Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Casa Windermere, London, Two weeks later
Delilah attempted to concentrate on the book she was reading. She truly did. After all, Emma by the late Jane Austen was one of her favorite novels. This was Delilah’s fifth reading of it, in fact. She’d always found it diverting.
Until this reading.
Upon this read, she found Emma Woodhouse slightly insufferable.
Really a bit of a goose’s bottom. It had never occurred to Delilah that a writer might dislike her heroine, but it could be that Jane Austen had disliked—even despised Emma—for it was apparent upon this reading exactly how mean-spirited and small Emma truly was.
But even more insufferable than Emma was Mr. Knightley. Delilah had always thought him dashing, but now she held a revised opinion that he was simply a dour know-it-all. Further, the blasted man was always there for Emma’s worst moments—and more infuriatingly, he was always in the right.
But what Delilah truly didn’t understand was why these two people wanted to marry each other!
She snapped the book shut on a tiny roar of frustration and tossed it to the other end of the settee.
No matter. No one was here to see her less than civilized behavior.
For two solid weeks, she’d been the lone Windermere knocking about the walls of Casa Windermere with the servants and Valentina’s cat—the aptly named Miss Hiss, who made for feral company as she occasionally gifted Delilah a mouse on her pillow.
She supposed it was sweet. Still, Delilah would prefer it if the mighty huntress would allow Delilah to stroke her fur as a sign of affection.
She reckoned beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Delilah meandered over to the bow window overlooking the back garden still bright with late-summer blooms that had begun to fade and make way for coming autumn.
Two weeks.
It was an interminably long time to be holed up at home, waiting for inevitable scandal to follow on her heels to London. But she’d pored through all the gossip rags, daily, and there was not a whiff of it, not even in the blind items.
Sebastian had managed it.
That was what she’d come to realize.
Of course he had.
And what had she done?
Followed her first instinct.
She’d run.
She should’ve known she was flying too close to the sun. But the summer had been idyllic, and she’d gotten carried away in the perfection of it all—and she’d thought—what?—it would simply continue along that way?
As ever when she flew too close to the sun, she’d gotten scorched.
Truly, Fate had it out for her.
But that wasn’t what occupied her mind.
Why was Sebastian always mixed up in her worst moments?
She darted an annoyed glare at the book laying innocently on the settee.
The man was her blasted Mr. Knightley.
But, chimed in a small voice, isn’t he also mixed up in your best moments?
This summer… Was it perfect because she’d become a player in the theater company? Or…
Was it perfect because Sebastian had been there, too?
She tried to swallow around the unresolved lump in her throat. It had been there these last two weeks. An interesting word—fate.
It was as if she and Sebastian were…fated.
And she’d run.
Like she always did.
Except this time, she’d almost immediately known it for a mistake.
And yet she hadn’t turned back.
She was a person of forward momentum—and look where all that forward momentum had gotten her.
Here… Alone.
She’d followed her first instinct…
And she’d followed her worst.
Even clueless Emma Woodhouse had recognized what she had in Mr. George Knightley.
What…what had she done?
What had she lost?
She’d run…
The wrong way.
A feeling welled up inside her—the feeling that had been sitting suppressed in her stomach these last two weeks—and demanded expression. Wretchedness. That was the feeling—utter and complete wretchedness.
She opened her mouth, drew in a long, heavy breath, and released a loud, wet sob. One followed by another…and another…until she was a ridiculous, wailing, sodden mess.
Through her great sobs of wretchedness, however, pierced the sound of voices.
Voices down the corridor that led to the receiving hall.
From the chair where Miss Hiss lay curled in a tight ball, the cat’s head popped up.
She, too, recognized the voices. If Delilah wasn’t very much mistaken, they sounded very much like…
“Delilah!” said Archie, entering the room with his usual joie de vivre.
“Archie,” said Delilah, swiping at eyes that were surely red and swollen.
Through glassy tears, she watched another figure enter the room.
A small, voluptuous woman who held an elegance and reserve unique to her.
“Valentina,” said Delilah, rising to her feet and hugging her brother and sister-in-law in greeting.
It was obvious in the cant of her head that Valentina had noted Delilah’s red swollen eyes.
