by Erica Ridley
He was right behind her the moment she opened the door to the room.
“Pardon the observation,” she said politely, “but if you were worried that our being together in a carriage on a public street might lead to compromise, might I point out that voluntarily entering a private sleeping room in the unchaperoned presence of a Wynchester—”
“I am sorry I insulted you.” His soulful eyes even looked as if he meant it, damn him. “Let me summon you a hack.”
She held up the room key. “No, thank you. I have an untenable megrim and cannot rest at home because our house is under repairs. I shall lie down alone for an hour or two and leave once I am recovered.”
“Then I shall send you a maid as chaperone,” he said firmly, “and a footman to escort you. Your actions were rash and imprudent, but I want you to arrive home safely.”
She bit back a retort. The only reason he wasn’t bringing her up on charges was because he believed her a naïve little duckling unable to think through her actions. She would have to let him keep on believing it.
“You are all that is kind. I do not require your help.” A scuffed dressing table stood beside a rickety wardrobe. Chloe slid the basket with the hidden painting under the table and sat gingerly on the worn stool, pretending to check her hair in the looking glass. “Have a good evening, Your Grace.”
That was his cue to leave.
He took off his hat and sat on the windowsill instead.
A crack of air above the pane ruffled a few strands of his dark hair, lending him a sense of motion even while sitting still. It was as if, underneath his relaxed pose, every muscle were coiled and ready to pounce.
His blue eyes filled with sympathy. “It must be frightful to be without prospects. I do have compassion for those who are desperate.”
“Do not feel sorry for me,” she ground out through clenched teeth. To her surprise and misfortune, being visible was even worse than being invisible.
Poor Chloe Wynchester: so far beneath a duke. Ha! He was the one she should feel sorry for.
Many lords and ladies limited themselves to the thousand or so aristocrats matching their own class and station, relegating them to loveless marriages between debutantes and roués, first cousins, total strangers, sworn enemies. Whereas Chloe’s pool of potential future spouses was the entire rest of England.
No one cared if she married a butcher or a bookseller, an apothecary or a highwayman. She was free to do as she pleased.
That was, if she ever escaped this interminable conversation.
Why was he ignoring her less-than-subtle verbal dismissals? Was he so used to being scraped to and fawned over that he genuinely wouldn’t recognize good-bye unless she drove him home herself?
“It’s safe to say we started off on the wrong foot.” He gave her a sympathetic smile, which infuriated her all the more by making him even handsomer. Did the Ice King of Parliament truly possess a dimple? Good God. Right there in the hollow above his chiseled jaw.
No wonder the blasted man took being abducted in stride. A smile like that could melt petticoats. And inhibitions.
His gaze was earnest. “Although we shan’t see each other again, and all we know of each other is the drivel printed in the society columns—”
That and the dozen other times they’d crossed paths, but who was counting?
He cleared his throat. “—before I go, I want you to know that—”
A door slammed beneath their feet. “Where is she?”
Chloe affected an alarmed expression. Rescue had arrived! Now what was she supposed to do with the duke?
5
When Lawrence saw the dismayed expression on Miss Wynchester’s pretty face, he leapt to his feet in alarm. Some families could withstand a brush with gossip. His was not one of them.
“Someone is here for you?”
“My brother.” She glanced over his shoulder toward the door. “He must have come to take me home.”
Bloody hell, she’d been right. Lawrence should never have followed her up the stairs, no matter how unlikely it had seemed for someone to stumble across them in such a seedy establishment.
“Your brother cannot find us together.” He darted a horrified gaze toward the open doorway. How on earth had the man found them so quickly? How had he even known his sister was missing? “Didn’t you just reserve this room a few moments ago?”
“I told you,” she said. “Our house in Islington is being repaired. Because it is too far to travel with a megrim, I told my family I would rest here if I suffered another attack.”
Islington. Of course the Wynchesters wouldn’t live in fashionable Mayfair. He wondered if she truly had enough money to rent a room or hire a hack. It was good for her that her family had come, but terrible for Lawrence.
