Chapter 17
“Lady Gwendoline, a message for you.”
Gwen turned, her smile still fixed for the sake of the lady she had just greeted. The footman who had addressed her stood a few paces away, liveried in Harrowden colors, his expression neutral.
“For me?” she asked. “Are you certain?”
“Yes, My Lady.” He bowed and held out a small, folded note on a silver tray. “Delivered a short while ago. I was told it was urgent.”
Arabella leaned closer at once. “Oh, how thrilling. Perhaps it’s a secret admirer.”
Eleanor arched an eyebrow. “Or more likely Howard, demanding to know why you dared to smile.”
“Don’t,” Gwen muttered, though her lips twitched despite herself.
Her pulse quickened as she reached for the paper. It was square, plain, unsealed, the sort of thing one might use for a servant’s list or a quickly scrawled direction. Yet the moment her fingers brushed the edge, she knew.
She could not say whether it was the thickness of the paper, or the familiar scent clinging to it, or the sudden tightening of her chest.
“Will you read it?” Arabella whispered eagerly.
Gwen hesitated. “I do not know that it is meant for sharing.”
“You will tell us if it is dreadful,” Eleanor said calmly. “And if it is delightful, you will tell us that as well.”
Gwen managed a small nod and stepped half a pace away, enough to put the nearby pillar and the room’s noise between them. She unfolded the note with deliberate care, her heart beating far too fast.
There were only a few lines, written in a strong, familiar hand.
Lady Gwendoline,
You have avoided your obligations long enough.
Quarter to ten.
The lodge.
V.
She read it twice, as if extra repetitions might change the words. They did not. They sat on the page with the same infuriating certainty Victor always carried, as if the world had no choice but to arrange itself around his decisions.
Avoided your obligations?
She almost laughed, though there was no humor in it. He summoned her as if she belonged in a ledger, a figure that had not yet been accounted for.
“Gwen,” Arabella hissed softly, craning her neck. “Is it a proposal? Is it a duel? Is it a scandal?”
“It is a summons,” Gwen replied, folding the paper sharply. Her fingers shook only a little.
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “From him?”
“Yes.” Gwen nodded.
Arabella’s mouth fell open. “Oh.”
Eleanor’s lips thinned. “What does he want?”
“It does not say.”
Arabella’s eyes flicked to the nearest clock, a handsome gilt thing that stood on a bracket above the entrance arch. “It is already nine,” she whispered. “You would never reach the edge of town in time. Unless he has sent a carriage.”
“Of course, he has sent a carriage,” Eleanor drawled. “He would not leave that to chance.”
Gwen clutched the note harder, feeling the edges press into her palm. “It does not matter. I am not going.”
Arabella’s hand shot out, catching her wrist. “Not going?”
“He made it abundantly clear,” Gwen said, trying to keep her voice steady, “that this is an arrangement and nothing more. He does not love me. He will not. There is no future for us. I will not cling to a man who has already told me the limits of his regard.”
Arabella’s eyes softened. “Gwen…”
“Do you wish to see him?” Eleanor asked quietly.
Gwen closed her eyes for a moment. She saw Victor’s hands on her skin, felt the careful way he had held her when she had come apart in his arms, heard the rasp in his voice when he had spoken of a childhood devoid of softness.
“Yes,” she whispered. Then, firmer, “No. I do not know.”
“Then you must pretend you do not,” Eleanor said briskly. “You have made your decision. You will not drop your plans for a man whose walls have stood longer than you have been alive.”
Gwen nodded. The logic steadied her, even as the ache in her chest grew.
“Still,” Arabella interjected, biting her lip, “if you mean to end it, you ought to do so properly. A note. A farewell. Something. Otherwise, he will keep seeking you out. You cannot afford a snag in your plan.”
Eleanor nodded her head in agreement. “If you do not go, he may grow persistent. And persistence from a man like him is dangerous. Better to look him in the eye and say that it is over.”
Gwen looked around the glittering room, the swirl of gowns and the gleam of jewels.
She felt oddly disconnected from it all, as if she were standing behind glass.
Men moved about like pieces on a chessboard, ladies fluttered like decorative birds, and somewhere beyond these walls, a carriage waited to carry her toward a future she could not have imagined a few months ago.
“He will think I have come for money,” she said dully. “For obligation, not for him.”
“That may be for the best,” Eleanor answered. “Let him believe it.”
Gwen drew a breath. “Then I must find a way to leave without Howard’s knowledge. If he notices I’m gone, he will question everyone. If he hears I slipped out in the middle of a ball, he will be apoplectic.”
