Chapter 3
Three
“Acomplete and utter disaster!” Chloe cried, as she threw herself down onto the elegant sofa that sat inside the store’s generous dressing room.
“Surely it can’t have been as bad as that!” Maddie watched her, eyes shining with worry.
“Worse,” Chloe said despondently. “I didn’t even meet the Duke, and I’ve torn your beautiful dress.”
“You’re not hurt?” Maddie exclaimed, and her concern made Chloe straighten on the sofa, shaking her head as she smiled affectionately at her friend.
Of course Maddie would be most concerned about that. It reminded Chloe of why she had to rally and try again—for Maddie, and for her three sisters who were just as sweet and kind as the seamstress, and who were at that moment having their spirits crushed by the awful Cousin Gertrude.
Maddie sank onto the opposite end of the sofa, turning a despairing face on Chloe. Chloe immediately took one of her hands.
“It’s not as bad as that, I promise! I’m merely out of temper because the Duke’s interfering guard captain got in my way. But considering how my plan went wrong, it’s a good thing I didn’t meet the Duke after all. It means I can start again fresh.”
Maddie tried to smile back and failed. “Gannon came to the shop while you were gone.”
“What?!” Chloe leaped to her feet, striding several steps away before whirling, her hands flying upward in her agitation. “He told us we had a month to secure the egg! What excuse did he have to harass you today?”
“He said he had come to measure his building,” Maddie said in flat tones that suggested she had already given up. “So he can begin plans for the necessary renovations.”
“He’s a monster!” Chloe declared furiously. “He came by purely to frighten you, I’m sure. He probably timed his visit to ensure I was absent, too.”
“I wish you wouldn’t fight with him,” Maddie said. “He could always change his mind about giving us a month.”
Chloe narrowed her eyes. “I’d like to see him try.”
Maddie gave a small squeak, which Ammy mimicked, poking her nose out from under Maddie’s hair.
Chloe instantly repented. “No, no, you’re right, of course. I’ll do my best to restrain myself. But he does offer the most awful provocation.”
He’s a bad, bad man, Ammy said, making Chloe start in surprise and look at the vendrillon.
Like all of Wynkara’s creatures of intelligence, Ammy spoke with words her chosen human could hear in her mind.
But she was able to talk to others as well—she just didn’t usually choose to do so.
That she was speaking to Chloe as well as Maddie now—a rare occurrence—indicated the depth of her emotion.
Maddie patted her friend comfortingly, but she nodded agreement with the vendrillon’s words. “I do wonder what Gannon can want with a griffin’s egg.”
“He probably thinks that if he hatches it himself, it will be sure to bond with him.” Chloe’s nose wrinkled.
“He will soon find himself disappointed, since I can’t imagine any creature as noble as a griffin wanting anything to do with a man like Gannon.
It will be off as soon as it’s old enough to fly, and his investment will be lost.”
“Oh dear.” The wringing hands reappeared. “You don’t think he’ll come back to us and demand payment if that happens, do you?”
“No chance of that,” Chloe said swiftly. “I’ll have the store’s mortgage signed off and in our hands before I hand over the egg, don’t you worry.”
Maddie sighed. “If only the old owner had never agreed to sell our mortgage to Gannon. We had such a comfortable arrangement with him and have always paid our monthly interest most faithfully.”
“Who knows what Gannon held over the old owner’s head to get him to agree.” Chloe considered the absent Gannon with gathering wrath. “I heard ours wasn’t the only mortgage he acquired either. Who knows how many people he’s threatening to evict and put into debt besides?”
“Oh, what are we to do, Chloe?” Maddie wailed. “We both invested everything we had in setting up this store and took out a debt on top of it. We’ll never be able to start again if Gannon forecloses on us and takes the shop. We’ll both end up in debtor’s prison—or dead on the streets.”
Chloe laughed, her natural good humor reasserting itself in the face of Maddie’s dire predictions.
“Dearest Maddie, don’t worry so. I know a certain young man who would never allow that to happen.” She gave Maddie a significant look, and Maddie blushed rosily.
At twenty-eight, she had despaired of finding love until Everard’s newest apothecary had arrived. At thirty himself, and a sweet, gentle man besides, he was an excellent option for Maddie. Chloe couldn’t be more pleased for them both.
