“I find it astonishing that a simple silver button was enough to purchase a new dress and a shawl,” Winnifred said from behind a screen of shrubbery that did nothing to ward off the chill in the springtime air.
For the sake of modesty, she spread out the woolen shawl high on the spindly hazel branches. The coarse fabric was the color of her father’s nightly glass of port that he always drank alone in his study while reading by firelight. And thinking of that—of how she’d never be at home again—a heavy sigh escaped.
“What is it? What’s happened?” Asher asked.
Was it her imagination or was there a hard edge to his voice, like a man prepared for battle?
It was almost comical how he refused to leave her side for an instant. Even earlier, when he’d gone to the kitchen entrance at the back of the tavern, he’d made her keep his handkerchief in her hand, while holding it through a hole in the cooper’s shed. And when he’d returned to her, he’d practically carried her off the property and before she could dress, spouting some sort of nonsense about not wanting to tempt the stable lads.
She might have laughed if the circumstances were different. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”
He murmured a sound of agreement. “We’ll have to stay off the main road for now. That should keep us from encountering anyone who might be searching for us. Once we’re a safe distance away, it shouldn’t be long before we encounter a passing farmer who might offer us a lift into the next vicarage.”
Without any money, she didn’t think there was a point in heading to a nearby village, but she held her tongue. She saved her breath to wiggle into this plain bib-front dress, a homespun green the color of unripened olives with short, gathered sleeves and an ill-fitting bodice.
Of course, it might not have fit at all if her busk hadn’t snapped in two, which forced her to remove it or else have her tender skin pinched. It felt rather liberating to toss the stiff wooden pieces to the ground. Due to the thick busk’s absence, her laces weren’t as tight and she could move a bit more freely.
Even so, she frowned as she secured the fastenings, where milk-white swells strained the ruffled bodice trim. She looked like she was smuggling mounds of rising bread dough across the countryside.
“Are you certain there wasn’t enough silver to purchase a man’s suit of clothes, or to take us all the way to Yorkshire, for that matter?”
“Yes, I’m certain,” he said dryly. “No one would believe you’re a man. I fear that wearing breeches or trousers would only enhance the fact that you are, most definitely, a woman.”
Peering above the shawl line and through the branches, she saw him scrub his hand over his face and shake his head. She imagined that, should he turn around, she would see disgust in his expression.
“Of course,” she said quietly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“And besides, that isn’t a new dress. The purchase had far more to do with human nature than with silver. The garment was left behind in a portmanteau after the owner’s wife stole away in the middle of the night.”
Winnifred felt her brow pucker in confusion. “That doesn’t explain why the scullery maid would be so eager to part with it.”
“Because the owner’s wife left with the maid’s young lover—a man who was supposed to run away with her instead. From the brief tale she told, the man must have been seduced out of his wits by the owner’s wife.”
“Really,” Winnifred breathed. In rapt fascination, she smoothed her hands down her midriff. The simple design fit her waist quite well, without being tight or modified with added reinforcements. And the length went to the edge of her petticoat hem. “This dress has lived a far more thrilling life than I have done. Imagine the stories it could tell.”
“Best not,” he murmured as if to himself.
She ignored him, too caught up in the notion that someone who wasn’t shaped too differently from her had had a lover. Two, if she counted the cuckolded husband.
“I wonder if this is what it’s like to wear a disguise at one of those illicit masquerades. I’ve read about those in the society column, you know. Apparently, a great number of debutantes who’ve attended are either quickly married afterward or sent away by their families,” she said through the branches, plucking the shawl free. It was scratchy against the bare flesh of her shoulders, but it was warm and that was all that mattered. “Have you ever attended one?”
He cleared his throat. “My great-aunt Lolly once disguised herself as a boy to board a ship.”
“Lolly?” she asked with a grin, not missing the way he avoided answering.
A scoundrel such as he had probably been to a great number of masquerades. Perhaps she might convince him to tell her about them. For the purpose of the primer, of course. Well, that and her own curiosity, which was doubtless brought on by the illicit trysts woven into the fibers of this two-lover frock.
