The Wallflower Wager

by Dare, Tessa

  “I sent a rider to intercept him with an invitation to the ball. He’s traveling in stages so he can arrive in time. I ought to speak with your father, of course. But I’m not patient enough to wait for correspondence from India.”

  She fell away from him, frowning. “You did all this without asking me first?”

  Gabe was so taken aback, so unprepared for her displeasure, he needed time to search for words. “I planned it as a surprise. A happy one, I thought. If we marry—”

  “When we marry.”

  He wreathed his arms about her waist and drew her close. “When we marry, I insist on doing it in the proper fashion, with your family’s blessing. A lengthy engagement, a grand wedding.”

  “I don’t need a grand wedding.”

  “I need you to have one. I’m the Duke of Ruin. If we rush to the altar in a slapdash manner, everyone will believe I compromised you in an effort to steal your dowry. Or even to purposely bring your family low and drag an aristocrat’s title through the gutters where I was born. We’ll never avoid rumor entirely, but speaking with your brother before announcing a betrothal is the least I can do.”

  She touched a hand to her temple. “I understand that you had good motives. I just wish you’d warned me.”

  “I didn’t want you to worry. I’ve taken care of everything.”

  “I won’t do this. I cannot do this.” The dance card shook in her white-knuckled grip. “You don’t understand.”

  “Then explain it to me. Because right now, it feels like you’re making excuses. Hiding yourself again. Or perhaps hiding me.” A sick feeling came over him. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re ashamed.”

  “No. Never. How could you think such a thing?”

  “I’m good enough to fuck in an alleyway, but you don’t want to be seen with me in public. Much less introduce me to your family. Is that it?” He took the dance card and held it before her face. “This is important. Unless people see that you have alternatives, they’ll never believe you wanted me.”

  I won’t believe you wanted me.

  Gabe needed to be certain that she didn’t see him as an escape—an easy way to avoid her rightful place in society. Or worse yet, as a last resort. She had options, and she deserved to know that before throwing them all away on him.

  “Curse you, Gabriel. You are astonishingly self-absorbed.” She dashed away a tear with an impatient swipe of her wrist. “I know it must be difficult to imagine, but sometimes I do have a thought or feeling that isn’t about you.”

  “Then share it with me.”

  “I’ve never shared it with anyone. And even though I want to, I—” Her voice broke. She looked away, eyes red and welling with tears. “It’s not that easy.”

  Gabe passed a hand over his face. She was right. He was being a self-absorbed jackass.

  He drew a deep, slow breath, easing out from under the instinctive, defensive anger that had become as natural to him as breathing. In the past, that fire had kept him warm at night when the ground frosted beneath his bare feet. It had filled his belly when he hadn’t eaten so much as a crust in days. It was the force that kept him pushing forward, struggling against the full weight of a world designed to hold him back.

  That anger had been his companion when he didn’t have a friend in the world.

  But he wasn’t alone anymore.

  With Penny in his life, everything was different. He had to be different. If she was in danger, she was his to guard. If she was hurting, she was his to protect.

  He drew her close, murmuring clumsy apologies in her ear. Taking her by the shoulders, he guided her to a divan, where they settled side by side.

  “Tell me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Tell me, he said.

  Penny’s heart clenched like a fist. Did she dare? Unburdening herself of those memories meant unpacking them from their strongbox, dragging their ugliness into the light. She’d avoided it for so long, hoping that someday the time would feel right to confide in someone.

  Now she understood that the time would never feel right. There could be no feeling right about things that were so very wrong. No, there would never be a right time to share the memories. But there could be a right person to tell.

  And the right person was here, holding her in his arms.

  “When I was a girl, my father had a friend. Mr. Lambert.” The name tasted foul on her lips, so she rushed on. “At the end of each summer, he came to visit. He and Father would go hunting, shooting. The usual autumn sport, you know.”

  He nodded, waiting for her to go on.

  “And ever since I was a young girl, he’d . . . Well, he’d always made a favorite of me.”

  Penny could see it now, looking back, how early he’d started gaining her trust. Whenever he visited, he brought her lavish presents and demanded only a kiss in return. He’d given her attention at times when she felt overlooked, left out of Bradford and Timothy’s games. The year she was learning her letters, he would pat his knee in invitation and she would go run to sit on his lap. Come, poppet. Show me how well you read.

  And when he held her a bit tighter than she would have liked, or placed his hand beneath her skirt to stroke her leg, Penny didn’t complain. She adored him.

  “I looked forward to his visits more than I looked forward to my birthday, or Christmas. He always made me feel special.”

  Gabriel quietly took her hand in his.

