Chapter 2
Two
“Darling, we should not be seen together.”
“Just a few more moments, and I will be gone. I promise you -.”
They heard footsteps approaching, and the two lovers jumped apart. They knew that if anyone discovered their trysts, her reputation would be ruined. Ruined. Would she risk everything for love?
Ivy sighed. During the rare moments of reprieve from her mother, she was able to engage in her favorite hobby, reading.
She turned the delicate pages of a romance novel smuggled into her hands by one of her closest friends, Gwen.
Her parents hated when she read such books, and had long since forbidden her from buying them. For Ivy, the novel was a rare treasure.
“These books will confuse your thoughts,” her mother had warned, “fill your head with foolish ideas. Or worse,” she paused, looking horrified, “it might brand you as a bluestocking!”
And to her mother, that was simply unacceptable.
Ivy sighed again. No matter what her mother would say, she’d find a way to read books she loved.
She especially liked stories of love and passion.
These books gave her the opportunity to experience things that would never happen in her own life.
She was the daughter her parents were ashamed of, partly due to her unacceptable figure.
Reading provided her with some peace. That evening, the peace was short-lived.
Madeline burst like a storm into her room, flinging the door in uncharacteristic violence.
She was so pale that she frightened her own sister, mirroring the horror that those green eyes—so like her own—conveyed.
Madeline ran to Ivy’s bed and clutched the bedpost as if she wanted to be tied around it.
“Ivy! The duke wants to marry me tomorrow!” she wailed.
“W-what?” Ivy asked, startled. She rested her book on her bedside table.
“The duke! I don’t know how important this contract is to him, but he asked the Archbishop to grant a special license. He even brought him here.”
“He is very determined to marry you,” Ivy said wonderingly.
“Yes! He’s sealing my fate, probably thinking that any woman would want to marry him.”
Ivy placed a gentle hand on Madeline’s shoulder. “Why such urgency? If he knew what Father and Mother are saying about the marriage, he should know that he has their blessing and support.”
“Perhaps. But perhaps he is smarter and more observant than we think. He might be suspecting that I would run away, and therefore, he’s rushing the wedding. Now I won’t be able to have a season anymore. A chance to fall in love, Ivy. That is all I ask!”
Ivy’s heart broke for her sister. Even though their Father and Mother weren’t the best examples, Madeline still wanted a chance at a happy ever after on her own terms. She wanted her season the way Ivy wanted to be immersed in her romance novels.
“Oh, how I wish that our parents had never deceived him,” Ivy murmured while shaking her head. “All of this could have been avoided.”
Madeline flinched at the suggestion. To her sister’s surprise, she shook her head with a great passion. “I have no regrets about the deception. I only need time for myself. The only thing that lends me strength through this forced betrothal is knowing that you are at least free.”
“Free? What do you mean?” Ivy asked, her body stiffening. Was her sister committing the ultimate sacrifice for her sake?
“If the duke knew that you’re the older daughter, you’d be the one trapped, Ivy. Not me. Think about that,” Madeline said softly, as if she were now the one soothing her sister. “He seemed like a man who would follow the rules to the letter. Decent man, but he was certainly not interested in me.”
Silence hovered over the sisters. Ivy swallowed hard as she assessed the situation in which Madeline had found herself in.
Despite her sister’s claim that she had no regrets about being part of the deception, there was a silent plea somewhere there.
She could see it in her younger sister’s eyes and it filtered through her words.
“Come here,” she invited, tapping a space on the bed for her sister to curl in. Madeline did not need a lot of persuading.
Ivy might be the wallflower, the often neglected and almost hidden away daughter, but Madeline was so soft and innocent.
She knew it well enough not to feel terrible when their mother sought to protect and shelter her younger, more elegantly-built daughter.
Still, she also recognized a quiet strength growing within Madeline.
That strength might be crushed if not allowed to grow and flourish first. Ivy felt her spine straighten.
Her sister was not meant for a life that would limit her wants and crush her dreams. She might break under the duke’s coldness. Madeline wanted affection. She wanted true love.