The instant Valentina released Delilah, Miss Hiss bounded into her true owner’s arms.
“What are you doing here?” asked Delilah, a bit of accusation in her voice. But really, it was terrible timing for a social call.
Archie shrugged and settled into the chair Miss Hiss had just vacated. “This was my home the last time I checked.”
Fair point.
Valentina shrugged off her pelisse. “We’ve only just arrived from the Continent.”
Archie cocked his head at Delilah. “Wait… Aren’t you in Switzerland?”
“I haven’t yet mastered the trick of being two places at once.” Delilah wasn’t particularly in the mood for banter with her elder brother, but old habits died hard.
“Well, if you ever do, share your secret with me. I wouldn’t particularly mind composing at the piano and at the same time being in my wife’s—”
“Good graces is how I believe that sentence ends, husband,” said Valentina, firm.
Mischief sparked in Archie’s eyes. “If that’s what you want to start calling it.”
Delilah only just didn’t groan. She wouldn’t mind sinking into the floor at this very moment, just to escape having to witness the hot stare Archie was directing toward his wife.
More voices sounded in the corridor.
There was a God.
Into the room entered Juliet with Rory just behind. Relief soared through Delilah at the sight of her beloved cousin. Another sob hiccupped in her throat, as she rushed into Juliet’s arms. “What are you doing here?”
Oh, she smelled so good and familiar.
Juliet shifted back so her direct emerald eyes bored into Delilah. How Delilah had missed this…her. “I received your letter.”
Delilah’s gaze shifted. She couldn’t look Juliet in the eye and tell a flat-out lie. “It was only to inform you that I’d arrived back from Switzerland.”
Juliet’s gaze didn’t relent. “Early.”
And Delilah knew that Juliet knew. Not all, of course—but enough… That something was wrong.
Delilah, who had never once dissolved into a puddle of tears in her entire life, was on the verge of doing so again for the second time tonight.
Archie finished clapping Rory on the back in greeting and turned toward Delilah. “What’s all this about Switzerland, anyway?” he said. “I never had you down as one for alphorns and yodeling.”
Before Delilah could slap together a decent lie, more voices sounded in the corridor.
Then Amelia was striding—Amelia was a great strider, like all the Windermeres—into the room, a duchess bedecked in sumptuous ivory silk, diamonds at her wrists, throat, and even in her hair.
But her splendor wasn’t what made the room go silent for a beat of time.
It was Amelia’s mask.
Delilah was fairly certain it had diamonds, too.
Her massive and quite handsome husband—neither fact could be ignored—Tristan entered the room behind her, wearing a simple black domino, and directed a grunt of greeting that sufficed for all the room’s inhabitants. A man of few words, the Duke of Ripon.
“Amelia, Tristan,” said Archie, “are you here to burgle us?”
Amelia released an exasperated sigh. Her siblings lived to exasperate her, it was a fact. “We’re on our way to the masquerade.”
“The masquerade?” A strange premonition sparked inside Delilah.
“Who’s having it on?” asked Archie.
“Ravensworth, of course,” said Amelia. “His autumn equinox ball is a masquerade this year.”
“Raising funds, I suppose?” asked Juliet.
“For a playhouse in Southwark, I believe,” said Tristan.
At the sound of Sebastian’s name, another round of wretchedness flooded through Delilah. “Why are you here, then?” she asked.
Her wretchedness kept compounding.
Here was Sebastian moving forward with his life.
And here she was hiding in a house.
Amelia stared at her as if she’d gone suddenly cuckoo. “To pick you up, of course.”
Delilah spread her arms wide. She was wearing a simple muslin day dress—the same one she’d been wearing these last three days, truth told.
She might have acquired a…scent. A truth that might be better left untold.
“I had no notion of a masquerade being given by…” His name stuck in her throat. “Him.”
“Truly, Delilah,” said Amelia, “when was the last time you checked your correspondence?” She crossed the room to the correspondence desk and began riffling through the basket full of letters.
“Never,” said Delilah. “Juliet is the only person who matters that writes to me, and staff know to bring those letters to me straightaway.”
Juliet wrapped her arms around Delilah’s waist and hugged her again. “Delilah?” she asked.
