The blanket was comforting and the memory of it still gave her strength, even though her mother had died nearly fifteen years ago. She thought of her blanket at that moment and its comfort and hid her heart in its protective fold, knowing no one could touch her there.
Not even Calvin.
At least for the night.
As though fate were out to test her, she turned when she heard movement and watched as Calvin stalked from the hedges with light spilling from the lantern he held before him.
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CHAPTER TWO
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Alice stilled and gazed at Calvin.
He lifted the light, turned, and his eyes caught hers. “Alice.” He started toward her.
“No,” she declared and stalked right past him as he came her way.
A second foot had hardly hit the ground before she was hauled backward, almost stumbling on her gown until her back hit the substantial surface of his body.
His hand spread over her belly, his body curled into hers, and his lips were at her ear. “Alice.” Her name rang like a plea.
She tried to turn and rid herself of him but her efforts would have been similar if she’d tried to move a house. He didn’t budge. “Take your hands off me.”
“Alice.” That time it resembled warning.
She dropped her hands and sighed loudly. Then she remembered a move her father taught her, lifted her arm, and struck her elbow into his chest.
He may have felt like he was made of brick but at their collision he grunted, released her, and Alice fled.
She amazed herself with her memory and found her way back to the house in due time but she’d barely crossed the threshold before she was forcibly pinned to the wall.
Calvin’s face was close to hers. “Are you going to make me chase you?” His voice was rumbly, and she smelled spirits on his breath. A glance at his eyes showed he was foxed.
She ignored just how beautiful he was, remembered her heart lay in the protection of a warm wool blanket, and asked, “How did you ever find me? I went through a maze.” To get away from you.
“Probability,” he told her.
“What?”
“You went out, you were not in the clearing, so I knew you'd taken the maze. It was only a matter of moving where there was light. Eventually, I ran into a gentleman and lady who looked as though they’d been interrupted in the midst of a tryst and asked them which direction you'd gone. They knew exactly who I was referring to and pointed me in the right direction without delay. After that, it was simple probability. You’d stay near the light and away from shadowed entrances. I found you on the first go round.”
Alice blinked. “But I ran out into the night. How do you know I would not follow the shadows?”
“Because shadows are for lovers and criminals, not a woman alone who knows better than to place herself in such a position… even while angry.”
“Everyone can see you,” she hissed. Has he lost his mind?
She looked down the hall and saw a few people standing about.
“You’re right.”
He yanked her into a nearby room and closed the door behind them.
Alice turned around, allowed her eyes to adjust to the dark, and saw it was the very room where she’d caught him and Rose. She turned and glared at him and noticed he’d moved in the time she’d done a circle. “Stop!”
His body froze two feet away from her, his hands out with the intention to touch her.
She looked at him, all of him, then brought her eyes up to meet his. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No, just a trifle disguised,” he said with a grin.
Her brows lifted. “A trifle disguised? You’re completely foxed!”
“You’re right.”
Alice wrapped her arms about herself and said, “Well, now that we’ve established that, I will go and—”
“Nothing has been established.”
Alice straightened her neck. “Of course it has been. You just admitted—”
“I admitted that I’m foxed. It doesn’t mean I don’t know exactly what I’m doing.” He moved toward her. His eyes never left hers.
Alice took several steps away, holding up her skirts to keep from tripping, continuing backward until she fell onto a chair. She looked behind her and saw she was sitting at the bay window. Then she turned as Calvin moved into the space next to her. He reached over and placed a hand on the other side of the bench, closing her in and making her feel like a sheep led to its pen, not by a shepherd but from the fear of wolves.
Moonlight made his eyes glow.
She leaned away against the glass. “Don’t touch me.”
“I won’t,” he swore, speaking slowly and low. “I understand how you must feel.”
“You understand?” Alice kept her words neither slow nor low. “You were just… with my cousin!”
Calvin narrowed his eyes and said, “Rose is your cousin?”
“Yes!”
He frowned deeper. “But Rose is a lady.”
Whether he’d meant the words to hurt her, they did, and Alice was forced to examine how secure a hold her blanket had on the most important part of her body.
She must not have done well in hiding her feelings because Calvin’s eyes widened.
“I didn’t mean it the way you believe I do.”
Alice shook her head and said, “It doesn’t matter—”
“It does matter.”
Alice found herself taken aback not by his words, but by his anger. It was in his words and his face.
She decided to calm him. “My mother and her father are siblings. My mother, Lady Alva, was the daughter of the—”
“Former Marquess of Freyler?”
Alice nodded.
Calvin lifted a brow. “And her uncle is the current Marquess of Freyler?”
She nodded again.
“And your mother, the marquess’ daughter, married a club owner?”
She nodded a third time.
Calvin leaned away to study her face. He scoffed. “Christ, you do look like Rose.”
