“Father—”
“It only takes a whisper,” Lord Shettlemane continued, ignoring the icy warning from his son. “The news of Lord Waldenfield’s heiress disappearing the morning of her wedding in Viscount Holt’s unfortunately identifiable carriage will link the two of them, no matter what has or has not transpired on their sojourn together.”
So Shettlemane came to blackmail her father, did he? She felt the hair on the back of her neck rise and she gritted her teeth.
Wasn’t it enough that she was heartbroken? No, indeed. Now she had to endure the threat of public humiliation over what she’d thought at the time had been love. In fact, she couldn’t even bear the thought of living with her aunt any longer. Memories of her moments with Asher in the garden and in the abbey would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Her father growled. “Are you threatening to ‘whisper’ into the ton’s ear about my daughter?”
“My lord, you’ve misunderstood. I am here as an ally. As such, it behooves me to tell you that, if there was a wedding announcement between them, it would help to keep society quiet, I’m sure. And a grand wedding would show everyone that your family name has no mark of disgrace upon it at all, not even in nine months’ time.”
A breath escaped her. Reflexively, her hand covered her middle. And yet Asher had been careful not to spill inside her. At the time, she’d assumed it was because he didn’t want to bring shame on her for carrying his child before he returned from his journey and they would marry.
She never imagined he’d intended to abandon her altogether.
He’d played her for a fool. And it hurt to know that she was like so many debutantes who had fallen for a scoundrel’s sweet words and passionate embraces only to be left with nothing in the end.
“And Lord Holt,” her father said in an even tone that was usually accompanied by the lowering of his brows into a battle line, “is that also the reason you have come here?”
“Absolutely not!” Asher growled. “I have no desire whatsoever to marry your daughter in order to—”
“Good,” she heard herself say as her foot left the bottom tread. Standing in the open doorway, she faced the man to whom she’d given her only true possessions—her heart and her body. It was a painful realization that they had not been enough for him. “I wouldn’t marry you either. Not even if you paid me.”
“Winn, let me finish.”
“I am marrying Mr. Woodbine,” she said, shocking herself if no one else. Her unexpected declaration felt like a cistern of cold water had been poured over her head. She felt the iciness of it in one swift deluge, seeping into her bones. Her teeth nearly chattered as she continued. “I’ve had t-time to reconsider my f-feelings and I would prefer a life with him more than anyone else.”
After all, it was obvious that she was going to be manipulated into some sort of marriage, so it might as well be to Mr. Woodbine. At least with him, her heart would never suffer again because he would never possess it.
Not only that, but she could keep disgrace from her family, and immerse herself in a life so full of managing her own house and social obligations that she wouldn’t have a minute to think about Asher Holt.
“No. You want to marry for love, or not at all,” Asher said quietly and had the audacity to reach for her hand.
She drew back.
Her fingers trembled, prickling and aching to be in his grasp just once more. And as her gaze roved over his features, she thought she saw a bruise on his jaw. She wanted to reach out, to cup his face . . .
But those were thoughts of the woman who’d loved him, and who’d thought he’d loved her in return.
She straightened, holding on to her resolve. “I would rather be with someone who is honest about what he expects from the beginning.” Then, to her father, she added, “Running away was a mistake. I wasn’t thinking or behaving like myself. All of my actions only fill me with regret.”
Her father stared back at her. His brow furrowed quizzically like a man addressing a stranger who seemed familiar but he couldn’t quite recall the name. Then, all at once, those lines eased into their usual horizontal slashes, and he nodded succinctly.
She knew he would call upon Mr. Woodbine this very day and make the arrangements. He would likely add more to her dowry, as well. And she didn’t care if he did.
Winnifred was numb to everything now. She had nothing left of herself to give.
Asher stepped in front of her, his dark gaze inviting her to remember every moment they’d spent together. “You’re only saying this because you don’t understand. I have a plan, Winn.”
