Along Came a Lady

by Christi Caldwell

  She called out for the servant.

  The young man reappeared at the door and reached for Edwina’s hand. She paused, giving Rafe one last look. “It will be fine,” she mouthed, one more time, in a continued display of support Rafe found himself so grateful for. Gathering up her books, she tucked them inside her bag and hung the strap over her shoulder. With a murmur of thanks, she swept off, her hips swaying as she went.

  A veritable siren.

  And perhaps that was the very reason he found himself able to climb out, and follow along so easily behind her.

  It was time.

  Notebook in hand, Rafe stepped out of the carriage, and prepared to face London . . . and his father.

  Chapter 17

  There was no rest for the weary.

  There was even less for those of the working class.

  It was why, upon being ushered to her rooms, Edwina was permitted just a short while to change out of her wrinkled garments and wash the dust from her person, before being summoned for a meeting with her employer . . . Rafe’s father.

  She found herself ushered through the maze of a household grander and finer than all the previous ones she’d entered combined. Her slippered feet were noiseless upon the checkered black-and-white marble floor. And as she walked alongside the young man escorting her to her meeting, Edwina took it all in. She’d never been one to be impressed by things. Her father had always sent the finest fripperies. There had been no shortage of dresses or bonnets or bows. There had been pretty necklaces and even prettier pins. And yet not any of that had ever really mattered because she had wanted something so much more desperately—respectability. Recognition.

  Love.

  Even so, even she was hard-pressed not to be absolutely awestruck of her surroundings.

  Marble busts upon marble pedestals better suited for the finest museums in London lined the hallway. Heavy, ornate gold frames adorned the walls. The paintings within, vibrant, masterful masterpieces of floral arrangements, so vivid and so lush in the artists’ rendering that it was as though they burst off the canvas.

  It was an extravagant display of wealth, to which Rafe Audley now belonged.

  Whether he liked it . . . or not.

  “This way, miss,” the servant murmured, bringing them to a stop outside a pair of gilt-framed double doors, painted ivory.

  As she stepped inside the room for her meeting with the duke and duchess, the friendship she’d known with Rafe and Cailin slipped further away, as she became that which she’d always been to this family—a servant. That realization caused the oddest tightness in her chest. A divide now lay between her and Rafe. She’d already accepted her inferior status before this. Her knowledge of her place in the world had been as much a part of her as the oft-untamable auburn tresses atop her head. It was also the first time that she had ever wanted to cry over that realization.

  “Miss Dalrymple,” the duchess said with a smile.

  Edwina sank into a deep, deferential curtsy. “Your Grace,” she murmured to the regal pair at the center of the room.

  The elegant woman swept forward with her hands outstretched, and then in the most unduchesslike gesture Edwina would have ever expected from one belonging to her vaunted status, the duchess gathered Edwina’s palms in hers. “I know this has required extensive travel and efforts on your behalf, and we are ever so grateful to you for . . .” The woman’s throat moved. “Managing to do what no one else was capable of.”

  Husband and wife shared a look, and again a wealth of emotion passed between them, different from the reserve the nobility strove for.

  “Yes,” the duke said. He motioned to his desk and the chairs before them. The moment the duke and duchess and Edwina were seated, he spoke. “I cannot ever repay you for bringing my son and daughter to me, Miss Dalrymple. I confess, I despaired of ever meeting them.” His features contorted in a paroxysm of pain she would have traded both arms to have seen on her own father’s face.

  Edwina inclined her head. “It has been my joy and honor.” And it had. Initially this assignment had been solely about her future and the outcome of this assignment. Along the way, it had changed. In the time she’d spent with Rafe, she’d laughed more and been challenged more, in ways that she would one day miss. “Your son, Mr. Audley . . .” The duke fixed a gaze on her. “He is clever, and I believe it will take little for him to fit in effortlessly.”

  “Before he arrives, I would speak to you.” He withdrew a page, and stretched an arm across the table.

  With a word of thanks, Edwina accepted the sheet.

  Dinner party

  Ball

  White’s

  “That will be the extent to which your services are required.”

  The extent to which her services were required. How . . . formal. And why should it be any other way? “White’s?” He’d have Rafe join that gentlemen’s club. He would hate it. Everything about it. And yet, it was his place.

  “Of course, I am not expecting you to advise him on White’s. It is merely something I’d have him prepared to attend.” The duke smiled, effortlessly, easily. Unlike Rafe, for whom every turn of his lips showed strain.

  She cleared her throat, and lowered the page to her lap. “R—” Rafe. Except she no longer had leave to refer to him that way. Not by name. Not before this all-powerful gentleman . . . who was also her employer. Not before anyone, really. “Mr. Audley has proven most adept. We spent a good portion of the week in travels, reviewing and preparing some.”

  The duchess beamed. “Given the limited time we have to work, that was a splendid use of time.”

  Yes, splendid. There should be a rush of pride and relief at being that much closer to the end of this most distinguished of assignments, and references from the most elevated of peers. Except . . . it also meant, even sooner, she’d no longer be needed here. Soon, she would be free to begin expanding her business into the peerage. Why did that thought not bring with it the happiness it should?