That was the very last thing she wished to hear, though she’d heard it many times before. Their only difference was in hair color. Rose had inherited her blond from her mother, Aunt Arrah, while Alice’s hair matched the feathers of a raven.
But while it was fine when others mentioned the similarities, it was much different when Calvin noticed them.
She was readying herself to tell him to move when he spoke over her thoughts.
“But that’s where the similarities end.” He was still holding her eyes. “You’re nothing like Rose.”
“And yet you touched her.” The words tumbled from her lips before she caught them.
The noise from the crush of the party made them both look at the door. There was laughter and the sound of breaking glass. When the noise of endless footsteps faded, their eyes found one another again.
“Alice,” Calvin started. “Rose was nothing.”
No. I am nothing. She’d always been nothing to him, and she regretted just what a fool she’d been to try and gain his attention. She recalled the very first day he’d walked into Wilkins’ with his brother and father. She’d visited a table he’d been sitting at and had done everything she could to distract him. She’d done silly turns and stood around other tables that he could easily see from his chair. She was nothing, and still, Alice felt a prick in her heart for her cousin. Even though she was finished with Rose, she did feel the need to defend her. “Rose is not nothing.”
“Name one decent quality about your cousin,” he prompted.
Alice closed her mouth and tried to think of all the good Rose had done for her. She wondered why her mind could only remember the many times she’d taken the blame for every error Rose had ever made. It seemed to be an ongoing ritual with them.
Rose did something and Alice took the blame. Inevitably, Alice was told she needed to marry since a husband was the only way for Alice to be reined in.
How fortunate that Alice’s heart was no more available for love than her hand available for marriage. Calvin had ruined her.
“I’m still waiting for an answer,” Calvin told her.
“Name a decent quality about yourself,” she prompted. “Is my cousin to take all the blame for what just transpired?”
Calvin’s eyes filled with regret again. “I didn’t know she was your cousin. I swear.”
Alice shook her head and cursed inwardly at the stinging that touched her eyes. She refused to allow herself to cry before Calvin. She refused, even when all she wanted to do was cry and shout, “You should have touched no one! You’re mine!”
“Alice—”
“It’s Miss Wilkins to you,” she told him. “I am Miss Wilkins and you are Mr. Lockwood.”
“Darling.”
She shot up and his arm was forced to move away. “No!” He did not get to call her such things. “I am Miss Wilkins!”
Calvin stood and opened his mouth and began to speak just as the door opened.
A woman stood there in the entrance, withdrawing a pistol and pointing it at Calvin.
“She has a gun!” Alice cried right before she flew into Calvin. Pain ripped through her arm and glass shattered. She heard retreating footsteps and the thud of her and Calvin’s bodies hitting the ground.
Calvin groaned underneath her but it was nearly drowned by the screaming of those who were in the hall. Then, in the distance, the music stopped.
“Oh, my,” she whispered. As she tried to straighten, the pain in her arm nearly crippled her, almost forcing her back down on Calvin but she pushed through and righted herself.
Then she looked at her arm and saw the blood trailing down her elbow. The wound was to the side, making it look as though someone had cut her with a knife more so than a bullet. It was shallow but blood nonetheless poured from the opening and pooled on her skirt. Her aunt and uncle would be furious. Her uncle on the report that she’d been shot and her aunt that she’d bled on her gown. And Aunt Arrah, though nearly blind, would have no trouble seeing the large red stain that contrasted with the gray of her gown. It was a hideous dress, however, and Alice would not miss it.
Calvin pulled in a sharp breath. “You’ve been shot.”
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CHAPTER THREE
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Alice looked at Calvin then back to her wound. He was right. She’d been shot. As she focused on it, it seemed the pain got worse.
Then she heard rustling and watched as Calvin pulled the sheet from the bed and quickly wrapped it around her arm. Then he took her hands and pressed them over where the sheet met her wound.
She groaned.
“Alice.”
Her eyes found his.
“Don’t move,” he told her. Then he touched her cheek, stared at her for a beat, and left.
Alice stared after him then turned back to the sheet, wondering how angry Lord Dovehaven would be once he realized she’d ruined it.
A moment later, she saw motion at the door and watched two large men enter the room. One walked over to the nightstand and turned on a lamp while the other closed the door behind them. Then the man who’d turned on the lamp walked around the bed and turned on the other, illuminating the room from within and shielding them from the hall.
Or locking her in.
Her eyes adjusted to the brightness, and she focused on the faces before her. Recognizing the one who’d turned on the lamps, she calmed.
“Miss Wilkins.” Julius Hext, the Marquess of Darvess, sat on the bed and it bounced underneath him slightly before he settled. All the while, he kept his beautiful lavender eyes on Alice. His face held no expression and yet Alice could not deny his beauty.
