, she’d been dreading this particular meeting with Papa. She shoved Hugh’s shocking outburst to the recesses of her mind and fixed her attention on her affable duke. And Sebastian, if she were being truthful with herself. Since their first meeting, her very real duke had occupied her thoughts and made it nigh impossible to write. The memory of his teasing smile and strong hands upon her person had even managed to drive back the terrifying reality of her family’s circumstances. Now she dreaded this meeting for altogether different reasons.

  She drew in a breath and knocked.

  “Come in, come in.” Papa’s jovial voice carried through the thin wood panel.

  He was the jolly, if absent-minded parent today, then. That was at least preferable and somewhat more promising than speaking to the shell who didn’t truly know, see, or hear any of the pressing concerns threatening to shatter their family.

  Hermione pressed the handle and entered the ramshackle quarters. A pipe tucked between his teeth, a thick plume of smoke hung about the baronet’s head, her father scanned the pages in his hands. He rustled through several sheets. “What is it you want, my girl?” he asked, glancing up momentarily.

  She cleared her throat. “I’d hoped to speak with you, Papa.”

  He dropped the pages and they fluttered to the messy desktop. “Come in, come in then, dear.” He removed the pipe from his mouth and motioned her over.

  Hermione closed the door softly behind her and wandered over to his desk.

  “Er…feel free to move those,” he said, and gestured with his pipe over at the stacks of ledgers on the lone wing-back chair at the foot of his desk.

  She cleared a slight place at the edge of the aged, cracked leather and sat.

  Papa tucked the pipe between his teeth once more and exhaled a perfect, smoky ring. The smoky, pungent odor burned her nose. “Must you do that, Papa?” she chided. She’d long detested the acrid scent of his vice.

  He waved off her gentle scold. “Bah, one pipe a day helps a gentleman think.”

  If that were the case, Papa should be smoking ten pipes a day, because he might be somewhat useful in pulling their family from the direst of circumstances. Perhaps it was cowardice on her part, but she opted to focus on the concern she believed their father might at least be capable of seeing to. She leaned forward and clasped the edge of his desk. “I spoke to Hugh,” she said without preamble.

  Several deep wrinkles lined her father’s brow. “Who…?” Her eyebrows dipped. “Er, right, right, Hugh,” he coughed into his hand, having the good grace to appear shamefaced at momentarily forgetting his only son and heir.

  “He fears he’ll not be going to Eton.”

  Silence reigned. The pall only heightened by the tick-tock of the partially cracked ormolu clock, a once extravagant piece that bespoke a time of almost luxury.

  “Papa?”

  He took another puff of his pipe and then set it down. He tapped it on a spare dish filled with ash. A mottled flush stained his fleshy cheeks. “He’ll go to Eton, Hermie, my girl.”

  Some of the tension left her. She’d assured her brother that for their family’s present circumstances, he would have that which he deserved—an education to match every other respectable young boy of his age. And more, a semblance of normalcy, in light of Elizabeth’s scandal, Papa’s abject misery, and their overall near-poverty.


  She made to rise, but then something, a flash of guilt in her father’s pale blue eyes gave her pause. “Papa?” Unease stirred in her chest. “He will go to Eton?” she repeated.

  “Of course, of course.” Only this rushed assurance and the increased color in his face crushed all her earlier relief. “I imagine when you make a match or…er, I work through some of these failed investments.”

  She closed her eyes. Oh, God. When she opened them, her father would not meet her gaze. Instead, his stare remained fixed on the cluttered desktop as he fiddled and fumbled with the ledgers in abject disarray. Hermione leaned over and placed her hand on his, stilling his frenetic movements. “And what if I don’t make an advantageous match?” she pressed, quietly.

  He dropped the stack of papers and raked a hand through his hair. “You will.”

  She collapsed into her chair; the breath sucked from her chest. “Papa,” she said again, an entreaty underscoring that single utterance.

