The Lady Always Wins

by Courtney Milan

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Epilogue

  Thanks

  The Duchess War: Excerpt

  Other Books by Courtney Milan

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  For OuiOui. With a kiss on the cheek, perhaps a little too close to the ear.

  Chapter One

  A small village in Kent, Spring, 1845

  SIMON DAVENANT HAD JUST three days to woo and marry a woman.

  Not just a woman—the woman.

  Right now, the only things standing between him and the object of his affections were an exuberant field of colored tulips, a walkway of white crushed stones, and seven years of pointed silence on his part.

  It had been that long since last he’d set foot in Chester-on-Woolsey—seven long years in which he’d buried himself in his work, trying to forget dark hair and darker eyes, the feel of her skin, the sound of her laugh.

  It hadn’t worked. Everything he’d done had reminded him of this place.

  Simon had walked to Barrett’s Folly—the little property she had inherited from her aunt—from the railway station three miles distant. He’d diverted from his destination only long enough to leave his valise at the inn in town. The man who had assigned him his room was new to the area; he’d not even blinked in recognition when Simon gave his name.

  At that early hour, only the bakery had been open. He’d stopped for a bun, but old Mrs. Brandell hadn’t remembered him, either. There was no reason the little village should recall him. He’d merely spent his childhood holidays here.

  Nevertheless, it seemed unfair that he should have thought so often of Chester-on-Woolsey, while its inhabitants scarcely gave him so much as a backward glance. Still, he reminded himself as he watched the tulips wave before him, he’d come here for one reason, and one reason only. And she was in the house now in front of him.

  The first glints of morning sunlight spangled off windows that needed washing. Barrett’s Folly had never been more than a cottage, but it seemed even tinier than he remembered. It had been just large enough for an aging woman and her scapegrace niece. He’d only been here twice over Easter, but both times he’d been struck by the effect of the tulips: two full acres, blooming in a riot of pinks and golds and reds.

  One didn’t think of tulips as having an aroma—not like roses or gardenias. But massed in the tens of thousands, he could breathe in their scent: subtle and green and new, a smell that made him remember a time when he’d had nothing but hope for the world. It curled around his heart like a fist, that awakening nostalgia.

  But even if he’d had the inclination to indulge in memories that had grown rather more bitter than sweet, he didn’t have the patience. He certainly didn’t have the time.

  Simon adjusted his cravat, which was made of the finest, purest linen, and arranged his cuffs, which were held together at the wrists by gold links set with onyx stones. For richer or poorer, for better or worse, Virginia Barrett—no, damn it, Virginia Croswell—was finally going to be his.

  He grabbed hold of his determination, ignored the faint protestations of his irrelevant conscience, and strode forward.

  It took several minutes for someone to come when he rapped the knocker smartly. When the door finally opened, the person behind it was a maid-of-all-work, her apron layered with coal dust and white flour alike. She took one look at Simon—at Simon’s cuff links and Simon’s cravat—and frowned in puzzlement.

  “Eee,” she said. “You’ll be having the wrong house, then, sir. The Granthams are two miles down, yet.”

  So it was the Granthams who had purchased his parents’ old home. He didn’t care.

  Simon took off his hat and brushed past her into the entry.

  “I am precisely where I intend to be. Go fetch Mrs. Croswell, will you?”

  The maid glanced at him, standing uninvited in the entry. Her gaze marched up the shiny gold-plated buttons on his navy coat, and settled on his unsmiling countenance.

  “Yes, sir,” she finally said, and ducked back through another door.

  She wasn’t a very good maid. And given the time it had taken her to respond, he suspected she was the only one. Curious, that.

  He set his hat on a side table, and then his gloves. The same mirror from seven years ago sat in its fading false-gold frame on the wall; when he checked his reflection, he noticed that the edges had begun to spot with age. In the corners of the entry, dust had settled. Simon shook his head.

  A door opened, and he turned from his inspection. The maid came through first. Behind him, he could hear a woman speaking.

  “...very well,” she was saying. “But I don’t believe—”

  The woman marched through the door, swiping flour-dusted hands over an apron. She saw him and stopped midstride.

  He had envisioned this moment a thousand times. Sometimes, she threw herself at him. Sometimes, she flushed and looked away. He usually imagined her as she stood in his memory—a young, slim maiden, dressed in demure, light-colored muslins. Often, he’d thought of her in less. Far less.

  But in all his imaginings, he had never pictured her as she was now: features made severe by the dark gray of half-mourning. The possibility that she’d be clad in widow’s garb should have occurred to him. Given the reason behind his swift decampment, it seemed idiotic not to have imagined her in somber colors. Maybe, deep down, he had refused to accept that she had married another man.

  The years had changed her. They’d carved little laugh lines into the corners of her mouth. She’d rounded out comfortably, her hips and breasts fuller, her arms pleasantly plump.

  The discontinuity in his expectations jarred him. She’d been in his thoughts so much over the years that it was disconcerting to discover that she’d existed outside them.

  But of course.

