Chapter 2 #2
“I think I shall wander about and gather information while you search Smythe’s office.”
Aidan wanted to argue. Sneaking through a gentleman’s private places was not his idea of an excellent or honorable pastime, but he could not deny that Trafford was better at soliciting information.
Not least because the idiot seemed to know almost the entire ton and their servants, with the exception of marriageable misses.
Aidan hated being disingenuous and violating peoples’ trust by searching their homes, but …
This is for Lily. To keep her safe.
His father would have definite opinions about what Aidan had been doing these past two weeks, which was why Lord Moreland had not been informed of their informal enquiry into six heirs.
To date, they had managed to rule out only one of the men on the list. The gentleman in question had been holed up in the country with his family after a serious fall, so could not have been the murderous visitor on the night of the coronation.
There were six men to investigate, but Smythe was the man at the top of their list. He was the heir to a baron, which made him a promising suspect because the murdered Baron of Filminster had been seated with other barons the day of his murder.
There were whispers of Smythe selling off assets in the clubs, and Filminster had pointed out that a suspect with some sort of financial difficulty could certainly be driven to a passionate act such as murder if the late baron had threatened his future inheritance.
“I will meet you in the ballroom when I am done,” Aidan murmured, his voice low and grim.
Trafford nodded, too easily. “Have fun, Little Breeches. You might learn interesting things when you search through a man’s private belongings.”
Aidan frowned, unsure what Trafford was alluding to, but before he could respond, he was left alone, the ostentatious golden tails of the other man’s coat the last thing one could see from the dim interior of the room.
Sighing heavily, Aidan walked over to the door to peek his head out and look about. Where would Smythe’s private study be?
Gwen’s cheeks ached from the smile fixed on her face.
For the better part of an hour, she had stood beside her father, welcoming every guest into their home with unflagging politeness.
Her posture was correct, her greetings faultless, and her tone precisely modulated.
Every inch the dutiful daughter of the house.
Most of the gentlemen had barely acknowledged her presence, offering her the kind of distracted bow reserved for a footstool or a fern. Their interest had been reserved entirely for her father, whose considerable charm and irreverent wit never failed to endear him to his peers.
The ladies had been little better. Many had passed her with the faintest tilt of their heads, their painted smiles thinning behind fans of ivory and lace.
A few older matrons had stopped, their eyes alight with the kind of kindness that felt like vinegar in an open wound.
They had inquired, pityingly, whether anyone had begun to court her yet.
Gwen would have preferred outright rudeness. The extended conversations about her lack of prospects, delivered with matronly concern, were far worse. They left her struggling to steer the discussion elsewhere, her facial muscles straining under the weight of polite responses and feigned good humor.
How she longed to be ordinary.
Her appearance, whatever its merits, only ever served to draw attention, and not the sort she desired. She stood too tall, with the wrong shade of hair and an outspoken fondness for scholarship. It made her a spectacle. A curiosity to some, a cautionary tale to others.
Once, years ago, she had dreamed of making a match despite her peculiarities.
Of finding someone who might value her wit, her mind, even her freckles.
But it had taken only a Season or two to disabuse her of such notions.
Her illusions had been stripped from her like petals from a flower, one indifferent glance at a time.
She had wished her mother were still alive to guide her through the ordeal. But by the time Gwen had been old enough to enter society, the family had already lost its brightest light. And Gwen had been left to navigate the treacherous currents of the ton alone.
She had learned to protect herself from scrutiny, to craft a mask so carefully applied that even she believed it, at times. She no longer noticed the sidelong glances, the whispers, the pity.
Except … it still hurt.
Gwen skirted the edge of the ballroom, her slippers soundless against the polished parquet as she wove past gilt-framed mirrors and marble-topped console tables. She admitted the truth to herself, as painful as it was.
After all these years, she remained disappointed. Disappointed that she had never found her match.
Her parents had shared a great, enduring love.
When her mother fell ill, her father had made a solemn vow to care for Gwen and Gareth.
They had cloistered themselves at home during those final months, tending only to each other, savoring what little time remained.
Mama had passed peacefully, having secured a promise from each of them that they would attend to one another always.
And they had kept that vow.
Papa, Gwen, and Gareth had made every effort to remain a close-knit family.
It had become their unspoken way of honoring her mother’s memory.
Gareth wrote weekly from Eton, and she and Papa would read his letters together in the drawing room after breakfast, sometimes aloud, sometimes in quiet reflection.
Gwen penned their replies, recording little household events, snippets of news, and the small details their mother would have wanted them to share.
Mama would have been proud.
If only Gwen had made a match, she might now have children of her own.
Sweet, clever babes who would carry on that legacy of love and learning.
