by Dare, Tessa
An excuse to go to her.
Finally.
“How long will you be?” Rosamund perched on the stepladder, holding one edge of the shelf in place. “My arms are growing tired.”
“Be glad your arms aren’t broken,” Daisy said smugly. “Lift up a bit. Your side is slipping.” The girl was enjoying her supervisory role a bit too much.
“You may let the shelf be,” Chase said. “I’m leaving directly.”
“Leaving for where?” Rosamund asked.
“To speak with Miss Mountbatten.”
“Finally.”
“Can we come along?” Daisy asked.
“Not this time, darling.”
Chase had to do this alone, and he had to do it today, before he talked himself out of it somehow. The gift wasn’t much. Nowhere near what she deserved. But he wanted Alex to have it, even if she refused to accept him.
With a bit of luck and a barge-load of apologies, was it too much to hope she might take both? Probably, but he had to try.
He bounded up to the entrance hall, where Barrow was just putting on his hat.
“We’ll have to postpone our appointment at the bank. I’m going after Alexandra.”
Barrow replaced his hat on the hook. “Finally.”
“She won’t want to see me.” Chase wrestled into his topcoat. “How can I convince her to hear me out? What do I say?”
“You’re the one with the silver tongue. I’m not certain what you want from me here.”
“You’re right. I don’t know why I’m asking advice from a man who proposed to his wife in a haberdashery.”
“At least my proposal was accepted.”
“That’s cold, Barrow.”
“But true.”
Chase yanked the lapels of his topcoat straight. Whatever powers of persuasion he’d amassed in his lifetime, this was the day to use them. “Christ, this is pointless. I treated her so shamefully. You have no idea.”
His brother shrugged. “So you made a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Very well, multiple mistakes.”
“Try dozens.”
“Never mind the number,” Barrow said. “If you love her—”
“What do you mean, ‘if’? You knew that before I did.”
“If you love her,” Barrow repeated with strained patience, “Alexandra just might forgive you. Think of how many of your flaws I overlook daily.”
“You don’t overlook my flaws. You like them. They make you feel superior, attached as you are to all those smug principles.”
“I’m attached to you, you idiot. You’re my best friend, and my brother by blood. No one who loves you expects you to be perfect. If by some miracle you managed it, we wouldn’t recognize you.”
Chase started to protest, but then he realized he didn’t really want to.
“All you need to promise her is yourself. That’s enough.” Barrow put his hand on Chase’s shoulder. “You’re enough.”
Over his adult life, Chase had built an unparalleled reputation for suave, spontaneous gestures of intimacy. Apparently, he’d fallen out of practice. The hug he gave his brother was the most awkward, embarrassing embrace he’d ever attempted in his life.
Barrow released him with a merciful thump on the back. “Now leave, so I can draw up some marriage contracts.”
“What about the embezzling? Don’t forget the embezzling.”
“Chase, stop stalling and go.”
For once, Chase took his brother’s suggestion. Without argument.
He headed to Lady Penelope Campion’s house first, but the housekeeper said she’d gone to Miss Teague’s. On to Miss Teague’s it was.
Miss Teague’s door was ajar, seemingly to clear out a haze of smoke from within. The house smelled of charred chocolate and cinnamon.
“Chase!” Penny waved him in. “Just in time for tea. Do sit down and have a biscuit.”
“He’s not getting biscuits,” Nicola said, incensed. She whipped the plate from the table, guarding it. “After what he did to Alex? Not even the burnt ones.”
“But he’s sorry now. He’s clearly here to make amends. The poor man looks wretched.”
Chase wasn’t certain how to feel about that. “I don’t have time for tea and biscuits, thank you. I’ve something for Alex. She’ll want to have it at once.”
“Leave it, then,” Nicola said. “We’ll give it to her.”
That was an entirely reasonable suggestion. One he didn’t have a ready excuse to work around. He decided to try the truth. “Please. I need to see her. Speak with her.”
“See, Nic?” Penny said. “He’s miserable.”
“I’m miserable,” Chase agreed. “So, so miserable. Also ashamed, regretful, desperate, ready to grovel on hands and knees.”
“Don’t forget ‘in love,’” Penny said, smiling.
Lord bless Lady Penelope Campion for her indefatigable faith in romance. She had the most open, generous nature imaginable. Chase recognized the quality, because she was the sort of woman he’d always kept at a distance. A heart so completely unguarded was more easily bruised than a ripe summer peach. Someday, he would sit her down and give her a word of caution about being too trusting with devilish gentlemen.
But not today.
Nicola finally answered his question. “Alexandra isn’t here.”
“When will she be back?”
“She won’t be. Not for some time,” Nicola said.
“She’s gone to—”
Lady Penelope’s reply was cut short. From throughout the house, what seemed like hundreds of clocks began to chime the hour. And naturally, the hour would be noon.
Within that minute of bonging and clanging, Chase imagined a hundred dire endings to Penny’s sentence.
She’s gone to the docks to catch a ship.
She’s gone to the Philippine Islands, to find her mother’s family.
She’s gone to grab the tail of her comet and soar away to a planet that deserves her.
