by Carrie Lomax
“I plan to challenge Lady Summervale to a battle of cards.”
“With what inducement?”
“Your grandmother is experiencing financial difficulties stemming from her Sunday afternoon ladies’ betting league. I am going to offer her a way to solve those problems.”
“I tried that already. Lady Summervale turned me down flat when I offered to buy the Heart’s Cry. Didn’t I tell you this?”
“Yes, I wonder now…” Antonia’s features clouded. She missed a step. “What if I offer her the other half of the necklace?”
Cold dread spiraled through him. Malcolm faltered. They stood there in silence with only the ticking of the metronome and the faint rumble of cart wheels on the street outside. “No.”
“Why not?”
“My grandmother cannot have both halves. I’ll never see them again if you lose.” His grandmother hated him. His mother’s miniature would remain ruined. He’d never click the two pieces together and imagine her voice in his ear, husky with warm and sadness. Malcolm needed the jewel to help him his past behind him before he could find his way forward.
“I can still steal it,” Antonia shot back with an insouciant grin.
“I cannot imagine possessing as much confidence as you do.” Malcolm laughed. She was the most captivating
“Me? How rich, coming from a duke,” Antonia teased. He detected a note of strain in her voice, though, as if she teetered on the edge of brittle tears. He had embarrassed her with his sketches. Hell, he had discomfited himself. But each pass of their bodies as they practiced the steps he had demonstrated cracked his resolve not to touch her a little further.
“Arrogant, yes. Confidence…I have you to keep me in check.”
Antonia cocked one eyebrow. “Do I do that?”
“Do what?”
“Keep you humble. Take you down a peg or two.”
“Hourly,” Malcolm said wryly. “You’ve quite a talent for bringing proud men to their knees. How did you ever survive while working as a servant? I cannot imagine you holding your tongue when your master wanted a fresh pot of—”
Antonia froze. Malcolm’s nerves prickled with awareness that he had said something wrong. Before he could grasp what it might be, she laughed. “There were days I bit my tongue so hard it bled. But that has nothing to do with getting you your necklace. Here's how we are going to do it. I am going to ingratiate myself with the Almack’s patronesses. On Wednesday, I am going to prove myself worthy of waltzing. It has to be perfect. I must look in every respect like Princess Esterhazy's equal.”
Master. That was what he’d said wrong. He had used a description in the common vernacular of the English upper class, and Antonia’s entire body had bristled. Malcolm half listened while Antonia explained her plan.
“You are more than her equal,” he interjected.
“Why, aren’t you full of compliments this morning.”
They had stopped dancing. Antonia glanced down and brushed her skirts back from her legs. Russet ringlets danced about her cheekbones. But when she glanced up, the vulnerability in her eyes pierced his core. Need bubbled up through him. The desire to touch. Wanting to taste her lips and inhale her breath as she closed her eyes and—
Malcolm’s drawings had sent him into this heightened state. This was his own fault.
“I must become worthy of an aristocratic lady’s highest regard,” Antonia informed him. She clasped her hands at the small of her back and paced away. Malcolm swallowed. The sight of her hips swinging beneath the cream-and-red printed cambric helped nothing. He could not calm this raging beast of desire she had awoken. Antonia was supposed to be a hired thief, not his lover. But his body failed to comprehend the message.
“You are more than worthy of anyone’s regard,” Malcolm declared roughly. Antonia cast him a quirked half smile over her shoulder.
“That is the only way I will receive an invitation.”
Lust had curdled his brains. “To what?”
“To your grandmother’s Sunday afternoon cards session.” She smirked. “Yes, I promise you, my lord—“ Antonia drew out the word in a way that both riled and teased, “—that six days from now, you shall have your gold-and-diamond necklace.”
Six days. Another day to sketch the intricate whorls of its settings for the miniaturist he had identified to repair the tiny portrait. Ever since Malcolm had set out to forgive his mother for leaving him and repair her likeness as a repudiation of his father’s bitter indictments of her and all women, his goals had felt abstract. Too airy-fairy to describe to another living soul. Until Antonia. She had made his dreams real.
