Ariel mopped perspiration from her forehead and continued scrubbing the bedchamber floor. Lady Horwick had decided to open several more moldy, musty-smelling rooms that hadn’t been used in years, and the brunt of the work had fallen to her. As soon as she finished, there was a cupboard full of tarnished silver that needed to be polished, the rugs in the dining room had to be beaten, then there was laundry to fold and put away. After that she would have to—
“I’m sorry to interrupt, my dear, but there’s a gentleman downstairs to see ya.” Mrs. O’Grady smiled. “One of Lord Horwick’s business acquaintances. He’s waitin’ for ya in the White Drawin’ Room. Hurry now, if ya please. Ya don’t want to be keepin’ him waitin’.”
A knot formed in Ariel’s stomach. A gentleman? It couldn’t be. Surely not. But last night Greville had stumbled upon her and it seemed an impossible coincidence. Her pulse began a dull, thready drumbeat. The earl wouldn’t come; he had sent her away. He no longer desired her. He cared nothing for her in the least. But who else could it be? And if it were he, why was he here?
Her hands shook as she set the mop aside and started for the door, shoving stray tendrils of hair back from her cheeks, tucking them up under her mobcap. She made her way down the newly repaired servants’ stairs and along the hall to the White Drawing Room. Like most of the downstairs rooms, it was elegantly appointed and showed none of the wear evident in the rest of the house.
Ariel paused outside the ornate white-and-gilt door leading into the salon, took a deep breath, and walked in. Greville turned the moment he heard her, and she sucked in a breath at the sight of him. Instead of the handsome, calmly controlled aristocrat who had appeared in the entry the night before, the man who stood in front of her had a pale cast to his usually dark complexion and smudges beneath eyes that looked hollow and sunken in.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. “I was afraid you would refuse to see me.”
“I work here. I do as I’m told. Since you are a friend of Lord Horwick’s, I had no choice but to come.”
He nodded, glanced away. “I’ve something to say to you. I have no idea what you will think, or if there is the slightest chance that you will believe me.”
“Say it then. I have work to do.”
“This is difficult for me.” He glanced down, then up, nervous in a way she’d never seen him. “Words of this sort do not come easily for a man like me.” Ariel said nothing. There was something in his eyes, something so turbulent her heart picked up its pace. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you—more than you will ever know.” He rubbed a hand wearily over his face. “You see, I knew you were lying the night I was supposed to meet Clay at the club. I wanted to know why. I never really left the house that night; I merely pretended to.”
She wasn’t surprised, not now that she knew the extent of his deceit.
“I saw Marlin go into the stable,” he continued. “I saw you follow him in. When you came out with your clothes mussed and your hair unbound, I … I assumed the worst.” He looked away, his expression bleak. “I was wrong.”
The words came out hoarse and a little bit gruff. Ariel ignored the way they made her feel.
“I wanted to hurt you,” he went on. “I wanted to pay you back for what I believed you had done.”
For the first time, everything that had happened began to make sense. Until this very moment, she had refused to think about it, refused to let him into her thoughts again, even for a moment. Her legs started shaking. She was afraid they wouldn’t hold her up. Slowly she sank down on the edge of a nearby chair.
“When I sent you away, I believed you would go to Marlin. I knew he wanted you. It never occurred to me that you would have no place to go, no one to look after you.”
“Why would you care?” she asked bitterly. “You got what you wanted. You were tired of me. You said so that morning. You said—” Her voice cracked on this last, and as hard as she willed them not to, tears welled up in her eyes.
Justin was beside her in an instant, down on one knee, reaching out to capture her icy fingers between his hands. They felt even colder than her own.
Ariel pulled away from him and came to her feet, turned, and walked shakily over to the window. She heard his voice coming from behind her, just a few short feet away.
“You were right in what you said. I was a liar. I lied to you that morning, but not in the way you think. I lied about the woman. There was no other woman. Worse than that, I lied about not wanting you. I’ve always wanted you, Ariel. From the first time I saw you, I wanted you. I look at you now and I want you.”
Ariel’s throat closed up as she whirled to face him. “I don’t want to hear it. Not another word.” She started for the door, but he stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
“You don’t belong here. No matter what you think of me, this isn’t a place you should be. Go up and get your things. I’m taking you out of here.”
