A Bride Unveiled

by Jillian Hunter

  “Well, her aunt might not think so.” Jane smiled. “Unless, of course, Master Fenton receives the bump in elevation that the marquess has suggested. Still, the fact is, Weed, that what I am doing could cause a scandal. The lady might lose her priggish haberdasher and be forced into Fenton’s arms.”

  Whatever distress Godfrey might have felt when he realized that Violet had disappeared from the party was apparently soothed when she reappeared on the southwest lawn with one of the Marquess of Sedgecroft’s footmen in tow.

  “I was concerned, naturally, when I could not find you,” he said, putting away his pocket watch. “But Pierce Carroll said he had noticed you wondering off toward the pavilion with the marchioness, and I thought to myself, ‘Well, good for her. I will not interfere.’ ”

  She nudged him toward the crowded breakfast tables. “Where is my aunt, Godfrey?”

  “She went inside the house for a private tea.” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t invited.”

  “Should I join her?”

  He stepped directly into her path. “Could you spare a moment for the man you are to marry? Have you heard anything I have said to you?”

  No, she hadn’t. She blinked, searching her brain for the first thing that she could remember from their conversation. “Yes. I heard everything. Who in the world is Pierce Carroll, and why doesn’t he mind his own business?”

  He looked taken aback.

  “He’s one of the other pupils at the salon. Thinks quite highly of himself, does Pierce. Fancies himself above the rest of us, I suspect. I don’t like him. I think he may have stolen a snuffbox from my shop. Of course, I can’t come out and accuse him.”

  “Oh.”

  “Did you have a pleasant time?” he inquired after a pause.

  Violet gazed wistfully at the dancers on the platform. She had deceived herself into believing that she could be content with a man who cared only about his status. How could she marry a man who disliked dancing? How could she marry a man she could never love? A . . . passionless prude?

  “Violet, dear, I asked you a question. Did you enjoy yourself in the pavilion?”

  A blush of guilt suffused her face. “Yes, Godfrey,” she answered with complete honesty. “I enjoyed myself more than I have in years.”

  He raised his brow. A moment passed. “I don’t suppose the marchioness mentioned my name or the emporium?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You mentioned me, didn’t you?”

  She gave an evasive shrug.

  “Well, you must have talked about something during all that time.” He scowled, his hands clasped behind his back like a schoolmaster. “What did you discuss?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “We talked about kissing.”

  “About what?”

  “You heard me, Godfrey.”

  “I couldn’t have.”

  “She told me the story of her seduction. Well, part of it, anyway. I assume there was more.”

  “Good God. No wonder the nobility has a wicked reputation.” He blew out a breath. “I hope you will not fall under her influence.”

  “I thought you wanted me to associate with high society.”

  “I do, but . . .” He shook his head. “I should know better than to worry about anyone putting improper ideas in your pretty head. Perhaps she is drawn to your goodness.”

  “I think she is good, too, Godfrey.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Can you imagine bringing your own footmen to a party? It must give one a sense of security.”

  She smiled up at him. He wasn’t a bad person. He deserved a wife who would love him. “It’s an intrusion, in my opinion,” she said softly.

  He gave her a hesitant smile that filled her with remorse. “When you look at me like that, Violet, I am tempted to agree.”

  Chapter 16

  Kit strode back to the fencing tent in a dangerous temper. His most experienced pupils recognized the look on his face and wisely did not utter a word. Ironically the only student who failed to respect his mood was Godfrey, who was not included in today’s demonstrations.

  Kit was leaning up against the willow tree, watching Pierce Carroll, garbed in Gypsy Rom attire, throwing knives at a target on the lawn. It was a chillingly good performance.

  He felt a glimmer of suspicion. Who had taught Pierce to throw? To fence? Untrained talent was all well and good. But Kit hadn’t witnessed such intensity since he had studied under his father’s guidance. In fact, Pierce threw a blade with such precision that for several moments Kit forgot his foul mood, until Sir Godfrey walked up to remind him of it.