“Say something,” she ordered him. “Is this not what you wanted?”
“Of course, it is,” Malcolm said, his words clipped at the edges. “You have done very well, Miss Lowry. Better than I ever hoped.”
Her full mouth pulled into a tight smile. “Thank you. I expect half the remaining monies from our agreement to be delivered in guineas and small coins. Two thousand, five hundred pounds.”
He laughed. “You wouldn’t be able to carry that much coinage. It will weigh you down.”
Antonia’s grin widened but never reached her eyes. Malcolm met her gaze and read emotions in those amber-flecked brown depths that reflected his own. Anger. Longing. Fear.
Desire. A shudder worked its way up his back, into his shoulders and up to the base of his skull. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her.
“I won’t need it for long. London has never been more than a way station for my purposes.”
In seven days, she would be gone. Damn.
The knowledge tipped his unsteady state into rashness.
“Don’t go,” he demanded harshly. His breath puffed in an almost-invisible vapor. The room was cold, but his body was consumed with a fire that dampened the small of his back and threatened to wilt his cravat.
“Give me one reason to stay.” Antonia remained opposite, her spine stiff as she pinned him with a glittering obsidian gaze. Gone was lightness, replaced with a consuming hunger.
Malcolm closed the distance between them in two strides. He cupped her cheek with one hand. The pad of his thumb dragged over the fullest part of her lower lip. “Because I want you to.” His breath rasped harshly over the words.
“You are not my master,” she breathed against his finger. Warm breath puffed out from between her lips. Malcolm pressed gently into the space. Antonia’s tongue glanced his flesh and he was lost, spinning into an abyss of desire.
“I would never wish to be,” he murmured. Malcolm shifted his weight and bent down, but it was she who closed the gap between their mouths in a scorching, gentle kiss. Antonia exhaled and leaned closer. Finding welcome, he wrapped his arm around the indent of her waist. She exhaled and sighed against him. He licked the seam of her mouth. Antonia opened to him. Languid heat melted his core as their kiss deepened. Lost, he forgot time and place until they were interrupted by a far-off knock of wood against wood.
“Oh, good gracious, children—cover your eyes,” a man exclaimed.
Chapter 15
“Your Grace, I had no idea you’d still need the room at half past noon.” A bespectacled man in a taupe overcoat regarded him with eyes agog. Behind him was a cluster of children in bonnets and warm hats wearing curious expressions. One of the older boys snickered.
This was the dancing and music instructor whose studio Malcolm had paid an exorbitant sum to rent as an excuse to meet privately with Antonia.
Antonia wrenched away from him. Malcolm tried to gather his wits and failed. Noon. He had been here for hours. Now, the spell had been broken.
“We were leaving,” Malcolm mumbled, as they had clearly not been anywhere close to departing the premises. Antonia had scooped up her warm mantle and flung it around her shoulders. A duchess could not have radiated as much embarrassed pride as did the woman he had just kissed.
Who had kissed him back. A hot spike shot through his center. Malcolm scooped up his drawing ki
t with the now horrifyingly inappropriate sketches. He tucked it beneath his arm, where it burned against his side like a badge of shame.
He clopped down the wooden stairway ahead of Antonia so as not to step on the hem of her outerwear. Malcolm caught her gaze as she stood on the third step from the bottom.
“We may revisit that scene once this is over,” she told him steadily. “Until then, we focus on the mission.”
“The minute you bring me the necklace, Antonia, I am coming after you,” he rasped.
A haunted shadow fell over her features. “There’s no point. I must disappear, and if you do not understand why, then you have bought into the fiction of Antonia Lowry even more than I thought.” She swallowed. “It would be brief between us.”
“I need more than that,” Malcolm replied, half pleading, half desperate. What did she mean by must disappear?
“Then perhaps it is best we don’t start down this path together.” She brushed past him. Malcolm caught the faint floral scent of roses and jasmine from her skin. Already his brain had latched onto her essence and assigned it meaning.
