by Dare, Tessa
“Literally,” Rosamund interjected. “Literally a heap.”
“Today, I’m allowed to pet the hedgehog if I remember my manners. Also, Miss Teague bakes the scrummiest biscuits.” She took Chase by the hand and tugged. “You should join us.”
“I don’t believe I’m invited,” he replied.
“You can come. That is, if you wish.” Alexandra stood in the doorway. She was wearing that fetching yellow frock again, and he suddenly felt starved for sunshine.
Starved for her company, as well.
“You’re certain?” They locked eyes, and he searched her expression for hints to her true emotions. “I don’t want to go where I’m not wanted.”
“Lady Penelope would welcome you.” She worked her fingers into her gloves with short, impatient tugs. “She takes in every creature that wanders past, no matter how ill behaved.”
Chase knew the tone of a woman’s enthusiastic invitation, and that was not it. Alex was clearly hoping he’d decline.
This afternoon, he’d be disappointing her hopes once again. “I’ll order the carriage.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alex cursed herself all the way to Penny’s house. Why had she invited him? She’d been so relieved to see him well and strong again, she hadn’t been thinking clearly. And she never dreamed he’d accept.
The carriage ride to Bloom Square wasn’t a long one, and they arrived before she was ready.
Once Chase had helped her out of the carriage, she kept a tight grip on his hand. “Lady Penelope Campion and Nicola Teague are two of my dearest friends in the world.”
“I understand.”
She didn’t think he did, not truly. “Penny and Nic . . . well, they’re not the usual sort of ladies. They weren’t among the finishing school set. If you are even the slightest bit teasing or unkind, I will rip that gold earring straight through your earlobe.”
He cursed and fumbled at his ear until he’d removed it himself.
She shouldn’t have mentioned it.
“One last thing,” she muttered as Rosamund reached for the door knocker. “If Lady Penelope Campion offers you a sandwich—you will eat it. And you will like it.”
“Why does that sound like a threat?”
She didn’t answer. He’d learn soon enough for himself.
The door opened, and Penny greeted each of the girls with sound kisses on their cheeks. “Come in, darlings.”
Then she noticed Chase, and Alex sent up a prayer. Please, Penny. For once, remain calm.
Penny threw her arms around Chase and caught him in a hug, rocking him back and forth. “I’m so relieved to see you. I’ve been desperately worried ever since I heard you were ill. Alex was beside herself.”
Right. Brilliant.
“Come in, come in,” she urged. “Nicola’s already here. She’s made teacakes.”
Alex held the girls back. “Wait. You know they’re meant to be practicing. Go on, girls.”
The girls curtsied. Not especially smoothly, but they were improving. “Good afternoon, Lady Penelope,” they said in a chorus of two.
“Rosamund, would you introduce Lady Penny to our guest?”
“Mr. Reynaud, may I present—”
“No, no. The other way around,” Alex said. “You ask Lady Penelope if you may present him, because she’s his superior in society.” And his superior in many other ways.
“Alex, you know I despise that sort of thinking,” Penny said.
“They need to learn. Their guardian wishes them to be proper young ladies.” She turned to Chase. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Reynaud?”
Rosamund began again, the promise of teacakes outweighing her impatience with the exercise. “Lady Penny, may I present our guardian, Mr. Reynaud. Mr. Reynaud, this is Lady Penelope Campion.”
Chase not only bowed, but took her hand and kissed it with devilish charm. “Enchanted, Lady Penelope.”
“Oh,” Penny sighed. “You are wonderful. I knew you would be.”
Etiquette lessons were left at the door. Penny’s house didn’t lend itself to propriety, anyway. The upholstery was shredded, and the carpet pattern was medallions interspersed with tufts of loose fur, and if a one-eyed kitten wasn’t mewling and climbing the draperies, a yipping two-legged dog was racing around the room on its specially made cart.
Alex loved the place unreservedly.
