Before dawn the following morning, Winnifred jolted awake, gasping for air. She’d had a terrible nightmare of being suffocated by a stack of one hundred thousand coin-filled pillows that reached to the clouds, and Mr. Woodbine sitting on the very top with Lady Stanton.
She couldn’t breathe, even without wearing a corset. Standing, she crossed her bedchamber to open the sash, but the cool air did nothing to ease her tremors and anxiety. Her wedding was tomorrow and every time she thought of it, she felt ill.
Usually, she could calm herself with the knowledge that this wouldn’t be a typical marriage. Mr. Woodbine wanted nothing to do with her. She would be free to live her life, unmolested by her husband.
At least, after the first obligatory night.
She gripped the sill and put her head outside, taking in big gulps of fetid air. Here she was on the precipice of selling herself in marriage to a man she did not—and would not ever—love, and she didn’t even know how much the odious man stood to gain.
How many holidays would he take with Lady Stanton? How many jewels would he buy her with Winnifred’s dowry?
She told herself that it didn’t matter. This wedding would happen regardless. And yet . . . she had a pressing need to know how much she was worth.
There was one way to find out.
After another steadying inhale of the dewy morning air, she snatched her dressing gown from the foot of the bed and swept downstairs to her father’s study.
She didn’t know precisely where she would find her wedding contract, but she knew it had to be in one of his desk drawers. Proof of that seemed to be in the scrawled note resting on his blotter: Mr. Woodbine, eleven o’clock.
Splendid. It seemed her nightmare would arrive this morning.
And this morning Asher is sailing away, her brain reminded her, needlessly. Both she and her shredded heart knew very well that he was leaving today. That she likely would never see him again unless by chance at some distant point in the future.
It would be years after his return from making his fortune. They might pass on the street without even knowing it. Sit across from each other at a dinner party as if strangers . . .
Winnifred clutched the front of her dressing gown, pressing a fist to the burning ache and emptiness threatening to spill out. Then she forced herself not to think about that future, but to focus on the more immediate one instead.
She rifled through one side of the desk, frantically searching. It yielded nothing, and so she moved on to the other side.
In the top drawer, she found another stack of ledgers, a handkerchief and a book of poetry. She found the last object quite peculiar, considering the desk belonged to the least romantic-minded man to ever walk the earth. Putting that incongruity aside for the moment, she replaced each item as she’d found it.
Yet when she reached for the wrinkled handkerchief, the fold slipping open in her grasp, she realized it wasn’t what she thought at all.
It was her letter.
The paper had turned soft and cloth-like, the ink barely visible. The salutation and the first paragraph had all but disappeared. The second paragraph, however, was still clear as if freshly penned. Then again, she recalled feeling the words with utmost vehemence, so perhaps she’d given them additional ink.
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.
A tear dropped from her lashes, bleeding into the page with tiny thistle-like lines. And suddenly she knew—again—that she could not marry Mr. Woodbine.
Yet, after insisting that she’d changed her mind and having Father make all the arrangements, she couldn’t simply bow out. And she was nearly positive that there would be no way to run out on this wedding.
“You stupid, foolish creature,” she said to herself. “You’re in a veritable pickle now.”
Winnifred laid the letter inside Father’s desk and closed the drawer. Then, slipping back upstairs, she began to pace the floor of her bedchamber.
How could a person call off a wedding without actually being the one to call it off?
Well, obviously, it would have to be Mr. Woodbine. And yet he’d proven to be all too eager for her fortune, even willing to marry the cow, as he’d so poetically put it.
Hmm. She thrummed her fingers together, thinking. Her stomach churned riotously, burning the underside of her heart, as if she were on the precipice of life imprisonment. Or worse . . . the gallows. She could practically feel the noose around her neck. For a stay of execution, some women had been known to plead their bellies. If only she . . .
She stopped on a gasp.
Yes! That might do the trick. After all, Woodbine would hardly want to marry a woman if she was carrying another man’s child. Which she wasn’t. Or, at least, she believed she wasn’t.
She splayed her hand over her midriff, wishing she’d never fallen in love with Asher. Wishing she didn’t love him still.
Pinpricks of tears stung her eyes, blurring the walls of her bedchamber. Dimly, she wondered if she would carry this heartache with her for the rest of her life, like a broken limb that had healed but was left misshapen and without function.
A maid tapped on the door and came inside to sweep the ash from the hearth and light the fire, and Winnifred rushed to the washstand to splash water on her face, pretending she wasn’t crying. She knew how servants would gossip and didn’t want word traveling back to her parents.
“Thank you, Millie,” she said to the maid. “Would you please send Abigail up after she’s breakfasted with the others? I should like to get dressed, for I am anticipating a call this morning.”
“Very good, miss.”
As soon as the door closed, she blotted her face with a flannel and eyed the tufted pillow on the stool in front of her vanity table. Hmm.
* * *
That morning, Asher and Avery helped Bates stagger drunkenly into the carriage waiting outside their townhouse.
