As Sylvia hated him. Her feelings for her husband had hardened long ago. And that was something she, no matter how close she became to Valerie, could never understand.
A little sob escaped the other woman, and Valerie tried to catch it in her fist. “And . . .” She briefly closed her eyes. “This surely makes me the worst friend in the world to admit this aloud, and to you of all people . . . but I love him still. And if he was still here, I don’t know that I wouldn’t want a future with him”—those words came as a nearly indistinct whisper—“not that I would have allowed myself to that future, had I known about you.”
Sylvia’s heart pulled. What must the other woman’s heartbreak have been? Her relationship with Norman had predated Sylvia’s courtship and marriage by years. And had there not been the obligations and responsibilities thrust upon the nobility, then Norman would have pursued the future he’d wanted with this woman before her.
“You hate me for saying that.”
“God, no. Never!” Sylvia exclaimed. “I . . . can’t myself understand how you’re able to feel what you feel.” Except . . . She paused. Perhaps because she’d never really loved Norman. She’d been entranced by him. Charmed. But there’d not been a deep, abiding love. She knew that now. And yet, their situations, hers and Valerie’s, were not entirely the same. At all. Because Norman had loved Valerie. “But I would never pass judgment on you for feeling what you feel.”
Valerie’s eyes gleamed with tears, and she folded her arms around Sylvia. Sylvia hugged her in return. When they parted, Valerie scrubbed the backs of her hands over her cheeks. “And . . . the only reason I’m telling you this, when I’d rather let the guilt of it devour me, is because if there is even some small, remote chance that you do in fact love this man, then do not set him free.”
“Oh, no. Clayton and I are just . . . just . . .” Sylvia floundered. What were they exactly? Friends was the immediate answer. Friends, however, did not make love. They didn’t embrace as Sylvia and Clayton had, numerous times now. Fear sat low in her belly, and her mind continued to balk at that question she’d been forced to ponder as she played matchmaker that night for Clayton.
Her friend lifted an eyebrow.
“I don’t know what we are,” Sylvia brought herself to whisper.
“Dearest friennnds!”
They both looked up at that interruption. Her coronet of blonde curls slightly disheveled, her hem ripped and dragging behind her, Annalee staggered into the parlor.
The inebriated young woman giggled, that little laugh giving way to a watery hiccup as she collapsed onto the opposite edge of the upholstered settee and missed the seat, landing on the floor. “What are weee talking about?”
Her own concerns forgotten, Sylvia rushed to help Annalee up. Valerie was immediately at the other woman’s side, and together they got her onto her feet and into the chair.
“It’s our latest member, isn’t it?” Annalee said in an outrageously loud, exaggerated whisper. She shook her finger under Valerie’s nose, and then squinted. “Oops. Wrong one.” She giggled, and this time proceeded to wag that digit in front of Sylvia’s face. “I’ve told you before. Men, bad. Husbands, worse.” Her eyes went to round circles. “Never tell me you’re going to marry him.”
“I’m not marrying anyone,” Sylvia said in the soothing tones she always adopted when Annalee found herself in her current state. And even though the young socialite rarely found herself quite as blisteringly drunk as she was, the moments came often enough to indicate a real problem. “Annalee—”
The other woman cut her off with a groan. “No lecture now. Promise.”
Valerie and Sylvia exchanged a look.
The talks she’d had with her sister’s best friend were often met with resistance, an insistence that Annalee, in fact, didn’t have the problem that she very clearly did. And because no good could come, and never had or would, in trying to reason with an intoxicated Annalee, Sylvia wouldn’t. But it was still a matter that needed to be addressed, not just out of concern for Annalee, which Sylvia did feel plenty of . . . but because Sylvia had a son who resided here. Not only for his well-being but also for the image which Sylvia had to be cautious of.
“Thasss good . . . Do not like lectures. He tried to do it once,” Annalee rambled. “And I told him precisely what I think. No one likes a lecture.”
