Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Betsy rose so hurriedly, she almost tripped on the skirt of her hem.
“What the—”
Rupert had risen also, his face astonished as he stared at the door. She turned also, staring as her heart beat frantically as she waited to hear a repeat of the noise she almost thought she had imagined.
They were, after all, essentially alone in the house. Lady Jarrold had almost certainly seen out the last of her guests, and would undoubtedly have gone to her own bedchamber, if she truly would be leaving early the next morning to visit her daughter.
The servants would be abed. At least, Betsy thought wildly as she looked around the room, desperate to find a clock, they would be asleep, wouldn’t they?
Her eyes alighted on a small carriage clock on the mantlepiece. Treading carefully towards it, desperately trying not to make any sound, she examined its face.
Four o’clock in the morning.
She stared, hardly able to believe the sight. Four o—four o’clock in the morning? Surely she and Rupert had not been talking that long, had not been kissing that long…
Perhaps they had lost track of a little time, but surely not the entire night?
Betsy bit her lip as she turned back to Rupert. They were about to be discovered then, were they?
Another loud knock at the door seemed to answer her unspoken question. “Anyone there?”
Betsy turned her eyes desperately to Rupert, who was having his own problems.
“Where is my shirt?” he hissed, urgently turning on the spot as he looked around the room.
She had to laugh, if only a little, and made sure to muffle the noise. Well, she at least was still wearing her gown, and though her hair was undoubtedly a little unruly—what a desperate shame there was no looking glass in the place—she at least could pretend to be presentable.
Rupert, on the other hand, was naked from the waist up, eyes wide and panic searing across his face.
“I swear I heard someone in there,” came a muffled voice from the door. “We’d better call Mrs. Lane.”
A muffled swear word emanated from Rupert as he attempted both to pull on one of his boots, and crouch low enough to look under the sofa for his cravat, toppling himself completely in a heap onto the floor.
Betsy stifled another laugh. this was not a laughing matter! They were discovered, about to be found out, just the two of them in here…and that could only mean one thing.
Her heart was racing, skipping beats occasionally and causing pain to rush through her chest, but she knew what was about to happen.
Had he not told her? Oh, perhaps not in words; perhaps Rupert had not specifically said that he was going to ask her to be his bride, but he had been quite clear throughout just how strongly he felt about her.
“What, love at first sight?”
Yes, he had not said he loved her…but was it not obvious? Was it not clear, no matter whether the words had been audible, that he cared for her?
Betsy’s stomach lurched most delightfully as she watched the handsome man scrabble about the floor, reaching underneath the sofa as best he could in the search of that piece of material.
And she? She…was this love? This warm aching feeling, this sense that she never wanted to be anywhere away from Rupert because right here, beside him, was where she felt most at home?
“There’s something under here,” came his muffled voice from underneath the sofa.
Betsy tried not to giggle as she strode over to him. “If you cannot find your cravat—”
“Is this yours?” Rupert straightened up holding a dazzling shiny diamond earbob in his hand.
Her fingers flew to her ears, to the diamond earbobs in her ears—to the one, singular earbob in her ear.
“Thank you!” Betsy’s fingers shook slightly as she took the earring from him and placed it back in her ear.
Even through their conversation, the gentle pattering sound of running footsteps out the library were impossible to ignore. People would be here, soon, and there would be possibility of explaining away what they had been doing here.
Why, Betsy thought with a grin, you only had to look at Rupert’s hair to see that he—oh goodness, her hair!
She turned hastily on the spot, looking around the room, but she could see no looking glass or gilt mirror that she could inspect her own reflection. Oh, her hair was going to be absolutely mussed, there was no possibility the servants would not know precisely what had happened here!
But to Betsy’s rather strange surprise, she discovered that she did not care. What did it matter, if the world knew that they loved each other?
They were going to be married. They were going to—
Goodness. Betsy swallowed as Rupert finally found his cravat and started hastily tying it around his collar. If they were going to be married, and he was a prince…
Well.
The door shook. “Damned key won’t work! The lock is jammed!”
“I told you I had nothing to do with it,” teased Rupert under his breath as he grinned at her.
Betsy permitted him a sardonic smile. “Tell me, do I look presentable?”
His eyes raked over her, but instead of examining her features for respectability, it appeared that Rupert had something rather different on his mind. “You look good enough to eat—”
“Rupert!”
“Well, you asked,” he shrugged with that regal calm Betsy could hardly believe he could maintain.
They were about to eb discovered! Oh, it would be so much easier if she did not care for him; but she did. There was no denying it, no challenging the truth of the matter; that even in these short hours, Rupert had managed to captivate her heart in a way she would have deemed impossible.
But one could not argue with the truth. In fact—
“There!”
The door slammed open and Betsy jerked her head around to see who their discoverers were.
There, blinking in the sudden light of the fire and candles within the library, stood two footman and a woman who had to be the housekeeper. All three of them stared, agog, at the two inhabitants of the library.
Betsy swallowed. her heart was racing so rapidly, so loudly, she was certain that they would be able to hear it, all of them; Rupert too. Did he know, could he know just how quickly he had managed to capture her affections?
Not that they could discuss it now. She was about to cause a scandal with a sovereign; at least, until Rupert revealed their engagement to the servants.
A delicate flush creeped over her cheeks, and Betsy found herself bringing her hands together before her a little nervously, which was not like her.
Their engagement! Words had not been necessary between them, Rupert understood her just as she understood him. They had emerged into a completely different world; a world in which they loved each other.
“But—but all the guests left hours ago,” spluttered the housekeeper. “I saw the last out myself!”