  “He passed me sweetmeats beneath the table, when Mother would have said no. He read to me from books of frightening tales that my nursemaid would never allow. But the treats had to be our secret, he said. I mustn’t tell a soul, or my parents would be quite cross.”

  Penny became very good at keeping secrets.

  It was the autumn she’d just turned ten when he began to touch her.

  “The weather was miserable that year. The rain made sporting impossible most days. While everyone else was reading or doing needlework, Mr. Lambert proposed a new secret. Dancing lessons.”

  They met in the great hall on dark, rainy afternoons. Just the two of them. He showed her how a gentleman would bow to her, kiss her hand. Most important, she must carry herself as a lady. He showed her how to hold her body straight and corrected her posture with his hands. At first, he merely skimmed a touch down her body, from shoulders to hips. But then it grew worse. And worse. Gentlemen touched ladies in such a manner, he said.

  Looking back, his ploy was so obvious. Like any girl of her age, Penny had been eager to grow up, chafing at her parents’ restrictions. Lambert knew it, and he used it to manipulate her. She was wise beyond her years, he told her. Her parents wanted her to stay a little girl, but he understood she was growing up. Becoming a lady. He suspected as much from the maturity in her manner, but touching her beneath her clothing was the only way to be certain. He made it sound so reasonable, even if his cold hands made her insides squirm. Mr. Lambert was her father’s oldest friend. Penny’s friend, as well. He would never hurt her.

  When he departed at the end of the visit, he reminded her sternly—the lessons had to remain their secret. If anyone knew—even the servants—they would tell her parents, and her parents would be angry. They would blame Penny. Not only for the grown-up dancing lessons, but for all their secrets. The forbidden sweets, the gifts, the stories she wasn’t meant to hear and the pictures she wasn’t meant to see . . . Everything.

  It would disappoint them greatly to learn how she’d misbehaved over the years.

  After that autumn, things were never quite the same.

  She was never the same.

  When he visited the following year, she feigned illness to avoid him—to the point of making herself vomit. She felt so queasy around him, it wasn’t difficult to pretend. Headaches, colds, her courses . . . She invented every possible excuse.

  However, she couldn’t play sick forever. Mama had gently, but firmly, reprimanded her. Mr. Lambert had always made such a point of being kind to her. Penny didn’t want to hur

t his feelings, did she?

  No, Penny had said dutifully, swallowing back the bile in her throat, she didn’t.

  That’s my good girl, Mama replied with a smile.

  Little did her mother know, Penny wasn’t her good girl. Not any longer.

  She was dirty. What would her parents think of her if they knew? Maybe they would feel the difference in her when she hugged them, she thought. And so she drew away. She dreaded Sundays. Even if she could hide the shame from her family, God must know. Perhaps the vicar could see it written on her face as she sat on the church bench, pretending to be the same good girl she’d always been.

  Her entire upbringing had taught her that her innocence was her most important asset. If she surrendered that, she would be ruined. Worthless.

  Only the animals were a comfort. She embraced family and friends less freely, but kittens never shied away. They curled in her lap and purred, and kneaded her with their velvet paws. She was especially drawn to the lost and defenseless creatures.

  “They needed me,” she told Gabriel. “And if I could save them, I still felt worthwhile.”

  As she talked, a series of objects drifted in and out of her hands. She didn’t notice them being placed in her grasp, and she didn’t recall setting them aside. They were merely there, in easy reach, exactly when she needed them.

  A handkerchief.

  A pillow.

  A cup of tea to warm her trembling hands, and then later, when her throat was parched from talking, cool water to down in a single swallow.

  At some point, the objects ceased moving into and out of her grasp, and she found herself clinging to one steady source of comfort: Gabriel’s hand.

  “I thought escaping to finishing school would be a relief,” she went on, “but it was worse. So much worse.”

  Finishing schools ostensibly existed to instruct young ladies in playing the harpsichord and painting with watercolors. However, the lecture the matrons gave most frequently had nothing to do with art or music. The topic was virtue. The importance of staying pure, of never allowing gentlemen to take liberties before marriage. Not a kiss, not a touch. Without her innocence, a young lady was worthless.

  By the time of her debut, Penny felt like a fraud. She wasn’t the sort of young lady she’d been told a true gentleman would want, and she never could be again. The event was a lie. She was a lie. And of course, the mere idea of dancing made her ill.

  So she tucked a hedgehog in her pocket. Freya was a protective talisman. Curled up in a tight ball, all her soft vulnerability hidden beneath rows of sharp quills.