  Kit tried to ignore him, but Godfrey refused to read his cue. “May I have a moment with you in private, Master Fenton?”

  He scowled. He thought he saw Violet sitting at one of the breakfast tables. And then he thought about lifting her hair from her neck and how badly he wanted to kiss that vulnerable curve where her shoulder lay bare, from there all the way to her breasts. God, her breasts.

  “What do you want?” he asked Godfrey bluntly.

  “It is about my fiancée,” Godfrey said in a sober voice.

  Kit straightened. “Has she changed her mind about fencing lessons?”

  “Certainly not. May we talk inside the tent?”

  Kit lifted his shoulders in a shrug and pivoted, wondering if the nincompoop was going to challenge him to a duel. Had Violet confessed? Had someone seen her with Kit in the tower and alerted Godfrey of the possible indiscretion? Kit would defend her name to the death.

  “What is this about?” he demanded when he and Godfrey stood alone in the tent’s musty stillness. “What do you need of me that is so important it has to interrupt a performance?”

  “I will come straight to the point.”

  “Please do.”

  “I’m afraid that my fiancé does not find me attractive in the manner that she should.”

  Kit folded his arms across his chest. It was either that or take the man by the throat. “How does this concern me?”

  “I wish to intensify the rate of my instruction. I would like to fence with more dash and danger so that at Lord Charnwood’s house party I might have a chance to bedazzle her as you have.”

  “I have bedazzled her? Those were her words?”

  “That was what the paper said about you, Fenton.”

  Kit rubbed his face. “Fencing is supposed to be art and sport. The theatrics are an unfortunate consequence of what is known as having to fill one’s purse.”

  “I am willing to compensate you for your time.”

  “We have only three weeks until the house party. I don’t know what you expect.”

  “I can only hope to emulate you for a few hours, Fenton. Surely you can help me out. I was not a strong boy growing up. I know that is difficult for a man of your talent to understand. My brothers tormented me until the day I left home.”

  “For pity’s sake, Sir Godfrey, do I look like a frigging priest? Everyone has to overcome an obstacle here and there.”

  Godfrey swallowed. “Even if the strength I take from you turns out to be an illusion, I will be better off for studying under you than I was before.”

  “I cannot promise you anything,” Kit said without inflection.

  “I realize that. May we begin tomorrow afternoon?”

  Kit gritted his teeth. He hated the weakness inside him that could never refuse a plea for help. “Fine, fine. Whether I serve as a damn governess or bodyguard, my sword can be bought at a price.”

  His decision did not improve his mood. Indeed, it darkened by the hour until, by the time he returned to the salon, he deemed himself unfit for anything but a good fight. Now he had agreed to train his rival to bedazzle the woman he could not have. He had given his word to Violet and to Godfrey. What sort of person bound himself to promises that were impossible to keep? He was achingly hard and angry.

  It didn’t make it easier that his students had appe
ared in force, assuming that he would observe tradition by popping corks to celebrate the day’s success. Kit had not won anything today.

  Still, he refused to drown his sorrows. If he took that first glass in his mood he might not be able to stop. He counseled self-discipline, and self-disciplined he would be, even if it killed him.

  He practiced with his students until midnight that night in the salle. He criticized their clumsy footwork, their overextended lunges, their underguarded shoulders. He put them through a parade of Highland broadsword drills. He exhausted each and every one in turn until the only one left with the energy to stand up to him was Pierce Carroll.

  Pierce rose to the challenge as if he’d been expecting it all along. “You aren’t perfect,” Kit said as their blades crossed. “But you are damned good. Why don’t you study for your diploma?”

  “What for?”

  “Prestige.”

  “The devil with prestige. It takes too long to study. I can make money now with my sword. Why don’t you steal the woman you want from Godfrey?”

  Kit knocked the sword from Pierce’s hand and kicked it across the floor. “Don’t ever say anything like that again.”