“But it’s not going to come to that,” Chloe declared. “I’ll learn from my failure and try a different approach next time.”
“Do you already have an idea?” Maddie asked.
“I daren’t try anything too similar since the captain is already suspicious,” Chloe said.
“But surely he doesn’t shadow the Duke around his own house.
I’ve heard the Duke is to throw a garden party in two days’ time, and it should be a simple matter to join the festivities—as long as I have the right dress. ”
She clasped her hands together and smiled so angelically at Maddie that the other girl laughed, her worries temporarily forgotten.
“If you were planning to force your way into a ball, there’s nothing I could do for you in only two days. But a day gown I should be able to manage. I’ve actually been working on a few more gowns for you already, since you can’t wear the same one every time you see the Duke.”
“I knew you would come to my rescue, oh best of friends and most talented of dressmakers.” Chloe threw her arms around Maddie and squeezed until Maddie protested, a laugh in her voice.
Satisfied with her efforts, Chloe drew back and declared she needed to hurry up and change, or else she would be spending all night catching up on the work she had missed. She had three outstanding hat orders that needed to be completed as soon as possible.
But when she managed to prick herself with her scissors, having already done so three times with her needle, she gave up and retired to bed.
There was no point trying to work when her thoughts insisted on circling endlessly back to a certain tall, commanding captain whose arms held safety but whose eyes held suspicion.
She had mostly managed to banish thoughts of Captain Harrison by the time she approached the manor grounds two days later.
Mostly. As she neared the manicured section of the gardens, her mind sharpened, her focus finally narrowing to the task in front of her.
It was crucial that she slip into the event without being seen.
Once she was inside, she would blend in easily with the small crowd, especially since the event had been thrown open to not only the gentry and nobility of the region but also some of the wealthier business families.
Circling away from the main carriage drive that approached the front of the manor house, Chloe searched for a gap in the hedge that shielded the lower gardens from the road beyond.
The tall hedge didn’t circle the whole way around the manor, so she was certain to find an end to the greenery eventually.
She just hoped she wouldn’t have to go quite so far.
Her eyes fell on a ragged section of hedge, and she hurried over to examine it more closely. With a relieved sigh, she concluded that she should be able to squeeze through without tearing a second one of Maddie’s creations.
Turning sideways, she eased into the gap, using her hands to press her skirts against her legs. Holding her breath, she edged along slowly, untangling her gown from any branches the second the material became caught. As long as she moved carefully, she should make it through.
But just as she popped out the other side, a sigh of relief ready on her lips, a final branch caught at her hat, tearing it from her hair.
“Botheration!” she cried, as her elaborate hairstyle tore partially free, the pins pulling at her hair until her scalp stung. She turned to stare up at her beautiful hat, now hanging from the hedge.
“That’s funny,” said a drawling voice that made her instantly stiffen. “I don’t remember your name on the guest list, Miss Chloe.”
Captain Harrison stepped into view. Had he been watching her the whole time she shuffled through the hedge?
Chloe clenched her teeth as he retrieved her hat from the hedge and offered it to her with raised brows. She hadn’t even made it safely beyond the hedge before he found her. The man was insufferable!
It didn’t help that he was looking even more attractive than on their first meeting, the cut of his jacket flush against the muscles in his shoulders, and his hair an elegant riot of short brown waves.
A treacherous part of her wanted to reach out and touch one of the waves, while the rest of her was desperately conscious that she herself looked disheveled, her hair half hanging around her face.
“Thank you, Captain,” she said woodenly, accepting the offered hat.
Hesitating for a moment, she finally sighed.
Grasping the edge of the hat between her lips, she held it there as both her hands plunged into her hair, rescuing pins and re-clipping curls in a frenzy of movement.
As soon as her hair was close to respectability again, she retrieved the hat and jammed it back onto her head, replacing the hat pins that had been keeping it in place.
Only once she had succeeded in righting her appearance—as much as was possible without a mirror or extra pins—did she look again at the captain. He was watching her with something in his eyes that she couldn’t read.
The moment stretched between them as she waited for him to make further accusations. Her mind was racing with possibilities as to how she should answer, but he remained silent, his intense gaze focused on her face.
