Chapter One #2
A comforting rush soared through Irene at his words. Their friendship was one of long standing, and in a way, she could hardly imagine the world without Wilfred within it. He was a constant. A part of her life’s background, part of the furniture. She would hardly know what to do without—
“Whoops, one of your curls has come loose,” said Wilfred, placing his punch glass on the mantelpiece and reaching out. “Careful.”
“Have you got it?” Irene said, closing her eyes as his fingers moved close.
“Almost—almost—”
“It’s these damned pins. I swear they aren’t as good as they used to be.”
“It’s your hair. It’s too wild and rambunctious.”
“And how long, precisely,” came a booming voice that was most definitely not Wilfred’s, “has this been going on?”
Irene opened her eyes. Standing before them, holding a punch glass of her own and looking impressive, was Lady Romeril.
Irene’s knees bent into an automatic curtsey.
It was Lady Romeril, after all. She had been a part of Society before Society had even known what it was, as Irene’s mother had once explained, and was so greatly respected that she could merely hint at a disreputable action and a young lady’s name would be ruined.
Here was a woman who could make or break a person in Society. It would not do to act poorly before her.
Which was why Irene tried not to groan aloud when Wilfred said, “Hallo there, Lady Romeril, and are you enjoying the festivities?”
The older woman’s lined face was not quite icy, but it was hardly encouraging. “I am, young man. I will enjoy it far more when my question has been answered.”
Eagerness to answer the question was in no short supply within Irene’s mind—the only trouble was, she did not quite understand it and had no wish to look the fool by inquiring.
Blast.
“I say again,” Lady Romeril said, pulling herself upright in a creak of whalebone, “how long, precisely, has this been going on?”
Irene swallowed as she caught her mother’s eye over Lady Romeril’s shoulder. Oh, dear. This was not good—why, exactly, she had no idea. But the Viscountess Pernrith never fidgeted like that if something was going well.
“Oh, I don’t know, about two hours,” Wilfred said happily, clearly unable to read the tone of the conversation at all.
Irene attempted to delicately press on her friend’s foot, but all the idiot did was say, “Whoops, Reeny, careful of my toes!”
“I do not mean the wedding reception, idiot boy,” Lady Romeril said icily to the gentleman—the duke—of six and twenty who towered over her. “I meant this.”
Irene looked at Wilfred, utterly at a loss. For some reason, the man’s ears had turned pink. Quite abruptly, he dropped her arm and moved an imperceptible two inches from her.
What on earth was going on?
“I am inquiring,” Lady Romeril said slowly but loudly, as though to ensure the whole music room would hear, “when the courtship between the two of you began.”
Irene stared, her pulse throbbing in her ears as the room fell silent, heads turning around to look over at them. Then the woman’s words sunk in properly, and Irene laughed.
It was not the most ladylike of laughs. She had never managed to giggle sweetly like Jessica, or chuckle merrily yet in a controlled manner like Gwen. No, her laughs were always from the belly, deep and rich and growing in volume the longer the hilarity went on.
And this was truly hilarious. Her? Her and Wilfred?
“Oh, Lady Romeril.” Irene snorted, trying desperately to speak but finding it a challenge through her laughter. “You are most amusing!”
She tapped at Wilfred’s arm as she laughed, sharing the jest with him. For some reason, his face looked wooden.
Perhaps he was offended by Lady Romeril’s joke. It was not a pleasant thought, but then Irene could not blame him. The man was a duke, after all. He would hardly welcome the rumor that he was in love with the daughter of an illegitimate viscount.
“Amusing?” sneered Lady Romeril. “You deny it, then?”
Irene giggled. “I cannot think of two people about whom you could have made such a quip who were less likely to ever fall in love.”
“But you two—you are unchaperoned—”
“He’s practically part of the family, and we are here, at a party with all of the Chances. Why on earth would I need a chaperone in such circumstances with Wilfred?” Irene was rather tickled; this was the most laughter she’d had in ages. “Goodness, what a joke!”
“Irene,” Wilfred said quietly.
The older woman was still looking between them. “But my dear, the scandal. Your mother may be present, true, but the two of you are over here in this corner alone, whispering, holding on to one another’s arms. He is not your brother, after all, and—”
“Oh, Lady Romeril, you have put such a smile on my face! I thank you for your attentions, but we really must go and see about my brother. You will excuse us.”
Irene grasped Wilfred’s arm and prepared to, not for the first time, shepherd him away from someone at Jessica’s wedding party.
Lady Romeril was unmoved. “My dear, you are a Chance. You are no longer children, free to scurry about with your little friends. He’s a duke—an unwed one, at that. Your family may be eccentric, but this truly stretches the limits of propriety.”
“Come on, Your Grace,” Irene said, using Wilfred’s more formal address as she tugged him away from the glaring Society doyenne. “We must find Michael.”
