Henrietta shrugged, then treated them to one of her sun-bright smiles. “You’ve not yet asked why I came to be present at the duel.”
Lady Willow’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “How could I have missed that? What a scandal!”
“It would have been, had anyone found out. But I took precautions. I snuck out and hired a hack to take me to Green Park. When I arrived, I sent the hack away and climbed into Tobias’s carriage while the men were busy with their business. Then, I waited.”
“Fascinating.”
Fascinating? Grayson had found the whole affair tedious until he’d clamored into the coach and found a blue-eyed beauty frowning at him. You must be the friend, she’d said. Sit, you.
“Your brother wasn’t hurt?” Lady Willow inquired.
“Oh, no. He’s an excellent shot. He deloped, though. The other man missed entirely.”
“Is your brother about? I’d like to meet him.”
“Oh, he’s here. You can’t miss him once he decides to leave his room. He’ll be the most garishly dressed individual about. He’s positively blinding.”
“Garish? But surely, with your father, he should know—”
“Oh, he does know how to dress, or he used to. But he started wearing clashing colors and patterns years ago, and no one knows his reasons. I would like to say he doesn’t care enough to wear matching clothes, but I’m positive he does it on purpose. He’s been acting odd lately, though. Once we arrived, he hid himself in his room and hasn’t come out since.” She glanced at Grayson as if seeking an answer. Hell if Grayson knew, though. He’d not seen Tobias since—wait. The memory of the last time he’d spoken with his friend brought with it a question. Tobias had been the one to tell him Henrietta would marry another man. He slid his eyes toward Henrietta. She wasn’t married, but was she engaged? She didn’t act it. She didn’t speak of it.
It certainly shouldn’t matter to him. But it did. And now she looked as if she fought off tears. For her brother? Why?
On impulse, he reached out a hand to her shoulder. “Are you all right? Is Tobias all right?”
Her eyes held his for a moment, then faltered down to her shoulder, no her neck, where his fingers curled against the bare skin above her fichu.
He pulled his hand away as if her neck were a hissing snake. Had Lady Willow seen? He took in her narrow eyes, the thoughtful set of her mouth. She’d seen.
Henrietta laughed, waving away his remarks and the incident as if they were nothing, comical, forgettable. It wasn’t forgettable. The feel of her skin still scorched his fingertips. “It’s as he said.” Henrietta chuckled. “We have history. Like siblings.”
“Yes, I see,” Lady Willow replied.
Siblings? Ha!
“I’m famished,” Henrietta announced. “Tea should be served soon. I’ll leave you two alone. I so enjoyed meeting you, Lady Willow.” Henrietta extended her hand, and without a single hesitation, Lady Willow shook it heartily. “I look forward to our future collaboration.” She turned sky-blue eyes to Grayson, but they looked right through him. Where had she gone? And what collaboration did she mean? “It was lovely to see you again, Lord Rigsby.” She dipped a curtsy. No warm handshake for him.
He watched her walk away, wishing beyond reason he could follow her.
“I like her.” Lady Willow stood right beside him, but her voice sounded as far off as France. No, Canada.
“Me, too,” he answered, barely aware he said anything at all. What collaboration had she spoken of? What future plans did she have with Lady Willow? Henrietta was his past, but if she insisted on continuing an acquaintanceship with Lady Willow, she’d be part of his future, too, and he wasn’t sure he could survive such an arrangement.
“Excuse me, Lady Willow, I must go.”
“Oh? Where to?”
Henrietta appeared no larger than a pin prick in the distance. He had to move quickly to catch up.
“Lord Rigsby.” Lady Willow’s head tilted to the side, and she eyed him quizzically. She looked small and alone on the vast lawn dotted with aloof people. Henrietta could wait. He’d catch up quickly. Lady Willow needed his help first.
He spied Miss Cavendish close by. She spoke with their hostess, but her gaze kept darting toward them. Grayson ushered Lady Willow in her direction. “I have business to attend to, but come, I wish to introduce you to someone I think you’ll enjoy. She’s a close friend to Miss Blake.”
