Chapter Twelve
Wilfred stamped his feet, hoping the movement would force some warmth into his toes. All it actually did was throw up a flurry of melting snow over his boots, chilling his toes even more.
Where is she?
Irene was not usually one to be late. His invitation was very clear, and even if his note had not been, the concert was going to start with or without them.
He hoped it would start with them.
“There you are!”
Wilfred whirled around with a lilting smile on his face. “What do you mean, here I am? Where have you been?”
“You said to wait by the pillar where we saw that kestrel, two years ago,” Irene said, her teeth chattering lightly, her hands lost in a muff. “Over there.”
“This is the pillar where we—never mind,” said Wilfred hastily as their teeth started to chatter. “Let me guess. Theodora could not make it?”
Irene cleared her throat, the pink on her cheeks from the cold quite vivid even in the dim streetlight. “She was going to come, but I told her and Mama that Mrs. Brown would be joining us, so there was no reason for her to.”
“Mrs. Brown again? The elderly woman who can barely be compelled to leave her house once a fortnight?”
Irene winced. “And that’s why she’s already asleep in our seats?”
Wilfred shook his head. However Irene teased him, he was not fool enough to not realize he and Irene danced a very dangerous dance, with all these public appearances, her chaperone just out of sight.
He’d become more and more aware of the fact in the past couple of months.
Frankly, he had to admit a part of him—just a small part, an infinitesimally small part—may have hoped the gossip rags marked her as ruined by him.
It’d practically force her to marry him, to save not just her reputation, but her sisters’, maybe even her cousins’, too.
But no. He would never be happy with that outcome, with her forced into his arms so unwillingly. With the Chance name dragged through the mud, after all they had done for him.
“Come on,” he said quietly. “Let’s get inside.”
The Assembly Room was far more temperate, thank goodness, than the freezing night air.
Wilfred could not help but feel sorry for the footman upon whom they were piling their outer clothes.
His great coat, his top hat, his scarf, his gloves, Irene’s pelisse, her bonnet, her gloves, her muffler, her scarf—
“Are you quite all right under all that?” Wilfred asked helpfully to the footman whose mouth and nose were now hidden by the piles of clothing.
The thin footman’s eyes widened and he made a muffled noise. Then he nodded, and tottered away carrying what appeared to be a ton of clothing.
“Well, it was cold out,” Irene said defensively as she watched the poor man stagger along the corridor. “This winter has really turned nasty—and I wouldn’t have gotten so cold if you hadn’t been waiting at the wrong pillar.”
Wilfred smiled, despite the completely inaccurate accusation. “And I am sorry for that.”
His best friend was instantly mollified. “Well. Good.”
Trying not to notice that she was wearing a quite splendid silk gown of dark green with the most spectacular embroidery around the hem, neckline, and cuffs—don’t look at the neckline, man—he offered his arm. “Shall we?”
Perhaps he was wrong, but Wilfred thought that Irene hesitated, just for a moment, before taking his arm.
The reluctance, if it had existed, did not last long, however.
It was over in a blink and then she was holding on to him, her warmth seeping through his jacket and shirt to his very skin, and he was trying to remember how to walk in a straight line.
“I had not realized there was a concert tonight. I am glad you sent over that note,” Irene said breezily. “I thought before I opened it that it would be the announcement of… It doesn’t matter. Do you know who is performing?”
An announcement of what?
The thought clouded Wilfred’s mind as they stepped into the room filled with chairs and chattering people all waiting for the musicians, seated at the front of the room, who were tuning their instruments.
What could Irene have thought he would be announcing? Surely not his affections for her; that would hardly have been appropriate, to do such a thing in a note.
Wilfred pressed his hand against his trouser pocket. The box was still there. Good.
It had been Mrs. Ansley’s idea to do it this way, though she had not known it. That very morning he had been seated at his study, ostensively reading through the reports from his steward but in truth not taking very much in.
And she had come in with that look on her face that he well knew, and at times feared, and she had sat without invitation on the other side of his desk, and she had looked at him.
And Wilfred had swallowed.
“Mrs. Ansley,” he had said cheerfully. “How may I help—”
“Whatever it is that is eating away inside you, Master Wilfred,” his housekeeper had said sternly, as though he had been caught scrumping apples from a neighbor’s orchard, “I hope you are going to do something about it.”