“He?” Valerie asked.
“Doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter. Something does matter.” Annalee tapped an index finger against the center of her forehead in a repeated motion. “What is it? What. Is it.” Then she stopped. “There is one small problem,” she slurred, reaching for the little flask she kept in a pocket sewn along the front of her skirts.
Sylvia hurried to relieve the other woman of her drink. “What?” With Annalee, when she was in her cups, it could be anything from the torn hem of her dress to the volatile relationship the young lady had with her family.
Annalee eyed her silver flask, which Sylvia handed over quickly to Valerie, who rushed across the room, depositing it on a table far away from the other woman. “It miiiight have to do with your father.”
“My . . . ?” Sylvia glanced once more to Valerie; however, the other, equally confused woman lifted her shoulders in a shrug. Sylvia’s father had been dead for several years now. Both friends were well aware of that.
Annalee shot an arm out, so quick that she nearly unseated herself once more. “Father-in-law. Thassss it.”
Sylvia’s heart dropped. “What is it?” she asked with an ever-growing dread.
“Came up to me, he did. Forlorn old man. Asking questions about you and Vallen.”
Oh, God. Norman’s father was tenacious. Unrelenting in his efforts to see her and have a relationship with his grandson. But blood did not family make. The marquess had done everything in his power to silence the scandal and the sins his wife was guilty of. Terrible ones that he had been well aware of over the years. And he’d been so eager to protect his image and his murderer wife, even at the expense of proper justice for his son. He’d sent notes to Sylvia. And most recently had paid a visit. But this? Seeking out one of the women with whom she lived? This was a new level that spoke to his desperation. “Why . . . how . . .” Sylvia made herself take a steadying breath and tried again. “What exactly did he say?”
“Cornered me when I was in the corridor, doing . . .” Annalee flashed a sheepish smile. “Well, that is neither here nor there.” It was . . . but that again would have to wait until tomorrow. Until she was sober enough to have the talk and hear Sylvia’s and Valerie’s concerns.
“What did he say, Annalee?” Sylvia prodded, striving for patience even as panic was knocking around her breast. Her in-laws were ruthless.
“And then he said something about it being a scandal that I live with you. Because I’m a scandalous woman. And that no grandson of his should live in a house with a woman like me.”
Storming to her feet, Sylvia began to pace. “That bastard,” she seethed.
“He was also verrra curious about Lord St. John . . . said it was quite unconventional annnd interesting that a gentleman as respected as he would ever join us . . . He was pressing me for information about the viscount, but I refused to sayyy anything other than how honorable and good he was to join his sisters and us and have an open mind about the work we were doing.”
Adrenaline added a quickness to Sylvia’s strides as she walked the same path back and forth over the Aubusson carpet. She gave a pleased nod. “Good. That was perfect.” Mayhap this wasn’t so very terrible, after all.
Annalee ducked her chin against her chest and slumped in her seat like a child prepared for a good scolding. “And I might have said some other thiiings . . . ,” she mumbled.
Annalee’s words brought Sylvia to an abrupt stop.
Concern flashed in Valerie’s eyes. “What did you say?” Her friend asked the exact question Sylvia had wanted to but was too afraid to formulate.
“I told him he had no power o
ver us. I told him to leave Sylvia alone. I told him we didn’t answer to anyone.” Sylvia’s eyes slid closed at Annalee’s recitation. For she knew, with a knowing of who the marquess and marchioness were, how he would respond to that. And worse, the implications for Sylvia and her son.
When no one was quick to respond, Annalee dropped the back of her hand over her eyes. “I wasss trying to prove we did not fear him.”
“Instead, you baited him,” Valerie whispered, with horror blanching her skin of color.
