by Erica Ridley
Tonight at eight, the King’s Theatre will present “Don Giovanni.” It is one of my favorite Italian operas, and I would love to share the experience with you.
If you are free this evening, it would be my great honor for you to join me in my private box.
I would be delighted to escort you personally, and would also be happy to send round my coach if you prefer.
If you have other plans, or are uninterested in continuing our association, I shall understand.
Your servant,
Faircliffe
Chloe’s fingers trembled so much, she had to read the message in its entirety three times before making sense of it.
He was inviting her to sit with him in the most public private theatre box in all of London. Every unmarried young lady on the hunt for a husband dreamed of preening in that box, to the envy of all.
Welcoming Chloe into those hallowed seats was not a small apology but the biggest way to tell those who had dared laugh at her to go to the devil. He was staking an unapologetic claim to the caricaturist, the patronesses, the lads on the street, hundreds of witnesses, and thousands of gossips.
She pressed the letter to her chest and tried to breathe.
This wasn’t just an opera. This was Lawrence saying I see you and I’ll make certain everyone else does, too.
He was choosing her over everything else. A symbolic statement this blatant meant marriage—in name, in deed, and in public—if she wished to accept it. Her pulse raced beneath her trembling hands.
The next step was up to her.
She stood and looked about the empty dining room that had been so full of siblings moments before. Accepting this invitation meant choosing Lawrence above all else, too. It would mean leaving her safe, happy-go-lucky, loving family and stepping into a world that undoubtedly would contain all new caricatures mocking her and the man she loved on the morrow.
Could she do it? Dare she do it?
She glanced at the clock. Scarcely an hour remained before the opera was set to begin. If Chloe meant to have a future built on love, the time to act was now.
And a Wynchester never said no to adventure.
She hurried to her wardrobes. If she was going to go through with this, she would do it right. A duchess would be memorable; she would speak her mind, she would stick out, and she would stand up for herself and everyone else who could not advocate for themselves.
And if she was wrong about Lawrence, wrong about what this invitation meant, wrong about how things would turn out if she risked all of herself so publicly…
…she would do it anyway.
By now the theatre was beginning to fill with spectators. Chloe dressed as quickly and as carefully as she was able. Lawrence would already be perched high up in his lonely tower, waiting to see if there would be any answer to his overture.
As she made the trip to the theatre, Chloe’s knees shook and her heart banged against her constricted chest.
This was no rehearsal, like those she and her siblings acted out before embarking on something wild and new.
She did not have Jacob and Graham flanking her, or Elizabeth with her sword stick, or Tommy as their indomitable Great-Aunt Wynchester.
Chloe would have to do this by herself, for herself.
She swept into the King’s Theatre with her chin held high. She knew the architectural plan by memory after countless visits with Bean and later with Marjorie. The Faircliffe box had been infamous even back then. The old duke had been the owner, but it was his young son who spent every performance there alone, his eyes never straying from the stage.
Tonight, Chloe came for Lawrence, but had come as herself. She was no highborn lady bred to be a living copy of the latest Parisian fashion plate. She was Chloe Wynchester, whose tastes were far more eclectic.
She was wearing her favorite slippers, her favorite stockings, her favorite shift, her favorite gown, and her favorite shawl. These were also her favorite earrings, her favorite necklace, her favorite bonnet, her favorite brooch. That none of it matched did not matter in the least. These items were comfortable and bright and unmissable. They made her happy.
If the caricaturists made light of her ensemble, she would just wear it again.
This time, everyone would remember her.
Was Lawrence ready for such a statement? She did not know. But accepting her meant accepting all of her. She was tired of hiding behind pseudonyms and bland clothing. She was ready to be Chloe.
Even if it meant going home alone, at least she would have been brave enough to ignore the laughter and be herself.
It was a quarter to eight when she reached the private boxes. All of the chandeliers were lit. Her arrival would be visible to every spectator in the house.
