Until Calvin.
For the first time, she’d wanted that touch and she’d told Rose everything about her one encounter with the man she’d been in love with since the day he’d walked into Wilkins’ six years ago.
And in one night, her heart felt as though it had been ripped from her chest and torn to pieces, never to be mended again.
Alice stared into the night and dried her eyes with her gloves, declaring herself utterly done with Calvin Lockwood and Rose Beck.
If you were mine…
The issue was that many a woman had been Calvin Lockwood’s.
Alice stood as anger dried her tears more quickly than she could wipe them away. Her body felt hot as her thoughts grew cold. Calvin was a cad! A horrible, horrible cad and she never wanted to see him again. That kiss had meant nothing to him, while it had meant the world to her. But no more would she hold fast to the feelings she’d let grow since she was a child.
She loathed him now.
Utterly and completely.
She started to pace in front of the bench and her thoughts turned to words as she spoke loudly into the night. “How dare he kiss me and then touch my cousin! The cad!” Her slippers did not make the thumping sound that her boots would have made as she marched back and forth but her body grew warmer with each step, sweeping away her sadness for the pleasant feeling of affirmation and contentment.
The feeling traveled through her and settled like a wool blanket over her heart. She knew it to be strong enough to protect her from further heartache and pain. Blankets, whether imagined or otherwise, always gave Alice comfort. She’d been born a violent sleeper and remembered the nights her mother would slip into her room, adjust whatever limb she’d misplaced back on the bed, then smooth her blanket back over her body.
The blanket was comforting and the memory of it still gave her strength, even though her mother had died nearly fifteen years ago. She thought of her blanket at that moment and its comfort and hid her heart in its protective fold, knowing no one could touch her there.
Not even Calvin.
At least for the night.
As though fate were out to test her, she turned when she heard movement and watched as Calvin stalked from the hedges with light spilling from the lantern he held before him.
CHAPTER TWO
Alice stilled and gazed at Calvin.
He lifted the light, turned, and his eyes caught hers. “Alice.” He started toward her.
“No,” she declared and stalked right past him as he came her way.
A second foot had hardly hit the ground before she was hauled backward, almost stumbling on her gown until her back hit the substantial surface of his body.
His hand spread over her belly, his body curled into hers, and his lips were at her ear. “Alice.” Her name rang like a plea.
She tried to turn and rid herself of him but her efforts would have been similar if she’d tried to move a house. He didn’t budge. “Take your hands off me.”
“Alice.” That time it resembled warning.
She dropped her hands and sighed loudly. Then she remembered a move her father taught her, lifted her arm, and struck her elbow into his chest.
He may have felt like he was made of brick but at their collision he grunted, released her, and Alice fled.
She amazed herself with her memory and found her way back to the house in due time but she’d barely crossed the threshold before she was forcibly pinned to the wall.
Calvin’s face was close to hers. “Are you going to make me chase you?” His voice was rumbly, and she smelled spirits on his breath. A glance at his eyes showed he was foxed.
She ignored just how beautiful he was, remembered her heart lay in the protection of a warm wool blanket, and asked, “How did you ever find me? I went through a maze.” To get away from you.
“Probability,” he told her.
“What?”
“You went out, you were not in the clearing, so I knew you'd taken the maze. It was only a matter of moving where there was light. Eventually, I ran into a gentleman and lady who looked as though they’d been interrupted in the midst of a tryst and asked them which direction you'd gone. They knew exactly who I was referring to and pointed me in the right direction without delay. After that, it was simple probability. You’d stay near the light and away from shadowed entrances. I found you on the first go round.”
Alice blinked. “But I ran out into the night. How do you know I would not follow the shadows?”
“Because shadows are for lovers and criminals, not a woman alone who knows better than to place herself in such a position… even while angry.”
“Everyone can see you,” she hissed. Has he lost his mind?
She looked down the hall and saw a few people standing about.
“You’re right.”
He yanked her into a nearby room and closed the door behind them.
Alice turned around, allowed her eyes to adjust to the dark, and saw it was the very room where she’d caught him and Rose. She turned and glared at him and noticed he’d moved in the time she’d done a circle. “Stop!”
His body froze two feet away from her, his hands out with the intention to touch her.
She looked at him, all of him, then brought her eyes up to meet his. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No, just a trifle disguised,” he said with a grin.
Her brows lifted. “A trifle disguised? You’re completely foxed!”
“You’re right.”
Alice wrapped her arms about herself and said, “Well, now that we’ve established that, I will go and—”
“Nothing has been established.”
Alice straightened her neck. “Of course it has been. You just admitted—”
“I admitted that I’m foxed. It doesn’t mean I don’t know exactly what I’m doing.” He moved toward her. His eyes never left hers.
Alice took several steps away, holding up her skirts to keep from tripping, continuing backward until she fell onto a chair. She looked behind her and saw she was sitting at the bay window. Then she turned as Calvin moved into the space next to her. He reached over and placed a hand on the other side of the bench, closing her in and making her feel like a sheep led to its pen, not by a shepherd but from the fear of wolves.
Moonlight made his eyes glow.
She leaned away against the glass. “Don’t touch me.”
“I won’t,” he swore, speaking slowly and low. “I understand how you must feel.”
“You understand?” Alice kept her words neither slow nor low. “You were just… with my cousin!”
Calvin narrowed his eyes and said, “Rose is your cousin?”
“Yes!”
He frowned deeper. “But Rose is a lady.”
