Davinia paused in the enjoyment of her dinner to check Thea’s progress with hers. Apparently satisfied, she raised her glass and sipped her wine. “This week, Thea, I think you must get out and about a little more than usual. And I’m not referring to your early morning jaunts to the beaches to sketch, either. Nor do I mean you should spend more time volunteering at that Thrift Shop where you are far too generous with your time and talent as it is. I want you to be seen at social gatherings. I want your head held high. I want a smile on your face. A lady of quality transcends petty gossip and if, as I fear, word of Saturday’s tête-à-tête gets out, we will have gone a long way to refute it by having you seen about as if nothing happened.”
“Nothing did happen,” Thea said.
“Yes, that’s best. Say that, in just that way, Thea, should anyone be rude enough to hint around at asking. I don’t believe anyone will dare to be so rude to my granddaughter, but just in case, it’s always better to be prepared.”
Thea sometimes thought her life had been one long preparation for just in case. Davinia spent a considerable amount of her days reasoning out every possible trap a lady might face and a strategy against it, then preparing Thea for the worst. As if the worst hadn’t happened, anyway. As if she hadn’t grown up with the constant fear of making a mistake, of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, of doing something wrong, of doing anything at all. As if she hadn’t learned it was safest to say nothing at all, to stay in the background and draw as little attention to herself as possible.
Thea sighed and stopped pretending to eat. “You said you didn’t believe there would be any gossip,” she said.
Davinia looked at her sadly. “I imagine young Braddock will boast of your indiscretion, Thea. Men like him always do.”
Thea believed it was much more likely to leak out because of all the horrified whisperings and hush-hush discussions Davinia had held behind closed doors. With her attorney, Miles Jordan, with Monroe and Sadie, with Archer Braddock. There was nothing more conducive to spreading something one didn’t wish to spread than conducting private meetings about the matter. Thea wouldn’t, of course, say that any of the principal players would gossip, but she believed at least one of them would slip and say something to someone who would, in turn, pass it on to someone else. One heedless whisper was all it took to form a scandal. The world was still a very small place in that way.
But the one thing Thea did know for certain is that whatever form the gossip took, it wouldn’t originate with Peter.
“Peter won’t breathe a word of this,” she told her grandmother with certainty. “Regardless of what you think of him, he’s a gentleman and he’s always been very kind to me.”
Davinia nodded, her eyebrows arched by both nature and artistry. “It’s the kind men you must be on our guard against, Theadosia. As you found out the other night. But now, let’s talk of something more pleasant. A trip, perhaps. What would you think of going…”
Far off, the doorbell chimed, a great well of echoing chords, fading away almost before it could reach them there in the dining room and taking with it whatever more pleasant topic Davinia had been about to introduce. No one was expected and no one ever came to Grace Place unexpectedly, so the ringing of the doorbell was a mystifying interruption. Thea took the opportunity to cover her plate with the linen napkin, covering up the evidence, hoping she’d be safely in her room before her grandmother realized she’d only pushed food around and hadn’t eaten a bite.
“A visitor, Madam,” Monroe announced from the doorway some few moments later, his kind old eyes cutting to Thea with subtle warning. “For Miss Theadosia.”
“Who is it, Monroe?” Thea pushed back her chair, eager for any excuse to escape.
“Sit down, Thea.” Davinia patted her napkin to her lips. “Miss Theadosia is at dinner, Monroe, and if you’ll recall, I believe I informed you earlier that she would not be at home for visitors until further notice.”
As if Monroe was accustomed to turning away Thea’s friends in droves. As if she had friends who would drop by at dinnertime…or any other time.
“It’s Mr. Braddock,” Monroe said with another meaningful glance at Thea. “Mr. Peter Braddock.”
Thea was out of her chair like a shot, determined to see Peter and apologize for the horrible things her grandmother had said to him and about him, even if it meant she had to spend the rest of her life in her room.
“Thea!”