“Her actual name is Liliandra, but my mother always called her Aunt Lolly. And even though I haven’t had the chance to meet her, that is the moniker I use when I pen letters . . . to . . . her . . .”
His words trailed off as she stepped out from behind the makeshift screen. She had her arms raised to sink the remaining pins into the thick twisted coiffure she’d attempted without a mirror.
But when she saw the way his gaze roamed over her figure, she lowered them quickly and took hold of the pointed ends of her folded shawl.
“Frightful, I know,” she said in a rush before he could. The heat of embarrassment climbed to her cheeks. “Mother always has my dresses designed with panels to conceal my plump figure, and additional fabric added to my sleeves. According to the modiste, broader shoulders give the illusion that I have a small waist. Father doesn’t say much of anything, but Mr. Woodbine frequently offers not-so-subtle advice about how I should learn to decline cake when offered. In other words, I’ve heard plenty of opinions already.”
Asher’s gaze suddenly collided with hers. Beneath his dark scowl, his eyes were the color of smoldering cinders. “Mr. Woodbine is an idiot and, forgive me for saying this, but so is your mother. Winn, there isn’t a single thing wrong with your figure. And believe me, I wish to hell there were.”
He practically growled those last words as he turned away.
Her heart gave an excited leap at the gruff compliment. No man had ever paid her notice, or given her any indication that she was pleasing to look upon.
She was too plump. She’d been told as much for years, her wardrobe fussed over with panels and flounces so much that she nearly hated to attend balls and parties. Mr. Woodbine wouldn’t dance with her, even after their betrothal was announced, and there was no line of men ready to stand in his place. So she’d lingered near the potted palms and refreshment table with her friends.
In her experience, gentlemen did not pursue fat, freckled heiresses. Because of this, Winnifred’s inner voice reasoned that Asher Holt was simply trying to be kind, out of pity over the ordeal she’d suffered with those horrible women.
The buoyant feeling beneath her breast abruptly sank. After all, on her body, this two-lover frock was merely a faded green dress.
Walking beside her, Asher reached into the inner pocket of his coat and withdrew a sleeve of brown paper. He handed it to her.
Warily, she gripped the oddly shaped, somewhat cylindrical package that was heavier on one end than the other. She wasn’t sure she was up for another surprise. “And this is . . . ?”
His shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug. “I managed to procure something else with your button as well.”
Carefully, she parted the paper and a spontaneous smile erupted. “Bread and cheese! Oh, what a marvel you are with a single silver button! I’m so happy that I could . . .”
She didn’t finish. Her words trailed off as she glanced over at him and saw his gaze dip to her lips. His own curled in a grin, and she remembered at once how laughably undesirable she was. A kiss from her would hardly be a reward.
“You could what, Winn?” he asked, amusement deepening his voice.
Refusing to give him any fodder to chuckle over, she forced herself to finish, keeping her tone purposely light. “Why, I could marry you this instant and happily give you the fortune of my dowry. In fact, if it were in my control, I’d make you rich as a king.”
“And all for bread and cheese? For a flagon of wine, I could rule the world.”
“Perhaps not. But I’d throw rose petals at your feet for a hot cup of tea,” she said absently, her focus on the warm, crusty bread.
She tore off a hunk. A fresh, yeasty aroma rose from the pale, lacy interior. It must have been baked just this morning. She was salivating by the time she sank her teeth into the dense loaf, tasting the salty essence of butter that clearly had been brushed on the outside. A moan escaped her.
Chewing slowly, she closed her eyes. Lost in a moment of food bliss, she imagined herself as one of the hedonists in a Bacchus painting, draped in silks and lounging on cushions while a loincloth-clad servant dangled grapes over her mouth.
When she opened her eyes, she found Asher watching her intently.
Instantly, her cheeks flooded with color. Waiting for his look of disgust, the partially masticated bread turned into a stone in her mouth and went down her throat in a painful swallow.