But it was not to be. If her mother were still alive, Gwen would have sought her counsel on how to navigate the ton with dignity and hope.
But after seven failed Seasons, it was clear that she would never wed.
It might have been easier to relinquish that dream had her father stopped insisting on another turn on the marriage mart each year. He simply refused to believe that his daughter was undesirable to the gentlemen of society.
She watched the dancers twirling beneath the chandeliers, a flurry of silk and muslin, the women’s gowns painted in peacock hues and pale pastels. The gentlemen, by contrast, were adorned in their regulation blacks and midnight blues, the fine cut of their coats whispering wealth and privilege.
And yet, irony remained her only true companion at these balls. Her own father’s events, no less. At her own balls, she barely danced.
A few of Papa’s cronies, gallant and graying, sometimes filled a spot or two on her card out of affection for Frederick Smythe. But on most nights, she was fortunate to secure half a card, if that.
Gwen glanced down now at the delicate rectangle tied to her wrist with a ribbon of pale satin. Three dances remained unclaimed. It was enough time to take some air on the terrace, which would spare her the pitying stares of chattering guests and allow her to recover her composure.
Decision made, she began weaving through the press of lace and brocade near the perimeter, her hand gently brushing aside a cluster of overzealous debutantes as she made for the tall French doors at the far end of the room.
“Miss Smythe!”
She hesitated.
Every instinct urged her to pretend she had not heard and slip outside, but her mother had not raised her to be discourteous. With a practiced, gracious breath, she turned to find Lady Gertrude Hays peering up at her, cheeks flushed, feather bobbing in her turban.
The old lady was kindly, but incurably garrulous. Gwen’s heart sank.
“Are you enjoying your evening, Lady Hays?”
The woman bobbed her head, her hair as white as snow and gathered in a coiffure nearly two decades out of fashion.
Thick strands were pinned in loops about her head, and a once-stylish turban of faded blue silk clung valiantly to her crown.
From it, a blue plume jutted at a reckless angle, trembling with each movement and threatening to poke her in the eye.
Gwen smiled softly and, with careful fingers, reached out to straighten the feather before Lady Hays did herself an injury. The old woman beamed at her touch.
“My great-nephew is here. I should like to introduce him to you, if I may.” She squinted into the throng of dancers and circulating guests, her gaze clouded by age.
After several moments of peering, she turned back to Gwen with a sigh.
“I am afraid I cannot see him. Have you met him? Lord Julius Trafford? He is a dear boy.”
Gwen shook her head, though Trafford’s name was far from unfamiliar. His reputation for fashion and roguish pursuits was well known among society. What he was doing at her father’s ball was a mystery. Perhaps he had taken a sudden interest in one of their guests?
“I have not had the pleasure, my lady.”
“I shall locate him,” Lady Hays declared with determination, the feather now once again wavering precariously.
With great relief, Gwen watched her go, her skirts trailing behind her as she disappeared into the crowd like a homing pigeon set upon its mission.
This, at last, was her moment to escape.
Gathering her ivory skirts in both hands, Gwen strode purposefully toward the tall terrace doors, propriety be hanged.
Her steps were swift, decidedly unladylike, but the guests, engaged in their conversations and dancing, scarcely noticed her passage.
And if they did, well, she doubted their opinions of her could sink any lower.
Reaching the doors, she wrapped slender fingers around the brass handle and opened them with an eager sweep. The music and chatter faded behind her as she stepped outside and drew the door gently closed.
Several guests were already enjoying the night air, leaning against the carved stone balustrade that overlooked her father’s tidy gardens. Gwen gave them a polite nod before turning away, seeking a stretch of solitude.
Rounding the corner of the terrace, she stopped, startled into stillness by the glory above.
A full moon hung low and heavy in the sky, its light bathing the terrace in silver.
The clouds, fat and plush as goose down, glowed with reflected luminescence, while countless stars sparkled across the midnight canvas.
The fragrance of night-blooming jasmine drifted from the garden below, and a cool breeze whispered against her skin.
The sight stole her breath.
For a moment, her bruised feelings and weariness from the evening fell away. The sheer beauty of the night stirred something in her. A longing, tender and unspoken. A yearning for what she had never had.
It was the sort of night meant for lovers. For whispered secrets and tender laughter beneath the stars. A night for shared dreams and clasped hands, for the kind of intimacy that poetry dared to capture but never quite could.
Gwen sighed, her chest rising and falling in time with the breeze. The loveliness of the evening wrapped around her like a silk shawl, beautiful and weightless and tinged with sorrow.
Every young woman ought to share an evening like this with someone who adored her. At least once.
But for Gwen, it seemed such things were not to be.