Lady Beatrice would be downstairs as the guests arrived, drinking her usual glass of ratafia in the company of Miss Bent, a thoroughly foul old woman who happened to be one of the wealthiest dowagers in the region. Oddly enough, Lady Beatrice managed to be effortlessly pleasant and polite in the company of gentlemen and ladies richer than herself. It was as if she saved up her small store of kindness and charity into a single, daily measure to be lavishly spent on the wealthy, with only anger and petty irritations left for those who made her gilded life possible.
She would be occupied for at least half an hour. Enough time to indulge a small, personal wish that she had no business indulging.
One of the myriad joys of a gown as expensive as this was its ease of wear. She didn’t need to ask a maid to help her put it on. All she needed to do was vanish behind the lavishly embroidered screen that stood next to a large mirror and overcome the brief shame of being undressed in someone else’s house.
When she emerged from behind the screen, scarlet silk ribbons in her fingers trailing from the untied bodice, she went immediately to the mirror.
She gasped.
Oh, Charlotte. Thank you.
Charlotte had been so nice. Charlotte was always nice, which was sometimes the problem. Charlotte was as nice as a beautiful woman with coins falling out of her reticule could be, while Dorothea was… well, was as nice as she could be under the circumstances.
It was easy to be cheerful and kind to the world at large when you were eighteen and wealthy, with the skin and hair of a French queen and enough accomplishments to make half the ladies in the ton look like graceless mules. It was considerably harder to be both cheerful and kind when one had fallen at least seven rungs on the social ladder before one’s first Season–let alone when one understands that one can never have a Season, that the loss of both money and status was irredeemable, and it was time to make one’s own way in the world based on hard work rather than happily picking possible futures from a gilded tree.
Could she blame her parents? No. Everyone in their circle had speculated, and loss was part of the risk. Could she blame herself? No–she had managed to find employment of a kind, even if Lady Beatrice Acton was as hostile and unpleasant as Charlotte was kind and happy. Could she blame Charlotte Pembroke, her childhood friend, for refusing to act as if Dorothea’s circumstances have changed and giving her this dress, this ludicrous, ridiculous, beautiful dress…
Oh, hang Charlotte. Hang Charlotte, Lady Beatrice, and her own parents into the bargain. Life was viciously unpleasant now, with no signs of it changing for the better. There was only this garment, this deliriously perfect swirl of scarlet, to remind her of all that could have been.
She still wasn’t beautiful. She would never be as beautiful as Charlotte, a fact that caused her no jealousy–Charlotte looked like a Dresden shepherdess, which was the fashion, while Dorothea would always be too dark and full-figured to pass muster. This was an objective truth…
… But in this dress, she could almost forget what truth was. She could lose herself in the rich, glorious beauty of her own image, just for a moment, and imagine what a sensation she would have caused.
The gown had clearly been made by someone who intimately understood her shape. Charlotte must have taken one of her dresses to the modiste to make sure that it was done right–and oh, how right it was. There was a powerful mind behind the construction of the gown, a structural genius that flattered every one of her abundant curves. That shaped her rather than flattering her, giving her the figure of one of the Greek statues she had seen at the Royal Society before everything went wrong.
She hadn’t prepared her hair for dancing, or her face. She was fit for nothing but bringing Lady Beatrice drinks tonight. But if she had been given the opportunity… if life had been different…
A noise interrupted her reverie. Dorothea turned, bodice-ribbons clenched in her fists as the door to the dressing room swung slowly open.
Charlotte. It had to be Charlotte. It was embarrassing enough for Charlotte to see her in this dress, but survivable. Thank God it couldn’t be Lady Beatrice–the old woman no longer enjoyed climbing stairs. But as the door opened wider, a horrified squeak lodged in Dorothea’s throat.
A man. Not just a man, but a man she recognised. A man who she had known long ago, when they were both children–and one who she had thought of frequently since.
Thomas Duke.
Why, of all the people who could see her like this, did it have to be Thomas Duke?
