My Lady Rival

by Ashley March

  She hated sneezing more than anything else in the world, but the swelling in her throat was much scarier.

  “A h, A lex. I mean, Mr. Laurie.” She sneezed again. Three times.

  He’d already sat down across from Woolstone, and this time his expression was one of growing annoyance as he looked up at her.

  “Yes, Miss Stratton?” Then he stared, his mouth open in horror, and Willa tried to surreptitiously put her hand to her nose to make sure it was clean. It was. Then she looked down, to make sure there weren’t any—blemishes—on the front of her clothes. There weren’t.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Miss Stratton,” Woolstone said, because of course he had to look at her, too. He stood abruptly from his stool. “It appears you are having a reaction to something.

  Your face is swelling.”

  “It is?” She put her palms to her cheeks, then to her forehead. Her eyes felt small and dry. She tried to swallow and winced. Her throat was worse.

  “I need to leave,” she said, then whirled and ran out the door, most likely killing some of his vicious little plants on the way.

  She stopped in the drive, the ribs of the corset pressing against her own as she tried to breathe. Wait, no—she wasn’t wearing a corset. “Dear God,” she said, planting her hands on her waist and panting up at the sky. “If you let me live, I promise to—”

  What could she promise? A lex wanted her to return to A merica and leave him be so he could have his precious dye. Her father wanted her to marry Eichel and help him expand the company through their alliance. She didn’t have anything to give up, nothing except her dreams for her own independence and happiness.

  A nd it appeared that she wouldn’t even have those since Woolstone was most likely handing A lex the dye information right now.

  She started crying. She couldn’t breathe—whether from running or because she was about to die from the plants inside—she was still sneezing even as tears rolled down her face, and she was fairly certain the squishy substance beneath her foot was a small part of a rather large pile of horse manure.

  Then suddenly A lex was there, his hand on her shoulder, his face blurred before Then suddenly A lex was there, his hand on her shoulder, his face blurred before her eyes. “Willa, are you all right? Why are you crying?” She cried harder, gasping for breath.

  “Willa?” Both of his hands were on her shoulders now. He shook her. “Willa, answer me.” He cursed and left her there, and she heard voices shouting, felt a cool cloth on her face, turned her head and glimpsed the statue-shadow of a tulip a few feet away, rising to the sky above . . .

  She heard whispers. The not-so-very-hushed, loud-trying-to-be-quiet whispers of children.

  Willa opened her eyes, frowned at the yellow canopy above her head, and sat up.

  Upon sitting, she became aware of three odd and equally disturbing things: first, her head seemed to want to collapse upon her neck every direction she tried to turn and ached like someone had taken a wooden plank to it; second, the walls were also yellow, which meant that unless the Woolstone giant had a very cheerful conscience inside his gruff exterior, she now lay in someone else’s bedchamber entirely since she was most certainly not in her suite at Mivart’s; and third, the two girls and one boy whispering back and forth from one side of the bed to the other looked remarkably like A lex. A t least, the younger girl and boy did. The older girl was blond with blue eyes.

  Willa watched as the girls whispered. “She’s awake,” the younger one said. Willa turned her head slowly to the other side of the bed as the boy whispered in response.

  “I know she’s awake, don’t I? I can see her sitting up, can’t I?”

  “What does she look like?”

  A t the eager question from the older girl, Willa searched her gaze. Sightless eyes stared back at her.

  The boy looked up at Willa, squinting. “She has—”

  “I have blond hair that is very similar in shade to yours. Though mine is wavy and your hair is very nicely curled. Blue eyes like yours, although mine have some green in them, too, whereas yours are the clear, shining color of the sky. My nose is a trifle blunt, my lips too wide, and my forehead high.” The girl had started grinning when Willa complimented her in comparisons of their hair and eyes, but now she frowned at the latter description, her brows puckered. Then she looked in the direction of her younger sister and whispered,

  “The first part sounded nice, but I’m not sure about the rest. Is she pretty, Tor?” The girl named Tor grinned up at her, proudly displaying her missing two front teeth. “She forgot to mention her face is all puffy,” she said. “Sorry about your face, Miss Stratton. A lex said that flowers attacked you. Is that true?”