Sylvia made herself take a small, quiet breath. For all the fear that came about her and Vallen, she was not so selfish as to be unaware of the terror that her friend likely felt. Valerie had been made to fight as a child at the pleasure of the marchioness. Those were the only details she’d revealed about her dealings with Norman’s family. But it had been enough for Sylvia to know Valerie had endured an everlasting hell. None of them were safe if he decided to come after them. And if Sylvia had only had herself to worry about, she’d tell the bastard to come and get her. She’d dare him to do his worst.
But there wasn’t just herself to think about.
There was her son.
The need for respectability wasn’t something she had the luxury of not caring about. That had been the entire reason she’d made the effort to include Clayton in the Mismatch Society—he, a pillar of society and a friend but still a man, when their group had agreed to not allow membership. And now, the threat posed by her father-in-law had only been exacerbated.
The life went out of her legs, and Sylvia collapsed onto the edge of the nearest seat.
“I’m so sorry,” Annalee whispered as she entered what Sylvia had come to find was the melancholy that inevitably followed her euphoria from drink.
“It is fine.” Except . . . it very likely wasn’t.
Damn it all to hell. She hadn’t doubted, when the marquess had visited and then left, that he would have simply accepted her rejection for what it was. But all this time she had spent with Clayton, Sylvia hadn’t let herself worry. Because she’d been so very busy laughing and smiling and just generally being lighthearted again.
Another person might have judged her on that admission.
And how her life would have been so different had she married such a man.
But there was little point in thinking of it. They had not been romantic . . . and Clayton had ultimately introduced her to his best friend, and the rest of Sylvia’s relationship with Norman and her friendship with Clayton had become history.
Putting on a brave face, Sylvia stood. “There is no point worrying about anything this evening. Why don’t you find your rooms?” Together, she and Valerie helped their inebriated friend stand.
Annalee let her head roll against Sylvia’s shoulder. “You are so very good to me. Better than I deserve.” She let her head fall the other way, against Valerie. “You’re both so very good.”
“We are going to talk again when you’re more yourself tomorrow,” Sylvia promised when they reached the door.
Annalee released a sigh that ended on a watery little hiccup. “Stoooop. I am perfectly well. Very very very well,” she slurred as they headed from the room. Annalee stopped in her tracks, forcing both young women to stop with her. “Did I already say ‘very well’?”
“You did,” Valerie murmured, her arm around the other woman’s narrow waist. They reached the hall and nearly collided with Lydia, one of the maids. It was either a sign of the young woman’s professionalism that she didn’t so much as blink at the sight of one of her mistresses three sheets to the wind or, the more likely, that she’d become accustomed to such a sight.
“Sorry, my ladies. Miss,” she added for Valerie. Lydia dropped a curtsy. “The little master is awake. He had a nightmare and is asking for his mum.”
“I have her,” Valerie said in hushed tones. “Go see to him.”
“I can help, my lady.” Lydia was already moving to Annalee’s other side and stepping in for Sylvia.
Sylvia rushed onward for the nurseries . . . the threat posed by her in-laws lingering still.
Chapter 19
The next day, Clayton received the most unlikely summons: one that requested his company and presence at Hyde Park . . . along with the company of his youngest sister, Eris.
“Daria was quite upset, she was,” Eris prattled happily as she skipped at his side down the graveled walking path. “She wanted to come. All of our sisters wanted to.” The little girl puffed her chest out with pride. “But I get to.”
“Quite the lucky one you are,” he said, ruffling the top of her already tangled brown curls.
Eris continued to chatter on.
No, this was certainly not the next meeting he had anticipated between him and Sylvia.
What did you expect? That when she sent around a note, it would be exclusively for you? That after their passionate encounter, she should wish for more continued time alone? “You’re a damned fool,” he muttered.
“What was that?” Eris asked.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
And yet . . . he had hope that she might have just wished for his company. Not for the purpose of matchmaking him. Not because of a child’s wish to play with another child. Just because she wanted to be with him. Even as he knew there couldn’t and shouldn’t be more between them, that hadn’t been able to stop him from wanting more.
