Chapter 3
Morning light fell thin and pale on the Fenwicks’ drawing room. The curtains had been pulled back with an air of injured dignity, as if even the damask disapproved of the household it framed.
The Viscount stood near the fireplace with a glass of barley water in his hand, like a scepter of prudence, though the sour line of his mouth betrayed last night’s wine.
“You hid yourself,” he said, not loudly, but in the flat tone that preceded a temper flare. “At a ball hosted by people who were kind enough to invite you. Kindness is wasted on a girl who cannot be seen.”
Gwen kept her voice even. “I stepped out for fresh air.”
“You stepped out to avoid your duty.” Howard set the glass down with a click. “No prospects. No interest. No conversation worth the name. You have a talent for discouraging men.”
“Perhaps it’s the men who have the talent for discouraging me,” Gwen said before she could stop herself.
Cordelia’s breath caught. “Howard, she means nothing by it. The heat was dreadful. I myself could barely stand it.”
Howard turned around, his gaze sliding over Cordelia like a blade. “Do not interrupt, My Lady.”
Gwen moved an inch closer to her mother. “You are angry, My Lord. I will accept your correction if you must deliver it. But do not scold her for wanting me to be comfortable.”
Howard looked at her face as if judging an insolent servant. Color rose in his cheekbones. “I am angry because you flirt with idleness as if it were a suitor. You have already ruined your reputation. You will do nothing now but tarnish it further.”
“I spoke to several gentlemen,” Gwen countered. “Lord Herne asked after my health. Mr. Paxton inquired whether I enjoyed Italian airs. The Viscount Evingale complimented the orchestra.”
“All of them beneath what I seek.” Howard’s lip curled. “And you hid yourself the moment I turned my head. Do not pretend otherwise.”
Cordelia took a step forward. “She did not hide. She needed to take the air—as I recommended, darling.”
Gwen saw the ripple in his shoulders before he moved. She acted without thinking, placing herself between them with her hands raised and her chin jutted. “No.”
The single word stopped him for a heartbeat. Only for a heartbeat. The room held its breath.
Howard gave a small smile that did not touch his eyes. “You have taken to heroics, my girl,” he said. “Not to worry. You will tire of it.”
“I will never tire of it where my mother is concerned.”
The silence stretched. It snapped when the clock on the mantel chimed the hour.
Howard’s smile vanished. He lifted his hand, then let it fall, as if the effort of striking were too much for his throbbing head.
“Leave me,” he barked. “Both of you. I have a headache. I do not have the energy to deal with your antics.”
Gwen did not move immediately. She felt her mother trembling at her shoulder, heard the small intake of breath that meant relief, fear, love, and old habit embracing one another within the same fragile chest.
She reached behind her and took her mother’s hand. “Come, Mama,” she said softly, pulling her into the corridor.
She kept hold of her hand until they reached the small morning room, where a tray of weak tea waited.
Cordelia sat and pressed a handkerchief to her eyes. “He did not mean to frighten me,” she rasped, already making excuses for the man. “He is not himself after wine.”
“It’s first thing in the morning. He is precisely himself,” Gwen argued.
She hated herself for the thought, because hatred burned and left nothing behind but ash.
She poured her mother a teacup with steady hands. “Drink a little. It will settle you.”
Cordelia obeyed. The china rattled against the saucer. “I am sorry,” she said. “I know I should not speak when he is in a foul temper.”
“You should speak whenever you like,” Gwen scoffed. “A husband is not a jailer. Nor is he a lash.”
Cordelia’s lips trembled. She nodded, but it was the nod of a woman who wished to agree and could not quite persuade her mind to follow. “When you are married, you will find that marriage requires forbearance.”
“If I am ever married, I shall require respect.”
Gwen should not have said it, for her mother flinched. It felt like a blow to her pride.
She turned away and stared at the garden beyond the window. The hedges were green as polished jade. A thrush scolded at the far wall.
We must leave. We must run and never look back. If only there were a way.
There were ways. But they cost money.
A hired coach. Rooms in a lodging house where no one looked too closely at names. A small cottage far from London, where her mother could rest and William could visit in the holidays. Money could be turned into safety if one were clever and quick.
Where would she find it?
Her mind drifted, reluctant as a decent girl at a hedgerow kiss. It reached for last night’s garden, for the man who had stood unmasked in the shadows as if the world itself were his confederate.