  “He did not!” said the boy, squinting at her again. Did he have spectacles he’d misplaced? “He said that she attacked the fl—fl—flow—”

  “Flowers,” Willa finished for him, smiling at A lex’s version of the story. Of course he’d painted her as the villain. The smile disappeared when the boy course he’d painted her as the villain. The smile disappeared when the boy scowled at her.

  “He doesn’t like it when people try to correct him,” the blind girl said. “You have to wait and let him finish it. Even if it does take hours.”

  “Oh, I apologize,” she directed to the boy. “I didn’t realize . . .” She’d thought he just couldn’t remember the word, not that he had a stutter.

  He turned his scowl toward his sister. “You don’t have to go about telling everyone and the whole world, P—P—P—”

  The blind girl shook her head, then turned toward Willa and made a small curtsy. “It’s nice to meet you, Miss Stratton. My name is Miss Philippa Laurie. You may call me Pippa, though. I like how you described my hair and eyes.” She paused. “But is the rest of my face all right, too?”

  Willa swallowed a laugh and realized her throat felt amazingly better, almost normal again. “You are quite beautiful, Pippa.”

  The girl’s open expression turned suddenly shy for a moment as she ducked her head.

  “A nd me, Miss Stratton?” asked the younger girl, Tor, bouncing up and down.

  “A m I beautiful?”

  “You are also quite beautiful,” Willa said, smiling again. A nd she was. She had curls like Pippa’s, but hers were dark brown instead of blond, her eyes also brown like A lex’s and incredibly large in her small, delicate face. In truth, she was far more beautiful than Pippa, but Willa would never have said such a thing aloud.

  “Do you think David is beautiful, Miss Stratton?” Pippa asked, and both girls giggled.

  “Boys aren’t beautiful,” their brother said, scowling again. “A nd I don’t care what she thinks.”

  Willa considered the boy, a little older than Pippa with the same dark coloring as Tor. If he didn’t have spectacles, then he should, for his squint looked very uncomfortable. Without the squint, though, she was very confident that he would grow up to be nearly as handsome as his older brother. “You’re correct, Mr.

  Laurie,” she said, pressing her lips together as he stood a little straighter at being addressed so formally. “You are most handsome. In fact, I fear that if you were any more handsome, I would be in grave danger of losing my heart to you.” The girls giggled again.

  “Oh,” said David, squirming a little. “I’m sorry.”

  Willa couldn’t help laughing, then groaned as her head throbbed in response.

  She might have lain down for a moment, but as she lifted her gaze from the three siblings she found A lex leaning against the doorframe, a half smile playing across his lips. “You can’t resist trying to charm every male you see, can you, Miss Stratton?”

  A n older girl, probably of fifteen or sixteen years, skidded to a stop beside A lex, panting. Shoving past him, she hurried to the bed and executed one of the deepest, most extravagantly perfect curtsies Willa had ever seen. Willa stretched her arm, hesitant to tell her she needn’t act
as if Willa were the Queen of England.

  her arm, hesitant to tell her she needn’t act as if Willa were the Queen of England.

  “I . . .”

  The girl slowly straightened, clasping her hands in front of her waist and inclining her head toward Willa as if she were the Queen. “Good day, Miss Stratton,” she said in perfectly crisp, aristocratic tones. “I am Miss A nne Laurie. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  Willa’s mouth was agape; she was certain of it. “I—I—”

  “David, Miss Stratton has a stutter, too!” Tor whispered across the bed.

  Helpless, Willa looked beyond A nne to A lex, whose half smile had turned into a full grin.

  “A nne is our reigning champion of all things fine,” he explained. “Elocution, pronunciation, grand curtsies—”

  “Don’t forget the stare,” A nne said, glancing over her shoulder and breaking the act.

  “A h, yes. The stare.” A lex winked at Willa.

  “What stare?”

  “Show her, A nne,” he said.

  The girls giggled again. “Wait till you see the stare, Miss Stratton,” Tor said.

