Chapter Four
Wilfred glared at the doorknocker.
It wasn’t going to knock itself, of course, but a part of him felt that it should have. That he shouldn’t be expected to do it. That once he did, there was no going back.
His breath blossomed out before him as the rattle of carriages behind him filled his ears.
Perhaps this had been a mistake. He had certainly made enough of those recently.
“You have a good rest of your day, Miss Chance.”
It had been days and not a word from Irene. Precisely what Wilfred had expected, he did not know, except that being estranged from his best friend, even over something as foolish as this—especially over a problem that he himself had caused—was destroying him from the inside out.
Wilfred inhaled deeply and clenched his hands into fists, just for a moment, within his gloves.
Come on, man. Time to sort this.
He rapped on the door with the knocker.
It did not take long for the Pernrith footman to answer, and when he did, Dempster looked mutinous. “Your Grace.”
Ah. Well, Wilfred should have expected Irene to tell the servants that he was not welcome. He had, after all, acted rather badly. He had grown irritated. Called her ‘Miss Chance.’ Even lifted her bodily from the pavement and—
Wilfred’s mind was assaulted with the memories of that moment. The light weight of Irene in his arms. The press of her waist. The softness of her. The scent, lavender, filling his nostrils and almost making it impossible to see, let alone think. The warmth that had lingered on his fingers.
“Yes?” said the servant gruffly.
“Your Grace!” said the stout Mrs. Kinley, appearing out from behind the footman and sparing the manservant a quick, almost condemning glance.
The footman was being rather brusque with a duke, Wilfred supposed.
But the housekeeper, with her puckered lips and clasped hands, was not exactly greeting him warmly, either.
Try as he might, it did not seem possible for Wilfred to speak. Or swallow. Or breathe.
“Miss Chance is not at home,” said Mrs. Kinley with a frown.
Well, of course she wasn’t. She had recently gotten married, so she would be on her honey…and only then did Wilfred realize. Of course. With Jessica Chance now married, Irene had inherited her honorific. She was no longer Miss Irene. She was Miss Chance.
“Oh. I see. Miss Irene Chance?” Wilfred managed to hazard.
The servant’s face was impassive. “Yes.”
“And you are certain?” he asked desperately.
There was a glint in the woman’s eye that Wilfred did not like. “Yes, I am quite certain that Miss Irene Chance told me to tell you that she is not at home.”
Oh. Right. Well.
Wilfred cleared his throat loudly as he wondered what to do with his hands. “You have known me for a long time, Mrs. Kinley. And Dempster.”
The woman’s face did not exactly soften, but it lost some of its edge. “A very long time, Your Grace.”
Dempster grunted.
“And you know I would never do anything to hurt or upset Miss Irene. Miss Chance. Any of the Chances.” Wilfred was not sure where he was going with this line of statements, but it was a way to fill the silence. Mostly.
The housekeeper nodded. “You have always been a good lad, and a good man. But if Miss Chance says—”
“Tell him to go away, Mrs. Kinley!”
Wilfred’s spirits rose, even as a furious face appeared in the doorway beside her servants. “Irene.”
“That’s Miss Chance to you, apparently.” Irene sniffed. “You may go, Mrs. Kinley. Dempster.”
The housekeeper swallowed. “But, Miss—”
“Don’t you make me glare at you too.” Irene spoke over the servants, but she placed a comforting hand on the footman’s arm and Wilfred had to look away in envy.
“Please, Dempster. You are only just recovering from a cold. And, Mrs. Kinley, I know the chilly air is terrible for your elbows. Go inside. I can deal with His Grace.”
Something sharp cut through Wilfred and right into him.
His Grace.
Dear God, now he knew how she’d felt when he had called her ‘Miss Chance.’ Was there anything so distancing as one’s proper title? They had never used them with one another. They had never had to. They had always been Irene and Wilfred.
Well, for a great number of years, they had been Reeny and Wilf, but the sentiment was the same.
“I am not at home to strangers,” Irene said stiffly, glaring down at him as the servants shuffled back into the house.
Wilfred tried not to let the pain of her words show. She was hurt, and he knew Irene. She only kicked out when she felt she was down.
“I—”
“I have absolutely no interest in anything you want to say, I am sure,” Irene said, her voice sharp and her tone direct. “Go away.”
“I am sorry, Reeny.”