“My apologies,” she said. “I seem to have no manners whatsoever. I normally don’t eat with such unabashed . . . um . . . enthusiasm, so to speak.”
Hastily, she shoved the package back to him, the paper crinkling against the hard wall of his chest.
Taking hold of it, he blinked in confusion. “Surely you’ll need more to sate your appetite.”
“It’s obvious that I’ve eaten enough bread in my life.”
His dark brow dropped to a flattened line. “Eat the damned bread.”
“Thank you, no,” she insisted, her ire simmering. “That one bite shall prove sufficient for the remainder of our journey.”
“Then you leave me no choice but to feed it to you.”
“I’ll bite your fingers if you try.”
And yet, he did try. He tore off another piece and lifted it to her mouth.
She wanted to snap at him. But—heaven help her—the aroma made her weak. Her salivating tongue and mewling stomach conspired against her. Even so, she hid her lips, stubbornly pressing them closed as she crossed her arms beneath her breasts.
“I know you want this. I can see the hunger darken your eyes.”
She squeezed her eyes closed, too, shutting him out.
Unfortunately, he took advantage of the opportunity and skated temptation over the sensitive seam of her lips. Her flesh tingled.
Then he leaned in, close enough that she felt the heat releasing from his body. A pleasing aromatic mélange of the bread, the rain, the earth, and . . . him . . . filled her lungs, eliciting a warm shiver that fluttered low in her stomach.
“If you don’t eat it,” he warned, his warm breath drifting across her cheek, “I’ll be forced to kiss you into submission.”
Her eyes popped open. “You wouldn’t da—”
He slid the bread into her mouth.
The flavor dissolved on her tongue before she could object. And a traitorous murmur of appreciation escaped her throat.
“That’s better,” he said smugly. “Now, some cheese.”
The offering was sharp and delicious, tingling at the corners of her jaw, the firm texture turning creamy as it melted in the heat of her mouth. She chewed and swallowed, studying his expression the whole time.
He fed her another bite, and then another, not looking at all as though he were disgusted by her. Instead, he looked . . . hungry, too. Then he dragged his thumb across her bottom lip, his eyes impossibly dark under the shadows of his lashes as he followed the motion.
“Only a scoundrel would make such an outrageous threat,” she said when she could catch her breath.
“No. Only a scoundrel would have made good on his promise.”
He grinned wickedly as he put the pad of his thumb to his own lips, tasting whatever might have been lingering there. A crumb of cheese? A scrap of bread? Her?
Her stomach clenched at the thought, feeling full and pleasurably weighted. The sensation was foreign to her, thrumming deep inside. And when he offered more, she declined with a shake of her head, a hand resting over her midriff. She liked the feeling too much to risk lessening its effect by overindulgence.
He ate the bite himself, then ripped off a large hunk of bread and cheese before wrapping the remainder in the paper and slipping it back into his coat.
“We’ll save this for later, when we stop again. Although”—he hesitated, casting a look over his shoulder—“we could walk back to London. It isn’t too late.”
“But it is too late. We’ve already spent too much time together without a chaperone. Society would imagine the worst, regardless.”
“Mmm,” he murmured with a contemplative nod. “They’d expect marriage.”
“I’d rather be labeled a fallen woman than to marry without love. No offense to you, of course,” she added quickly. “I’m certain that aside from the kidnapping and the rakish tendencies in your character, you’re a fine gentleman. But I already decided that I would never marry a man who needed my dowry. Even if he claimed to love me, I couldn’t be certain.”
He exhaled deeply, leaving her to wonder if it was from relief or resignation. Perhaps a bit of both.
“Sometimes you must do whatever it takes to have the life you want,” he said with a nod. “No matter the cost.”
She was glad he understood. Until today, she’d never have thought she was capable of doing this. In truth, she was a bit shocked with this new Winnifred emerging into the world.