But she dashed past the butler and out of the room as if the hounds of hell were on her heels. And one of them soon would be. “Peter?” she called softly, breathless with the exertion and the idea that he had come. Like a gallant knight in a fairy tale. Like a man who knew just how desperately she needed a friend. “Peter?”
He was in the entry hall, shadowed in the gloom, wearing a soft blue shirt with stripes. Well, she thought it was striped. How could anyone notice a shirt when he was in it? And she didn’t care if he had come in a suit of armor or with a legal order to cease and desist. She just cared that he had come. No matter what his reason. “Peter,” she said, smiling just a little, nervous and thrilled and anxious all at the same instant. “Hi.”
He smiled, tightly, as if he were a little nervous, too. And after Saturday night…well, he was very brave to come here. “Are you all right?” he asked.
As if it mattered. As if he was concerned. As if she might not be. “Yes,” she said simply. “Are you?”
He nodded and she jumped into her apology. “I’m so sorry, Peter. It was awful for you and I can’t believe it happened and I’d give anything if it hadn’t, but she never comes to my room. Ever. I don’t know what horrid trick of fate made her climb the stairs and—”
“Thea!”
Peter stepped forward, touched her hand. “I need to know if you’re really all right, Thea. I need to know because—”
“Young man, you will take your hand off of my granddaughter and leave my house this instant.” Davinia walked into the foyer, tall, straight and forbidding. “I do not wish to have to involve the police because of my respect for your grandfather, but make no mistake about it, I will if you make it necessary. And I will press charges. Don’t think I won’t.” She made a gesture with one thin hand, motioning toward where Monroe hovered behind her, ready presumably to make the call if she so directed. “Shall we phone the authorities or will you leave without a fuss?”
“Mrs. Carey,” Peter said, his voice as solid as steel in the big, dusky hall. “I’m here to talk to Thea. Alone.”
“I think not.” Davinia didn’t budge from her position or from her decree. “My granddaughter is not interested in anything you have to say. Not now or at any time in the future.”
“Thea?” Peter spoke to her, his tone softening, although he kept his eyes on her grandmother, holding her furious gaze without flinching. “Is that true?”
She was interested, fairly eaten up with questions about why he’d come and what he wanted to know, if he was angry, and whether he knew how foolish coming here was. But to speak was to defy her grandmother, to belittle her in front of Peter, in front of Monroe. Davinia would be hurt and angry all over again…but oh, Thea did want to hear what Peter had come to say. She did.
“You see?” Davinia spoke first, taking the silence for granted. “You have all you will ever have from Thea. Now, please, do not embarrass her any further by making a scene.”
Peter’s jaw flexed and Thea knew she had to say something, had to stand up now and be heard.
“Mrs. Carey,” Peter said before she could utter a sound. “I believe Thea can speak for herself and I believe she has something to say…if you will only allow her the courtesy of time in which to say it.”
Thea looked from one to the other, amazed that Peter would stand up to her grandmother, uncertain as to why he would do such a thing, thrilled to her marrow that he had.
Davinia was also amazed. It showed on her thin, patrician face. But she was neither uncertain nor thrilled. “No one,”
she said in a voice quivering with outrage. “No one speaks to me that way. Monroe, dial the police and inform them that Grace Place has an intruder.” She turned to sweep from the room, dismissing him in a cutting glance. “Come, Thea.”
But Thea didn’t budge, couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. Especially not when Peter stopped her grandmother’s dramatic exit with a voice as cold as ice. “Mrs. Carey,” he said, demanding in just those words that she stop.
And to Thea’s astonishment, she did. Turning back, Davinia looked past him, as if it would be beneath her dignity to acknowledge him further.
“Mrs. Carey,” he repeated. “I came to talk to Thea and I will not be forced to leave like some riffraff who doesn’t deserve a hearing. I allowed you to treat me that way the other night. I won’t allow it again.”
“Young man,” Davinia said coldly, her gaze sweeping him with haughty disdain. “You are riffraff and you have nothing to say about what is and isn’t allowed in this house. Now, either you leave or I will have you forceably removed.”
“If I leave, Mrs. Carey, I’m taking Thea with me.”
