The Queen's Ball

by Anthea Lawson

  “No!” Abigail insisted with a bright laugh, gripping his arm tighter than she ought to have in the dance. “No, let her have whatever romance this may or may not be without interference for as long as she can! You and I both know that intervention is the enemy to progress in matters of the heart.”

  “It can be, sure enough,” he allowed with a nod of consideration, his heart skittering momentarily on the slippery slope of their romantic past. “But this is Maren we are talking about. She defies expectation and restriction with flair.”

  Abigail raised a brow as Matthew now passed her. “And I did not?”

  He exhaled quickly while momentarily out of her eyesight, then took a chance and let his expression change into one of raw emotion, something he had wanted to share with her ever since he had come to London. “You did everything with flair. You defied every expectation. And you haven’t stopped.”

  He caught a flash of surprise in her eyes, her smile vanishing, and then they were forced to promenade down the lines with the others. He could feel her stiffening more and more beside him, and he couldn’t bear that.

  “You have to know that, Abigail,” he murmured, his eyes fixed ahead. “You have to know that hasn’t changed.”

  She inhaled shakily, and he heard it, felt himself echo the same. “You promised not to say things like this.”

  He slowly shook his head at her as they faced each other, dancing hand in hand around one side of the line. “I never said that. I said that I understood you and that you could stop me. By any means necessary. I’m willing to risk it tonight to tell you that I love you. More than ever. More than before.”

  “Matthew,” she hissed, her tone heavy and her eyes filled with a light he couldn’t interpret.

  “Stop me then,” he insisted without rancor. “Stop me from telling you that I’ve missed you more fiercely than I thought it possible for a man. That there could never be another woman in the world for me. That I would wait for your feelings for me to return until my last breath.”

  Abigail’s eyes filled with tears, and her mouth pressed into a straight line. He passed her once more, as the dance required.

  “Stop me,” he whispered, her dark tresses grazing his lips as he did so.

  Without warning, Abigail seized his hand and whirled out of the dance, barreling toward the nearest door, which happened to be close enough that their exit would barely be remarked upon. Abigail pulled him along, her grip tight, and neither of them said a word. Matthew, for his part, couldn’t do so.

  What was Abigail feeling? Was this move of hers in anger or in passion? Would she rage at him, or would his plan finally have its glorious resolution?

  They moved down a corridor that no other guests inhabited, and then, to his surprise, she wrenched open a door and entered, hauling him in behind her, leaving the door ajar. It was a small room, a deep closet of sorts, though it was entirely empty for the present. Abigail released his hand as soon as they entered and began to pace as much as the small space would allow, her skirts slamming against Matthew’s shins with every turn.

  “Abigail . . .”

  She held up a gloved hand that trembled slightly and shook her head. Then she bit the top of her middle finger and yanked the glove off, then did the same with the other, crinkling both her hands. She stopped suddenly and turned to face him, the tears in her eyes glinting in the faint light from the corridor. Her eyes rested below his, somewhere around the level of his chin, and it chilled him.

  “You think,” she began, her voice thick and rasping, “that you can drop yourself back into my life and I will fall into your arms without a second thought? You think that the suffering I endured day after day after what you chose to do has all been forgotten? You think that because I can now tolerate your company and smile at times and listen to your stories that it doesn’t still pain me to see you smile?”

  Matthew stared at her, mouth gaping, horrified. He had never imagined . . . well, he had, but he thought . . . He thought . . .

  Abigail’s hands became fists at her sides. “Did you think that I was sitting around just waiting for you to decide you wanted me after all? That you are the only measure by which I could possibly live my life? That all would be forgiven and forgotten because I understood the pressures you faced and pitied you for how it all turned out?”

  He had, actually. He had thought that. Foolishly, stupidly, naively he had thought that.

  “I gave you understanding,” she raged as her voice rose and her cheeks flushed. “I listened, and I actually felt pain on your behalf! I began to forgive you, I won’t deny that, and I thought there was a chance that my best friend could be back in my life. But never, not even once, did I think that you would put me through all of this just to confess things that I explicitly asked you not confess. Do you know why I asked that of you, Matthew?”

  His mouth worked, but no sound came out. His legs shook, and his stomach clenched, his face slowly going numb with every word she spoke.

  A pair of tears leaked from her eyes, one from each, and they began a slow, maddening path down her cheeks. “Because I couldn’t bear it. Because day in and day out, I still live with the hurt that you caused me. I was the one who loved you, the one who wanted you for you, and you chose her. You chose her! You had a wife to divert you, though she failed to do so, and a life to live with her. You could forget all that we shared, though you failed to do so, and moved on with her. Do you know what I did?”

  More tears fell, and with it his heart. “I ached. I burned. I woke up every morning knowing that the man I loved did not, and could not, love me the same way.”

  “No . . .” Matthew managed to force out, though it came without volume or force. “No, Abigail . . .”

  She either did not hear him or chose to ignore him. “I had to live with the understanding that to the person I valued above all others, I was second best. I was found lacking. Wanting. For days on end, I was torn between wanting you and hating you, and then hating myself for somehow failing you.”

