by Erica Ridley
“Er…” Lawrence sent Chloe a helpless glance.
She gave another little shrug in response. Tommy was a fine musician. Great-Aunt Wynchester, on the other hand…well, that old bird was unpredictable.
Lawrence made a considering expression. “If you’re willing to try something that smells a bit…off, my butler swears there is no better remedy for arthritis than the poultice my housekeeper makes.”
Tommy lurched to her feet.
“I’ll beg her for a dollop at once.” She clumped from the parlor without waiting for permission.
“How could she possibly find Mrs. Root?” Lawrence gave his head a disbelieving shake. “My staff is convinced your aunt can barely find her way down a straight corridor. Shall I send someone to assist her? Perhaps Hastings—”
“Leave your butler at his post,” Chloe interrupted smoothly, before the duke could drum up a chaperone for her chaperone. “Great-Aunt Wynchester may be old, but she’s more capable than people think. She likes to do things for herself. Besides, every chamber has a bellpull. If she needs help, she knows what to do.”
He inclined his head. “In that case, we shall leave her to her own devices, and us to ours. Are you ready for dancing lessons?”
Chloe was not.
Her chest clenched with the longing to waltz with him at a real ball. Her mind knew all of this was make-believe, but her speeding pulse and shaky breath indicated the rest of her body believed the fiction all too real.
Every new stolen moment in his arms would only make their inevitable separation all the more heartbreaking.
“I’m ready.” She curled her fingers about his arm as if they were no different than any couple about to dance. “Lead the way.”
The way, it turned out, led to a large, airy chamber, its floor bare save for a pianoforte in one corner and a smattering of plush chairs along the wall opposite.
“Is this where you host your end-of-season fête?”
“It is indeed.” His eyes were cloudy, as if the thought filled him with as much pain as pleasure. Then he smiled, and it was as though the sun bloomed overhead rather than an unlit chandelier. She could look nowhere but at him.
He lifted her palm in his and curved his other hand above her midsection. It was not quite the embrace she craved but more than enough to weaken her knees. She would not have to feign awkwardness after all.
His voice was gruff. “Until the gala, I’m afraid we must pretend to hear the orchestra playing.”
She did not have to pretend. Her heart beat loud enough to keep time for both of them. Gently, carefully, she placed her free hand atop his shoulder.
“I’ll go slowly,” he said. “One-two-three, one-two-three. Just try to relax into my lead.”
She was anything but relaxed. She hoped he forgave her when she trod inelegantly on his feet. Every limb felt overwarm and clumsy.
Rather, that was what she thought until Lawrence began to move. He waltzed like a dream come true, the blackguard. Of course he would. It was impossible not to glide about the empty ballroom in perfect harmony, with or without music to accompany him. Her body was his to command.
Their feet found their own melody. His eyes did not leave hers. Their bodies moved flawlessly together, as if all previous dances had been practice for this moment, here, with him. She wondered if it would be like this every time, or if it would become even better.
This was the only waltz they would ever share, she realized bleakly. The memory would have to sustain her. It wasn’t enough. She wished she had something tangible, like her broken locket or the warm red mittens. Her gaze lit upon the perfectly pressed handkerchief in his pocket. Before she could stop herself, it vanished from his chest and disappeared into a hidden fold of her gown during their next sweeping turn.
“I’ve been hoping you would stop by,” he murmured. His hand at her back was all that was proper, but his thumb stroked her body. The small caress burned through her gown and shift and imprinted itself on her skin. “Poor Hastings spends every moment of his day peering out of the window in the hopes of spotting the Wynchester coach.”
Ah, it was possible to miss her step and tumble against his chest.
He caught her, and then they were dancing again.
“W-what?” she stuttered. Hoping she would stop by was not at all the same as paying a sentinel to stand watch, just in case.
He pulled her closer, his words rasping as if he had not meant to speak them aloud. “I missed you.”
“I was here yesterday,” she reminded him. It was she, not he, who had spent every moment apart thinking of their kiss. “You spent all night in Parliament.”
She had watched him. He had been glorious.
“Part of the night,” he agreed. The hand holding hers came to his lips for a kiss, then stopped just before contact. He lowered her fingers back to a safe distance with a tortured expression. “The rest of the night I spent wishing I were kissing you.”
Damn him for saying so! As much as Chloe would like to believe his restless night was due to thoughts about her, she did not let herself believe such pretty balderdash. After tonight he would belong to Philippa. Chloe was merely a temporary diversion.
If he honestly missed her, he could ask her to visit. He now knew where she lived. He could have sent a carriage, or a note, or a messenger kitten. But he had not—and would not.
“You’re not wearing your bonnet,” he murmured.
She’d placed it under her bed, where she would not have to confront his memory by looking at it, but where it would remain close enough to slip into her dreams as she slept.
“If the fripperies in the bonnet trunk would be useful to you, I’d be happy to loan you anything you’d like for tonight’s ball.” He smiled. “A rakish feather, perhaps?”
