Scandalous, awful, horrible man. She was left standing facing each of their mothers and his wide-eyed sister. Henrietta’s eyes were a similar color to Ian’s, and Lottie was fairly sure the girl was her same age. But there was a general air of innocence about Henrietta that said, marriage to a commoner or not, she’d been untainted by the world.
Lottie was the one who not only indulged in reckless fantasies, she initiated them. Telling Ian that her door would be unlocked this evening had been outrageous. But they wouldn’t have long in the grand scheme of things. There were only so many times Lottie could gamble and risk pregnancy before she’d buckle under the weight of her mind’s worry.
That meant she needed him again, and soon. Before it was all too late.
Once Henrietta was properly received into society at the Duchess of Marvell’s ball, and once Patricia had been corralled, most likely at the school’s quarterly social, Lottie would only have one choice—to push Ian out of her life. Otherwise she’d have to face more choices that would break her heart.
As she watched, her mother was taking on that frantic inclination that did not bode well for the rest of the night. The glass of wine in her hand wasn’t helping the situation. The color that had been so attractive on her cheeks only moments ago now stretched all the way up to the dip of her temples. “Lottie, my love. Whatever took you so long to walk down the hallway?”
Mrs. Hayworth watched Lottie with an air of suspicion. “I’m sure they got distracted by innocent things.”
“Yes, Mother.” Ian gave a tiny nod of agreement. His collar was sharp and precise. “We stopped to inspect a painting I found interesting.”
Henrietta gasped. “Was it the ballerina? I saw that one too. So pretty. I wish I had done better in my dancing lessons, but I never had that grace.”
“It was,” Lottie said on a smile. She slid a look up toward Ian. “I was telling him about Monsieur Degas’s realist style.”
Mama took another deep drink of her wine, then looked up through her lashes with noticeably coquettish affectation. “I doubt it was the dancer’s grace that Sir Ian was admiring. More like the half-bare legs. I reconsider hanging that painting in such a public place as the hallway every day. Propriety and all.”
A hard knot appeared in the center of Lottie’s chest between one beat of her heart and the next. She knew that tone. It was waspish, irritated and rather self-satisfied. Her mother never had half a speck of interest in propriety of any sort, either for herself or for others. For some reason she seemed to have decided she was jealous. More likely she felt generally irritable and inexplicably inclined to rage at any moment.
“Mama,” she said with the most negligible hint of warning she could manage.
Thank God for Ian. He scooped her mama up by the arm, draping slightly against his side. He was so bloody, thankfully charming as he smiled down at Lady Vale. “With such beauty surrounding me, what need have I of a dancer’s legs? As a matter of fact, it was the off-center composition of the painting that I remarked upon. Perhaps you could explain more about that to me?”
Lottie’s mother visibly perked up. Ian led her to the far end of the room and deposited her on a sofa, then she patted the cushions beside her skirts. “Why, of course I can. Come sit next to me.”
Lottie let herself be drawn into conversation with Ian’s sister and Mrs. Heald, but she continually took swift peeks out of the corner of her eyes. Her mother and Ian were deep in conversation. She occasionally heard art phrases and her mother’s patented barbs about her fellow painters, but Lottie wasn’t reassured. She knew that look in her mother’s eyes. The hold of her head and the way her hands flew and danced with every single word, which streamed from her in rapid patter. Every now and then, her skirts twitched and shifted while she bounced her toes.
She was on the verge of a breakdown, and there was nothing Lottie could do to stop it.
While Ian had no idea what sort of byplay it was that passed between Lady Vale and Lottie, he certainly knew how to spot fear. It looked like Lottie’s wide eyes and the drawn whiteness of her cheeks. The emotion didn’t fit her right. She was bolder than that. Better than that. But no matter where she went around the room, her gaze kept returning to Ian and her mother.
“My daughter is all concern and solicitousness, isn’t she?” Lady Vale managed to sound rather displeased with the sentiment. Her nose crinkled.