The Duke of Greystone had looked at her and found her. He had warned her and then pressed his thumb to her mouth as if she were an instrument he meant to tune. He had taken his pleasure with a widow in a public garden and had not bothered to hide his face.
He could pay to keep that face untroubled by gossip.
Gwen closed her eyes. The thought sat in her mind like a viper in a basket, quiet and deadly and useful if one knew the tune to charm it.
I cannot. I should not. It is vile.
Cordelia’s soft sob tore through the room.
Gwen opened her eyes and found her mother’s shoulders shaking, her glove pressed hard to her mouth. There were no bruises today, but there might be tomorrow.
There would be next month. There would be many.
Gwen set the tea aside and knelt before her. “Mama, look at me.”
Cordelia looked up.
Gwen saw the woman who had once laughed at summer storms and danced with her little daughter on the terrace when rain cooled the pavers. That woman lived within this frightened lady. She could be saved.
She must be saved.
“I love you, Mama. It will be better soon.” She squeezed her mother’s hand.
Forgive me, God, for what I am about to do.
Night smelled like clean rain that had not yet fallen. Gwen left through the servants’ door, with a cloak pulled up to her chin and a plain bonnet that hid the gleam of her hair. She kept to side streets and hackneys whose drivers would not meet a lady’s eye.
The city watched from shuttered windows and narrow alleys, curious as any neighbor and almost as talkative.
Greystone House rose like a quiet omen above the square. The lamps on either side of the door spilled gold puddles into the darkness.
Gwen’s heart was battering at her ribs. She told it to behave. Fear did not help a woman spend what little courage she possessed.
She mounted the steps and rang the bell.
The butler answered as if strangers called at midnight every day. He was discreet to the point of banishment. His eyes took in her cloak, her covered hair, the quality of her shoes, and the steadiness of her chin. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“I would speak to the Duke of Greystone,” she declared, forcing her voice into a lower register that sounded older and less likely to swoon.
“Of course,” he said, neither surprised nor disapproving. “May I ask for your name?”
“You may not,” she said. “But you may tell His Grace that a lady would be obliged if he granted her a few minutes in his study.”
The butler studied her. She could feel him weighing his options. Then, he stepped aside with perfect calm. “If you will wait here.”
She stood in a square of darkness and polished floor. The house smelled of beeswax and leather, and of something like cedar that made her think of trunks filled with secrets. A clock ticked. Somewhere, a door closed.
“Ma’am,” the butler called. “This way, if you please.”
He led her down a quiet corridor to a cracked door. The lamplight within was soft and welcoming.
The butler tapped on the door, opened it, and then bowed her through.
The Duke’s study was tidy yet disorderly in a way typical of a busy gentleman. Papers were scattered on his desk. A decanter stood half full. The fire had dwindled to embers that looked like the heart of a ruby.
And there was the Duke himself.
He had discarded his coat. His cravat lay on a chair like a silk serpent. The first buttons of his shirt had been undone, and the column of his throat was a sin a woman could fall into. His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms.
He looked like work and indulgence in equal measure.
Gwen stood very straight. She hated herself for looking, then hated herself for hating it. She needed her wits. She did not need to admire the enemy.
He was surprised. She saw it in the slight stiffening of his back, before his shoulders relaxed. His gaze flickered to the hood of her cloak, then to her hands, then back to her face.
“How may I serve you, Madam?”
She had rehearsed a sentence that began with his title and ended with a request for five hundred pounds. It deserted her like a cowardly ally.
For a moment, she could not speak.
He drew closer a step, not quite courteous, not quite intimate. “A chair, if you prefer. Wine, if you require it. Words, if you have them.”
She lifted her chin. The memory of his thumb on her mouth burned like shame and a warning. “You are careless, Your Grace.”
“Am I? I am often told the opposite.”
“You were careless last night.” She was grateful for the steadiness of her tone. “A lady in a garden. No mask. A face that would sell a thousand copies of the morning papers. Quite careless.”
Her voice wavered despite her attempt at boldness. She hated how her fingers trembled against her cloak, hated even more that his steady gaze made her feel both exposed and strangely warm.
He studied her for a brief moment, before understanding dawned in his eyes. It flashed across his features like a small, silent flame.
His mouth curved. “I see.”