Irene opened her mouth, glared, closed her mouth, and glared again, seemingly for good measure.
Taking advantage of her apparently stunned silence, Wilfred rose a step, still a few feet away from her, but at least slightly more on her level. “I am sorry for the way I spoke to you. I am sorry for my odious manner the other day. I am sorry I called you ‘Miss Chance’—”
“And manhandled me into a carriage as if I were a parcel,” interrupted Irene, her cheeks starting to pink.
Wilfred hesitated. Truth be told, he did not really feel he could apologize for that. Not when he had relished the moment so much and had enjoyed revisiting it in his mind so frequently.
“Womanhandled you, I suppose,” he hazarded in a foolish attempt not to apologize.
The pink in Irene’s cheeks darkened. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, and I am sorry for the way that day ended,” Wilfred said, retreating back to what he knew was true. “And I wanted to come before and apologize, but…”
His voice trailed away as words that he could not say filled his mouth.
But I was afraid. I was afraid that I would lose you. That I had somehow lost our friendship, and it is the most precious thing in the world. I feared that in one afternoon, I had broken something between us and I was too much of a coward to come here and find out.
Irene blinked. “But?”
“But I am here now,” Wilfred said hastily, hating himself for being such a weakling but knowing he could not admit to the truth again. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. “And I am sorry.”
Staring down at him, the woman he loved most in the world bit her lip as she examined him. Eventually, she said, “You do sound very apologetic.”
“That is because I am,” Wilfred said simply. “And I miss you.”
The last few words had not intended to be said, and he hastily retreated a step back toward the pavement in his confusion.
But he did miss her. Not seeing Irene every day was like losing a limb. Oh, one could go on without it, but it was difficult. Unbalancing. It required additional thought in each moment to ensure that one did not fall over.
For a painful heartbeat, Wilfred watched Irene and saw absolutely no shift in her features whatsoever.
Then her expression softened. “I am sorry too.”
Now that, he had not expected. “Sorry for what?”
“I should not have pushed you. If you did not wish to tell me whom you have fallen in love with, I should not have persisted so.”
Wilfred groaned. Dear God, not this again. How she had managed to fall down this entirely inaccurate track, he had no idea!
Well. Perhaps not entirely inaccurate. He had fallen in love, after all, just not with some chit of a girl who wasn’t half of what Irene Chance was. Not that he was going to tell her that.
“I should have respected your decision to keep your affections private,” Irene finished, her cheeks now a blazing red. “It… It is strange, isn’t it? We have never had to navigate such a thing before. Secrets.”
No. No, Wilfred had never looked at another woman in the same way as he adored Irene, not that she had ever seemed to notice, and as far as he knew, Irene had barely paid a moment’s notice to any gentleman who crossed her path.
Sometimes he felt comfort in that. Sometimes he despaired that she did not even see him as a gentleman at all.
“So, are we friends again?” Irene said quietly, her voice far more timid than he had expected.
A rush of heat soared through Wilfred as he grinned. “We were never not friends, you know. Best friends.”
“Well, best friend,” Irene said, grabbing a pelisse that was almost definitely not hers and tugging her arms through it, “shall we go on a walk?”
“A—A walk?”
“I have had at least eight thoughts I have wanted to share with you since I saw you,” Irene said happily, stepping out of her home and slamming the door behind her.
Before Wilfred knew what was happening, she had slipped her hand through his arm and was walking with him down the street.
So they were not to bother with the pretense of alerting her parents and calling for a sister to act as companion or her lady’s maid to chaperone.
He was far too used to that with her. He certainly hoped she was never so careless with another gentleman.
Then again, she hardly saw him as a gentleman, did she, whatever the opinions of the likes of Lady Romeril?
“For a start,” Irene said, drawing him from his thoughts, “are you staying for Christmas? You know I have to stay in Bath for Christmas, but I realized I did not know your plans. What are your plans, Wilfred?”
Wilfred could hardly speak.
His plans? He planned one day to tell her just how much she meant to him, to make sure she understood his meaning this time. He planned to make her happy, happier than she ever would be with another. He planned to help her realize just how wonderful she was.
He planned to absolutely never do any of those things.
“Wilfred?” Irene prompted as they turned a corner and entered a bustling street. “The whole point of a conversation is that you’re supposed to reply.”
He couldn’t help but laugh at that, and his joy only increased as Irene giggled with him and squeezed his arm just how he liked it.