He felt the body he careened into before he saw it.
“Ack!” the body screamed as it plummeted toward the earth.
He knew that voice, even in single-syllable distress.
Grayson wrapped his arms around Henrietta and twisted in the air so his back hit the garden path and she landed on top of him.
The force of the fall knocked the air from his lungs, and when he inhaled, her scent filled him up. She smelled like tea, had always smelled like tea. It’s why he couldn’t stomach the stuff now. For the first time in a year, with the scent of tea—of Henrietta—twisting around him, he felt light and free, not morose and angry. Her soft breasts pressed against his chest, rising up and down with each breath. She stared down, wide-eyed, her lips slightly parted. He wanted to touch his lips to hers, to see if they tasted like tea and honey as he remembered, but instead, he reached up and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. She had jilted him, become engaged to another man. He grasped for rage but identified only the pleasure of holding her soft form close.
His heart raced. Or did her racing heart beat through her chest and into his?
“Lord Rigsby? Oh!” She rolled off him and stood up, brushing her skirts. “Why in the world were you running down a dark path? Mercy!”
“My apologies. I wasn’t paying attention. Are you hurt?”
“No.” She tilted her head and peered up, squinting to see him through the shadows. “Why were you running? Escaping to the lawn for lawn bowls?”
Grayson blinked. “Lawn bowls? This late at night? How will anyone see to … to do anything?”
“That’s the fun of it, I suppose.”
It sounded rather fun. It sounded like the type of fun he used to have before becoming Viscount Rigsby. “Well,” he sniffed. “It’s impractical.” God, he sounded like his father, stuffy and strict. “I’m not rushing off for games. I have a purpose. I saw you slip into the garden and thought it the perfect opportunity for us to speak with one another.”
“Oh?” She sounded skeptical. “I see no words between us these days, my lord.”
He gestured toward a bench near the path. She hesitated, her hands fluttering about her skirts. She’d never fluttered before. Was she nervous? She sat, and Grayson released a breath he’d not known he held.
He eyed the bench. It wasn’t nearly as spacious as it had looked from the garden path. He didn’t want to crowd her, to scare her. Besides, his body reacted to hers in ways it shouldn’t, what with being days away from proposing to another woman. He perched on the bench’s farthest end, its edge cutting into him. He stifled a grimace, shifted uncomfortably, and locked his gaze on a bush across the avenue.
He lifted his hat and scratched his ear.
“What ails you, Lord Rigsby?”
“How do you know—”
“Your itchy ear.”
She still remembered? No matter. He spoke with her for one reason alone—the necklace. But an inquiry as to its whereabouts, a demand for its return, is not what came from his mouth. “I saw your father has opened a shop in London.”
“Yes.” Her voice soared with pride.
He couldn’t help but smile, to feel her pride in his very chest. “Well done, Hen.”
She tilted her head, her smile tightening. “What do you mean?”
“I mean the shop is all your doing, is it not?” She’d spoke of her frustration with her father’s refusal to expand his business into another avenue often when they’d been together. “I’ve visited the shop, you know. Everything in it from the curtains and furniture to the shopgirls has your stamp on it.” The shop had made him miss her more than usual. “The only improvement you could make would be to the—”
“The sign.”
“It’s too fancy. All those curlicues.”
She nodded, thoughtful. “Exactly. But my mother insisted. I would have preferred a simpler text.”
“A more dignified one,” he teased.
“Precisely.” She lifted a hand to her heart, as if his understanding sent an arrow deep into that region. Her white hand rested against her bosom, rising and falling with each breath, the slim fingers oddly gloveless and bare.
Wait. No ring adorned the hand laying against her chest. Most would be scandalized by the lack of gloves, but he knew her, knew she hated having her hands confined and jerked them free of their silk casings as soon as she stepped away from the prying eyes of their social circle. Her bare, gloveless skin did not faze him, but her bare, ringless finger did. He slid his gaze to her other hand, but it hid behind her skirts. No, wait. It fluttered upward and into her lap, as bare as a newborn babe. Ringless, too.