Ariel fought a fresh rush of anger. “You’re insane. I’m not going anywhere with you. I wouldn’t step one foot outside this house with you.”
“I know how you must hate me. You have every reason to feel that way, but—”
“I’m not going with you, Lord Greville. Not now, not in the future.”
His posture stiffened, making him look even taller than he usually did. “Ariel, listen to me. You can’t possibly continue to live here. Surely by now you know what Horwick is like. He has a reputation for ruining the young women who work for him. Forgodsake—his bloody steward goes out and finds them for him. Come home with me and I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Allow me to warm your bed again? Make love to me until you find someone else you prefer? Let me make this clear, my lord. I wasn’t interested in becoming Phillip’s mistress. I am no longer interested in being yours.” She looked straight into those piercing gray eyes. “I’ve learned something since I came to London. Being a lady has nothing to do with money and fashionable clothes. It has to do with pride and self-worth. I’m worth more as a chambermaid than I ever was as your whore.”
A muscle tightened in his cheek, and something that might have been regret burned in his eyes. Ignoring the painful squeezing of her heart, Ariel turned away from him and made her way to the door. This time he didn’t try to stop her. By the time she reached the back stairs, her heart was hammering wildly and a heavy weight rested on her chest, making it hard to breathe.
Ariel kept on walking. She had suffered enough at the hands of Justin Ross. Whatever fate awaited her, she never wanted to see him again.
* * *
For the balance of the day, Ariel worked herself to the point of exhaustion, then, when darkness set in, retired to her third-floor room and dropped into her narrow bed as if her body were tied with lead weights. She didn’t want to think of Justin. She didn’t want to remember the ravaged look on his face.
All afternoon, work had been her solace, blocking her emotions, keeping the pain away. During the day, her conscious mind had been safe from him, but now it was night and she couldn’t block him from her dreams.
They were filled with painful images, visions of the ruthless man he had been the morning he’d made love to her, then tossed her out in the street. The frigid expression on his face, the icy cold that seemed to seep through his very skin. Glacial eyes that bit into her like frozen stones, numbing her to the bone.
“You knew sooner or later it would happen.… It would be better if you left today.”
“Justin…” she whispered into the darkness, her heart breaking, and the sound of her own ragged voice sent the awful dream spinning away.
Through the tiny window above the bed a weak sun rose in the east. Ariel shivered against the cold in the room, shoved her long blond braid over her shoulder, and wearily climbed from beneath the covers. A few minutes later, she was dressed in her black skirt and white blouse and heading downstairs to begin her exhausting day’s work.
She skipped breakfast. She couldn’t force down a morsel of food. Her head ached and her muscles felt cramped from lack of sleep. She had only been working a couple of hours, the long day stretching endlessly ahead of her, when Mrs. O’Grady came in search of her.
“You’ve a package, my dear. It arrived by carriage just a few minutes ago. It’s waitin’ for ya on a table in the entry.”
It was a single red rose in an exquisite silver vase. The card read simply: “Forgive me.” No signature was needed. She knew only too well who it was from.
But she couldn’t forgive him. Not for the things he had believed about her. Not for the callous way he had treated her. Not for leaving her heart a broken, battered thing inside her chest.
Another gift arrived the following day, a delicate music box that played a tune from the Bach concerto they had listened to in the park in Tunbridge Wells. This gift had no card, nor did the one that arrived the following day, nor the one that came the day after that. Ariel returned each one. When the next gift arrived, along with a letter, it went back unopened, as did all of those that followed.
None of them mattered. No gift, no matter how expensive, no letter, no matter how beautifully written, could convince her that the unfeeling, brutal man she had known that morning in his study hadn’t been the real Justin Ross.
* * *
Justin entered a small private dining room at one of Clay’s favorite restaurants: Rules, Maiden Lane, Covent Gardens. He wasn’t hungry. He hadn’t the slightest appetite since he’d seen Ariel dressed in the uniform of a chambermaid and working for that lecher Fletcher Giles.
Justin had never really liked the Earl of Horwick, but the man had a good deal of business acumen and they had wound up as partners in a couple of investment ventures. Justin had liked the man even less when he began hearing rumors that the earl had forced his unwanted attentions on a number of young serving women in his employ over the years.
Now Ariel was among those poor souls who worked for him, and Justin knew exactly why she had been hired.