She contemplated this as they walked northward for a time, along a serpentine path worn through a pasture. A hidden chorus of crickets and thrushes hushed for their approach, then continued their tune after they passed. His sure and steady footfalls were muffled by the soft-packed earth. Beside him, her skirts swished against the border of damp grasses where water droplets glittered like diamonds whenever the sun peered out from behind the swift tumble of clouds overhead.
And if it weren’t for the fact that she’d run away from her own wedding, severed ties with her parents, fled from blunderbuss-toting ruffians, lost any means of currency, and felt a rise of guilt over the fact that she was now being escorted to her aunt’s by the very man her friends had essentially imprisoned for research, she might have considered it one of the most splendid days of her life.
She smiled at the idiocy of such a thought. Under the circumstances, it would be wrong to enjoy herself as if she were merely walking in the park with Asher Holt.
With a sideways glance, Winnifred studied her companion’s profile, trying to discern his current mood. Looking off in the distance, he absently brushed back a hank of hair from his forehead. The wind ruffled the dark layers where it curled at the ends, then tapered down to rest against the top edge of his white collar and black cravat. A stubble of soot-colored whiskers accentuated the edge of his jaw and outlined the somewhat pensive appearance of his mouth. If she could hazard a guess, he appeared to be lost in thought.
Anyone would admit that he was handsome. Glorious, even. And yet, there was something more—an aloof, almost wounded quality to his manner that compelled her to look deeper. To uncover the mystery that was Asher Holt.
“What made you desperate enough to kidnap an heiress?” she asked. “Because I don’t believe that it was all about having your money returned to you.”
He gave her an alert glance as if assessing a potential threat.
Then he faced the path again. Bending down, he picked up a stone and threw it into the distance. The single, lithe motion parted his coat to reveal his trim torso and, far off, sent a flurry of brown speckled birds into flight.
“My father,” he answered, surprising her. “The money I had collected was funding a plan to be free of the burden of his debts for the first time in my life.”
She understood the desire for an unfettered life quite well. The need to remove the influence of money from every interaction. And yet, that was the true reason behind his willingness to escort her—because he would be paid at the end of the journey.
It was almost comical to think that she’d left the church this morning, only to end up in a similar situation. Everywhere she looked there was a man needing to gain a fortune through an association with her.
Winnifred expelled the deep disappointment that came from thinking overmuch about money, and turned their conversation to a less depressing topic. “Was your aunt running away, too? Was that her reason for being disguised as a boy on a ship?”
“Something far more scandalous. She wanted to have an adventure.” He lifted his brows at her in accusation. Then he walked a few steps ahead to clear a long stick from their path, testing its weight against the ground before continuing onward with it.
“My great-aunt was the youngest of eight,” he continued. “My grandmother, on the other hand, was the eldest, and there were sixteen years between them. So, when my grandmother married and bore a child, this left only three years separating my mother and Aunt Lolly. Consequently, the two of them grew up like sisters. Inseparable. Their temperaments, however, were vastly different. Where my mother was quiet and obedient, Lolly was wild. Left without the strict instruction of a firstborn, she was spoiled with freedom and pursued many of her unrestricted fancies.”
“That must have been lovely,” Winnifred said wistfully.
“Even so, when it came to taking a grand tour by sea, my great-grandparents refused.”
Winnifred knew all too well the unfairness of having hopes for traveling abroad dashed in a heartbeat. “But Lolly didn’t let that stop her.”
“Indeed.” He chuckled. “My mother would often laugh and say that Lolly was so accustomed to getting her way that she didn’t understand the definition of the word no.”
“Do you think your mother might have been a bit jealous of her?” Winnifred already felt envious and she’d never even met Lolly.
“Undoubtedly. In fact, I’ve often thought that she told me these stories so I would have it in my mind to sail off on a grand adventure.”
Winnifred’s eyes rounded as she looked at him, her pulse leaping excitedly at the thought. “Is that your plan?”
He nodded. “Something like that.”