“I don’t want one.” The words erupted from her mouth more harshly than she had intended. She did not soften their blow.
If gazing upon his handmade gift in solitude was too much for her aching chest, wearing it while she watched him court someone else would be impossible.
“All right.” He asked no further questions.
She frowned. What happened to his twenty-minute explanations about everything?
“You won’t try to convince me?”
“It’s your hair and your life.” His eyes held hers. “You’re clever enough to know how you wish to live it.”
If only it were that easy.
“Knowing is not the same as doing,” she mumbled.
He stopped dancing and pulled her closer. “Did something happen?”
Everything had happened. Her entire childhood had been a constant barrage of knowing what she wanted and not being able to have it.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
His expression was open. “You can tell me.”
She sighed. There was far too much. An entire lifetime he knew nothing about. But if she had to pick a single defining moment…
“You and your peers aren’t the only ones who hurry past rookeries as though there aren’t real people there. Within the poorest parts, there are still haves and have-nots. I was a have-not.”
He winced. “Because of the orphanage?”
“The orphanage is the reason I’m alive. It was everything to me. I did not make the same impact on it.” She gave a sad smile. “I was a plain child. You might think being ignored would make me misbehave, but I saw what happened to unruly children. Blending in was better than standing out. I didn’t want to be cast away from the only home I ever knew. Not again.”
He frowned. “Again?”
“I’m not an orphan.” Or at least she hadn’t been at the time. “I wasn’t sent to live in an orphanage because there was no one else to take me; I was discarded because my family didn’t want me—tucked into a basket with a note that said I was one mouth too many in a family that already had more than enough.” Her throat tightened, as it always did. “My parents looked at all their children and decided the helpless baby was the one they
wanted the least. Me. The most useless of the lot.”
She’d been the newest, the least loved, the least familiar. A blank little slate, indistinguishable from any other squalling infant. An expensive mistake that wasn’t worth the cost.
“I’m sure they loved you,” he said quickly. “I’m sure they planned to come get you as soon as things turned around.”
“Is that what you think? It would have been a difficult task. They did not sign the note or leave a token or even mention my name. I had to borrow someone else’s.” The headmaster’s mongrel had been called Chloe. It seemed to fit her, too. “The orphanage did not have enough funds to feed those mouths, either. Once I was old enough, I would slip out to beg for crumbs.”
“That was how you got enough to eat?”
“No.” She snorted. “People looked right through me. My only chance for a halfpenny was to scrounge through discarded rubbish at the side of the Thames or learn to pluck it directly from the pockets of those who never noticed my presence.”
“Which path did you choose?”
“Both. I was six, seven, eight. There were rumbling bellies in every cot, and I shared whatever food I’d scavenged with the other children before tumbling exhausted into my own bed. And then one day…”
Her lungs seemed to close.
His hand covered hers protectively. “One day…?”
She fought the pricking in her throat. “One day, when I sneaked back through the dormitory window with an entire loaf of bread to share, my bed was full. The minders had given the cot to someone else. I had been gone for three hours, and already those in power had forgotten there had ever been a little girl to save it for.”
Lawrence’s face contorted with horror. Before he could respond, a footman appeared at the open doorway.
“Pardon the interruption, Your Grace. You’d asked me to remind you when it was time for your engagement.”
Ah. Chloe blinked quickly. The York ball, of course. The sand had run out of the glass. Her shoulders crumpled. She’d kept the duke longer than she had a right to. His bride awaited. It was time to be replaced and forgotten.
Yet again.
21
Chloe plodded out of the Duke of Faircliffe’s residence with a heavy heart. She flung herself up and into the family carriage and into her sister’s arms.
“Are you all right?” Tommy cupped Chloe’s face in alarm. “What did that scoundrel do to you?”
“Nothing.” Chloe buried her face in her sister’s shoulder and willed herself not to cry. “Absolutely nothing.”
Tommy stroked her hair. “What did you want him to do?”
Everything.
Chloe hugged her close rather than answer. Lawrence hadn’t even kissed her good-bye. He belonged to Philippa already.
The coach wheels started rolling.
Tommy slid open the panel to the driver. “Home, please. We shan’t be going to the ball.”
“No. We have to go.” Chloe’s stomach rebelled against the idea. “I don’t want to watch him propose to Philippa, but I need to see it happen. I have to know.”
Tommy gave her a tortured look and then nodded. “All right.” She craned her head back toward the driver. “York residence, please.”
Chloe sagged against the back of the carriage. “Tell me you found our Puck.”
Tommy shook her head. “I looked over every inch of that library. I peeked under chairs and even inside books in case they’d been hollowed out to make hiding spaces. Puck & Family isn’t there.”
Chloe’s skin turned cold. “Not there?”
“I looked everywhere I could think to look. Twice. The housekeeper almost caught me locking up after myself. I’m sorry, Chloe. It’s somewhere else. We have to go back.”
Back to the house but not back into Lawrence’s arms.
