“Oh yes, I was,” Cecily said, pausing halfway up the curving staircase. “And it was right about here, level with that chandelier suspended from the dome above, that she tossed her bridal bouquet, only for the flowers to land in the chandelier and catch fire before they dropped flaming to the floor.”
“And my brother Gareth stamped out the flames,” Dane recalled. “Then you were there, one of the chits hoping to catch it?”
Cecily shook her head. “Cousin Rebecca was, but I was pushed to the very back. Not that I thought I stood a chance at the time. No, I’ve never caught a bridal bouquet, and yet I’m marrying anyway. I’m marrying a duke.”
“Ah, but you’re not marrying him because he ruined you?” He kept his tone light and playful, with not a hint of accusation, for he hoped to elicit a very certain response from her.
She glanced away as she continued up the staircase. “Just as you claim to have a surprise for me, it could be I have a surprise for you.”
She was only waiting for the right moment, he told himself. Maybe, once he revealed his surprise, she would reveal hers.
They reached the top of the staircase. A maidservant was posted outside the room she sought. “Here,” said Dane, glancing at the maidservant. “When Miss Logan is finished, do see that she finds her way to the chamber behind the entrance to the ballroom staircase.”
The maidservant curtsied. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Dane proceeded down the long corridor that ran behind the second-story gallery surrounding the ballroom. At the end of the corridor, he turned into the antechamber behind the double doors that opened straight onto the gallery. From there was the staircase that descended into the ballroom, where everyone was already gathered, waiting for him and Cecily to make their grand entrance to what he hoped would be thunderous applause.
He hadn’t forgotten the collective gasp of shock—almost silence—that had fallen over this same ballroom two years ago, when most of those same guests, thinking they were about to be presented with the long-lost (because she was already deceased) Princess Antonia of Lasotania, were instead introduced to Miss Tabitha Rowan, Antonia’s half-sister who was now the Countess of Tyndall.
Dane had been standing at the foot of the staircase that evening to lead Miss Rowan into the first dance, thus signaling to all of the ton that if she was acceptable to the Duke of Bradbury, then she should be acceptable to all of them.
The trick had worked like magic. Ross Benedict, the new Earl of Tyndall, hovering somewhere in the crowd, had emerged to cut in on Dane and whirl Miss Rowan away, into his arms and his heart.
Dane had longed for something like that for himself, ever since. Tonight, he had it in Cecily, if only she would show up already. He knew that women tended to take much longer than men for their personal needs, but as he checked his watch, he realized that a quarter of an hour had passed already. Surely she couldn’t be taking that long?
The murmurs of the crowd downstairs in the ballroom grew louder, gradually drowning out the playing of the orchestra. Dane was about to send the nearby footman to check with the maidservant outside the retiring room when the butler, Osbert, appeared from the opposite end of the antechamber.
“Your Grace, the Prince Regent has arrived and is wondering...” Osbert faltered.
“Where I am with my future duchess. Bloody hell.” Dane pivoted to the footman. “Run to the retiring room at the other end of that corridor and make inquiries of the maidservant there. And I do mean run!”
The footman dashed off. Then Dane, not wishing to just stand here like a lamppost, was about to dash after him when Osbert said, “Your Grace! No, His Royal Highness was not wondering that at all. Well, mayhap he was, in a certain sense.”
Dane clenched his fists. “Speak plainly, Osbert.”
The usually unflappable Osbert now looked thoroughly flapped, as he wrung his hands and waved his arms around in seeming despair. “I was still in the front hall, ready to receive any stragglers, and was about to close the doors—because it started to pour down rain again, so I thought—”
“The point, Osbert,” Dane ground out.
“Well, just then the Regent did arrive, after all. I thought he might have decided—”
“Not to come because of the rain. So he’s now here. In the meantime, Miss Logan may have fallen into a receptacle or worse.”
