How innocent Ivy’s life was in comparison to his. Or perhaps not. His brows knotted at the enigmatic note.
Dear Ivy,
I know your employer will not allow you another day off, but if there is any chance he might grant you a few hours of freedom, I shall be forever grateful.
I need to confess to you what I did in London. Until I share this burden with you I cannot sleep or eat. I am so full of morose thoughts that I burst into tears when even a leaf falls.
I had an interview yesterday with a viscountess who is seeking a companion. She has promised me the job. And I have accepted. I expect to start work soon.
There are great changes afoot at Fenwick. I’m sworn to secrecy, but be prepared. It seems to us that you found love in London.
By the way, today is Lilac’s natal day. I wish you could be here. For the first time in years, we are celebrating in grand fashion, and all because of you.
Your loving sister,
Rue
James refolded the letter and handed it back to the butler. Ivy would never forgive him for reading another of her correspondences. “Have Carstairs reseal and deliver it to Lady Ivy upstairs. I should never have opened it.”
The butler bowed. “An understandable mistake, Your Grace.”
“Yes.”
Understandable. But James wasn’t sure he understood the contents of the missive.
It seems that you found love in London.
Could Rue be referring to that long-ago incident between Ivy and James at the masquerade ball? It was possible Ivy had told her sisters how she and James had met. That pleased him, to think he was important enough for her to speak of in those terms to them.
It was also possible that Rue was talking about another man. She could have been alluding to a poet who enticed a woman with her own pearls and words that promised everything and meant nothing at all.
* * *
Ivy saw the duke propped against the doorjamb and felt like she was falling again. Not out of a window, it was true, but into a different kind of danger, one that could only end with a pain worse than anything she’d ever imagined. But when he smiled at her, ignoring the children’s cries of greeting, she didn’t care how or where she landed. She could only hope he would be there to catch her.
“Your Grace.” She stood, edging around the globe, and curtsied. “We were studying the correct forms of address when one is presented at court.”
“Elora is taking me on a visit,” Walker said, sliding off his stool.
Ivy noticed the duke glance at the letter on her desk. She was positive the rogue had read and resealed it. He had no compunctions about uncovering her secrets. And he wasn’t subtle at all about his desires.
“How is your hand?” he asked.
“I would never have known I’d injured it if not for this cumbersome bandage. It does make writing difficult.”
His smile vanished. “I understand.”
“I’ve been a bother,” she said, held hostage by his stare.
“I see that you received the letter,” he said, as if Ivy weren’t perfectly aware he had knowledge of the contents. “Is everything well at home?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure. I forgot that today is my sister’s birthday.”
Mary barreled around her and anchored herself to the duke’s side. “Don’t make me go with Elora. I want to stay here.”
He stroked her hair. “Why?” he asked gently. “Are you that attached to your governess?”
“Well, I am,” Mary answered. “But I want to be here in case my father sends you a letter or my mother returns for us.”
His eyes darkened. Ivy doubted he would surrender the children, even if their mother did come home. “Fine, Mary,” he said, but he was still staring at Ivy. He added in a hesitant voice, “Your governess must take the afternoon off. I think we’ve worn her to tatters in the short time she’s been here.”
Ivy studied his stern face. “Are you giving me permission to go home?”
“Only for a few hours. And I shall have my footman escort you and remain on guard outside Fenwick until you are ready to come back.”
So he had read her letter.
She sighed. “I don’t need guards. There haven’t been any highwaymen lurking in the hedgerows for decades.”
“I’m not worried about highwaymen,” he replied. “It’s the scoundrels who have been attracted to the area lately that are of concern.”
Ivy almost retorted that it took one to know one. But then he gave her a smile that could have melted iron, let alone a lady’s heart. She wasn’t about to admit to him that when it came to scoundrels, he had no competition. She was grateful for the consideration he’d shown her yesterday and again now.
Even if she was becoming hopelessly entangled in the strings that were attached to his generosity.
“Thank you.” She curtsied low. When she rose up, his eyes met hers in a questioning look that threatened to buckle her knees again. Scoundrel of scoundrels, she thought. He didn’t even have to try. He undid a woman with a glance.
“Be back on time,” he said, and his smile told her he knew she would obey.
“I will,” she said even though she had not a clue what awaited her at the house. “I promise.”
“I might discipline you this time if you’re late. Come, Mary.” He took the girl by the hand. “Why don’t you run out into the garden and pick some flowers for Lady Ivy’s sister?”
Chapter 14
Ivy walked toward her family’s residence, unable to believe her eyes. A pair of masons teetered on ladders, filling in the turret’s stone trim. The huge crack above the front door had been repaired. And the garden—it had been denuded of its protective thorns and laid naked to expose row upon row of young rosebushes that only experienced gardeners could have planted.
She swallowed. The duke must have done this. He had rendered Fenwick elegant again, romantic—and vulnerable to all who passed. He had begun the work of restoration.
