Adrian would travel with them as far as Portsmouth. But instead of continuing on to Scotland, he decided he would return to London. He and Hester had unfinished business together.
He’d waited twenty-eight years to propose marriage to a woman. He’d be damned if he’d be deterred by one prissy little “Thank you, but no.”
Hester started to cry as soon as the front door closed. Not a stinging little dampness in her eyes. Not an emotional tear or two trembling poignantly upon her cheeks. This was a great gushing outpouring of grief.
She’d held it back as she’d found a deep basket and lined it with a tea towel. She’d buried any hint of emotion as she’d filled it with a loaf of bread, two squares of cheese, three boiled eggs, two pears, and a leftover apple tart.
Then she’d kissed Dulcie good-bye, hugged Horace, and implored them both to write her with all the details of their romantic escape.
To Adrian she said nothing.
He waited outside during their farewells and only sent her a long, silent look as he mounted his horse, a long, silent look that seemed to her an ominous foreshadowing of the long, silent life that loomed before her.
She’d closed the door on that last glimpse of him and promptly burst into tears. Leaning against the door, she wept hard, painful sobs.
Why couldn’t he have left England without coming back here, to be caught by Horace?
Why did Horace and Dulcie have to choose this particular night to elope?
Why had she fallen in love with Adrian Hawke at all, when any number of other men would have been such an easier choice?
But the biggest why, the hardest why, was why couldn’t his proposal have been for any reason other than because he was doing his duty to her as a gentleman? Lust and duty, when all she really wanted was love.
Well, lust and love.
She hiccuped against her tear-soaked sleeve. This taking a lover business had not worked out at all. No wonder her mother had always become so theatrically distraught. The wonder of it was that Isabelle had continued to participate in such inevitably doomed relationships over and over again.
As for herself, Hester knew that she’d never chance it again. She was done with men, she vowed as she wiped her streaming face and searched blindly for a handkerchief. Never again. Never. When a woman engaged her heart with a man who would not engage his, there was no hope for anything but heartbreak.
From the kitchen came a plaintive yelp and a noisy sniffling. Fifi and Peg. She mopped her face and made for the kitchen. It was a miracle Mrs. Dobbs hadn’t awakened through all these comings and goings. She certainly didn’t want to face the woman at a time like this.
But she could use some company right now, Hester told herself as the two grateful animals accompanied her up the stairs and made straight for her still rumpled bed. At least her pets loved her.
Hester ruffled their heads as she climbed onto the bed with them. They were the only comfort she expected to get for a very long time.
“This is very unsettling,” Mrs. Dobbs muttered, bustling around Hester’s bedroom. “Sleeping almost to noon, while I have to put off three callers, all of them claimin” to have very important business with you. Hunh!“
The last part of the tirade awakened Hester as no amount of startling sunshine or aromatic coffee or grumbling servant could do. She threw the counterpane back from her face and opened her swollen eyelids a crack. “Important business?”
“Very important, they said. But I’ve got important business with you too. The larder’s bare. Someone snuck in during the night and stole the better part of our food.” She stared suspiciously at the dogs. “Have they been in here with you the whole night long?”
“Yes.” Hester closed her eyes, reliving last night and its myriad careening emotions. But sadness and loss had been the final emotions of the night, and they lingered still. They threatened to linger forever.
With an effort she sat up. “I’ll explain about the food later. Meanwhile, who is it who has come back with such urgent business?”
Mrs. Dobbs scrutinized her with raised brows. “Child, you look like you’re feeling poorly.”
Yes, far worse even than I look. “I’m fine. Who were the callers?”
The old housekeeper let out a huff of exasperation. “First an old gentleman, the elder Mr. Vasterling. He was looking for his son. He seemed awful upset.”
“He came himself?”
“He did. And not a half hour on his heels comes that Lord Ainsley, the one none of us likes. I thought you said he’d left London. But there he was on our front steps.” She stared expectantly at Hester, waiting for an explanation.