“I’m afraid it is worse, Your Grace.” Osbert’s voice almost broke.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” Dane was torn between lunging at Osbert to shake him by the shoulders—not that doing so would accomplish anything—and making that mad dash after the footman to the ladies’ retiring room.
“At the same time His Royal Highness was dripping all over the marble floor as we divested him of his hat and cloak, I thought I glimpsed Miss Logan hurrying down the grand staircase followed by two other ladies. I can’t say with any certainty who they were or if they were even with her, for so many came through this evening and the royal arrival posed an enormous distraction. The front doors were already closed once the Regent crossed the threshold, so I know not where she might have gone. But when he asked the whereabouts of Your Grace and Miss Logan, I didn’t know what to say. Then His Royal Highness said something to the effect of, ‘Never say she’s jilted him already, as all his prospective brides do. We came here this evening specifically to see that for ourself. Rumor has it the betting books at White’s lean heavily on her doing it before midnight.’”
Whereupon Osbert fell silent save for an audible gulp, while Dane’s heart plunged into his gut as he stared at his butler in disbelief.
Why would Cecily choose such a moment to return to the front hall—and who were the two women with her, or following her as if she were leading the way? At first he thought of Evie and Tabitha, who’d taken it upon themselves to inform Cecily that Dane was behind the publication of her book. But surely Osbert would have recognized them, even with the “enormous distraction” posed by Prinny.
“Those ladies didn’t happen to be young Lady Tyndall and Lady Gareth?” Dane asked.
“I suppose it’s possible, Your Grace. If only the Regent hadn’t arrived at that very same moment...”
“Or Lady Althea and Miss Armstrong?” Dane didn’t stand still long enough to hear Osbert’s thoughts, if they even existed, on that possibility. He dashed back to the ladies’ retiring room near the head of the curving staircase, and to his chagrin, there was a line of ladies snaking out of it far into the hallway.
Bloody hell.
“Looking for Miss Logan, Your Grace? No one has seen her.”
“Jilted again, Your Grace?”
Fury rose to a boil within Dane. He was a duke, and these “ladies” were mocking him. One was Lady Whidbey, whose son Cassandra Frey might have married if not for his mother’s objections. The other he recognized as Lady Nellis, London’s most notorious gossip. Unfortunately, a great deal of her gossip tended to have a grain of truth in it. The rest of the grains were embellishments and exaggerations and false assumptions. Maybe she should take up writing, like Cecily.
The Duchess of Ainsley scurried past the long line, as if she meant to cut in front of everyone. Another young woman followed on her heels. “Excuse me, ladies, but I’m afraid I left my fan in here earlier,” said the duchess. “And don’t mind Mrs. Jordan here—she’s with me. This way, Felicity.”
“I forgot my reticule in here,” said Mrs. Felicity Jordan to the ladies in line. “Again.”
Maybe Cecily left her fan or reticule in the library, and went back to retrieve it.
Dane had no choice but to get to the bottom of this by racing down the staircase that curved around the front hall and rushing into the library. It was still lit, but he didn’t see a soul. He could hear the drumming of the rain outside, even over the orchestra and rising, impatient voices in the nearby ballroom. Still, he called out, “Cecily!”
As if in response, a curtain over the French doors behind his desk billowed out. No wonder the rain was
so loud in here. Those French doors, leading to the steps and narrow alley alongside the house, were wide open again.
She’d left.
She’d left him.
And she must have left through these bloody French doors she’d referred to as “quite convenient.” Surely she didn’t plot all of this in advance? There had to be some mistake.
“Dane! Did she really leave?”
He whirled around to see Evie and Tabitha hovering in the doorway, with matching expressions of horror on their pallid faces.
“What do the two of you know about this?” he demanded.
“We told her that you insisted on publishing that book,” Tabitha said. “And she was so upset, that she actually threatened to leave London and go back to Northamptonshire, where she could remain safely and anonymously in Lord Ashdown’s household, since he is her cousin.”
