Kit stuck his arm out in a flash of movement, and Dunstan reeled back too slowly. Kit’s fist grazed the baron’s cheek, and the shorter man flailed his arms to regain balance. Unsuccessfully. He went down on one knee, much as he had a moment before, but now more winded and with a fresh abrasion.
“Ophelia is mine,” Kit repeated as he loomed over the aristocrat.
Phee’s head ached. All the blood rushed up, and a horrible din thrashed in her ears.
I’m yours. You’re mine. Spoken in those delicious moments with Kit the words had been perfection. A binding, the invisible thread she’d always sensed connecting them to each other, a passion-born vow.
Now Kit’s words sounded too much like Dunstan’s. Both men wanted to claim her. Both had already decided her fate.
“I can offer you wealth and a title, Miss Marsden. All else can be overcome.” Dunstan wobbled to his feet and shuffled toward her, but Kit took one long stride to block him.
“Ophelia is going to be my wife.” Kit’s voice had gone quiet. Frighteningly calm. “Nothing you say will persuade her otherwise.”
“Is it true, Ophelia?” Dunstan let out a deep sigh and tipped his head to gaze around Kit’s shoulder. “You’ve accepted Mr. Ruthven’s proposal?”
A hush fell over the cramped parlor, and every sound there was to hear came loud and amplified. Fire spit and sparked in the grate. Coals fell, rearranging themselves. Phee focused on her own breath, coming in short pinching gasps, and listened for Kit’s. Nothing. He held his breath, held his body tense and still. Waited for her answer.
“No, Lord Dunstan. He hasn’t asked me.”
Kit whirled on her, and the disappointment she’d seen in Dunstan’s gaze was nothing to the agony in Kit’s whiskey-brown eyes. “Phee, you must know I planned to ask you. If you’d waited for me—”
“I have been waiting for you for four years.” Every word hurt, cutting deep into the pain she thought she’d put aside. The past hurt was altered now, tangled with all they’d shared. She had no wish to hurt anymore, but she didn’t want her choices taken from her either. Didn’t want two men—three if she counted her father’s machinations with Dunstan—deciding her future. “I need to think.”
“Marry me.” Kit gripped both her arms, his touch both firm and tender. “Don’t think. Just feel. You know that I love you.”
Dunstan retreated toward the door. On the threshold he turned back. “Go on, Miss Marsden. Melt in his arms. Faint into a heap at his feet. Females are all the same. They cry for their independence but are swayed by a few pretty words. Women adore sentiment and charm.” Dunstan sneered at both of them. “Remember that he is an actor. Sweet words are the man’s stock-in-trade.”
“Get out, you arrogant bastard,” Kit roared. “Go, and stay away.”
Lord Dunstan sniffed in haughty disdain and slammed the door as he departed.
“Phee?” The voice she loved, the man she loved, her name a petition on his lips.
Dunstan’s words echoed in her mind. She loathed the sort of overemotional decision making he described. She advocated for young woman to make rational choices. Practical choices.
“Ophelia, will you marry me?” Kit’s voice took on a reedy quality she’d never heard from him. Desperation.
“No. I don’t know. I need to think. May I have time to think?”
Kit lifted his hands from her arms as if she’d burned him. His deep-set gaze glowed in the firelight but without emotion. He’d lowed the mask. Put on his actor’s face. He wouldn’t let her in.
Kit squared his shoulders and started for the door.
“Kit?”
“Think, Phee. Take the time you need, but don’t forget to take your mother’s advice.” He closed the door behind him quietly.
Phee could still smell his scent in the air and drew in a deep breath. She lowered herself into a chair and tucked her knees under her chin. She stared at her mother’s embroidery hanging on the wall. Follow your heart and flourish.
Her mother hadn’t counted on the stubbornness of Phee’s heart. Or how, once her heart had broken, she’d be determined to protect it. Phee wished she could love with her mother’s open, trusting nature. Wished she knew how to follow her heart to Kit. To trust that he’d always come back to her.
Would Kit ever want her as much as he craved success? She couldn’t help but yearn for him to desire her above all else. To be first on his list, more important than any goal or achievement.