  Lord, he couldn’t bear this. “Abigail . . .”

  Finally, she looked at him again, another tear falling, though her face seemed close to crumpling. “I have loved having you back in my life, Matthew. But every moment you are near reminds me of those days, and those feelings, and when you say all of the things you should have said then, I ache even worse than I did then. Because I want to believe you, and I don’t know if I can.”

  He was to her in less than two steps and hauled her into his arms, pressing her trembling frame against his own as his arms clasped her tightly. One hand settled at her back, the other in her hair, and he kissed her hair with all the emotion he felt washing over him. “Oh, Abigail. Oh, my love.”

  To his surprise, she clung to him, and he felt his shirt dampening with waves of tears. “I tried to be enough for you,” she whimpered, her hands gripping at his back. “Why, Matthew? Why?”

  “I am so sorry, love,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her hair again and again. “I am so very sorry.”

  She shuddered against him, her cries muffled, and, impossibly, she pulled herself closer. He let her do so, held her as tightly as she seemed to crave, yearning to give her the comfort she so desperately sought. Comfort he should have given her then.

  Comfort he had to give her now.

  “You are enough,” he whispered. He shifted his mouth closer to her ear. “You always were enough. More than enough. More than I deserved. There is nothing lacking or wanting in you, and I never forgot you. Not for a day, not for a moment, and nothing in this world could ever make me forget you. Never.”

  Her nose brushed against his coat, and she sniffled once, then raised her head. Faint tracks left by her tears marred her cheeks, and her lips were swollen and full, parted now as she breathed through them. Her eyes were greener in this dim light, green and luminous and fixed on his with the same intensity with which she had just raged.

  Remnants of her tears leaked from her eyes, and he brushed the
m away, gently stroking her skin with his fingers. “I never forgot you, Abby.”

  Abigail inhaled as his fingers passed over her lips, and a faint tremor rocked her frame, sending echoing waves into his own. “I never forgot you either,” she breathed.

  The words hung between them and rendered each breathless, their lips somehow hovering just out of reach of one another. Someone moved, though it was impossible to say who, and then their lips were melding, caressing and pressing, raising heat and sensation between them. Her lips pulled at his, insistent and demanding, reaching for something within him, drawing forth his very soul, which he was only too willing to give. Aching and need mingled together in the mad frenzy they were caught in the middle of, lips and teeth clashing together, scraping against skin, nothing gentle or tender in any of this.

  Passion in its most honest and rare form surged between them. Matthew’s fingers clenched in Abigail’s hair, his other hand gripping the side of her face, keeping her right where he wanted her. Abigail’s hands had moved to his neck, and she pulled him in with a constant strength that humbled him. She kissed him deeply, fiercely, holding nothing in reserve, just as she did with everything else in her life.

  One hand moved and rubbed against his bearded jaw, her nails faintly scratching at the skin, drawing a ragged moan from his lips that echoed in the recesses of her perfect mouth. He broke from her lips and danced his lips across her cheeks and along her jaw, venturing down the slender column of her throat. She returned the favor as her mouth dusted against his brow, his ear, anywhere she could reach as she nuzzled against him.

  Matthew kissed the base of her throat, and she released a raw, guttural sound that lit him on fire, and he moved back to her lips, seizing them with a renewed fervor, seeking answers and promises to questions he could not voice. Abigail matched him, her arm wrapping around his head like a vice, bringing her body flush with his, the contact searing every inch of them.

  “I love you,” he breathed as he caught her lower lip. “Abby . . .”

  She gasped, arched her neck, then suddenly shoved him away.

  Unprepared and unsettled, he stumbled, slamming into the wall of the closet. He stared at her, wide-eyed and panting, limbs and lips and skin still burning with the feeling of her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Abigail had pressed herself against the opposite wall, staring through him rather than at him, her chest heaving every bit as much as his, hair and gown disheveled. She brought a shaky hand to her lips, then gasped very faintly as they touched.

  “Abigail?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t do this, Matthew. We can’t do this.”

  He braced his elbows on his knees, peering up at her through the haze of his receding desire. “Why not?”

  He watched as her throat moved with a swallow that didn’t seem to complete. “There’s . . . there’s someone else. Someone I am falling in love with. And I can’t do to him what you did to me. Not if it’s real.” Her eyes focused once more on him, and he saw the steely determination he loved about her settle there and in her jaw. “No matter how much I may be tempted,” she added as a soft afterthought.

  He kept his gaze steady, heart ricocheting within him. She couldn’t do this to him . . . Couldn’t drive him to this and then leave him for another.

  The thought seemed to lodge itself in his throat, and he straightened very slowly.

  Of course she could. It was precisely what he had done to her, only this time it happened in a condensed and accelerated manner.

  Stunned and humbled, he dipped his chin just once. “I understand.”

  Abigail moved to the door, paused, and glanced at him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he told her, struggling to swallow himself.