He wouldn’t remember her. He wouldn’t remember anyone from those days. She had read of him in the papers–he was remorseless, dedicated, methodically wiping out every last trace of where he had come from. The sudden sight of her in a scarlet gown would arouse nothing in him but surprise and confusion.
His voice was deep. Very deep, and somehow distant–as if he was having trouble breathing. ‘… Miss Radcliffe?’
So he did remember her. This was the only possible context in which such recognition was a bad thing. Dorothea bit her lip, her bodice ribbons trembling in her palms.
Her bodice ribbons! She would need to tie them. But–but it was impossible with him looking at her like this. Impossible to do anything other than say the first thought in her head.
‘Thomas? Forgive me. Mr. Duke.’ She curtseyed quickly, wondering why on earth she hadn’t taken the trouble to ask Lady Beatrice how she should refer to childhood friends. Lady Beatrice would have been acidic, of course, but she would have ensured that Dorothea remembered her place. ‘It has been a–a very long time.’
‘Yes.’ Thomas stepped over the threshold, looking as if he’d forgotten how to blink. Forgotten how to speak as well, if the gravel in his voice was anything to go by. ‘A very long time.’
‘And–and you are well?’
‘... Yes.’
‘But you’re not downstairs dancing.’
‘... No.’
‘Were you looking for some of Lord Pembroke’s papers? He sometimes keeps them in here, from what Charlotte told me.’ Curse her urge to be helpful! ‘They’ll probably be in the desk–did he give you a key?’
‘No.’ Thomas looked down at his hand as if a key would appear. ‘No, he didn’t.’
The man certainly wasn’t at his most helpful. Dorothea stared at him with a small frown, wishing he would help her overcome the sheer embarrassment of the moment, before footsteps in the corridor made her heart leap to her throat.
More people seeing her like this was impossible. Thomas was bad enough, but–but it was different, somehow. They had played together as children, which removed at least one layer of shame. Strangers seeing her in a scarlet dress with an untied bodice–or worse, acquaintances of Lady Beatrice seeing her like this–would be untenable. Impossible.
She had to listen to instinct. Not a normal state, for her–and her body wasn’t helping. All of her nerves were on edge, sparking all sorts of strange sensations at her core.
It had to be fear. It was simply a different kind of fear to the one she usually felt. Dorothea moved forward, hoping against hope that her first urge was a trustworthy one.
Gathering her bodice-ribbons into one hand, she gripped Thomas’s wrist with the other. Thomas’s eyes widened, but he didn’t pull away. Not even when Dorothea began to run as the voices drew closer.
She had never been that fast a runner. With bare feet it was considerably easier. With Thomas running behind her, agreeably silent, it was the work of the moment to cross the dressing room and throw herself into the warm, comforting darkness of the curtains.
‘Quiet.’ She wrapped herself and Thomas in the fabric as the footsteps grew louder. ‘Quiet, please.’ He was still silent–his hand was still in hers, come to that–but there was no harm in repeating the most important instruction she could think of.
‘What a beautiful room.’ The footsteps had paused outside the room, unseen voices conversing. ‘A little too much, of course, like everything else the Pembrokes touch–but
very lovely.’
‘Whoever marries Charlotte Pembroke will be a lucky man.’
‘I don’t know.’ The footsteps began again, the voices fading. ‘She’s hardly demure…’
Soon, there was silence. A deep, somewhat revelatory silence, as Dorothea’s awareness of the man pressed against her reached uncomfortably acute levels.
She had certainly never had the opportunity to look at Thomas Duke in such close quarters. Long ago, as a dreamy-eyed girl who peered over the high wall of the orphanage when the children were sent out to play, she never would have dared to imagine such proximity. Even when they had played together, they had never been this near to one another.
He was… different. Different from the serious, grave-faced youth she remembered. There was a softness to his eyes, to the way they shone–and really, had she ever properly looked at his shoulders? They were so broad, much broader than she had ever truly registered–and his arms, his arms were so much stronger.
He looked as solid and stable as he always had, but with something new added. An air of danger that didn’t cling to him, exactly–it came from her own body, suddenly alive to Thomas in a way she hadn’t been expecting.