“A scoundrel’s plan which hinged on a payment from my father. There is no need to pretend otherwise. And while I appreciate your escort to my aunt’s estate, I would rather forget the entire ordeal.”
“Come with me,” he said, the entreaty so low that she almost didn’t believe she’d heard it. But then he said it again, this time edged with desperation.
Her heart twisted, cracking through a layer of ice, trying to believe that she was all he really wanted.
Her mind, however, recalled standing alone at Avemore Abbey while he drove away with a fistful of her father’s money. And her heart gave up the fight.
Without a word in response, she turned around and walked away.
Chapter 27
“Winn!” Asher couldn’t let her go. He had to explain everything, and without Shettlemane nearby to make it all sound so sordid and tawdry. He took to the stairs after her. “It isn’t what it—”
“You’ve tried my patience enough,” Lord Waldenfield growled as he gripped Asher’s coat and dragged him back.
Still not fully recovered from Lum’s blows to his head or from being tied up for the better part of two days until this morning, he struggled to find his footing and staggered.
“You’re foxed,” Waldenfield accused with disgust.
Asher shook his head in denial, ready to defend himself, but all at once, his empty stomach roiled with nausea. Gripping the bannister, he drew in a slow breath. The last thing he wanted was to keck in front of Winn’s father.
Shettlemane stepped forward with his saccharine grin. “Surely you can see the proof of my words now, my lord. We can settle this matter smoothly enough, I should think.”
Waldenfield was seething, a vein pulsing in his neck. “If you leave my house this instant, without another word falling from your conniving lips, then I’ll send a messenger to your townhouse with £500 this very day. Take it or leave it.” Then he advanced, looming over Shettlemane and forcing him to shuffle back against the wall. “However, if I hear the slightest whisper about my daughter’s recent journey to Yorkshire involving anything or anyone other than a mere visit with her aunt, I will see that you are ruined so thoroughly that not even the lowest dregs of society will invite you to tea.”
Asher didn’t want to leave, but he was hardly in a position to argue his case at the moment. And Shettlemane, never one to miss an opportunity for quick money, left without another word. He even drove off, forgetting to order Mr. Lum to strong-arm Asher into the carriage as he’d done earlier.
The sleek black landau and four grays—which the marquess had purchased under Asher’s name just last week—trundled away, leaving Asher alone on the pavement. Apparently, his incarceration was over. He’d served his usefulness.
Doubtless, his father was still plotting a diabolical scheme. Or perhaps, Shettlemane was simply waiting for him to cause a scandal by cajoling his way inside by any means necessary. And Asher wanted to. Humiliating her and her family, however, would hardly prove his love.
But he believed he knew a way that he could.
Turning, he cast one more look over the townhouse, hoping to spy a glimpse of Winn’s face from a window. Instead, he saw Waldenfield’s visage behind a parted drape, glaring murderously. A prickle of warning raced down Asher’s spine.
He knew that if he stood there any longer, his chances of winning Waldenfield’s favor would
dwindle into dust. So he inclined his head and walked away, heading toward the Hollander twins’ townhouse to put the plan he’d formed at Avemore Abbey into motion.
His friends lived a mere two streets over and around a corner. Regrettably, when Asher arrived, he was forced to demean himself once more by explaining that he didn’t have the money for their voyage on Wednesday.
As he suspected, they offered to pay his passage.
“I am in your debt,” he said humbly to Avery and Bates in their study. “However, I may have one more person boarding with me. That is . . . if she’ll consent.”
And forgive me, he thought.
“She?” Two said with a nudge to his brother. “Is this a light-o’-love who’s taken your fancy?”
Asher’s gaze darkened. “I am hoping to make her my wife, so mind what you say and how you say it.”
