Chapter Twenty
Nothing could have made Eliza attend the Harbury ball. Nothing, that is, but the combined insistence of Lady Asquith and all four of her sisters.
Lady Asquith, for her part, argued that everyone would think Eliza did not approve of her sister’s triumph if she failed to appear.
Millie, Lenora, and Nettie demanded the best gossip.
How were they do know if Eliza did not go?
Cassie didn’t tell a story nearly as well and would be far too busy with Harbury to make an accurate report.
But what finally tipped the balance was Cassandra.
She begged Eliza to be there to share her triumph with the assurance that she knew, from Harbury’s sister, that Redver had declined his invitation.
So, Eliza had dressed in a gown of lutestring in gold with a brocaded overdress almost as heavy as her heart. She further girded herself by lightly rouging her pale face and pasting on a smile she hoped only she could tell was false.
The duke’s ball was everything Eliza had expected.
Grand, expensive, and quite the crush.
Word had gotten out that Harbury was to make an announcement, and speculation ran rampant.
For the first two hours, Eliza demurred all subtle (and not so subtle) inquires as to what it might concern.
She danced, simpered, and curtsied until her cheeks were aching and her swollen toes begged to be freed from her confining slippers.
By the time Harbury spoke to the assembled guests, announcing his great pride in his newly betrothed—who had blushed prettily—Eliza was ready to be taken home. But she’d a duty to hold her place between Cassandra and Harbury’s sister Lady Sarah, helping the couple absorb the tide of well-wishers.
Unlike Eliza’s plan, Cassandra’s, for now, had worked. The ton was welcoming the Misses Wainwright back into their collective embrace, the scandal at Almack’s (almost) completely forgotten.
The deed was done.
All that remained for Eliza to do was to assure Mr. Vane he was free from their almost-agreement as well. Which she intended to do, just as soon as she could extract herself from a conversation between Harbury’s sister, Lady Sarah, Harbury’s cousin, Lord Neville, and a Colonel Jasper and his wife.
Mrs. Jasper was the animated sort, bright as a Covent Garden puppet. She’d been chattered on amiably for quite some time, leaving Eliza plenty of opportunity to surreptitiously scan the ballroom for Mr. Vane. Finally, she located him near the terrace doors.
He and Lady Redver were speaking earnestly to one another—and they weren’t alone. Her gaze came to rest on a too-familiar, dark-haired gentleman. Her initial, involuntary excitement gave way, and her plastered smile faltered.
Adrian must have felt her stare, because met her gaze, turned back to bow to his stepmother and Mr. Vane, and then began making his way through the crowd of people.
She glanced back to Mrs. Jasper. A bit of sparkle caught her eye—sparkle coming from Mrs. Jasper’s diamond eardrops. She hadn’t noticed them before, but now that she had, she wondered where she had seen them before.
“Not that I would ever—”
Mrs. Jasper interrupted her ongoing story with a trill of laughter.
“Just listen to me! Always saying more than I should! I never mean to, of course, but how other people manage to keep everything all bottled up inside is a mystery to me!”
Lady Sarah exchanged a knowing glance with Lord Neville.
“Good thing,” Lord Neville said to Mrs. Jasper, “present company has no secrets.”
“Why even you must have a secret or two.” Mrs. Jasper tapped her fan against her lips. “Let me think…why, yes. I’m sure I’ve seen you at a certain gaming club…”
Eliza’s dread turned to horrified recognition. Mrs. Jasper was the woman who never took a breath from the Lyon’s Den!
“You know the club I mean.” She fluttered her eyes at Lord Neville.
Lady Sarah smirked. “What club might that be, Lord Neville?”
“The one run by—oh!”
Colonel Jasper had nudged his wife’s elbow, causing the lady to drop her fan. The fan came to a skittering stop right next to Cassandra’s foot just as Adrian reached her side.
“If you’ll allow me.” Adrian bent down to pick up the fan.
He didn’t immediately straighten.
“Naughty man, don’t you know better than to stare at a lady’s—” Mrs. Jasper stopped abruptly. “Oh, I see what’s caught your eye. My, why a unique shoe buckle.”
Cassie drew her shoe back beneath her skirts, frowning down at a clearly puzzled Adrian.
Meanwhile, as Adrian rose, Eliza found herself desperately wishing the ballroom floor might open and swallow her whole. In Adrian’s hand was one of the buckles she’d been wearing the first night she’d gone to the Lyon’s Den…
“I borrowed them from my sister,” Cassandra said. “I hope you don’t mind, Eliza. In all the commotion, I forgot to ask.”
Adrian’s gaze jerked from her sister to Eliza. Puzzlement shifted to recognition…
Cassie flashed a look part pride, part confusion, in her sister’s direction. “She commissioned them herself, you know. But she hardly ever wears them.”