“You look terrible.” Clay’s voice broke into his thoughts. “You had better sit down before you fall down.” Clay called one of the waiters over and ordered something from the menu for both of them. “You look like you haven’t eaten in a week.”
Justin gave up a weary sigh. “I haven’t had much of an appetite.” Seated on a tufted red velvet chair in an ornate, heavily curtained private dining room, for the next half hour he relayed the story of what had happened to Ariel in the stable, how he had brutally used her the following morning and sent her away, and how she had wound up working for Horwick.
Clay softly cursed. “I’ll admit, I’ve made a mess of things a number of times in my life, but I’ve never nicked it as badly as this.”
“She refuses to see me. She won’t open my letters. She’s sent back every gift I’ve sent. What am I going to do?”
“Perhaps you should simply tell her how much you care for her. It’s obvious that you do.”
Justin shook his head. “Not to her, it isn’t. She won’t listen to anything I have to say, and even if she did, she wouldn’t believe me.”
“Well, she bloody well can’t go on working for Horwick. Sooner or later the old bastard will go after her. Unless of course you’ve warned him not to.”
“I haven’t had the chance. He was away on business all last week. Fortunately, his wife is now in residence. He’ll be on his best behavior, at least until she leaves.”
“From what I gather, she’ll be on her way this morning. She gave a birthday ball for her favorite niece two nights ago; now she’s headed for the country.”
“You were there?”
“I dropped in for a while, since I was fairly certain the lovely young widow I mentioned would also be attending.”
“You didn’t happen to see Ariel by chance?”
Clay shook his head. “Sorry. As I said, I didn’t stay long. The lady and I decided we could spend our time in much more pleasant pursuits than listening to Lady Horwick extol the virtues of her bucktoothed niece.”
The meal arrived just then, thick slices of venison wallowing in gravy, oysters, peas, and a crusty pigeon pie.
“Eat up. You’re going to need your strength if you’re going to figure a way out of this mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”
Justin halfheartedly dug in, knowing he couldn’t help Ariel if he allowed himself to fall ill.
Clay took a sip of his wine. “I didn’t see Ariel at Horwick’s, but I did see your sister.”
Justin nodded. “I heard Barbara was in town. She is visiting Lady Cadbury, I gather.”
“She was particularly chummy with your good friend Phillip Marlin. I thought they made quite a pair.”
Justin glanced up from his meal. “I’m going to call him out.”
Clay set his wineglass very carefully down on the table. “That isn’t a good idea—not that the bastard doesn’t deserve it. But if you kill him, you’ll only stir up more trouble. Ariel’s name will be dragged through the mud. He simply isn’t worth it.”
“I can’t just ignore what he did to her.”
“Yes, you can. At least for the present. You have Ariel to consider. She has to be your first concern.”
Justin said nothing. Clay was right. He had to think of Ariel first; then he would deal with Marlin. He forced himself to eat another bite of meat, but the food tasted like sand in his mouth.
“It could be worse, you know. At least you found out she wasn’t swiving Marlin. And she certainly isn’t in love with him.”
“No, she isn’t in love with him,” Justin said softly. “She told him that she was in love with me.”
The oyster Clay had speared paused halfway to his lips. He set the silver fork back down on his plate. “Christ.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. See her again. Try to convince her to leave. I’ve got to find a place for her to live, somewhere she’ll be safe.”
“She’ll think you want—”
“I know exactly what she’ll think, but it isn’t the truth. I won’t go near her. She doesn’t want to see me and I don’t blame her.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Clay said gently. “You’re a good man, Justin, whether you believe it or not. You have feelings just like anyone else. Sometimes those feelings get in the way. They make you blind to seeing things the way they really are. You try to ignore them, but they’re still there inside you. Pretending you don’t have them doesn’t make it so.”
Justin said nothing.
“You never meant to hurt her,” Clay went on. “Maybe in time, Ariel will understand that.”
Justin didn’t answer. After the way he had treated her, Ariel would never understand. It didn’t matter. He had to help her. He owed her that much. That and so much more.
* * *
Ariel pulled the sheets from the big tester bed. Lady Horwick’s last ball had ended two days ago—thank God. Most of the guests had already departed, and the few that remained would be leaving today.
She stretched and yawned and rubbed her aching back, then grabbed the ends of a clean white sheet and snapped it open above the feather mattress. She was busily tucking in the corners when she heard the door open, then softly close again. Expecting to see Mrs. O’Grady or one of the other chambermaids, she straightened at the sight of Lord Horwick’s rotund figure standing in front of the door.
