Chapter 2
“How is this going to help?” Letitia asked suspiciously as they pulled up in front of an elegant toy shop, which displayed adorable porcelain dolls and stoic cast-metal soldiers in its thick front window.
“Here is my plan,” Clio said, trying to sound authoritative and confident as she shooed Letitia into the shop.
“I will purchase presents for my cousin Xander and Helen’s children.
Then I will say to my brother, ‘Oh, Aaron, since I have bought these presents, don’t you think I should go visit the children?
I’m sure they have grown tall or learned something!
Children are always growing and learning things! ’”
“You’re a natural,” Letitia commented dryly. “And, not to try to poke holes in your plan, but what about when your brother notes that I am about to go to the duke and duchess’ home, and therefore could quite easily convey your purchases with me?”
Letitia had served as a governess for Clio in the last few years that Clio had needed such a figure in her life, during the first years she’d spent in Belgium.
Now that Clio was—under protest—back in England, she’d arranged for her friend to serve as governess in her cousin’s household.
This served them both well, as Clio got to have her friend relatively nearby, and Letitia was assured that she’d be adequately compensated …
and that the master of the house would not have a wandering eye, as the Duke of Godwin was completely besotted by his duchess.
“The growing and the learning!” Clio reminded Letitia emphatically. “If you go without me, who is to observe the growing and the learning? See? The plan makes sense.”
“Does it, though?” Letty gave her a skeptical look. “One could argue that I was specifically hired to observe and cultivate such things, but what is the point of logic in the face of your scheming?” The words were exasperated, but Letitia’s tone was fond.
“Precisely,” Clio agreed as she perused a shelf of wooden swords. “As I said. It makes total sense.”
Clio suspected that the more she uttered the words ‘it makes sense,’ the less it seemed as though it did make sense. But making it sound like she had a plan seemed better than “I’m just running away.”
She didn’t like how that sounded, not even inside her own head.
“Do you think that a two-year-old boy would like this?” she asked. Best to just forge ahead.
“He might, but nobody else in the household would thank you,” Letitia said, steering Clio toward a large stuffed lion. “Try this. And maybe a doll, for your niece, before you get any other ideas.”
Clio sighed. Those were very boring choices, but she supposed she should defer to her friend’s expertise in these matters.
“I will say,” Letitia went on, picking up the previous thread of their conversation, “I’m not certain that the gossip won’t follow you to the countryside. You could have been a bit more cautious.”
Clio waved a hand. “I’m not concerned about my reputation,” she said. “I’m only going to—“
“Hide?” Letitia supplied sweetly.
“—retreat,” Clio corrected emphatically, “because I don’t want my brother to get ideas. He can be terribly missish when it comes to my reputation, I’m afraid.”
“I wonder where he ever got such an idea,” Letitia asked the stuffed lion innocently.
Clio rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, enjoy your quips,” she said airily. “But I’m not about to let Aaron get all riled up and try to shove me into some marriage of convenience to ‘save me’ from ruin. That would absolutely ruin my plans.”
“To leave London and travel the world like some kind of itinerant,” Letitia said with the weariness of someone who had had this conversation too many times.
“Your language is needlessly harsh, but you are not incorrect,” Clio agreed cheerfully enough. “You can come with me.”
She always offered this, and Letitia always gave her this same look—the doubtful one that said that she didn’t believe that Clio would ever succeed in convincing her brother to let her leave London for good.
“I do not understand why you wouldn’t just stay in Belgium,” Letitia said with a sigh. “There was nothing wrong with Brussels.”
“No, nothing was wrong with it,” Clio agreed, inspecting several dolls.
Their little faces were rather alarming, weren’t they?
“But I know Belgium practically as well as I know London, at this point. I want to see more. The world is wide, and there’s so much of it that I haven’t seen.
” She tried to sound lofty as she added, “Besides, I might not have a choice after today. This scandal will make me unmarriable—and that’s a good thing, too. ”
That last part hadn’t sounded too hasty, had it?
