Chapter Two #2
It was a good thing he was seated, or Wilfred was certain he would have tripped over his own feet. “Yes—hot,” he managed.
“I don’t doubt it. That greatcoat of yours looks very stuffy,” she replied. “Why don’t you take it off?”
Quite against his desperate crying out soul, Wilfred tugged it closer around him. The day that he and Irene started taking their clothes off in his carriage was the day that he expired.
But what a way to go.
“We’re almost there,” he said hurriedly, glancing out of the window. “Yes, we’re here.”
He couldn’t decide whether he was delighted or distraught that their time alone in the carriage had come to an end—but then, his plan for his great announcement to the woman he loved had to occur within Bath opera house, and he felt a lightness in his limbs as his carriage pulled up outside it.
Which reminded him of something.
“Tell me,” Wilfred said as his coachman opened his door. “Why do your family not have a carriage at the moment—sent it back where?”
It was most unaccountable. A viscount and his family, in Bath for the winter season, and without a carriage?
Irene was unable to reply while Wilfred descended from the carriage and walked around to the pavement, where he opened her door and proffered his hand in lieu of the coachman about to do the same.
He tried not to let his sharp inhale become audible as Irene took the offered hand. One would have thought he would have been accustomed to their casual touch, but no. Every time she took his hand, it was a gift.
“We couldn’t afford to keep a carriage here,” Irene said, her cheeks pink, though he could not tell whether that was due to her statement or because of the whipping, cold night air. “So we borrowed the Cothrom carriage and sent it back. Father was not pleased.”
Wilfred decided not to pursue the topic.
It was complicated, the Chance family. Why, he had essentially become a part of it all those years ago, and he still did not quite understand it.
“I’m sure your Uncle William did not mind,” he said, squeezing Irene’s hand without invitation and placing it in the crook of his arm.
Irene snorted. “I am sure he didn’t. I am sure he did not even notice.”
There was no malice in her words, but Wilfred could feel the tension.
Four brothers, each inheriting a title from the estate that would usually have been kept for the eldest sons only.
The Duke of Cothrom, the Marquess of Aylesbury, the Earl of Lindow…
and then their illegitimate half-brother, given the courtesy title Viscount Pernrith by the eldest in an attempt to heal the breach.
At least, that was what Wilfred had been told.
It was the reason why all of Irene’s cousins were lords and ladies, but she and her siblings were plain Mr. and Misses.
And she had never complained. She had never seemed to mind. Wilfred considered himself to know Irene better than anyone, sometimes even better than herself, and she had never seemed to mind.
But then there were moments like this…
“The Cothrom Chances don’t even realize how much money they have, and I suppose that is a nice problem to indulge in,” Irene said with a raised eyebrow. “But we’re not here to talk about them. We’re here to watch some poor woman waste away for love—”
“Or find love at a masked ball,” interjected Wilfred with a grin as they stepped into the resplendent opera house, all red velvet and gold. “To tell the truth, I cannot recall whether this is a laughing opera or a crying opera.”
“We’ll have to find out,” Irene said with a wink. “I suppose the seats you managed to get were good enough?”
Wilfred swallowed. “Good enough.”
What he did not say was, I did not need to buy seats. What he did not tell her was, I already own a box.
It was perhaps not the sort of thing one said to a friend when they had just been declaring their own family’s relative poverty.
Not able to afford a carriage?
He would never have presumed it of old Pernrith…
but now he thought of it, it was not just the purchase of a carriage.
It was the storage of the carriage, and the salary and bed and board of a coachman, at least two horses, and their stabling, and at least a boy and a man to care for them, and their salaries and their beds and their board…
Now that Wilfred considered the problem, he rather wondered how anyone could afford a carriage.
“Wilfred?”
He blinked. Irene was looking up with bright eyes and a curious expression.
“Where, exactly, are our seats?” she prompted. “Mrs. Brown stepped out in front of us and is already there, remember? Fast asleep?” She nudged her elbow into his side.
Right. Yes. Opera. For a moment, he’d almost forgotten the joke about Mrs. Brown as well. He couldn’t think of anything witty to say in return. “This way.”
The Aynor name was well known enough, even if the current Aynor face was not. All Wilfred had to do was delicately murmur his title and doors opened, higher and higher up as Irene’s eyes widened and they were taken to—
“Goodness,” she breathed. “You bought a house box?”
Wilfred’s breath hitched as she stepped into it, the luxurious sofa seat that his father had ordered thirty years ago looking a little worse for wear but still with plenty of life left in it. “My father did. For my mother. They loved opera.”
At least, he thought they had. He could hardly remember them, really, but music had always been playing in the house whenever his mother had been at home.
Then the music had stopped.
“They did?” Irene’s face was curious, her lips puckered deliciously so, as she settled herself on the sofa, spreading out her skirts. “I say, this is a marvelously good idea. Far nicer than chairs.”
“That’s what I thought!” Wilfred said cheerfully, seeing with delight that the bottle of champagne in its cooler and the three glasses that he had requested were waiting, as he had specified.
Excellent. Well, there was no going back from here. All he had to do was sit down, tell Irene Chance that he was madly in love with her and would do anything to be her husband, and start a very happy life together.
Assuming she accepted him, of course.
“Goodness, is that for us?” Irene asked, her eyes darting over the champagne.
“It most certainly is.”
“Three glasses?” Irene’s eyebrow arched. “The third for Mrs. Brown? Or are you too tired for some champagne, madam?” She spoke to the empty space beside her on the sofa, as if the phantom chaperone were seated there.
“F-For Theodora,” Wilfred said weakly. He couldn’t be distracted by Irene’s farce, as amusing as she always made such things.
