Chapter 4
Gwen returned to Fenwick House with the city still damp and murmuring from a late mist, slipped through the servants’ door, and climbed the back stairs on aching legs.
She reached her chamber and sat on the edge of her bed to unpin her hair. The pins clinked into the dish like pointless little swords.
She meant to lie down for only a minute, but her body had other plans. She folded to the coverlet, boots and cloak and all, with the relief of a soldier who had reached a trench.
Her eyes snapped open at once. Or so it felt.
The bell in the lower hall had not yet finished its dying peal. Someone knocked on her dressing room door and opened it without waiting.
Martha bobbed a curtsy, flustered and apologetic. “You’re wanted downstairs, My Lady. His Lordship says that you are to sit in the morning room. Suitors may call.”
Gwen pushed herself upright. The room tilted.
Suitors. Of course.
She had intended to sleep, to think, to count the cost of last night’s bargain in solitude. Instead, she was to be arranged on a sofa like a vase and made to bloom on command.
She swallowed her irritation and nodded. “Tell His Lordship that I am coming.”
She did not add that she would come at the speed of a woman who had not slept.
The mirror offered her a pale mouth and a pair of stubborn eyes. She washed her face in cold water and pinched her cheeks until life returned to them.
In the morning room, the fire had been coaxed into something akin to cheerfulness.
Howard stood by the window, already dressed for town, a small roll of paper in his hand as if he meant to stride out and purchase fate. He did not look at her when she entered.
“Sit. A gentleman may call. If no one calls, you will sit until noon. I have business to attend to,” he spoke to the window.
Cordelia forced a smile. “Will you dine with us later, my dear?”
Howard tucked the paper into his pocket. “I will dine where I am required. Try to avoid embarrassing yourselves in my absence.”
He left without further ceremony.
The house exhaled once, then pretended nothing had happened. Gwen took a seat and tried to look as if she were not sitting in order to be inspected.
The long minutes unfurled. The clock spoke its thin truth. Her head drooped despite herself. She rested it against the corner of the sofa and thought of nothing at all.
That was bliss.
“Wake up,” her mother whispered.
The whisper arrived with a small, embroidered missile. The pillow bounced off Gwen’s shoulder with gentility and mortification combined.
Gwen sat upright, blinking.
Cordelia’s eyes were wide with a mix of apology and excitement. “A caller,” she breathed.
A hundred possibilities flew at Gwen and skittered away.
The Duke. Perhaps he sent word… or the money.
Do not be a fool, Gwendoline. He would never present himself like a shopman at our door. Calm down.
A footman she had never seen before entered with a small tray. Upon it lay a single card and a sealed vellum packet edged in silver. No gentleman followed.
The strange footman bowed. “A messenger for Lady Gwendoline,” he announced, before walking over to Gwendoline.
He leaned in and whispered, “From the Duke of Greystone, My Lady.”
Gwen took the envelope and broke the seal. A faint scent drifted to her nose, something like roses kept in an iron casket. She read the neat, assured hand.
The Duchess of Bellweather requests the company of Lady Gwendoline Reeves at a private garden party this Wednesday at four o’clock. Sundials, Riverside. Intimate musical selections to be performed. Tea and light conversation to follow. Present card to be admitted.
Gwen read it twice more to be certain she was not hallucinating.
The Duchess of Bellweather was a creature of fashion and force.
Her parties were the kind of gatherings that begat other gatherings, and then anecdotes, and then paragraphs in gossip columns that pretended to be casual praise while tallying winners for the Season.
The Duchess took pains to curate her guest lists. She did not invite troublesome spinsters who spent last year being seen with gentlemen they had never met.
Cordelia pressed her fingers to her lips. “Oh, darling.”
Gwen managed a small, careful smile. “It appears I am to drink tea among sundials.”
“Praise heaven,” Cordelia whispered. “Perhaps last year will be forgotten after all!”
Gwen folded the invitation and slid it into the pocket sewn into her gown. Her heart did a small, alarmed flutter.
Why invite me now? Who put my name on Her Grace’s list?
A duke could put any name on any list. Not always, but often enough.
“Shall I send our acceptance?” her mother asked.
“Yes,” Gwen said. “By all means.”
She had wanted money and to disappear. Instead, she had received an invitation that would put her under every eye that mattered. It was the opposite of hiding. It was also perhaps the only way to discover whether the Duke meant to pay his debt or play a longer game.