One’s eyes widened. “A wife? We didn’t even know you were courting any prospects.” Then he reached out and took Asher’s hand, pumping it up and down while clapping him on the shoulder. “A wife! Surely this calls for a celebration. Ring for the housekeeper, brother. Have her see that—”
Asher pried free of the grip. “Save your congratulations until I have her hand in mine. Until then, I don’t want to risk startling the Fates. I haven’t asked her yet. At least, not properly.”
“Well . . . tell us about her, then,” Two egged on with a broad grin, chucking him in the shoulder.
But Asher shook his head, wanting to keep Winn and his hope to himself for the moment.
“What I need now is a good deal of paper and ink,” he said. “I have a book to write, or part of one at least.”
If Winn and her friends were writing a primer on The Marriage Habits of the Native Aristocrat, then perhaps offering her pages of “How a Scoundrel Falls in Love” might reclaim her heart.
One went behind the desk and stacked an entire drawerful of paper on top. “We’ll assist in whatever you need. Won’t we, brother?”
“It goes without saying,” Two offered with a grin. Then, abruptly, his face fell. “Oh, blimey! I just thought of something.”
“Thought I smelled smoke,” One teased.
But Bates remained serious. “The captain’s superstitious. He might not allow a woman on the ship. It’s supposed to be bad luck, after all.”
That was a problem. How was he supposed to take Winn with him if the captain refused to sail with . . . women . . .
Aunt Lolly, he thought at once.
Asher looked to his friends with expectation. “Fellows, might either of you have the costumes you wore to the last masquerade?”
“Do you mean the ones where we were both dressed as friars?”
“The ones with the long beards and robes?”
Asher grinned. “Precisely.”
* * *
While his friends were searching for the costumes in the garret, Asher wrote furiously. He sent off part one—“When a Scoundrel Meets His Match: And Why Drinking an Entire Pint of Rum Isn’t Always a Terrible Thing”—within an hour to Winn.
By afternoon tea, he’d sent her parts two and three—“How to Tempt a Scoundrel: And Twelve Reasons a Debutante Should Never Hide Her Freckles”; and “When Mother Nature Conspires Against a Scoundrel: Wet Again.”
Shortly following, he’d had a brown paper parcel containing the friar costume, a loaf of crusty bread, a wedge of cheese, and a carrot delivered to her. He hoped the first would pique her curiosity and the others would elicit fond memories, as they did for him.
Asher was in the midst of writing part four—“Confessions of a Scoundrel in Love: And Why Every Household Should Have a Singing Garden”—when a messenger arrived in the early evening.
Along with the parcel and every letter. Unopened.
There was, however, a folded missive with two words written in an elegant hand.
No more.
W. H.
Standing there, as the Hollander twins quietly shooed the messenger out the door, Asher read it a dozen or more times. But the words never altered as he hoped they would.
“Merely a bout of cold feet,” Avery said with a pat on his shoulder. “She’ll come around.”
Bates hissed an uncertain breath between his teeth. “Well, I hope it’s a quick bout, because we sail the day after tomorrow. What? Why are you glaring at me, brother? It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
“Holt, pay no heed to that mistake at birth. All you need to do is find a way to get through to her. If only we knew her friends. What did you say their names were?”
Asher lifted his head and tucked the missive in his pocket. Winn had spoken of her friends a handful of times on their walk, but she’d always referred to them by their first names—Jane, Ellie and Prue.
He started to think back to the day he’d been hailed on the street by a pair of debutantes. “Jane,” he said, and then remembered her cousin and the surname came to him. “Jane Pickerington.”
“See here,” Bates said, his face scrunched with thought. “I know that name. I think I even went to her home for tea one time. And it was complete madness. I never went back.”
“Holt isn’t asking for you to pay a call, dunderpoll. Just tell us where she lives.”
* * *
A shred of hope carried Asher across the threshold of the large house in Paddington. The grave butler inclined his bejowled head as if Asher had been expected and escorted him to a solarium.
The air was humid inside the windowed space, a variety of potted plants in urns crowding the stone floor, and budding trees stretched to the domed ceiling overhead.