Just as she was about to crack and break the silence herself, another voice hailed them.
“What have you found?” the man called, striding into view a second later.
Chloe instantly recognized him as one of the riders who had accompanied the captain on their previous meeting, and his presence reminded her of his words on that occasion.
Whatever had held the captain still and silent broke, but he kept his eyes on Chloe as he spoke.
“You’ve arrived just in time to hear Miss Chloe explain her unexpected arrival.
I am most curious to hear what dire circumstance has motivated her to make such an awkward entry.
” He glanced at the hedge. “However neatly it was accomplished. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the party currently underway, but I confess I can think of no explanation. ”
The rider looked from his captain to Chloe, his brows rising. “Miss Chloe. What a pleasant surprise.”
She turned her attention on him, smiling as brightly as she was able. “Thank you—” She paused. “I don’t think I got your name on our previous meeting.”
“It’s Fletcher,” he said with a delighted chuckle.
“Thank you, Fletcher,” she repeated, keeping her gaze on him, although she could see the captain in her peripheral vision. “My less than elegant arrival is indeed because of the party.”
Both men shifted in surprise, exchanging a swift look—full of humor on Fletcher’s part and something darker on Captain Harrison’s.
Chloe pushed on, keeping her voice light and unhurried. “I’m afraid I timed my visit poorly, not realizing the Duke was hosting an event. But having come so far, I didn’t like to turn back. I thought I could find another way in so as not to disturb the partygoers.”
“But why are you here?” the captain demanded, his words simple and direct, unlike his usual earlier speech.
She turned astonished eyes on him, rounding them in an expression of confused innocence. “Why, I came in response to your invitation, of course.”
“My invitation?” the captain barked, his eyes darkening.
Chloe turned her eyes on Fletcher. “I suppose, more accurately, it was Sir Fletcher’s invitation. On your behalf.” She smiled back at Captain Harrison.
Fletcher swallowed another laugh, managing to say, “Just Fletcher is fine, Miss Chloe.”
She beamed at him. “Then you must call me Chloe as well.”
He gave a quick bow. “It would be an honor.”
“You came—through the hedge, in the middle of a party—for a tour of the mews?” the captain asked with heavy emphasis, his disbelief clear in his eyes.
Chloe didn’t allow a flicker of doubt or uncertainty to cross her face. If she didn’t want to be unceremoniously dumped outside the grounds by a squad of guards who had been given orders never to allow her within twenty feet of the Duke, she had to sell her story.
“I’m so eager to meet a griffin that I came as soon as I had the chance,” she said. “But I should have asked around about the Duke’s social calendar before setting out.”
“You’re so eager to meet our griffins,” the captain said slowly. “You?”
Chloe remembered her earlier rash declaration that she had no interest in griffins. Why couldn’t Past Chloe have kept her mouth shut?
“I finished the book,” she said, struck by inspiration in the nick of time. “It was so fascinating that I wanted to see a nesting mews for myself. At once.”
“I’ve actually read that title as well,” Fletcher said, openly grinning at his captain. “I believe you loaned it to me, telling me it was one of the more superior volumes on griffins. It’s no wonder that it has excited this young lady’s interest.”
“This is not the moment for your frivolous—”
Fletcher cut his captain off, totally undaunted by his censure.
“A gentleman cannot go back on a promise to a lady. So how much less can we—the famous gentlemen riders of Everard—do so? What would our griffins say?” He turned to Chloe.
“Griffins have no stock in dishonesty of any sort. Utterly truthful creatures.”
Chloe swallowed, trying not to look alarmed, and he smiled reassuringly.
“Quite injurious to one’s dignity at times, but they make a more loyal companion than one could hope to find anywhere.”
She smiled, charmed by his description in spite of her situation. As long as she took care to say nothing untruthful to one of the griffins, she should have no cause for alarm. The creatures couldn’t read minds.
“Well, Captain?” Fletcher asked, grinning at Harrison.
The captain sighed, closing his eyes briefly before opening them and fixing them on Chloe. “I will certainly show Miss Chloe the mews, if she wishes it.”
“Most earnestly,” she assured him with her most radiant smile.
She would just have to hope they ran into the Duke on the way.