She waited for him to elaborate, to explain more about this grand adventure that would free him of his burdens. But he didn’t. And why should he? She was a stranger to him, and nothing more than a means to an end.
She shrugged off the sting of that knowledge, and kept to the topic of his daring Aunt Lolly. “Was her boy’s disguise successful?”
“According to the stories, the ship she’d boarded had actually belonged to a pirate.”
“No.”
He nodded. “She spent three months on the ship without being discovered for a woman. During that time, she was so small that she was relegated to the less strenuous tasks of cabin boy for the bold pirate captain, called the Mad Macaw, and kept mainly to his chamber.”
Winn imagined herself in such a scenario.
In her mind’s eye, Asher took on the role of a swarthy, handsome pirate dressed in snug breeches, his torso scandalously bare aside from a maroon embroidered waistcoat.
Across the bow of the ship, he spotted her. Beneath a forelock of wind-ruffled dark hair, his wicked gaze roamed down her form, taking in her trousers and open-necked shirt . . .
Hmm. The vision abruptly evaporated in a fog of doubt. Glancing down at herself, she knew that there wasn’t anyone who would be fooled if she dressed as a boy. Asher had been right in procuring a dress for her.
Walking along, Winnifred slid a skeptical glance at him. “You’re saying that for three entire months, he never suspected?”
“So the story goes.” Asher shrugged. “However, I suspect that he had to know. After all, why else would he have made someone so scrawny his own personal servant?”
Not to mention, Winnifred thought, Lolly would have had to conceal her monthly courses.
“Regardless,” he said, “when they reached the island, the truth was revealed.”
Again, she waited for him to elaborate. But he frowned and kept his attention on the path ahead.
“And?” She huffed. “Surely you’re not going to incite my curiosity only to withhold the conclusion.”
Didn’t he realize she was living vicariously through Aunt Lolly?
Asher cleared his throat. “It’s just that I’ve never told this story before.”
“You haven’t?” Her urgency suspended for a moment. The seconds ticked by as she looked at his uncharacteristically reserved expression.
It suddenly felt as if they were sharing something more than a walk across the countryside. Perhaps they were becoming friends of a sort. She’d never had a male friend before. And wouldn’t it be positively wondrous to forge a connection with Asher that reached further than a mere exchange of money?
Her heartbeat quickened at the thought, feeling lighter, as if the organ were lifting off in the basket of a Montgolfier balloon.
“I just realized that I’ve steered the conversation down a salacious avenue. Again,” he said, absently grazing a hand along his stubbled jaw, his brow furrowed in contemplation. “Under the circumstances, it would be best to avoid the topics that would naturally lead to flirtations.”
All at once, her little balloon of hope and friendship erupted in a ball of flame and crashed to the earth.
“Fear not,” she said tightly, batting away a few stray curls caught by the cool breeze. “I am under no delusion that you have any interest in my person whatsoever. Therefore, you are welcome to tell me what happened next.”
He eyed her with patent curiosity. “Winn, do you know when a man is flirting with you?”
“Of course,” she said with a flippant wave of her hand. “And a scoundrel simply flirts for the sake of flirting. Scandalous words flow as naturally from your lips as honey from a hive. I understand this and think nothing of it. I’ll merely consider this aspect of your nature as part of my research. I’m making a mental note of it now.”
A rather convincing lie, if she did say so herself. But she wasn’t about to admit that no man had ever bothered to flirt with her. In her entire life.
“Very well, then. I’ll not try so hard to subdue my nature.”
A slow roguish grin curled at the corners of his mouth as if she’d just handed him the key to her bedchamber door. Her breath hitched in a warm rush that spread over the surface of her skin.
“For the moment, however,” he said with a wink, “I’ll stay with the lesser of two evils and continue Aunt Lolly’s story.”
She swallowed, wondering if she’d been too hasty in inviting him to essentially say anything he liked. And yet . . . it would be good for her research.
“They’d just reached the island,” she reminded.