  He managed a wan smile. “You’re lovely, Hermie, and you’d make some gentleman a wonderful—”

  “What gentleman would want the dowerless daughter of an impoverished family, with a sister…?” She glanced around, remembering herself. She dropped her voice to a hushed whisper. “With a sister who is simple, and a family whose reputation is now damaged beyond repair?” A bitter laugh bubbled past her lips. A man of Sebastian’s distinguished rank would never link himself with this shattered family.

  “A worthwhile gentleman.”

  She scoffed.

  “One who will love you hopelessly enough to overlook such things, my dear.”

  She closed her eyes and gave her head a despairing shake. Ever the romantic her Papa was. A man who’d gone and buried the remnants of his heart with his beloved, departed wife even though there were four very much alive children in desperate need of his love and guidance.

  “Do not look like that,” he scolded.

  “Like what?” The terse question came out far sharper than she’d intended.

  “As though you don’t believe in love.”

  “I believe in love,” she said defensively. Just not necessarily for herself.

  Her father folded his arms at the waist and leaned back in his seat. “I have always admired your intelligence and your ability to craft a beautiful story.”

  For all he’d done wrong these years, this man bore traces of the person he’d once been. A father unashamed, even proud of his bluestocking daughter, a man who supported each Gothic novel she penned. “Thank you.” She squirmed, still uncomfortable with praise for her work.

  “I’m not finished, my dear.” He held a finger up. “What I’d intended to say is I’ve admired your intelligence, yet for a young woman who can dream up and tell such stories of love, you seem to move through life with a remarkable lack of faith in the sentiment.”

  She’d seen what love wrought. Papa’s descent into a fog. Where was the romanticism in real life? “I’m not unromantic, Papa. I’m practical. There is a greater chance of the Queen’s Horse Guard taking flight over the palace than in me making the match you and Aunt Agatha are hoping,” expecting, “me to make.”

  Her father reeled as though she had struck him across the face.

  Hermione glanced away. Love was better kept to the pages of a novel where a woman couldn’t be disappointed or have her heart broken, and as she had learned early on, there were all manner of heartbreaks a young woman could suffer—the loss of a mother or the regret of a detached father. As well as the careless tossing away of a virtue one didn’t know to be prized.

  Her father smiled and the expression of mirth transformed him into a man she didn’t recognize. “Some gentleman is brave enough and honorable enough to overlook such things, Hermie.” He quirked a white, bushy eyebrow. “A duke, perhaps?”

  Heat scorched her cheeks. Her father had been so removed from everything these past years that she’d not imagined he’d have bothered with details about say…a certain duke who’d come to call. Still, the hopeless romantic, she sought to move him back to more pressing matters. “Have you managed to locate Lord Cavendish?”

  Her father’s smile dipped. A chill stole through her. She closed her eyes a moment, knowing with the same intuition she’d had the day she’d marched up the cobbled steps outside their Surrey cottage that Mama had died of her wasting illness. “A bounder, a cad. I did manage to find him at last,” he mumbled to himself. Which in itself was shocking, as Papa hadn’t done a worthwhile thing for his family in so very long. “He’s cucumberish. In dun territory.”

  She cocked her head.

  Father sighed. “He has no money.”

  “And?” The explosion burst from her lips.

  He swiped a hand over his face. “And he’ll not give a shilling to help her or the babe,” he said his words heavy with regret. And with the devastating news he’d become the same wary stranger she’d come to reside with these past years.

  “What do you mean he won’t help?” She jumped to her feet. “His reputation will be destroyed if anyone should find out the truth.”

  Papa lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I believe he considers himself ruined if his connection to our family is discovered.” He waved a hand. “I daresay he’s correctly surmised I’ll not bring further shame to Elizabeth by demanding justice for his vile actions.”

  Hermione grasped the arms of her seat. They were all ruined. In every way possible.

  The leather of Papa’s chair shifted under his weight as he leaned forward. “Your sister will be fine.”

  She looked blankly at him. That was what he would say.

  “Partridge will continue to care for Elizabeth and the babe, and this will have no bearing on the future you carve out for yourself, Hermie.”

