by Carrie Lomax
Havencrest brushed a kiss against her temple, and Antonia marveled at the strength beneath soft skin dusted with wiry hair. The male form was a fine thing to behold—particularly his. Naked in this man’s arms was the first time she had felt at peace in a very long time. Now that she had surrendered to it, she was in no hurry to leave the warm comfort of his embrace. “The cash portion of your reward sits in that satchel. It is heavy.”
“I’ve a strong back.” The distance between them grew imperceptibly. Antonia felt it in the closure of her heart that had only moments before opened to this private, silent man.
“I have dispatched my man of business to handle the transfer of money into an account belonging to Mr. Anthony Lowe, as agreed.” Havencrest smoothed her hair against her temple. “If you don’t know by now that I will not be turning you over to the magistrate for your—” he tickled her lightly, and Antonia wriggled against him, “—grievous crimes, then nothing will. This is purely a favor between…”
“Between lovers,” Antonia supplied.
“Between friends,” he finished lamely at the same moment.
Friends. Her heart closed protectively like a clam shell snapping closed. There was only one man in her future, and his name was Anthony Lowe. “What is it you need?” she asked. If she gave him one last gift, perhaps Malcolm would understand the sentiment she didn’t have the courage to speak in words.
“I want you to make a final visit to my grandmother.” Havencrest let Antonia sit up, and she could not tell whether he understood that the shudder that ran over her skin was born of misgiving. She had come so close to being caught. Disappearance was the only safe option. Yet once she transformed herself into Anthony Lowe, prosperous merchant, she could never again have a man’s touch without risking her very life. It was almost too high a price to pay—except that she wouldn’t be rolling naked with a lover if she was hanged for theft, either.
“And do what?” Antonia asked, trying to conceal her misgivings.
“Give her the Heart’s Cry back.”
Chapter 21
“I’m sorry?” Antonia could not believe her ears. She shuffled backward out of the warm nest and tugged her chemise over her head. “Why on earth would you want that, after all the trouble to obtain it?”
“Because even though she despises me, Lady Summervale is my grandmother. Holding the Heart’s Cry again made me understand that no matter how I lovingly I remember my mother, I can’t bring her back. All I can do is honor her by restoring her picture to the family hall. I can have the miniature repaired from my sketches, and between that and my sketches of you, a competent portraitist ought to be able to create the full-size painting for my gallery. My mother will no longer be a pariah. I will honor her and, as the Duke of Havencrest, others will follow my lead.”
“I thought it meant the world to you to possess that diamond again,” said Antonia accusingly. Without the warmth of his body, her toes were beginning to go numb. She tugged on her stays, laced them as well as she could, and threw on her crumpled dress. It was such a pity that a fancy woman required so many layers to be made respectable once she had been foolish enough to let a man strip her naked. All the clothing made it difficult to flounce away in a huff.
“Let me help you.” Havencrest had stuck his legs into his trousers and pulled a shirt over his head. Antonia turned her back and held her hair as he fumbled with the tiny buttons in his blunt-tipped fingers. “It did. But now it has served its purpose. I care nothing for the object itself, only for the memories it carries with it. Do you think you can put it back?”
The note of hope in his voice punched the sore spot beneath her solar plexus. “Me?”
Havencrest finished the final button. “Yes, you,” he said after a moment. He regarded her with the same arrogance he had pursued her. One brow quirked up.
Antonia whirled around to face him, her skirt spinning out in a bell. “No, Malcolm. If you want to take the necklace back, that’s up to you. But I cannot help you. After all, you are at no risk of hanging whatsoever.”
“True. Yet I am disinclined to damage my relationship with my grandmother further.” Havencrest stroked his chin, considering.
“I am equally disinclined to be any further involved in this family misadventure.” Antonia thrust her chin out stubbornly, as if holding high could tip the tears back down and away from spilling. Besides, now that the damned man was looming over her, bare-chested in his barely fastened trousers, she had to peer upward to meet his gaze. “You need to talk to one another.”
