Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mr Ramsey arrived to escort her to Dominic’s study and carry her valise. He’d brought a small wooden box and wrapped the pink teapot and cups in broadsheet pages, stacking them neatly inside.
“Hawke says you’re to take the porcelain.”
She stared at the box. “I can’t take it. It belonged to his grandmother.”
“They’re Hawke’s orders, not mine.”
Her eyes blurred for a moment. “Leave it. Please.”
He ignored her plea. “Hawke’s never given a woman anything. Best to accept it with good grace.”
A diamond necklace would have suited a mistress.
This felt like he was giving her a piece of his soul.
“Is Charlotte here?”
Part of her prayed the answer was no, that it wasn’t too late to change her mind. That they might argue, kiss, and spend the rest of the day in bed.
But the noises of the damned, the howls in the darkness, the heavy heaving of a hundred lungs meant she could not suffer another night at Shadowmere.
“She’s with Hawke in the study.”
The thought of seeing him made her chest tighten.
For a moment, she could scarcely breathe.
How did you say goodbye to a man you loved? How did you accept this might be your biggest regret?
“We should go now.” The sooner it was over, the better.
She left the cottage and couldn’t bear to look back.
Mr Ramsey didn’t speak until they entered the house. “I know he’s not gone about things the right way. He can be a stubborn devil. But you’ve unsettled him in ways I’ve never seen before.”
She pictured the possessive glint in Dominic’s eyes as he entered her, the look of surrender when he came undone.
“It’s difficult to know what’s honest and what’s said to serve his purpose.”
Mr Ramsey frowned. “He’s been pacing that study like a caged beast all morning. Surely that says something.”
“Yes. That he’s lost control and despises the feeling.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
He’d used her to prove a point.
To demean Lord Templeton.
She forced the thought aside. Finding the reason behind her mother’s need for money might bring her closer to her father’s killer. That had to be her focus now.
Her heart missed a beat when she saw him at the window, staring towards All Saints’ steeple. His broad shoulders were rigid beneath the black coat.
Charlotte was talking. He paid her no heed.
But he turned when he heard the click of the door, his eyes closing briefly with agonising slowness. “You’re ready. Good. You should leave before the guests crawl out of bed.”
His frosty tone came as no surprise. The truth lay in the dark circles beneath his eyes, the stubble shadowing his jaw.
“I have no wish to linger,” Charlotte said, cool and immaculate in pale blue. “Heaven forbid we encounter a naked stag on the staircase.”
“Then you’d best not delay,” he said.
The distance between them felt like a chasm. One she didn’t know how to cross. No. This would not be her lasting memory of him.
She steeled herself and approached. He didn’t flinch when she touched his arm, only sighed when she kissed his cheek. “Perhaps when we’ve both dealt with our ghosts, we might meet under better circumstances.”
Tea at Gunter’s. A walk in Hyde Park.
He clasped her elbow, the protector in him missing the emotion behind her words and seizing on what he believed mattered most. “You plan to continue the investigation on your own?”
“My mother needed money too. I’m beginning to wonder if she truly died of an illness. The answer feels within reach.”
He drew her closer until only an inch separated them, the heat of his body a parting caress. “I suppose I’ve no right to forbid it.”
“No, but I’ll be careful.”
He gave a curt nod, a muscle ticking in his jaw as he released her. “Charlotte can be resourceful. I trust you’ll stay with her in Wimpole Street.”
“Until I uncover the truth.” She could linger. Every second with him felt like a gift. But she hadn’t been entirely honest. “There’s something you should know. The real reason I came here to work as a maid.”
He straightened, shifting his chain mail into place. “Yes.”
“I thought working here might help me bide my time, and you owed me something for the trouble you caused.” She swallowed past the bulging lump in her throat. The truth would wound him. “Charlotte has a cottage in Scotland I might lease. I only had to stay here the month.”
Silence stretched.
Dominic swallowed.
He turned to the window, glancing at the church spire before facing her again. “Then leaving is the sensible choice. Whatever I thought we had clearly meant nothing.”
No. I love you.
“I told you I had no plans to stay.”
“I thought you’d changed your mind.”
Charlotte cleared her throat. “Perhaps we should go before we’re seen by a guest. I’ll not have it said I participate in these sordid gatherings.”
“Ramsey will escort you to the mews.” He moved behind his imposing desk, opened a ledger and began making notes.
She stepped away.
Her fingers still tingled where she had touched him.
What she would give to return to the cottage and feel the heat of his body against hers, to lie with him in sated bliss.