She smoothed her skirts and sat very straight while the fire flickered. The clock chimed again. Sleep dragged at her bones. She smiled at nothing at all to keep her face from revealing that she wished to curl up like a child.
Wednesday is tomorrow. Perhaps I can sleep until then.
If the Duchess of Bellweather desired to see her, then she would see a lady composed, common as sunlight, impossible to scandalize. At least until tomorrow.
“Go upstairs, my love. Howard won’t be back until late tonight.”
“Are you sure?” Gwen asked, half awake, before standing and moving toward the door without another word.
Sleep claimed her before she could summon another thought.
By morning, sunlight spilled across her pillow like a summons. Martha’s cheerful fussing and the rustle of silk soon followed.
Cordelia had stopped by and chittered while she was getting ready. She explained that she had somehow managed to let Gwendoline go to the event without a chaperone, as “It would not be appropriate, darling. You were not allowed a chaperone on the invitation.”
“Is that not intended, though? Won’t he find it rather improper?”
“The Duchess’s wishes shall not be challenged, my dear. Go ahead; we’ll be here when you return.”
Before Gwen quite knew how, she was dressed, gloved, and bound for the Duchess of Bellweather’s garden.
The foliage and flora were a theater in green. The expansive lawns spread in precise panels, hedges rose like walls of clipped emerald, and beyond them, the river made a glassy ribbon under a benevolent sky.
The Duchess herself was receiving guests from a pavilion striped in cream and blue, her turban fixed with a ridiculous aigrette that only a woman very certain of her status could carry without drowning in laughter.
“Lady Gwendoline,” she greeted with bright politeness, as if they had been acquainted for years. “How good of you to come.”
“It is an honor, Your Grace,” Gwen replied with a curtsy that could pass inspection.
The Duchess let her go with a touch of fingers and turned to castigate a viscount who had arrived with the wrong shoes for grass.
Gwen escaped along a path where roses bred by Italian monks attempted to reach heaven without scandal.
“Over here,” hissed a very un-Italian voice.
Arabella flew at her like a silk comet and seized both her hands. Eleanor followed with greater dignity and a quizzing eyebrow.
“You received it,” Arabella said. “We prayed over the post and lit two candles. Eleanor refused a third, since it would be untidy.”
“One does not light candles for the post,” Eleanor argued. “One simply writes better letters. You look pale, Gwen. Are you indisposed?”
“Only tired,” Gwen answered. “There have been a great deal of mornings in our house and very few nights.”
“You must tell us everything,” Arabella demanded. “Begin with last evening. You disappeared like a heroine in a novel. Eleanor and I were forced to speak to Mrs. Danforth. She believes that lemon creams are a spiritual trial.”
Gwen laughed, which rescued her from saying the whole truth. She told the shape of it. A garden. A shadowed walk. A gentleman who should have kept his mask on. No names. No bargain. Her voice remained light, as if she were recounting a silly mishap with a flounce and a muddy patch.
Eleanor’s eyes sharpened. “You saw something that could have been heard from every mouth in Mayfair this morning. It was not.”
“Because I am discreet,” Gwen quipped.
She tried to keep the pride from her voice. It slipped in anyway. It was foolish to feel pride for keeping silent about a matter that should never have been hers to discuss.
Arabella leaned closer. “You are certain you are safe? Greystone is said to be all ice and iron in public, but there are whispers about what lies beneath. They say his father was a brute. They say there is a beast inside him that he keeps muzzled only by rules and numbers.”
Eleanor shot her a look. “Do not repeat every piece of gossip you overhear. The late Duke was harsh; that much is true. It does not necessarily mean that his son is cruel.”
Gwen pretended to focus on a rose petal.
The rumor had teeth, but she had felt none of them last night. She had felt a kind of controlled heat that was more alarming than violence because it required cooperation.
One cannot be forced to play a game. One can be lured into a tournament.
“It is all nonsense,” she said, her tone a shade too brisk.
Arabella, who knew her too well, made a soft sound. “If you are in trouble, you will tell us. You will not try to manage it alone.”
“I am always in trouble,” Gwen drawled. “I find it charming.”
“Charming,” Eleanor said dryly, “is not the word that comes to mind.”
Gwen would have laughed again to ease their worries, but she did not get the chance. The sensation of being watched skittered across her skin like a draft before rain. She looked up despite herself.
Across the lawn stood the Duke of Greystone.