She strode into the Faircliffe box as though she belonged there.
Lawrence was waiting. His eyes widened when he saw her. And then a slow, disbelieving smile curved his lips until his dimple shone.
“You wore my bonnet.” He was grinning now, the arrogant beast.
“I have questionable taste,” she informed him pertly.
There was no need to tell him that if her theme was “All of My Favorite Things,” she had no choice but to wear his bonnet.
Flashes of light sparkled in the audience as opera glasses tilted in their direction. Their words would not be overheard, but every thread and every gesture would be gossip fodder for weeks on end.
“I was foolish,” he said. “I reacted out of fear and a misplaced sense of duty.”
She raised her brows. “Can duty be misplaced?”
“I didn’t think so.” His words were slow but certain. “Now I know better.”
“You’re still a duke,” she reminded him. “You still have a hall of portraits of all the dukes who came before you, and you still enjoy a reputation of being just like them. Don’t throw it away on me unless you’re certain. Think carefully and go after what you really want.”
“I did. I am. I want it all.” His crystal-blue gaze did not leave hers. “I want you.”
“You want to go back to how things were?”
“No. I want to go with you into our future, hand in hand.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I lashed out at you. I let others’ opinions outweigh my own.”
“You have a dukedom to consider,” she murmured. “Your future heirs.”
“That’s right,” he agreed. “I should have been thinking of them. I know what it is like to grow up lonely, ignored by my father, with the expectations of generations hanging over me. And you know what it’s like to be loved. To be happy. To accept and be accepted, to have fun, to be a team. Which is the better legacy?”
She cleared her throat. “My answer will be biased.”
“As it should be.” His lips twisted. “I valued my sterling reputation above all other concerns. I thought society’s definition of the perfect bride, the perfect marriage, should be my definition, too. But people change. Look at you, for example.”
She tensed, expecting the sudden turnabout of his words to cause her neck and face to turn mottled. Look at Chloe, a carousel of colors, a hotchpotch of styles all rolled into one.
But she did not blush. She was proud of herself. She’d chosen to come here, chosen to do this.
And he was choosing her back. Here, now, where everyone could see.
“We wouldn’t have met if you hadn’t tried to steal that painting and accidentally abducted me instead.” He stepped closer. “Your ulterior motive was the best thing that could have happened to me.”
“The best thing that could have happened to us,” she corrected. “You were trying so hard to fit someone else’s ideals that you didn’t realize you were already perfect just as you are. You don’t need to fit some ancestral mold to be worthy. You have always been that, right from the start.”
“I want to be a duke I can be proud of. To do that, I need to be the sort of father my children would want. And that means choosing love first.”
Perhaps her cheeks would flush aft
er all. “Love?”
He sank to one knee. “I love you, Chloe Wynchester.” He held out his hand. “I don’t need something you can give me. I need you. Marry me. You already have my heart. Will you take the rest of me for the rest of our lives, too?”
Chloe dropped to her knees as well and placed her hands in his. “Only if you take all of me, too.”
“It would be my pleasure.” She could feel him grin wickedly as he pulled her into his arms. “I love you so much. Let me spend the rest of our lives proving how ardently.”
“And I love you, which is why I feel I should warn you”—she tilted her mouth to his ear—“our heads are below the barrier. No one can see us. They’ll think you’re stealing a kiss.”
“Then they’ll be right,” he said, and covered her mouth with his.
They didn’t glimpse the stage again until intermission.
37
The following morning, Lawrence reclined on a chaise longue with Chloe in what the Wynchester family aptly referred to as the Sibling Salon. There was a Wynchester sibling draped across every surface. He wished he counted as part of the family and tried to console himself with the victory of them being willing to share Chloe.
At the moment, his bride-to-be was nestled against his chest with her eyes rapidly devouring the book in her hands. It was to be her chosen title for next month’s reading circle meeting—maybe. There was a small mountain of bound volumes next to the chaise longue, vying for the honor. Lawrence suspected there were many more nights before the fire just like this in their future.