Lady Willow’s steps quickened and within seconds he had her smiling shyly and comfortably ensconced between Miss Cavendish and Lady Stonefield. Good. She wasn’t alone now. He metaphorically clapped his hands together at the job well done and all but ran toward the garden, where he’d seen Henrietta disappear moments before.
“Henrietta,” he hissed, peeking behind a rose bush. “Henrietta!” he called a bit louder. “Hen!” Surely his voice carried across and through all the assorted shrubbery and vegetation.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel, growing closer. He smiled as she came into view, a frown dipping her brows low, her skirts hitched above her ankles to allow for her briskly annoyed pace.
“What?” she hissed, seeing him finally at the end of the garden path.
He couldn’t help but smile in reply.
She scowled in return, stopping several feet in front of him and placing her fists on her hips. “Is something amiss, my lord? What on earth would have you calling my name across all of God’s creation?”
“Many things,” he replied truthfully.
“Many things are amiss or many things would prompt you to scream for me like a banshee?”
Both. But he’d focus on the one. “I would like to know more about the nature of your relationship with Lady Willow.”
She stiffened. “We have only now become acquainted.”
“And do you intend to continue the acquaintanceship?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. She’s very likable.”
“I do not think you should.”
“Oh? Why?”
Surely, she knew of his intentions. “She’s the one I told you of last night.”
Her brow arched. Her lip quirked. “I’m not a dullard. I know who she is.”
He stroked the petal of a pink rose, imagining its softness was her skin, knowing her skin felt softer. “You see why you cannot befriend her.”
“I see no such thing. She sorely needs friends, I think.” Henrietta looked over his shoulder, past the garden walls, toward the throng milling on the lawns. “You are not very kind to her. You’ve left her alone.”
The accusation stung. Did she not know him? “I left her with Miss Cavendish and Lady Stonefield. She looked rather lost all by herself, and Ada is a friendly soul to those in need.” He clenched his hand into a fist above the rose, saving it from the crushing force of his grip. “I’ve done nothing to hurt her. Why you would think—”
Her face softened and she stepped closer, first one step, then two. “My apologies. You are not here to abandon her, then, but to make her more comfortable by warning me away. You do not want her to befriend your ex-fiancée.”
Grayson squirmed. He should be concerned with his future wife’s comfort, but he’d considered only his own comfort when he’d left Lady Willow to hare off after Henrietta. How could he be comfortable if his own wife befriended his ex-fiancée? Could he guarantee he wouldn’t dream of the one while sharing a bed with the other? To do so would make him the lowest of cretins.
He finally answered her. “I do not see how such a friendship would benefit anyone.” And if Lady Willow should ever discover the true nature of their relationship … Grayson dashed his fingers through his hair. Impossible. Horrifying.
Henrietta stepped closer. “Grayson, you will be a kind husband, but …”
In her pause, Grayson heard more than silence. He heard Henrietta saying his name over and over again. Not “Lord Rigsby” or “my lord,” but Grayson. And the syllables ricocheted through him, loosening his clenched muscles and driving h
im wild at the same time.
Had his brother not died. Had he not become heir, Henrietta would have already been his, a thousand times over. His wife, his lover. His. Her use of his name jolted the truth loose from between his lips. “I’m not a good man, Henrietta,” he bit out. At least he didn’t feel like a good man at the moment. He felt trapped by goodness and desperate to escape. “If you insinuate yourself into my future wife’s life, you’ll be insinuating yourself into my life, too, and I cannot promise I will not hurt her, then, no matter how much I wish not to.”
She’d bristled at the word “insinuating,” but now she’d gone still as a statue. “What do you mean, exactly?”
Careful of thorns, he picked a rose and closed the distance between them. He lifted the flower’s petals to his lips and kissed them, then brushed the petals against Henrietta’s wide, sensuous mouth. She breathed, and the inhalation moved her entire body.
