The Lady Who Loved Him

by Christi Caldwell

  And when nothing but silence served as his greeting, the truth hit him.

  Why… why… Waverly had no intention of granting an audience.

  He glanced up.

  Lady Chloe Edgerton sat framed in the window. Where a lady ruined not even twelve hours ago would have curtains drawn and remain out of Society’s sight, she sat, staring boldly down at him. Even with the thirty feet between them, he could see suspicion better suited to an aged matron shining in the lady’s revealing blue eyes.

  Yes, clever lady indeed.

  Raising his forearm over his brow to shield the bright morn sunlight, he lifted his other in salute, waving with the hothouse offering.

  Lady Chloe narrowed her gaze.

  Several rose petals rained down, and he swatted them from his face, sputtering as one landed on his lips.

  As he looked up at the lady this time, a small smile tugged at her lips. Not the coy, tempting ones he’d come to expect from the ladies he bedded or seduced, but an innocent expression of unapologetic mirth. One that served as a stark reminder of just how very different she was. Whereas he? He’d never been pure or innocent in any way.

  And if he successfully carried out the plan his uncle had given him, Leo would find himself married to the innocent lady. Forever. Until death did part them. With the enemies he’d acquired through his role for the Crown and the irate husbands he’d left in his wake, it would likely be sooner rather than later.

  Sweat beaded his brow.

  You do not have to do this…

  Marriage… and to a lady, no less.

  Leo shot a glance back to the boy holding the reins of his mount, his feet twitching with the urge to flee.

  And then you will never work another mission… You’ll never reach the leadership level your uncle did…

  Society believed him worthless, and yet, if Leo did not have the Brethren, there’d be no point to his rotted existence…

  Battling back the unfamiliar fear cloying at him, he faced the marquess’ door once more.

  He looked up to where Lady Chloe raptly studied him.

  Leo turned his palms up and nudged his chin at the door. “Well?” he mouthed.

  Matching his movements, she shook her head.

  So the lady herself hadn’t ordered he be turned away. Marking that as an encouraging sign, he flashed a crooked grin.

  With a pointed look for the rapidly wilting flowers, she arched an eyebrow.

  Following her stare, Leo swept his arms wide and offered a flourishing bow.

  Lady Chloe rolled her eyes and, with a final wry grin, drew the lace curtains closed.

  Well, that is hardly promising.

  He beat the flowers against his opposite palm, sending more petals raining to the marquess’ stone stoop. There had been only one woman he’d wooed. That had been a lifetime ago, back when he’d been on the road to blackening his soul even more. Now, his skill at charming a woman was relegated to acts of seduction, which he’d proven a master of. Frowning, Leo glanced up…

  Lady Chloe’s gaze collided with his.

  That interest was certainly promising. He grinned.

  She snapped the curtains closed once more.

  Leo contemplated the glass panels from where the young woman had intermittently studied him. Mayhap she would prove more amenable to a match, after all. And yet, the ramifications of that hit him like a bullet he’d once taken through the shoulder. Leo’s palms went moist, and he forced himself to return to the door. What other options did he have? He resumed his rapping.

  Marriage. Knock-knock-knock.

  To a proper lady. Knock-knock-knock-knock.

  Mayhap there was another way. Knock-knock-knock-knock.

  That his uncle hadn’t thought of. Knock-knock-knock-knock.

  And Higgins could be reasoned with, and Leo spared and—

  The door was yanked open.

  Hand suspended midrap, Leo stared back at the sullen butler. “His lordship isn’t receiving,” the older man snapped.

  Having had many a door slammed in his face, Leo swiftly inserted his shoulder, preventing that panel from being shut. “I only require a few moments of the gentleman’s time.”

  With a surprising strength, the servant shoved back. “His lordship does not have a few moments.”

  “Very well.” At that capitulation, the butler relinquished his powerful hold. Pouncing, Leo pushed his way inside. “I require just a single moment, then,” he corrected with a mocking grin.

  A ruddy flush splotched the butler’s cheeks, and he clapped his hands once.

  Bloody hell.

