Chapter 14 #2
He began to dress, as did she, silence stretching between them. When he finally knotted his cravat and put the finishing touches on his hasty toilette, he faced her. She was dressed, but she looked slightly…askew.
“Let me…” He closed the few feet between them. “I have sisters.”
Efficiently, he set to work straightening her out—untwisting her bodice, brushing the wrinkles from her skirts with his hand, plucking an ivy leaf from her hair.
“There,” he said, at last, stepping back and surveying his handiwork.
Still, something felt off or missing, and he couldn’t quite grasp what it was.
“So,” she began and stopped. She looked suddenly shy of him.
Too late for that.
“So,” he responded.
Like a dolt.
She looked as if she were building up to say something more, and finally she did. “How do you make me so wild for you, Archie?”
“That isn’t me, Valentina.” He needed her to understand. “It’s us.”
He had more to say to this woman.
Too much more.
Which was the problem.
Where to start?
It was she who started without him. “About tomorrow.”
“Yes?” he asked, impatient. He didn’t want to talk about tomorrow. He wanted to talk about the here and now before it drifted away into the night and was lost to them.
“Nestor has the money?”
“Yes.” He didn’t want to talk about money, either.
He wanted to talk about this feeling currently clogging his chest and making it impossible for him to breathe properly.
“Then it will be done,” she said.
“And once it’s done?” he asked.
She blinked.
This was what he wanted to talk about. “We could have an arrangement.”
Her brow crinkled. “An arrangement?”
“Where we keep seeing each other.”
“As lovers?”
He nodded, even as a feeling crept in that this was turning down a wrong, wrong, wrong path.
But he was powerless to stop the momentum.
She shook her head. “That won’t be possible.”
“I think you’ll find it’s very much within the realm of possibility.” He took a step forward, as if closing the physical distance between them would also close the widening emotional gap. “I’m mad for you, Valentina. You must know that. You’re my obsession.”
The question in her eyes cleared. “Ah.”
“Ah?” He didn’t like the sound of her ah. It wasn’t at all like the other ahs he’d been pulling from her minutes ago.
“And your obsessions must be kept secret, mustn’t they?”
How had it all spiraled out of his control so quickly?
She wasn’t finished. “An arrangement would put me beyond the pale with my family, and that isn’t something I’m willing to risk. Not even for you, Archie.”
And he knew.
He’d gone about this all wrong.
And he knew how.
He’d asked her the wrong question.
“Oh,” sounded a familiar voice, “there you two are.”
Archie and Valentina’s heads whipped around to find Delilah and Juliet entering the secret garden.
For a few beats of time too long, they four stared at each other in silence.
Though his sister and cousin were innocents, they weren’t fools.
They understood at once something had just occurred between him and Valentina.
The knowledge shone plain in their eyes.
The instant after Juliet’s gaze caught on a diaphanous white patch in the shrubberies, so did everyone else’s. Archie could kick himself. That was what had been missing from Valentina’s hurried toilette. The fichu.
Juliet untangled it from a tenacious limb and handed it to Valentina in discreet silence. Delilah’s chin notched up a full inch, her eyes gone hard. “Archie, I think it’s time for you to leave.”
He nodded. He deserved as much. Reflexively, he held out his arm to Valentina.
“Valentina stays with us,” said Juliet.
Right. That was him told.
Delilah and Juliet had closed ranks around Valentina, and he couldn’t deny that they were correct to do so.
He gave a bow that was equal parts irony and anger, pivoted on his heel, and strode from the secret garden toward the mansion. With each footstep, fury collected within him and settled deep inside his gut—a fury that was directed squarely at one person.
Himself.
He’d botched matters with Valentina, utterly and irrevocably.
Fool.
He entered the mansion, meaning to say his farewells to Tristan and Amelia, with whom he hadn’t yet spoken with this evening, but he’d taken no more than five steps inside when he heard a familiar voice at his back, “There you are.”
He inhaled a calming breath before pivoting to find one of his oldest friends in the world, His Grace Sebastian Crewe, the Duke of Ravensworth, watching him with a slightly lifted brow and his usual sardonic smile.
While Ravensworth matched Archie for height, standing a few inches over six feet tall, he was bulkier in the way gentlemen who took boxing as their exercise were.
And where Archie’s hair shone at the platinum end of blond, Ravensworth’s was a few shades darker.
“Ravensworth,” said Archie.
His friend cut directly to it. “The opera singer… I’m not acquainted with her.”
“I’ve never seen her,” said Archie, in a hurry. “You’ll have to ask Amelia for her direction.”
Ravensworth’s smile reached his eyes, a rarity. “Not that opera singer. The other one.”
The breath froze in Archie’s chest. Ravensworth had noticed Valentina. Of course, Ravensworth had noticed Valentina. The man was a known patron of the arts—his name was on half a dozen buildings throughout England and the Continent. But that wouldn’t be the only reason he’d noticed her.
It was all Archie could do not to clench his fists at his sides.
“La Contessa,” he said. He’d be damned if he offered Ravensworth her real name.
“Do you know if she’s in need of a patronage?” asked Ravensworth. Either he hadn’t noticed Archie’s increasingly foul mood, or he’d noticed and simply didn’t give a toss. Ravensworth could be very much a duke in that way.
“She’s a contessa,” said Archie, digging in. “Why would she need your patronage?”
Ravensworth scoffed. “Come off it. She’s no more a contessa than you are a stonemason.”
It would be pointless to try to convince Ravensworth otherwise. The man was too astute for that—and he knew Archie too well.
He dug into his breast pocket, his hand emerging with a white slip of paper. “Give this to her.” He extended a calling card toward Archie. “My door is always open for talent such as hers.”
A tidal wave of jealousy washed over Archie. There was simply no stopping it. “I’m sure it’s her talent you noticed,” he nearly growled.
Ravensworth’s light amber eyes narrowed, and he went cold in that way particular to him. “You insult her talent, Arch.” He inclined his head. “I’ll bid you a good night.”
Archie decided it wasn’t in him to make small talk with Tristan and Amelia. It was time to leave.
He took the front steps leading onto Grosvenor Square down two at a time. Only when he was a good half mile away did his racing mind begin to slow and form a few clear thoughts.
He’d revealed something of his feelings about Valentina to Ravensworth—feelings he hadn’t quite sorted through himself.
But that wasn’t what irritated him most about the interaction. The man had been correct. He had insulted Valentina’s talent. The truth was the patronage of the Duke of Ravensworth would ensure an illustrious career for her. Archie should turn around and give her the calling card this instant.
Instead, he slipped it into his breast pocket.
Tomorrow…tomorrow.
He needed to gather all the frayed edges of himself together and regain control before tomorrow. Tomorrow, he had a job to do for Valentina. It was imperative that he not fail her or her family.
Even if success ensured he would never see her again.
So be it.
He would see her future secured.
Even if that future wasn’t with him.
Good deeds brought their own sort of punishment.
It was a fact.