  She rubbed the back of her hand against her forehead, leaving a trace of flour above her eyebrow. “Mr. Davenant. Why, how lovely to see you.” She gave him a faint, patronizing smile—the sort one might grant to an old acquaintance, long forgot. It might have worked, without that streak of flour.

  He crossed his arms. “Are you not going to ask why I’m here?”

  She flicked her gaze behind her. “Alice,” she said to the maid, who stood near the wall, “if you’ll finish putting the bread away, I’d be most obliged. Mr. Davenant and I are old friends. We’ll visit in the parlor.”

  “Old friends,” he repeated in disbelief.

  “We grew up alongside one another.” She was speaking to her maid, but her eyes had not left Simon’s. “At one time, we were quite inseparable.”

  “I would not have put it that way,” Simon said, not quite as mildly as he’d intended. “Inseparable means unable to separate. The last seven years suggest something rather different.”

  “Oh.” Alice glanced between them, perhaps catching a hint of a dangerous undercurrent. “Shall I bring some tea, ma’am?”

  Ginny pursed her lips. “Yes,” she finally said. “That will do nicely. And some of the new bread. And butter. And the raspberry preserves.”

  “The, um—” The maid blushed, and glanced at Simon.

  “The good raspberry preserves,” Ginny said sweetly. “Not the ones we use when the vicar comes calling.”

  Simon scarcely muffled a smile at that. She had not responded to his accusatory tone. She’d always been stubborn—damned stubborn. That, apparently, hadn’t changed. It was what he’d liked best about her.

  He waited until they
were seated around a table, tea steeping beside them in a chipped china pot, before he spoke again. “How long has it been since last we spoke?” he mused.

  She met his eyes levelly. “You know perfectly well, Simon.”

  “True.” He picked up his teacup and swirled the dark liquid around. “It was seven years, two months, and three—” He cut himself off. “No. It was four days, not three. That last time we saw each other, you refused to speak to me altogether.”

  She hadn’t even blinked at the precise nature of his recollection. “Of course I did.” She took a sip of her tea and smiled, as if that final, bitter argument had become nothing but a fond memory to her. “Can you blame me?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  In the corner, a clock ticked. He counted off the beats, watching her. Waiting for her to break the silence.

  But if the tapping of his fingers unnerved her, she did not show it. Ginny rarely let her emotions show. She simply set down her teacup and turned her saucer precisely. “Sometime in the last seven years, you might have apologized.”

  “Unfortunately, no. I could not have done.” He lifted his head. “What I said to you then... It was rude and unpardonable. And yet there has not been a moment between now and then when I could have truthfully taken it back. You see, I meant every word. I still mean it.”

  She blinked at him. The long column of her throat contracted in a swallow. It was the first unguarded reaction he’d drawn from her. “Oh,” she said quietly. “That’s interesting.”

  “Indeed.” He was watching her very closely. But other than that initial reaction, she betrayed no other response. Not even a twitch of her lips.

  “You must be here for a good long while, then,” she said.

  “Three days. I’ve urgent business back in town after that.”

  “You’ve allotted three days to accomplish all your threats?” Now she did smile. “My. You’ll be working quickly. When last we spoke, you said that if I married Mr. Croswell, I’d regret it.”

  “I don’t believe I used quite those words. But yes, you’ve got the general gist of my sentiment.”

  She put her head to one side, looking off into the distance. “You claimed that when he passed away, you’d seduce me, and once I’d fallen in love with you, you’d stomp on my bleeding heart and leave me weeping.” She recited those words as sweetly as if she were discussing a favorite recipe for plum preserves. “Oh, don’t give me that freezing look; I’m just trying to make sure our memories are in accord.”

  There was only one thing for it. He was going to have to lie.

  He reached across the table and took her hand. “You’ve got one thing wrong, Ginny. I didn’t just claim that I’d do those things. I promised I would.” He stroked his thumb across her palm. “And you know I always keep my promises.”

  His heart was racing. It was just like one of their old games—this time with a touch more bitterness, and with stakes so high he was afraid to breathe. Her hand was cool against his. Another woman might have taken him at his word and pulled away. But after all these years, Ginny still knew him, heart and soul.

  She curled her fingers around his. Not in surrender; Ginny never surrendered.

  “Goodness,” she said, a faint smile touching her lips. “You think you can accomplish all that in seventy-two hours?”

  He drew a little circle on her wrist. “I know I can. You have no idea how these last seven years have honed my instincts.”

  That was how they’d always played the game. He made some arrogant claim of utter balderdash in an attempt to provoke Ginny into an uncharacteristic response. She, in return, tried to flummox him with her restraint.

  She beamed at him as if all those bitter years between them had come to nothing. “How lovely. Would you know, I’m twenty-five years old, and I’ve not once been seduced? All I’ve been exposed to thus far is the regular sort of marital intercourse. I am positively looking forward to the experience. I trust you’ll do a creditable job?”

  God, he had missed her. There was a reason that no other woman had ever taken her place. He’d tried, damn it, he’d tried. But everyone else simply found him...intimidating. Announce to any other woman that you planned to seduce her, and she’d slap your face. Ginny, on the other hand, brought him to life.