“You’ve never been married, either,” Letitia pointed out with irksome reasonableness. “So wouldn’t that be a new adventure all on its own?”
Clio scoffed. That was a response enough, certainly.
Apparently not. Letitia frowned.
“I just wonder if this is what you really want,” she said gently. “How can you look at your family and their happiness and still assume that you would despise being married?”
Clio hated it when Letitia put up this argument.
“It’s different, and you know it,” she said, hoping that her confident tone would make up for what she knew was not the strongest logic she’d ever deployed. “Besides, I am scarcely a part of London Society any longer. I’ve spent so long abroad that I am practically a foreigner in my own right.”
She certainly felt like a foreigner in her own home country. That was why she had made her second trip to Belgium …
“You could change things,” Letitia reminded her.
Clio couldn’t stand this conversation any longer. She pasted on her sunniest smile and tossed her hair, then echoed Gwanton’s words.
“Oh, Letty, haven’t you heard? Nobody is good enough for me.”
Hector Ferrars, the Duke of Metford—no matter what claims his little brother made on the title—grimaced, his hand going tight around the familiar grip of his walking stick. He kept his gaze fixed on the wall of toys in front of him, trying not to show his frustration on his face.
God, these Londoners were all the same, weren’t they?
Take this vain little pet, for example. Yes, she was pretty, all long brown curls, bright eyes, and the kind of lush mouth that made a man think of Aphrodite rising from the waves.
But looks were only on the surface—and vanity rotted to the core.
Nobody is good enough for me.
The egotistical little thing.
Hector rolled his eyes and forced his attention to stay fixed on the little wooden locomotives in front of him. He’d never met his nephew, but what child wouldn’t be impressed by his own toy version of the newfangled method of transportation?
Frankly, he didn’t even know why he was here.
It wasn’t as though trying to bribe his little nephew with a bauble would affect how Hector was going to be received by his long-lost family.
That was going to go badly, no matter what he did.
And he certainly shouldn’t care about an overheard conversation in a shop.
He should be focused on setting matters to rights within his own household, not worrying over what pampered little princesses thought about themselves, no matter how fetching.
Except, he found himself unable to resist peering over his shoulder.
And, as always, the excesses of London Society crept their way into unwanted corners—in this case, in the form of the conceited chit herself coming around the corner, followed by a woman in simpler clothes.
A maid, perhaps? If so, his heart went out to the other woman.
There was no world in which she was paid enough to put up with that kind of attitude.
“Oh, look, Letty!” the self-important lady exclaimed, grabbing one of the toys from the shelf. “The charming trains! Surely the children would enjoy one of these!”
In her haste, the lady didn’t seem to notice that the trains were multiple cars, held together by wooden hooks. When she grasped only the front part, the hook of the next car came loose, and it clattered to the floor, making the hook snap clean off.
“Oh my,” she said, blinking in alarm down at the broken plaything. She turned in Hector’s direction. “I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for it, of course.”
Hector almost turned to look behind him before he realized.
Why the presumptuous little minx! She assumed that he worked there!
It was true, admittedly, that his clothing was not the usual kind of garb for a duke. He was dressed practically for travel, in well-worn garments that had served him well for years. They were working men’s clothes, because Hector had spent nearly all of his life as a working man.
And yet, it was so bloody typical of her to assume that he felt his temper flare, like the forge when too much fuel had been added by a careless hand.
“Do you think me employed by this establishment, my lady?” he asked. His accent was thick with the North, his vowels rounded by the place where he had spent the better part of his life.
His tone, however, was enough to warn her off agreeing. Her dark brow furrowed, her plush lip pouting outward in consternation.
“I apologize, sir,” she said politely. “I thought I had met the proprietor coming in …”
Oh, so he had been elevated to shopkeeper? How flattering.
“You make assumptions, miss,” he said sternly. “Then again, what else is to be expected from an … aristocrat like yourself?”
He made sure that the dangerous pause in his words showed that he held no regard for her or her ilk.
She blinked, rearing back slightly.
