Instead, the following afternoon, with her leg propped above her heart, and staring up at the ceiling, she could fix on only one staggering realization—the headaches had not come.
Every time her late father’s cruelty haunted her thoughts, she would suffer from megrims. But when the thoughts arose last night and sent her fleeing through Lord Waterson’s home, the inevitable result, a debilitating headache, did not happen.
A giddiness filled her. For all the ways she’d craved control of her life, she’d been singularly lacking in this most simple way—over her megrims. They had the power to cripple her, silencing her so that nothing but darkness and quiet brought an uneasy solace.
Staring at the cherubs frolicking in the mural overhead, Chloe chewed contemplatively at her lower lip.
How to account for the demons this time remaining at bay?
She grinned wryly. “Because you were ruined, and that is distraction enough for any lady.”
Yet, as she’d long been truthful, especially to herself, she recognized the lie there.
The Marquess of Tennyson had singlehandedly diverted her thoughts since the moment he’d come upon her sprawled in Lord Waterson’s corridor. He was a nasty man. Uncouth, improper. A lecher that any lady, proper or improper, would be well advised to steer clear of.
There had been, however, a raw sincerity to him. It was as though he’d proudly shed the respectable, honorable replies and expectations of the ton and lived without regard for anyone’s opinion but his own.
And if he weren’t such a lascivious bastard with dishonorable intentions, it was a way to go through the world…
Worry crowded out any further thought of the marquess.
How was she to go through the world? Oh, she had never given a jot about Society’s opinions or gossip. But as Jane had accurately pointed out, the options that existed for a lady outside of marriage were few and far between.
Those options were even less when a lady was found as Chloe had been, in a compromising position with Society’s most notorious rake.
Polite Society wouldn’t care that Lord Tennyson had been carrying her simply because of her injured ankle. In their judgmental world, appearances mattered more than reality. And with a room full of witnesses, the sight of Chloe with the marquess bent over her was all they’d needed to see to form an opinion on just what had been occurring in Lord Waterson’s office.
Nothing untoward had happened.
Unbidden, her gaze went to her injured ankle. She moved her stare slowly over her leg, recalling Lord Tennyson’s forbidden touch, the hard weight of his long fingers as he’d moved them from her stockinged foot up her thigh.
Her breath caught even as her skin burned in remembrance of that stolen caress. In that instance, there had been no cloying fear or panic, just a wild thrill unlike any she’d ever known… unlike any she would ever know again.
A sound of disgust escaped her, and she tossed her arms wide. And that was why rakes were to be avoided. At all costs. For she well knew that men could not be trusted when it came to desire or lust or any other sentiment in between. They were volatile, ruthless bastards who could shake a gentleman’s hand with one palm and beat one’s daughters with the other.
Yes, Chloe could separate the thrilling feel of Lord Tennyson’s expert touch from the man he truly was. One who’d freely use the word tup with a stranger, all the while unable to recall the women he’d bedded. “Shameful,” she muttered.
“With such a statement, should I ask, ‘What?’ Or, ‘Who?’”
Chloe gasped at the unexpectedness of her sister-in-law’s droll query. Standing in the open doorway, a small silver tray in hand, Jane offered a gentle smile. “Forgive me. I should have knocked.” Entering the room, in more command than the queen, Jane shoved the door closed with the heel of her slipper and started over. Resting the pot of tea and pastries on the nightstand by Chloe’s bed, she perched on the edge. “Well?” she drawled.
So she had no intention of abandoning her earlier question that hadn’t really been a question.
“Jane,” she greeted, struggling up onto her elbows. “I… I…” Oh, God in heaven. I was… woolgathering. Choking on her swallow, she studiously avoided Jane’s eyes. Her stare snagged on the mound of papers next to her. “The gossip,” she finally settled for, lamely. “I was referring to… the gossip.”
Because, in fairness, it truly was shameful the words being written about her and the marquess… and the two of them together.
Color fired in her cheeks.