  He stifled a grin. “I can hardly stomp on your bleeding heart if I make a hash of your seduction.”

  “Good,” she said. “Then I look forward to the…attempt.” There was a slight emphasis on that last word. That small pause, the rise in her voice…

  She might as well have thrown down a gauntlet. She pulled her hand away and took a long, lingering sip of tea. As she did, she glanced at him through her eyelashes. “But you know, Simon, informing me of your plans was always your downfall. It makes you so much easier to thwart.”

  “What can I say? I’m a gentleman. I have to give you a sporting chance.” He paired those words with an indulgent smile. But inside, he was grimacing. Not this time. This time, he’d lie to her, deceive her. Whatever it took to have her, he was going to do it.

  “Poor Simon,” she said. “You’re checkmated already, did you know that?”

  He shrugged once more, cheerful despite the wretched events of the last few weeks. He’d been right to come here—right not to wait until her mourning had passed. “So long as it’s you who mates me,” he said breezily, “I’ll have no complaints.”

  The corner of her mouth twitched. No, despite what he was going to do to her, he couldn’t make himself regret it. This time, she was going to be his.

  HE WAS HERE. He was here! He had come. He had come!

  Ginny wasn’t sure how to say the words, how even to think them with the proper emphasis. She was all tangled on the inside—tangled and confused and scared and giddy—and she hadn’t felt that way in seven years. On the outside…

  She was walking sedately down a track that cut through the pale spring meadow grasses, still scarcely high enough to tickle her ankles. Her fingertips rested on Simon’s elbow; his hand, encased in soft, fine leather, covered hers. It was all very proper, if one happened to observe the two of them from thirty yards’ distance.

  If one were closer…

  Simon wasn’t just covering her hand with his. He was stroking her fingers. Even through their gloves, his caress sent a light, excited pulse through her body.

  Her body, it turned out, had taken one good look at him and blithely dismissed all need to contemplate their past history. Her body would have been perfectly content to skip right past the arguments and the hurt they’d imposed on each other, and get straight to the seduction. Given the way he was touching her, he felt the same way.

  Alas. That light, sensual caress only meant she had his attention. The martial set of his jaw suggested that she had a long way to go to win his approval.

  And she wasn’t even sure she wanted it.

  The tips of his fingers brushed her wrist and then slipped beneath her sleeve. She held her breath when he touched her bare skin—but he stopped walking and pulled her hand closer.

  Her gloves had been white once, but an unfortunate spill had left one discolored. The edges of her sleeve were fraying. She’d have to turn the gown again in a few months.

  “Well,” he said, the first word he’d spoken since they’d left the house. “I can see it didn’t turn out as you expected, marrying a rich man.”

  Simon had never been one to let old wounds heal. No; he’d jab at them repeatedly with a sharp stick. “Mr. Croswell left me nothing to complain about.” Ginny squared her jaw. “I tell you, Simon, I’ll not hear you speak ill of the dead.”

  “Nothing to complain about?” He raised one eyebrow. “It looks like he left you nothing at all. No fine house in Anniston. One maid, if I’m not mistaken. Old mirrors and old furniture and dust in the entry. It wasn’t even this bad when your aunt was among the living.” He slid his finger over her fraying cuff.

  “There have been some expenses since his death,” she admit
ted. “But I’ve managed to meet them all.” Barely.

  His mouth formed a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Poor Ginny. Maybe you should have married me after all.”

  “Oh, it’s not so bad as to drive me to wish that,” she said, as breezily as she dared. “I have enough, and this is really only a temporary shortfall.”

  His false friendliness faded into an altogether more believable frown.

  “You see,” she added, “having enough is superior to marrying a man still in university, one whose parents promised to cut him off if he married that dreadfully impecunious Virginia Barrett.” She was very proud of the fact that her voice didn’t shake. After all these years, she scarcely felt anything at all when she uttered those words. She’d buried that pain too deeply to be hurt by it.

  He pulled away from her, his movements stiff. “Damn it.”

  “Your language hasn’t improved any, I see.”

  He looked relieved at the change of topic. Anything to spare themselves from revisiting that old argument.

  “If anything, it’s grown worse. I spend all my time around men, more than half of them laborers.” His hand drifted to the top button of his jacket, and he undid it. “When there are no women about for miles, they say the most amazing things. You would bloody love it.”

  She couldn’t pull her eyes from his fingers. It wasn’t as if he were actually disrobing—he had a shirt and a waistcoat on underneath. Still, he was slowly and methodically unbuttoning his coat. Unsettled as she was, she still found herself watching those buttons with far too avid an interest.

  He undid another button and tilted his head down the path. “You see that bench there?”

  “Yes?”

  He popped the next button, and glanced over at her. She colored and looked away. A loss; he had always tried to get a response out of her. But then, it would have been an equal loss if he’d noticed how she’d been staring.

  And perhaps he had noticed anyway, because he smiled faintly—a real smile, this time.

  “I’m going to race you there.” He continued undoing his coat. “And I’m going to win.”