Not married, then. Not even engaged? What secrets did her bare hands reveal?
But what would knowing them change? Nothing. Whether Miss Henrietta Blake was engaged or not, he must still propose to Lady Willow by week’s end.
Forget pleasantries. They achieved nothing. Time to be direct. “Miss Blake, you must know what this is about. You must have been expecting this. You can’t keep it, you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The necklace,” he clarified. “You can’t keep the necklace.”
“What necklace?”
He searched for the right words, but they were as annoying as the bench’s edge biting into his arse. He wiggled, searching for a comfortable position and the right thing to say. If only he could show her what he meant, but no, not this time. Best to keep it simple.
“The necklace I—”
“Oh!” she interrupted. “Do you mean the engagement present? The one you gave me?”
“Just so. You can’t keep it.”
“You are quite rude.” Her blue eyes flashed, and she sniffed, pinching her usually full lips together. “I don’t have the necklace.”
He stiffened his spine, even though it meant digging his arse harder into the slicing edge of the bench, and ground out, “You do.” He would never have considered her a liar before, but she had to be lying now. He inched close, as much to study her face as to escape the piercing hell created by the edge of the bench.
“I do not!” she hissed, scooting away. “Oh!” She jerked her chin over her shoulder, gazing down. She must have discovered the edge of the bench. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to scoot back into bench hell and give her space.
Grayson stayed put, meeting her gaze. “I gave it to you, at this very party last year.” Had she forgotten? A spike of anger lanced through him. How could she have forgotten the fervent kisses in honeysuckle-scented corners of the garden at dusk? Or the silent promises he’d made her in the library after everyone had gone to sleep? She’d helped him breathe in honeysuckle and sigh out pleasure in the garden. This garden. She’d kissed her “yes” into his palm in the darkened library.
But that was before he’d risen from spare to heir. She hadn’t wanted his kisses after his elevation.
“I remember,” she whispered.
Her voice, so soft and deep, as if dragged from her deepest self, drew him closer. The shadows obscured her face, but what he could see shone pale and drained. Her body trembled so close to him. Desire? Her gaze flicked back over her shoulder. Not desire. The damned bench edge. He wrapped his arm around her waist to steady her, but his pleasure at the soft warmth of her body ended when she stood and strode away.
“Of course, I remember.” Her voice rose confidently on the night air, exhibiting a definite note of dismissal.
He almost growled. It shouldn’t matter to him if she dismissed him and what they had shared. He would be engaged by week’s end, after all, and she was … What was she? Not married, as he’d thought. Miss Blake had not become Mrs. Someone Else. Engaged, then, likely.
“I also remember,” she continued, “you took the necklace back before the end of the party.”
“I never took it back.” He hadn’t had time to think about it. Everything had deteriorated so swiftly.
Her head cocked to the side and her mouth hung open. “Well,�
�� she finally said. “It must be lost. Or stolen. Either way, I don’t have it.”
“I’m in no mood for jesting, Henrietta.”
“And neither am I. I don’t have the necklace, Lord Rigsby. But why would you need it? It couldn’t have cost much.”
He popped off the bench like a lightning bolt striking up instead of down.
“What part of I’m not in the mood for jokes do you not understand?!”
Her back stiffened. “I do not jest,” she ground out. “Why would I?”
He strode closer, dipped his head to peer into her face, then pressed his fingertips below her chin and tipped her face upward. He searched her eyes. For what? Even if he found heated memories and a conflagration of longing to match his own, he could do nothing about it. The necklace, he reminded himself. That’s what you’re looking for. Yes.
Concentration proved difficult with Henrietta so near, her pert chin cradled in his hand. But he focused, looked one last time, and saw what he needed to see—confusion, indignation. By God, he was an ass. “You’re not lying,” he said, dropping his hand and stepping away. “I didn’t tell you when I gave it to you?”