  Willa watched Pippa, who giggled along and turned toward A nne as though she could see her with perfect clarity.

  “You’re missing it, Miss Stratton,” David said.

  Willa angled her gaze toward A nne, who was ever so slowly turning her head back toward the bed. Willa saw her eyebrow first, arched and frozen high. Then her eyes, lowered to half-mast and looking through Willa rather than at her. Her nose—how had she altered her nose? It appeared thin and pinched, as if she were trying not to breathe the same foul air as Willa. Her mouth formed a flat, aloof line except at the corners, which turned up, though it was obvious her small smile was false and made only for the benefit of those around her, whom she was required to endure. In whole, it was the stare of ennui, of a woman wealthy and bored with herself and everyone else beneath her.

  Willa arched her own brows, then slowly began to clap. “I think I’d like to crawl under the covers now,” she said, and A nne’s face split into a grin as the younger siblings clapped enthusiastically with Willa. Once again, she appeared lovely, friendly, and—thank goodness—rather normal.

  “I believe it’s time for Miss Ross’ daily lesson,” A lex said, strolling in from the doorway. “Go, everyone, before you’re late. I need to speak with Miss Stratton.” The younger girls waved and hurried out the door, holding hands, and David followed shortly after them, then reappeared, offered her a wide, little-boy smile with, “Nice to meet you, Miss Stratton,” and disappeared again.

  A lex looked at his remaining sister. “A nne?”

  She gave him the stare.

  “I need to speak with Miss Stratton. A lone. A nd you need to go to Miss Ross’

  lesson.”

  “But you said my elocution and pronunciation were perfect,” she protested.

  “But you said my elocution and pronunciation were perfect,” she protested.

  A pparently Willa was correct to have already made the assumption that the Laurie family was learning how to speak properly from someone. Their aristocratic English was actually better than hers, and her father had always claimed there was no one more talented at picking up accents and dialects than she.

  “Besides,” A nne added, “Mama said you couldn’t speak to Miss Stratton by yourself. You have to have a chaperone at all times, she said.” A lex heaved a sigh. “I am not about to ravish Miss Stratton, A nne. Look at her.” He pointed toward her face.

  “Well!” Willa said, all charitable feeling aroused in her breast by his lovely siblings now entirely erased.

  Worse, A nne sighed when she looked at Willa, her shoulders slumping, and she turned toward the doorway. “Very well.” She started to close the door, then poked her head inside. “But I’m leaving it partially open, so the servants can hear if she screams.”

  A lex smiled at Willa after they heard A nne’s footsteps recede down the hall. “I’ve only had women scream a very certain way when I’ve been in their bedchambers, and it wasn’t because they were terrified.”

  His guest shook her head, dismissing his halfhearted attempt at flirtation, but A lex barely noticed. He couldn’t stop staring at her, and his feet refused to retreat from the room, no matter how much he tried to convince himself he had no reason to be here. There was something about seeing her swallowed in the center of the large bed in his guest chamber in his house . . . It was the only explanation he could find for this sudden rush of possessiveness that made him want to stay here and watch her instead of doing a hundred other things that required his attention.

  His business, for one. He’d been neglecting several issues that needed to be resolved while he courted Lady Marianna and chased after the Madonna dye.

  “I need a mirror,” Willa said, glancing about the room. Her gaze fixed on the dressing table at the left side of the room, and she began to pull the coverlet away.

  A lex didn’t say a word. If she was too distracted to notice that she was about to let him see her clothed in only her chemise—well, then, who was he to point it out?

  But she had to look down, as her legs were tangled in the blanket, and she promptly gasped as she finally realized her lack of dress.

  He sighed. “I knew it was too much to hope for.”

  Willa gave him the stare. It wasn’t very bad, but it wasn’t nearly as terrifying as A nne’s. He burst out laughing when she tried again and again to lift only one brow, but succeeded only in waggling both.

  “Bring me a hand mirror, A lex.”

  “Oh, am I a servant now? Let you ride in my fancy carriage, pay for a physician’s visit with my own coin, let you sleep in my fine guest chamber, and physician’s visit with my own coin, let you sleep in my fine guest chamber, and this is how you repay me?” A lex strolled over to open a drawer at the dressing table. No mirror. He checked the second. “I even carried you up the stairs,” he said. Third drawer. A h. Hand mirror found.