He frowned. “My grandmother won’t see me.”
“When have you ever tried, Malcolm?” Antonia asked.
His jaw worked. “My grandmother was there the night the woman I was engaged to marry threw me over. I received the news unkindly, to say the least. I proved her worst fears about my father true.”
“What do you think she was afraid of?” Antonia asked, fearing the answer.
“That I had become like him,” Malcolm replied. He finished slipping his shirt studs into place. “Selfish. Cutting where I thought I could get a laugh. I was those things, but that night I saw what it had cost me. I started trying to change. I suppose I have not transformed myself as much as I thought.” He bent to kiss her cheek. “I thought this was the end of my attempt to reconcile my parents and put their influence in the past.”
Antonia gave him a small, wan smile. “It sounds as if it is just the beginning.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I can’t help you any further, Malcolm. Decide what you wish to do with the Heart’s Cry. You should know, though, that Lady Summervale has a portrait of your mother. I saw it the afternoon I spent working as a maid. Maybe you don’t need to recreate your memories. If you made an effort to reconcile with her, you could ask your grandmother to leave the picture to you when she is…gone.”
Leaving him alone in the world, just like her.
“I should have told you about it sooner,” Antonia said softly. “I didn’t think of it until tonight. The pieces were there, of course. I am not accusing you of hiding it, but I did not comprehend the import until you told me.”
Malcolm bent his head to hers. “I would ask you to stay if it didn’t put your life at risk.”
“But it does,” she whispered. “I must disappear.”
“We could marry.” But from the hopelessness in his voice, Antonia knew he didn’t mean it. Her instinct was proved correct when he continued, “There’d be quite an uproar, of course. But you would be safe under a duke’s influence.”
“I won’t do that to Margaret,” Antonia declared, pulling away to better resist the temptation of throwing herself into his arms.
“Your friend doesn’t even want to marry me,” he exclaimed, and Antonia jumped.
“Nor you, her. And yet, it is what everyone expects. It will be the scandal of the century if you were to throw over an earl’s sister for a mere American. A criminal, at that.” Antonia’s hands trembled with cold and anger. Perched with her bum against the rickety table, she wondered whether there would be another piece of furniture reduced to matchsticks today.
“I am not afraid of scandals,” Malcolm declared as though this made him noble.
“Well, I am disinclined to become one,” Antonia snapped. “Any more than I already have.”
He scowled and snatched up his coat. “Perhaps I shall marry Margaret after all,” he seethed.
Antonia scoffed. “As if she would have you.” This was better. Anger. Conflict. A straightforward parting of ways. “Margaret will break off with you the instant she knows I’m gone for good.”
“Just as my fiancée did,” Malcolm replied bitterly. “Perhaps my father was right about women all along.”
He slammed the door so hard it rattled on its hinges. Antonia heaved a shuddering breath. The tight, hard ache beneath her ribs deepened. Antonia vowed this was the last time she would ever let another human being wriggle their way into her heart. It had taken her months to trust a friend a
nd a lover, and within two days, she had lost both. Worse, she had put Margaret’s reputation at risk. Word of Antonia’s wager, the money she had spent, and her demand for the Heart’s Cry had undoubtedly gotten around by now. The Evendaws must be horrified at having harbored such a viper in their midst. Caring about other people never came to any good.
Antonia stripped her dress off and stuffed it into the trunk. In a few moments, the ill-fitting men’s clothes were fastened about her body. She yanked the cover of her hiding hole open and stuck her fist. Out came the cheap tin locket. Edith Webber. Idless.
The problem with caring about others was that it couldn’t be turned off like a spigot when they ripped your heart out and stomped on it. Malcolm had tried, but in the end, he hadn’t been able to stop loving his parents no matter how deeply they had wounded him. Antonia had let him worm his way into her heart, and now she had nothing but a lot of complicated feelings she didn’t know what to do with. Undoubtedly, she was talking with the Bow Street runners now. How long did she have before they found her?