“Tell me what?”
“The necklace was my mother’s. And my grandmother’s before. It has belonged to every Duchess of Devonmere since the very first duke gifted it to his wife.”
“Truly?” She sounded skeptical. He understood why. The necklace looked so inconsequential. A simple gold locket shaped like a bird threaded through a fine gold chain. “I didn’t know.”
“I need the necklace.”
“Are you sure you didn’t take it back? I thought you had.”
“I don’t have it.” And neither did she. What would he tell Lady Willow? Her mother? His mother? “Bloody hell!”
Henrietta ignored his curse and drummed her fingers on her forearm, lost in thought.
“You’re doing that thing.” Grayson inched closer. “With your fingers. It means you’re thinking. What are you thinking?”
She marched back and forth, tapping her fingers. “That the necklace must still be here.”
He shook his head. “If you don’t have it, and I don’t have it, it’s been stolen.”
“Then you won’t find it. But you should at least try.”
He blinked. She had a point.
“You’ll have to search the room I used last year. And the one you used, as well.”
“The wing the guests stayed in last year has been cordoned off.”
“Only for improvements.” She shrugged a slender, elegant shoulder and the silver threads shot through her gray dress shone like stars in the moonlight. He reached for the anger he’d clutched tightly in his chest for the last year. Where had it disappeared to? How was it a lift of her shoulder and the practical tilt of her head could erase the pain?
No. Not all the pain. He’d loved her, and she’d left.
“Help me.” Now why had he said that?
“Help you? With?” Her brows wrinkled in confusion.
He’d give his right bollocks to kiss her wrinkled brow. Lust zinged through his belly, despite the threat to his right bollocks. He pushed it away, thinking of swift swims in cold lakes. He would stop lusting after one woman while almost engaged to another! He straightened his cuffs and looked up at the blue-black sky. “I would like your help finding the necklace. You obviously have a clear plan of attack.”
The shadows hid the details of her face from him, but he imagined her delicate eyebrows curving toward one another on a frown. “I don’t like being responsible for the loss of such a valuable heirloom,” she said, twisting her skirts in her lap. Her lack of care for the fine material a sure sign of her agitation. She nodded, as if coming to a decision. “I would help if I could, but it would mean spending time with you, speaking with you.” Her voice bounced with agitation. “All of that”—she waved her hands in the air—“would be entirely inappropriate. You are, after all, engaged.”
She had a point. A damned good one.
When he didn’t reply, she rose with a mirthless laugh, lifted her skirts above ankles he knew were shapely though he could not see them, and backed down the path toward the bowling green.
“Henrietta!” he called. “Help me find it!” She couldn’t. He knew she couldn’t; her reasons for not doing so were absolutely correct. But the request jumped from him anyway.
She paused, a shadow stealing over her face. “No. Not for the finest bolt of silk in the world.” She left, then, hurrying toward the other guests and away from him. His heart, bloody fool, stretched toward the shadows after her.
Chapter 4
Henrietta preferred Hill House during the day. At night, the shadowy gardens and wide, starry skies drugged her, dragged her into the past, distracting her from her goal. But the sunny skies of a crisp afternoon kept her as focused as the archers lining up across the lawn to compete.
Lord Rigsby was not among the participants. He’d been absent all day, searching for the necklace, no doubt. Last year, when he’d clasped it about her neck, she’d fallen in love with the tiny trinket, adored its simplicity and his thoughtfulness. Why hadn’t he told her its significance?
Last night, with his body warm next to hers on the bench, her heart had skipped when he’d told her, when she’d realized what the story implied. He’d wanted her to have the necklace, to be a part of the tradition of Maxwell women who’d treasured the simplest piece of jewelry over diamonds and rubies and shining gold settings.
Then he’d become a future duke, and while the elevation had not stopped him from wanting a tradesman’s daughter, what he wanted no longer mattered.