“Come on, you big lump,” Avery said, rolling his brother onto the tufted velvet bench.
“I think I’m in love,” Bates slurred, his hat tumbling to the floor. “Prettiest opera dancer I’ve ever clapped eyes on. Hers were green, you know. Green and so very pretty. And she could sing like a lark. Holt, you should have joined us. Did I tell you her eyes were green?”
Asher turned away, his mind picturing peridot green surrounded by cinnamon bands, his memory hearing the voice of an angel, and his heart ripped into shreds.
He looked skyward as if for a bolt of lightning to put him out of his misery. But the sky was clear and cloudless.
The perfect day for sailing.
Yet when he thought about stepping onto the ship a few minutes from now, his stomach roiled in protest, even though he hadn’t imbibed in a single drop last night. He was as sober as the grave. After leaving Waldenfield’s, he’d returned here, packed his two satchels, and waited for the dawn.
He was ready to leave London behind. It couldn’t happen soon enough. The last thing he needed was another reminder of Winn and all that he’d lost.
“Lord Holt!”
At the sound of his name, he turned to see the familiar face of his driver, or at least the parts that weren’t covered in yellowing bruises. And he was walking with a limp, as well—Lum’s handiwork, no doubt.
“Portman! I’m so glad to see you,” he said honestly, striding along the pavement to shake his hand.
The driver doffed his weathered hat, eyes downcast. “I canna tell you how sorry I am for leaving you that day, my lord.”
Asher felt a twinge in the center of his chest, but shook his head. “Think nothing of it.”
“But that’s why I’m here, my lord. It’s pressing on my very soul. I need to explain what made me do it. I just canna live with myself if you sailed away thinking the worst of me.”
From the carriage he heard Bates singing off-key, and then Avery leaned out the open door. “Holt, I hate to interrupt, but we mustn’t delay.”
Asher looked at Portman’s troubled countenance and knew he couldn’t leave him like this. Turning to Avery, he said, “Go on ahead. I’ll take a hackney in a minute and meet you there.”
The conversation didn’t take long. After a handful of reassurances that he had no intention of putting Portman in irons, Asher bade him to leave those memories in the past where they belonged.
Unfortunately, the instant before he rode away in the hackney, Portman slipped something through the open door that was more tangible than a mere memory that might dissolve away in time.
“Just so you know, I was never gonna keep it,” Portman called out as the carriage jolted into motion.
Asher looked down and expelled an oath. It was Winn’s missing pearl necklace. What the devil was he supposed to do with this now?
He slipped the pearls into his pocket and vowed to put them out of his mind until he could find an errand boy.
Then he arrived at the docks. Yet, he didn’t expect to see the Hollander twins standing about with their trunks piled beside them. “Why have you not boarded the ship?”
“It seems that our ship”—One turned to point toward a vessel off in the distance—“set sail without us.”
Asher absently patted his waistcoat for the watch he did not have. It couldn’t be too late. He’d spent a mere five minutes with Portman. “Surely the captain couldn’t leave without those who hired him and his crew.”
“We were equally mystified,” Two said, seemingly sober as he took a step toward Asher and offered an envelope. “Then we were approached by your father’s driver and given this.”
“My father? What does Shettlemane have to do with this?” Alarm and dread riffled through his blood in hot and cold waves as he cracked the seal and skimmed the letter. Then his shoulders slumped in defeat.
He staggered brokenly over to the trunks, sinking down on one of them.
“‘My dear foolish boy,’” Asher read aloud. “‘I am proud to say that you played an excellent hand. You have learned well. I never would have suspected that you could keep such a prize hidden—so well and for so long—from the man who taught you all he knows. In fact, I do believe you might have been on this very ship before I knew anything about the treasure. Which surely would have happened, if it wasn’t for the drunken boasting from one of your acquaintances to Lady Clarksdale. I cannot recall which of the brothers it was”—Asher paused to spear Bates Hollander with the same look his brother was giving him—“but you should warn him about being more discreet in the future. After all, one never knows whose interested ears might not dismiss such a fable as Lady Clarksdale had done.’”
Avery thunked Bates on the back of the head. “You idiot!”
“‘It was doubly fortunate for me,’” Asher continued, “‘that the ship’s captain you hired was an acquaintance of mine years ago when I’d served my duty in the Royal Navy. After that, it was a simple matter of bartering and coming to an agreement of how we will split the treasure. Quite the boon for me, I should say.
“‘However, because of your clever deception and clear need for one more lesson from your father, I put the sale of Ashbrook Cottage in the hands of my solicitor. Think of that the next time you don one of your blasted black cravats. Additionally, I have informed my steward that if you so much as set your foot anywhere near the threshold, every servant will lose their post.’ Signed with a flourish, ‘The Marquess of Shettlemane. P.S., Seabrooke still expects to collect £2,000 from you.’”
Asher let the letter fall out of his hands and simply sat there, staring out toward London with the bitter, briny scent of the sea permeating every breath.
He truly had nothing left now. Not even hope.