  “You didn’t,” she said as he returned and gave it to her. Their fingertips brushed. Neither was wearing gloves. Somehow nothing had ever seemed as intimate as this briefest of touches. Though he immediately tucked his hands behind his back, she didn’t seem to be bothered in the least.

  “I did. I also undressed you, even out of your chemise, and bathed your fevered, naked flesh loyally all through the night.” He pasted a leer on his face, dropping his gaze to her breasts.

  Willa snatched the coverlet to her chest. “You did not!” She paused. “I had a fever? I don’t usually have a fever—”

  “You didn’t have a fever,” A lex admitted, feeling the tiniest bit guilty.

  “So you didn’t bathe me?”

  “No. Don’t sound so disappointed, Willa.” He winked.

  She scowled. “A nd you didn’t undress me, either.”

  “Oh, I did undress you.”

  She waited, as if she knew.

  “A nd, yes, my mother and Jo helped. In fact, they were truly the ones who undressed you. I only stood in a corner, trying to catch glimpses of things I shouldn’t.” It had been from the hallway where he’d been expelled, not the corner. But he’d left the door open a crack and peeked in from time to time. She didn’t need to know how worried he’d been.

  “You are an awful, awful man, A lex Laurie.”

  “True,” he said, grinning. “Now, look at your face, as I know you’ve been dying to do for the last several minutes.”

  She lifted the hand mirror and was silent. A lex forced his eyes to the coverlet, his fingers aching to trace over her swollen skin. But he was still angry and scared from the helplessness during her reaction at Woolstone’s cottage, and he didn’t trust himself not to grab ahold of her shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled in her head.

  A fter a moment, she said, “I suppose you’re happy now because you have the secrets of the dye. I never had a chance with Woolstone and his vicious little plants.”

  �
��Do I seem happy?”

  She lowered the mirror slowly and studied him. “Yes.”

  “Odd, that is. Because in fact I did not get the secrets of the dye. Instead I, being the noble and self-sacrificing man I am, whisked you into my carriage and made my coachman treat the poor horses terribly to make it into London quickly enough that you might still live. A nd you did.” He paused, then leaned over and kissed her cheek. She smelled clean and womanly and Willa. “Perhaps that is why I’m happy.”

  She’d stilled when he kissed her, and she eyed him cautiously as he backed She’d stilled when he kissed her, and she eyed him cautiously as he backed away.

  He gestured wide with a flourish of his hands. “Now you may proceed to fall at my feet in gratitude.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Laurie.”

  “Laurie, is it now? What happened to your moans in the carriage last night on the way back to London? A lex, you cried, over and over again.” He swallowed, disguising the motion with a smile. God, he’d thought she would truly die. He’d held her in his arms as she lay still and quaking, little gasps of breath shuddering through her swollen lips. He’d felt almost as helpless as when Pippa went blind.

  He breathed in, then exhaled, again and again, the rage continuing to build deep inside him. She’d nearly died. From flowers.

  Perhaps it was because she was still weak and partially sedated from the laudanum the doctor had given her last night, or perhaps it was because she lay in his house disoriented and her defenses weren’t properly maintained, but instead of giving a scathing retort, she blushed when he spoke of her moaning his name. Turning her face away, she laid the hand mirror aside.

  “Thank you, A lex,” she murmured, so softly he could only read the words from her lips.

  “You’re welcome.” He clenched his fists and his jaw, embracing the anger now.

  Flowers, for God’s sake.

  He should have stayed and assured her that she looked beautiful, that the swelling was really much better than it had been previously, and to let her know the physician said that as long as she didn’t experience any further problems breathing, she could leave the bed anytime she wanted. But he spun on his heel and left the room because he didn’t want to tell her she could leave. A nd he might say something harsh and undeserved, blaming her for almost dying, in keeping with their usual animosity, when all he really wanted to do was hug her to his chest and kiss her until they both needed the physician to help revive them.