She wasn’t getting one, not just yet anyway. The fewer people who knew about Dulcie and Horace the better.
“Did he leave a message?”
“Only that you was to call on him and his mother, directly you awakened.”
Hester swung her feet off the bed and stood. “He did, did he? I suppose he’s forgotten that I’m no longer in his employ and therefore not subject to his orders.”
Mrs. Dobbs kept her gaze sharp upon Hester. “I’m thinking his sister has run off. He was that frantic-looking, and angry too. Given what Mr. Vasterling said, well, could it be that our sweet Miss Dulcie has run off with our good Mr. Vasterling?”
Hester frowned and bent down on the pretext of donning her slippers. “That seems rather unlikely. I hope you didn’t suggest that to the man.”
“Lud, no. To my mind the girl would be lucky to wed such a nice young fellow as Horace Vasterling.”
Indeed she would. “I believe you said there were three visitors?” Had Adrian tried to contact her again?
“There were, and that’s one message I’m thinking I can figure out meself.” She handed Hester an envelope. “Miss Anabelle Finch and her mother came calling together and they was both beamin”. I’m thinking she’s accepted a proposal.“
Hester scanned the note written in Anabelle’s excessively formal script. “She has. To the Honorable Peter Martinson.” She looked up. “That’s wonderful news.”
Wonderful. So why did Hester have to blink back a fresh onslaught of tears?
“Isn’t he the one she was partial to?”
Hester nodded, afraid to speak for the conflicting emotions clogging her throat. Happy for Anabelle, depressed anew for herself. Once again the Bridemaker had achieved her aim. The season wasn’t half done and two of her three clients were happily betrothed. Only Charlotte remained uncommitted.
And herself.
In the past Hester had ignored her own loneliness. Now, though, everything conspired to remind her that she was alone and always would be.
Adrian did offer to marry me.
She gritted her teeth at the reminder. Caught by her brother practically in the act, Adrian had had no other choice but to make that offer. But she was too wise to wed for such faulty reasoning and he, no doubt, was relieved as well. The insult of her rejection would not long afflict him, not once he was gone.
Indeed, he was already gone.
“I’ll not be going out today,” she said, donning her wrapper.
“Tsk, tsk, you are looking a little peaked. Will you be wanting your breakfast upstairs then?”
“Yes.” Hester sat down at her desk, trying to think. “I’ll want Mr. Dobbs to carry my reply to Anabelle once I’ve composed it.”
“What of the other two callers?”
Hester didn’t answer except with a terse shake of her head. Her father and Dulcie’s brother deserved no reply from her, nor any help in locating their missing family.
Soon enough they would receive word of the union between Dulcie and Horace. Until then they could worry themselves sick for all she cared.
She was miserable; why shouldn’t they be miserable too?
CHAPTER 24
Half the way to Portsmouth Adrian was already impatient to turn back.
Horace slept slumped against his shoulder, leaving Dulcie the privacy—as Horace termed
it—to sleep alone on her own seat.
That made no sense to Adrian. The man was willing to elope with the girl but he wasn’t willing to degrade her by sleeping fully clothed with his head upon her shoulder. Did Horace mean to keep his distance from her for the entire flight to Gretna Green?
Adrian wanted to scoff at his friend’s foolishness, but something about Horace’s nobility bothered him. It wasn’t Horace’s more than honorable behavior toward Dulcie, however, but rather his own less honorable behavior toward Hester.
With every succeeding mile the conviction became stronger. He needed to return to Hester and restate his offer of marriage in a way that she could not turn down.
A part of him, the carefree bachelor part, didn’t understand any of this. She’d said she was a widow and once he’d pierced that prickly armor of hers, she’d revealed a passionate side bordering on wantonness. But even then there had remained an aura of innocence about her.