“Well, my dear. At last we are alone.”
Ariel stiffened. “You mean your wife has departed and you are now alone.”
His tongue slid out to wet his thick lips, and he grunted. “I mean we are alone, my dear. I realize you have not yet resigned yourself to the inevitable, but by the time I leave this room, you will have.”
Ariel’s lips went tight. She was more angry than frightened, and extremely tired of Lord Horwick’s ridiculous assumption that sooner or later she would accept his disgusting advances. “I told you, I am a chambermaid, nothing more. If you can’t accept that, then I shall be forced to resign my position.” It was a daunting prospect, since she’d had so much trouble finding a job in the first place. Perhaps if she was firm with him, he would finally leave her alone.
Horwick smiled. “Finding employment for a young woman without references can be quite a task.” He moved closer, removed his velvet-collared tailcoat, and tossed it onto the half-made bed. “Why go to so much trouble when by simply making yourself available to me on occasion you can have a very pleasant situation here?”
She clamped down on an angry retort and began to circle away from him toward the door. “I have no wish to make myself available to you or anyone else. Now kindly allow me to leave.”
He simply shook his head. “I’ve been more than patient. It’s time you discovered which of us is master here and which of us is servant.” Horwick lunged toward her and Ariel skittered away just out of his grasp. She reached the door and shrieked in outrage when she discovered he had locked it. Ariel whirled to face Horwick the same instant his short, bulky frame slammed her up against the door.
“Get away from me!” She tried to twist free, but a beefy hand dragged her head down and thick wet lips slid over her mouth. Anger rose up in a blinding wave and Ariel bit down on his lip. Horwick roared in outrage. He spit a curse but refused to let her go. Instead, she felt his blunt-fingered hand groping her breast and all the fury she’d been feeling toward Horwick—toward men in general—reared up with colossal force.
From the corner of her eye, she spotted a heavy Chinese cloisonné vase. Twisting until she could reach it, she took a firm hold, swung it up, and brought it crashing down on the earl’s thick head.
A bellow of fury erupted. Swearing foully, he grabbed his aching skull, which bled from a cut on the top, and sagged to his knees, bracing himself against the dresser.
Praying she hadn’t done any permanent damage, Ariel wildly glanced around for the key. Dear God, it had to be in his pocket! His coat was on the bed. She raced toward it and madly dug through the pockets. She found the object easily, but her hands were shaking so much she could barely get it out.
“You little bitch!”
Ariel whirled toward the sound of Horwick’s voice. He was on his feet, swaying unsteadily, blood trickling from the gash on his head down the side of his face and dripping off one fat cheek. “You’ll pay for this!” he shouted. “By God you’ll pay!”
Ariel streaked for the door, jammed the key in the lock with a shaking hand, and wildly turned the handle. She yanked it open and stepped outside just as two of his lordship’s footmen came racing down the hall.
“Stop her!” Horwick shouted. “That woman tried to kill me!”
The color drained from her face. Oh, dear God. She tried to dart past the footmen, but one of them caught her around the waist and another grabbed her arm, wrenching it painfully up behind her. Through the open bedchamber door, Lord Horwick staggered out into the hall.
“Call a constable!” he demanded. “I want justice. I want this woman to pay for what she’s done!”
Ariel turned stricken eyes to the earl. “Please … I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was only trying to protect myself.”
But already the household was in chaos, the kitchen help scurrying out to discover the source of the excitement, a footman and two linkboys racing out the door. A few minutes later, a group of watchmen thundered up the stairs. Horwick blustered and ranted, inventing a tale of attempted murder and ordering her tossed into gaol.
“He’s lying!” Ariel shouted as the men dragged her down the hall toward the stairs. “The earl attacked me! I was only trying to defend myself!”
But no one believed her, not even the other servants. And even if they did, they weren’t about to interfere. Jobs were simply too scarce.
As they neared the front door, she glanced frantically around one last time, looking for Mrs. O’Grady, then remembered the housekeeper had taken a few days off to visit relatives out of town.
“Dear God,” she whispered as the watchmen hustled her down the front steps and into the their waiting carriage, terrified and not having the faintest idea what she should do. For an instant, she thought of Justin, but she wasn’t really certain he would help her even if she found a way to reach him. And if he did, she could too well imagine what he would expect from her in return.