  Leo swiveled his head toward the pair of burly footmen fast approaching. Carefully keeping an eye on the three surly servants, Leo brandished a card. “Forgive me. It occurs you are unaware of who you are turning away.”

  The liveried footmen abruptly stopped. They glanced askance to the head of the household staff.

  “I am the gentleman who ruined Lady Chloe Edgerton and request an—”

  The pair of brutes surged forward.

  Taking advantage of their carelessness, Leo rushed around them. With three bellowing servants racing after him, he sprinted down the closest corridor. “Waverly,” he shouted as he went.

  A lone maid dusting a gold-framed portrait took one look at the party charging toward her. With a screech, she ducked into the nearest room. The door slammed with a solid bang.

  “Waverly,” he boomed.

  “My God, what is the meaning of this?”

  The thunderous demand brought Leo to a staggering halt. He spun about.

  The three servants, breathless from their exertions and chests heaving, came up quickly. Nostrils flared, his cheeks florid, Lord Waverly stalked forward.

  His butler and footmen fell back, parting to allow him a direct path to Leo.

  He dropped a bow. “Waverly,” he called out jovially before the marquess could speak. “You’ve a rude-servant problem,” he said drolly. The key to attaining the upper hand of a situation with anyone was to keep one’s opponent unsettled.

  Waverly scowled.

  “I requested a meeting, and this one,” he flicked his bouquet at the red-faced butler, “sought to deny my entrance.”

  “And so you invaded my home?”

  Given that was precisely what Leo had done, he let his silence serve as his answer.

  “I came to speak about the uh… situation with Lady Chloe. I would rather we speak in private.” He shot a pointed glance past the marquess’ shoulder. “But should you prefer we speak here?”

  “I’d rather not speak at all.” Lord Waverly turned toward his footmen.

  The hulking figures resumed their forward trek to Leo. “We are speaking about the lady,” he informed Waverly as he retreated. Careful to assess there were no servants coming from the opposite hall, he backed away. “Now, we might do it here or in your office. I prefer your office, given the gossip already circulating…” he dangled.

  “Five minutes,” the marquess snapped. Not bothering to see if Leo followed, Lord Waverly marched off.

  With a smug grin for the snarling servants, Leo smoothed his lapels with one hand. Hothouse flowers in the other, he hurried to join Lady Chloe’s brother.

  As soon as they entered the marquess’ office, Waverly shut the door firmly behind him. “Three minutes,” he said, starting for his desk.

  “I am here to present a formal offer of—”

  The other man stumbled.

  “—marriage to your sister,” Leo finished anyway.

  “No.” Whipping back, nostrils again flaring, Lady Chloe’s brother barked that one-word denial.

  Tossing the hothouse arrangement down, Leo helped himself to one of the chairs in front of Waverly’s desk. “The lady is ruined—ruined by me. As such—”

  “No.”

  “It is the honorable thing to do, to spare the lady.”

  The marquess sneered. “The lady does not need an offer of marriage from you.”

 
; Leo would give credit where it was rightfully due. Waverly hurled that slightly emphasized word with an impressive modicum of viciousness. Leo stretched his legs out, looping them at the ankles in a feigned display of nonchalance. “Come, you are one who values Society’s rules. You see there’s no recourse to spare her reputation except marriage.”

  Waverly dropped his palms to the table and leaned forward. “You are a vile reprobate. A loathsome lecher, whose drinking, whoring, and wagering are the least of the crimes I expect you are guilty of.”

  “Well, that is an impressive read on your part,” he drawled. “Mayhap I misjudged the depth of your keenness, after all.”

  The marquess stood. “Get the hell out of my office. We are done here.” He scraped a hateful stare up and down Leo’s person. “We were done before you even arrived.”

  Shifting in a seat he had no intention of abandoning, Leo settled in for the discussion. “Forgive me, I have not made myself clear. I merely sought to appeal to your gentlemanlike sensibilities. I am not making that formal offer to you.”