She’s gone to someplace, anyplace where you aren’t, you contemptible bastard.
She’s gone to Malta.
It didn’t matter, he vowed. Wherever she’d gone, Chase would follow her, find her, pledge his love, and beg her to come home. Nothing would deter him. There was no journey too far. No obstacle too great.
“She’s gone to stay at Ashbury House,” Penny finished. “Across the square. Ash and Emma leave for the country tomorrow. They’re taking Alexandra with them.”
Ashbury House. Brilliant.
He would have rather gone to Malta.
Chase’s reception at Ashbury House was as he expected. And, quite honestly, no worse than he deserved.
The duke grabbed Chase by the lapels and slammed him against the wall.
“Listen, Ashbury. I know she’s furious with me, and for good reason. But I’m trying to make it right. Just—”
“I warned you,” the duke said in a fiendish whisper. “I told you what would happen if you hurt her.”
“Yes, I recall,” Chase choked out. “Something about my ballocks, a closet, and a demonic cat.”
“Oh, that’s only to start,” the duke growled low. “You clod of wayward marl.”
“I don’t have to stand for this.” Chase shrugged off Ashbury’s grip. “And I don’t need your permission to speak with Alexandra. You’re not her keeper.”
“I’m her friend. And you are not her anything.”
The words gutted him. Ashbury might be correct, but Chase had to see this through to the bitter end.
“That’s for Alex to decide.” Chase sidestepped him and lifted his voice. “Alexandr—ack.”
Ashbury tackled him from behind, wrestling him down to the carpet and clapping a hand over Chase’s mouth. “Shut up, you blackguard,” he snarled quietly. “Not another word. Or a set of shredded ballocks will be the least of your problems.”
Good Lord. Could there be anything worse than shredded ballocks? His stones retracted into h
is abdomen at the very mention. Chase could imagine only one sort of pain that could possibly eclipse that prospect.
Losing the love of his life.
Chase planted his boot on the floor, levered for the advantage, and flipped them both. He straddled Ashbury’s chest and stared down at his scarred face. “I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt on Alex’s account, but now I’m angry. I may not have a bloodthirsty cat, but I know a girl who can make a small bowel obstruction look like an accident, and I have a great deal of experience giving eulogies.”
“If you so much as—”
Chase planted his hand on Ashbury’s face. By pushing the duke’s head into the carpet pile, he lifted himself just enough to call out. “Alex!” he shouted. “I need to speak with y—”
A set of duke-ish, entitled teeth sank into the heel of his hand.
“Fuck.”
Chase jerked his hand away, and Ashbury made use of the momentary confusion to reverse the power once more. Scrabbling with knees and elbows, they rolled across the carpet no fewer than three times before colliding with a table.
Unhappily, Chase ended on the bottom of the tussle. Ashbury’s knee sank into his gut. “God Almighty, man,” Chase said. “What the devil’s wrong with you? Besides all the obvious things.”
“You veriest varlet.” Ashbury lowered his mangled face to within an inch of Chase’s nose. “This. Is. Nap. Time.”
Chase was nonplussed. “What?”
The duke rolled aside, resting on his elbow as he worked for breath. “My infant son is currently upstairs, sleeping for the first time in nineteen hours. The only thing keeping me from disemboweling you here in the entrance hall, you cream-faced rooting hog, is that you’d probably wake him with all your sniveling and sobbing for mercy.”
“Oh.”
Somewhere upstairs, a thin wail pierced the silence.
Ashbury closed his eyes. “I hate you.”
“Just let me speak to Alexandra.” Chase stood and straightened his coat.
“She’s not here.”
“You bastard. Why didn’t you say so? You could have spared us all of this nonsense.”
Ashbury struggled to a standing position. “I needed the exercise.”
Chase glared at him. “The papers had it right. You are a monster.”
Ashbury shrugged in admission.
“So if Alexandra’s not here, where’s she gone?”
“She went out to the shops.” A woman who was presumably the Duchess of Ashbury stood at the top of the stairs, bouncing a baby in her arms.
“Don’t tell him,” Ashbury complained. “He doesn’t deserve to know.”
She shrugged. “He ate the sham. And the tuna-ish. He’s at least earned the chance to talk to her.” To Chase, she said, “Alex said she had a few things to purchase before we made the journey.”
“What sort of things?”
“I don’t know the full list.” The duchess hesitated. “But she mentioned books.”
Books. Of course. He should have known it would be books.
“Do you know which shop?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
Well, then. He’d done too much dashing about London to stop now.
Chase would simply have to check them all.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The bookshop had been a mistake, Alex now realized.
After weeks of shedding tears in her cake, a bit of shopping ought to have been a pleasant change. The prospect of escaping to the country gave her something to look forward to. Away from London, she hoped her heart might mend a bit faster. But simply being in this bookshop was opening the wound all over again.
It wasn’t even Hatchard’s this time. She’d known that would be too painful. Instead, she’d chosen the Temple of Muses. The shop’s rotunda design had always delighted her. A set of stairs led to a balcony lining the interior dome. The shelves there were crammed with books as high as a person—a person significantly taller than Alex—could reach. This was where she always browsed first. Balcony books were better than ground-floor books. They just were. Really, anything put on a balcony was instantly improved.