  And even now, when she’d grown old enough to understand it hadn’t been her fault, and that her inner worth was intact, and the very idea of ruination was a falsehood . . .

  She still couldn’t bring herself to dance.

  When she’d finally emptied herself of words and tears, it felt like hours had passed. Perhaps they had. She was wrung out, exhausted in both her body and her mind.

  As she lifted her head, Penny gathered the frayed bits of her emotions and tried to prepare. Gabriel knew how it felt to be an unprotected, suffering child. He would want justice on her behalf.

  She would have to make him assurances. He mustn’t be angry or do anything rash, she prepared to tell him. She was better now, she’d say. So much better.

  But the truth was, she didn’t feel better. Not even though she’d unburdened herself of everything, purged that vast store of shame and pain and secrets. What remained when one unpacked an old wardrobe? An empty space. One that would take time—perhaps years—to fill.

  So, no. She didn’t feel better yet.

  She didn’t feel anything but numb, and she’d no strength in her body to pretend otherwise.

  “Penny,” he said. “If it’s all right . . . may I hold you?”

  She nodded, and he drew her into his arms, holding her close. He pressed a kiss to her crown. She couldn’t have believed there were any more tears in her, but her eyes wrung out a few more.

  “I don’t have any kittens to offer,” he said. “But if you’re in need of some soothing, I may have just the thing.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Penny looked on with curiosity as Gabriel rolled his sleeves to the elbow, leaned over the immense copper tub, and gripped the water tap.

  “Say a prayer to the gods of modern plumbing,” he advised her. “And if you know any, a ward against witchcraft.”

  He turned the tap and water flowed into the tub—clear, plentiful, and steaming hot.

  “That’s more like it,” he muttered.

  “Hot running water?” She stretched her arm into the bath and swirled the water with her fingertips. “I hereby retract all my complaints about construction noise. This is a miracle.”

  “It certainly took an act of God to achieve.”

  He turned the other tap, adding cold water to balance the hot. Then he reached for a vial of attar roses and added a few drops to the bath. The room filled with fragrant steam.

  “There are towels.” He indicated a stack of immaculate white flannel towels, folded in perfect squares. “Soap is there, by the basin. I’ll be seeing to a few things downstairs, but you’ve only to ring if you need anything and I’ll come at once.”

  “Wait.” She turned her back to him and lifted her hair. “Help me with the hooks, if you would?”

  He undid the fastenings carefully and loosened the tapes of her corset, as well. His manner wasn’t seductive, merely gentle.

  “I’ll hang a dressing gown on the hook outside the door,” he said. “Take as long as you like.”

  Once he’d gone, Penny slid her arms free of her frock, untied her corset and petticoats, and unbuttoned her chemise. She pushed the layers of fabric down over her hips, shedding them all at once, like a skin. The tile was cold beneath her bare feet, but when she lowered herself into the deep tub, the heat enveloped her.

  Heaven.

  The bathwater wrapped around her like a hug. One that embraced every part of her equally. A hand, a knee, a breast, an earlobe—the water didn’t distinguish between them. She submerged herself to the crown of her head and let the warmth flow over and around her.

  The water had gone almost cold before she could bring herself to leave the bath. After drying herself with soft towels, she slipped into the comically enormous dressing gown he’d left her. She could have fit in one sleeve. The embroidered silk hem trailed behind her as she walked to the bed.

  She must have fallen asleep the moment her head touched the pillow, because when Penny next opened her eyes, the windows revealed full darkness outside, and there was a toasty fire glowing in the fireplace. Across the room, Gabriel sat at an escritoire, poring over papers by the light of a single candle sconce.

  When she rolled over and stretched, he lifted his head. “If it isn’t Goldilocks. I hope this means the bed was just right.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m glad you were able to sleep, that’s all.”

  “So am I. Thank you.” She came back to herself with a start. “Bixby. George. Marigold. Ang—”

  “I’ve seen to them,” he assured her. “All of them.”

  “Really? But how did you know what to do?”

  He sifted through his stack of papers and withdrew a thick envelope that looked familiar. “A few weeks past, someone was good enough to write out instructions in ridiculous detail.”

  She smiled and hugged her knees to her chest.

  At her feet, a fold of the bed linens wriggled. A wet black nose appeared, followed by a whiskered snout.

  “Bixby!” She reached for the dog and pulled him into her arms for cuddles and kisses. The pup was beside himself, turning in circles and licking her everywhere he could reach. “Oh, darling. Look at you. How did you end up here?”

  Gabriel crossed the room to stand at the bedside. “I knew you needed an animal in your bed. And I didn’t think it should be me tonight.”

  “There’s room for another.”