by Maya Rodale
With her name on it as the author.
And that was the other reason she kept up this Perfect Lady nonsense. Yes, she wanted to test Fox’s feelings for her when only his heart and happiness were on the line, and after calling hours she was on her way to trusting him with her own heart.
But she also wanted to ensure a positive reception in society for herself and her sisters when the paper was published, crediting herself as the primary author.
It might be scandalous, but a good reputation would help with that.
Being well behaved might be a way for her to find her own happiness without wrecking her siblings’ chances.
The hour was late, and Claire set down her pencil and paused to inhale the lovely, fragrant flowers. Fox had said all the right things today, but she knew the true test would be how he would react when she put her spectacles back on and published this paper for all the world to see the thought and work of Lady Claire Cavendish.
Two weeks later, the basement of Durham House
Fox had continued to court her with flowers, and walks in the park, and waltzes in ballrooms. Claire kept up her ruse, finding it harder and harder to be anything but herself. But there was so much on the line, like the future happiness of herself and her siblings, and so she simpered.
And just like that, everything had changed. Lord Darcy proposed to Bridget (again) and this time she accepted (hurrah!). Not only was her future secured, but thanks to her impending marriage to one of the most respected men of the haute ton, the family now had connections that could see them through possible scandals.
Scandals that, say, involved Lady Amelia. She recently accepted the proposal of one Mr. Alistair Finlay-Jones, who clearly adored the wild and impulsive Amelia. It was something to take note of. Amelia hadn’t had to shrink herself to fit into a little box labeled Perfect Lady in order to find love.
Now with both her and Bridget’s futures secured, Claire could breathe a sigh of relief. And put her spectacles back on.
She could also raise a glass, having something of her own to celebrate. It might be a scandal. But it was definitely something she was proud of—her paper had been published, with her name on it. Mr. Williams had sent a copy over that evening.
It necessitated a meeting of the Cavendish siblings in the kitchen, at midnight, with cake and champagne.
“To Claire, for finding a willing audience for all her brilliant thoughts about math,” James said, lifting his glass in tribute to her.
“To Claire, for publishing your paper for all the world to read, including Amelia, who now has something to read other than my diary,” Bridget added.
“To Claire, for setting a wonderful example for her younger sisters and showing that certain rules should be broken,” Amelia added.
“Thank you all for your support and encouragement. It means the world to me.” With tears of happiness in her eyes, Claire raised her glass. The four siblings toasted to her accomplishment.
The moment was perfect except for one thing—she wished Fox were here to share it.
Chapter 19
Miss Arabella Vaughn was spotted shopping on Bond Street. She was overheard declaring a need to find something fabulous to wear to Lady Westbury’s ball. This author is quite keen to see what sort of reception she’ll receive—if any—upon her return to society after a scandalous failed elopement with an actor.
—Fashionable Intelligence, The London Weekly
Lady Westbury’s ball
Tonight Lady Claire was nervous. For the first time, she would be entering a fabulous and fierce London ballroom with an open heart and a wish for love. It was easier and far less terrifying when she didn’t care at all what anyone thought; when she could stand off on the sidelines and practice sums in her head or get a spot of amusement out of lecturing dissipated young lords; when she could push them all away before they could push her out.
The comments she overheard as she milled about in the crowds didn’t help, either.
“She’s wearing her spectacles again,” some nameless, faceless girl remarked loud enough for Claire to hear.
“I wonder if it’s because she knows there’s no point in trying to win Lord Fox anymore.”
Why was there no point? Claire developed a sudden fascination with a potted palm and lingered to eavesdrop.
“Now that Arabella Vaughn has returned. She is here tonight.”
What? When? Why?
“Do you think he’ll take her back?”
No. But wait, maybe? Why had Claire waited so long?
“How can he not? They are so perfect together. Did you see the dress she’s wearing? It’s the first stare of fashion.”
Claire couldn’t care less about seeing a dress; she had come tonight with an idea of seeing Fox. Seeing what it was like to let herself feel for him, love him, perhaps even say the words.
Seeing because she was wearing her spectacles again. She had made her point with the wager, had ensured her sisters’ futures were secured, published her paper, and it was now time for her to see to her own future happiness. Starting tonight. If she wasn’t too late.
And if Lord Mowbray didn’t delay her even more.
“Lady Claire, good evening.” Mowbray stepped in front of her, bowed politely, and tried to kiss her hand.
“Mowbray, good evening.”
“Lady Claire, I was hoping to have a chance to speak with you tonight. I do feel I owe you an apology.” This was unexpected, and thus intriguing. Also, true. “Perhaps we might step out on the terrace?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Perhaps you might favor me with a dance?”
Claire prepared to decline—she hadn’t had a chance to fill in her dance card with fake names, for precisely a moment like this—when the duchess interrupted them.
“Ah, Claire, there you are! Good evening, Mowbray.”
“Your Grace, it is wonderful to see you. I was just asking Lady Claire if she might do me the honor of a dance.”