The next time they came to call, he’d be spoken for, and might not be alone. Chloe’s arrival could disrupt private time with his new betrothed.
She wasn’t certain she could bear to witness him with someone else after all.
* * *
Lawrence retied his cravat for the third time and glared at his reflection.
Chloe had left just moments ago, and here he was primping for her, rather than for the young lady he hoped to make his bride.
Did he wish to wed Miss York? He turned away from his looking glass. He didn’t want to marry for money, no matter how practical and commonplace it was. But one’s wants did not signify when one must also consider tenants, staff, and a familial estate that would crumble before his eyes without timely renovations.
Even if he were willing to give up his hard-won respectability and accept the scandal and censure an alliance with the Wynchester clan would bring, Chloe still was not an option. She had no dowry.
The unfortunate truth was Lawrence needed an heiress. Miss York did not seem particularly keen to wed him, but she needed a title. Neither would be getting what he or she really wanted, but beggars could not be choosers, much as he might wish that were the case.
When he reached the front door, Hastings handed him a letter.
“This came a few minutes ago. It seemed important.”
Lawrence glanced at the seal and handwriting, and his stomach sank. It was important. Nor was it the first message he’d received from the bank that held the mortgage to the town house.
Father had apparently stopped making payments years before. To repay the debt, Lawrence deposited three months’ worth at a time, with the proceeds from selling items of value from the estate.
The bank had allowed Lawrence to postpone the date by which all overdue funds must be fully repaid with interest, on condition that the exorbitant monthly sum would be received by the first of every month without fail. But there wasn’t enough money. Not yet.
He slid a trembling finger beneath the wax and began to read.
It was the twenty-fifth of April. He had missed this month’s payment and only provided half of the last month’s sum. They were very sorry, but he would not be able to keep the town house through June after all. Unless he balanced his account within the week, the mortgage would be in foreclosure and he would be evicted at the end of May.
Not only would there be no end-of-season gala, there would be no end of season at all. No more House of Lords, no more London, no more Chloe.
Lawrence crumpled the letter in his palm. If the crops had not failed, he would have had the money. But last year had been the Year Without a Summer. Crops had failed all over England—all over Europe. Lawrence wasn’t the only one whose income had suddenly shriveled to nothing.
Which was likely why the bank would allow no more postponements. They knew his fallow fields would not become fertile on the morrow. He had made good progress on his father’s debts—fine progress, exceptional progress—but the balance remained overdue, with no way to pay it.
No way except to secure a healthy dowry as quickly as possible.
He would have to wed Miss York sooner rather than later.
Mrs. York would be pleased. She had strongly suggested to Lawrence that tonight would be a fine night for a proposal. He suspected she’d dropped hints into all of her friends’ ears as well. His fingers dug into his palm, compressing the foreclosure notice into a jagged little pellet.
It was time for the show.
* * *
The Wynchester carriage rolled to a stop at the end of a long queue.
“I’m going to be ill,” Chloe moaned.
“You’ll have to wait until later.” Tommy looked out of the window glumly. “We’re here.”
Chloe took an unsteady breath and reached for her basket of tricks.
Many years before, Graham had teased her for carrying a basket instead of a reticule. It wasn’t all of the time, she had retorted hotly, and besides, she’d like to see him hide a change of clothing and a stolen paperweight inside a tiny silk reticule.
The truth was, baskets held special meaning for Chloe. Her first interaction with one had been
when she was abandoned at the orphanage, only a few days old. Since then, she had determined that the baskets in her life would contain items of value, of worth. If something was inside a basket, it was because it was important, and she wanted to be certain she could find it again. To keep it with her at all times.
Tonight her basket contained cosmetic baubles that would help her pretend the York ball could not hurt her. That she did not need the Duke of Faircliffe. That she was better off without him. He should be crumpling to the floor in tears because he was the one who was missing what had been right in front of him.
She reached inside and pulled out an exquisite diadem of amethyst and gold.
Was there such a thing as a revenge tiara? She slapped it on her head and affixed it angrily in place. There. She’d float through the door, sparkle beneath the chandeliers, and march back outside to her carriage as soon as her presence had been registered by the one and only person who might actually notice.
If he didn’t notice…
No. She wouldn’t think about that.
What was the alternative? She could admit she possessed a substantial sum of money. But she did not want to “win” Lawrence that way. It would be no victory. Besides, dowries were for husbands. Chloe’s trust was designed to let her do as she pleased.
And what she wanted was to be chosen for herself, not her money.
Was that too much to ask?
She alighted from the carriage with her head held high and put each foot in front of the other all the way to the Yorks’ front door.
The party was absolute madness.
“Mrs. York must be in heaven,” she whispered to Tommy in reluctant awe. “Every one of Graham’s scandal columns will dub this night the ‘Crush of the Season.’”
“All other hostesses might as well surrender now,” Tommy agreed. “Even Great-Aunt Wynchester couldn’t make herself heard in this din.”
“Try.” Chloe nudged her sister forward. “If we have to be here, I’m at least going to eat some dessert.”
