Chapter 29
Noelle was waiting in line outside the ladies’ retiring room at her betrothal ball when she heard yet more ladies discussing Adelaide.
“The writer is only anonymous because they have too much to lose.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Yes, Gretchen, what gave you that idea?”
Never one to shirk her duty when there was eavesdropping to accomplish, Noelle tapped her fan on her palm as she strained to hear the two ladies in front of her in the queue.
“It’s so detailed, I believe the author doesn’t want the ton to know they aren’t one of us. It’s a confessional of sorts.”
“So the writer…is Adelaide?”
“That’s my theory.”
Noelle pasted on a bored face to conceal her racing thoughts. Only, she had so many of them and there was only one person she could discuss them with. She made some excuse to the other women behind her and tore off to the ballroom in search of her betrothed.
She finally found him in the billiards room, laughing and enjoying a game with a few of his friends.
He sensed her in the doorway and said, “Something you need, darling?”
as he made his shot, which sent several balls shooting off, one making a right pocket to some pats on Fitz’s back from his friends.
He turned to her with billiard stick still in hand, awaiting an answer.
“I need to talk to you.”
He clapped another man on the back and handed him his billiard stick. He off-handedly remarked, “My lovely puppet-master is pulling my strings. Sorry, gents.”
He joined her in the hallway as he redonned his coat and extended his arm to lead her toward the terrace. Noelle followed him through the narrow door.
The terrace was lovely, like a gateway to an ancient garden; not well-manicured grounds, but a garden of wild, carefully selected flowers in bright colors even under the light of a crescent moon.
“We won’t be overheard out here, will we?” she asked, looking around for other partygoers.
He gave a small laugh. “We’re betrothed…Does it matter?”
She stepped closer to him, her arms bunched at her chest.
“You’re cold,” he said, removing his jacket and draping it around her. “Here, sit,” he ordered, motioning to a marble bench. She couldn’t just let all her thoughts tumble out, she tried to order and marshal them so that maybe he’d support her idea.
“This is going to sound insane,” she said. “Bear with me.”
“You’ve never felt the need to offer a disclaimer before now,” he said, one hand idly trailing patterns along her open palm.
Noelle bit her lip, shaking her head in amusement. “From what I gather, people have quite a lot of theories about Adelaide. Even going so far as to guess that you wrote it; but notably, that it’s a confessional of sorts, that Adelaide herself is real.”
His eyebrows shot heavenward. “Is there more or is that the ‘insane’ bit?”
“What if…” she stood, pacing, twisting her hands; “We gave them Adelaide. Or someone they might interpret as the real her.”
He shot to his feet, snapping his fingers at her. “Yes! Why, that’s genius. People will do more than just read the book.”
As he went on, her blood pulsed at the note of undiluted pride and awe in his voice, his eyes that didn’t veer from hers.
“If people believe they’ve actually seen her in the flesh, they won’t stop talking about it for ages. She’ll be something of a public figure. A legend. You are a mad genius, princess.”
The way he’d immediately complimented and agreed with her, she didn’t know why she’d expected anything else from Fitz. Even still, is there anything more fulfilling than trusting someone with a secret, a dream, and having your trust rewarded with immediate allyship and a term of endearment?
“That’s all more than I ever dared to dream,” she said as he took her hands in his own, “how would we even accomplish such a spectacle?”
In her reluctance, his arms had come around her, his warm blue eyes holding whole volumes he had yet to say.
She felt, without question, those strong, bulky arms and strapping shoulders of his wanted to bear part of the weight she carried, if she’d let him. Not for her, but with her.
Fitz’s smile was slow, calculating, cunning like a fox. “I know exactly how we can pull it off. You have only to trust me.
”
Noelle felt, not for the first time nor the last, under a moon-burnished evening on a flower-scented terrace just outside a spectacle-filled ballroom, that a union was just a series of extending trusts and knowing that no matter the outcome, it would make for a diverting story.