“I beg your pardon?” The words were polite, but there was ice in her delivery.
He gave her a lopsided grin, the one that had always caused the women at the smithy to give him a second look, regardless of his damaged leg … and one that would no doubt scandalize a woman of this girl’s class.
“An aristocrat,” he repeated as though she had merely misheard him. “You know, one of the arrogant, entitled folk that run around London judging others, thinking they’re better just because they’ve a bit of scratch in their coffers?”
Briefly, her mouth dropped open in shock, but then she surprised him in turn by not walking away. Instead, she propped a hand on her hip and gave him a challenging look, her chin tipped up in defiance.
“And you would know nothing about judging people, then, I suppose? Or, wait …” She tapped her chin with her free hand.
There was a stain on her glove; if she wasn’t so prim and pristine, he would have mistaken it for blood.
He chose not to mention it. He hoped she discovered it later and went into hysterics over the sartorial imperfection.
She pointed at him.
“You were also judging me, were you not? At least hypocrisy isn’t one of my sins. Take care of your glass house, before you begin throwing stones, sir.”
Well, that had been annoyingly quick of her.
“Perhaps not hypocrisy,” he allowed, tilting his head in acknowledgment of her point, “but hubris, certainly.”
“Hubris?” Her repetition was tantamount to her flashing a weapon at him.
“Nobody is good enough for me,” he echoed in a high tone designed to enrage her.
Her cheeks flared pink. Ha! He barely even noticed how pretty that flush looked, beneath the surge of triumph that overtook him.
“You,” she said acidly, “don’t know what you are talking about—”
She’d taken a step forward, as though planning to make him account for his words with fisticuffs—and wouldn’t that be a sight to see, Hector thought—but cut off when the hem of her skirts caught against the edge of his walking stick. She blinked down at the obstacle, then took a quick step back.
“My apologies,” she said hastily, and though he’d thought her vain and conceited before, he found that he hated her a bit for the sympathy that crossed her features.
Anger rose up in him, the same anger that had caused him to enter into—and bloody win, thank you kindly—countless fights with the village lads who would come into the smithy thinking that just because his leg was not quite right, Hector must be weak.
He wasn't going to prove this lady wrong with his fists, as he had those boys, but that didn’t mean he was going to stand for her pity.
He took a menacing step forward, letting his weight rest on the stick. Let her try to think him pathetic just because he walked with an aid. He’d show her how wrong she was.
He had to hand it to her; she didn’t back down.
“If you think that I am wanting your charity, princess,” he spat, “you can think again.”
Her cheeks grew even redder. “Don’t call me that,” she snapped back, a hint of breathlessness to his words. So, she was brave, but not entirely immune to his intimidating bulk, something that was hard-won over years standing atop a hot anvil.
“Why not?” he mocked, not giving an inch. “Are you afraid to deal with someone who lacks your pretty, poisonous manners?” He made a derisive sound. “And here I thought you were telling me you were more than just a lovely doll, like one here on these shelves.”
He made a production of looking her up and down, as though she was no more than a piece of art to be admired. In fairness, he’d seen plenty of paintings less beautiful than this woman … not that he planned to admit any such thing.
Her color mounted ever higher, but she kept her defiant aspect, even as her breath began to quicken.
“Let’s go, Letitia,” she said over her shoulder to her companion, though her gaze didn’t leave Hector’s. “The atmosphere in here is too heavy; the toy is broken.”
Hector turned before she could see him flinch at the word broken. It was foolish that he would cringe to hear it from her, not when he’d long since considered himself immune to this brand of insult. Hadn’t he heard such things a thousand times or more?
But for some reason, coming from her, it stung again. No doubt he was just feeling the pressures of returning to London after all this time.
He kept his eyes on the toys in front of him, acting as though he had practically already forgotten her.
“Scurry off back to your fancy house and charmed life, princess,” he called. “That’s the only suitable place for ye.”
He smiled, just a little, at the affronted little huff that came from behind him, but he didn’t turn around until long after he knew she was gone.