“Clearly not, Mrs. Lane,” muttered one of the footmen.
He was treated to a stern glare by the woman, something Betsy approved of greatly.
“Thank you,” the housekeeper said coolly. She turned back to Betsy and Rupert. “What on earth has happened?”
Instinctively, Betsy turned to Rupert, and saw with utter astonishment that she had never seen a man look so calm and so collected in her life. Perhaps that was part of being a member of the royal family; there was never anything one could not overcome, given the right words.
Or the right bribes.
A warm sense of happiness soared through her. He was about to do it; announce their engagement. They had shared so much in such a short amount of time, but this felt right.
It was strange; whenever Betsy had attempted to imagine this moment, she had never been able to; had never been able to picture the gentleman, nor the circumstances in which it would occur.
And now she knew why. Because she could never have permitted her imagination to picture a prince, much less that she would give him her innocence in a library—a library, of all places!—before they were married.
But it felt right—she may not have planned it, but everything had slotted into place, as though it was always destined. This was how love had happened.
“Happened?” Rupert said lightly, glancing at Betsy. “Nothing has happened.”
Betsy’s mouth fell open.
"Happened? Nothing has happened.”
Just out of the corner of his eye, Rupert was vaguely aware that Betsy’s mouth had fallen open. She was going to have to pretend a lot better than that, if they were going to get out of Lady Jarrold’s house without a scandal!
Unfortunately, it appeared the servants were just as unconvinced.
“Nothing happened?” repeated one of the footmen, frowning slightly. “But—”
“But how did you manage to get locked in?” interrupted the housekeeper, looking far more bewildered. “The lock was jammed!”
“I could not possibly say, we were just as confused as you are,” said Rupert smoothly.
All his training as a royal came to the fore, all those years of calmly explaining away very simple things came back to him, and Rupert found almost to his horror that he was rather enjoying this.
Well, what was the point of being a royal if one did not have a little fun with it, every now and again?
“Thank you for releasing us, of course,” he continued before any of the servants could say anything. “I will see Lady Elizabeth out.”
There was such a strong note of dismissal in his tones that Rupert was delighted—and in truth, a little relieved—to see the servants bow and curtsy, then walk through the drawing room and into the hall.
The door to the hall closed with an echoing click.
Rupert’s shoulders sagged and he turned to Betsy with a smile. “Well, that was—”
“What on earth do you think you’re playing at?”
He stared. Red dots had appeared on Betsy’s cheeks, her eyes wide and her expression astonished, hurt, pained.
Hurt? Rupert did not understand. Could she not see that he had managed to stave off a scandal of the most dramatic proportions?
She was the one who had been so nervous of her own reputation.
Was it not likely that if he had simply admitted everything to those servants—and who knew if they had any discretion whatsoever—that they would immediately tell the world?
But for some inexplicable reason, Betsy was staring at him as though he had done her a great injury. As though he had betrayed her in some way—which was ridiculous, he had not even asked her yet.
“Playing at?” Rupert repeated, frowning slightly. “I do not understand what—”
“Neither do I! I do not understand why you would say such a thing!”
It was all he could do, in the face of her ire and her beauty, to think of anything to say. Rupert was tired, exhaustion starting to seep through into his bones now that they had been released from the locked library, and it was all he could do to concentrate enough to stay in the conversation.
But then a tear, just a small one, trickled down Betsy’s face and his concentration sharpened immediately. She was crying?
“I thought you were going to—before they arrived, I thought—but then you didn’t!” spluttered Betsy.
Rupert stared. How on earth was he supposed to decipher something like that?
About to ask…
“Betsy, I have to ask you something…”
Heat flushed his cheeks. Well, what did she think of him, that he could merely announce something like that before he had asked her, before he had spoken to his parents—and to a servant, no less!
“I was hardly going to make assumptions about—about certain questions, and what kind of answer I would receive,” he said hastily, embarrassment prickling at the corners of his heart. “Betsy, I—”
“That is Lady Elizabeth to you, I think,” she said stiffly.
Rupert stared. Surely she was not going to break with him over a simple misunderstanding!
Besides, he was a Crown Prince! Crown Princes could not simply go around proposing marriage to young ladies, even if he wanted to. And he did want to, but that did not mean he could offer such things before he had spoken with his parents.
“I don’t think you had any intention of asking me anything,” Betsy said haughtily, pain dripping from every word as she strode across the room to the door. “I think you saw an opportunity to bed a woman who had no other option—”
“Betsy, wait—”
“—and the moment you saw you could escape, you snatched at it,” she continued relentless, turning to glare at him. “Well, Your Grace, I think I am quite done with this particular scandal with a sovereign. No one will believe you, by the way, I would imagine my name is quite ruined.”
Rupert tried to think, tried to wade through the tiredness, tried to make sense of it all, but it was all happening too quickly for him. Why would she assume the worst of him, why could she not see that he wanted to—
“Good day, Your Grace,” Betsy said firmly.
“Betsy!”
She slammed the library door and her footsteps could be heard through it.
Rupert lunged forward. In a small miracle, the library door had not jammed and he was able to throw it open, following the footsteps of the woman he loved as best he could, but by the time he reached the hall, still dark in the early hours of the morning…she was gone.
She was gone.
Rupert half fell, half sat on the top of the stairs, slumping against the banister as he tried to take in the truth.
She was gone. The woman he loved was gone, the woman he had bedded, the woman who held the key to his happiness. The woman he had wished to marry, just as soon as he had managed to speak with his parents.
And he didn’t even know her full name.