Wilfred had blinked. “Y-Yes, Mrs. Ansley.”
“Because it does me no good at all to see you twisting y’self into knots,” the older woman had said severely, as though it were a chief moral failing of his. “And though I don’t know what on earth it is, I can see that you need an answer, one way or the other. Time to ask, if you ask me.”
And his spirits had swelled and he had realized the deep truth of her words. It is time to ask. No more waiting around to see whether he could convince Irene to somehow realize that she was the only woman for him.
He would have to tell her so.
“Thank you, Mrs. Ansley,” he had said to her with a broad smile.
“My pleasure, Master Wilfred,” his housekeeper had said, rising from the seat with a creaking of bones that sounded most ominous. She did not speak again until she had walked across the study and opened the door. That was when she hesitated. “And Master Wilfred?”
Wilfred had looked up from his steward’s reports. “Yes?”
And Mrs. Ansley had smiled. “I hope Miss Chance says yes.”
That had been this morning. It had taken Wilfred no time at all to visit his bank in Bath which, serendipitously, was the location of the Aynor family jewels.
His grandmother’s fiftieth birthday present had been a large sapphire ring, a gift from his devoted grandfather, and Wilfred could think of no better symbol of his devotion to Irene than to give her a family heirloom as a welcome into his family. The family they would create together.
And now it was within his trouser pocket, pressing against his leg as he and Irene found seats near the back.
“I adore Christmas music,” Irene was saying happily as she folded her hands in her lap. “It heralds the new year, one of my favorite times of year. Full of fresh beginnings, new opportunities. Don’t you think? Wilfred?”
Wilfred swallowed, his mouth irritatingly dry and his tongue apparently unattached to his mind, for no words were forthcoming.
“I’m glad you sent that note. I was worried that…that my behavior at Lord and Lady Dalton’s home…” Irene’s voice trailed away.
It had been a curious evening, indeed, and Wilfred had been forced to hide the tenting of his breeches when his carriage had thrust him toward Irene in that incredibly seductive manner.
Her brother had given them that chance at privacy, and he had failed to make the most of it.
It had been all he could do not to kiss her hard as they’d stood outside her home.
The Chance footman, however, had prevented that. Which was perhaps quite right.
“I wasn’t quite myself,” Irene said briskly, smiling then looking away toward the musicians. “I…I wasn’t quite myself.”
Wilfred permitted himself a small moment to glance over while her attention was so distracted.
God, she is beautiful. He could lose himself in the minutiae of her face for the rest of his life, and that was ignoring her figure, which he very much could not ignore most of the time.
But in addition to her beauty, there was a…
a nervous twitching along her smile that he had never seen before.
Irene was not afraid of anything, not really.
Certainly not the gossip rags descending on them due to the risks they took spending time so often in public together without anyone else to watch over her—attested to by the fact that there was an empty seat beside her he’d reserved for Theodora, or “Mrs. Brown” in Irene’s estimation.
There was little that could make her nervous and Wilfred was certain he was not on that short list.
So what is wrong?
A falter crept into his thinking. He had been determined to do it: after waiting for so long for the right moment, Wilfred had decided to make his own right moment.
It was time that he made his stand.
Only now he saw that there was still something not…not quite right about Irene did he wonder whether this was the right, right moment.
Oh, Lord, my mind is wandering…
“How are you feeling, Irene?” Wilfred hazarded.
That was it; gain more information. Perhaps he was just seeing things. Perhaps he was spotting problems where there were none.
Irene glanced at him, just for a moment, then appeared to turn her head resolutely away. “Fine.”
‘Fine’?
Fine? What did that mean? No one ever actually said ‘fine’ in response to such a question, did they? It was…vague. Unhelpful. Imprecise.
Wilfred cleared his throat. “Well, I hope you feel better in a few moments.”
After he had revealed his devotion to her. After he had told her that he loved her. After he had asked her the most important question Wilfred was certain he would ever ask her. Ever ask anyone.
After he had asked her, Irene Chance, to become his wife.
Irene smiled briefly but without turning her head to face him. “Yes, I…I am sure the music will make me feel much better.”
Wilfred’s jaw dropped, but he managed to close it in time to prevent her from noticing.