Asher nodded, prodding the ground with his long stick. “The Mad Macaw had been to the island many times in his travels. So often, in fact, that he’d built a veritable palace at the foot of a mountain. He had elaborate gardens of tropical trees and wild birds, a stream that led into a cave, and a warm spring at the foot of the mountain. And, on the first night of his return, he told his cabin boy to bathe in that pool.”
“Well, that seems sensible. After all, they’d been aboard a ship for—”
“Alongside him.”
Winnifred tripped. Her misstep caused her to stagger off the path, but he captured her elbow, steadying her.
Perhaps this was a rather salacious topic of conversation to be having with a man. Even so, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Well? Did she?”
Asher Holt’s eyes glinted with a devil’s charm, his fingertips skimming the sensitive inner curve of her elbow. “What would you have done, Winn?”
“I suppose,” she hemmed, biting down on her lip as she tried to ignore the way her pulse skittered beneath his touch and seemingly everywhere else, “after three months on a ship, I’d long for a bath.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Of course it is.” She slipped free of his grasp and started on the path again.
“No,” he said from behind her. “You told me what you’d like, not if you would have the courage to act on it.”
She thought for a moment and came up with the perfect response. Grinning, she lifted her finger and said, “I would get into the pool, but I would keep my clothes on. That way, everyone is satisfied.”
“That’s what Lolly thought, too,” he said, then paused long enough to draw out a few erratic heartbeats, leaving her in breathless suspense. “But she was wrong.”
“She . . . she was?”
Beside her again, he nodded slowly. Sagely. “He wasn’t satisfied until they were both completely . . . and thoroughly . . .”
“I understand now. You don’t have to say more.”
“Nude,” he said anyway. “In the buff. Without a stitch. Naked as Adam and Eve.”
“You’re a wicked man.”
“I appreciate that you fully accept this part of my nature.”
When he flashed a grin, she rolled her eyes.
Yet as they walked on for a time, that story was still soaking in a steamy bath in the center of her brain. And getting prunier by the minute.
When she simply couldn’t stand it any longer, she finally asked, “And then what happened? I mean, obviously the Mad Macaw didn’t have her killed for her deception if she’s still alive.”
“No. He certainly didn’t kill her.” He laughed, then cleared his throat. “He did, however, keep her as his cabin boy for years afterward.”
She gasped in outrage. “You mean to say that he enslaved her?”
Poor Lolly!
“Not exactly. It was more of a . . . mutual understanding,” he said. “He wanted her all to himself. So he kept her as his cabin boy whenever they sailed, but spent most of his life on the island with her.”
“Oh,” she said, her lips curving in a dreamy smile. “That turned into a lovely story. Please tell me that Aunt Lolly is well.”
“She is,” he said, a softer smile on his lips, too. He reached out and playfully tugged a stray lock of her hair. “She writes to me often with more stories of her adventures.”
“Oh, what it must be like to travel to far off places.”
“You’re traveling now, Winn.”
“I suppose I am.” She inhaled deeply, absorbing the moment. Her gaze flitted over him and the view of the rolling hills behind him as the wind buffeted his coat and mussed his hair. And she thought of how astonishing it was that the pinnacle of her life’s adventures should happen with him.
“And there will be other adventures,” he added with certainty.
She shook her head. “Aunt Myrtle suffered an injury to her leg years ago and she never leaves Avemore Abbey. But she keeps her spirits high, nonetheless. In her letters to me, she refers to her home as Old Crow Abbey, writing that she may as well name it after herself and the other inhabitants that keep her company.”
“How long has it been since you’ve visited her?”
“More than ten years.” A sudden chill swept over her as the clouds began to gather overhead. “That was when my father cut her out of his life for refusing to marry a gentleman who was—as my father put it—her best prospect. And that is also the reason I know he will never welcome me home again.”
* * *
Julian Humphries, Viscount Waldenfield, paced his study, fuming at the ormolu clock on the mantel. Where was that bloody investigator? He should have returned with a full report by now. It had been two hours since Winnifred had gone. Two damnable hours!
