by Erica Ridley
The items in her wardrobe came not from a lover, but rather from Chloe’s own earnings. Bean had bequeathed a respectable sum to each of his children, but Chloe’s collection had started long before. She had hoarded every coin she could until she had enough for a purchase.
Mittens, when she was eight. Fine ones of warm red wool, like a mother might acquire for her daughter. Chloe kept them safe in a cloth bag hidden beneath her clothes, never wearing the mittens or withdrawing them from their hiding place if another orphan might see.
She could not bear to have them mock her for pretending she had a mother, for believing she deserved nice things. As long as no one else knew, she could clutch the perfect red mittens to her chest, right next to the broken To my Love locket, and believe, with her eyes closed tight, that someone out there thought she was special and deserving of love.
“I am loved,” she reminded herself.
She had five incredible siblings who all thought her special. Chloe the Chameleon, disappearing seamlessly into the background.
The strict Wynchester code of honor meant no sibling would ever snoop or pry into another’s private affairs. They did not know her secret wish to one day be more than a blank canvas. To be unmissable.
Throat thick, she slammed the doors shut on her opulent wardrobe.
She moved to the smaller wardrobe. There, the fabrics were simple, the colors nondescript: gray, brown, wheat, porridge. She picked one at random. It didn’t matter. Faircliffe wouldn’t remember what she looked like, in any event.
Even her looking glass was bored with her reflection. She glanced to the right of the fireplace, where a pair of curling tongs nestled in an iron basket.
Chloe had practiced every Belle Assemblée hairstyle so many times, she could play lady’s maid to Queen Charlotte.
But before she left her room, she always straightened every perfect curl and scraped the whole back into a simple, uninspiring twist.
Even without a “favor” to collect, she was the best-suited Wynchester for this mission.
Chloe was the one who had borne witness to much of Faircliffe’s political life. She could recite several of his views and had even quoted him in a few of her pamphlets encouraging reform.
If anyone could conduct suitably absorbing conversation to distract him from their true purpose, it was Chloe.
She wished the idea of delivering herself to him weren’t so unsettling.
It wasn’t just Faircliffe’s wide lips and piercing blue gaze. It was the fear of being eye-catching and bold. She longed for it even as the thought terrified her. Today she would be walking into temptation.
She summoned the least conspicuous carriage from the mews. It was the perfect conveyance to take an unassuming miss over to the Duke of Faircliffe’s grand terrace house. The Wynchesters’ tiger Isaiah could accompany her without his usual livery.
Once she was no longer amongst the ton, she’d disappear from its collective memory, and life would go on as it always had. Today’s “Chloe Wynchester” disguise was as disposable as any other.
But her fingers shook when she clanged the brass knocker.
The duke’s butler swung open the door. Arthur Hastings, aged four and fifty, married, no children, sweet tooth, tender hip on the left side, lover of striped mufflers, irrational fear of small dogs. Chloe pretended Graham had told her none of that.
She held out a calling card. “Is His Grace receiving?”
Mr. Hastings squinted at the card. His eyes widened, but he did not toss her out on her ear. Butlers this rarefied preferred to eviscerate with a single look.
“I’ll inquire.” He motioned her out of the brisk spring afternoon and into a lavish entryway. “Wait here.”
I would be delighted.
The moment Mr. Hastings took his leave, Chloe extracted a notebook from her omnipresent basket of tricks and began measuring the perimeter in paces. The decorative tiles covering the floor would amplify sound, so soft soles would be necessary for any maneuver requiring stealth. Her pencil flew faster. Locations and sizes of entrances and exits, including the windows. No squeak to the door, no loose clasps at the sill.
By the time Mr. Hastings returned, she was back in her original position beside the front door, her basket dangling innocently from her elbow.
“If you’ll come with me, miss.”
She followed Mr. Hastings to an elegant parlor nine and a half paces down the corridor. Perhaps this was a room where they brought guests they hoped would not stay long and who had no reason to set foot any deeper in Faircliffe territory.
“His Grace will be here shortly,” Mr. Hastings informed her, and departed.
Chloe’s fingers itched for her pencil. Did she have time to pace the parlor?
“Worth the risk,” she muttered, and pulled the notebook from her basket.
She was completing a bird’s-eye sketch of the room when a floorboard squeaked in the corridor. It had not squeaked for her and the butler, which might mean this footstep had come from the opposite direction. She shoved the notebook back into her basket just as the Duke of Faircliffe strode into the parlor.
His dark brown hair tumbled over his forehead, drawing one’s gaze directly to the icy intensity in his blue eyes. His wide, full mouth was pressed into a tight line, as though displeased to find that Chloe had breached the butler-guarded perimeter and was now inside his ducal parlor. She fought the urge to pirouette, just because it would rankle him.
His jaw was tight and clean-shaven—touchably smooth despite the hard angles. The folds of his cravat were sharp enough to lacerate, spilling from his throat in a profusion of white linen blades.
This was how he looked in Parliament. Regal and ruthless, armed for battle. He was not afraid there, and he was not afraid of her. His mistake. Just because her spikes were not visible did not make her any less dangerous. Not all ammunition was meant to wound. Her weapons were her wits—and a feline coconspirator.