“Where is she?” a loud male voice called from the foot of the stairs.
“Graham grows combative when he’s distraught,” she whispered. “He’s extremely overprotective, even for an older brother. I don’t know what he’ll do when he finds a man alone with me…”
Panic itched beneath Lawrence’s skin. Who cared why Miss Wynchester rented a bedchamber? All that mattered was not being caught alone with her inside of it.
“Climb into the wardrobe,” she whispered. “Hurry.”
He gawped at her. “What?”
“You don’t want to marry me? I shan’t make you.” Miss Wynchester flung open the wardrobe door and jabbed a finger toward a dust ball in the back. “Get inside. You can return the favor later.”
He hesitated. Hiding inside a wardrobe would make him look even guiltier…if he were caught. Was she really offering him a way out? Or had he misjudged her entirely and was now walking into a trap?
Footsteps thundered up the stairs.
Miss Wynchester arched her delicate brows. “Unless you prefer—”
“Don’t let him find me. I’ll owe you any favor you please.” Lawrence stepped past her and scrunched himself into the narrow wardrobe. “Er, not money, that is. Or objects. And no—”
She shut the door in his face.
He fought the urge to sneeze. Or yell. Or break through the wooden panels and hurl himself out the open window and drive away high in the coachman’s seat for everyone to see, as long as it took him far, far from the Wynchester clan.
Everything had been at sixes and sevens since the moment he’d arrived at the Yorks’ town house. Lawrence hated not being in control.
“There you are,” came a muffled male voice. Miss Wynchester’s brother was right on the other side of the wardrobe door. “Are you alone?”
The moment of truth. Lawrence held his breath.
As much as he hadn’t meant to insult her when he discovered her identity, even a platonic relationship with a Wynchester would be disastrous. The last thing a man guarding his reputation needed was an association with a walking scandal related to a dozen other walking scandals.
For Lawrence to restore lost respectability, he couldn’t just act “better than thou.” He had to be it.
Beginning with not being caught hiding inside the furniture of a shabby coaching inn with an incomprehensible spinster.
His breath came shallow and uneven. Time seemed to slow.
“It’s all right,” he heard her say. “I’m safe. I’m alone.”
Lawrence would have sagged against the wardrobe’s thin interior wall in relief if he trusted it not to fall apart with his weight.
“Can we go home now?” came Miss Wynchester’s tired voice.
“Of course.”
When the footsteps faded, Lawrence counted to four hundred before easing open the door to the wardrobe. His heart jumped. He’d left his hat on the windowsill? Thank God her brother hadn’t seen it. Lawrence might be a skilled statesman, but no amount of talking would satisfactorily explain hiding inside a wardrobe.
He returned his hat to his head and hurried down the stairs, tossing a crown he could ill afford to part with to the proprietress for her discretion. After looking both ways
, Lawrence returned to his rented carriage and untied the reins from the post.
With luck, that would be the last he’d see of the Wynchesters.
6
Chloe’s home!”
The cry rang out the moment she and Graham walked through the front door. Her family surrounded her when she was barely up the stairs to the Planning Parlor.
“Do you have it?”
“What went wrong?”
“Nothing went wrong. It’s Chloe!”
“She released Tiglet, didn’t she? Something must have happened.”
“I told you,” Elizabeth said. “When the stable boys made a fuss about Graham’s coach being first in the queue, I distracted them by calling them back to the mews in their own voices. Except Faircliffe’s driver insisted on muscling his carriage to the front, so Graham—”
“Never mind the traffic quarrels,” Tommy said, and turned to Chloe. “Is Puck back home?”
Laughing, Chloe swung her woven basket up and onto the walnut table. “Oh, you must mean this family portrait I liberated from some heiress’s wall.” She pulled the roll of canvas out from the interior compartment with a grin.
Her siblings cheered.