His fingers grazed her hair, tucking the rose into her curls. Then he slid his hands away from her jaw, her cheeks, dropping them by his side. But his body knew what it wanted and listed forward, closer, a breath’s space between them. “I mean I cannot seem to forget you, no matter that you ripped out my heart and ground it into dust beneath your heel.” Where was the venom in his words? They should be dripping in it, but they were calm, controlled, factual. “If you are in Lady Willow’s life, my life, I may be unable to control myself.” Her lips were brighter than the rose he’d placed in her hair, and he remembered what she tasted like—tea and sunshine.
Her blue eyes widened. Her breath hitched with a slight part of her rose-kissed lips. He pulled away, clutching his hands into tight fists. They would not be Grayson-kissed lips.
She stepped back, putting even more distance between them. “I don’t believe you. You would never treat your wife in such a way, no matter what friends she kept. Neither would I. Do not play with me.”
She knew him well. No matter what he desired, what his body screamed for, he’d never sleep with another woman once married to Lady Willow, not even a willing Henrietta Blake. He knotted his fingers behind his neck and paced away from her.
“I will work with Lady Willow,” Henrietta said, standing her ground. “But you’ll not have to worry about me rising above my station and seeking her out as a social connection. It’s to be a business relationship. I’m going to dress her, make her fashionable and confident. You may do as you please.” Her fingers rose, trembling, to her almost-kissed lips. She huffed a small laugh, bereft of true mirth. “Do you know, when I offered to end our engagement last year, I’d hoped you would not let me do it. I’d hoped you would fight me, call me a fool. But you did not. You knew then what I know now. After your brother’s death, we could never be together.” She turned from him. “Go back to Lady Willow, Lord Rigsby.”
She disappeared into the house, but her words remained, sharper than the thorns of the roses surrounding him. She’d not meant what she’d said last year when she’d ended their engagement. He’d figured that out eventually. She’d wanted him to fight her own ingrained sense of propriety for them both, and he’d failed. Or rather, he’d failed to do so soon enough. He had run after her a month later, after the shock of his brother’s death and his own social elevation and change of destiny had worn off. But it had been too late. She’d been engaged to another man.
But why had she done so if she’d not forgotten him, if she’d wanted him to fight for them, for her?
Grayson scratched the spot behind his ear, remembering Henrietta’s ringless fingers. She was not married now, and she did not speak of a betrothal. “Confusion, thy name is Henrietta Blake,” Grayson groaned. He tucked another rose into his waistcoat pocket, a taunting reminder of the lips he had not kissed.
She had a point, though: he could never consider marrying Lady Willow with such confused emotions coursing through him. He’d have to seek out the Duke of Valingford and inform him the engagement everyone expected to happen may not happen at all. He would speak to Lady Willow, too.
He entered the parlor Henrietta had disappeared into, but she had left it. Her absence was for the best. He couldn’t keep storming after Henrietta. At least not until he’d spoken with the duke. Besides, no matter whom he married or when, he’d need the necklace sooner or later. He still had a mission to complete—find the necklace. He hadn’t searched this room yet, and though he saw no reason the necklace would be hiding a year later in a room he and Henrietta had never been in together, he might as well be thorough.
But each time he turned over a pillow, each time he hit the floor on palms and knees to peek underneath a piece of furniture, the question cornered him. Not a question about what happened to the necklace, but about the mystery man Henrietta had supposedly been engaged to.
He had two mysteries to solve now, it seemed.
Chapter 6
The Duke of Valingford looked out onto the lawn from three floors up, his hands clasped behind his back. Who did his daughter speak with? The hostess, Lady Stonefield, he recognized. He wouldn’t choose for his daughter to fraternize with such a woman. The woman loved her husband too openly and wore her flamboyantly red hair with pride. But she was a necessary conversational partner, he supposed. One could not ignore one’s hostess.