Lord Darvess often made Alice think that if angels were ever given the chance to walk amongst man, Julius would be one. His hair, unlike Calvin’s, was a pure blond with heavy curls that he wore unfashionably long. Sometimes, he wore it tied at his back, like now, but there were nights when he let it fall to his shoulders. Those rare occasions had always been at her father’s club. He had a face and body so perfect that it seemed impossible two humans had come together to form it. Then there were his eyes, so lavender that if she’d been told that the color had been pressed into his eyes from the flower, she’d have believed it… and then she would wonder if he smelled just as good.
There wasn’t a woman alive who didn’t think Lord Darvess beautiful but physical attributes weren’t everything to Alice. While the color of Julius’ eyes was warm, there was no actual warmth in them. Ever. And he often stared at people as though he were looking through them and not at them… which was how she felt at the moment.
Unlike Calvin, whose hazel eyes often reminded her of a puppy, ready to cuddle and play, though Calvin’s games didn’t consist of a stick being tossed. He was into tossing skirts.
Alice then moved her eyes over to the other man in the room and was forced to blink twice to comprehend that she was looking at another very attractive male.
“Miss Wilkins,” Julius said. “I would like you to meet Francis Cullip, the Duke of Valdeston.”
Alice’s eyes widened as her eyes met those of Lord Valdeston and immediately understood why she’d never met him before. Francis’ father, though titled, had been poor, and thus, wouldn’t have had the funds for membership at Wilkins’.
But money was no longer an issue for the duke since Francis and his friends had recently opened their own club, which had caused her father to lose membership. This made Francis her rival, though it did not make her blind to his beauty.
He had dark wavy hair and eyes that could only be described as ‘true blue’. He had the physique of an athlete with a face of perfection. It took a moment to realize that Alice was staring at two of the Men of Nashwood. There were ten in total, according to the papers. They’d all met at Eton and then attended Oxford together, where they’d spent many hours in a private part of a tavern called Nashwood. That was how they’d inherited their name and, according to their legend, if any of them happened to return to that tavern, they were shown to their private section that now held each of their names carved into the walls.
The Men of Nashwood were all the papers had been able to speak of for months because Francis was the brother to Lorena Cullip, who was the woman who’d set tongues in London ablaze when she’d started a Society for Spinsters nearly two months ago… only to find herself engaged to Lord Ashwick barely a week later. Ashwick was also one of the Nashwood Men.
The Men of Nashwood and the Spinster’s Society were the talk of London, and Alice could imagine her friend Tabitha fainting were she present in the room.
Instead of fainting, Alice said, “You must excuse me for not rising to greet you, Your Grace, but I do apologize for ruining your sister’s party and please give her my felicitations.”
Francis lifted a brow. “Don’t apologize, I should be thanking you. I was beginning to feel cornered a few moment ago.”
Alice was surprised he’d share such intimate information with her.
Julius didn’t seem surprised at all as he turned his head to look at Francis. It was at that moment that she realized he’d been watching her the entire time she’d been in her head and partially watching Francis.
“Who cornered you?” Julius asked his friend.
“Evie,” he said as though her name were a curse. “One second, I was having a glass of port with a few gentlemen who had been friends of my father and the next, Genevieve was almost in my lap. In front of everyone!”
Julius straightened, and Alice was sure she’d done the same.
Then Alice was surprised when the most beautiful sound came from Julius’ mouth. He was
not only smiling but he was laughing, and his eyes shined like morning rays.
Alice’s entire body shivered as she watched with astonishment. Never had she seen him smile, so seeing him laugh made her momentarily forget herself.
Then Julius’ eyes returned to her. Still smiling, he said, “Don’t mind Francis. He’s in love with Genie; he’s simply too proper to say so.”
Alice couldn’t breathe and thought it unfair that not only was Julius handsome but he had dimples.
Francis grunted but didn’t dispute Julius’ words.
It took her a moment to return to the conversation, and Alice realized she was very happy for the mysterious Genie.
Francis addressed her. “And why do you blame yourself for what has happened tonight? No doubt the blame rests on Calvin. He undoubtedly lured you into this room, though I can’t imagine how he broke the window.”
She appreciated that he thought her naïve enough to be lured by a man anywhere and not some light skirt who would chase one but she didn’t like him or Julius believing either of her, so she said, “Calvin and I were simply speaking to one another when the gun hit the window. He didn’t tell you about the gun?”
Francis and Julius shared a look.
Julius stood and turned his head to her. “The gunshot broke the window?”
Alice nodded. “And cut my arm. Calvin grabbed the sheet and wrapped it around me in order to stop the bleeding.”
Francis moved from the door and took his position on another wall, seeming to come alert.
Julius frowned down at her and said, “You’ve been shot?”
Alice asked. “What did you believe happened?” She wondered what Calvin had told them.
Francis said, “We thought you and Calvin had been having a go at it, somehow you managed to break the window, and the sheet was simply hiding your…”
Alice’s Shameless Spinster’s Society Page 2