Chase was introduced to Nicola, whose reception of him was as icy as Penny’s was warm. No kisses on the hand. Nic swiveled her gaze to Alex the moment he’d turned away and mouthed a simple Why?
Alex could only shrug.
They all settled themselves in the parlor. The girls dashed off to the back garden at once.
“Where are they going?” Chase asked.
“Oh, they’ve gone to feed Hubert his tea,” Penny explained.
“Hubert?” he asked.
“The otter.”
“Yes, of course. A beautiful creature, the otter.”
“Isn’t it, though? They’re so affectionate. Hubert adores Rosamund and Daisy. We all do. You must be so proud of your girls.” She lifted a plate and offered it to him. “Sandwich?”
Aha. Here was the moment of truth.
“This one is a new recipe of mine.” Penny pointed at one half of the plate. “I call it tuna-ish.”
“I’m . . . unfamiliar with that.”
“Well, the tuna is a Mediterranean fish, and I had a letter from a cousin in Cadiz who told me it makes an excellent sandwich with a bit of soured cream. But I don’t consume animals, so I made my own version. Instead of tuna fish, it’s tuna-ish. The secret is in the brine.”
She pointed at the other half of the plate. “And this is my usual specialty. Sham. It’s everyone’s favorite.”
“Sham?”
“It’s like ham. Only made from vegetables, all pressed together into a loaf and sliced thin. I’ve been told it tastes even better than the real thing.”
Alex caught his eye.
Do not hurt her feelings. Do not. Or I will never forgive you.
“Lady Penny, that sounds delightful,” Chase said smoothly, and for a moment even Alex believed him. “Thank you, I’ll take two of each.”
In the end, he ate three of each—and asked Penny for the recipes. He praised Nicola’s baking and listened to her describe her latest fascination: the engineering challenges of tunneling under the Thames.
Even the hedgehog uncurled in his hand, offering her soft underbelly for a gentle stroke.
He didn’t commit a single act of unforgivable behavior. With the exception of being unforgivably wonderful, perhaps.
As they hugged in farewell, Penny whispered a teasing question in Alex’s ear. “So? How does it feel to be falling in love?”
Hopeless, Alex silently answered.
It felt hopeless indeed—because it was.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In the office the next morning, Chase clutched his side and groaned.
Barrow gave him a sidelong glance. “Is it the bank accounts?”
“No, it’s the sham. Or maybe the tuna-ish.”
“I won’t ask.”
“Good. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Barrow stretched his arms overhead and yawned. “You know, I’ve noticed that doll of Daisy’s hasn’t taken ill in weeks.”
“I suppose my own bedridden state was entertainment enough.”
“Hm.” Barrow cast a pensive look out the window. “Speaking of beds . . . As far as I can tell, you haven’t shared one with a woman in weeks, either.”
“Oh, yes. I did finally manage a period of celibacy, didn’t I? And all I had to do was nearly die.” Chase narrowed his eyes at him. “What are you on about, then? Don’t tell me you’re going to badger me to keep the girls.”
“I mean to suggest you should marry Miss Mountbatten. And then keep the girls.”
What?
“That’s impossible.”
“Don’t you love her? I think you love her.�
�
Chase avoided answering that question, and he did so easily. He’d had a great deal of practice avoiding merely thinking about that question.
“It doesn’t matter how I feel about her,” he said. “I’m not marrying, ever. You know my reasons.”
“Yes, but your reasons aren’t good.”
“I’m responsible for my cousin’s death. I refuse to replace Anthony’s legacy with my own sorry bloodline. The title should have been his.” He hesitated, then decided to have out with it. “And if it couldn’t be his, it might as well have been yours. You’re the elder between us. We both have Reynaud blood.”
Barrow sat back in his chair, crossing his legs. “So. We’re going to talk about that now, are we?”
“We may as well.” Chase gestured at all the paperwork around them, and the immense wealth and lands it represented. “You’d make a much better duke than I will. Are you certain I can’t give this to you? At least half of it?”