“Puck is home! Our family is complete again!”
“I told you Chloe could do anything,” Tommy whispered to Elizabeth.
“And,” Chloe admitted, “I may have also…inadvertently…slightly abducted the Duke of Faircliffe in the process.”
“What?” Four shocked faces turned her way at once.
“Had him stuffed in a wardrobe by the time I got there,” Graham confirmed with a grin. “Left his beaver on the windowsill, plain as day. I was half-tempted to swing open the door and expose him, just to see the look on his face.”
“’Tis a good thing you refrained,” Chloe scolded him. “As it stands, His Loftiness believes he owes me a favor.”
Elizabeth’s mouth fell open. “For kidnapping him?”
“For not crying ‘Compromise!’ and forcing him to the altar.”
Tommy gave an exaggerated shudder. “Can you imagine?”
Chloe could imagine far better than she wished. Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to rid the image of Faircliffe’s strong shoulders and dimpled smile from her mind. Or the way his dark hair had fluttered in the breeze as if tousled by a lover’s hand.
She wondered what it would have felt like to touch him, to toy with the softness of his hair, to feel the deceptive strength of his taut muscles beneath his gentlemanly exterior.
“Who needs an icehouse when you’ve got me?” came a perfect rendition of the Duke of Faircliffe from somewhere near the fireplace. Elizabeth throwing her voice again.
Everyone burst out laughing.
Everyone but Chloe. A few hours earlier she would have agreed with the sentiment wholeheartedly. But after witnessing the duke put her well-being above his own, following her into the Puss & Goose to ensure her safety, and offering to pay for a hack, she could not help but think there was perhaps more to him than met the eye.
Thank heavens she never had to see him again. People with hidden depths made the worst culls to target.
She shook her head. “Who cares about dukes? We’ve a family portrait to hang!”
“Thank you, children,” came a perfect rendition of Bean’s voice from his portrait above the mantel. Elizabeth affected a fatherly expression. “I knew my Wynchesters would never let me down.”
“Never,” Graham agreed.
Chloe blinked a sudden sheen from her eyes and knew several of her siblings were doing the same. Hearing Bean’s voice again was something they all longed for. Its warmth felt like a blanket, like a welcoming hug, like a promise that the future could only get better. He had done everything in his power for them, and they would do the same for him.
The family’s cherished painting was finally home.
Graham and Tommy cleared the table, replacing its various items in myriad secret compartments. As soon as she could, Chloe rolled out the canvas faceup. Elizabeth handed Marjorie small stones from a hidden drawer to weigh down the corners. Jacob kept Tiglet from leaping into the center, claws first.
The entire family was there, Puck and all six mischievous sprites cavorting merrily about a dancing fire with their arms wide and their heads tilted back in joy.
Tommy gave a happy sigh. “Perfect.”
“Chloe, I cannot thank you enough,” Elizabeth said in her own voice. “Our lives have felt so fractured. This puts us back together.”
“I can breathe again,” Tommy said fervently.
Jacob tried to extract Tiglet from his cravat. “All we have to do now is mount Puck on a new frame.”
“Almost all,” Chloe reminded him. “There’s the small matter of an angel vase.”
Tommy perked up. “Can we smash it?”
All six pairs of eyes swung to the mantel, where a cherubic porcelain angel hugged a slender crystal receptacle just large enough to hold a single rose.
“We cannot smash it,” Chloe said firmly. “Even though it was against Bean’s will, old Faircliffe entrusted it to us as collateral.”
“Can we send it via post?” Elizabeth asked hopefully.
“We can leave it in the duke’s stables. I happen to possess an exact copy of the Faircliffe livery.” Tommy’s eyes sparkled. “The next time His Grace enters the mews…boom! Saccharine angel, right where he least expects it.”
Graham shook his finger. “You’re wicked. I like it.”
“Where’s his smile?” came Marjorie’s loud voice. It was the first time she’d spoken since Chloe’s arrival. Some days she didn’t speak at all, but when she did, the Wynchesters had learned to listen.