  The Duke removed his spectacles, folding the wire rims. “Yes, I must also say it is a rather pleasant surprise knowing he is that much closer to being able to enter Polite Society,” he murmured.

  Husband and wife shared a look, the depth of love that passed between them so intense and so very intimate, Edwina briefly glanced down at her lap so as to not intrude upon them.

  “We understood you are quite accomplished and highly recommended by your previous employers,” the duchess said quietly, and Edwina redirected her attention to the elegantly coiffed, stunning noblewoman before her. “However, we feared Mr. Audley’s stubborn determination to reject the offer my husband extended him would prove too great for you or anyone to overcome.” A sheen of tears filled the other woman’s eyes, and she dabbed at them. “You are a wonder.”

  “The credit belongs to Mr. Audley,” she demurred. “I am only as effective as my students are cooperative.”

  Student. Her heart clenched, for something also felt wrong in thinking of Rafe in those terms. For in their short time together, she’d become closer to him than . . . anyone in the whole of her life. He’d teased her and tended her injuries, and challenged her . . . and shown her passion, for the first time in her life.

  And yet, none of that changed what he was—her student.

  Another one of those private looks passed between the clearly devoted couple.

  The duchess cleared her throat. “As we are on the topic of your next assignment,” she segued. “We would ask that when you conclude with Rafe’s edification, you then begin schooling Miss Audley, and preparing her for her entrance. I am thinking we might do a small entrance for her this year, and launch her completely next Season.”

  “Next Season makes sense, of course,” the duke said with a nod. “Even as I would find it preferable that she be presented immediately, I would rather do so slowly, and permit her time to enjoy
London and then . . .” Face the lion’s den.

  Next Season.

  What the duchess assumed, that Edwina would take on the role, was a grand show of confidence in Edwina. It would also mean an additional client of the peerage for Edwina.

  A lady, no less. That elusive and illustrious clientele that had until this moment escaped her.

  It would also mean that Edwina remained with Rafe and his family beyond this short period. That she would stay with him . . . Her heart lifted.

  Only to promptly plummet.

  To stay through next year would mean she’d also be forced to face Rafe belonging here, and finding love here . . .

  The duke and duchess continued to stare at her expectantly, with matching smiles, and it was abundantly clear that they’d already taken it as a fact that she would simply accept this next assignment.

  Edwina clasped her shaking hands together. Before she could talk herself out of it, she spoke: “I am afraid I cannot do that.”

  Silence met her pronouncement.

  The duke sat forward. “What was that?”

  And it spoke volumes about Rafe’s father that he did not immediately turn her out, or call her out for rejecting that offer. “I said, I am afraid I cannot be the one to oversee Miss Audley’s instruction beyond this Season.” Never had she believed that she would or could reject a nobleman’s request. She’d aspired to their ranks . . . to work among them. Something, however, in the time she had spent with Rafe had opened her eyes to how that drive had taken precedence over her morals . . . how she’d not previously thought of her clients as people with dreams and hopes and visions of their own, but rather of her own desires.

  “I am afraid I do not understand, Miss Dalrymple,” the duchess said, in those still unexpectedly gentle tones. “Is there a reason why? Is it the payment—”

  “No!” she interrupted. “You have been most generous.” Edwina took a breath and weighed her response, wishing to simultaneously speak freely and to protect Rafe and what he’d confided. “I . . .”

  They continued to look at her.

  The duchess broke the awkward impasse. “Perhaps you might reconsider.”

  “Though I am grateful for your offer, I must, however, decline,” she said again, with greater insistence.

  The duke’s eyebrows came together. “I will pay you double.”

  That was the cost. She strangled, nearly choking on even the thought of that amount. What she could do with those funds. The security she might know. It would represent a bridge between clients, so that she might be more selective . . . unlike in the past, where no assignment had been safe to pass up. Edwina closed her eyes, fighting with herself. Debating. When it shouldn’t be a debate. Not truly.

  She was a woman bent on survival, and doing it respectably and respectfully. Never reliant upon a man for her comforts and security.

  Oh, hell on Tuesday.

  Edwina forced her eyes open. “I cannot,” she said, before she had a chance to convince herself of the opposite. “I am grateful to you for wishing to employ my services for your daughter, but I cannot do so,” and would not. “Not at this time.”

  The duke frowned, and she braced for dismissal.

  The duchess leaned over and patted Edwina’s hand. “There is no reason for any of us to make a decision now. Isn’t that right?” She turned that question on her husband. He nodded once, and his wife resumed. “Now, let us focus instead on Rafe’s lessons.”

  That was it? Edwina had asserted herself and not lost herself or her work in the process. Her spine grew under the dizzying power that came from that revelation. “Yes,” she began. “As I was saying, we had already started some lessons on our journey here.” Fishing a page out of her folio, she held it out. “I have established a schedule with . . .” Rafe. Except here he could not be that. Not to her. “. . . Mr. Audley.” How foreign it felt forcing her tongue to wrap about those syllables when his Christian name had rolled so effortlessly forth.