Arabella winced. “We cannot have that.”
Eleanor pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Very well. We shall cause a small scandal.”
Gwen blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“A harmless one,” Eleanor clarified. “You need a reason to vanish from the ballroom for the better part of an hour. There are limited excuses a young lady may use that cannot easily be disputed.”
Arabella brightened. “Fainting.”
“Too dramatic,” Eleanor replied. “It calls physicians and interfering mamas.”
“A ruined hem,” Arabella suggested. “Dragged through some unfortunate substance. Mud.”
“Too easily remedied in a retiring room,” Eleanor pointed out.
“Then what?” Gwen asked.
“A headache,” Eleanor pronounced. “Sudden, blinding, brought on by heat and too much noise. You will cut a dance, claim you must lie down, and request to be taken to the withdrawing room upstairs.”
Gwen frowned. “And how does that help?”
Arabella’s eyes sparkled. “Because once you are upstairs, you will not be attended.”
“Lady Harrowden is notorious for neglecting those who need quiet,” Eleanor elaborated.
“She prides herself on the bustle of her guests, not their convalescence. The maids will settle you, bring water, and leave. At most, they will check once, perhaps twice. They will assume you are asleep. You will instead slip out through the side staircase that leads down to the servants’ entrance. ”
“And from there,” Arabella finished triumphantly, “into whatever carriage awaits you.”
Gwen stared at them both. “You have thought of this before.”
Arabella looked offended. “We are imaginative, not depraved.”
Eleanor’s mouth curved faintly. “We are observant. Several ladies have used this strategy to meet lovers in the garden. I merely propose you adapt it.”
Gwen’s heart pounded harder. The thought made her palms grow clammy. “If someone sees me…”
“They will not,” Eleanor assured her. “We will help. Arabella will draw attention to herself by tripping a gallant or knocking something over. I will pretend to scold her. Several matrons will rush to assist. Amid the chaos, you will excuse yourself and slip away.”
Arabella nodded eagerly. “I am very good at falling.”
Gwen could not help it; she let out a short, shaky laugh. “You are mad.”
“We are devoted,” Arabella corrected. “There is a difference.”
“You will go, then?” Eleanor asked, her tone cautious.
Gwen looked up at the clock again. The hands crept toward a quarter past nine. “I will go,” she replied. “I will tell him it is over. I will make him understand that whatever lies between us has no future.”
Her heart whispered a hundred protests, but she ignored them.
“Once that is done,” she continued, more steadily, “I will send my letter. I will leave. I will never see him again.”
Arabella’s eyes shone with emotion. “You are very brave.”
“No,” Gwen said quietly. “But I am quite tired of being afraid.”
They drifted back to the main swirl of the ballroom, their plan forming between them in murmured fragments, tucked behind fans and beneath the swell of violins.
To any observer, they were three young ladies enjoying gossip. Only they knew that each glance at the clock, each glance at the staircase, was another step toward a different life.
At exactly half past nine, as the orchestra finished a quadrille and couples shifted into new formations, Gwen pressed a hand delicately to her temple.
Arabella’s eyes widened with theatrical alarm. She turned, took two quick steps back, and collided artfully with a footman bearing a tray of glasses. The resulting clatter of crystal and startled exclamations drew every eye within ten yards.
“Oh heavens!” Arabella cried.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Eleanor scoffed. “You are the clumsiest creature alive!”
Ladies fussed. Gentlemen laughed. The hostess fluttered. Servants descended upon the scattered glass.
In the midst of it all, Gwen slipped a hand to her forehead and murmured to the nearest matron, “I feel quite faint. Might I retire upstairs for a few moments’ quiet?”
“Of course, my dear,” the lady said at once. “You poor thing. All this excitement is too much. Someone fetch a maid. Show Lady Gwendoline to the withdrawing room.”
A maid appeared, bobbing a curtsy. “If you please, My Lady.”
Gwen cast a quick glance around the chandeliered room. She felt a certain gaze on her, though she did not look for it.
Then she turned and followed the maid up the stairs, her heart pounding, her mind already rehearsing the apology she would give and the farewell she would force herself to speak.
She would go to him.
She would end it.
And then she would run.
The fire in the lodge had burned down to a steady, civilized glow, but Victor felt anything but civilized.
He stood near the window, one hand braced against the sill, watching the night press close against the glass. Beyond the dark line of trees, the road lay like a ribbon of shadow, waiting.
She will come.
He had told himself that fourteen times already.