Feelings. Such useless things. Antonia’s nerves vibrated with the need to be rid of them. She clutched the locket so hard it cut into her palm.
The Webbers probably needed money. For the first time in her life, Antonia had plenty to spare. She bared her teeth at the darkness.
Anthony Lowe’s fresh start was going to have to wait a few more days.
* * *
Malcolm could not recall ever having darkened the steps of the Summervale townhouse in all his thirty-six years. Granted, the one his grandmother occupied was one of several, and the smallest of their urban properties.
He couldn’t recall ever feeling so hollow.
Antonia was gone.
Yet he was shivering on his grandmother’s front stoop in the early evening gloom, with his trusty footmen standing guard, instead of going after her.
“My lady does not wish to see you, Your Grace,” Lady Summervale’s manservant intoned. Malcolm sighed.
If he were his father, he’d do one of two things. Either storm the castle and demand to speak with her, or depart in a huff and spend the next month honing the sharp side of his tongue at her expense.
Malcolm was not his father.
He tried a new path. Humility. “I am here to return something of value.”
The bewigged butler eyed him skeptically.
“Specifically, my mother’s necklace.” He waited. The butler had been trained not to display emotion. Yet Malcom watched his forehead crinkle into accordion folds of astonishment.
“Please enter.” The man bowed and admitted him to the well-appointed parlor. This must be where Antonia had fleeced his grandmother out of her favorite gem. “If I may prevail upon your patience.”
“Go, sir.” Another way in which he had diverged from his father. Malcolm dispensed with formality whenever it suited him. The previous Duke of Havencrest had relished his status.
His grandmother’s shadow was accompanied by the thump of her cane. The dark, shapeless blot shrank as she approached. Had it been just a week ago that he saw her deploying her gimlet disapproval at the world? Tonight the gray silk and lace was the same, but her vitality had been sapped.
He had done this to her. “Grandmother,” he began and braced for her disapproval.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Lady Summervale asked with wary formality.
“I wish to return something to you.” He produced a black velvet pouch from his pocket. The gold glinted in the firelight. Its diamond turned liquid. Beguiling. The old woman regarded it for a long, somber minute.
“Thank you, Malcolm. I do not want it back.” She turned away as if to leave him.
“Why not?”
The question was out of his mouth before he could snatch it back. She paused as if considering.
“It ought to belong to you anyway.”
What was he supposed to say to that? Malcolm flailed, helpless, hoping for inspiration to strike. Nothing. “She gave it to you.”
“It was for safekeeping,” his grandmother insisted.
“She thought she could break the curse by separating the two main halves,” he offered, tentative.
“There is no curse.” Lady Summervale scoffed. “That silly story was passed around to make the gems more valuable at auction. But it got into your mother’s head that she could break the curse. It was a sign of her sickness.”
“Sickness?” he repeated.
“Your mother was born with heavy heart. It is a sad thing to say, but true. She threw herself passionately into books, and then, when your father came along, she was determined to make it work with him.” The duchess inhaled. “It was hard on your father. Not that he handled it well, mind you.”
Hard? On his father? Malcolm’s mind reeled. He laid the Heart’s Cry out on the nearby table. Two ear bobs with wire thread framing each half of the necklace. A lovely concoction of gold and red.
“It was a pretty set. Your mother liked symbols. I’m afraid she latched onto the name and the story.” The lady traced the outline of the necklace with the tip of her finger.
“I’m sorry.”
The words were a dam breaking. “I should have come years ago. I wasted so much time.”
His grandmother peered up at him with watery blue eyes. “I have a carriage. I know where you live. After that girl rightly rejected your offer of marriage at Almack’s, I thought you were just like your father. But over the past few weeks I have come to regret avoiding you for so long, Malcolm.” She opened her arms. He had to bend to fit into her embrace. His grandmother smelled faintly of lavender and powder. Tears scraped against his eyelids, hot and itchy.