He hadn’t questioned that innocence, though. He’d just considered it his very good fortune. Now he suspected—he knew—that it was more than merely an aura. She had been innocent.
But why the disguise? Why the secretiveness about her brother and father?
Clenching his jaw, Adrian stared out the window at the dark, amorphous night, lit only by the carriage lamps and a fitful, fading moon. He needed answers and he would not get them in Portsmouth or Scotland. He needed to know Hester’s secrets; he was becoming obsessed with that need. But even then he suspected he would not be sated with the woman. As ludicrous as it seemed, as unbelievable even to himself, marriage appeared to be the logical choice for them.
Except that she did not agree with the idea.
Red as blood, the sun had just inched above the horizon when they stopped to change horses in Leatherhead. Horace mumbled something incoherent, then abruptly sat up, bleary-eyed and confused.
“I’m parting from you here,” Adrian told him, climbing down before the coach swayed to a full stop.
“But… But I cannot possibly travel alone with Dulcie. It’s not proper.”
“You can and you must. Dammit, Horace, eloping has already ruined her reputation. Traveling alone with her can hardly do more damage.”
Dulcie sat up yawning, and rubbed her eyes. She smiled at Horace who smiled back at her, two souls embarking on the adventure of their lives. Not just the elopement, Adrian realized, but marriage to one another. An unpredictable, lifelong adventure, one he wanted to embark upon with his unpredictable Hester.
Still smiling, Dulcie turned to him. “Are you going back for Mrs. Poitevant?”
Adrian stood in the doorway of the coach and slowly he returned her smile. “I believe I am.”
“Good,” she said. “Despite your difficult parting last night, I was convinced she didn’t really want you to leave.”
How Adrian wanted to believe that. “What makes you so certain?”
“Because she loves you, of course. Just as much as you love her.”
Her simple conviction silenced everything else he thought to say. Did he love Hester? Did she love him?
He had four hours to debate those questions on his madcap gallop back to London. What did love mean, anyway? He desired her, and rejoiced in her responsiveness in the bedroom—and other rooms as well.
He was intrigued by her prim exterior and secretive manner, and despite his irritation with her disguise, he was proud of her for it. She was a woman alone, who despite the hardships of her upbringing had managed to forge a rather good life for herself.
As he drew nearer and nearer the sprawl that was London, he realized that Hester and he were not as different as he’d once thought. He’d already accepted that she wasn’t really a snob, but rather a woman forced to manage on her own—much as he’d been forced to do. Now he saw that like him, she’d never known her father. They’d both been raised by women of less than sterling behavior. That alone was enough to ensure neither of them ever quite fit into proper town society.
Yet they’d both earned their way in by dint of ingenuity and hard work. Unfortunately, neither of them had yet admitted that they didn’t need to fit into that society.
Adrian was hardly aware of his surroundings when he arrived and handed off the weary animal he’d rented to his uncle’s startled groom. Like a man unmasked and finally able to see, he recognized the truth before him. He’d returned to England, still the Scottish bastard intent on proving his worth to the society that had rejected him. Hester’s role as London’s so-called Bridemaker, plus her association with George Bennett, had made her the focus of Adrian’s ire, the prim arbiter of acceptability on the marriage mart.
But somewhere along the way he’d forgotten about his goal. In Horace he’d discovered an English lord as unacceptable as he. In Hester he’d found an orphaned soul as wary as himself.
The differences he’d initially perceived had proven all to be superficial. You had but to scratch the surface to see that they were all similar. And when he dug deeper still, down to the buried vicinity of his heart he discovered the most amazing truth of all: he loved Hester.
But was it too late?
“Prepare a fresh animal for me,” he ordered the groom. “Once I wash and change I’ll be down to collect it.”
And then off to collect my bride, if I can find her— and convince her.
Hester left the house at half past one with no fixed destination in mind.
She knew only that hiding in her bedroom was not working. Though she looked a fright, with swollen eyes, reddened nose, and a blotchy, tear-stained complexion, she didn’t care. She’d abandoned vanity years ago.