“Many would be happy to have such an amiable daughter. She’s a credit to you.”
“Not to me.” Lady Vale smiled, and in the expression was a hint of her daughter’s joy, though tinged with something more sharply bitter. She took a drink of her wine. The gold-dipped rim flashed under gaslight. “Lottie has always gone her own way. If anything, that father of hers has more influence than I.”
“I have yet to meet Baron Vale.” Across the room, his mother and Henrietta leaned over a sheaf of music that Lottie was showing them.
“He’s out of town.” Her voice cracked, but then she coughed twice into a loose fist. She blinked fast flutters. “He’s often out of town. He rather likes the country.”
Ian was wading into murky waters that he didn’t quite understand. His own family was close enough that they were often content with only each other’s company for amusement. They were a solid knot. They trusted each other implicitly. After all, their family never would have survived Henrietta’s difficulties if it hadn’t been for their closeness.
Ian didn’t understand why Lottie watched her mother throughout the night like she was wary Lady Vale would turn into a wounded bear and begin roaring. As far as Ian could tell, Lady Vane was eccentric but bearable. There was nothing served by being so on guard.
Except at the end of the night, Ian suddenly realized that both Lottie and her mother had disappeared. Ian pivoted slowly to survey the room, but it wasn’t as if there was anywhere they could hide.
Discomfort prickled Ian’s skin and made the small hairs at the nape of his neck stand on end. He made his way toward the door.
At first, the foyer seemed silent. A single footman maintained his post at the base of the stairs. “May I help you, sir?”
Ian shook his head—and immediately heard a sharp crash. Most curiously, the footman didn’t flinch. His gaze remained on Ian, who looked back and forth between the door from whence the sound had come and the bland-faced footman. “Did you hear that?”
His gaze flickered. Color attacked his cheeks. “Hear what, sir?”
“That noise.”
“I’m sure that Lady Vale would appreciate it if you were to return to the party.” His cheeks weren’t washed with color, they had bright red circles across the apples. “And Miss Vale, particularly.”
“I’m sure they both would, indeed.” His shoes clicked across the black-and-white tiles. From behind him, a wave of laughter poured out of the open door.
Another crash echoed from the room as he pushed back the pocket door in front of him.
The tableau was exactly what he’d expected and yet entirely more. Lottie held her mother from behind, her arms wrapped around the older woman. Tears streamed down Lady Vale’s face. In the corner was a small pile of glittering glass and broken porcelain.
Both women froze, turning toward the door. Lady Vale scrubbed the back of one hand across her eyes and sniffled, but nothing could stem her tears. “Sir Ian. I’m terribly sorry you had to see me like this.” She gave another sniffle and her voice broke. Her shoulders bowed on a silent sob.
“I’m very sorry to have intruded,” he said by rote habit. Really, he was lost. These were murky waters he’d found himself in. Somehow he was in the middle of the Atlantic, as if he’d fallen off a steamer with no lifeboat.
“Ian...” Lottie’s eyes were wide. If he’d thought her cheeks pale earlier, that was nothing on the ghost-white pallor that had taken her over. She shook her head as slowly as an old lady. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Lady Vale wrenched away from her daughter’s arms. She threw herself to
the other end of the sofa they sat on, burying her face against her folded arms. “Because you’re ashamed of me. I knew it. I’ve been saying it for years and you’ve denied. Yet when it comes time to prove yourself, you only wish me hidden away.”
“I said no such thing.” A touch of exasperation tinged Lottie’s expression, but mostly there was weariness. She approached exhaustion. Her movements were as creaky as if her bones had frozen.
Yet she still reached toward Lady Vale. Her hands curled around her mother’s shoulders, which shook with fresh sobs. From a drawer she withdrew a handkerchief and wiped what she could off her mother’s cheeks.
Lady Vale took the cloth and dabbed at her tears. “I’m so sorry, Lottie. I’ve ruined the evening. Again.” She gave a small, delicate laugh that sounded so forced, Ian filled with grief for her. “I seem to make a terrible habit of this from time to time.”