“Of course she will.”
And that was how Lady Claire found herself stuck in a quadrille with Mowbray. It went without saying that this was not how she’d hoped to spend the evening—avoiding Mowbray’s smarmy smile, trying to remember all the steps to some English dance requiring many steps and turns and this and that, all in formation.
And it was while she was stuck dancing she became aware of a murmur in the ballroom. Claire looked, and saw Arabella Vaughn. And she overheard more comments.
“She’s so beautiful.”
“A vision.”
“An angel.”
“A fallen angel,” someone said cuttingly.
Or a woman’s worst nightmare, Claire thought. Because Arabella Vaughn wasn’t just a vision of beauty by any measure and undeniably gorgeous, she was here in the ballroom, having returned to society and, one assumed, planning to regain her former glory. Including Lord Fox.
Claire saw him, too, turning to leave the ballroom.
She watched Arabella thread her way through the crowds, heading in the same direction.
Out of the ballroom, away from prying eyes, together, alone, and perfect . . .
Mowbray’s grip on her hand tightened. He gave her an icy smile. Her instincts screamed at her to flee. Her brain reminded her that she was in the middle of dance, in full view of the ton, and that to storm off now would cause an excess of talk that might undo all her hard work of the past fortnight.
“You don’t want to keep true love apart, do you?” Mowbray murmured in a way designed to intimidate her into meekly accepting the situation. “You don’t want to cause a scene, do you?”
She didn’t want to. But she would. Because it was high time that she listened to her heart.
“Mowbray, you’ve meddled enough. You simply must find something else to do with your time,” Claire said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have something better to do with mine.”
Tonight Lord Fox was nervous. He, a grown man of three and thirty, was actually nervous fo
r a ball after having attended thousands (it was probably thousands). But to be fair, he was in love.
And he was a bundle of pent-up desire and frustration that no amount of boxing, fencing, or riding could diminish. Fox wanted Claire, needed to feel her, lose himself with her, bring them both to great heights of pleasure. It was all he could think about.
Something had to be done.
Sweeping her off her feet, to start. He’d been wooing her for the past fortnight and tonight he had some notion of stealing away with Lady Claire and saying something devastatingly romantic that made her fall for him the way he’d fallen for her—to his surprise, in spite of his preconceived notions, and irrevocably.
But that all went to hell before the evening had scarcely begun.
Mowbray had asked to meet him for a quick word—so Fox lingered at the appointed time and place, a corridor just off the foyer, anxious to conclude this portion of the evening so he might find Claire.
His heart leapt at the sound of a woman’s footsteps approaching. He turned and—
Her. It was Arabella Vaughn. In all her honey-haired, long-legged glory.
Her. His former intended and the woman who once upon a time set his heart aflame, but no longer.
She strolled toward him, the silk of her skirts swirling around her long legs. Her long slender arms outstretched for him.
“Hello, Fox.” She murmured his name with her plump red lips. He bowed in greeting and she dipped into a slight curtsy, lingering on the drop so that he might have a moment to gaze down her bodice. He recognized her old tricks—and that’s what they were, tricks.
“Arabella. You’re . . . here.”
When she’d eloped, he assumed he would never see her again, and certainly not in polite society. His mind had been so wrapped up in Claire he’d never imagined this moment might occur. This was an encounter he had not prepared for.
Feeling vaguely stunned, he didn’t protest when she linked arms with his, and after determining that no one was paying attention to them, she guided them farther into a darkened corridor off the main foyer.
“I’ve missed you, Fox.” His eyes had barely adjusted to the dim light. But he thought he saw her pout.
“I thought you were married.”
“Haven’t you read the gossip columns? I have not wed.” She leaned in close and murmured into his ear. “I made a silly mistake. But now I see that we belong together.”
Fox had a sudden recollection of Lady Claire in the rain defiantly declaring, I knew we didn’t make sense together. He didn’t know why this memory surfaced now, or what to make of it.
He closed his eyes and tried to think—and tried to shut out Arabella’s flowery perfume and the heat of her body near his.
“You’re not going to snub me now, too, are you?” She pouted. Then she leaned in closer. He felt her breasts brush against his sleeve. “Not after all we’ve been through together, Fox. Remember that rainy afternoon in Norwood Park?”
She was trying to seduce him with her nearness, her perfume, the promise of her lips, and the memory of what was once.
“Arabella—” He did not mean to snub her, but he didn’t mean to shag her in a corridor at a ball, either.
“I thought I could always count on you, Fox. You promised that once.”
This was true. He had promised that once. And she had promised to be true to him. But those promises had been broken. He wasn’t sorry. Suddenly she was too close and her perfume was too strong.
“That was before you jilted me to elope with an actor.” He removed her arms from his person—she had somehow wrapped herself around him, like a vine—and stepped to the side.
“We all make mistakes. What about forgiveness?”
“I have forgiven you.” Fox said this automatically because it was the polite thing to say.