  Then she was gone, and he was alone. He took a moment to collect himself, then straightened fully and pushed off of the wall, straightening his cravat and smoothing his hair. After tugging at his jacket once, he moved out of the closet with firm strides.

  Only to see Francis, Lord Sterling, standing there leaning against a wall, smiling smugly, raising one suggestive brow.

  Matthew scowled, his cheeks and neck heating at once. “How long have you been there?”

  He gave nonchalant shrug. “Long enough to see my cousin come out of there disheveled and crying. And as to that, I have absolutely zero questions. Well done, lad.”

  Matthew’s scowl grew into an all-out glower. “I failed, Francis. Everything failed.”

  Francis stepped closer, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Has it? Or is it the final push you need to win this war?” He gave him a look of reprimand, then strode back toward the ball.

  Somehow, without explanation, a weak smile found its way onto Matthew’s face. The final push . . . Yes, indeed, this was the final push.

  And he fully intended to win this war after all.

  Chapter Eight

  This was all an absolute disaster. There was no other word for it. A massive disaster that she could not have foreseen.

  She was in love with Matthew Weber-Grey again.

  She was also in love with the mysterious writer of the letters.

  Abigail Sterling loved two men and had told the one she was choosing the other. She had done to him exactly what he had done to her three years ago.

  Yet Matthew had told her he understood. That she shouldn’t be sorry. He had kissed her full near senseless, and she had returned the favor, and he hadn’t said a word in anger, betrayal, or agony.

  Impossibly, that had made her love him more.

  How could she do this? How could she leave him, now that she’d found love, passion, friendship, and joy with him once more?

  She didn’t trust him enough. After what he had done, she couldn’t. But why couldn’t she? She had come to know him again and felt the same pull, the same attraction, the same need to be with him whenever she could. That had not changed, despite everything. And he was different now. Instead of the reckless, headstrong boy she had known, she had found in him a strong, steadfast, caring man.

  So why had she backed away from the passionate haven he presented?

  Abigail put her head into her hands. The plush fabric of the chair in the parlor seeming to scrape against her where it touched. Her head pounded furiously, just as it had been doing since that night at the Lamberts’ two days ago. She had made a decision, but she wasn’t clear on it. The poor thing waved to and fro like a willow in the breeze and made just as much noise.

  The constant swaying in her mind was beginning to make her nauseated.

  She rubbed her hands hard against her face, then stared into the fire in the grate.

  She knew why she had done what she had. The man who was writing her letters had touched her soul in a way she had never felt before, not even in the days she and Matthew had been together. He seemed to understand her somehow and see everything in her that she wanted a man to see. Not ignorant of her flaws, but finding them to be just as much a part of her as any other feature.

  She needed to know him. She needed to explore this love she felt for him and experience what he had to offer her. The depth of feeling he had stirred within her could not be ignored, not even for the temptation of a life with Matthew.

  Matthew.

  She closed her eyes on tears she hadn’t known were welling. His image swam before her in her mind’s eye, clear as he had been in that random closet she had tugged him into. His eyes held the same light of mischief she had always loved, and the deep dark of his facial hair gave him a new edge of mystery, even danger, that drew her to him. His mouth curved crookedly, the most attractive smile she had seen in her life, before or since.

  Her best friend. Still, it would seem.

  And she loved another enough to walk away from him.

  Madness. Complete and utter madness.

  She hadn’t told Maren or Thomas and especially had not told her mother. She couldn’t bring herself to do so for fear of what any of them might say. The irony and fooli
shness of her current situation, and even her choices, were not lost on her in the slightest. Hearing a confirmation of all that might be enough to dissuade her from her course, and she couldn’t have that. She couldn’t have proof of her errors, not now. She was too weak at the present, too keen for someone else to make the decision for her.

  It would be so much easier if they would.

  But this, unfortunately, was something she had to do on her own. And absolutely on her own, at that. Her own head and her own heart.

  Neither of them were being particularly decisive or communicative.

  “Miss Abigail?”

  Sniffing quickly, Abigail turned to the open door, wiping at the tears on her cheeks. “Yes, Bess? What is it?”

  The round-faced maid bobbed, smiling warmly. “You have another letter, miss.”

  For the first time since she had known what these letters contained, she wasn’t sure she wanted to read it. Of course she wanted to know what he would tell her today, what insights he had gained, and to fall a little bit more in love with him, but in her current state, she feared it would only confuse matters more.

  Still. It would not do at all to let Bess know that.

  The maid handed Abigail the letter, then bobbed another quick curtsy before disappearing down the corridor.

  Alone once more, Abigail stared down at the letter as though it were something entirely foreign, the ambiguous seal on the back staring at her like some great, accusatory, critical eye.

  She swallowed and snapped it, unfolding it hastily before her mind could change itself on the topic. Her heart swelled at the sight of the scrawl she had come to know and love so well, and her cheeks heated with guilt and shame. There was no possible way he could know what she had done with Matthew only days ago, she reminded herself, but the flaming in her cheeks wasn’t aware of that fact.

  Pushing all that aside, she focused on the letter.