Lottie tugged Lady Vale into her arms. “It’s no harm. The dinner itself went well. In a moment, I’ll have to leave you to make excuses and say you’ve a megrim. I’m sure Sir Ian won’t breathe a word.”
He inclined in a shallow bow, as it seemed the least he could give them, especially considering Lady Vale’s discretion at finding him in Lottie’s bed. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Ian, will you pull the bell for me? Twice.” She rubbed up and down her mother’s back. “See, Mama? I’ll send for your maid, and she’ll see you to your room as soon as possible. We’ll have you tucked in before you know it.”
Ian obeyed, finding the silk cord and calling the aforementioned maid. When she bustled into the room, she looked more like a nurse Ian once had than any lady’s maid he’d seen. She was soft and round, with salt-colored hair drawn back in a loose bun. Compassion poured out of her every pore. “Oh, Lady Vale. You’ve pushed yourself too far for the evening, haven’t you?”
Lady Vale smiled through a fresh sheen of tears. “I think this bout has been a long time coming, Nicolette.”
Lottie whispered in her mother’s ear before the kind-seeming Nicolette hustled her out of the room. Sitting on the chaise, her palms facing upward and loose in her lap, Lottie watched them go. Her own eyes pinkened with a wash of unshed tears until she blinked them away.
She pushed up from her seat and brushed at her skirts, though no sheen of dust or dirt clung to them. Maybe she was brushing away her own sadness. “Well, then. I’ll be rather busy for the next few weeks.”
“Is that how long her spells last? A few weeks?” He crossed his arms over his chest for lack of anything better to do with them. He’d never been quite so aware of his useless, empty hands.
Lottie nodded, moving toward the door as if she wasn’t going to stop. He held her by the elbow and turned her toward him. She didn’t even try for one of her smiles. “Hopefully. Hopefully they last two to three weeks.” Something dark and pained ran across her features. “Once it lasted six months. I was ten and four.”
He framed her face in his hands and knew he was a bastard because she was prettier in despondency. That didn’t mean he wished such misery on her. But the shimmer in her eyes turned them into jewels, and the contrast between her pale skin and pink-flushed lips was remarkable.
Despite her beauty, he would take that pain from her if he could. “I’m so sorry.”
Her mouth twisted into a smile. Her hands looped around his wrists, fingers tucking under the cuffs of his evening coat. “I know. There’s nothing anyone can do. She’ll have medicine and sleep a lot. In the meantime, I could use some assistance in politely asking everyone to go home.”
“Of course,” he agreed with a nod. “But first...”
He swept a kiss over her mouth. Partly because she seemed to need bracing and he didn’t know how else to give it.
Partly because he was suddenly aware of exactly how useless he was. He’d been patronizing. Thinking that she made too much of her butterfly-like mother and the difficulties that went with her. He’d failed her without ever giving her a chance.
He had no idea how he could fix it all. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to.
Maybe she was right and he’d be forced to walk away.
Chapter Nineteen
In the wee hours of the night, Lottie escaped her bed and headed for her desk. Though darkness encroached from all sides, she only turned on one lamp. When she couldn’t see the rest of her large, empty room, she felt less alone.
Somehow she managed to march through a phalanx of paperwork. She paid numerous accounts and resolved to inquire as to a less expensive source for grosgrain ribbon. They apparently went through an appalling amount. Likely trimming the girls’ assembly ensembles.
She sighed and pushed the accounting book to the side. Her fingertips rubbed at her temples, but it did nothing to alleviate the unceasing pressure that swirled there or the dry-as-dirt feeling behind her eyelids.
A breeze lifted the corner of a report on the behavior of a gentleman who wished to attend the school’s events. He’d likely be approved, since he was an up-and-coming clerk in a large firm with sufficient savings in accounts that Lottie was only able to check into because of particular, unsavory connections. The paperwork fluttered as the breeze got stronger.