“Yes?” asked Delilah, breathing in the lovely, soul-deep familiar scent of Juliet.
“When was the last time you washed your hair?”
A fair question, and one Delilah couldn’t readily answer without the use of her fingers. It was either six or twelve days. Either way, it wasn’t good. It was entirely possible she’d gone to seed.
Amelia had almost finished sorting through the correspondence. “Well, no matter. There’s no invitation here, anyway.”
A feeling that resembled pique sparked inside Delilah. “What do you mean there’s no invitation?”
Amelia shrugged. “There isn’t.”
Archie rubbed his hands together. “No matter. We’re all going.”
“But, Delilah,” said Juliet with a gleam of mischief, “Ravensworth likely wouldn’t have known you’d returned early from Switzerland.”
Oh, Juliet was good, Delilah would give her that. Of course, Juliet saw all. Juliet knew. In fact, it was possible that Juliet had known before Delilah had.
Right.
“Aha, here we have it!” Amelia exclaimed, holding up a white square of paper. “It’s Ravensworth’s seal.” Her brow knitted for the briefest instant. “It’s thicker than the one Tristan and I received.”
“Perhaps it isn’t an invitation at all,” said Delilah, morosely. Though it was all she could do not to snatch the missive from Amelia’s hand and rip it open. “Perhaps he’s telling me to stay away.”
All eyes landed on Delilah. If she wasn’t very mistaken, the air had ripened with disbelief. “What?”
Archie snorted.
Rory shook his head with that lopsided smile of his.
Amelia simply said, “Oh, Delilah.”
Tristan looked entirely uninterested in the entire business, his gaze decidedly fixed on the curve of his wife’s neck.
And Juliet simply stared at Delilah…stared into her with those emerald witch’s eyes of hers.
They all seemed to see something that she was missing entirely. Or…
Possibly…maybe she saw something, too…
“Right,” said Archie, shooting to his feet. “Before we go, I must get into my wife’s good graces.”
“Oh?” said Amelia. “What have you done now?”
How Delilah envied Amelia’s innocence.
“It isn’t what I’ve yet done, but what I intend to do within the next five or so minutes,” he said with a wicked smile.
Valentina’s cheeks were twin patches of scarlet—a sure-to-be regular experience if one chose Archie for a life partner.
“What can you possibly mean by—”
Delilah held up a hand, staying the rest of the question in Amelia’s mouth. “You don’t want to know. Trust me.”
After her siblings had finally cleared out, Delilah wandered restlessly about, eventually meandering her way to the correspondence desk when she could take the suspense no longer. She tapped her forefinger against the missive from Sebastian. It simply lay there, face up, waiting for her to open it.
Her first instinct was to resist. But…hadn’t it been proven that perhaps her first instincts weren’t her best?
Right.
She picked it up and tore open the seal, finding not an invitation at all, but an official-looking document. She scanned the paper, her eyes picking out one of every twenty or so words. Words like special and license and union.
Her hands grew slack, and the document fell onto the desk. She planted a palm onto the inlaid birch and walnut surface for support as she slid onto a chair. She lifted the paper again and began reading it closely, the words having a devil of a time sinking into her brain.
His Grace Sebastian Crewe, the Duke of Ravensworth.
That was one bundle of words.
Lady Delilah Windermere.
That was another.
Her name…united with his.
Delilah felt suddenly winded.
This wasn’t a proposal of marriage.
It was more of an opportunity.
This piece of paper represented his terms if she wanted to be with him.
If, somehow, she found a way to reverse course and run…
Toward him.
“Delilah, when you decide to marry me, it will be your idea.”
In the moment, she’d let the words glance off her as his usual arrogance talking. But now, they sank in and found purchase as more of his words came to her.
“If I ever do, you’ll know why.”
Tonight’s masquerade…
It was for her.
She shot to her feet, filled with sudden determination. First, she was going to peel off this dress and toss it into the fireplace. It would never be free of her unwashed stench. Better to put it out of its misery.
Then she would give herself a good, cleansing scrub.
Then she would put on her mask—the one she’d been saving for a few years now.
She had a masquerade to attend.
And a future to claim.
She was done running away.
She was now running toward.
He’d better be ready.
But, first, she must wash her hair.