This fun was only beginning.
“It’s Miss Wynchester, Your Grace,” Chloe said helpfully. She dipped a curtsey, then lifted the lid of her basket in case the duke needed help remembering.
Up popped two pointy ears, one gold and one black, then bright inquisitive eyes, then a tiny pink nose with soft white whiskers protruding from either side.
Faircliffe’s eyes lit up and he stepped forward before remembering himself and clearing his throat disapprovingly. “Is that the calico cat-demon that caused so much chaos at the Yorks’ residence?”
Chloe rubbed between Tiglet’s furry ears. “The very one.”
“Why,” Faircliffe asked carefully, “would you bring him?”
“In case you didn’t recognize me,” she explained. “Most people remember Tiglet.”
“I imagine they do.” He sent a pointed look toward the open basket. “I shall thank you to leave the lid in place.”
And I shall thank you for leading me to my painting.
She closed the lid.
Taking Tiglet along had been a calculated risk. She needed Faircliffe to remember both her and their pact, yes, but she also needed to appear inept when it came to mixing with high society. She was a damsel in distress, here to collect on an IOU. Chloe was going to enjoy the game.
“How may I help you?” Faircliffe did not look as though he wished to be of any service at all. “Remember: no money, no objects. And I shan’t pretend to court you.”
Ah, so that was the third condition. Luckily for him, Chloe didn’t want that, either. She smiled up at him and tried to look as benign as possible.
“I need your help.” This was true. Chloe let him see the sincerity in her eyes.
He didn’t uncross his arms. “Help with what?”
“Fitting into society.” That was believable enough.
He looked appalled.
“You needn’t dance with me or feign particular interest,” she assured him. “I am a romantic”—she was not—“and will only marry someone who wishes to marry me.”
She lowered her gaze as if shy. “I wouldn’t imagine someone as fashionable as yourself to know much about wallflowers, but it is impossible to marry well—or at all—from the fringes.”
“I was right,” the duke said in disgust. “You wish to ensnare some other sap in your social-climbing web.”
But he didn’t say no.
Got you.
“Someone with a fine house,” she continued. “And at least four thousand a year.”
“Those are the qualities with which a wallflower might ‘fall in love’?” Faircliffe valiantly refrained from rolling his ducal eyes.
Chloe couldn’t be more pleased. His indignation at her presumptuous aspirations meant he didn’t question her motives. How could he? They were not dissimilar from his own.
“According to the papers, the Faircliffe dukes host a grand gala at the end of every season,” she continued.
He closed his eyes as if begging her not to complete her request.
“I want an invitation,” she finished. “And to be introduced to a few prospects beforehand.”
He said nothing for a long moment, allowing his gaze to rake over her with humiliating thoroughness.
Half boots, as plain and ordinary as the rest of her outfit. Gown the color of old ash and just as uninviting. Bodice modest and covered but suddenly tight, as though the air she sucked into her lungs no longer quite fit. Pulse fluttering visibly at the base of her throat.
Lips dry, so she moistened them with her tongue, only to be caught in the act.
Faircliffe’s eyes were no longer icy but glittered sharply, as though a dormant fire had been stoked deep within. Her tongue quickly retreated from view. Chloe’s halfhearted bun with its strands of flyaway hair no longer felt frumpish but oddly sensual, as though she’d been caught in a state of undress by a lover.
Having completed his assessment, his eyes returned to hers.
“Have you a decent dowry?”
“None at all,” she replied, ignoring his implication that wealth would be the primary thing to recommend her. She injected her voice with false cheer. “But lack of fortune shouldn’t matter. A duke can introduce an acquaintance to anyone he likes, can he not? A ball here, a dinner party there…”
He ground his teeth, his crossed arms tightening.
“You should invite Miss York’s entire reading circle to your party,” she suggested. “Then it won’t be a special favor to me but a romantic gesture to your future bride. In fact, we can both attend her Blankets for Babes charity tea, if you’d like to invite everyone at once.”
A muscle twitched at the duke’s temple. He let out a breath and dropped his arms to his sides. “Very well. And then our slate is clean?”
“I shan’t bother you after the gala,” she promised. It was two months away. Chloe would be done with him long before that.
Everything was going perfectly. She didn’t want Faircliffe to do his task well. She just required a pretext to ensure access to his residence until she uncovered the stolen painting.
“When is Miss York’s charity tea?” The tortured expression on the duke’s face indicated he would rather attend anything else.
Chloe smiled sweetly. “Tomorrow.”
8
Tomorrow?” Lawrence stepped backward, aghast.
She not only wished him to acknowledge her publicly; she expected him to act as her sponsor? The unmitigated impertinence—
No. He clenched his jaw. He was the one in error. One might not expect better of a Wynchester than impertinence—and from the moment she’d pilfered his carriage, on this score Miss Wynchester had certainly delivered—but a lord should conduct himself with dignity in all circumstances.
That he had pursued a brazen thief would raise no eyebrows. Taking pity on a young woman of lesser status: charity. Offering to hire a hack to return her to her home: noble. Following her upstairs to an unchaperoned bedchamber: the absolute height of idiocy. What the devil had got into him?