“Here,” Jane murmured, pouring Chloe a cup of tea.
Accepting that proffered drink, she sipped at the lukewarm brew. “How is he?” she forced herself to ask after she’d swallowed.
Her sister-in-law managed a strained smile. “How do you believe he is?” Jane countered, not pretending to misunderstand.
“Angry,” Chloe said automatically. Knowing her brother as she did, and his devotion to respectability and their family’s name, she knew he’d no doubt still be riddled with rage the morning after. Where her brother Alex had been a rogue who’d flouted societal conventions, Gabriel had adhered to them. He’d not lost that, even in his marriage to Jane.
Jane prepared herself a cup of tea. “Yes. He is furious.” She paused midpour and held Chloe’s gaze. “But not with you.”
Chloe shot her sister-in-law an incredulous look. “He did not say a word the entire carriage ride home.” That thirty-minute ride might as well have been thirty years, as interminable as it had been. The journey they’d made from Lord Waterson’s home to their own had been exhausting in its silence. “Nor did he say a word upon our return, or this morning.”
The other woman wrinkled her nose. “Oh, very well. He is slightly displeased that you were sneaking off because of… of… the circumstances.” Jane’s teacup shook, and the always indomitable woman stared with agonized eyes down at the contents. “It is my fault,” she whispered. “I shredded your hem—”
“Do not do that,” Chloe demanded, setting down her glass. “Do not take on blame for my actions last evening. I wanted nothing to do with Gabriel’s machinations, and you spared me. I made the mistake of being caught in…” Lord Tennyson’s arms.
Powerful ones, with corded biceps and not at all the soft ones she’d expected of an indolent lord.
She blinked slowly. Where in the blazes had that come from?
“He is outraged with Lord Tennyson,” Jane went on, thankfully yanking Chloe from the confusion of those musings.
Outraged. She sat up slowly. “He is not thinking of dueling him.” Her fingers curled tight into the white satin coverlet.
Jane’s silence served as her answer.
“By God, I’ll retrieve his own damned pistol and properly place a ball in him before I let him put on that display for Society. Nothing happened, Jane,” she said for surely the hundredth time since the discovery. “How many more times must I tell people that?”
Her sister-in-law eyed her thoughtfully for a moment. “There was an intimacy to your positioning.”
“Because he carried me into the room,” Chloe exploded in exasperation.
“His lips were very near your own,” her sister-in-law said gently, her words stripped of judgment.
Jane had seen that, then. Which meant her brother and Lord Waterson and that harpy who’d gleefully spread the scandal around the earl’s ballroom had also seen.
“You have gone quiet,” Jane somberly observed.
“Lord Tennyson is a rake. But even as his reputation is black, he did not kiss me.” Had the room not been crowded by witnesses of her ruin, he would have. Having never known a man’s embrace, or so much as a stolen kiss from a bold stable hand or village boy, even Chloe knew that. A little fluttering unfurled in her belly. She rubbed her hands over her face. “What has Gabriel said?” she forced herself to ask.
“He would never urge you to marry a man because of a scandal,” Jane needlessly assured. “He is…” She promptly closed
her lips.
Narrowing her eyes, Chloe sat all the straighter. “He is what?” she demanded as her sister-in-law avoided her questioning stare.
“Gabriel invited Lord Waterson to speak later this afternoon.”
Warning bells went off. “To speak?” Then the air left her on a whispery exhale. “My God, he is attempting to coordinate a match between me and the earl.” Again. Only this time, of a different sort of desperation.
Jane’s silence served as confirmation.
“No,” she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She winced at the sharp throb of pain from that sudden movement.
Ignoring her sister-in-law’s protestations, Chloe grabbed the cane propped alongside her nightstand and propelled herself into an upright position.
Panting from the exertions, Chloe started for the pink upholstered window seat.
“His lordship offered for you.”
Chloe stumbled, quickly catching herself with her cane.
“Chloe?” Her sister-in-law rushed over.