  A strangled laugh gurgled up her throat and spilled past her lips. Since Mama’s passing, not once had she placed herself first. She’d made every sacrifice gladly and without regret. “Do you think I’m concerned solely about my own future?” What of Addie? Or Hugh? Or Elizabeth and the babe, a child her eldest sister would never be able to care for? She imagined a future for them in which every respectable door was someday closed to her sister, and a brother who’d not have the benefit of an education and would stand to inherit an empty baronetcy that he’d be ill-prepared for.

  “I’m merely saying a powerful man would be willing to forgive your family’s circumstances,” he said.

  She gritted her teeth at his placating tone, even as her stomach flipped unto itself at her father’s once again illusion of Sebastian.

  “Nothing to say?” he repeated. “Your aunt is quite confident a certain duke may be that gentleman.” He propped his elbows on his desk, hopelessly wrinkling several pages of the opened ledger. “A gentleman who’ll see nothing more than your beauty and courage and—”

  She made a sound of protest. “You’re a proud father, is all.” She’d never before felt beautiful. However, since Sebastian, since his kiss and his waltz and heated looks, for the first time, she’d come to feel not the too-tall, gangly suitor-less young lady, but a woman who possessed the beauty her father now spoke of.

  “Bah, how can my daughter not realize the extent of her beauty?” Pride gleamed in his eyes.

  Panic stirred in her breast. This was Papa and Aunt Agatha’s plans to salvage their family? Some misbegotten hope a gentleman in possession of one of the oldest titles in the realm would fall hopelessly in love with her? Now, that was a story she could commit to page. Which was actually quite a good idea, because with as awful as this day had gone fast down a steep incline since she’d taken her leave of the duke, something good should come from it. She stood and ruffled through the scattered pages upon her father’s desk.

  “Here.” He thrust out a pencil.

  Hermione took it and grabbed a balled-up page. She unwrinkled the sheet and dashed down a few lines. She promptly folded it and reclaimed her seat.

  Papa looked at her with a sad smile. “My dear, you may
issue protestations, but a young woman so inspired must surely be a bit in love.”

  Another healthy wave of heat climbed up her neck and burned a trail across her face. “Papa, I hardly know the duke. We’ve met a handful of times. Why—”

  He held up another finger and shook it back and forth. “Ah, but I didn’t mention anything about the duke.”

  She clamped her lips tight. Well, what was there to say now? “It was just one visit,” she murmured, the words more of a reminder to herself.

  And a kiss.

  And a waltz.

  And a kiss.

  And earlier that morning… a third kiss.

  A knock sounded at the door saving her from her father’s response. They looked as one. Owen opened the door and ducked his head into the room. “His Grace, The Duke of Mallen to see Miss Rogers.”

  Her gaze flew to the clock. Just five minutes past nine, it was certainly far too early for a fashionable call. But then, when one was a duke, he was permitted greater freedoms than the lesser mortals. Her heart thudded painfully, suddenly very glad for those freedoms dukes found themselves with. For purely selfish reasons.

  The servant cleared his throat. “I took the liberty of showing His Grace to the parlor.” With a bow, he backed out of the room.

  Hermione sat frozen. With the news Papa had imparted about Lord Cavendish she should be numbed with panic and yet, more than anything she craved Sebastian’s company. Wanted to see him. Needed to see him.

  Perhaps she was not as devoted a sister and daughter as she’d credited.

  “You’re destroying your poor notes, daughter,” Papa said gently.

  She lightened her tight grip about her page. The words upon the sheet stared mockingly up at her. …A gentleman in possession of one of the oldest titles in the realm falls hopelessly in love with the impoverished daughter of a scandalous family…

  “Are you going to remain in that chair studying those few lines for the remainder of the day? Or will you go see your duke?”

  Her head shot up. “He’s not my duke.”

  A light twinkle glinted in his eyes. “I imagine he will be your duke if you but let him, Hermie, and he’d be as mad as a Bedlamite to not want you for his duchess. Despite all of our family’s circumstances,” he added. He nodded toward the door. “Now, go, go, my dear. It isn’t every day a duke is made to wait.”