A plain, slender young woman with brown hair—whom he vaguely recognized from that evening on the pavement—stepped out from behind an array of ferns. In her gloved hands, she carried a letter and a small brown vial of indeterminate contents.
“Lord Holt, I believe we are acquainted and so we shall skip the formalities. I know why you are here.”
“Forgive me, but I must disagree,” he said, imagining that she thought his visit pertained to her abduction of his person, and her apology. “I am here because of—”
“Winnie,” she interrupted succinctly. “I know you were the one who stole her away instead of my cousin. He was at the wrong church at the time. Nevertheless, I have vowed to despise you for whatever you have done to my dear friend. Her letter”—she paused to wave the page in her hand—“does not go into detail. However, she assured me that you are a scoundrel, a skilled manipulator, and not to be trusted. Now, because of you, she is determined to marry that dreadful Mr. Woodbine and the date has been set. And if you so much as contact her at any time before that day or even decades into the future, I will use this.”
She held up the vial and he eyed it with wary suspicion.
“And what is that, exactly?”
“It is a mixture of all the poisons I have in my collection, along with a small amount of my experimental gunpowder, and”—she shrugged—“lavender to improve the odor.”
He took in the fact that she never once twitched but stared at him fixedly. If he were playing cards against her, he could believe that she had a winning hand, and the thought sent a shudder through him.
Looking at the vial again to ensure the stopper was in place, he cleared his throat. “I understand; however, it is vital that I speak with Winn this very day. Everything depends upon it.”
“Absolutely not.”
Tucked underneath his arm, he carried every unopened chapter he’d sent. Now he held them out for her to take, advancing a step. “All I’m asking is for you to give these to her. Read them first if you don’t trust my intentions. I love her. Every moment we’re apart is airless and void. I’m suffocating without her. Please, Miss Pickerington. Jane. I’m begging you.”
Miss Pickerington issued an exhausted sigh and lowered the vial. “You are far more cunning than she let on. There’s an earnestness in your countenance and speech that invites future study into the behavior of scoundrels.”
For an instant, he thought she might relent.
But then she drew in another breath and emitted a shrill whistle between an infinitesimal gap in her front teeth. “Boys! Come and play barbarians and marauders with our guest, Lord Holt.”
And before Asher could even blink, he heard the stampede of at least a dozen feet. Then turning, he saw an army of boys of various heights and hair colors, all brandishing weapons from wooden swords to wooden battle axes. And they charged toward him with a war cry and—as he would soon learn—a taste for destruction.
They stripped the letters from his hands, growling like animals, biting and ripping each page. After a quarter hour of trying to defend himself from the brood and gather the torn pieces, he gave up and limped out of the house.
There was nothing more he could do here, and he still had one last dire visit to pay tomorrow.
Chapter 28
By the following morning, Winnifred was still numb. She stared blankly at the ribbon patterns on the blue silk wallpaper in her bedchamber as Abigail cinched her laces.
Tomorrow Asher’s ship would set sail. And Winnifred realized, with a small degree of surprise, that knowing he would soon be gone didn’t make the emptiness inside her grow any larger. It remained the same.
Heartache wouldn’t swallow her up. It would simply remain a cold, vast void inside her. For the rest of her life.
And since there was no point in delaying the inevitable marriage to Mr. Woodbine, she’d even asked her father to hurry things along. The sooner it was done, the better. And so, in two more days, she would become Mrs. Bertram Woodbine.
She was so numb that it no longer made her shudder with revulsion. Marriage to Mr. Woodbine wouldn’t be the end of the world. Her world had already ended, every continent submerged in a great flood.
Winnifred’s throat constricted on that thought, and when the last button of her horrid chrome-yellow dress was fastened, she whispered, “That will be all, Abigail. Thank you.”
She needed a moment alone. Unfortunately, her mother breezed in just as a meager breath shuddered out of her.
Lord Holt Takes a Bride Page 24