Fighting back tears, Ariel leaned back against the worn leather seat of the carriage, staring at the unforgiving faces of the watchmen, wondering how the beautiful life she had once imagined could have gone so very wrong.
* * *
Justin adjusted the knot of his white cravat for the second time and pulled down the cuffs of his fine lawn shirt. Dressed in a dove gray tailcoat, silver brocade waistcoat, and burgundy breeches, he checked his image in the mirror one last time and started for the door.
He was headed for Lord Horwick’s, determined to speak to Ariel, to convince her to move into the town house he had rented for her use. He had sent the earl a message four days ago, determined to see him, wanting to make it clear that Ariel was under his protection and that Horwick should leave her alone, but the earl had apparently left the city.
Justin was more than grateful. Knowing Ariel was safe, he’d spent the next three days working up his courage, trying to decide what to say. In the end, he had simply decided he would remove her by force if she refused to listen to reason. With that goal in mind, he hurriedly descended the stairs and climbed aboard his carriage.
It didn’t take long to reach the earl’s. He rapped firmly with the brass knocker on the front door and the stout little butler pulled it open.
“Good afternoon, milord. I am sorry to inform you Lord Horwick is not at home.”
“I realize that. I am here to see Miss Summers.”
“Miss Summers?”
“That’s correct.” Justin started past the little man into the foyer of the house. “I’m rather in a hurry to see her. If you will kindly tell her I am here—”
“I’m sorry, milord, but Miss Summers isn’t … Miss Summers is no longer employed by Lord Horwick.”
Justin’s hard stare bored into the butler, whose face turned a faint shade of green. “Are you telling me she is not in the house?”
“No, milord.”
A sinking feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. “Then where has she gone?”
“I’m not … not exactly sure, my lord.”
There was something furtive in his manner. Justin reached out and gripped the front of the little man’s white shirt and dragged him up on his toes. “Then find someone who is sure—and you had better be quick about it.”
Justin released his hold and the terrified man scurried away, disappearing into the interior of the house. Awaiting his return, Justin paced the entry, his stomach knotted with fear. Where had she gone? How would he find her? Had something happened? Why hadn’t he come sooner?
When the clock in the entry began to chime and the butler had still not returned, Justin started off in the direction he had gone.
He had only taken a couple of steps when the housekeeper, a short, robust gray-haired woman, stepped out into the hall and hurried toward him “Lord Greville, thank heaven you are here. I’m Mrs. O’Grady—Lord Horwick’s housekeeper.”
Horwick’s name made the knot tighten in his stomach.
“I’ve been beside myself since I heard the news,” she rambled on. “I’ve been away, you see, visitin’ my aunt, and only just returned home this mornin’.”
“Where is she? Where is Ariel?”
“Oh, my lord, ’tis the most dreadful thing.”
Justin caught hold of her arms. “Mrs. O’Grady, please—tell me what’s happened.”
Her worried eyes fixed on his face. “There was an … an altercation of sorts four days past. Lord Horwick accused Ariel of tryin’ to murder him. The constable came and took her away. The poor, dear child’s locked up in Newgate Prison.”
But Justin was already moving, heading for the door and his waiting carriage.
“She was only tryin’ to defend herself,” Mrs. O’Grady called after him, trailing him down the front porch stairs. “Some of the servants took up a collection and paid the garnish, so the guards wouldn’t … so no one would hurt her.”
His jaw flexed, but he made no comment, just jerked open the carriage door.
Looking more worried than ever, Mrs. O’Grady reached out and caught hold of the tail of his coat. “Please, my lord, there’s no one else ta help her.”
He turned to her then, saw the distress in her plump, lined face, and summoned a calming smile. “Put your worry to rest, Mrs. O’Grady. Ariel will be safe. I’ll take care of everything.”
Her shoulders sagged with relief and she smiled, brushed at a tear that crept from the corner of her eye. “I knew it. I saw it in your eyes the day you came to see her. I knew she could count on you.”
Justin merely nodded. Of course she could count on him. She just didn’t believe it. Damn, why hadn’t he gone to her sooner, forced her to leave that bloody damned house? If he had, she wouldn’t be locked up in prison.
One more failure.
One more mark against his black soul.
One more deed she would never forgive.