A humble smile touched her lips. “I have a meeting with the Duchess of Dunway after I leave here.” Her fingers ran across the bare skin above the bosom of the deep mauve silk dress she wore. A slight ribbon of white lace set off the slope of her breasts, much lower than she was accustomed to. “I plan to wear the latest emerald filigree pieces first, as I think they will suit the duchess’s eyes quite well.”
Caine nodded, his eyes dropping to her chest. “So Mrs. Merrywent’s idea has been working well?”
“Very much so. It is so much easier to sell the designs by modeling them.” Ara fingered the silk of her skirt. Since she had begun modeling in-person the jewellery that Greta created, the finery in her wardrobe had expanded.
Ara marveled once more at the good fortune bestowed upon them when they had saved Greta from an auction at the Jolly Vassal. Greta had been seventeen, one of the first girls that they had rescued—and also a Dutch orphan whose father had been the preeminent jeweller to William V of Orange.
Trained by her master goldsmith father, Greta had inherited not only her father’s delicate skill with metals, but also his aesthetic for creating beauty. He had died when she was fifteen, and she had been sent to live with a distant aunt in Essex. An aunt that had sold Greta to the thugs from the Jolly Vassal only months after she had arrived.
So Greta had moved in with Ara, and after a few years, Greta had determined the best thing she could do to contribute to the household was to create jewellery and train the other girls in goldsmithing. Thus, the Vakkar Line of jewellery was established.
Smoothing the crinkle she had made in her skirt, Ara looked to Caine. “And this dress sets off the colors of emeralds. I was just happy Greta finished the bracelet of the parure in time for the meeting with the duchess. She worked through the night.”
Caine’s eyes suddenly dropped from Ara’s chest to the desk and he fingered the piece of vellum in front of him. “But I assume your meeting with the duchess is not what you wanted to discuss? Was there something more about Valerie? You said nothing was amiss with the girl when you arrived, but are there concerns?”
“No, she is settled. She was clear-eyed this morning after a bath, and Mrs. Merrywent has already taken to coddling the girl. I believe she will stay at my house for a few days, and then we will move her to the Baker Street house with the other girls—it usually helps the transition, being able to spend time with others who have overcome her same situation.” Ara’s voice caught. “She is just…so young.”
“Too young.”
The growl in Caine’s voice startled her. She had not thought he was truly listening to her.
“Yes. I just did not expect one so young.”
He looked up at her, his blue eyes searching her face. “It hurts your soul?”
Ara nodded. Why did he always know what she was thinking? Was she truly that conspicuous?
He cleared his throat as his look dropped down once more to the desk. “Yet that is not the topic either?”
Ara swallowed, trying to ignore, for the moment, the injustice on innocence she had seen last night. She stared at Caine’s ear, where strands determined to escape the neatness of his dark hair curled along the top. “Why have you been avoiding me, Caine?”
His fingers on the vellum froze, but he did not look up at her. “We have just spent the last two hours together, Ara. Your grasp of the meaning of avoidance is somewhat suspect.”
A chuckle stuck in her throat. “Do not be impudent, Caine. Your eyes have barely met mine once since I arrived.”
“It is not like you to unbridle your imagination.”
“No. Except that you were the same way with me last night. You said not but five words to me on the way to the brothel.”
“You counted?” His head remained down as the corner of the vellum dropped from his hand, his thumb beginning to drum on the wood of the desk.
“Yes. So why the avoidance?”
Ara waited, the silence of the large study echoing in her ears. Only an occasional pop from the fire on the far wall broke through the deafening sound. She knew he hated it when she let silence sit between them, and she was not above using it to her own advantage. Caine had been avoiding her, and she intended to find out why.
The quiet stretched thin until Caine sighed, his hand curling into a fist. “I must wed, Ara.”
“What?” Her spine cracked straight and she blinked hard, not sure she had just heard correctly. Patch jumped to his feet at her shins, his ears cocked.
Caine’s eyes snapped to her. “I have to wed. It was decided. The Newdale estate will not survive past another five years without an infusion of funds. Funds that will only come through a sizable dowry or a wealthy heiress.”
Her jaw slackened as Ara shook her head. “But…but how—why? Your estate has always been healthy. I have seen the numbers a hundred times over.”
“You’ve never seen these numbers, Ara.” Caine’s fingers ran through his hair, fully mussing the neat strands. “The mines are failing. Unless we can explore—dig and find new deposits, there is notenough coal in the current mines to support the estate in five years. The seams we have extracted from are too narrow, and becoming more so. Exploration will be expensive, but I can put it off no longer.”
Her face felt light, as though all blood had drained away and her head was about to float off her body. “So…you have been putting off marriage?”
His look whipped away from her, landing on the portrait of his dead brother, the last Earl of Newdale. “I have known for the past three years the mines were failing.” His words were low, measured.
Panic wrapped around her shoulders, tightening the muscles running up her neck. Panic she ignored, forcing her voice even. “Does your mother know?”
“She does not know about the mines, only about my intention to wed. She has been given instructions to identify the women of interest, with the caveat that they have substantial dowries or income behind them.” His eyes went upward with the shake of his head. “You can imagine her reaction.”