  Some of the tension left the other man’s frame. “I did not think a rake would care whether he’d ruined—”

  “I am presenting it to Chloe,” he interrupted. The lady, a spitfire who’d challenged him boldly and hadn’t dissolved into a puddle of piteous weeping, was not a woman who’d allow a bore like Waverly to decide any aspect of her life. He’d known that clearly even going into his meeting with the marquess.

  Waverly went motionless, saying nothing for a long while. And then, “Lady Chloe.”

  “I know the lady. Spirited. Blonde hair. Trim waist. Large—”

  Roaring, the marquess pounded his desk. One of those gossip pages jumped under the force of that thump and fell, fluttering in a whispery heap to the floor.

  “Eyes,” Leo said with a mocking half-grin. “I was going to say eyes. And here I’d believed you were a gentleman.”

  The marquess collapsed back in his chair. “My sister’s reputation was left in tatters—in tatters,” he repeated on a furious hiss. “And you come here with droll retorts. Nothing is sacred to you.”

  Leo kept his grin firmly fixed on his lips. Yes, Waverly would believe that. He would expect that Leo cared for nothing and no one. He wouldn’t know that the reason he was able to sleep in comfort without the worry of insurrection or conflict shattering that calm was because of Leo’s efforts for the country. Waverly couldn’t know that. No one could. And so Leo said nothing of it. “I would like to request a meeting with your sister,” he said quietly, abandoning his previously blithe tones.

  “I know your type,” Waverly shot back, ice coating that insult.

  “Do you?”

  “Quite well.” And here he’d taken the priggish Marquess of Waverly as one who kept company only with equally tedious lords. “You are heartless, incapable of feeling. Deadened inside… if you ever had a heart that beat.”

  All true. That had been the gift his uncle and the Brethren had bestowed—erasing the tears, fears, and feelings, so that only a shell of a man remained. How much easier that emptiness was than the misery he’d once endured.

  “Nothing to say?” the marquess taunted.

  The lady’s brother was spoiling for a fight. Having had a lifetime of experience with that precursor to a good pummeling, Leo saw Waverly’s hunger to beat him senseless. Mocking him further would serve only to impede his hopes for the gentleman’s sister. Focused on his goals, Leo forced his shoulders up in a shrug. “What is there to say?”

  “Then I’ll continue.” The glee in the usually stoic lord’s words was a reminder of the ruthlessness they were all capable of—even straitlaced noblemen such as Waverly, who’d never stick a toe over the other edge of proper. “You are worthless. A fortune hunter who’d whore himself for a pence to support your wagering. And it will not be on the back of my sister’s dowry. You have my promise on that…” The marquess’ biting diatribe grew muffled in Leo’s ears.

  “You are worthless… a sorry, pathetic excuse of a boy…”

  “Please. Please, God. No. No. Not the rod…”

  “Sniveling coward…”

  Those jeers of long ago merged in a confusing blend with the present.

  Leo focused on the marquess’ mouth as it moved, fighting back the demons, fighting back every last reminder of his fallibility. He’d not be reduced to that. Not again. Not by this man. Not by any man.

  “Get out.”

  When Leo made no move to abandon his chair, Waverly took a lurching step in his direction. “Unlike you, I am a man of my word, and I promise I will, this time, have my servants haul you off and toss you out like the swine you are—”

  “Oh, very well.” Leo sighed. Grabbing the arms of the seat, he propelled himself upright. “No need to be testy or dramatic.” With brisk, even strides, he marched over to the rose-inlaid table and swiped his flowers. Turning back, he pointed the sloppy bouquet in the other man’s direction. “Before I do leave, however, I’d have you know. This,” he motioned between them, “was merely a formality. I’ll put my offer to your sister.”

  Whether Waverly liked it or not…

  He let that vow dangle, unspoken, and with the marquess’ thunderous shouts trailing after him, Leo let himself out.

  Chapter 9

  Twelve hours after Lord Leo had taken his leave and night having since descended, one thing became abundantly clear—her brother had no intention of speaking with her.