The other young lady he could not place. She dressed plainly but neatly, as far as he could see from his distant vantage point. But he doubted a closer view of her would provide any other telling details. He wouldn’t know her, which meant she wasn’t worth knowing, which meant his daughter should not be speaking with her.
Annoyance bristled along the ridge of his shoulders. He couldn’t extricate Lady Willow from the conversation, as much as he desired to. He would not descend to such rudeness. But he would make Willow know, later and in private, that such an acquaintance would not be tolerated. The Duke of Valingford’s daughter would not lower herself to befriend a … whoever the woman was.
It didn’t matter. The conversation was temporary, and his daughter would not make friends without his express permission. He needn’t worry.
But worry niggled him nonetheless, worry in the missing form of Lord Rigsby. Valingford had sent his wife out to find the young man and push him toward their daughter, which she’d done before directly abandoning the task and leaving Lord Rigsby to hare off after another woman.
Truly, third floors must have been invented for the distinct purpose of information gathering. They were indispensable. Valingford rocked back on his heels and turned sharply away from the view. He sank into an armchair in front of the dwindling fire and steepled his fingers under his chin. Youth these days were intolerably stupid. Consider his own daughter and Lord Rigsby, both blessed in family and fortune and marriage prospects, yet the boy couldn’t seem to make a proposal and the girl appeared unable to encourage him to do so. They were a match made in heaven, or on a financial statement, and yet neither seemed to care about bringing such a union to fruition.
If he was one to sigh, he would. But sighing indicated weakness, and he never showed weakness.
A knock on the door.
Valingford rose to his feet with slow deliberation as the very man who had just occupied his thoughts slipped into the room, closing the door softly behind him.
Lord Rigsby bowed. “Your Grace, I would like to speak with you if you have a moment.”
Valingford nodded and sank back into the chair, gesturing to the armchair beside it.
Rigsby sat, looked all about the room, and scratched behind his ear. When his gaze finally settled on Valingford, it held a hint of apprehension. Fear? Interesting.
Valingford held his tongue, waiting for the young man to find his courage.
Lord Rigsby made an exasperated huff and hung his head in his hands before popping to his feet and striding back and forth in front of the fireplace. “I need to speak with you regarding our current agreement.”
The marriage. “You needn’t ask my permission, boy. You already have it.” He should not address a futu
re duke as “boy”, but if Lord Rigsby insisted on acting so puerile, he’d have to suffer the consequences.
Lord Rigsby stuttered to a stop, startled. “I’m not.” He continued pacing. “Asking permission, that is. In fact, I’m come to tell you I do not think I can go through with it.” He dropped back into the seat, distraught eyes telling Valingford without words how difficult he found making the decision.
Poppycock. Valingford leaned back in his chair and considered the boy over steepled fingers. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll not repeat myself. And you’ll not back out of our agreement.”
“We do not have an official contract. Only spoken words.”
Valingford had not until now realized he’d need a written contract, but perhaps he should have anticipated youth’s fickleness, especially in this day and age. “Words are law, boy.” Valingford rose to his full height, looking down his nose at Rigsby. “You gave your word, and you will keep it.”
“My father gave my word for me.”
“And he assured me you are an obedient son.”
The boy cursed, then shot to his feet, standing at least two inches taller than Valingford. “You would marry your daughter to a man who does not wish to marry her?” The question rang sincere, as if the concept truly baffled him.
“My daughter will marry whomever I tell her to marry, and I have told her to marry you. Affection is immaterial. Unnecessary.” The young lord’s deep pockets were the only necessity in the arrangement, and he brought those with or without his heart.
“You may be able to control her, but you can’t control me so easily.”
The boy had a point there. But everyone had a weakness, a means of control. He simply had to find Lord Rigsby’s. “Lord Rigsby,” Valingford said in the same soothing voice he used to calm his whores after a night of rough play, “you are young and passionate and see before you a lifetime shackled to a single woman. I understand your hesitancy.”
A Secret Desire Page 5