“I wish I had made the first gesture instead of driving you to hire that woman to take the necklace off of me,” she sobbed into his shoulder.
“That woman is gone,” Malcolm reassured her. His heart thumped with regret.
“No,” Lady Summervale gasped. “You can’t mean you let her walk away?”
Malcolm had the dizzying sense that he had chased the wrong end. “You aren’t going to report her?”
“Report Miss Lowry? For what? I wagered the gem. I knew you too were up to something. I never thought you’d simply let her go.” She gripped his forearms with surprising strength.
“It was the only way to protect her,” he said, but Malcolm knew he was wrong before his grandmother cast her eyes heavenward.
“No, Malcolm. For all the effort you put into getting your mother’s necklace back, I thought for certain you were going to marry her. If I hadn’t believed that, I would never have wagered the stupid thing in the first place.” She trembled with the force of her conviction. “Malcolm. You must go and get her back.”
Malcolm’s body flashed cold. “Grandmother. I can’t. I don’t know where she’s going.”
She regarded him somberly. “Perhaps there’s something to the curse after all.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Only a lot of stupidity getting in the way of the most valuable thing of all.”
“Which is?” the duchess prompted.
“Love.”
She gave him a wan smile. “There it is. Now get out of my house and go find her.”
Chapter 22
Anthony Lowe was an overgrown infant, Antonia complained inwardly. He was supposed to be strong, but the heavy satchel of money made his back ache and his neck cramp. No one was going to offer her— him, whatever she was now—assistance, either. Not that she would accept it if someone did.
“Get up this hill, you coward,” she grumbled to herself, huffing each word under her breath. The money clanked as she shifted the rough bag. With a bank draft tucked safely in the stays she had altered to flatten instead of support her breasts, she was in possession of more coin than she knew what to do with.
Time for Anthony Lowe to make his appearance. One final break with Antonia Lowry’s past before she subsumed herself into a new persona.
Yet there was one errand
she could no longer put off.
Miss Edith Webber, whose body Antonia had unceremoniously flung into a river just two weeks ago, deserved to be reunited with her family. Just because she couldn’t reconcile with her own mother didn’t mean the woman whose body she had treated with such unfeeling disdain had to suffer permanent separation too. For the hundredth time in the past two days, she lifted the locket from her pocket and read the inscription.
Edith Webber. B. 1806, Idless, Cornwall.
Edith’s grave needed a headstone, and Anthony Lowe was determined to give them one. Or at least, hand off a bag full of money and a locket with a clip from a broadside for the family to make the connection. It was not up to her what they did with her spoils.
It was her—his—first act as the new, decent person she intended to become. Anthony Lowe was on his way up in the world. He had enough to establish himself. Buy a business. Blend in. Be…
Boring.
Antonia’s toes pinched in her slightly-too-small men’s boots. The unfamiliar friction of fabric between her thighs brought to mind the rough scrape of wool against her softest skin. As though memories of Malcolm were ever far from her mind.
The hill hadn’t been particularly steep but Antonia had been hauling this heavy bag for the better part of an hour. It was with considerable relief she spied the Webber’s tumbledown cottage. A small woman with a round belly swept the front step.
“Good day,” Antonia called out. Her voice sounded too feminine to her own ears. Embarrassed, she cleared her throat and tried again. “Is this the Webber residence?”
The woman arched her back and adjusted a heavy wool shawl. “It is. My husband isn’t here.”
“Are you Mrs. Webber?” Antonia asked in her best imitation of a man’s voice. It was the same one she had used with her fence, but where he responded with careful neutrality this woman’s expression screwed into a suspicious glare.
“Mrs. Leakes, now. I was a Webber until my marriage.” She gestured to her stomach, as if to say, you dummy.