Chapter 7
Ives hopped out of his carriage shortly after noon. He walked toward a figure in the portico of Mrs. Ludlow’s School for Girls. “It is a fair day, is it not, Miss Belvoir?”
She looked up from where she had been poking into her reticule. A valise rested beside her feet. “Oh. You. What are you doing here?”
“I received a letter this morning, from Mrs. Ludlow. It had been sent to my brother’s house, and a messenger brought it to me.
She thinks I am a lawyer for your relatives, and wanted to ensure that you were not left to your own devices.
” It had been a peculiar letter, full of misunderstandings about his role in Padua’s life.
Half gossip imparting confidences, half guilt-ridden mother worried for her child, Mrs. Ludlow had been most effective in leaving him no choice but to interfere.
“She feels guilty. She should not.”
“Perhaps she only felt responsible.” He pointed at the valise. “Is this about last night? Did she see me with you?”
“It is about my father.” She picked up her valise. “I was about to walk out to hire a carriage, but since you are here your man can take me and I can save the fee.”
He removed the valise from her grip. “In the least we will take you wherever you want to go. However, perhaps if I went and spoke to Mrs. Ludlow, I could convince her to let you stay.”
“Please do not. She is distraught enough that she might just agree, and the school would suffer for it. This is probably for the best. I have things to do that require me to be abroad in town now. I cannot keep slipping away. I will manage, and find other employment.”
He set the valise in the carriage and handed her up. “Where do you want to go now?”
She settled in. “My father has chambers that he is not using presently. I may as well make use of them instead. The rent is paid for a while. Tell your man to take me to Wigmore Street.”
He climbed in and sat across from her. “No.”
“It is the most logical solution to my current predicament.”
“I cannot allow it. If you take residence there, it will only continue the attention you have already drawn.”
“I do not think what you would or would not allow signifies. I hope that you are not one of those men who believes one kiss allows him to dictate to a woman.”
“This is about your well-being. You invite the worst suspicions if you live in your father’s apartment. Of more concern to me is that his accomplices know about those chambers, and might well visit them. You are too smart to take the risk of attracting their attention too.”
She did not immediately argue against his reasoning.
“You are a very good barrister, aren’t you?” she finally said. “That was neat. Very well done. I am without recourse in the discussion.”
“I like to think I am persuasive when I choose to be.”
“You are most persuasive. Expensively so. It appears I will go to a hotel tonight, and seek out my own chambers for the days ahead. Perhaps you can recommend a hotel that is suitable for a woman alone who is not without means, but hardly well to do.”
“I know of an excellent place that will suit you splendidly for a few days at least.”
She stiffened so much her head rose an inch. “Where is this place?”
“You will see.” He turned and gave the coachman the street.
When he turned back, rigidity had left her posture.
“You worried I meant my own home, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Of course not. It was only one kiss. Well, two. You would never assume I was amenable to staying in your own home after such a small intimacy.”
“Only one kiss? A small intimacy? I am insulted, Miss Belvoir.”
“I think you view it the same way, and were as astonished as I that it even happened.”
How wrong she was. That kiss had been coming for days now.
In the dark silence of the coach, its descendants clamored to be born.
He doubted she experienced the same anticipation, but the mood in the small space crackled with the charged atmosphere of desire.
The wicked side of him started making arguments for behaving badly.
The coach drew to a stop. She looked out the window. “This is not a hotel.”
“It is a place where you will be safe and well cared for, however.” He opened the door, stepped out, and offered his hand.
She alighted, and angled back her head to look up the facade. “Where am I?”
“This is my family’s home. It is the Duke of Aylesbury’s town house.”
“It appears the size of ten houses.”
“That means it has plenty of space for you.” He reached in for her valise, and handed it to a footman who had come down from the door.
“Come along. I will see you settled. This evening we will share some dinner. Then I will leave you to rattle around inside to your heart’s content.
You will have privacy. No one else is here except servants now. ”
She took a few steps, then hesitated. “I should insist you have the carriage take me to a hotel.”