When she’d stared at the saying her mother had stitched for so long that her head began to ache, she closed her eyes and a tear escaped. Then another. She didn’t try to stifle them or wipe them away.
Even when her throat choked with sobs and her heart broke again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“A lady may speak more softly than a gentleman, but her tone does not lessen the value of her words. Speak softly, ladies, or at any reasonable volume you prefer, but never doubt that your voice should be heard.”
—MISS GILROY’S GUIDELINES FOR YOUNG LADIES
One week later Phee received a letter that did not contain a dismissal from her tutoring duties, an offer from a publisher, or an attempt by Lord Dunstan to convince her to accept him. Again. Nor was the missive from Kit. After years of ignoring his letters, he’d given up on writing to her.
This note’s lovely cream paper smelled faintly of roses. Before she read a word, Phee smiled at the loopy feminine script. “Milly.”
Milly was rarely demanding, never bossy, but this letter cut to the point, directing Phee to appear at Pembry Park for luncheon at two. Nothing more.
She wanted to see Milly. Despite her sometimes questionable advice, no one had a better heart. Phee’s own heart still ached, and after days of thinking and pondering, turning every possibility over in her mind, only her love for Kit rang true and clear. Trusting him—that was where she struggled. He’d offered her marriage, but what if he found matrimony to be as confining as his father’s control? He’d spent four long years in London. Could he turn his back on that life so easily?
An hour later, as she set out for Pembry Park, Phee cast a glance back toward Ruthven Hall. She missed Kit as much after a week apart as she had all those lonely years.
Milly rushed out the front door before Phee had reached the steps. “I’m so glad you’ve come. We have a brilliant plan.”
“We?” Phee had imagined a quiet luncheon with her friend, perhaps in the green oasis of the conservatory. We sounded utterly unappealing. Lady Pembry had always been generous and kind, but Phee couldn’t divulge any of her heartache to her.
“Come inside and all of your questions will be answered.” She sounded like a circus barker, urging Phee into a fortune teller’s tent.
Phee gulped down her dread and followed Milly inside. We seemed to encompass half a dozen ladies of Briar Heath polished society. In the bright, spacious drawing room, Lady Pembry sat surrounded by Mrs. Hollingsworth, the vicar’s wife, Milly older sister Olivia, and, most surprising of all, Sophia and Clarissa Ruthven.
“Come in, my dear.” Lady Pembry’s jewelry jangled like chimes as she waved Phee over. “Sit next to me. Don’t mind the pups.”
Each lady offered her a friendly greeting or pleasant smile, but Phee’s stomach twisted and tumbled in her belly. What had she done to warrant an invitation to such a gathering?
Then she saw the answer. Her book. Many copies, in fact, were stacked on a low tea table in front of Lady Pembry’s settee. Another pile lay on a desk in the corner of the room.
“We’ve all read it,” Mrs. Hollingsworth said. Shockingly, she wore a grin. Phee recalled the lady’s vehement defense of The Ruthven Rules last time she’d been at Pembry Park and now couldn’t square her appropriation of Guidelines. How could anyone appreciate both books?
“My brother was right to offer to publish your book, Miss Marsden.” Sophia Ruthven’s warm tone drew Phee’s attention to the opposite end of the room. Clarissa sat next to her, nodding vigorously
. “We hope you’ll reconsider allowing Ruthven’s to do so.”
“Miss Gilroy’s Guidelines is thoroughly wonderful,” Clarissa enthused. “Even if you and Kit . . . I hope you will, but if you don’t, please do let us publish your book.”
“I will.” Phee had misgivings about accepting Kit’s offer, but his sisters were thoroughly persuasive.
“Wonderful.” Milly clapped her hands and beamed. “Now let’s move on to the rest.”
“I understand Mrs. Raybourn’s gossip has damaged your tutoring endeavors, my dear.” Lady Pembry sounded nearly as mournful as Phee felt. “Though I will continue to do my best to curb her influence, we think another course will prove useful.”
“Any woman who reads your book will see its merit,” Milly insisted. “We’ve acquired every copy we can and plan to send a copy to every female in Briar Heath.”