Wilfred swallowed. He had told her he would only propose if…if she asked him to.
It had been a jest, that was all, but the words lingered in his mind and worried at him.
Was it possible… She did not know of his affections, to be sure, but would she not return them once she knew?
Wilfred cleared his throat as he sat beside the woman he loved. All he had to do was tell her. A long speech was not required—if anything, that was to be dissuaded. Reeny was not one for long speeches.
His shoulders loosened as he looked at her. Irene Chance. She was beautiful, yes, but she was precious for so many other reasons. And if she would let him, he would spend all his days making sure she was as happy as could be.
That was all he wanted.
“You know, I think if I could afford to come often, I could truly love opera.” Irene glanced at the bottle. “Well, will you pour us some? Just the two glasses, though. Mrs. Brown is out cold.”
“Oh, yes, yes. Of course,” Wilfred leaned forward and picked up the bottle to pour her a glass.
“You are treating me, and you know how much I like a treat.” His best friend beamed. “Is there an occasion, or an excuse for the reason that you are being so ridiculously delightful?”
Wilfred’s pulse skipped a beat. “Perhaps.”
“Oh, good!” Irene declared as she accepted the champagne-filled glass. “Well, then, to what shall we toast?”
He almost spilled the champagne as he poured himself a glass. “‘Toast’?”
“Yes, we must have a toast,” she said firmly, her eyes bright as he met her gaze. “And this is your treat. What would you like to toast to?”
Wilfred hesitated.
Us, he wanted to say. How happy we could make each other. How easy this is, being together. Like breathing. Like laughing. Like soaring through the skies and knowing that nothing can ever harm us.
I want to toast to us.
“To us,” Wilfred found himself saying before he could stop himself.
Irene’s smile seemed genuine—and utterly ignorant of his true meaning. “To us,” she said, raising her glass.
The ding that the glasses made was lost in the raucous applause that had burst out as the conductor had stepped onto the stage. Wilfred watched as Irene took a large gulp then put her glass down before applauding in turn.
“This is going to be wonderful,” she said with shining eyes as she glanced back at Wilfred. “My love of music and your love of opera—they go so well together, don’t they?”
Wilfred’s throat tightened. Yes. “Yes.”
“Thank you for this evening,” Irene said happily, picking up her glass of champagne and leaning back in the sofa. “This is going to be wonderful.”
And without even a moment’s hesitation, without any sort of embarrassment at the intimacy whatsoever, she took his hand, brought his arm around her shoulders, and snuggled into him with a happy sigh.
Wilfred tried, as best he could, to control his body’s response to Irene’s closeness, but it was impossible. She was so…so intoxicating. So freeing of his own inhibitions, not that they’d ever had any real inhibitions around each other. They had never needed to, Society’s expectations be damned.
But as they sat here, the music starting up at the curtain rising and the first notes beginning and Irene pressed up against him and champagne bubbling in his chest and the warmth of her and the need within him and the adoration that had been there for years but Wilfred had never risked speaking of—
He knew he had to say something. Say something, or regret it, for the rest of his life.
Wilfred cleared his throat. “Irene?”
“Hmmm?” was her reply, her attention fixed completely on the stage. “Isn’t she marvelous?”
She was referring, he knew, to the soprano on the stage who was singing her heart out.
“Yes. Yes, you are.” It was a slip of the tongue, but Wilfred knew that this was the moment. He could be honest now. He could tell her, tell Reeny just how much he cared for her. How he adored her.
How he loved her.
“Irene,” Wilfred said quietly, hardly able to believe that he was about to say this. “Irene, I… I know we have been friends for years. For a long time.”
“For forever,” came her vague reply, the music swelling so loudly that Wilfred almost had to speak, not whisper, to be heard.
“And our friendship matters to me. It is one of the most important things in my life, but I wanted you to know that… I mean, I need you to know that…”
His damned throat was closing up again!
Desperate for Dutch courage, Wilfred tipped a large gulpful of champagne down his throat and felt the warmth of the bubbles soar down his chest.
He swallowed, and said the words that he had practiced in his looking glass all morning. “Irene, I need you to know that I love you.”
And that was when he stopped breathing.
For a moment that seemed to continue on forever, Wilfred waited. The words had been said. They could not be unsaid. And she had heard him. He was almost certain she had. How could she not have? The music wasn’t that loud.
And Irene smiled, a slow smile that surely spoke of promise and their future and her own matching devotion—
She turned into his shoulder and looked up at him, meeting his eyes, and something stirred in Wilfred’s loins.
“And I love you,” she said blithely before turning back to the opera.
Wilfred’s eyes were wide. Had she said—she couldn’t have said—was it possible he was having a stroke?
Yes, the pain in his chest, the dizzying spin of his head, the thump, thump, thump of his pulse in his ears. It wasn’t a stroke. It was a heart attack. He was having a—
“You’re like my brother,” Irene said calmly, sipping at her champagne and staring still at the opera as though she had not just destroyed Wilfred’s reason for living. “Michael is my oldest brother, and you’re my other brother. Which is nice.”
Nice. Nice?
Wilfred could hardly believe it. Nice?
Of all the awful, offensive, and downright seditious things he had heard said about traitors to the Crown, ‘nice’ was even worse.
Nice was…dull. Boring. Uninteresting and unappealing. A nice man was one unthreatening, with about as much masculine desire as a bootlace.
Nice?
“Right,” Wilfred said aloud, bewildered, hardly sure what he was supposed to say next. “Nice.”
Irene snuggled into him again and he tried not to laugh, but then he might just cry.
He loved her. And she loved him—like a brother.
Well, that was it. He would never declare his affection for Miss Irene Chance again.