“Whose smile?” Chloe asked.
Marjorie pointed at Puck frolicking in the middle.
Chloe stepped closer.
Marjorie’s finger shook. “Bean always smiles.”
The other siblings crowded about the table.
“She’s right,” Jacob said in disbelief. “What happened to his smile?”
Marjorie frowned. “The brushstrokes are different, too.”
Chloe’s throat went dry. “It’s the wrong painting?”
“It can’t be,” Elizabeth protested. “It came from Faircliffe. Both times!”
Jacob set down the kitten. “Never trust a duke. They’re slipperier than snail slime.”
“I can’t believe there are two copies.” Chloe covered her face with her hands. “And I stole the wrong one.”
“Well, we’ll just have to find the right one.” Tommy narrowed her eyes. “No dukes shall get in our way.”
Jacob stood tall. “We do this for Bean.”
The siblings touched their hands to their hearts and lifted their fingers to the sky. “For Bean!”
Bean grinned back at them from over the mantel as if he knew they would succeed.
“He would be proud to know the new Duke of Faircliffe has finally acknowledged our existence,” Elizabeth said. “Well, Chloe’s, anyway.”
Jacob brightened. “And he owes her a favor! If he still has our painting, you can demand it back, and this time he must comply.”
Chloe made an aggrieved noise. “His Eternal Disagreeableness made a point to specify ‘no money’ and ‘no objects.’ He tried to say no to something else, but I slammed the door in his face.”
“What kind of ‘favor’ is that?” Tommy said in outrage. “Why can’t Faircliffe just be reasonable?”
“He’s self-righteous,” Graham replied, “like his father. Some aristocrats believe their wants are the only ones that matter. All they care about is themselves.”
“Even if he hadn’t put limitations on his ‘favor,’ Faircliffe cannot be trusted,” Elizabeth reminded them. “We purchased that painting and the old duke stole it. That’s not honorable.”
“He’s a cad,” Tommy agreed. “He cannot be reasoned with.”
“We don’t need Faircliffe to be reasonable.” Jacob’s light brown eyes
twinkled with mischief. “That’s no fun anyway. We tried the respectable way for months, and it didn’t work.” He cracked his knuckles. “Now we do it our way.”
Tommy grinned. “We find the real Puck and steal him back.”
Elizabeth drummed her fingers on the sword stick she used as a cane. “If Faircliffe didn’t give our portrait to Miss York, then it may still be on the duke’s property. The tricky part will be snooping through every inch of his town house undetected.”
Graham nodded. “If it’s still there, we bring it home for good. And by ‘we’ I mean…”
All eyes turned to Chloe.
“Me?” she squeaked.
Tommy gave Chloe an arch look. “His Grace owes you a favor, does he not?”
Elizabeth’s smile was wicked. “It’s time for you to collect it.”
7
The following morning, Chloe’s stomach still churned.
The reason for the frantic flutters in her bosom was because this time, if all went to plan, Chloe would be presented to society as…
Herself.
“Who am I?” she whispered, her nerves clattering.
Chloe’s invisibility curse was bittersweet. A lifetime of being overlooked brought its own share of pain. Every time she reintroduced herself with a new name to the same people and no one so much as blinked or remembered her was one more tiny cut on her soul.
If never standing out made her restless, well, she had her little ways to deal with that, didn’t she?
She flung open her wardrobe doors.
Sumptuous fabrics in a breathtaking array of gorgeous colors towered before her.
She had never worn any of it outside of this room.
This was her dream wardrobe. The one secret she kept, even from her siblings.
These clothes symbolized the person she wished she could be. Proof she was still the same wistful girl she’d always been.
When she realized her parents were never coming back for her, she often slipped unnoticed through the streets, prowling for something special. To be something special. Once, when she nicked a rusty locket inscribed “To my Love,” she immediately tied it about her neck and strutted about as though she were loved.
