Chapter 3 #2
Cold rage rushed into Vincent’s veins as he jerked a drawer out and tugged out a scuffed, silver pocket watch. Flipping the cover open, he stared at the broken glass, the hands stuck at half past nine.
From the age of twenty onward, revenge had buoyed Vincent’s blood like wind to a ship’s sails. It had motivated him, given him the will to survive and become who he was today.
He snapped the pocket watch shut. What was done was done, but his true vengeance was yet to come.
And come what may, the title of Highminster would never have another blot to its name again.
“Don’t fret so much, Emma!” Charlotte chirped as the carriage inched closer to the Arundel House at Grosvenor Square. “Harriet and I will be right by your side, always.”
Emma felt thankful that her friends were mistaking the knit in her brow as worry for attending her first social in a year, and not the fury she truly felt.
Besides, fury was a luxury she could ill afford tonight.
An advantageous match would mean security for Grandmama and James, and security was worth one wretched evening under the roof of the most detestable man in all of England.
She fingered the mask on her lap and smiled at her friends. “I know, Lottie, but I do wish the two of you will not sacrifice your night to tend to me. I can handle myself.”
“Even in that den of vipers?” Charlotte said dryly. “You do know that Duke Highminster is one of the most sought-after bachelors of the last two seasons. And now he hosts a ball? The harpies will be there with their fans and fangs out, no doubt.”
The man is a cur, an absolute bounder he is—and I do not wish to be near him at all.
Despite that, for the few times Emma had been invited to balls, she had dreaded them all because the crush of people made her nervous. The disapproving glances and pointed whispers had made her want to vanish in thin air. She had no illusions her history would not repeat itself this night.
“Must you be so dour, Lottie?” Harriet pouted, her bright blond hair glinting with the flickering light of the gas lamps stationed every twenty feet on the lane.
Pursing her lips, Charlotte added, “My father is a venerated chess master and a realist. He taught me to consider all positions on the board, and frankly, if you look at it, maneuvering through the ton is a game of chess of a sort.”
Emma cast a look over. “Meaning, the endgame is to topple the King.”
If I could only be so lucky.
“Rather, to survive,” Charlotte corrected succinctly.
Peering out the window, Emma spotted the grand house, a massive manor done in an unapologetic Palladian style, which boasted separate, sprawling wings. Two stories soared above the fascinating front facade, and she briefly glimpsed a light in one of the windows.
Is that where the ducal coward is hiding?
Three liveried footmen in black and silver waited at the foot of the marble steps to receive the guests, while one stood at the doorway taking the invitations.
Staring at the double doors, Emma asked absently, “Have any of you ever actually seen the Duke of Highminster?”
“No,” Charlotte said while Harriet shook her head. “Rarely has anyone. Some lords have met him at Westminster, but few have kept company with him. Apparently, his glare is a beast on its own.”
Their conversation was forced to pause as the carriage rounded a fountain; the mythical figure in the middle was one she did not recognize. His helmet had elk horns, and a wolf lay at his feet.
Curious.
As the carriage drew to a stop at the front of the grand perron, a liveried footman appeared to hand them down. Before alighting, Emma fixed her mask to her face, brushing the small seed pearls and fine white lace with gloved fingertips.
“We’ll be fine,” Charlotte reminded her quietly for the umpteenth time. “Just look at the patrons as characters for the book you’re writing.”
Unbidden, Emma blushed. Was there anything so common as a na?ve girl with no experience in love whatsoever penning a romance novel in her spare time?
Admittedly, there were notes of mystery and peril inside the book—but Emma was stymied on those aspects. It seemed that one had to experience mystery and peril to write mystery and peril, and where would she find that?
Although what happened last week could qualify as peril, I’d wager…
The footman took their invitations, and they entered a receiving room, furnished with elegant simplicity. The runner underneath her feet was pure Aubusson, and brass covered the doorknobs, the rims of large mirrors, and—she tipped her head up—the sprawling chandelier above.
I suppose he used the ten thousand to burnish one doorknob, she thought bitterly.
If it had not been for the trust her grandfather had set up to take care of his wife, Emma did not know what would have become of her, her brother, or her grandmother Agnes.
Her announcement came without fanfare, and Emma let out a breath of relief. She’d worried about it as some members of the ton had long, spiteful memories. Now, she only got a few interested looks before other, greater interests turned their heads away.
“See,” Charlotte whispered in her ear. “I told you it would be alright. Now, how about some champagne?”
“I’d love some,” she smiled, blushing.
“Mama says I can’t have champagne,” Harriet wrinkled her nose. “She says when I drink, I am like a frog on hot coals, hopping from one gentleman to another with no correlation.”
“Surely one drink can’t hurt,” Charlotte nudged as they made their way to the refreshment tables. “We’ll keep an eye on you, won’t we, Emma?”
As they dunked the glasses under the champagne fountain, Emma’s eye caught on a lord dressed in the glistening silver breastplate of a Roman centurion and a flowing red cape.
Utterly handsome with his high cheekbones, squared jaw, and full lips.
His blonde hair was windswept, wild and untamed, entirely against the code of dress most lords adhered to.
This far, she couldn’t see his eyes, but it didn’t much matter; in moments, he was surrounded by an impenetrable wall of ladies.
“Is that the Duke?” she asked Charlotte.
“Hattie?” her friend passed on the question.
“I doubt it.” Lifting her glass to her lips, Harriet—the ever-blossoming fountain of knowledge of all ton affairs—explained sagely, “I heard His Grace has dark hair, not blond, and eyes like impenetrable steel.”
As Emma lifted her drink, her mind flew back to the man who’d stopped that blackguard from hurting her a week ago. A secret she had yet to confide in anyone. His hair, too, was like ink, and his eyes a grey iron.
“Who is he then?” Emma murmured.
“I do beg your pardon for intruding, my dears, but I can answer your question. His name is Aston Dorne,” a lady, possibly ten times their senior, sighed in full infatuation while beating up a hurricane with her silk fan.
“Marquess Windham. I believe he has just returned from the continent to take over his father’s business. Is he not simply sublime?”
She drifted away before any of them could respond, already angling toward a fresh audience to deliver her rehearsed speech.
“I’d wager she is already envisioning their future children, too,” Charlotte giggled into her glass.
“Gadz, that sounds horrible!” Harriet said while wrinkling her nose. “Anyhow, do you think he dances?”
“Not this again. You have met him for all of no seconds,” Charlotte rolled her eyes.
“I know he is a marquess and that his jaw could cut glass, Lottie, and I find that quite sufficient for now.” Harriet pressed her hands together and looked back across the room with the expression of someone composing a ballad in real time. “I shall love him terribly.”
“You said the same of Lord Pemsley, and he turned out to have a wife in Shropshire,” Emma giggled, patting her friend’s arm not unkindly.
“Hmph. I have chosen not to remember that.”
Emma smiled despite herself, though her eyes had already moved on.
In the last four years, the three times that Emma had found herself hovering at the edges of ballrooms, she had been asked to dance thrice, all of them failures.
She surveyed the successful young ladies dancing an allemande in their delicate slippers, frothy gowns, and felt the familiar weight of being entirely out of place.
Once again, her eyes settled on scouring the floor for this elusive duke. Hopefully, he would appear, if only so she could finally put a face to the dastardly name.