“I’m afraid not. It’s all entailed.”
“Well, at least start embezzling or something.”
Barrow chuckled. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
“I’m serious.”
“Chase, you’re going to make a better nobleman than half the peers in England. At least you look after your dependents. You know, it hasn’t escaped my attention that since we took over all this, you’ve asked me to establish no fewer than six trusts and legacies for ‘devoted servants.’ I’ve seen your servants. They’re not devoted.”
Chase sighed. Difficult to argue that point.
“So I’m guessing I’m not the only bastard your father sired.” After a moment, Barrow asked quietly, “What about the girls?”
“I don’t know.” Chase covered his eyes. “It’s possible they’re his, but I can’t be certain. Doesn’t make a difference, though. I intend to provide for them. School, dowries, trusts.”
“So you can care for all your father’s bastards, but not a family of your own?”
“Bloody hell, Barrow. I don’t ‘care’ for all his bastards. It’s just money.”
Barrow’s face went hard. “Oh, really.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Chase cursed his thoughtlessness. “But this is a perfect illustration of the point. I am shite at caring. Friendship, maybe I can manage. But guardianship? Family? Absolutely not. After Anthony was killed, I took his body home to Belvoir. I’d sent an express in advance with the news, but somehow it hadn’t yet arrived. My uncle only learned of it upon seeing the body. Do you know what it looks like when a person’s heart breaks right in front of you?”
Barrow shook his head.
“Well, I do. And I never want to see it again.”
They were silent for a minute.
“Chase, when you love someone there’s always a chance you’ll hurt them. But if you let them go, hurting them isn’t a possibility—it’s a certainty. I watched that woman spend day and night by your bedside while you lingered near death.” He arched an eyebrow. “You pissed yourself, you know. Twice.”
“Yes, I heard that,” he said irritably. “Thank you for bringing it up. Again.”
“Alexandra’s in love with you. If you can’t find it within yourself to love her back, then you’d better make that very clear. Sooner rather than later.”
Chase nodded. As always, his annoyingly smug brother had the right of it. “I’ve promised them an outing to the British Museum tomorrow. I’ll speak with Alexandra at the first opportunity.”
After a mere two minutes in the Egyptian Room, Alexandra knew this outing was the most brilliant idea she’d had all summer.
“Look at them.” She nudged Chase’s arm. “Have you ever seen those girls so happy?”
“Of course they’re happy,” he replied, sounding markedly less enthusiastic about it. “Daisy is surrounded by death, mummies stacked three to a case, and even Rosamund couldn’t dream of this much plundered gold.”
“Just think of the educational benefits.”
Daisy pushed up her spectacles and bent over a label on the glass case of an intricately carved stone coffin. She sounded out the word, syllable by syllable. “Sar-co-pha-gus.”
“Come look at this.” Rosamund waved her sister over. “Before they wrapped the mummy, they took the organs out and stored them in golden jars.” She pointed. “This one’s for the brain. It says here they pulled it out through the mummy’s nose.”
“Ooooh.”
Alex turned to Chase. “You can’t deny that they’re learning.”
He only shook his head in response.
Secretly, Alex agreed with him somewhat. She, too, hoped the girls would develop other interests with time—or if not other interests, at least less morbid and criminal applications of them.
“May we go on to the South Seas curiosities?” Rosamund asked. “I want to see the maps and things from Captain James Cook.”
“You may go ahead of us,” Alex told her, “if you mind Daisy. We’ll join you in a moment. And no running.”
Once the girls had left the Egyptian Room, Alex maneuvered toward a quieter corner between galleries. “We should talk.”
“I’ve been thinking the same.”
“The summer’s drawing to an end.”
He nodded. “And so is our arrangement.”
“Yes.” She lowered her voice. “Promise me one thing, if you will. Wherever you send them to school, don’t make them stay there over school holidays. If you won’t have them at your house, send them to me. I stayed at school every holiday for years, and it was misery.”