“But we didn’t think she really meant it,” Evie added, as her eyes filled with tears. “Even my mother thought she spoke in jest. Now everyone in the ballroom is buzzing about why the two of you haven’t appeared, especially since Prinny’s arrived, and the on-dit is—”
“That she’s chosen this of all occasions to jilt me,” Dane said grimly. “Yes, I already know because I happened to pass by the line outside the ladies’ retiring room on my way back here. I don’t believe it. Surely she would never pretend to do this before Prinny and all the ton. But if she has left, then with whom? And why?” The only other two women he could think of were Thea and Rebecca. But why would Cecily go anywhere, or even pretend to go anywhere, with them?
“That we don’t know,” Tabitha said. “Oh, Dane, I’m so sorry. I for one never believed she would really do such a thing.”
“Make that two,” Evie piped in. “We so wanted her for another sister.” She and Tabitha were now openly weeping.
Dane wished he could do the same. He had so wanted Cecily for a wife.
A sickening pang he hadn’t felt for many years—maybe not since the day his father died, and right after they received the message that his brother Linus had been killed on the Peninsula—twisted in his gut as his eyes suddenly stung.
In disbelief, he slumped into the chair behind his desk and covered his face with his hands.
He never dreamed that when Cecily finally did something wildly unpredictable, it would break his heart.
Chapter Twenty
Cecily fumed as she sat on the carriage seat next to Rebecca, across from Uncle Willard and Aunt Thea. “I can’t believe I fell for this.”
“You’ve said that twice already,” her uncle growled.
“Frankly, I still can’t believe you fell for it, either,” Rebecca said. “I was worried sick it wouldn’t work. Honestly, Cecily! I thought you were far too clever to fall for—”
“Enough!” Willard barked. “The important thing is we have Cecily, and by the time Bradbury has figured out what’s going on—if he does—she’ll be safely married to Harry...”
Cecily shuddered as a wave of nausea washed through her.
“...and we will thus have control over the profits from that book,” he added.
“Suppose no one wants to buy it?” she asked.
“Oh, everyone will want to buy it,” Willard proclaimed confidently. “After the success of that—whatever that book was that everyone was reading earlier this year—the one about that mad poet...”
“Lord Byron, dear,” Thea reminded him.
“Everyone will wish to read about the Duke of Madfury, who’s really Bradbury,” said Willard. “And there won’t be a thing he can do about it, forasmuch as he’s the one who wanted it published—and all to ruin you, miss!” He glowered at Cecily. “Whatever made you think he would marry you? Did he even ask you?”
Cecily did not answer. Dane had never really asked her, strictly speaking. Instead, he’d practically commanded it. Marry me, he claimed to have said when he arrived at Tyndall Abbey that stormy afternoon. And then after Lady Cordelia had discovered Cecily in Dane’s appointed bedchamber. Oh, how she’d longed to be asked. But no, everyone else present had decided that for appearances’ sake, they would have to marry, or at least become betrothed. And once they reached Ashdown Park, Dane still wouldn’t ask. His reason? Because he’d already proposed marriage to someone else at Ashdown Park, and that someone—Evie Benedict—later jilted him right at the altar. No, instead, by the waggling of his fingers, he’d merely used his much-vaunted “ducal powers” to decide, on his own, that they would marry. And why?
Dukes didn’t ask. They just took whatever they wanted. Had Dane already taken all he wanted from Cecily? He’d already deceived her about the book. He’d been behind its publication all this time! But then how to explain—
“He gave me this necklace this evening.” She fingered the diamonds at her throat.
“’Tis only paste,” Willard scoffed.
Fresh anger flamed within her. “Why would the duke give me paste on an evening like this?”
“Because he knows what’s going to happen. At White’s they’re wagering heavily that you’ll jilt him before midnight. Even if no one ever buys that book, we stand to win a tidy sum at the stroke of twelve. Either way, he was never going to marry you.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Maybe for the same reason you keep saying you can’t believe you fell for this,” he shot back. “Maybe what you shouldn’t believe is that Bradbury ever fell for you. Why would he fall for some insignificant nonentity who thinks he’s a devil, only to marry her? No, Cecily—everything that’s happened, from the moment you found out your book would be published, is part of his diabolical plot to ruin you in retaliation.”