  “That will not be necessary. I have set a schedule based on the two events he’ll require assistance preparing for.” He handed over another, more officious page, and Edwina stared at it.

  “Oh . . . Of course.” One didn’t tell a duke. She knew that, and yet, she’d just thought . . . she’d expected . . . what? That your time with Rafe was so special and so intimate and so important that it would supersede the Duke of Bentley’s intentions?

  Her nape prickling, that heightened sense a product of years of village scorn and scrutiny, she glanced up, and found the duchess looking at her.

  “Is there a problem, Miss Dalrymple?” the gracious older woman asked still with that greater warmth and kindness than Edwina would have expected a duchess to demonstrate for a mere servant.

  “None, Your Grace.” Edwina dropped her gaze to the two sheets now in her care: the ones that recalled her to her place here and also rid her of that bit of control she’d been looking forward to, of shaping her and Rafe’s time together. “None at all.”

  The Duchess of Bentley sailed to her feet and joined her husband around the desk. “I know you are ever so eager to begin readying Rafe for his entry into society, but Miss Dalrymple has traveled a good deal, and we should allow her the evening to rest and prepare for the morrow.”

  The just faintly graying duke captured his wife’s hands and brought her fingers to his mouth. “Ever right, as you always are, love,” he murmured, brushing a kiss upon his wife’s hand. In a gesture so achingly intimate and sweet Edwina made herself look away.

  Because contained within that tender moment was a closeness her mother had craved, with the man she’d loved, and a bond Edwina had never, ever even allowed herself to think of for herself.

  But seeing this man, an older, slightly less muscled version of his son, Edwina saw within the exchange between husband and wife one of Rafe in the future. With a woman whom he loved and cherished and respected in that same way. Her chest hurt. All of her . . . ached. With envy. And a bitter, blinding jealousy for the woman who would one day have that which Edwina hadn’t even realized she’d longed for . . . the devoted love of a man like Rafe Audley.

  Her breath caught on a hiss, and instantly the duke and duchess glanced her way. She surged to her feet. “Thank you,” she blurted out. “For everything.” Edwina sank into a curtsy.

  She’d just reached the middle of the room when the duke called out, “Miss Dalrymple.” Edwina brought herself back around, facing Rafe’s father. “I will be candid in saying, I had my doubts and reservations prior to hiring you, not because I did not believe you were capable but because I did not believe it was possible to sway my stubborn son.” He smiled. “My wife insisted a female hand was what was needed, and my wife”—His Grace claimed the duchess’s hand for another kiss—“was correct about you. You did it.”

  You did it . . .

  Edwina tensed.

  She had. It had seemed unlikely at times, and impossible every other. Rafe had been adamant, fighting her along the way, and yet she had done it. She had succeeded where all the others who came before her had failed.

  As such, she should feel only a keen sense of pride at that accomplishment.

  Only, hearing His Grace speak as if she’d bagged a buck on a hunt made this . . . feel wrong. The time she’d spent with Rafe. The moments they’d shared.

  “That is all,” the duke said, nodding his head.

  And she was dismissed.

  Edwina made the remainder of the long walk across the Aubusson carpet, eager to leave.

  Because . . . this confusion in her mind and in her heart, about her role and her relationship with Rafe . . . it did not make sense.

  He was just a job. Assisting him in this endeavor was a means to rise up, and for her father to at last respect her and recognize her and for her to fit into this world that she’d been barred from since birth.

&nbs
p; The servant stationed at the doorway, who’d remained invisible until just then, clasped the handle and opened the door, letting her out.

  The moment she stepped into the hall, Edwina froze. Her gaze landed on him. Rafe. He made his way down the long corridor, headed for the very room she’d just vacated. Not, however, as someone in the duke’s employ, but as a beloved son. Putting Rafe, as he’d always been—well beyond her reach.

  And surely it was merely exhaustion accounting for the urge to curl up within a ball and just hold herself.

  Get control of yourself.

  Edwina forced herself to move, starting toward her rooms.

  And Rafe.

  At last, they reached one another. His shoulder-length dark hair, now wet, had been pulled back into a queue at the base of his neck, giving him . . . a more tamed look, and she . . . missed how he’d always worn it.

  He moved his eyes over her face, his gaze inscrutable. “Edwina,” he greeted her.

  Bowing her head, she executed a curtsy. “Mr. Audley.”

  * * *

  • • •

  As little as Rafe had wanted to come to London, the decision to do so had not been as . . . difficult as he’d anticipated.

  On the contrary, in fact.

  When it had been framed with allowing his brother some space in which to grow and be independent of Rafe at the coalfields, and to get Cailin out and away from tragic memories, the decision had been surprisingly easy.

  All of that had been true before this moment.

  This one, right here: the long overdue, face-to-face meeting with the man his mother had so loved, and the one who’d fathered him and Cailin and Hunter and Wesley, and had remained ignorant of their existence.

  That realization of what was to come had truly hit him the moment he’d entered this household, and been led down a different hall than Edwina.

  Panic. Sheer, mind-numbing, all-consuming panic had swept over him.

  And the only thing that had steadied him when thinking about this upcoming meeting . . . was her.