“I am fine.” She stared forward at the pink and white tasseled curtains, lost in her thoughts.
As exceedingly proud and unforgivably proper as she was—just as her late father had been—her life would be as tedious as the current Dowager Countess of Waverly if she wed the Earl of Waterson. She’d vowed long ago never to become her mother, and she’d not compromise to appease her brother’s sensibilities. Chloe set her jaw. “I am not marrying the Earl of Waterson,” she announced, resuming her slow path forward.
Jane fell into step beside her, hands clasped before her, all the blood drained from her knuckles. “Lord Waterson spoke to Gabriel and offered to marry you to save your reputation.”
It was a generous offer from a man who, despite his friendship with her brother, had never truly seen her. And yet, she had seen him through the years. Lord Waterson, not unlike Gabriel, had visions and views and expectations for the woman who’d one day be his wife. Registering Jane’s silence, she looked to her sister-in-law. “You think I should marry him?”
Color flooded the other woman’s cheeks. “I did not say that.”
“You did not need to,” she softly rejoined. “Your thoughts are all there in your eyes.” That swift kick of betrayal knocked the air from Chloe’s lungs. Jane, who’d opened Chloe’s eyes to Mary Wollstonecraft and the possibility of independence, would now waver where Chloe’s future was concerned.
Her sister-in-law studied her palms a moment. “I do not know what the answer is. I was certain I knew what I needed and wanted, and that was a finishing school. And it certainly was not a husband. But I was ruined, too… and Gabriel and I… we were thrown together. I’ve more happiness now than I ever knew was possible.”
Chloe would not point out that Jane had not been ruined by a stranger as Chloe had. Jane had been ruined by her employer, with whom she’d lived for a number of weeks before their scandal. She tipped her chin up. “I’ll ask you this, and this only… Do you believe Lord Waterson is a man who would ever support my opening an establishment as you have done? Is he someone who’d allow me my dreams?” Or was he someone who wanted a biddable wife and hostess? “I did not think so,” she added when her sister-in-law still did not speak. “Please tell Gabriel to express my gratitude, but I’ll not marry anyone simply because I’ve been ruined.” He’d still not accepted that Chloe wanted mastery of her future and certainly wouldn’t entrust herself in body, name, and soul to a man who’d crafted and then voted on legislation to strip people of their voices.
Marriage to Lord Waterson would earn her nothing but a respectable match and an empty future. Chloe had always wanted, and would always want, more.
Limping the remaining way to the window seat, Chloe balanced herself on the silver-knobbed cane and struggled to open the curtains.
Jane was instantly at her side. “Here,” she murmured, drawing the ornate, white lace through the quartet tieback. Sunlight streamed through the glass panels and bathed Chloe’s face in a soft, calming warmth. Her sister-in-law helped her into the seat. Then, rushing across the room, she fetched the two pillows at the foot of Chloe’s bed. Returning, she knelt and gently adjusted them under Chloe’s injured ankle in a loving display that most proper ladies would cede to a maid or nurse.
“Thank you, Jane,” she said softly. Jane truly loved Chloe like a sister. And with her talk of Lord Waterson, she sought only to look after Gabriel’s sister. Chloe had gone through the earliest years of her life without even a sibling to stand up to their father for her, so that showing sent warmth to her heart.
Tears welled behind Jane’s lashes in a rare display of emotion, and she angrily swiped at them. “I just want you to be happy.” The words came as though ripped from her. “I wanted… hoped that you would find love, as I did, and as your siblings have.” She lifted pained eyes to Chloe’s. “I should have given you that post as you wished.”
Chloe started to protest, but her sister-in-law shoved to her feet. “I should have. Because n-now…” Jane’s voice broke.
“Because now no one would accept an unwed lady mired in scandal as a headmistress,” Chloe gently finished.
Grief contorted the other woman’s features.