Thea, seated next to him, was nodding in eager agreement.
Cecily refused to believe it. On the other hand, what would Dane do once he found out she was gone? Would he assume she’d become the latest in a long line of ladies who jilted him because there was something mysteriously wrong with this particular duke? That she was truly furious with him for being the one behind the publication of That Book all this time, and could never forgive him? Would he pursue her and stop this forced marriage in time? Or had he actually betrayed her in some convoluted, “diabolical” scheme worthy of a book titled The Duke Is a Devil by The Lady He Ruined?
But she also couldn’t forget the things he said to her earlier this evening, when she confronted him about his duplicity: His pride in her accomplishments. His assertion that he believed in her, and that she should believe in herself. The irrefutable fact that he was always there for her when she was in trouble—not that she was in trouble because he happened to be there.
Alas, where was he now that she was in the worst trouble she’d ever faced since that day in the treehouse? Her greatest fear was that Dane wouldn’t find her in time—if he bothered to pursue her at all. What if he assumed that she was only pretending to jilt him, like all of his previous would-be brides, until tomorrow? Would he consider that predictable or unpredictable?
Oh, dear God. If only she could read his mind right now!
She continued stewing in silence over how easily she’d been duped. After conducting her business in the retiring room, she’d emerged to see Thea and Rebecca waiting for her. They announced that Uncle Willard had just consented to Rebecca marrying Vicar Eastman, and that even now they were on their way to the library to meet with Bradbury and obtain his official consent, since the vicar’s living was in Bradbury’s gift.
“But Bradbury has already gone down the hall toward the other end of the ballroom, so we can make our grand entrance there together,” Cecily had countered.
“No, he hasn’t. He went straight back to the library,” Thea hastily explained. “He wants you to join the rest of us there, and afterward the two of you will once more go up the staircase and around to the other side of the ballroom.”
At the time, Cecily was still drifting about in a fog of confusion over Dane’s astounding revelation that he was behind the book’s publicati
on...because he believed in her. It suddenly seemed a night where anything was possible. So it was that Cecily had foolishly rushed ahead of them downstairs to the library, where she saw neither duke nor vicar. Instead she ran afoul of her uncle and his beefy coachman, who swiftly scooped up Cecily and carted her out those damnably “quite convenient” French doors behind the desk, and into a carriage waiting outside.
Other carriages crowded all around Bradbury House, up and down Park Lane, impeding their progress already made worse by the downpour. When in London, Cecily’s relatives always stayed at Cousin Marianne’s more modest Mayfair residence on Green Street. The distance from Bradbury House was about the same to Frampton House in Berkeley Square, but the drive took twice as long as the one Cecily had taken with Lord and Lady Frampton earlier this evening.
“It would have been faster to return on foot if not for this rain,” Willard grumbled.
The carriage finally crept to a halt in front of the townhouse on Green Street. Rain continued pounding on the roof as everyone just sat there staring at one another.
“I can’t leave the carriage in this,” Thea protested. “I shall ruin my new turban.”
“I can’t, either,” Rebecca put in. “It wasn’t pouring like this when we left earlier. The rain will ruin my coiffure, and then Mr. Eastman may not want to marry me.”
“If Mr. Eastman doesn’t want to marry you because you happened to get your hair wet in the rain, then he’s not worthy of you or any woman,” Cecily pointed out.
“For once, Cecily and I agree on something,” Willard said gruffly.
“But Papa, you promised—”
“I know what I said, Rebecca, but I promised nothing. Eastman must first do his part by performing the marriage ceremony. Now come, Cecily.”
Cecily did not come. Instead, she continued seething, her arms crossed over her chest. Surely Vicar Eastman wouldn’t marry her to Harry against her will, just so he could marry Rebecca?
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