‘They’re gone now.’ His voice crept along her nerves, making her shiver.
‘Yes. I know. Thank you for agreeing to hide with me.’
Thomas’ smile was unexpected. It softened his eyes even further, illuminating his careworn face with a new light. ‘Did I agree?’
‘You didn’t protest.’
‘You know full well that’s not the same as agreeing. At least, I hope you do.’ He hadn’t moved an inch. His body was still pressed to hers, the muscles of his thighs astonishingly evident against her skirts. ‘Why on earth did you jump into the curtains like a rabbit?’
Dorothea swallowed. ‘I would have assumed it was evident.’
‘I assure you it isn’t.’
‘Well… this.’ She made a short, awkward gesture at her gown, the flagrant brightness of the material shining even in the dim candlelight. ‘No-one can possibly see me in this.’
Thomas was silent for a long moment. Dorothea bit her lip, watching his eyes linger on the brazen red of the sleeves and skirt.
This was exactly the effect that Charlotte had wanted. Men looking at her in this way, really noticing her. Not as Dorothea Radcliffe, the sad drab of grey standing behind Lady Beatrice Acton with shadows under her eyes. Dorothea Radcliffe, a woman through and through.
But this was Thomas. Thomas who had treated her as a nuisance when she was a child, and as if she was invisible when she was an adolescent. Who had been far, far too busy with the worries and cares of his burgeoning business to ever spare more than a passing thought for her.
Perhaps she was wrong, but–but it looked as if he were thinking of her now. Thinking of her in an entirely new way.
‘Miss Pembroke gave it to me. She all but insisted that I wear it tonight, even though I would be in the most terrible trouble if anyone so much as glimpsed me in scarlet.’ Why was she talking so much? It was as if she needed to fill the air between them, the air growing hot with tension. ‘I refused, of course. But–but I did wish to look at it on, as it were, to see if it could be re-purposed for another girl–perhaps one who is going to go to balls of her own accord–’
‘No-one but you should ever wear this dress.’
Dorothea blinked. ‘Pardon?’
‘You heard me.’
‘No-one but you should ever wear it.’ Thomas swallowed, shaking his head as he apparently came to his senses. ‘That is to say—it’s becoming.’
‘Oh.’
‘Very becoming.’
It was getting harder and harder to justify why they were still wrapped in a curtain. Wrapped so tightly together that it was becoming increasingly difficult to tell where his garments ended and the gown began.
‘Thank you.’ A compliment should be thanked. Not lingered over, her extremities hot and quivering as she looked at him. ‘Thank you very much.’
‘You don’t need to thank me.’
‘And—and I don’t think I put on the dress to see who else could wear it.’ Oh, Lord. Now that she had ceased to be helpful, she had decided to confess things that she had no business confessing. Things that she hadn’t even thought consciously, but which had flowered into being now she was standing so close to Thomas Duke. ‘I think that was a somewhat silly lie.’
‘Then why did you put it on?’
‘Because…’ Dorothea paused. The truth lay trapped in her throat; it would take courage to make it come out. ‘Because I wanted to see what I would have looked like during my first Season if I hadn’t lost everything.’
She waited for the usual wave of shame to come. It didn’t. She stood in the darkness of the curtain, trembling as Thomas Duke stared at her.
When he eventually spoke, his voice had a pain in it that she hadn’t been expecting. ‘I’m sorry. Deeply sorry. I have grown abominably distant from everyone I–I used to know. I didn’t know that your future had been altered thanks to the ignorance of your parents.’
‘I wouldn’t have expected you to know.’ If any of the scandalous, worldly women spoken of in ballrooms could see the way she was wasting time spent in a curtain with a handsome gentleman, they would have castigated her until sunrise. ‘If you’re not furnished with the details of the unwise speculations of my parents, I’m sure anyone of the ladies downstairs would be more than happy to–’
‘I don’t want to talk to the ladies downstairs. I want to talk to you. Unless you want me to–’
‘No.’ Dorothea gripped the curtain hard. The alternative was gripping the linen of his shirt–oh, how her fingers danced at the thought of it. ‘I don’t.’