“Mrs. Ludlow made me responsible for your safety. I would be obliged if you did not make the charge more difficult.”
“I suppose if you put it that way . . .” She accepted his escort to the door. “I should not allow that one inexplicable kiss to make me suspicious of your intentions.”
“You are too generous.”
* * *
Padua agreed to accept the offer of sanctuary in part because curiosity about the interior of the house consumed her. Ives lived luxuriously on his own, and she suspected his family’s house would impress even more.
The mansion did not disappoint her. The reception hall alone could hold a good-sized apartment.
A staircase towered up a well, wrapping it again and again as it ascended five levels.
Appointments and paintings of incalculable value decorated tables and walls.
She experienced the urge to speak only in whispers, lest she disturb the noble ghosts living within.
Ives handed her over to a housekeeper, who led her above to a fine chamber on the third level. Almost Spartan in its elegance, it suited her with its white bedcoverings and drapes and finely wrought mahogany furniture.
The most decorative element, with pride of place beneath a window, was a gorgeous, small writing desk with elaborate multicolored inlaid patterns on its ebony surfaces.
It sounded a contrasting note of excess and whimsy to the chamber’s simple melody.
She pictured it covered with books. She would study them at leisure by good lamplight, instead of for an hour now and then when a stub of candle offered a bit of light at night.
A girl appeared, to help her unpack her valise and to help her wash. The servants acted as if her visit had been expected, and as if she did not appear far poorer than any of them and thus a peculiar visitor for this house to have.
When she finally found herself alone, she sat on the bed and marveled at her sudden change in circumstances. It would not last, but for a day or so she would not have to worry about where she would sleep and what she would eat.
What must it be like to never, ever have to worry about such things? She could not imagine such a life in full, but for a few moments she had a hint of what it must taste like.
That Ives had become her benefactor complicated her contentment. He had helped her more than he needed to. Perhaps he felt guilty about that kiss. Perhaps he even thought of it with regret, and felt foolish.
She was not the sort of woman he probably kissed most of the time. He had certainly concluded that wisdom decreed he should have never let sympathy for her distress over those letters lure him into comforting her in quite that way.
She was not such a goose as to put much stock in that kiss, even if it had been very nice. Nor was she such a child as to pretend it had not happened. Still, the less said about it, the better.
She would let it slide into the past immediately, so it did not inform their dealings with each other after this. Which did not mean she would not enjoy the memory for a very long time.
* * *
That evening, her servant girl let her know that dinner waited. Dressed as she had been all day, Padua descended the staircase. Ives lounged in the reception hall. She spied him before he heard her, and she paused to look at him.
He had changed his clothes for dinner. The dark coats and pantaloons and boots gave him a strong presence on that chair despite his relaxed pose.
His face in repose displayed all its fine beauty, and his expression, deep in thought, caused one to want to know his mind.
His eyes’ expression reminded her of what she had seen right before that kiss, only now the attention went inward.
Then he directed that intense gaze toward her. Her legs turned wobbly.
He rose. “I hope you are hungry. The cook has been busy.”
“I am very hungry. However, is it wise for you to be here considering your involvement in my father’s case?”
“Only if I do not allow you to influence my judgment. That will be our rule at this meal—no talk of his situation. It will do you good to have a respite from that worry.”
He escorted her to the dining room. The majestic chamber awed her. The table went on and on. The draperies alone probably cost more than her valise would ever hold. Blues and reds dominated, with plenty of silver and gold reflecting the large candelabras’ lights.
“Goodness,” she murmured, looking this way and that as she took it all in.
“It is a little old-fashioned, and perhaps too colorful,” Ives said. “My late brother, the last duke, refused to redecorate until he married, which he never did.”
“And the current duke?”
“Also unmarried, and not much interested in such things.”
“Marriage, or decorating?”
“Both, so it will probably persist looking as it has all my life for many years longer.”
“I cannot imagine always knowing this luxury. Do you lose sight of it due to familiarity?”
“I suppose I do.”
He handed her to the table. Their places had been set across from each other at one end.