Was this why he’d insisted she take the afternoon off? Perhaps he felt guilty that she had injured herself. Had he planned a birthday surprise for Lilac and tricked Ivy into coming home? Her throat tightened. Persuasive, calculating, he seemed unwilling to waste time between mistresses. Elora had indicated that she was no longer game. Ivy was the logical next choice. She wouldn’t be surprised to find that he plotted her seduction down to the last move.
The front door stood open.
She stepped into the house, hiding her flower bouquet behind her back, and made her way to the great hall in trepidation. She expected the duke to be hiding in a corner somewhere. The guests seated at the table gave her guarded smiles. In attendance sat three gentlemen, and two ladies whom she had never met. She looked uncertainly first at Lilac, whose smile could mean anything, and then at Rue, whose averted gaze said this was not her doing. She glanced at Rosemary, who shrugged as if to detach herself from the entire scene.
She stared at the covered silver dishes on the table, at the glittering candelabrum, the bowls of imported fruit and wheels of white, crumbly, blue-veined cheese. A place had been set at the end of the table, the empty chair where her father had presided over the festivities. It was the seat of honor, reserved for the master of the house, and Ivy’s heart missed a beat.
She’d held out hope until the last moment that it was her arrogant duke who had arranged this surprise. She waited for him to put in an appearance until another man entered through the screen’s passage, looking only at her.
She was so disappointed she could have thrown the flowers in his face.
Sir Oliver might be an attractive buck, with scads of admirers in London. To judge by the cheers that greeted him, he had already taken over the house. But as Ivy gave him a restrained smile, she decided that she preferred her scoundrels dark and masterful. The type who unmasked their passion
s in private.
“Welcome home, Ivy,” he said warmly. “I’m glad that your gaoler released you for the day.”
* * *
James paced his study. He climbed the stairs to Ivy’s room a half-dozen times and turned back before reaching her door. Dusk stole over the park. At last he heard the porter opening the gates, carriage wheels churning the gravel drive.
He walked back into his study. He was determined not to show how his anxiety had mastered him. Indeed it was later than he expected. But it wasn’t yet dark. He wouldn’t chastise her when he had given her permission to go in the first place. He stared at the letters on his desk, listening for her footsteps. He hadn’t heard from his brother. He had written Curtis to tell him only that Mary and Walker were staying at Ellsworth, not the reason why.
Where was their governess?
Sharing the company of her sisters, telling secrets, laughing, perhaps even confessing that she and James had grown close? God, what was he thinking? Committing to Ivy would mean he’d be responsible for marrying off a brood of beautiful and independent women. He would never know a moment of peace again in his life. Or of loneliness. What a compelling if untidy fate.
He waited another half hour before he rang for Carstairs. “Is she here?” he demanded the instant the steward walked through the door.
Carstairs hung his head. He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “The carriage has returned, without Lady Ivy, Your Grace.”
The muscles in his shoulders tightened. His arm ached. “Why?”
“The footmen only know that a gentleman said he would return the lady in his own vehicle. Do you want to ride there to fetch her yourself?”
“Most assuredly not. Let her pay the consequences. I granted her a privilege. I felt sorry about the injury to her hand.”
Carstairs coughed lightly. “Perhaps there’s a reason why she is returning with this other person. Her sisters might have wanted to come along for the ride.”
“Or the gentleman might not have wanted my servants to witness what he had planned during the drive here.”
“All will be well, Your Grace.”
“A dalliance in a carriage? Who would be so brazen?”
Carstairs chuckled. “You would—” He broke off at the lethal stare that James leveled upon him. “Most disappointing, Your Grace. She seemed like such a fine young lady.”
“And he seems like such a piece of dung.”
“Ah, yes,” Carstairs said carefully. “Well, do not fret. All will be well.”
James shook his head in disgust. “Not if my suspicions are correct.”
Chapter 15
By the end of the birthday luncheon Oliver decided that he might have fallen in love with Ivy were he capable of the emotion. There was something different about her since she’d gone into service for the duke. Her skin glowed with a sensuality that Oliver had not noticed during their first encounter. Of course one didn’t expect a woman to exude vibrance when she was lying in the street.
He had invested heavily in her heritage. He’d borrowed money he could not repay and made promises he could not keep, unless he found the treasure hidden inside this house. He had also written and sold more poems during this last fortnight than he had the entire year. She and Fenwick had inspired him, and that inspiration was in itself worth a fortune.
That Ivy treated him like a distant cousin, and that Fenwick’s treasure might turn out to be a myth, only whetted his appetite for his quest. He thrived on uncertainty. The day Oliver’s life became predictable would be the day he crawled into his own coffin and closed the lid.
“Ivy,” he said when the guests began to drift from the table and he finally had the chance to be alone with her. “Would you walk with me in the garden before you leave?”
She glanced wistfully at Lilac; Oliver thought her reluctance to accept his offer was rather insulting considering what he’d done to impress her. “It’s Lilac’s birthday,” she said in a voice that put him in his place as if he were one of her charges. “I have to spend some time with her. And Rue. Besides, the duke’s carriage is waiting to take me back to the park.”