She felt her eyebrows crinkle together. Bother. No one liked a tradesman’s daughter, but a tradesman’s daughter who frowned? Henrietta took a steadying breath and relaxed. Smile, she reminded herself. You are serene. You are likable. You are not threatening at all despite the terrifying newish quality of your father’s money.
There. She felt perfectly calm.
She scanned the crowd assembled on the lawn, looking for a matron to impress with her timidity or a countess to blink blankly at like a pleasant, useless doll.
Serene, Henrietta, she lectured herself. She reached for that calm place again, so close, but as her gaze slid across Lady Willow’s elegant form sitting bolt upright on a lawn chair, it slipped from reach.
“Bother,” she hissed. Lady Willow resembled the doll Henrietta tried so hard to be, her face immovable, her eyes staring into a dark distance no one else could see.
An elbow jabbed into Henrietta’s ribs. “You’re staring,” Ada said.
“I think I should seek an introduction.”
Ada followed Henrietta’s gaze to the other young woman across the lawn. “To Lady Willow?” Ada snorted. “Why for heaven’s sake would you do that?”
Henrietta straightened the bangles on her wrist. “My goals have not changed since last night. I still need the support of those like the Duchess of Valingford. Or, as the case may be, their daughters. Lady Willow is just the sort of lady who can help my shop.”
Ada’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I’ve never known you to obsess over making money like this.”
Was she obsessed? Her skin crawled at the notion. It sounded sordid coming from her friend’s mouth. With dismay, she realized her skin fit her like an ill-made gown—tight and loose in all the wrong places. She rubbed her palms up and down her arms. “I don’t desire wealth or status, but I learned a hard lesson last year. In order to attain what is desired,” in her case, happiness, a family, the man she loved, “wealth and status are necessary evils.” She shook her head. “Besides, I’ve had very little to occupy my time in the last year.” She shrugged. “So, I turned my attention to helping my father. Call it ennui. I hear it’s rather fashionable. Goes best with midnight-blue velvet. Ask Brummel.”
Ada didn’t laugh. Her eyes remained narrowed. “There are charities, if you are bored.”
“I sponsor several. Three for children in Manche
ster and two for girls of the serving class in London. The School for Seamstresses is a particular favorite of mine. We teach them accounting skills as well as sewing so they can better manage their profits.”
Ada’s eyes softened a bit. “Noble. But Hen, can’t you see?” She let her gaze graze over the assembled aristocrats on the lawn. “You don’t need their approval. And in many cases, you don’t need it because you already have it.”
But she didn’t have it. Yet. And she did need it. Couldn’t Ada understand?
“He-en! Are you paying attention?”
“Not really, no. Sorry.”
“Well do, please. Are you going to approach Lady Willow?”
Henrietta straightened her skirts and checked the ribbon under her chin. All straight, tidy, and proper. Good. She’d need whatever armor she had for what she planned to do. “Yes, I believe I will.” She’d decided to help her father, and if she could get Lady Willow into a Blake dress, well, she’d have done her duty.
“Do you have any mutual acquaintances? Besides Lord Rigsby. He’d never do, of course.”
“No.”
“Henrietta Blake, I don’t have to tell you—”
“No, you don’t, Ada Cavendish. It’s a risk, but look at her.”
Lady Willow stood alone, listing slightly to the side. Falling sleep?
Henrietta felt a ping of pity in her chest. “She looks a bit pitiful, doesn’t she?” Henrietta tried to keep sympathy for the other woman from rising through her chest and into her voice.
“Tired?”
Henrietta scrutinized Lady Willow more closely. The glazed eyes, the tapping feet. Not tired or pitiful. “She’s bored.”
Ada nodded. “That’s exactly it.”
“Then I shall liven up her life,” Henrietta said. “I only need an introduction. I don’t have the means to seek out an introduction, nor do I have the inclination to wait around for one to happen naturally.”
A Secret Desire Page 3