She swallowed, every part of her tingling as Thomas brought his hand to her cheek.
They had to have touched one another at some point during their childhoods. They had played together so often; she had sneaked away from her suffocating townhouse to the space and freedom of the street beside the orphanage, where Thomas and his brothers had nimbly clambered over the wall to meet her…
… but there was really no reason to revisit the time when they were children now. Now they were grown up, entirely so, Thomas much more so than her. And his hand was on her cheek, his roughened fingertips moving over her skin as if he hadn’t forgotten a day of their acquaintance.
It felt new. Startlingly new. She bit her lip as his hand moved upward, gently stroking over her cheekbone, then down to the line of her jaw. His face reflected the confusion she felt in her own soul; the strangeness of it, the deep, powerful excitement.
It was wrong. Very wrong. But she’d been acting correctly forever, every day of her life–and look where that had got her.
‘I work as a companion now.’ Better to get the ugly truth out into the open, so the unbearably tense atmosphere could fade. ‘To Lady Beatrice Acton.’
Thomas frowned. ‘I’ve heard the name.’
‘Be grateful that the name is all you’ve heard.’ Dorothea paused, sighing. ‘I’m sorry. That was cruel of me. She took me into her service when no-one else would, I have a bed to sleep in and food to eat–and she’s very good about letting me see Charlotte, so many companions aren’t given the opportunity to… to see their friends…’
Her voice trailed away as Thomas traced his thumb over the corner of her mouth. A sweet, highly unexpected spark lit within her, intimately connected to the softness of his touch.
‘I… I am sorry. More sorry than you know.’
‘There is no need to be sorry. You are not responsible for the failings of my parents.’ Dorothea swallowed, not wishing to say her next phrase despite knowing that it was accurate. ‘You are not responsible for me.’
Thomas looked as if he was about to say something. Instead, with a stare that only brightened the spark within Dorothea, he kept silent.
‘And–and do not be miserable now, on my account. I’m not miserable. Not here and now.’
Why did she parrot on and on, irritating the world at large with her panicked speech? ‘As I told you–in this gown, I can see what I would have looked like during my Seasons. How I would have looked, what I would have done… who I would have been.’
‘And how would you have been?’
It was impossible to lie to eyes like his. Thomas’s thumb slowly traced the curve of her bottom lip as she spoke again. ‘Brave.’
‘And?’
‘Witty.’
Was he leaning closer? Yes, yes he was, his next word a murmur. ‘And?’
She was leaning towards him too. Her body had slipped its bonds, doing exactly what it pleased. ‘And… and scandalous.’
‘The type of scandalous that wears a scarlet gown?’
‘Yes.’ Where on earth had the word scandalous come from? She hadn’t been thinking it consciously. It had come from her unbidden, just like her desire to lean closer to him. To wrap her fingers around the cuff of his coat–oh, how warm the fabric was. How his eyes danced. ‘And…’
‘And?’
‘And–does things.’
He was so close. ‘What things?’
‘… Scandalous things.’
How foolish she was. A silly, harebrained woman expressing something that absolutely shouldn’t be expressed… but then Thomas’s lips were on hers, his fierce sigh melting through her, and every cogent thought Dorothea was holding onto melted away. Melted into the soft, voluptuous darkness that surrounded her, with Thomas her only anchor.
Oh.
Oh, yes.
Kisses were meant to be light things. Things that young women fantasised about–the end of a long courtship. Thomas Duke’s mouth on hers felt instead like the beginning of something. Something fierce. Dangerous.
She had never liked danger. Now, caught in the heart of a kiss that made her dizzy, Dorothea dimly thought that she could develop a taste for it.
She gasped as Thomas pulled away. Her first instinct was to apologise. She had to have done something wrong. But as she stared into Thomas’s eyes, something deep within her told her to keep silent.
Thomas stared at her for a long, searching moment. He looked tense, fraught, as if a struggle was occurring beyond Dorothea’s field of vision.
Sinful in Scarlet: The Brothers Duke: Book One Page 2