As for Ivy? Perhaps, she had also wanted love once upon a time.
However, she had learned through experience not to have that expectation.
She wanted to tell Madeline that she would not let her do something she would regret one day, perhaps even the very day of the wedding.
However, the younger sister had collapsed onto her bed.
Exhaustion had taken over her body and spirit.
Ivy contemplated her sister’s sleeping figure. They might be only a few years apart, but she still felt like a much older sister in her need to protect Madeline. She watched her sister sleep peacefully, her lashes on her cheeks. Her jaw tightened in determination.
Then she rose from bed, with a plan in mind.
The halls were dark. Candles flickered on the walls, but they were faint and unstable. Ivy’s heart pounded. She did not expect to be flung into a gothic world after she had vividly imagined the romance between Nathaniel and Celia, the characters in her new romance treasure.
There were so many things wrong about sneaking into a man’s bedchamber.
One, it was inappropriate. Even young ladies who were not destined for marriage should take caution.
Two, it was an invasion of privacy. The duke was not waiting in his bedchamber like Nathaniel would for Celia.
Three, she was endangering Father’s and Mother’s dream of being closely associated with a duke.
Desperation won over.
There was also curiosity. After all, she was trying to delve into the life of a man who rarely graced society. He had no affection for balls and gatherings, thus rendering his attendance at such events almost non-existent.
What kind of man was the duke? She’d heard that he was almost a decade older than she was. He had many accomplishments, but certainly not one that involved socializing. How was his family connected to hers, then?
Ivy finally reached the door to the bedroom she assumed was his. She knew that he and her father would be drinking some whiskey before bed. That meant she might still have time to investigate.
A detective novel.
Despite herself, excitement coursed through her nerves. She carefully opened the door and closed it behind her. A single lamp illuminated the duke’s room, casting long, eerie shadows against the walls.
Ivy noticed his presence in every corner. A coat draped over a chair. The scent of sandalwood reminded her of him, although she had never gotten close enough.
Then, there was his desk. A pile of books rested on it. Her curiosity pulled her closer. However, when she got close, she wrinkled her nose in disappointment.
“Ha. Philosophy? How tedious,” she muttered. “Of course, he’d prefer dull books.”
Ivy assumed that the duke would not interest himself in poetry or novels. Despite that, she was also titillated at the opportunity to see something personal to him.
That fascination led to carelessness. She found herself flipping through some pages, eager to find something that might at least give her more perspective on the man. She’d forgotten that she was there to investigate. So, she didn’t notice when he’d entered the room.
“Do my preferences for books offend you, Miss Ivy?”
Ivy jumped off her feet and spun around so quickly that she almost tripped. Even though startled, the way he addressed her registered. He thought she was the younger daughter.
Maximilian Everleigh stood near the doorway with one eyebrow raised. He was still infuriatingly unreadable and handsome even as he looked a little more relaxed, with his formal coat gone and his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar.
“I—I am so sorry for looking into your things! I–I could not help it!” Ivy exclaimed, raising both her hands.
His lips twitched, and she wondered if he was close to showing some more emotion.
“Why are you really here in my bedchamber at night without my permission?”
“I, uh, merely want to understand you, Your Grace,” she managed to stammer a reply.
Then, there was silence. The duke frowned, his eyes narrowed as if he was trying to understand her, instead. To her surprise, his lips curved into what looked like a smile. He seemed amused.
“What have you learned, then, from your explorations?”
“Only that perhaps, erm, your taste in books can be a little…” she breathed out, her eyes drawn again by said tedious literature, but she knew better than being rude. “Some might say it’s unforgivable, but I won’t dream of being unkind.”
“Unforgivable?” the duke echoed, that one brow rising higher. He sounded like he was losing his temper. “What then do you like, Miss Hartwell? What can someone who broke into somebody else’s room think?” He certainly was losing his temper, and Ivy realized the gravity of her actions.
“I prefer books that entertain. I am not against education and concepts that help us become wiser. However, I feel like philosophy books teach us to argue in circles. At some point, we forget why we were arguing in the first place.”