That was what she thought. Oliver forced a smile and picked up a half-empty bottle of wine from the table. “I understand. Family comes first. We’ll have our tête-à-tête soon enough.”
* * *
Five minutes later Ivy and Rue had retreated to the orchard at the back wall, seated amidst the sun’s waning rays and the bees that swarmed around a cluster of lavender. “I don’t have much time.” Ivy searched her sister’s face. “Tell me everything. I am gone only a few days and a man sits at Father’s place? Why have you allowed Sir Oliver to act as if he were one of us?”
Rue frowned. “Lilac thinks well of him. Rosemary doesn’t. I don’t have an opinion at all. We thought you’d be pleased about the pearls and the repairs. We hoped he might save you from the duke.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“If Sir Oliver is a genuine suitor for your hand, your only suitor in England, and is willing to wait a year to marry you, provided you can fend off the duke for that amount of time, then you’ll be the first of us to have a husband.”
Ivy leaned back. “I’m stunned.”
“The duke hasn’t already forced himself upon you, has he?” Rue asked, biting her lip.
“What if he has?” Ivy swatted crossly at a bee. “What if I admitted that I’d forced myself upon him?”
“You—you wouldn’t?” Rue said, smothering a laugh.
Ivy laughed. “I don’t believe that the three of you, four counting Oliver, have decided my entire future in a matter of days. How could you allow him to change Fenwick?”
“He’s madly in love with you.”
“He’s mad.”
“Ivy, the duke has a certain reputation.”
“So does Sir Oliver.”
Rue’s humor faded. “But he wants to court you.”
“A romance based on an accident in London,” Ivy mused. “We weren’t ourselves that day, were we, Rue? Are you ever going to tell me what happened in the hotel? You haven’t been the same since.” She waited but Rue said nothing. “It can’t be all that horrible or we wouldn’t be sitting here together as we’ve done hundreds of times.”
Rue turned her face to the wall. The bees had started to disappear. The sky turned a shade darker before she spoke again. “I’m too ashamed to tell you.”
“You can tell me or Rosemary or Lilac anything. Anything.”
Tear after tear slipped down Rue’s face before she worked up her courage to speak. “I went out into the hall of the hotel because there was a party being held in several rooms. I wanted to find a servant to ask the guests if they could please make less noise.”
“I must have been dead to the world.”
“You needed to sleep. I took care not to wake you. But I never found a servant, only a group of young men who mistook me for a woman of the night.”
“And you corrected them?”
Rue nodded. “Eventually. They offered me money.”
“Please, Rue . . .”
“That’s all I can say right now. One gentleman took me into a private room and—we, oh, I can’t say what happened. We talked. It’s over, and the problem is that I thought I’d be able to forget him. I never believed in love at first sight. Do you?”
“I might.”
Rue sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t have time to explain everything before I leave.”
“Leave?” Ivy said in bewilderment, wiping her sister’s face with her fingertips. “Because of what happened?”
Rue gave her a watery smile. “Have you read the letter I sent you this morning? I’ve accepted a position as companion to an elderly viscountess. She’s taking the waters with her niece, and I’m to start when she returns.”
“Well, congratulations, then. It’s
a relief, I suppose. At least you’ll be safe with an older woman.”
“Bored to tears, too. Oh, dear.” Rue nudged Ivy’s hand. “Oliver is walking towards us, and it’s getting late. Don’t you have to leave?”
Ivy shook herself. “I should have gone an hour ago.”
“It was good to talk,” Rue said.
Ivy rose from the bench. “All you’ve done is give me more to worry about.”
“What about your duke?” Rue teased.
“What about him?”
Ivy met her sister’s gaze. Sooner or later Rue would reveal everything. Ivy knew there had to be more to her tale. The sisters couldn’t keep secrets from one another, even though some took years to share. In fact, Ivy had never confessed that she’d kissed a rogue at a masquerade ball, years ago. Or that the duke was that man.
And that she had kissed him again and craved his kisses too much for her own good.
“Dearest.”
At the sound of Oliver’s voice, Ivy turned and she and Rue came to their feet. Within moments he managed to insert himself between them. Ivy sighed and grudgingly took the arm he offered. Rue pretended to shake out a stone in her shoe and ducked the forearm that hovered above her head.
“I’m afraid it will be dark soon,” he said, bearing Ivy toward the house with an impressive show of urgency. “I wouldn’t want to cause you grief. I’ve informed the others that we’re leaving.”
The sky darkened with every step they took toward the manor. Ivy hoped the duke would understand. “At least his carriage is swift,” she muttered.
Oliver slowed. “Whose carriage?”
“The duke’s, of course.”
“Didn’t I mention it to you? I sent his carriage home.”
She unhooked her arm from his, feeling the blood drain from her face. “You did what?”
He shrugged. “I wanted a little time alone with you and it seemed the only way. How else am I to court you?”
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