Goodness. Wouldn’t Mrs. Raybourn love her then? “And if every lady of Briar Heath doesn’t see its merits?”
“Many will,” Sophia insisted. “And I suspect they’ll be quite determined to engage you to teach their daughters. If you’re still interested in tutoring, that is.” Kit’s sister’s knowing grin made Phee wonder just how much he’d shared.
“And don’t forget—” Lady Pembry started.
“Yes, of course, Mama,” Milly cut in. “We’d like to prepare letters of support before Ruthven’s puts out the new edition. Not just reviews, but letters we’ll send to the newspapers, including our names and endorsements of your ideas. There will always be cynics, but we can do our best to overcome them with enthusiasm. Mama knows the owner of a London lady’s journal, and I know a journalist who writes for the Times.”
Each lady watched Phee with a warmth she hadn’t expected and wasn’t sure how to absorb. The room had fallen quiet, barring the occasional sip of tea and the clink of silver spoons against porcelain.
“Thank you.” The words didn’t seem sufficient.
“You approve of our plans then, Miss Marsden?” Mrs. Bickham’s soft voice matched her smile.
“I’m surprised.” Phee cast her gaze across each lady’s face. “Stunned, to be honest, but most of all I’m appreciative. Truly. From the bottom of my heart.” She stared again at the pile of books. “Where did you get them? I thought Mr. Wellbeck removed them from all store fronts.”
“Ruthven’s acquired them,” Sophia said, meeting Phee’s gaze with an inscrutable grin teasing at the corners of her mouth. “My brother made Mr. Wellbeck an offer he couldn’t refuse”
Kit had bought her books? Somehow overcome the loathing Wellbeck felt for her father and schemed to get the copies to Lady Pembry? So much for wondering if she’d crossed his mind in the last week.
Phee swallowed hard and pressed the back of her hand against the heat in her cheeks.
She couldn’t stop meeting Sophia’s gaze. Kit’s sister so often withheld emotion and spoke with cool civility. Today she seemed different, offering Phee encouraging grins. Phee wanted to ask about Kit and hoped for a moment to speak to his sister alone.
“Shall we head to the table for luncheon?” Milly stood and ushered the group toward the dining room. As Phee passed, Milly caught hold of her elbow and whispered, “I have another matter I don’t wish to share with the other ladies.”
“I’m not sure I can bear more good news.” Phee smiled for the first time in days.
“I have no news, but I did overhear a conversation between Mama and Lord Dunstan.”
Phee cringed to imagine how he related her second refusal. She would have much preferred to convey the details to Milly herself.
“He said Kit Ruthven proposed to you.”
“He did.”
“And you refused him?” Milly’s shocked tone set Phee’s teeth on edge. She’d wrestled with the same question. Asked herself the same a dozen times. Telling him yes would be so easy. She only had to quiet the far-too-noisy warning voices of fear and uncertainty in her head.
“I couldn’t help but overhear mention of my brother’s name.” Sophia Ruthven moved with catlike stealth. Milly and Phee both jumped at the sound of her voice. The tall, lovely blonde had positioned herself at Phee’s side.
“Is he well, Miss Ruthven?”
“I couldn’t say, Miss Marsden.” She waited a beat and added, “Kit departed for London five days ago.”
“London.” A fist clamped around Phee’s chest. Shallow little breaths were suddenly all she could manage. He’d gone back. Had been gone since her refusal. “Does he plan to return to Briar Heath?” Perhaps he’d decided the city truly was where he belonged. Not with her. Not the place he’d been trying to escape for years.
“An excellent question, Miss Marsden. Perhaps you should go and ask him.”
Kit never truly appreciated the phrase den of iniquity until agreeing to share Grey’s London lodgings. After five days, he was beginning to suspect the man’s opulent Belgrave Square townhouse may have been the original inspiration for the term.
Individuals paraded in and out of the house, day and night. Not just women, though a female seemed forever at hand. Gentlemen friends of Jasper’s treated the space as a smaller, intimate gentleman’s club of sorts. In the week Kit had spent in London, he’d seen his friend rarely.