Perhaps she was right. Malcolm waited until Antonia had passed through the heavy oak door out to the bustling street. His heart pounded the way it had when he had watched another woman ghosting out of his life. If he couldn’t trust her to stay, then it was best to let this unwelcome flood of desire subside on its own in her absence.
* * *
Don’t think about him.
An impossible rule to keep when Havencrest was the constant topic of discussion. The earl and his wife were plainly pleased with Margaret’s suitor, and Margaret, in her fathomless need for approval, basked in her relative freedom. Tonight, she and Margaret were crammed into the seat opposite the Evendaws on their way to a house party. Antonia stifled a yawn. How did they manage this schedule of nightly entertainment and socializing? Even if her muscles weren’t still aching from her day of physical toil, the nightly outings were exhausting.
“You have had a most salubrious impact on Havencrest, my dear.” Evendaw leaned forward to pat his sister’s hand and nearly toppled out of his seat. Ruddy cheeks indicated he had indulged a second after-dinner port. Antonia kept her eyes demurely cast down or focused out the window on the streetscape crawling by. It would not do to rouse any hint of suspicion from Lady Evendaw. Once, she wouldn’t have cared, but now?
“I hope so, brother. Beneath his public reserve is a good man,” Margaret replied with apparent sincerity. What a bland description for a man of depth and feeling such as Malcolm Hepworth Dunn, Duke of Havencrest.
A good man would not hire a thief to steal his elderly grandmother’s most precious gem. Nor would he assist with the disposal of a dead woman’s body. No, Malcolm was decidedly not among the righteous. Yet Antonia also knew he had paid for the dead woman’s body to be buried properly in a graveyard outside London. She knew this, because she had attempted to do the same. After their disaster of a dancing lesson, Antonia had visited her bolt-hole, donned men’s clothing and gone to the morgue to inquire about the dead woman’s status. Gone, she had been informed. A great lord named Havencrest had seen the story and wished to give the anonymous woman a proper burial.
Guilt licked her insides. Antonia had spent years walling off her heart from caring about the impact of her actions on anyone. Her survival depended upon it, and, worse, it felt awful. Damn Margaret and Malcolm for making her care about people again. All that caused was anguish.
“Do you think so, Miss Lowry?” asked Lady Evendaw and Antonia realized she had not been paying proper attention to the conversation.
“Of course,” she demurred.
Margaret’s sharp elbow lodged painfully between her ribs. Antonia widened her eyes. “She can’t mean it.”
“I can’t mean what?” Antonia asked, thoroughly confused.
“That a marriage will take place before spring.” Panic had sprung to Margaret’s eyes. Oh, right, she and Malcolm had discussed marriage specifics and decided against them. Margaret was only interested in a marriage that let her have freedom. Malcolm didn’t want that. She must be terrified of her brother forging ahead with arrangements without her input.
“Only if you want it to,” Antonia reassured her friend. This earned her a disapproving frown from Lord Evendaw. Luckily, at that moment they pulled up to the front entry of yet another grand townhouse. To Antonia, the mansions were all starting to blur together. In the vestibule, she dropped her mantle and gave Evendaw another reason for disapproval. Gold tissue as delicate as a butterfly’s wings shimmered over her body. Deep violet embroidery puckered the pattern at intervals. Purple velvet trim at the cuffs, neckline and hem completed her sumptuous gown.
Lady Evendaw gaped.
Lord Evendaw’s brow puckered into a frown.
Margaret, who had already seen Antonia’s newest fashion before they had donned their outerwear and darted into the February weather, skipped eagerly ahead. As a matter of respect she ought to let her brother enter the ballroom first. Antonia gave her hosts a sidelong glance and glided after her oblivious friend.
The charmingly awkward American who had spent months shadowing the edges of London’s finest families was gone. In her place was a lady fit for aristocrat’s side. For months, she had hovered demurely at the edges of fine society, a pretty companion as docile as a spaniel kept for company. As long as she posed no threat to the women who sparred nightly for status, her friendships had allowed her to get close to the wealthy women whose jewels she plucked like ripe fruits from an ever-bearing tree.