Chloe was not, nor would ever be, the type of woman who placed blame for her failings or mistakes on another. She had rushed away from the ballroom. She had allowed the Marquess of Tennyson to help her into Lord Waterson’s office. The mistakes of that night lay solely with Chloe. “The day you arrived as my companion, Jane,” she quietly began, “I was so determined to turn you out. The last thing I desired was a stern companion sent to me by the headmistress of my former finishing school. But then you opened my eyes to the world in a whole new way. You made me question and dream for more.” Jane looked up. “That is because of you.”
Someone knocked.
A moment later, a maid ducked her head inside. “His lordship asked to speak with you, my lady.”
So Gabriel would press Jane. Her sister-in-law rose. “Please tell him I’ll be along shortly.”
The young woman rushed off, leaving Chloe and Jane alone once more. “I will speak to your brother.”
Chloe offered her a reassuring smile. “Jane,” she called after her sister-in-law, staying her when she’d reached the door. “Thank you.”
Gabriel’s wife gave a dismissive wave. “Do not thank me.” She lingered. “I would be remiss if I did not point out that there will be no offer from the gentleman who ruined you. Your only offer is from the earl.”
She inclined her head in concurrence. “It would, however, be unfair to both Lord Waterson and me to marry under these,” or any, “circumstances.”
A twinkle lit Jane’s pretty eyes. “I agree. But your brother pleaded with me to make that point.”
After her sister-in-law had taken her leave, Chloe’s smile fell. The implications settled around her mind in a way that made them real, when before they’d been only nebulous.
I am ruined.
Her name destroyed and, with it, her respectability. There could be no post of governess or finishing school headmistress or instructor. She would simply find herself a woman who’d long be remembered for what transpired that night—and live off the generous dowry bestowed upon her by her late aunt. She could travel and devote her time to charitable causes and…
She knocked the back of her head against the wall.
And none of it was what she’d wished for. She’d longed to educate young ladies to use their minds and speak freely. Whether she liked it or not, Society dictated that marriage meant respectability. Though, as her sister-in-law had aptly reminded, there would be no offer of marriage from the Marquess of Tennyson.
Chloe stared down at the streets below and froze.
A tall, familiar, and wholly unexpected figure handed off the reins of his mount to a nearby street lad.
She was merely imagining him. Chloe scrubbed at her eyes. Yes, it was fatigue, or mayhap all the talk of him that day. For ther
e could be no other accounting for the Marquess of Tennyson’s presence on the pavement below. She dropped her hand, again looking down, just as Lord Tennyson bounded up the steps of her family’s townhouse.
Chloe cocked her head.
Her sister-in-law had pointed out, at Gabriel’s request, that there would be no formal offer made by the Marquess of Tennyson.
Yet… if that were the case… why was the gentleman bounding up the steps with a bouquet of hothouse flowers in his hand?
Chapter 8
In twelve years, Leo had never failed on a mission.
For all his failings as a man, he was skilled in the ways that mattered most—in the work he did for the Brethren.
Until now. Despite his uncle’s confidence in Leo’s abilities, Leo was not so proud that he didn’t recognize his many failings and his likelihood of failing… in this.
With passersby stopping to blatantly stare, Leo sprinted up the Marquess of Waverly’s steps and knocked several times.
And waited.
The way Leo saw it, after assessing the situation, the end result might play out one of two ways. Either the proper, stodgy bore of a marquess knew the precariousness of his sister’s fate and encouraged the suit, or he tossed Leo out on his arse without so much as a meeting.
Which was all fine and well. It wasn’t an appointment with the marquess that Leo sought, but rather the spitfire who’d singlehandedly compromised his reputation.
He gave his head a wry shake at the irony of that.
No, she was the one person whose assistance he needed to enlist, and whose opinion he had to sway.
Sighing, he tapped the hothouse flowers against his leg. Perhaps the Edgertons had retreated to the country to brave the scandal there. That would certainly complicate matters, but it still would not account for a servant not opening the door, at the very least.
Frustration running through him, he knocked again, harder and sharper.
The Lady Who Loved Him Page 8