Graham was also reading on the sofa opposite. Instead of novels, his cushions were piled high with broadsheets. Every now and again, his throat would make a sound very close to a giggle, and he would jerk up from his newspaper, eyes sparkling, only for Chloe to warn, “Do not tell me,” without looking up from the book in her hand.
Marjorie had filled every table with random objects for her still lifes but apparently had not decided their final form. She flitted from table to table, adding fruit, removing flowers, rearranging ceramic vessels. There was no easel in sight, although she wore a smock over her gown and a tiny smudge of aquamarine paint on one cheek.
Jacob sat in the center of a large carpet, surrounded by five slinky ferrets and a thick parapet made of rolled blankets. He had successfully convinced one of the ferrets to leap through a wooden hoop in exchange for a bit of cabbage, although Lawrence could not fathom what nefarious purpose acrobatic ferrets might serve.
Elizabeth sat at the pianoforte, idly plinking familiar melodies and reproducing uncanny imitations of other siblings’ voices, both male and female. Occasionally a rousing chorus would come not from Elizabeth’s mouth but rather from one of Jacob’s ferrets or a clump of Marjorie’s grapes.
Tommy perched on the edge of a striped armchair, decked out in something she referred to as Early Yorkshire Governess. Every now and then she would say a phrase and Elizabeth would correct the accent until Tommy tired of repeating, “And now on to lesson two, if you please, children,” and would dash off only to return in another costume entirely. So far tonight, she had also been a sailor, a dockworker, and a fishwife—“fish spinster,” according to Chloe.
Lawrence supposed the Wynchesters must have a thousand such private jests. He couldn’t wait to learn them all.
Jacob had offered to loan him a wooden hoop and a spare ferret, but Lawrence had courteously declined. He had no idea what to do with a circus-trained weasel, but he did know what he wanted to do with Chloe: hold her close for the rest of their lives.
It was likely the only thing they would ever be able to do. Lawrence did not have the funds to shower her with the expensive jewels and exotic holidays that he wished he could give her.
He kissed the top of her head.
She tilted her face up toward him with a smile. “How am I so lucky to win the handsome prince?”
“I’m the fortunate one,” he reminded her. “You’re the one saddled with an extraordinarily dashing prince with appallingly light pockets. I might not be able to offer the life you deserve, but I can promise one thing: we might be poor, but we’ll be happy.”
Graham glanced up from his newspapers.
Tommy cleared her throat.
Elizabeth stopped playing the pianoforte.
One of Jacob’s ferrets escaped its rolled-cotton fence.
“Er…” Chloe set down her book and sat upright to face Lawrence. “How is it possible that you have not fully comprehended just how wealthy Bean was?”
Lawrence frowned. “The baron was wealthy. That doesn’t mean you are. He didn’t even provide you a dowry. You said so yourself.”
“Can I tell him?” Tommy begged.
Graham shrugged. “He’s a Wynchester now. Why not?”
Lawrence’s chest thudded at the words. “I’m…an honorary Wynchester?”
“Not honorary,” Jacob corrected. “You’re a full-blood Wynchester.”
Elizabeth tapped Lawrence’s foot with her cane. “As long as we accept you, the sole requirement to be a Wynchester is to want to be with all your heart.”
“I want that almost more than I’ve ever wanted anything,” he admitted, pulse racing. Did they really…? Was he really…? “Is there some sort of ceremony?”
Chloe’s eyes laughed up at him. “We already decided to include you. Just accept.”
“I accept!” His spirits soared. He’d wished to belong to her for so long, it didn’t yet seem real. “But your face earlier…is there something else you’re not telling me?”
“Well…” She bit her lip.
“Chloe has twelve thousand pounds,” Tommy blurted in a passable Yorkshire accent.
Lawrence could not parse the syllables. “She has what?”