Utter delight. Caine’s mother had been haranguing him to get married for as long as Ara had known him. And for as long as she’d known him, he had resisted his mother at every turn. Ara knew very well that he still loved Isabella and no other woman would ever be in his heart.
But Ara had also known this would happen someday. Of course Caine would have to marry.
She just hadn’t imagined today would be the day.
He had to marry. He had to produce an heir. Even so, she had never let her mind rest on that fact for long. She ignored that inevitability every time it popped forth, never truly believing Caine would marry.
And why? What had she hoped for? Nothing.
She had never dared hope for anything, so she would never have to suffer the soul-crushing disappointment that she was experiencing at this very moment.
She swallowed hard, stilling every part of her body.
Hide everything.
Just like she always had. Just like she was good at. Do not let Caine know her heart had contracted, shriveling in her chest.
She managed her voice to neutral. “And the mines? Who knows about them?”
“No one except for Mr. Peterton, the mine foreman, and now you.”
Ara’s mind raced. “But what about the Vakkar Line? Greta’s designs are just starting to flood the ton, and now that she has trained many of the girls in goldsmithing, they have been working so quickly, and the profit—the growth of orders has been much more than we ever dreamed. Surely those profits can help with exploratory excavations?”
“It is not enough, Ara.”
“But now is the time for you to wed? Why now? When did you decide this? You have said nothing about—”
“You do not know every damn thing I do, Ara.” His fist slammed onto the desk, his glare landing on her.
Her mouth clamped shut, stung.
She gave a weak nod and stood, going across the study to the fine mahogany box she had set on the s
ideboard when she came in. Her head down, she pulled on her gloves and tucked the box stacked with three velvet layers cradling three sets of jewellery into her arms.
She snapped her fingers, and Patch sidled her skirts. Without another glance to Caine, she walked out the door of the study.
Her front teeth clamped onto the inside of her lip as she tipped her head to Mr. Wilbert, Caine’s most recent butler.
“Ara, stop.”
Mr. Wilbert’s left eyebrow rose at her with Caine’s barked order from the study.
Silently, she tilted her head pointedly to the door. It wasn’t the first time she had left Caine’s townhouse with him mad at her. Nor would it be the last.
Mr. Wilbert opened the door wide and Ara escaped down the stairs to the first of two waiting carriages. Caine must have had other business he was going to attend to today. Such as landing a wife.
“Felix, will you please gather up Mable?” Ara looked up at her tall coachman as he helped her up the stairs of the carriage. “I think she went to speak with Cook when we arrived.”
“Of course, Miss Detton.” He closed the carriage door and disappeared.
Ara settled the fine, but nondescript box onto her lap. These last three parures Greta had designed were special—masterpieces. Ara wondered as she did almost daily at the fate that brought Greta into her life. It had only taken a few short years to build the Vakkar jewellery enterprise, solidly built upon Greta’s mastery. And not only had it created a business that could financially support the girls as they came in from the auctions, each of the girls that chose to be trained by Greta had gained a trade that offered them the chance to choose their own path in life without dependence on a man.
Ara balanced the box with the reverence the creations of beauty inside deserved. Greta was a genius, and now it was Ara’s turn to sell her genius to the world.
She looked out the carriage window, annoyed she had to wait for Mable. But Caine always insisted she have a companion wherever she went, especially when she came to his home. He still did not want her reputation tainted—no matter that Ara was at his home every day of the week.
She shook her head. Caine was worried about money, yet he employed someone solely for the purpose of trailing after her. She never would understand all of the nuances of his world.
Her foot tapping wildly on the floor, she realized she had to calm down before she set herself in front of the Duchess of Dunway. Two times she had met the woman, and while the duchess was nothing but kind, Ara couldn’t afford to be a wreck in front of the lady. If she liked them, the duchess would be the highest peer to wear Greta’s designs, and it would create an onslaught of interest in the Vakkar Line.
Ara forced her rabbit foot to stop its thumping. Her head dropped back onto the cushions, and she stared at the black velvet stretched tight across the ceiling of the carriage.
He couldn’t have meant it.
Caine couldn’t truly be intending to marry.
He couldn’t.
Where at first she was stunned, her heart had now started to pound forcibly in her chest. Had she made a mistake six years ago?
Ara had not wanted to be a replacement for Isabella in Caine’s mind. She didn’t want love that was not rightly hers—love that belonged to another woman, especially when that woman was dead.
But if she had let Caine do more than kiss her—touch her—that night long ago in the carriage inn. If she had let him take her. She would be his right now. He was too honorable not to make that so.
Why had it mattered so much to her back then that he still loved Isabella? If she had just ignored her pride, ignored how his uttering the word “Bella” had sliced through her chest.
If only she could have ignored the wrong in that moment, Caine would be hers right now. Not set to marry another. She had been so proud those many years ago. But now…
Instead, what had she become to him? A burden? A responsibility his guilt had never allowed to set free? His secretary? She took care of so much of his business—his correspondence, his reconciliations, his household staff matters—that secretary could very well be how he regarded her.
