Chapter 41
“No matter what it took, every ounce of his pride and his carefully crafted reputation, he’d give it all away to save her. Even when she was no longer his. Even if she hated him. Everything he had, all of him was hers for the breaking.”
Adelaide, Chapter 26
In the ballroom, awash with ruby red and black cloth and candlelight, an homage to Adelaide, Fitzwilliam Pomfrey had been waiting behind an alcove for a footman to notify him that Sir Edward Clarksdale had left the room.
He wanted to make the man pay, make his uncle pay, for all that they’d done and conspired to do.
Once he was assured that the man was absent from the ballroom, Fitz presented himself and the room instantly enveloped in hush. Only daring whispers emanated from the assembled crowd.
He faced them from the black iron railing of the balcony above the checkered marble dance floor.
The guests assembled clearly anticipating a rousing speech from the handsome young libertine for whom many rumors had launched attacks on his character, his motives, his well-being, even his betrothed, yet here he stood.
He wore a large bruise on his face and a cut across his lip and hairline, there were many more scars that he wore under layers of formalwear, careful not to give too much away.
Fitz had already set a plan in motion to punish those responsible; but he’d wanted to appear unphased, undaunted.
He found his cousin Valentine, and then Noelle’s older brothers somewhere in the crowd, his eyes narrowed on the Earl, who nodded in Fitz’s direction. The Earl’s nod was an acknowledgment, a confirmation of the words he knew Fitz wanted to hear: “she’s safe, and she’s here.”
Fitz turned his attention to the host of England’s elite expecting a spectacle.
He supposed one might argue that it was his fault for crafting such a reputation.
“Ladies, Gentlemen, and Gentlewomen,” Fitz drawled, one hand in his pockets, and one on the balcony railing.
Silence landed on the dance floor again.
He strove for an air of bland insolence.
“I assembled you all here for an announcement. Surprise,” he expected titters, but no one spoke.
“Some of you seem shocked to find me upright, and not in a watery grave. I do hate to disappoint. I know there are…some of you…who were betting on my untimely demise, I won’t hold it against you. But I think you will all be horrified to note that in their haste to get to me,
they’ve injured someone under my protection you all care deeply about.”
Whispers and shouts rose.
Faces turned from amusement to anger.
Fists raised.
“Adelaide? You don’t mean her?”
For the first time since he’d appeared like night from the shadows, he looked grave. The transformation wasn’t lost on those gathered around him as he held court like some visiting prince.
“The very same. You see, someone was sent after me and as I fled, protecting all the women I value was my greatest concern. She is a national treasure. In our flight, I was attacked this afternoon. Someone chased down my carriage; when it toppled, our dear, innocent,
exquisite Adelaide was gravely injured.”
Silence. Then the heat of anger. Questioning voices infiltrated the stunned silence.
“She is in the care of surgeons, but they aren’t convinced that she will make a full recovery. I assembled you all here tonight…to ensure that her…presence…her contribution to the world…was acknowledged. So that you can assist me in punishing those responsible.”
The crowd around him, so stirred and heated for the sake of one, or two of their own, was quickly turning into a mob. Just as Adelaide had stirred a crowd on behalf of her wronged Lord Swindle.
“Who was it?”
“Tell us!”
“Where are they?”
A wicked, satisfied half-smile lit on his features, “I’ll tell you, not because you have insisted; but because I always give the people what they want.”
Sir Edward had barely made it over the threshold and closed the door behind him, when he raised an eyebrow at…the woman. Raven haired, voluptuously figured, clad in red, perched like a queen on the settee. Her lips were so full, and her eyes were so large. She looked like… a courtesan.
“Pardon….I thought…” he began, stepping into the room.
“You thought what, sir?” Adelaide purred.
The man stepped closer, his eyes tripping over the dark-haired woman seated in front of him.
Her features were…familiar…but the paint and kohl and red lips played tricks with his mind.
Her figure appeared somewhat more…full…than the young lady he was thinking of.
She was fashionable long angles, where this woman bore curves like a badge of honor.
“I feel I am at a disadvantage. You are not who I thought I was meeting with, my lady.”
Her lips formed a soft moue, and she turned her head to the side, “Am I not?”
He shot from his seat as he got a good look at her in the light of a candle sconce. She tried not to let it show on her face the satisfaction she gained from his reaction.
“But you’re…you are her…but you’re different.”
“So eloquent,” She mused, hands folded primly in her lap.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Are you play-acting at being that woman?”
She let out a laugh. “No. I am only a different version of myself that I have always been but never allowed to be. One incredible man simply released her, empowered her to emerge.”
“You’re crediting Pomfrey for…this?”
“Adelaide is entirely my creation. Fitz showed me that she and I weren’t so different.” She narrowed her heavily lashed eyes at him, “If anyone were to…endanger him…they’d wish that they had never been so bold.”
The venom that laced her words caused him obvious discomfort as he dabbed at his forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief, but he didn’t back down.
“Pomfrey? He is not the man you think. Pomfrey was toying with you; you’re never going to bring him up to scratch.”
Adelaide had gone to the mat for the man she loved, rather than allowing him to rush in and take the fall for her.
Noelle thought it was perhaps why the story had been so popular with women.
She had never dared dream that she would be doing something similar for her own love.
The sight of her very own rake in pain and the memory of her anguish over his absence brought out a madwoman inside of her.
“If you are the one who tried to hurt him-”
Sir Edward held up a hand and gestured to himself.
“Me? No, I’m offering you security. Think about it. The scandal it will cause as everyone knows what happened, how it has already hurt your reputation. As my wife, you’d be respectable. I’d allow you to write your stories…only…under a different name.”
“You want to steal the credit for my words. I could write for all my years and never create anything like Adelaide.”
“At last, you understand my predicament. Now is your chance…either you marry me, or I take credit for Adelaide.”
Noelle’s nostrils flared. “You think I’d allow you to profit from my words?”
It wasn’t just the world knowing that Adelaide was her creation.
Her thoughts turned to Bridget, to Maddie, Her ladies maid Ella, to the housekeeper, Letitia the seamstress, the washerwoman on the ship, Moria, Kathleen, Olivia, Margot…
. who all believed a woman saw them, saw their pain, that a woman must have written Adelaide.
To let the women who’d found hope in the form of a fictional character believe that a man, this man, had written her story, would be unthinkable.
She wasn’t giving in to this coward who’d conspired against her and hadn’t even had the stones to do it himself, relying, typically, on someone else to arrange the conspiracy and the violence on his behalf.
She lifted her chin and balled her hands into fists. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He stalked toward her, she backed away from him toward the desk by the window. “Who’s going to believe you wrote it anyway, hmm? Wouldn’t be a hardship for me to take credit now that I have your notes in my safe keeping.”
“How did you-”
“They were in Pomfrey’s desk, ripe for the taking.”
Fitz must have left them in his desk, and either his uncle or one of his cronies had taken them and given them to Sir Edward.
Noelle balled her fists at the invasive idea of such nefarious men having their hands on her hard work.
Thieves and scoundrels, the lot of them.
Noelle thought of Adelaide. She knew what Adelaide would do.