“Surely you didn’t stay every holiday.”
“Where would I have gone? I’d no family. There was one year another schoolgirl invited me to summer with her family at their country home. But in the end, it didn’t come to pass.”
She didn’t tell him the rest of the story. That the schoolgirl—Violet Liddell—had spent weeks describing all the wonderful things they would do together that summer. Picnics and buying ribbons in the village and staying up all night, giggling. Alexandra had dreamed of it every night for months, imagining all the adventures she and Violet would have together. What she looked forward to most wasn’t adventurous at all. Family dinners.
When the term ended and Violet’s parents came to collect her, Alex was waiting outside with her trunk, dressed in her best frock and beside herself with excitement for the journey. She waited to be introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Liddell, but that introduction never came. Instead, Violet turned to her with a cruel smile and said, “I hope you have a fine summer, Alexandra.”
And she climbed into her family’s carriage and left.
Alex would never forget the shame of lugging her trunk back up to the attic dormitory one step at a time, while the other schoolgirls stood by laughing. They’d known what was coming. They’d all known.
“Just promise me,” she said. “Easter, Christmas, summers. Don’t leave them there. They need to feel that they have a home.”
“Blast,” Chase muttered, turning toward the wall.
“What is it?”
“I spied someone I know—and don’t particularly like.”
“Where?” Alex turned her head.
“Don’t look,” he hissed. “I’m hoping he didn’t notice me.”
She returned her gaze to what lay in front of her. “I’m hoping no one notices we’re staring at a blank wall.”
“Very well, have a look. But be casual about it. At the far end of the gallery. The shorter fellow compensating by means of an absurdly tall hat.”
Alex turned in place, trying her best to look aimless about it. Although she wasn’t certain it looked better to be aimlessly turning in circles than to be staring at a blank wall.
As she completed her circle, she caught sight of the man Chase had described. Her stomach churned.
“Tell me he’s not looking this way,” Chase mumbled.
“He’s looking this way.” Which meant Alex wanted to pick up her skirts and sprint in t
he opposite direction.
“Reynaud?” The voice carried from the other end of the gallery. “Chase Reynaud, is that you?”
Chase cursed under his breath. “No escaping it now.” He turned and raised his hand in a halfhearted greeting. “That’s Sir W—”
“Sir Winston Harvey.”
“You know him?”
“I set the clocks in his house for three years.”
“Then you know he’s insufferable.”
Her skin crawled. “Oh, yes.”
In the distance, Sir Winston began taking leave of his current conversational partner—the quicker, presumably, to make his way down the length of the gallery to them.
“I’ll go to the girls,” Alex said. “They’ve moved on to the Grecian marbles.”
“No, stay.” He tugged her to his side, drawing her hand through his arm. “If you’re here, he won’t regale me with tales of his sordid brothel adventures. He seems to think I’ll be impressed.”
“I’d rather go with the girls.”
“What did he do?” He must have caught the tense note in her voice. “Tell me.”
“It was mostly just leering,” she whispered. “A pinch or two. You know, the usual.”
“The usual?”
“The usual for him. Chase, it was years ago. He won’t even recognize me. Just let me go.”
But it was too late. The man was upon them now.
No escape.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chase had never been one for committing acts of violence. He wasn’t opposed to a bit of vengeance, but somehow the opportunity had thus far eluded him. He always seemed to show up too late, after the damage was already done.
That was not the case today.
“Reynaud, you old cur. Haven’t seen you about the clubs much of late.” Sir Winston’s attention slid to Alex, and he raked her with a lecherous gaze. “Good to know you’re still in fine form. Who’s this?”
“I’m just the governess,” Alex quickly volunteered.
“You are not just the governess,” Chase corrected. “You are not ‘just’ anything.”
“Well, of course she’s not ‘just’ the governess.” Sir Winston gave him an unsubtle wink. “They never are, are they?”