Antonia felt eyes skim down her body, assessing the fit and quality as if she were a horse at auction. A smirk tugged at her mouth. All they saw was that the pretty foreigner had transformed overnight into the most fashionable lady in London, not the viper they had welcomed into their midst. Antonia let her lips curl up the corners while Margaret waved happily to a red-haired lady in a green silk gown.
“Annabelle. Congratulations on your recent nuptials.”
“Thank you. Miss Lowry.”
Antonia leaned in to embrace the woman she had briefly befriended. Several feet away stood her new husband, Lord Castlereagh. This was the moment of judgment. He bowed and introduced her around. Six days from now, Antonia Lowry would disappear in a noxious cloud of scandal. Her name would be cursed and then forgotten. No one in the room knew that yet, though. Antonia ought to feel triumphant. Her schemes had succeeded in spite of her impulsive, reactionary lack of plans. But all she felt was loss.
Running meant leaving Malcolm and Margaret behind.
The thought of betraying Margaret’s easily bruised feelings made her heart thump dully in her ears. Their parting must be decisive, to protect her friend’s reputation. Margaret had been nothing but patient, generous and kind. She deserved to know why Antonia was leaving. A warning buzz tickled the base of Antonia’s skull.
Stop looking at me. The very air between her and Malcolm vibrated with connection. You're threatening everything we've planned. Yet she couldn't break the spell, either. For three long heartbeats, their gazes met and held.
“Is that your beau, Lady Margaret?” asked a woman in a purple gown with a knowing grin.
“So it is,” chirped Margaret. She waved, wiggling her satin-clad fingers across the room. Antonia barely registered the visible stiffening of the fancy lady’s jaw. Margaret's overly friendly welcome had been noted and judged deficient. Antonia briefly wrestled with the peculiar urge to strangle the woman.
This was what she got for giving people names. First her protectiveness of Malcolm, now Maggie. But Antonia had no time to reflect further before Havencrest resumed his forward march in their direction. He bowed over Margaret’s gloved hand. Her friend giggled.
What if…what if she stopped running? Antonia mulled the idea as he murmured greetings to their circle. But when Malcolm greeted a dark-haired woman in a blue-and-silver tissue gown and said, “Mrs. Cartwright,” all thoughts of remaining fled.
&nbs
p; A few months ago, Antonia’s actions had nearly caused this woman’s death.
No, she could not stay, because she could never outrun the past she had built upon an eroding foundation of lies. Antonia was caught in a trap of her own making, with no way out but through. Breath cut through her lungs. Her eyes stung. She blinked.
Damned, useless feelings.
Chapter 16
Malcolm’s heart stopped for a long moment as he regarded Antonia in her regal new gown. Yet as blood slowly pumped back up to his brain he also recognized the brittleness beneath the beautiful shell. When he reached Margaret’s side it required every ounce of his self-control not to sweep Antonia into his arms and carry her away from here. Keep her safe.
He had sent her on a mission that could cost her her life. He had no right to protect her.
“Good evening, Havencrest.” Margaret curtseyed quickly. The tiny diamond-and-pearl hair ornaments scattered through her light blond curls winked at him. His hand rose as if to pat her on the head like a spaniel, but he willed it back to his side. The sooner the nightmare of their courtship was over, the better.
“Good evening.” His gaze skimmed over Antonia. She lifted her chin. Had he captured this precise, defiant angle in his sketches? If not, he must try again. Alas, being caught in the act of kissing this morning had cost him the space. They had nowhere else to meet in secret tomorrow and Wednesday morning, which meant they had no further time to practice their waltz.
Unless they took the opportunity now.
“Miss Lowry, would you favor me with a dance?”
She examined her dance card. “A reel?”
“The next waltz.”
Her brows knit together in a frown. “I thought that wasn’t permitted without permission.”
“That’s only an Almack’s rule,” Margaret interjected. “Go on, I want to catch up with Annabelle Kilpatrick. I claim next dance.”
The moment Antonia placed her gloved hand in his, Malcolm knew this would be a disaster. She was stiff and unyielding, just as she had been the first time. “Couldn’t we have started with a cotillion?” she demanded as they took their places. “We only had to wait one song.”