His secretary. And an occasional partner in saving virgins from the auction stage. That was what she was.
Which would be acceptable, except that all she had done during the past six years was fall deeper and deeper in love with him. And subsequently, she had gotten very good at disguising that fact every minute they were together. Disguising it because Ara knew Caine was still in love with a dead woman.
A woman who never deserved his love in the first place.
And if Caine knew the truth of what had happened in that brothel six years ago with Isabella, he would never forgive Ara. Never forgive her cowardice. Never. And she couldn’t risk him not being in her life at all.
The carriage door opened, jarring her from her thoughts.
“We be off to the duchess, then, miss?” Mable jumped into the carriage, her sweet youth filling the carriage with an energy that would eventually serve her well past being a maid. She would make an excellent wife someday—enthusiastic, yet sweet and loyal.
Damn. She had to stop thinking about marriages. About love.
She had to concentrate on calmness. On sereneness. On elegance. She would bring nothing but those things before the duchess.
Too much was at stake.
{ Chapter 7 }
Caine leaned back into the thick leather of the wingback chair that Ara had set into her study years ago. The only masculine thing in the room, Ara had been half-giddy the first time he had walked in and seen it.
Ara had not said a word about it, but had watched him walk through the study to the chair with a grin she tried to—but could not—suppress. He had toyed with her, pandering about the room, shifting from spot to spot in the study just to aggravate her anticipation. But once he had finally sat in it, he realized the care she must have taken in having it built. It fit his frame, his body perfectly.
And the deep brown leather had only worn into soft comfort throughout the years. Yet it still was the only masculine item in the room—the only allowance Ara had made in the sea of soft yellows and greys—a room that reeked of soft femininity.
Not that he could blame her. She dealt with women, with gentleness, with turning girls into proper young ladies. Her study reflected that.
Caine needed that right now. Needed to be reminded what gentle femininity looked like.
Three weeks of balls, dinners, and parties—and all of the brash young chits that came with the soirees—had him on edge. He was quickly verifying why he had avoided the marriage market all these years.
Ara would resettle him. She always did. But in the last three weeks, she had avoided him at every turn. The few times he had seen her, she had been curt, quick to her business, and then gone. He was accustomed to seeing her almost every day, and now, nothing.
He knew he hadn’t been as delicate with the news of his need to wed as he would have liked to be, and she still had not forgiven him for it. That much was clear.
Ara walked into the study carrying one of the simple mahogany jewellery boxes she had ordered made specifically for Greta’s designs.
“Caine. Mr. Turlington said you had arrived. I had not expected you. You have been scarce these past few weeks.”
Caine stood, his eyes sweeping over Ara from toe to face, and his head tilted at what he saw. Late afternoon usually found her in a serviceable muslin dress, grey or dark blue, and dealing with the girls, running the households she managed, planning with Greta the Vakkar Line, or working to balance all the finances. Not walking into her study dressed in a slim, hunter green gown that set the color of her eyes off to a perfect glow.
Uncontrollably, his look glided down and up her body again. No. She certainly did not appear in a gown that hugged her curves far too closely and cut far too deeply across the swell of her breasts.
Her words finally reached his mind. He had been scarce? Caine bit back his instant reaction a
nd sat back down in his chair. “You know what has been occupying my time as of late, Ara.”
What looked like a sad smile flickered across her face, but it was gone before Caine could read it properly.
“I do.” She set the box onto the rosewood desk in front of him, moving to stand next to his chair. “Please, look, it is Greta’s newest design. I am so proud of her, but she has been working herself into exhaustion since the Duchess of Dunway—and half of society—has become an ardent admirer of her masterpieces.”
“Tell her she must rest. Take away her files and hammers. Lock her in her bedroom if you must.”
Ara smiled. “I already did tell her nearly that very same thing.”
Caine reached forward, flipping open the lid of the box. Only placeholder stones sat in the necklace, but he recognized the spirited exuberance of the design. Twirled golden snakes to be draped across a bare chest. Perfect for the ton’s indulgent proclivities and taste for blood. He, on the other end of the spectrum, liked the simplest of Greta’s designs—but he knew he was in the minority.
“This is beautiful. They always are.”
“Yes.” Ara nodded, staring at the piece.
“Does she have rubies identified from Mr. Flagerton for it? His latest batch of rubies was of exceptional quality, or so I heard.”
“That is the genius of Greta—she does not want to use common rubies with the design, she thinks it too ordinary. She is demanding Burmese ‘pigeon blood’ rubies. Only those will be dark enough, she insists.” Ara’s lips twitched in a wry smile. “Mr. Flagerton has been throwing his hands up in the air more than usual with Greta, as of late. And while I would like to, I cannot fault her—she does know how to make pieces that are extraordinary.”
“That she does.” Caine closed the box, placing it on the desk and looking up at Ara. “You are dressed to show more designs today?”
Her mouth tightened, her jaw shifting as she stared at him. Her eyes flickered, the golden rings around her irises scattering into the green of a pure emerald.
Her silence unsettled him.
“Ara?”
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