Whether he’d meant the words to hurt her, they did, and Alice was forced to examine how secure a hold her blanket had on the most important part of her body.
She must not have done well in hiding her feelings because Calvin’s eyes widened.
“I didn’t mean it the way you believe I do.”
Alice shook her head and said, “It doesn’t matter—”
“It does matter.”
Alice found herself taken aback not by his words, but by his anger. It was in his words and his face.
She decided to calm him. “My mother and her father are siblings. My mother, Lady Alva, was the daughter of the—”
“Former Marquess of Freyler?”
Alice nodded.
Calvin lifted a brow. “And her uncle is the current Marquess of Freyler?”
She nodded again.
“And your mother, the marquess’ daughter, married a club owner?”
She nodded a third time.
Calvin leaned away to study her face. He scoffed. “Christ, you do look like Rose.”
That was the very last thing she wished to hear, though she’d heard it many times before. Their only difference was in hair color. Rose had inherited her blond from her mother, Aunt
Arrah, while Alice’s hair matched the feathers of a raven.
But while it was fine when others mentioned the similarities, it was much different when Calvin noticed them.
She was readying herself to tell him to move when he spoke over her thoughts.
“But that’s where the similarities end.” He was still holding her eyes. “You’re nothing like Rose.”
“And yet you touched her.” The words tumbled from her lips before she caught them.
The noise from the crush of the party made them both look at the door. There was laughter and the sound of breaking glass. When the noise of endless footsteps faded, their eyes found one another again.
“Alice,” Calvin started. “Rose was nothing.”
No. I am nothing. She’d always been nothing to him, and she regretted just what a fool she’d been to try and gain his attention. She recalled the very first day he’d walked into Wilkins’ with his brother and father. She’d visited a table he’d been sitting at and had done everything she could to distract him. She’d done silly turns and stood around other tables that he could easily see from his chair. She was nothing, and still, Alice felt a prick in her heart for her cousin. Even though she was finished with Rose, she did feel the need to defend her. “Rose is not nothing.”
“Name one decent quality about your cousin,” he prompted.
Alice closed her mouth and tried to think of all the good Rose had done for her. She wondered why her mind could only remember the many times she’d taken the blame for every error Rose had ever made. It seemed to be an ongoing ritual with them. Rose did something and Alice took the blame. Inevitably, Alice was told she needed to marry since a husband was the only way for Alice to be reined in.
How fortunate that Alice’s heart was no more available for love than her hand available for marriage. Calvin had ruined her.
“I’m still waiting for an answer,” Calvin told her.
“Name a decent quality about yourself,” she prompted. “Is my cousin to take all the blame for what just transpired?”
Calvin’s eyes filled with regret again. “I didn’t know she was your cousin. I swear.”
Alice shook her head and cursed inwardly at the stinging that touched her eyes. She refused to allow herself to cry before Calvin. She refused, even when all she wanted to do was cry and shout, “You should have touched no one! You’re mine!”
“Alice—”
“It’s Miss Wilkins to you,” she told him. “I am Miss Wilkins and you are Mr. Lockwood.”
“Darling.”
She shot up and his arm was forced to move away. “No!” He did not get to call her such things. “I am Miss Wilkins!”
Calvin stood and opened his mouth and began to speak just as the door opened.
A woman stood there in the entrance, withdrawing a pistol and pointing it at Calvin.
“She has a gun!” Alice cried right before she flew into Calvin. Pain ripped through her arm and glass shattered. She heard retreating footsteps and the thud of her and Calvin’s bodies hitting the ground.
Calvin groaned underneath her but it was nearly drowned by the screaming of those who were in the hall. Then, in the distance, the music stopped.
“Oh, my,” she whispered. As she tried to straighten, the pain in her arm nearly crippled her, almost forcing her back down on Calvin but she pushed through and righted herself.
Then she looked at her arm and saw the blood trailing down her elbow. The wound was to the side, making it look as though someone had cut her with a knife more so than a bullet. It was shallow but blood nonetheless poured from the opening and pooled on her skirt. Her aunt and uncle would be furious. Her uncle on the report that she’d been shot and her aunt that she’d bled on her gown. And Aunt Arrah, though nearly blind, would have no trouble seeing the large red stain that contrasted with the gray of her gown. It was a hideous dress, however, and Alice would not miss it.
Calvin pulled in a sharp breath. “You’ve been shot.”
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ALSO BY CHARLOTTE STONE
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LINK: Book 1 - Lady Lorena’s Spinster’s Society
^ Story of : Ashwick . Lady Lorena
Book 2 : Alice’s Shameless Spinster’s Society
LINK: Book 2 - Alice’s Shameless Spinster’s Society
^ Story of : Calvin . Alice
Book 3 : Genie’s Scandalous Spinster’s Society
LINK: Book 3 - Genie’s Scandalous Spinster’s Society
^ Story of : Francis . Genie
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LINK: Book 1 - The Earl’s Unforgettable Flame
LINK: Book 2 - The Duke’s Ever Burning Passion
LINK: Book 3 - The Viscount's Blazing Love
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This book is copyright © 2017
by Charlotte Stone
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or deceased, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Published by: SHERMANBROOKS PUBLISHING HOUSE LLC
Cover Designed by: Sharon Caldwell
Digital Edition
Manufactured in the United States of America
Genie’s Scandalous Spinster’s Society (The Spinster’s Society Book 3) Page 22