The sounds around Eliza deadened. Her stomach grew heavy. So heavy, it was both weighting down her gut and demanding to be emptied.
Adrian’s eyes…
Oh, good Heavens.
“Yes,” Adrian said stiffly. “Very. Unique. Buckles.”
The woman’s earrings swished as she turned, following Adrian’s gaze to Eliza.
Eliza raised her face. Everything around her disappeared from her vision. Everything but Adrian. Slowly, in what felt like a nightmare she was helpless to direct, he lifted his free hand. His fingers traced a line down her neck until he hit that spot.
The Rogue spot.
An involuntary noise escaped her throat.
“Blackbird,” Adrian whispered.
It didn’t matter that the word would make no sense to anyone besides themselves. By his touch, he had utterly exposed her.
She bit her lip.
He stared at her for eons, recognition warring with disbelief. Then, he dropped his hand, sending a sharp glance toward Mrs. Jasper.
“I must beg your pardon,” he said. He stepped away and folded his hands behind his back.
“All of you, especially Miss Wainwright. I was…momentarily taken by Miss Wainwright’s exquisite taste.
” He flashed one of his disarming smiles at Mrs. Jasper.
“You see, I’ve been meaning to purchase a gift for my sister.
Might you give me the direction of your jeweler, Miss Wainwright? ”
“What a fine idea,” Lady Sarah exclaimed.
“Why don’t you come with me”—Cassandra looped a firm arm beneath Eliza’s pliant one—“so that we might find a pencil?”
“You stay, Miss Cassandra,” Lady Sarah replied. “I’ll take Miss Wainwright to find a pencil.”
“Yes,” Eliza forced. “Stay, Cassie.”
Lady Sarah smiled brightly. “No need to join us on a silly little errand, is there?”
Eliza nodded uncertainly, her gaze repeatedly slipping to Adrian. He, however, had turned away, engaging Harbury in hearty congratulations.
Adrian didn’t spare her a second glance.
Eliza and the Blackbird were one and the same.
Adrian should have been shocked. Reeling, in fact. And he had been, at first.
So shocked his unguarded reaction had exposed his love to gossip.
Were it not for Cassandra and Lady Sarah’s quick thinking, the curious looks might have transformed into an explosive scandal. Even now, if he’d stepped in a nest of adders, he would have felt less alarm.
Prurient, poisonous interest slithered and hissed all around him.
After he’d shaken Harbury’s hand, he turned to Miss Cassandra, but he was acutely aware of the direction Lady Sarah and Eliza had gone.
He bent to kiss Miss Cassandra’s cheek.
Under her breath Cassandra warned, “If you don’t go and get her, I’ll—”
“I will,” he interrupted. “I swear I will.”
Cassandra exhaled.
He moved to kiss her other cheek. “Just as soon as I am able.”
When he drew back, Cassie’s eyes were shining.
“Love?” she whispered.
He nodded, communicating everything he could not say with his eyes.
“I am very glad.”
Adrian attempted to hand Cassandra the buckle. Harbury interceded.
“Much ado about a shoe,” Harbury said loud enough for those around him to hear.
Unspoken communication passed between them—his gesture was meant, in part, to give Adrian the chance to slip away.
Several obligatory titters—the ton could always be counted on to make a duke feel witty—turned into sighs as Harbury knelt on one knee and made a show of replacing the buckle.
As he went in search of Eliza, Adrian reflected.
Was he really surprised to discover Eliza was the Blackbird?
From the moment he’d laid eyes on Eliza he’d felt a sense of recognition. Again and again, he’d drawn comparisons between them in his mind.
The truth had been staring him in the face for quite some time.
Finally, he found Lady Sarah, who told him Eliza had gone out to the terrace to get some air. He took a back route through Harbury’s study and made his way outside.
He found her standing opposite his half-brother.
After their conversation this afternoon, Adrian knew Vane was hoping with all his heart Eliza would cry off.
At present, Vane had the expression of a soldier about to go into a battle rather than a lover about to propose.
“I entered into an agreement both with you and with Mrs. Dove-Lyon,” Vane said. “As a gentleman, I can only release you if you are certain you wish to be released.”
Adrian held his breath.
“I appreciate that you wish to your honor your commitment”—Eliza’s smile trembled—“but you don’t need to sacrifice yourself on the altar of good intention. Mrs. Dove-Lyon approached you on my behalf, but my reasons for wishing the alliance are no longer in force.”
A lover would have been devastated by such a declaration, but Vane’s face only blossomed with hope. He nodded.
“Besides,” her expression turned sympathetic, “how can I hold you to your word when I know your heart belongs to another? And, what’s more, I cannot honor my commitment to you when my heart belongs to another.”