  Chloe growled. She crushed the note she’d written, which had been delivered back to her. “What do you mean he is unavailable to speak with me? He just returned.” From whatever pressing affairs had called him away earlier that afternoon. Chloe, however, didn’t mistake his conspicuous absence as anything other than what it was—a bid to avoid her. Well, if he believed he could avoid her by disappearing, only to return when the rest of the house was abed, he knew her less than even she believed. She’d been stationed at her window seat since Lord Leo had come and gone.

  Her maid shifted back and forth on her feet. “Uh…” The girl shot a desperate look over her shoulder. When she again faced Chloe, discomfort contorted her features. “His lordship instructed that he was otherwise busy,” she repeated in a rote manner that indicated the words had been served directly from the lord of the household.

  “Should I summon her ladyship again?” she tentatively ventured.

  Call Jane? For what end? She’d no sufficient answers on Gabriel’s thoughts and had proven largely unforthcoming on the details surrounding Lord Leo’s visit. “No, thank you,” she murmured distractedly. All the while, her frustration mounted.

  He’d been invisible when she was a girl, absent while she’d confronted their father’s abuse and cruelty. And now, when she was a woman, he’d interfere and exert control over her life. It didn’t matter that he did so out of a fraternal love of her and a desire to protect her. The time for that had come and gone long ago. She wanted to be treated as one whose opinion he, at the very least, heard. Alas, he would never grant her that courtesy. He was incapable of it. Crushing the page in her hand, Chloe hurled it across the floor. That small, childlike display of outrage didn’t do anything to quell the fury roiling in her chest.

  Her maid winced and took a step forward. The maid’s fingers were outstretched to rescue the scrap. She stopped abruptly, and indecision over which move to make filled her eyes.

  Chloe tamped down a sigh. It was hardly the young woman’s fault that Gabriel was a pompous bastard who’d even now ignore her note. Nor would she keep the tired-eyed servant up any longer than she had. “That will be all, Kay,” she said, gentling her tones.

  The freckle-faced girl’s shoulders sagged. “Thank you, my lady.” She expelled her gratitude on a whisper.

  “I don’t require anything further this night.” Chloe should have learned long ago that if she wished for or wanted something, she had to see to matters herself.

  “Thank you,” Kay repeated, sinking into a hasty cu
rtsy. And as if she feared Chloe would change her mind and force her into the uncomfortable role of go-between for Chloe and her brother, the younger woman bolted.

  As soon as the door closed, Chloe sank back into the down pillows behind her. How dare Gabriel? How dare he so effortlessly cut her out of any decision or discussion over her fate and last evening’s scandal? In his mind, he’d resolved himself to the only solution—Chloe’s marriage to his best friend, the Earl of Waterson—a match he’d been in favor of and pushing since she’d made her Come Out. And one that he’d not relinquished. Instead, in a bid to maneuver her into a safe marriage that would see her cared for and her reputation salvaged, his efforts would be renewed with an even greater intensity. Chloe grabbed her cane. Propelling herself to her feet, she gritted through the pain, welcoming the distraction that sharp ache brought.

  With fury fueling her movements, Chloe limped to the door. Balancing her weight over her cane, she pressed the handle and let herself out. She hobbled from her rooms, through hall after hall, until she reached the sweeping stairway.

  Sweat beading on her brow from her exertions, Chloe made the slow, arduous journey belowstairs. She paused midway down and borrowed support from her cane. One-two-three-four-five-six steps. There were just six of them. How many times had she taken those same stairs two at a time, sprinting up to her rooms, either escaping her mother or avoiding her father? And yet, now, with her ankle injured, she appreciated what a gift each previously effortless step had been.

  Exhaling slowly through her compressed lips, she forced herself to continue.

  Think of your brother exerting control over your life. She completed another step.

  Think of him once more determining what is best for you. Chloe descended the next.

  Imagine a lifetime being under your family’s thumb and Mother’s influence. Yet another and another step completed. Each tortured step represented her reasserting a say in her future and circumstances. Her brother believed she was undeserving of answers, or so much as a discussion, and used her seeming inability to seek him out as a way to avoid her.

  Chloe reached the bottom of the stairway and, through the agony each step had cost her, smiled through the pain.