He stared down at the wrinkled page in his fist, the words already seared into his cornea.
Dear Father,
I cannot marry Mr. Woodbine today, or ever. And while I know this will disappoint and anger you, I would rather be cut out of your life entirely than to exist solely to do your bidding and then my husband’s from this day forward.
I am my own person. I have my own mind and my own beating heart that cannot be owned by you or any man. I deserve more than to be handed over like a sack of money. So I must away for my own sake.
In case we never see each other again, please be kind to Mother.
Winnifred
He still couldn’t believe she’d actually run away, and after all that he’d done, arranging everything so that she could be a duchess one day.
He crumpled her note again. He’d done so a dozen times, then smoothed it out just as often. Now the paper was too soft, too like crushing a handkerchief. There was no satisfaction in the act. Even so, he could still shake it at his wife, which he did the instant he heard her return to the study. They’d both been pacing in their own parts of the house.
“Perhaps if you had spent more time preparing our daughter on what was expected of her, then this wouldn’t have happened,” he said, voice rising, his blood heating like steam in a locomotive.
Too used to his outbursts, Imogene merely regarded him with cool blue eyes. “Ever since you announced her betrothal to that bumptious peacock—and without speaking to me, I might add—I’ve done nothing but prepare her for the bitter disappointments of marriage.”
“Well, one of us had to act on her behalf, and I was tired of waiting for you to clear your social calendar to have a moment of your time. If you’re not shopping, then you’re attending dinners at the Duke of Tuttlesby’s until the wee hours of the morning.”
“Don’t give me that look,” she warned, lips tight, stubborn chin notching higher. “You’re the one who aligned our houses with the betrothal. And because of you, Winnifred had to face an abysmal life with a man who’s already in love with someone else. At least I was trying to make her stronger so that she wouldn’t have to bear heartache as I have done.”
He scoffed, flattening out the page over the desk blotter. “What are you even talking about?”
“Ha. Are your affections for the countess so inconstant that I must remind you of her? Likely not, since you still carry the snuffbox that she gave you.”
“You’re being preposterous.”
And yet, he could feel the weight of the object in his pocket, pressing against his chest. He always kept it close.
“I’ve seen the engraving,” she sneered, smoothing her hands down her skirts, where—only now—did he notice the wrinkles. She must have gripped the fabric, a habit she did whenever she was too worried to think about appearances. “For Julian, and the love that was lost but can always be rekindled . . . if you but speak the word. Your countess.”
“My friendship with the countess has no bearing on this situation,” he said absently, still distracted by the motion of her hands, the flawless ivory skin, and the faint tremor that revealed her fears.
Lifting his gaze, he noticed the barest tinge of redness beneath a light dusting of fresh powder on her cheeks and nose. She’d been crying. And it shocked him how much he wanted to walk up to her and take her in his arms.
But it had been years and years since he’d had the liberty to do so.
“You’re absolutely right,” she said, a slight catch in her voice as she turned to fuss with a pillow. “Winnifred is what matters. She’s all we have left.”
Memories flashed in his mind, one after the other, of Imogene’s lovely face shredded in tears and their stillborn sons in her arms.
A profound pain throbbed in the center of his chest. It was the kind of ache that never healed. It surrounded emptiness where there had once been so much hope and so much love that he thought he couldn’t bear it.
But he’d been wrong. It was the loss of it that kept tearing him apart, day by day.
Before he was aware of it, he took two steps to cross the room to her. But then the butler appeared, the investigator close behind.
Julian pivoted on his heel and dismissed the butler with an agitated wave of his hand. Then he glowered at the investigator, already impatient. “Well?”
“You were correct, Lord Waldenfield,” the investigator said. “Your daughter was not alone in the carriage. There was a gentleman with her.”
Imogene gasped. “No! It isn’t possible.”
But Julian, on the other hand, wasn’t surprised. He’d only been waiting for confirmation. In fact, he already knew the blackguard’s name.
Holt.