Amid the chaos of laughter, inebriated shouts, and pleasured screams and moans, Kit completed his play and had finally presented the whole to Dominic Fleet this morning. Tess still hadn’t forgiven him. Not a single purr of Kitten fell from her lips during the entire meeting, but Fleet promised to read the play and send word about beginning production within a few days.
Waiting wore on his resolve. Each tick of the clock offered another opportunity to take a train back to Hertfordshire, find Ophelia, and convince her to be his wife. She’d asked for time to think. He didn’t wish to wait one more second to begin their lives together.
Good job the rug in the room Grey provided looked expensive and hardy. He’d burn a hole through it, pacing, before he left this riotous den.
A lady’s chortle, then a squeal, drifted through the walls of another upstairs room. Footsteps clattered down the hall outside his bedroom door, as if someone had given chase.
“Come back here, you wench,” Grey called in a ridiculously melodramatic voice that would have caused all of London to doubt his acting skills.
Kit rolled his eyes, donned his coat, and decided a breath of fresh air was most definitely in order. The fumes of liquor and various perfumes were giving him a ripping headache.
He cast a glance both ways before entering the hall.
“Fanny, come out now.” Grey stood, clothed only in trousers, on the landing above the stairwell, shouting down into the townhouse’s main hall. “I’ve no patience for hide-and-seek this early in the morning.”
Some bit of female protest drifted up from downstairs, but Kit couldn’t make out the words.
“Busy morning?” Kit asked as he drew next to his friend.
Grey side-eyed him with a bleary gaze. “The lady likes to be chased. As predilections go, it’s not the worst I’ve ever encountered. Just dashed exhausting at . . . ” He squinted down at a long case clock in the hall. “How can it nearly be noon?”
“Time flies when you’re chasing women.” Didn’t Kit know that to be true? Three weeks in Briar Heath had tipped his life on end, and he wouldn’t change a single moment. Except the part when the woman he’d loved for years refused his offer of marriage.
An insistent knock sounded at the front door, and Grey scowled as if knocking on doors was far more offensive than the debauchery he got up to every day of the week. They stood like fools at the top of the stairs, staring at the painted wooden door and listening to the persistent thud of a door knocker, rather than taking a single move to rectify the situation.
“Is no one going to answer the door?” Grey shouted toward the ceiling.
“You fired the footman,” Kit reminded his friend. “He was tupping two of the maids, and I believe they left with him.
I hope they’ll be happy.”
“There must be others,” Grey said incredulously, swiping a hand across his face.
“In London? I’m certain there are. Here, now, prepared to open your door? It doesn’t appear so.”
Grey heaved a weary sigh and stomped down the stairs. All the while, his caller offered additional knocks at even intervals. By the time he reached the door, Grey clamped two hands over his ears and offered a less-than-friendly welcome through the thick panel of wood. “Knock on that damned door again and I’ll put my fist straight through.”
One final much-less-vehement knock sounded against the wood. Grey nearly wrenched the door from its hinges.
“Hello, Mr. Grey.”
Kit darted down the stairs. He couldn’t see her beyond Grey’s body, but Ophelia’s voice was unmistakable. A few words in her resonant lilt, and his body fizzed with joy.
“I’m looking for—”
“Ophelia.” Kit pushed past Grey as his friend stepped back, turned, and began searching for his lady companion in the drawing room. Smudges of fatigue shadowed the freckled skin under her eyes, and there wasn’t a hint of pink in her cheeks, but Kit had never been more relieved to see anyone in his life.
“Kit, you are here.” She remained on the doorstep, jaw set, blue eyes glowing in the morning light. “Sophia told me I’d find you here.”
“I’m glad she did.” His voice had gone raspy and raw. His tattered, rusty heart was in his throat, and every piece belonged to Ophelia. “Come in, or”—he cast a gaze toward the drawing room where Grey was on his hands and knees, looking under the settee—“I’ll come out.”
In answer, she swept past him, and he drew in a sweetened breath of her floral scent.
“Not in there,” he warned when she started toward the drawing room. “There’s a library this way.” A book-filled room seemed a fitting place to plead his case with her again.
Bottles spilled in a clattering pile, some rolling across the floor, when Kit pushed the library door open. The frivolity had spread here too, apparently.
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