But the moment he said the words was the moment he realized the truth. She had hurt him and made him question everything, sent his Male Pride into a downward spiral, but he didn’t hold it against her. If anything, he was grateful because if she hadn’t left him, he never would have discovered Claire. And she . . . she was a woman who pleased and confounded him, challenged and enchanted him. She was the one he wanted.
“I have forgiven you, Arabella, but I have also realized that we do not suit after all.”
Arabella scoffed. “Of course we do. Are we not well matched in temperament? Do we not enjoy the same things? Waltzing at balls, spending the day at the races, long rides at Norwood Park, parties with all of our friends.”
Damn, they did enjoy all the same things. Even more confusing, Fox didn’t know if Claire enjoyed those things as well. Or if it even mattered.
“Not to mention the things a lady wouldn’t mention . . .” she continued. “We make a striking couple, the perfect couple. Everyone says so.”
That memory surfaced again, of Lady Claire in the rain. I knew we didn’t make sense together. Maybe they did not make sense together, but he knew they fit together and complemented each other. He knew this deep down, even if no one would say they were the perfect couple.
The thing was, Fox no longer cared what anyone else said.
“Arabella, no.”
He tried to remove her arms from around his neck.
“This isn’t about that American, is it? The one you’ve been squiring around for that wager?”
“Her name is Lady Claire Cavendish. She’s quite lovely when you get to know her.”
“Get to know her? Oh, please. You won the wager, what else is there to do with her?”
Everything. Marry her. Love her forever and ever.
He conveyed all that with a sharp look; he would not have anyone casting aspersions on the woman he loved and his future bride.
“Oh. You must be joking.”
He was the opposite of joking. This, too, was conveyed with another pointed look.
“You’re not joking.”
“Arabella, this isn’t something that we need to discuss.”
But it was as if he hadn’t spoken at all. She gave him a coy smile and draped her arms around his shoulders again.
“Then I’ll just have to change your mind.”
And then she leaned in and tilted her head up to his. He saw those plump lips of hers coming closer, closer, closer to his for a kiss that would wreck him and not in a good way.
Fox turned his head.
Arabella’s mouth crashed into his cheek.
And he saw Claire.
Beautiful Claire with her spectacles on, taking in every last detail of his inadvertent treachery. Her spine was straight, but her hands were anxiously clasping the fabric of her skirts. She was bothered. Very bothered.
“I thought you were smarter than this, Fox. To fall for what is so obviously a trap. Unless you wanted to?”
“Claire. It’s not what it looks like—”
He started to protest as he tried to disentangle himself from Arabella’s grasp. Goddamn, the woman was worse than ivy and seemed to have as many arms and legs as an octopus, all of them wrapped around him and ruining everything.
“But it is,” Arabella cut in. “You had your fun with him. Or he’s had his fun with you. Not that you seem very fun, from what I’ve heard. But now that’s over and I’m just reminding him of how good we were together.” She turned to him and gazed into his eyes. “And how good we can be again.”
“But you jilted him,” Claire pointed out logically. Always Claire, with the logic. And morals. That was his girl.
“Can’t a woman change her mind? Besides, but I’m not dead. If you understand my meaning,” Arabella said with another coy look and very unnecessary wink.
“I am known for my powers of comprehension. If you’ll excuse me.”
With that, Claire turned with a swish of her skirts and stalked off, dragging his heart behind her. Not unlike that day in the rain . . .
“Claire—” Fox called out after her, but he didn’t want to shout and draw attention to himself, with Arabella
once again tangled around him, and Lady Claire, who cared for her reputation. This was not a scene that the ton needed to feast upon.
“Fox . . .” Arabella pouted.
“Get off me, woman.”
Arabella looked stunned at the sharpness in his voice. But she finally relented.
“Fox, darling, this is madness.”
“I’m not your darling.”
“Fine. But you can’t possibly be chasing after her.”
There was no mistaking the derision and disbelief in her voice. It was that attitude and expectation of who belonged with whom, based upon such superficial qualities like looks or popularity, that had nearly kept him and Claire apart.
The difference between Claire, who once shared that sentiment, and Arabella, is that Claire opened her heart and mind. He knew Arabella never would.
This was no longer his problem. His heart felt lighter at the thought.
“Yes, Arabella, I am chasing after Lady Claire Cavendish and I don’t care who knows it.”
Chapter 20
Fox called out after her. “Claire, it’s not what you think.”
Claire raced down the darkened corridor.
Fox rushed after her, leaving Arabella behind forever. She called out after him but he let her voice echo in the hall as he rushed away from her toward the woman he really wanted.
It didn’t take long for his long strides to catch up with Claire’s brisk little steps.
Fox reached and clasped her wrist, hoping to stop her from running away. She spun around and glared up at him with such a vulnerable but furious expression that, if it didn’t break his heart, certainly hammered a few cracks into it.
“Claire, I can explain,” he said, using his most rational, logical, let’s-be-calm voice. He had learned it from her. “She came after me. I did not pursue her.”