Winnifred was still in a place of pure contentment when she drifted down the stairs later that morning, her hair tied in a queue with Asher’s black cravat ribbon. Hearing his voice, she hurried her step.
The last thing she expected to find was Asher standing in the hall with her aunt and her father and mother.
Even from this distance, she could see thunder in her father’s expression, hear raised voices.
“It wasn’t my intention to deceive you—” Asher began, but Father cut him off.
“Don’t take me for a fool! You’ve already proven your intent.”
Aunt Myrtle tapped the tip of her cane on the floor. “You’re not giving the boy a chance to explain.”
“There is nothing to explain. I made a bargain with Viscount Holt to deliver my daughter back to me if she did, indeed, flee from her wedding. Instead this insolent, disreputable knave took her away. His reasons are patently clear.”
Winnifred’s steps slowed as she looked from her father’s high color to Asher’s sudden pallor the instant he glimpsed her approach.
“What do you mean, you made a bargain with him?” she asked.
Mother gasped and rushed forward to embrace her. “Oh, my dear, you had us so worried. And that note you sent . . .” She pulled back just enough to put Winnifred’s face in her hands, her own eyes tired, drawn and glistening with unshed tears. “I never want to read a letter like that again. And what have you done with your hair? You look positively wild.”
“I’ve lost most of the pins,” she said absently, looking beyond her mother’s shoulder. “Father?”
“Lord Holt came to me the day before your wedding to tell me about a plan he’d overheard when your friends . . .”
A cold chill sank deep into her bones as he spoke. She recalled conversations with Asher about his need to escape his own father, and of him telling her that he was ashamed of the things he’d done.
I always find myself sinking to a new low.
“. . . and I trusted,” her father continued darkly, “that we’d struck a gentleman’s agreement. Though, in the case that I was wrong, I had an investigator close at hand. Not close enough, however.”
Hands shaking, Winnifred looked to Asher. “Tell me it’s not true.”
But she read the answer in his hesitation, in the guilty exhale that followed.
“Winn, I didn’t know you then. I only wanted to get my money back and to start a new life. I told you this much.”
This much . . .
Those two words instantly made her wonder about the rest that he hadn’t told her. “And what about taking me to the jeweler?”
“After hearing your story about the necklace, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to help you a little.”
So he’d felt sorry for her? Strangely, his pity didn’t make her feel any better.
“Mother, please, not now,” she said as she felt the tug of her hair being plaited. Looking at Asher, she asked, “And were you still planning to deliver me to my father, then, too?”
“I was,” he admitted gravely, and with a look of contrition she’d seen him employ when they’d been in the back of Mr. Champion’s cart, like a mask he wore whenever the occasion suited him. “At least, until those henchmen arrived. And later, after I heard them talking at the Spotted Hen, I knew I couldn’t take you home without putting you in danger.”
“Which is, I presume, the moment you sent this missive,” her father said as he reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a water-stained letter.
She stepped forward and took it from his grasp, skimming the contents with dismay.
Lord Waldenfield,
I regret to inform you that unforeseen circumstances have forced my errand out of London. Rest assured, however, that I will adhere to every letter of our bargain and bring the delivery safely to your sister’s in Yorkshire.
Sincerely,
Holt
“My errand . . . the delivery . . . You wrote about me as if I were a parcel and not a person.”
“I didn’t want to damage your reputation by using your name should the letter fall into the wrong hands.”
“Whyever should you worry? A ruined heiress would be a windfall for you after all your efforts. A ready fortune tied up with ribbons. Though I don’t imagine you bargained for the journey to take so long, or the added ordeal of pretending to be my . . . friend.”
“Winn, you know better. Everything has changed.” He took a step forward. But her father held out an arm in front of him and Asher stayed where he was.
Standing between them, her father eyed them shrewdly. “And I said I would only pay you if you returned her wholly unspoiled.”
Dimly, she wondered if Asher had thought of this moment. Of how he would suddenly confess that they’d been intimate in order to cement a marriage with an heiress.
Sometimes you must do whatever it takes to have the life you want, he’d once said to her. No matter the cost.
Her cheeks heated with hurt and fury. But her blush was likely misconstrued as maidenly shyness. “Which I am, of course. After all, what man would look at me and see anything more than a means to an end?”
“If that is the case,” Father said with a nod, “then Mr. Woodbine informed me that he would still have you. But in a quiet ceremony and without a wedding breakfast. There would be no need to bring attention to the situation, after all.”
“Not now, Julian,” Mother said, her brow knitted with worry lines as she looked at Winnifred and tucked a curl behind her ear. When their gazes met, it was as if she could see the truth, but she didn’t say anything.
Asher clenched his jaw, a muscle ticking in the corner. “Winn, I need to speak with you. In the garden.”
She knew what he would say. Or rather, what he might say. He could so easily manipulate her into believing . . . well, just about anything, apparently.
And because she loved him, she wanted to give him one more chance to prove who he truly was—the Asher Holt she thought she fell in love with, or the Marquess of Shettlemane’s son.
“Father, so that we can have this matter settled and out of the way, might you pay Lord Holt first? I should like to retrieve a shawl from upstairs before I go into the garden.” Then she turned to Asher with almost too much hope stinging the corners of her eyes. “I’ll meet you there in a moment.”
She watched as his fingers curled around the thick roll of pound notes thrust into his hand before he strode outside.
While Mother and Father lingered in the foyer, arguing in hushed tones, Winnifred walked upstairs. She heard the abbreviated step of her aunt close behind.
“Your father’s at it again. He did the same with me, finding a man who was willing to take pity on me after my accident but turned into a veritable scoundrel.” She expelled a weighty huff. “Don’t let my brother put doubt in your mind. Go out to the garden and settle this matter before it stews too long between you. Get it all out in the open. Tell him how you feel. How he has hurt you by not revealing the truth to you. Then, hear him out. There are always two sides to a coin, my dear.”
Winnifred agreed with a reluctant nod and put a borrowed shawl over her shoulders.
She told herself not to despair. After all, Asher couldn’t touch her the way he did, or look at her with such tender affection, if he didn’t love her. Right?
Avoiding another encounter with her parents, she went down the servants’ stairs and out the back way.
Yet when she walked to the garden, Asher was nowhere to be found.
She called his name, but there was no answer. She even walked to the singing garden. He wasn’t there either.
Frantic, she ran back to the empty promenade, then around to the front of the house, and nearly collided with a gardener, who was picking up broken shards of a clay pot.
“Oh, forgive me,” she said, her voice quavering. “Did you happen to see Lord Holt venture this way?”
“Apologies, miss, but I don’t know anything about Lord Holt.”
Then, she supposed, it was possible that he was still inside. Perhaps he’d been waiting for her at the bottom of the main stairs . . .
“Although I can tell you,” the gardener called out as Winnifred started to walk away, “I saw a curricle heading back down the drive just a few minutes ago.”
She stopped in place, weighted with dread.
All the blood and warmth drained from her in one icy deluge. And in that moment, she had the answer she never wanted.
Asher Holt was only a scoundrel, after all.