Thea had been looking from one to the other, but now her eyes fastened on Peter, held on to him as if he were a lifeline, the only thing between her and a drowning oblivion. “You are?” she whispered, amazed at this astounding possibility.
His gaze came to her again, tender and caring and wonderfully steady. “I am,” he said.
“What right do you have to come into my home and make such a startling assumption?” Davinia demanded. “As if my granddaughter would consent to accompany you anywhere against my wishes.”
Peter continued to look at Thea, a faint smile on his handsome mouth. “Do you want to go with me, Thea?”
Her knees were quivering. Her whole body was trembling. With fear. With excitement. With dread. With anticipation. With…hope.
“Can’t you see you are scaring the child half to death?”
“She is not a child, Mrs. Carey. Thea is a woman fully capable of making her own decisions.”
“Thea, I want you to go to your room. Now.”
Thea couldn’t move, couldn’t stop staring into Peter Braddock’s green eyes, into his so handsome face, into the extraordinary reality that he wasn’t backing down. “Thea,” he said again, even more gently than before. “Do you want to go with me?”
She managed the barest of nods, a mere inclination of movement. Yes, she thought. Yes, she willed herself to say.
“Don’t even consider it, Theadosia.” Davinia’s tone carried the heavy implications of a threat. “I want you to go to your room. This young man is angry with me because I know who he is and who he pretends to be.”
“And who am I, Mrs. Carey?” The thread of steely pride wound through Peter’s voice, erecting a barrier of dignity around him, cautioning her to take care. “Archer Braddock’s grandson? James Braddock’s son?”
“You, young man, are the product of an adulterous affair and therefore, unworthy of the name you claim as your own.”
Peter inhaled sharply and Thea turned to look at her grandmother, unable to believe she had uttered such an ugly, vindictive statement. The trembling turned inward, made Thea’s stomach clench and her mouth go dry. “Grandmother,” she whispered so softly no one seemed to hear. Or maybe they wouldn’t have heard had she shouted.
“Unworthy, perhaps,” Peter answered in a voice of deadly calm. “But a Braddock, nevertheless, and…the man who intends to marry your granddaughter.”
This time Davinia was the one to catch her breath.
Thea was unable to breathe at all. She thought, in fact, she might never breathe again.
But Davinia recovered quickly, apoplectic with this new outrage. “If you believe I’ll consent to such a preposterous match, you aren’t nearly as smart as you obviously think you are. My granddaughter deserves a better man than you could ever hope to be.”
“I agree with you, Mrs. Carey. But I mean to ask her to marry me, anyway.”
“Over my dead body.”
Peter inclined his head, his eyes as icy with anger as Davinia’s. “I hope it won’t come to that,” he said. “But no matter what threats you make, either now or later, this decision belongs to Thea.”
She was so still she thought they might not even remember she was there. She wasn’t even sure she wanted them to remember. But then Peter turned to her, his eyes clear with purpose. “Thea? Do you want to marry me?”
And before she could stop it, her voice found its way out, rang solidly, clearly, before anyone else could speak for her. “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
Chapter Six
“You’ll never believe what I just heard!”
Ilsa looked up from her desk as Ainsley came into the office, blond curls fairly bouncing with excitement, the secret, like effervescence, bubbling up and out of her.
“Peter Braddock is going to marry Thea Berenson,” Ilsa said, circumventing any thought her apprentice might have of making this a guessing game. “This coming Saturday.”
“I knew you’d know the whole story.” Ainsley dropped into the chair in front of Ilsa’s desk, blue eyes dancing with curiosity and the possibility Ilsa would tell all. “I do wish you would have told me, though, so I didn’t have to hear it from Miranda, but what happened? Miranda said she heard they got caught in Thea’s bedroom by none other than old Mrs. Carey, herself, and that now Peter’s being strong-armed into marrying her. But I told Miranda that didn’t sound like anything Peter would do. Or Thea, either, for that matter. But that’s the story going around and so…” She leaned forward in high-energy anticipation, “is any of it true?”