  Pierce held up his hands in surrender. “Forgive me. I didn’t realize it was more than passion. I understand now. This is personal. I will never mention her again. A hundred pardons.”

  Kit hung his sword on the wall and stood in silence as Pierce retrieved his weapon and coat, exiting the salon without another word.

  More than passion.

  It was too obvious to hide.

  It was too painful to ignore.

  It was love, and it hurt, a direct hit to the heart.

  How could a woman’s smile render him defenseless after the trials he had survived? How could the mere act of kissing her reduce him to impoverishment again?

  He was alone, and only her company would console him.

  He was starving, and he could not ease his hunger for her by any acceptable means.

  By the time the carriage returned to the town house, Lady Ashfield had fallen asleep. Violet gently awakened her and watched as Godfrey and Twyford escorted her up the steps. Her aunt refused to use a cane, and Violet wondered how an instrument considered by gentlemen to be a weapon was in an elderly woman’s hand a sign of infirmity.

  Mired in concern, she did not notice the young girl lurking between an oyster seller’s cart and the lamppost until she darted forward.

  She was a comely girl, and at first Violet thought she knew her. Her wide blue eyes stirred a memory. But then again, she had been thinking so often of the past.

  “Miss Knowlton?” she asked, extending her hand.

  Violet looked down. Grasped in the girl’s gloved fingers was a folded letter. “What is this?” she asked in an undertone.

  “It is from my mother, miss. She asks that if you have forgiven her, she would like to invite you to our home on Tuesday next at three o’clock in the afternoon. Her name is Winifred Higgins.”

  “Winifred?” Violet searched the girl’s face and recognized in her piquant features a trace of her former governess’s vivid charm. “She is well, and you . . . you are hers?”

  The girl nodded solemnly. She seemed far older than her age—heavens, she could not be ten years old by Violet’s calculation. But then, Winifred had seemed more mature than her actual age. Her womanly appearance had deceived Violet’s aunt.

  Still, Violet could not find it in herself to resent Winifred for her neglect. If Winifred had acted as a dutiful chaperone, Violet would never have been allowed to leave the house or make a friend. Winifred had been young herself, and vulnerable to loneliness. Had she been living in London all this time, raising her daughter alone? It could not have been easy. But who had told her that Violet was here? The first person who came to mind was Kit. Had he and Winifred kept in contact?

  “What is your name?” Violet asked, biting her lip.

  “Elsie, miss.” The girl glanced over her shoulder, and it was then that Violet noticed a cloaked woman standing at the corner. “My mother wants to make amends,” she added hurriedly. “She said to tell you that ours isn’t the best neighborhood, and you should not travel there alone.”

  Violet nodded, strange prickles of excitement pulsing in her veins. “Of course.”

  “But once you’re in our home, you will be safe.”

  What a queer postscript, Violet thought, and before she could ask another question about the invitation, the girl turned and fled toward the woman waiting for her return. Violet looked up just as Godfrey emerged from the town house onto the front steps.

  He glanced down the street, shaking his head. “These street girls never miss an opportunity. I hope you did not give her anything. It only encourages them.”

  Violet stirred herself. “No. Not a penny.”

  “Damned beggars are a blight. I wish I’d wake up one morning to find every one of them gone.”

  Violet looked at him. It was on the tip of her tongue to say that one morning he might find her gone, too.

  “Let me see you inside,” he said brusquely. “I shall not be visiting you as frequently as usual in the next few days. Intensive training for the house party, you know.”

  “Training?”

  “With the sword,” he said a trifle impatiently. “Where are your thoughts today, Violet? On the wedding, perhaps?”

  She hid the letter beneath her shawl and took his hand, loath to confess that their wedding was the furthest thing from her mind. She was impatient to read Winifred’s invitation. What would Aunt Francesca think if she heard that the scandalous governess she had dismissed sought to make amends? Or was there more to it than that? Violet remained unconvinced that she and Kit had not played into the marchioness’s matchmaking hand earlier in the pavilion.