Mr Ramsey picked up the box and placed it in her arms.
The porcelain rattled softly inside.
“Goodbye, Mr Hawke.”
The scratch of his pen never paused.
“Goodbye, angel.”
Daphne spent most of the journey back to London staring out the carriage window at passing fields, tears sliding down her cheeks whether she willed them or not.
The memory of him, head bowed, struck like a blade to her heart. She wished she could claim her tears were for her father, for her dire situation, not for Dominic and a far-fetched dream.
Charlotte’s comment didn’t help matters.
“I’ve never seen him like that.”
Daphne gripped the seat cushion. “Like what?”
“Lost and a little afraid.”
Her first instinct was to pound on the roof and tell the coachman to turn around. “What could Dominic possibly have to fear?”
“Feeling something other than hatred.”
“Guilt is his constant companion.” The truth was clearer now. Lord Templeton had hit the mark with a barbed arrow. “Hatred is something he turns outward to survive.”
Charlotte hesitated. “You’re in love with him.”
Daphne looked down at her hands. In his arms was the only place she’d known true peace.
“I’m in love with the man who comes to my cottage. I’m not sure I know the man who commands Hades.”
“Are they not two sides of the same coin?”
“And therein lies the problem.”
Charlotte fell silent. Her gaze moved from Daphne to the box on the floor. “Hawke gave you a gift?”
Not a gift. A piece of the life she was leaving behind.
“His grandmother’s porcelain tea set.”
Even saying the words tightened her throat.
“Something precious then.”
“And not at all practical.”
“The best gifts rarely are.”
The thrum of the wheels filled the silence for the next few miles. They spoke of the weather, London gossip, and Daphne’s plans for the coming days.
“I’d go home, but I’m not convinced my aunt won’t drug my tea and put me on a boat to India.”
“The most wicked betrayals aren’t plotted in back alleys, but around the dinner table.” Charlotte sounded like she spoke from experience. “You’ll stay with me. I insist. At least until it’s safe for you in town.”
Daphne released a breath she’d been holding since leaving Shadowmere. “It won’t be for long. Just while I determine what happened to my father and why my mother needed money so desperately.”
She told Charlotte everything on the journey. About the case, the blackmail, and why Lord Templeton’s eagerness to name another man troubled her.
Charlotte sat forward. “You think your mother and Hawke’s met the same fate?”
“Both wished to prevent a child.” Daphne mentioned her mother’s visit to Mrs Flavell. “Both wrote to Mr Moseley, hoping to secure a loan. Both were intimately involved with my father.”
“His mistress, Mrs Foster, must know something.”
“Yes. They’ve been lovers on and off for a decade.”
Charlotte glanced out the window, the grey sprawl of the metropolis coming into view. “And that’s why you left Shadowmere? To pursue your own agenda?”
At the mention of Shadowmere, her heart grew heavy.
“No. Dominic told Lord Templeton he would marry me. It was about control. To prove a point. As if the decision were his alone.”
Knowing he thought it his duty cut deep.
Charlotte arched a brow. “Hawke spoke of marriage?”
“Yes, as a weapon to attack Lord Templeton.”
“And you’d rather he’d made a sweeping declaration?”
Something in Charlotte’s tone said she believed Daphne expected too much of a man like Dominic.
“Is it foolish to want him to love me?”
“No,” she said quietly. “But you should ask yourself who you love more. The scoundrel or the dream?”
She already knew the answer.
She loved the man who dominated a room with a single look. The man who would break the hand of anyone who touched her. The man who wore his mother’s ring around his neck and carried roses to her grave.
“Was I wrong to leave?”
Charlotte shook her head. “It must have been frightening to walk alongside those masked fiends. Sometimes a lady must make a stand. You’re allowed a voice, Daphne. Hawke needed reminding of that.”
Would he realise it?
Or would he strengthen the barricade around his heart?
“It was hard to think while there,” she admitted. And yet leaving had been the hardest thing she had ever done. “I have never witnessed anything quite so abhorrent as the Autumn Masque.”
“I can quite imagine.” Charlotte adjusted her gloves and considered her for a moment. “What say we attend Lady Parker’s ball tomorrow? Mrs Foster will be there. We’ll lure her into the garden and you can bombard her with questions.”
“Shouldn’t I be in mourning?”
Shouldn’t she help her aunt arrange the funeral? Should she grieve for a man who didn’t deserve her tears?
“You’ll be the topic of the evening, regardless. You may as well give the heifers fodder.” Charlotte raised a hand. “And before you raise another objection, I have the perfect gown for you to wear.”