Through the music room and out into the drawing room, and through that too and out into the hall, past the burly footman, Dempster, who was helping a gentleman Irene did not recognize into his greatcoat, and out through the open front door into the freezing air.
She supposed their housekeeper, Mrs. Kinley, was too occupied with the party to see their guest off.
Only once safely in the hall did she take a huge lungful of air and release her best friend.
“Honestly!” Irene exclaimed, her breath blossoming on the air despite the late-afternoon sun. “Why would she think such a thing?”
It was only when there was no answer to her statement but silence that she turned to Wilfred.
He was… Well. There was a strange look on his face, one that she had never seen before.
And then it was gone, melting away like the frost in the morning, and Wilfred was laughing, his grin lopsided and his eyes sparkling.
“She’s not the first to presume something like that,” he pointed out, sitting on the low wall outside the Pernrith Chance London townhome. “You would think we’d be used to it by now.”
“Used to people assuming that there has to be something…something romantic between us, just because we like each other?” Irene said with a snort. “Just because we’re friends!”
“It’s not typical, even you have to admit that,” Wilfred said easily. “There cannot be many gentlemen and ladies with a friendship like ours.”
She could not help but smile. “No, I suppose not.”
Because their connection went back… Well, forever, as far as Irene was concerned.
Exactly how they had first met, she could hardly remember.
There had been a scruffy-haired boy with bright-blond hair gazing at her over a wall, she could remember that.
A boy who had looked upon her and Michael and Jessica, who had been playing hopscotch across the terrace at the rear of their London home with plenty of whoops and yells and laughter.
And over there, a young boy, perhaps her own age or more likely a little older, staring over a redbrick wall.
“Jessy?” Irene had said.
Her sister had ignored her and so the younger sister had wandered over to the wall where the blond-haired boy had disappeared.
“Hullo?” Irene had called out.
The face had reappeared. It had been crying, but even at such a young age, Irene had decided not to mention it. She didn’t know much about boys, but her own brother, Michael, was always so bad-tempered when he had been crying.
“I’m Reeny,” she had said, the childhood nickname which she despised now she had grown. “What’s your name?”
After a moment of silence, the scruffy boy had reappeared. He’d looked…lost. “Wilf.”
“That’s a funny name,” Irene had not been able to stop herself from saying.
“It’s Wilfred, really,” said the boy, biting his lip. “And Reeny is a funny name.”
“It’s Irene, really,” she had admitted. “Do you want to play?”
Why she had offered such a thing, Irene could not remember, not now. She could not remember the following day, when Wilfred had turned up on the doorstep and Irene’s mother had taken one look, presumed he’d been a beggar boy, brought him inside, fed him hot broth, and forced Dempster to wash him.
When the Pernrith family had discovered that the scruff of a boy they had helped was the Duke of Aynor, the viscountess had needed to lie down.
And that had been it. It had started on either side of a wall.
Irene sat down on the low brick wall beside Wilfred and nudged him with her shoulder. “I do not imagine there are many people in the world with a friendship like ours.”
Wilfred grinned. “Poor, fool them.”
“That’s what I say.” She smiled back. “And if that means that some silly, old woman—”
“Reeny!”
“Well, everyone ties themselves in knots over Lady Romeril and she’s surely not that powerful,” Irene said dismissively.
“No one’s ever even really been clear with me as to what her title is.
But if she wants to go around presuming the opposite of what is happening, then that’s her prerogative.
We know the truth. We know that we are good friends—”
“Best friends,” Wilfred said softly, interrupting.
Irene rolled her eyes. “You never really grew up, did you?”
“Don’t see any reason to do so,” he quipped, nudging her this time.
The warmth of his shoulder, the strong press of his muscles, was all utterly ignored by Irene, who shoved back just as hard.
It had only been in the last few years that Wilfred had gained the advantage of her in strength.
He had been a small, weedy boy. Now look at him.
Taller than her, and broader, with strength she had never expected.
“I suppose we shall just have to get accustomed to people making that mistake,” Irene said lightly.
Wilfred waggled his eyebrows. “Do you mean to tell me that you are not going to fall into my arms and fall madly in love with me?”
Her laughter echoed down the otherwise-quiet street. The very idea!
“No, I don’t think so,” Irene said in a light voice. “And you’re not likely to throw yourself down on one knee and protest your ever-dying love, are you?”
She leaned in toward her best friend in the whole world.
Wilfred’s eyes glittered. “No. No, I’m not likely to do that at all. Not until you ask me to!”
Irene could not help but laugh again, and a joy spread through her as Wilfred laughed with her.
Why, they were both ages from getting married to anyone, surely.
If they had to at all. Were spinsters still so reviled in this day and age?
Distinguished, titled bachelors most certainly weren’t.
He was a duke, yes… But there was probably some distant cousin in the family tree if he needed an heir, wasn’t there?
Why worry about such things? The very idea of her, and him, getting married!