“Entertainment. I am going to guess you like detective novels. You are, after all, here, trying to find out who I am by inspecting my things without my permission.”
“I have never done this before.”
“Gothic novels? With their gloom and doom?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“N-no,” she stammered, her cheeks turning red. She did not expect that he would truly try to get into her head.
“Mm. I’d guess then that you prefer a well-plotted romance, with its entertaining plots and passions. There’s also the certainty of a happy ending in such stories. Are you a romance enthusiast, Miss Ivy?” he asked.
Ivy almost gasped, but two could play the game. If he could repress his emotions and use them only to tease others, she could do it, too. Still, she felt like she had walked into a trap of her own making.
The duke slowly strode toward her. Ivy tried her best to stay her ground. “Tell me, what do you really hope to find here?” the duke asked, no longer pretending to be focused on bantering about book genres. His cold but penetrating eyes bored into her. Assessing. Reading her.
Ivy trembled even as she willed herself not to. Her pulse was racing. The truth was on the tip of her tongue, threatening to spill out of her.
“I am here for the truth,” she said softly. “I want to know the truth about who you are and why you must honor an old contract. More than that,” Ivy took a deep breath, straightening to her full height, “a part of me has been rebelling against my family’s deception.”
“Deception?” This time, there was no denying his stormy expression.
She willed herself to be brave, to think of Madeline and how willing her little sister was to sacrifice her own life under the delusion that Ivy would find true love.
She might not be the willowy beauty her mother wanted her to be, but she respected herself enough to value the truth.
She took a deep breath before she revealed the truth.
“I am the elder Hartwell daughter. Madeline is a few years younger than I am. My Father and Mother made you believe that Madeline was older because they believed that you would not honor the contract if you saw me. They guessed you would not want me. But, Your Grace, if this marriage is to happen, then you must marry me, not her.”
Silence fell on them again. This time, even as she feared the duke’s reaction, her body had become warmer after the initial tension slowly dissipated.
Ivy thought she’d finally be met with a more fiery reaction. Anger? Disbelief? There must be something. However, the duke had retreated. The amusement he’d displayed earlier shrank back and he returned to the colder and unreadable version of himself.
“You’re offering yourself in your sister’s place?” he asked.
“Yes, Your Grace,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “In this way, you would be honoring your family’s wishes. The marriage will not be built on lies As the older daughter, I know what roles a duchess must play.”
Uncertainty crept from her voice. She was lying here. She had absolutely no idea what to expect because she had never even planned to marry. What she was doing was rash and desperate.
His gaze on her remained steady. It was unsettling, but she could not look away, either.
“Did I hear it right? Does your age make you more suitable as my duchess?” he demanded, as his hand extended to pick a lint from her robe. He was so close that her errant brain was becoming even more muddled.
“Your Grace, I am not anyone’s first choice.
I have no illusions that I will be. However, I am agreeable, and know the importance of duty.
If you marry Madeline, she’d try her best, as well, but resentment will fester in her heart.
She will never be happy. As a result, neither will you. She still hopes for true love.”
Again, there was an agonizing stretch of silence. Ivy wondered if it was always like that—talking to the Duke of Everleigh.
“Thank you for your honesty, Miss Hartwell.”
Ivy reminded herself that there was no agreement or decision. The duke was simply acknowledging the truth. Then, she felt it—the rush of embarrassment for putting herself in a situation where she could be rejected by someone other than her family.
What did she expect? The duke had already made plans to marry Madeline. He had enough power to twist the narrative a little, not quite as circular as a philosophy book but every bit as entertaining as the literature she preferred.
Ivy accepted that she had made a gamble and that she had lost. With gaze lowered and hands clenched into fists, she nodded at the duke. She could not even muster a proper curtsey. Where was the duchess in that?
“I will take my leave, Your Grace.”
Without another word, she left his bedchamber. She did not even feel afraid and ashamed at leaving a man’s room at night. Her mind was too focused on trying and losing, in desperate humiliation.