She set her hands flat on the edge of the desk. Her heart took a tumble. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
His voice emerged from the darkness like a wraith to twine around her. “I wasn’t sure if I was either.”
“Too much to deal with, yes?” She kept her back straight by will and the loving support of her corset. Her chest clenched on pure feeling that she didn’t know the name of. Her palms were damp, and her heart rushed in her ears. “I have to say after this evening’s display I hadn’t really expected to see you. I would have understood if you’d stayed away.”
His hands landed on her shoulders when he stepped into the circle of inconsistent light thrown by her lamp. The weight across her back was warm and steady, and she suddenly felt that she could crumple. Fall apart.
She laughed a little. Her hands busily set about cleaning the top of her desk, lining up her pens in an orderly fashion, but she faltered when she realized no matter what she did there would still be more mess before her. More things she could never quite get control of. She swallowed the knot in her throat and stood.
Wandering away into the dark was easy. She knew this room as well as she knew her own mind. Beneath the largest window, she stopped. Placed one hand flat on the glass and waited for him to come near. She knew he would. He’d come this far, after all.
He caged her in. His hands rested on the wood of the window frame, his head above hers. “I settled into my study with a bottle of brandy,” he said in a voice that seemed almost conversational. Casual.
On the other side of the glass was their neighbor’s small side garden. Gray shadows draped the bushes and a bench that glowed white under a sliver of moon. She turned to see Ian’s face. Wanted to know the shape of his mouth. “But you came anyway.”
He traced bold fingertips over her jaw and down her neck. She’d let her maid undress her and put her in a thin white night rail, but she’d drawn on a robe much too thick for the warm weather. She’d nestled into its heavy fabric for comfort. Now she regretted the choice.
When he drew a single fingertip down the folded lapel, she couldn’t feel it. Her head lowered to watch. It wasn’t the same thing. She wanted his touch on her, not on the fabric around her.
“I came,” he agreed. That active, mobile mouth of his that she keenly appreciated was still. She thought he might give his reason, but maybe the way his hand slipped around the back of her neck was purpose enough. “Where is your mother now?”
She sighed. “There’s a tonic she takes that helps her sleep through the worst of it. With her nurse overseeing, sometimes she sleeps for weeks at a time.”
“Straight through?”
“More or less.” She made herself smile. The front of her hair was pinned back enough to stay out of her face while she worked on the
school’s needs. A few locks fell forward over her shoulder. She pushed them away. “It’s the best for her.”
He framed her face between both of his warm, strong hands. “Don’t do that.”
Her eyes stung with tears that she held back through pure will alone. “Don’t do what?”
“Prevaricate. Lie. Don’t be false, not with me.” He stared at her so intently, as if willing her to see beneath the surface.
Not with him, indeed. As if he were special. As if he hadn’t withdrawn in the face of her mother’s unrelenting and frankly terrifying emotion. She didn’t want to look at that. She didn’t want to think about any of that.
The only time lately she’d been fully without thought had been when she was wrapped in his arms. Reveling in him and the magic they made together.
She laid her hands carefully on his shoulders, enjoying their firmness. She lifted up on her toes until her mouth was within a fraction of his. She knew his scent and his truth. “Make me forget, please. Make it all go away.”
“You think I can?” His forearms lowered to the glass, so that the cage he’d made of his body came closer. She breathed him in.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” she teased. “But at the very least, you ought to try.”
“Gladly.”
The way he kissed her was magical, and he scooped her up. His hands went straight to her derriere as if drawn by magnets. Her toes dangled in the air for a moment, but she wasn’t exactly the dangling sort. When she lifted her knee, it gravitated toward his hip. They fit together.
Her hands kneaded across the back of his neck. With her eyes closed and her mouth fused to his, her body draped along his, they were one. Maybe that would be enough. Maybe they could hold off the other, sticky sort of darkness. She’d never felt so alone before, but he made it go away. Made her stop thinking about her drugged mother, two floors below, or the fact that her father hadn’t been home for weeks.
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