“Well, it’s more than that by now.” Chloe plucked at a hem. “My bequest was twelve thousand, but Bean had given me a substantial sum when I first became a Wynchester. What I haven’t spent on fashion, I invested in the five percents. It keeps growing.”
“Why did you spend any of it on fripperies?” Elizabeth scolded her. “You know Bean wanted you to save your coin and use the family money for—”
“You have thousands of pounds and family money lying about?” Lawrence gaped at Chloe.
“We all do,” Tommy put in with a shrug.
“Not the house,” Elizabeth explained. “The gossips are right about the property belonging to the new baron.”
Graham rustled his broadsheets. “We must console ourselves with our ‘pittance,’ as the papers say.”
“‘Pittance’?” The word wheezed out of Lawrence’s throat.
With twelve thousand pounds, they could pay debts, make conservative investments—like with Lord Southerby—and save most of the rest. He and Chloe might not be able to build palaces to rival Carlton House, but they and the entailed estate would be fine.
It was more than he had dreamed.
Tommy bounced on her chair, governess persona forgotten. “Can we give him our wedding gift?”
“We’re not married yet,” Chloe pointed out. “The three weeks of banns haven’t been read.”
“It sounds as though we can afford a license to skip that step,” Lawrence said weakly.
“Come.” Elizabeth tapped the floor with her sword stick. “Follow me.”
The siblings fell into step behind her like a well-practiced parade.
When they headed for the stairs, Lawrence narrowed his eyes at the next landing. “Is it art supplies? Has Marjorie fashioned me another studio?”
“No studio.” Jacob’s ferret nibbled his hair. “Just boxes.”
“Shh,” hissed the others. “Spoilsport!”
Elizabeth flung open the door to a small room beyond the landing. “Et voilà!”
Lawrence blinked. It was indeed a closet stuffed with nondescript wooden crates.
“Thank you,” he said politely. “What is it?”
Tommy grinned at him. “Your housekeeper gave us your ledgers.
These crates contain all of the books and paintings you’ve had to sell to make ends meet since you started helping Chloe. Your ugly carpets are just behind.”
He started. “Mrs. Root handed over my private ledgers?”
“Oh, all right, I sneaked in and took them.” Tommy plucked a ring of keys from a hook on the wall and tossed the jangling set to Lawrence. “You can have these back.”
He gaped at her. “You have my housekeeper’s keys?”
“Of course not!” Graham brushed this away with great offense. “We made our own.”
“We also made you our own.” Chloe gave him a saucy grin. “Lawrence Gosling, eighth Duke of Faircliffe, seventh Wynchester in Crime.”
He covered his face with his hand. “I cannot believe you incorrigible wretches duplicated Mrs. Root’s keys.”
“No reneging,” Elizabeth informed him cheerfully. “Once a Wynchester, always a Wynchester.”
“In fact”—Graham turned to face him—“now you can join in our adventures!”
Jacob’s face lit up with enthusiasm. “How are you with controlling birds of prey?”
“Do not give our new sibling a pet hawk,” Tommy said firmly.
“Or teach him the call,” Chloe added.
Jacob lifted a hand to his mouth and let out a horrific gurgling noise.
Seconds later a rhythmic tapping rattled the closest window.
“That’s Hippogriff.” Jacob’s chest expanded with pride. “I’ll introduce you in a moment.”
“Tomorrow will be soon enough,” Chloe informed her brother, then turned loving eyes to Lawrence. “Weren’t you about to whisk me off for an evening in your crumbling castle, Handsome Pauper?”
“Why, yes.” He pulled her into his arms at once. “That’s exactly what I want to do.”
And so he did.
Epilogue
14 June, 1817
Faircliffe Town House
Chloe swirled in her husband’s arms in the center of a grand ballroom, filled with lights and people and music. By any standard, the Gosling-Wynchesters’ end-of-season gala was a splendid crush, if perhaps not precisely the sort her husband’s ancestors might have envisioned.