Ilsa was sick at heart over the whole episode. Sorry she’d ever even thought about the possibility of Peter and Thea, sorry she’d mentioned it to Archer, sorry she hadn’t been able to think of any way to stop Peter from facing off against Davinia. “Ainsley,” she said now, because she wanted her assistant to understand. “Not every introduction of possibilities has a happy ending. I was wrong to let this one go forward against my own very strong reservations.”
“But I had the same idea about Peter and Thea.” Ainsley scooted forward in the chair, all eagerness and empathy. “I did. Remember at Angela’s wedding? I asked you if it was all right if I did a little behind the scenes matchmaking? I was talking about Thea! I was! Honest. And I thought if I could help her some, you know, with makeup and clothes and stuff, that maybe Peter would think of her in a new way. Really, I did. I thought of that exact same possibility. And our intuition must have been right on some level at least or they wouldn’t be getting married.”
Enthusiasm was a good thing, Ilsa reminded herself. She’d brought Ainsley into IF Enterprises for that very reason. The business needed new ideas, new angles, new possibilities, an infusion of spunk. But this thing with Peter and Thea…well, it wouldn’t work. This wasn’t a love match. It wasn’t even a marriage of convenience. Not for Peter, not for Thea, not for their families. It was Peter showing Davinia she couldn’t humiliate him and get away with it. Period.
James agreed on that point.
Archer agreed on that point.
Bryce, in person, and Adam, by long distance, agreed the marriage was a bad idea.
But Peter would hear none of their arguments against it. He’d proposed and been accepted. Congratulations was all that was left to be said.
Ilsa looked across the table at Ainsley’s bright-eyed eagerness to believe in yet another fairy tale and managed a rueful smile. “Thea is staying with me until Saturday,” she said. “If you could go over sometime this afternoon and persuade her to choose something to wear to the wedding, that would be a big help.”
“I can do that.” Ainsley beamed with excitement as she bounced up from the chair. “I’d love to do that.”
“I hope you can convince her to go shopping because…” Ilsa let the sentence trail away as she glanced past her apprentice and caught sight of James in the doorway.
“Hello, Ilsa,”
he said. “May I come in?”
“Of course.” She rose, standing behind the solid safety of her desk, trying to be professional even if she suddenly felt like a tongue-tied schoolgirl. “James, you remember Ainsley Danville, my new assistant?”
“Yes, of course, I do.” James’s smile brightened the whole room, perhaps even the whole world. “I used to be very good friends with your dad. We were in school together years and years ago and concocted quite a few ill-advised shenanigans between us. There was one particular week, I believe, when we spent more time in the headmaster’s office than in the classroom.”
Ainsley dimpled with delight. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear that, Mr. Braddock, because the way my father tells it, he was a model student.”
“He certainly became a model philanthropist,” James said diplomatically. “The last I heard he and your mother were in Sarajevo.”
“They’re in Ethiopia now, but this year they’ve promised to be at home with us for the holidays. Maybe you and Dad could get together and talk about old times.”
“I’d like that.”
“Ainsley?” Ilsa asked. “Would you excuse us please?”
“Oh, right, Mrs. Fairchild. I’ll just go on with that…uh, project…we were discussing, shall I?”
“I’d appreciate anything you can do,” she said and Ainsley was off and running, closing the office door behind her, before Ilsa changed her mind. Not that Ilsa would. There was nothing to lose by letting Ainsley turn her enthusiasm on Peter’s chosen bride. At best, she might be able to bring Thea out of the doldrums she’d been in ever since her arrival in East Side. And at worst…well, the situation could hardly get worse no matter what Ainsley or anyone else did. “Would you like something to drink, James? Coffee, perhaps?”
“Thank you, no.” He stood, hovering almost, although there was nothing hesitant in his set and solemn expression. “May I sit?”
She nodded and he took the chair Ainsley had just vacated. Suddenly, the room, a normally spacious, comfortable place, seemed to shrink all around Ilsa and the air fairly jumped to attention. Something had changed between one breath and the next.
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