Chapter 5
Five
“It’s not as if I gave him permission to use only my name,” Chloe muttered, stabbing her needle into the hat in front of her more viciously than was necessary. “That was Fletcher. And Ranger is, of course, welcome to call me whatever he wants.” She smiled reminiscently at the memory of the griffin.
She had regaled Maddie with endless praises of the creatures on her return, although her friend had been more interested in her failure to come anywhere near the Duke.
“I suppose it’s something that you saw the griffins themselves,” she said, although she didn’t sound convinced of her own words.
Her discouragement had brought Chloe straight back to the ground, and she had been strategizing ever since.
Approaching the Duke while he was socializing had seemed the simplest option, but clearly it wasn’t going to work.
When he was outside his home, he kept his guards too close, and when he was hosting an event, he clearly set them to patrol the grounds.
“The only option left is to approach him while he’s home but not entertaining,” she told Ammy, who was napping in a cocoon of material scraps and leftover ribbon. The vendrillon didn’t stir.
“Yes, merely that,” she said, voice heavy with irony. “An easy task when we’ve never been introduced, and I have no reason to seek him out.”
She had been trying to think of potential approaches for the last several days without success.
And on every one of those days, she’d had to talk herself out of returning to the griffin mews to see the griffins again.
But it wasn’t the griffins she needed to win over as Maddie kept reminding her.
She needed to focus on their goal. The days allowed to them were rapidly ticking away.
But it wasn’t her mission with the Duke that kept her away from the mews on his property.
Thoughts of her interaction with the Duke’s handsome captain—his warmth as he talked about the griffins, his subsequent coldness, and the final, unsettling emotion in his face when they said goodbye—occupied far too much of her mind.
Captain Harrison was dangerously attractive.
Despite all her irritation at his interference in her plans, she only had to think of how he had looked when he spoke of the griffins, his eyes alight with warmth, to admit that much.
If Chloe was going to feign being enamored of the pompous Duke, she couldn’t afford to be truly enamored with the captain of his griffin squad. She wasn’t a good enough actress to achieve that feat—as she had already proved given how often she forgot herself around Captain Harrison.
However strong a pull she felt toward the griffin mews, she had to remain focused on their goal.
If she couldn’t convince the Duke to gift her a griffin egg, her sisters would lose their whole futures.
Cousin Gertrude would wear them down until they grew old enough for her to bully them into marrying men as awful and controlling as herself.
And then they would be lost to Chloe forever. It didn’t bear thinking of.
“At least you don’t seem worried,” she said, once more addressing her remarks to the sleeping Ammy. “So that’s one of us.”
The vendrillon promptly opened one eye. Gannon is a bad, bad man. She ruffled her feathers as she resettled. But Maddie says you’re taking care of it.
Chloe’s heart melted at the sweet creature’s belief in her.
And I don’t like storms, Ammy added, sending Chloe’s eyes toward the one window in the store’s back room.
Sunlight streamed through the glass, and the small sliver of sky she could see looked blue. She sighed anyway. Vendrillons were never wrong about the weather.
“There’s something especially depressing about spring storms,” she agreed. “They come on so suddenly.”
She bolted upright, her eyes fixed unseeing on the far wall as an idea unfurled inside her mind.
“You’re sure there’s a storm coming?” she asked Ammy unnecessarily. “How long?”
Ammy gave her a disapproving look before sighing and tucking her head back into her front paws. Thirty minutes or so. I wouldn’t recommend going outside.
“No,” Chloe said, excitement seizing her. “That’s exactly what I need to do.” She hesitated. “But don’t tell Maddie. She’ll just worry.”
A soft purring snore from Ammy made her laugh. But she couldn’t waste any time.
She rushed over to the rack of dresses in one corner which Maddie had been fitting to Chloe’s size. Regretfully she considered them, aware that whichever one she picked might not survive the afternoon.
Her fingers seized the first one she had worn. Maddie still hadn’t found time to repair it, so it was the perfect choice. A few tears would only help sell her story.
She stopped to grab her least favorite bonnet before rushing outside. The hat, unfortunately, was not going to survive her upcoming adventure.
Hurrying through the outskirts of town, Chloe calculated her point of entry into the extended grounds around the manor.
She needed to end up in the hill section behind the manor, where no hedge separated her from the gardens and house.
And preferably out of sight of any of the windows.
She planned to linger as close to the manor as possible, and she didn’t want to be spotted doing so.
She arrived at her chosen location while the sun still shone in a blue sky, but the first signs of dark clouds were racing across the town toward her. She turned her back on them, pacing up and down without going far. After several paces, she looked at her gown and shook her head.
Regretfully, she seized handfuls of the material and widened the existing tears, although she only did it low down where the gashes didn’t threaten the structure of the dress.
She merely wanted to suggest at least one fall had taken place—she didn’t want to risk the gown falling off entirely.
She rubbed dirt across her lower skirts and a single smear on her cheek for good measure, knowing the coming rain would turn it into mud.