Or had it been only that she’d had no one to look nice for? She hardly noticed as Mr. Dobbs turned the team for Cheapside. She was too busy examining her unhappy existence.
It was true. For years now she’d had no one to dress up for. Then three weeks ago, against her will, that had changed. The truth was, she’d begun to revel in the appreciative looks Adrian had given her.
She allowed herself a wistful moment of remembering the fire in his sapphire-dark eyes. Then she drew herself up. That was the past. No use to dwell on it.
How ironic that matters had come full circle. For she’d finally abandoned her disguise, only it didn’t matter. She’d dressed herself in a pleasant ensemble, and even fought her hair into an elegantly casual twist with loose tendrils around her face. But the mirror did not lie. For the truth was, the light had gone out in her eyes. The spark from within that made any woman beautiful no longer burned in her.
It was the spark that Adrian had fired in her, the spark he had seen even when it had been banked beneath her spinsterish gowns and severe coiffures. She looked perfectly presentable, even fashionable. But she would never again be beautiful, for Adrian Hawke was lost to her.
She sat in the middle of the carriage seat, swaying with the vehicle’s progress, looking neither left nor right as Mr. Dobbs negotiated the busy afternoon traffic. Where to?
She could visit Mrs. DeLisle and cry on her shoulder once more. She didn’t think, however, that Verna would be entirely sympathetic to her plight.
She could go shopping, order a new dress for Anabelle’s wedding, buy a new hat. Except that shopping seemed so unappealing.
She could search out her father.
Inside Hester went very still. Why would she want to do that?
But the perverse thought would not go away. She could search him out and tell him exactly what Horace had done without his approval. She could point out how he had driven his own wife away, how he’d abandoned his only daughter, and now had the choice to either abandon or support his son, his one living relative.
Foolish pride or precious family? she could ask him. Which do you choose?
Before she could talk herself out of such madness, Hester called directions up to Mr. Dobbs. This morning Edgar Vasterling had come looking for her. It was time he find her—and find out a lot more than he’d bargained for.
Of course, h
er father was not at Horace’s club.
“He went out early,” the doorman told her. “He came back though. Not above an hour ago. An” you never saw such a face on a man, like somethin‘ dreadful happened. Then he left again.“
He paused in his recitation, his sparse brows upraised. Though it irked her, Hester slipped him another tuppence. Immediately he resumed. “He took a hack.” He leaned past her and pointed to a hack stand across the street. “One of them blokes might know where he went.”
Another tuppence and Hester had her answer, one that made her heart stop, then restart at a ferocious pace. “I delivered him to Milton Street, a skinny little house with window boxes,” one of the hack drivers told her.
Verna DeLisle’s house.
“Hurry. Hurry!” she exhorted Mr. Dobbs, even as he careened down the street as if he drove a sporting vehicle. When they arrived, however, Hester sat a long moment, gripping the carriage’s door stile. She stared at her friend’s house, knowing her father was inside, knowing she must finally confront him. But now that the inevitable moment was at hand, she was terrified.
“Miss?” Just outside the carriage door Mr. Dobbs waited. “Did you change your mind about visiting with Mrs. DeLisle?”
“No.” She could do this, Hester told herself. She was not the one at fault here. Even Horace had made it clear he could not begrudge her this moment of accusation and revenge. After all, their father’s behavior had deprived them both of the family they should have had.
As did Mama’s behavior.
But her mother was not here to accuse, only her father. To add to his mountain of crimes, he had no right to call upon her friend.
Abandoning every precept of good manners she knew, Hester barged into Verna’s house without knocking. Halfway up the stairs, Verna’s lifelong housekeeper halted, one gnarled hand clasped to her bony chest. When she saw Hester, however, and not some thief come to rob and kill them, she frowned. “My land, Miss Hester, but that is hardly how a proper young—”
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