She had. Miss Chloe Bloody Wynchester.
How did she manage to scatter his thoughts so easily? His veins pulsed. She infiltrated his senses like the fragrant smoke of spiced incense. Jasmine. The barest hint. He didn’t know if the intoxicating scent was in her hair or on her skin or in the secret recesses of his mind, but he could barely think from the consuming desire to breathe her in.
She was not close enough to touch, and yet her presence fluttered against his skin, slipping beneath his clothes to the heat of his flesh like the whisper of a promise.
He wanted to overwhelm her to make it stop. To cover her with his scent, his body, his power. He had faced mightier foes than soft curves and a knowing gaze.
“If I can secure an invitation to the tea,” her Cupid’s-bow mouth was saying now, “we needn’t arrive together as though you were my escort.”
“I would never—” He fought the impulse to rub his hand over his face in frustration. Three decades dealing with his father had taught Lawrence the importance of hiding strong emotion. Such admissions were easy for the duke to use against his son.
Miss Wynchester smiled at him as if not at all discomfited. Yet she held herself unnaturally still, the muscles in her face tight. Lawrence could not help but suspect that she was hiding her emotions, too.
That was what had spurred his damnable burst of forgiveness when she abducted him. He understood desperation. He fought against that drowning current every single day.
And he was so close to breaking free. Perfect-in-almost-every-way Miss Philippa York would replenish the family coffers and restore the fractured Faircliffe reputation. He could allow nothing to impede the plan.
Chloe Wynchester was more than a disruption. She was a whirlpool, dragging him further from his path. But what was his newly restored family name worth if Lawrence did not honor his word?
She was right, blast her. Inviting the entire reading circle to his gala would be a romantic gesture. It might even speed up the courtship.
“After you’ve put in your appearance at my gala, we’re finished,” he reminded her, each word hard and flinty.
She beamed at him. “You needn’t even speak to me. I’ll make a brilliant match and be on my way.”
Lawrence glared down his nose at her warm brown eyes and long dark lashes.
She might be a success. An hour ago he would have doubted it, but now that he stood right before her and was almost but not quite certain that the faint scent of jasmine was indeed coming from her hair…He would not be the only man tempted to plunge his fingers into its depths and bury his nose in the soft tresses to capture a fraction of her essence.
But summoning baser urges was not the same as attracting a husband. She required help if she wished to rub elbows with the beau monde. And if he were the one to assist her, he risked his own standing in the process.
She knew this, and she asked it of him anyway. It was shameless manipulation. A woman of good breeding would not have asked him to do so. But he was the one who had agreed to owe a favor.
“Very well,” he said coldly.
He would instruct his butler to allow visits and correspondence until this debt was paid.
Her lips curved. “Thank you.”
Miss Wynchester should consider herself fortunate to have risen as much as she had. Although she was not Baron Vanderbean’s daughter by blood, she had enjoyed and continued to enjoy his home and his generosity.
Lawrence’s chest gave a familiar little hiccup at the tempting image of a big family. He was not jealous of Miss Wynchester—the thought was absurd—but after a fever had taken his mother, growing up all alone in a house like this one had been very lonely, indeed.
He never wanted his heir, or any child, to feel as adrift as he had. If Miss York wished to relinquish the child rearing to nursemaids and tutors, that was her prerogative. But Lawrence would ensure his children never doubted their father’s love. Nor would they want for anythin
g.
But first he had to be done with Chloe Wynchester.
He gave her his harshest glare. “If there’s nothing else?”
She lifted a large woven basket. “Do you want to see Tiglet before I go?”
He did. “I do not.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Do you dislike pets?”
“We are not friends, Miss Wynchester. My feelings on the matter are inconsequential to you.”
His feelings were intense. Lawrence not only hoped to fill his home with children and animals, he intended to let each child pick out his or her own pet. None of which was Miss Wynchester’s concern.
She tilted her head. “I think you’d like Tiglet.”
“Alas, we shall never know.” He gestured for her to precede him from the parlor.
She glanced at the unadorned walls instead. “Do you dislike art?”
Lawrence loved art.
This house had once been filled with it. For generations the Dukes of Faircliffe had added masterpiece after masterpiece to the family collection.
And then came his father.
The duke had been great fun—and unrepentantly frivolous. How Lawrence had looked up to the gregarious man who had far too many friends to show favor to any one in particular, including his starry-eyed son. Not when there were parties to attend and wagers to be made.
One by one the portraits that had kept Lawrence company when he had no one to talk to, the landscapes he’d escaped into when he could go nowhere else, had vanished from the walls to pay his father’s increasing debts.
Lads at school mocked him for his father’s excesses and embarrassing scandals. Everything Lawrence cared about was ripped away.
The parlor was bare. Although his father was no longer here to wrest the last scraps away, Lawrence could not help but hoard the little he had left. He had collected twenty-three dusty paintings from the failing Faircliffe country seat and gathered them in the town house library, which he now kept under lock and key. Its beauty was his refuge. Only his housekeeper was allowed inside.
“I enjoy art,” Miss Wynchester continued, as though Lawrence had not rudely ignored her question.