This should be enough. And it would be enough. Because it had to be. For then his not taking a chance with the future on her years and years earlier would have been in vain. Otherwise, what had it all been for? Clayton not pursuing so much as the possibility of a future with Sylvia, out of a fear for a lack of his own future. Instead, he’d ceded her to Norfolk, because Norfolk would have been better for her anyway: Charming. Witty. Smooth with his words. The lady’s life would have been a happy one. That was, anyway, what he’d told himself.
Norfolk’s passing changed nothing. In fact, it only made whatever had grown between them even more complicated.
For either way, past, present, or future, she still couldn’t be his.
Not that, given her intention to help marry him off to another, she appeared interested in that impossible future between them anyway.
Eris slipped her hand into his as she skipped along, pumping her little arm back and forth as if she used his hand as a half swing. “It isn’t that I don’t like you or playing with you,” his sister was saying. “You’re good . . . enough,” Eris said matter-of-factly.
He chuckled. “Thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, wholly oblivious to sarcasm as only a child could be. Her eyes lit. “He’s here!”
Clayton followed her chocolate-stained fingertips to the “he” in question.
His gaze landed on the little boy furiously waving his arms back and forth, before Clayton moved his focus over to Sylvia.
The early sun’s rays played with the many shades of browns and golds that made up those luxurious strands he’d had between his fingers when they’d made love.
With a squeal, Eris went charging after Vallen, and the boy had already taken off in their game of chase. The young nursemaid hurried after the pair, close at their heels. Lengthening his stride, Clayton went on to meet Sylvia.
Once again, even with the intimacy of all they had shared, there was no awkwardness or discomfort. They had always been easy around one another. The moment he reached her, he removed his hat and bowed.
She smiled in greeting. “Thank you for bringing Eris to play.”
“Thank you for thinking of it. She has been without other children for too long.” Forever. Really, it had been as long as she’d been born. Clayton glanced about, noting other details.
Along with ten or so crimson-clad metal soldiers, a little makeshift desk had been set out.
“I thought we could begin,” she said, urging him over to the blanket.
He took in that space with a new and wary interest. “Begin?”
Sylvia collec
ted a leather notebook . . . the same one he’d observed her using during the Mismatch meeting. “To speak about your bride.”
So it was to be a matchmaking date. Splendid. “I don’t have a bride,” he said dryly, desperately wishing to change the subject.
Her eyes twinkled. “No. That is rather the point.”
It was likely wounded male pride that accounted for the flash of hurt at how quickly she’d moved on to partnering him off with someone else. Which was unfair on his part. After all, he was the one who’d stated his intentions to marry.
Humming to herself, Sylvia fished about the inside of her mahogany writing slope, and he was grateful that her attention was elsewhere, lest she see just how very miserable he was about the prospect of having this discussion. Nor was it just her. The idea of courting a woman, one whom he’d inevitably marry and leave a young widow, was generally not his favorite thing to consider. “Aha! Here it is.” She held a larger, sharpened pencil aloft. Her triumphant expression gave way to confusion as her gaze landed on him still standing there.
Swallowing a sigh, Clayton made himself sit . . . as far as he possibly could from her, directly opposite, but with enough space between them so he didn’t have to recollect all the ways in which they’d touched one another. And all the ways in which he wanted to do so again, here and now.
“An ignoble start to a marriage,” he mumbled under his breath.
“What was that, Clayton?”
His mind raced. “A noble start to our . . .” Oh, hell . . . He was bad with words. He was rubbish with rhymes. And he was even worse at trying to feign an alternate response. “Let us begin.” Because the sooner they started, the sooner they could stop.
“What do you wish for in a wife, Clayton?” she murmured, scooting closer to him so they sat side by side, hip to hip. Shoulder to shoulder.
This was to be his punishment, then. For having failed her, he would be forced to endure this close contact with her. Wanting what could never be. Wanting what he could never have.
Someone Wanton His Way Comes Page 22