  A proper lady would toss the invitation into the fire without opening it and turn her back on temptation. She would not open the door to past mistakes and hope that her friends would be there to save her.

  Chapter 17

  Kit was at home reading one of his father’s treatises on sword fighting when Kenneth brought him the invitation to tea. Straight off he speculated that Winnie was up to something. She had never sent him a formal missive before, let alone one written on perfumed paper. He dropped in to visit her from time to time, and once in a while they ran into each other at the market. He had not seen her, though, since the day after the benefit ball.

  On Tuesday afternoon, at a quarter to three, he mounted the stairs to Winifred’s rooms. The door had been left unlocked. A note attached to the knocker by a peacock-blue ribbon instructed anyone who called to enter.

  Anyone who called.

  Which confirmed his suspicion that he was not the only guest invited to tea.

  Another note on the two-tiered table explained that Winifred had been summoned on a few unexpected errands. Would her guests enjoy a glass of brandy and a slice of lemon bread in her absence? Kit removed his long gray coat and placed it on the hallstand with his cane and gloves.

  “Anyone else here?” he called into the intriguing silence, noting that the chairs and sofa had been cleared of the usual baskets of clothes that needed mending.

  His heart pounded hard against his ribs. The rose silk curtains had been drawn to let in an inch of light. The coal fire emanated a cozy glow behind the grate.

  He recognized the clip-clop of hoofbeats, carriage wheels rolling to a stop outside. He resisted going to the window. Instead, he went to the door and listened to the echo of a lady’s slippers on the stairwell. He detected heavier footsteps in the background. The lady had not arrived alone.

  What if it wasn’t Violet? Yet it had to be.

  How had Winifred convinced Violet to come here? Did Violet realize he was waiting, hoping to see her? She would never believe that he hadn’t played any part in this. She had wrongly accused him of scheming with the marchioness to lure her to the pavilion. Today he could not claim he was innocent of complicity. He was unwill
ing to let her go again.

  Violet knocked once at the door. Twyford stood on the bottom of the stairs below her. What an unarmed elderly man could do to protect her in the event of trouble, she did not know, but he had insisted on accompanying her, and she had felt safer with his escort than she would have alone. She wasn’t sure if he suspected this was more than the visit to a seamstress she had said it was. Whatever he felt, he kept it to himself. Violet knew he wouldn’t betray her now any more than he would have in the past.

  She lifted the knocker and let it fall. When the door opened, she was staring up into Kit’s face. She shouldn’t have felt any surprise, but the sight of him always flustered her. She forgot her resolve. She forgot that they were not supposed to see each other again.

  He shook his head as if denying he was expecting her. He was clean shaven, his hair combed back behind his ears. He wore a white linen neck cloth against an even whiter linen shirt that bore the imprint of a fresh iron. It undid her. To think of Kit ironing his own shirt, or paying a servant from his modest income to do so.

  “Believe me,” he said in a husky voice, “I didn’t arrange this. I admit that I hoped . . . But you shouldn’t be here. I’m alone inside. Winifred isn’t here yet. I don’t know when or if she intends to return.”

  Her throat felt dry. She glanced down at Twyford, nodding to assure him that he could return to the carriage.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Kit said again, but she noticed that he stood aside, as if hoping she wouldn’t listen, and nor did she. It was inappropriate. Neither of them had planned an assignation. The mere thought made her dizzy.

  An assignation. Winifred would be her accomplice today, as she had been in the past. Except that now Violet knew her own mind. She knew what she risked losing—and she didn’t want to lose him again.

  “Either leave here,” Kit said, as if she had any intention of doing so, “or come inside before you are seen. Whatever you decide, you can’t stand in the hall.”

  It occurred to Kit that there had been only a flicker of surprise on her face when he had opened the door. He stood back as she stepped over the threshold.