“I’m sorry, Maddie,” she whispered. “It really was a beautiful dress.”
She looked again at the clouds, marveling at how quickly they were moving.
She should have anticipated their arrival with dread, but instead she almost buzzed with energy.
Pacing in the wind, braced for the arrival of rain, was easier than sitting for hours hunched over yet another hat, her mind racing while her body could not.
“If this doesn’t move you to compassion,” she said toward the distant manor, “then you don’t deserve the title of gentleman, let alone Duke. And the same if you turn me away.”
She shook her head. Surely even dukes were raised on the same fairy stories as the rest of them. Only the greatest villain would turn away a woman in distress in the middle of a storm.
Her biggest fear wasn’t of being left in the rain but of being handed straight to a servant and relegated to the servants’ quarters for the rest of her time in the manor, never laying eyes on the Duke.
Her eyes lingered on the distant glimpse of the manor roof.
It was a handsome building, made with golden stone and using the elegant lines of an earlier age.
She would never live in such a home—marriage wasn’t the purpose of her foolish charade—but she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like.
Did you ever grow inured to the beauty? Perhaps she would ask Harrison one day, since he must live on the grounds with the rest of the squad.
She shook herself, horrified at the direction of her thoughts. She needed to get herself under control. She wouldn’t be speaking to Captain Harrison again any time soon. She was determined to avoid him at all costs.
A crack of thunder made her jump. She’d missed the flash of lightning, but she didn’t miss the abrupt deluge of rain. Gasping, she was wet through within seconds.
Biting her lip, she stumbled toward her chosen path—one that would lead her out of the hills right by the front of the manor. But already it was hard to see. The sky had grown dark, and thick rain obscured her vision.
She slipped and stumbled along the path, gasping again and again at the cold now permeating to her bones. When had it turned freezing? She shivered, nearly missing a bend in the path. Turning abruptly, she slid in the mud that now coated the ground, falling hard.
Wincing, she scrambled back to her feet, staring down at her gown in dismay. The artistic arrangement of dirt had been one thing, but she now resembled a drowned rat—an extremely dirty one. It wasn’t exactly the charming picture of distress she had hoped to present to the Duke.
A flash of bright light ahead of her was followed almost immediately by the crack of thunder.
She jumped, gulping and hurrying forward.
As much as she didn’t want to fall again, she wanted to be hit by lightning even less.
She would be safer by the manor than she was in this treeless section of hills.
She stumbled onto the gravel paths of the garden with relief, her pace increasing as she fled toward the manor door. She had imagined her flight to safety being staged, but now that the storm was on her, it had become all too real.
Shivering so badly she almost slipped, she mounted the short steps to the manor’s great door. But just as she was lifting her hand to the brass knocker, a voice shouted her name, the single word only just reaching her ears over the wind.
She spun, confused, and her slipper slid on the wet stone. Teetering, she tried to regain her balance, staggering backward. Her foot reached the edge of the step, and she lost her fight against gravity, falling backward.
An oath sounded, too muffled to be heard clearly over the storm, and gravel crunched underfoot as someone lunged forward. Strong arms caught her, pulling her against an equally wet jacket.
She gasped, trying to look up at the man now holding her in his arms. Rain pounded against his bare head, and his shirt sleeves clung to his arms as he stared down at her, his brows drawing together as water ran down his cheeks and off his chin.
But she didn’t need to see his face to know it was Harrison. Her traitorous body already knew the familiar feel of his arms holding her safe.
“What are you doing here?” he growled, and she caught the words only because their heads were so close.
“Sh…shelter,” she gasped out, her teeth chattering.
He shook his head once, but he didn’t question her further. Unfortunately, he didn’t carry her up the steps to the front door either. Instead, he cast a single look at the manor before shaking his head and striding off along the front of the building.
Chloe tried to protest, even struggling feebly to be let down.
But Harrison didn’t seem to notice, and Chloe quickly subsided.
She wasn’t actually sure her legs would hold her any longer.
As it was, she was shivering so hard that the captain’s arms tightened around her.
Forgetting all about dignity and even propriety, she tried to burrow into him, his body the one source of warmth holding back the freezing storm.
Although the rain still obscured the world in front of them, the direction of the captain’s steps told her he was heading for the barracks of the griffin squad. He had chosen to take her back to his own home rather than disturb the Duke.
Chloe knew that fact should bother her greatly. But safe in the captain’s arms, she couldn’t muster the proper outrage or despair. The reality of the storm had eclipsed all her plans, and she cared only about retreating out of the rain and getting warm.
She groaned at the appealing thought, and the arms tightened again. The captain’s head lowered toward hers.
“Are you hurt?” he called over the storm.
She shook her head before the bruise on her hip made her wince, reminding her of its presence.
“Not badly,” she called back. “I fell, but I didn’t break anything.”
He growled too quietly for her to hear, the rumble in his chest the only thing giving him away.
Oh dear, she thought. He’s going to be more upset with me than ever.
But even that didn’t muster the expected discomfort. They should reach shelter at any moment, and that was all that mattered.