The exception today was Alex’s mood. The balcony had not lifted her spirits.
She couldn’t help but see Chase’s eyes connecting with hers, or feel the way his charming, rakish grin had made her heart and hands flutter. It was as though she could see him before her. Breathe in his scent.
She could almost imagine that she heard his voice.
“Alexandra! Alexandra Mountbatten!”
She opened her eyes and looked down over the railing.
Chase.
He was there. Bellowing her name through a quiet bookshop and dashing through the aisles like a madman.
Alex had the momentary impulse to hide, but something in her wouldn’t allow it. She stood riveted in place.
Eventually, he spotted her.
“Alex. Thank God.” He doubled over, hands on his knees. “Just give me a moment. I’m winded. Been running all over London.”
“Why? So you could bump into me and make me drop my books again?” She put one forearm on the railing and allowed a slender volume to slip from her fingers. It bounced off Chase’s shoulder. “Oh, dear.”
He was unfazed by the blow. “Stay where you are. I’m coming to you.”
“No,” she said. “You are the last person I want to see.”
“Well, you are the last person I want to see, too.”
She gestured in exasperation. “Then why are you—”
“You are the last person I want to see before I fall asleep at night. Every night. The last woman I want to kiss for the remainder of my life. And your lovely face is the very last thing I want to see before I die. Because I love you, Alexandra.”
Her eyes stung at the corners. “Why are you so good at these charming, romantic speeches? From practice, I suppose.”
“Perhaps. But if I have practiced, it feels as though it was all for the sole purpose of winning you over right now.” He gazed up at her. “Tell me it’s working.”
It seemed it might be working, and that was what terrified her.
“Please don’t put me through this. Every time you’re near me, I build up these silly hopes. It doesn’t make any sense, but I can’t help it. Then I get hurt all over again.”
“So I’ll speak to you from here. This should be a safe distance.”
Alexandra wasn’t so certain. His handsomeness had a greater range than a six-pounder cannon.
“You were so right,” he said. “I regretted everything I’d said within hours of you walking out the door. I wanted to go after you at once, but I knew it would be pointless. You’d have no reason to trust me. To be honest, I didn’t trust myself. But now I can stand here and tell you, sincerely, that I’ve changed.”
She didn’t know what to say.
“You should see us. Daisy’s speeding through books faster than I can acquire them, and I’ve started Rosamund on geometry. Barrow helped me find a tutor. I still believe school may be best for them eventually, but you were right. They need more time.”
The pride and love in his voice was too much for her. She turned away from the railing, overwhelmed. Within moments, he was bounding up the stairs to join her on the balcony.
She held him off with an outstretched hand. She was almost afraid to ask it, but she had to know. “What about the Cave of Carnality?”
“Ah, yes. That. Sadly, the Libertine Lair is no more.”
“Did you give the space back to Mrs. Greeley?”
“No, no. The girls helped me convert it. It’s now the Pirate Palace. One that occasionally serves as a general surgery.”
She laughed a little, picturing it.
“They miss you so much. But I miss you more.”
Alex’s eyes were stinging. She blinked furiously. She wanted so desperately to believe in him, believe in this. But she’d grown mistrustful of her heart.
“Here, let’
s do this your way.” He took a few steps toward her and gathered an armful of books from a nearby shelf. “We’ll make two piles. For and against marrying me. We’ll start with ‘against,’ because those reasons are easy to name. Terrible reputation. History of rakishness. Poorly behaved in museums.” He piled book after book on the stack, with an increasingly absurd list of supposed detractors. So many that he had to empty a second shelf.
“I might as well add a book for every time I let you down.” With a heavy sigh, he topped the stack of books with a half dozen or so more. “There. Anything else you care to add?”
After consideration, she placed one more on the pile. “Antlers.”
He nodded. “I don’t know how I missed that. Now, the ‘for’ column.”
Alex had already started that stack in her mind. His wicked sense of humor. His protective, caring nature. The way he took an interest in things just because they interested her. She didn’t suppose he’d leave “astonishing in bed” off the list.
Instead of beginning a second pile on the floor, however, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small package. He held it out to her. “I love you. That’s the sum of it, really. Can it be enough?”
She took the package from him, unknotted the lavender ribbon, and pushed aside the tissue. Inside, she found a small book, bound in blue calfskin. She turned it over in her hands to read the embossed title on the spine.
Messier’s Catalogue of Star Clusters and Nebulae.
Alex looked at him, stunned. Her mind ran wild with all those familiar fantasies. All her dreams of his keeping the book tucked next to his heart and looking for her around every corner. Until he found her again, declared his love, and begged her to become Mrs. Bookshop Rake.
“Have you been carrying it around all this time?” she asked.
“No, of course not.”
“Oh.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
“I took the first one back to Hatchard’s last autumn, in case you looked for it again. Also because I’d no idea what to do with the thing. I ordered this copy a month or so ago, and I meant to give it to you then, but between you finding a comet and me making a first-rate ass of myself, it slipped my mind until today.”