Читать книгу The Dangerous Love of a Rogue - Jane Lark - Страница 8

“The game is on with Pembroke’s little sister. I have settled on her. She is my choice.” Lord Andrew Framlington, fourth son of the Marquis of Framlington, in name only, leaned back in his spindle chair, self-confidence flooding him. He hooked one arm across the chair’s back and raised an ankle to settle on the opposite knee, modelling the pose of a dissipated rake. That was what he had been for most of his life.

“Marlow’s ice maiden? Are you serious, Drew? The girl who freezes out all of dubious character? She has not allowed you near her since last year.” His friend, Harry Webster’s speech slurred a little.

“The same,” Drew’s gaze passed around his small group of loyal friends.

Harry sat forward in his chair. “Have you spoken to her?”

“Yes, and as you know I have been improving my character.” He smiled at Harry. They knew he had kept himself away from whores for nearly a year – the kind to be paid. Yet he’d also kept away from the kind who paid. His friends did not know the latter fact. “You’ll see. She’ll be mine in a month, three at the most. She’s taken my bait, a kiss, and I shall charm her into submission. She will be begging me to wed her at the end.”

“She’ll be yours within a week, knowing how women fall for you.” Mark Harper commented, his concentration still on their game of cards. He tossed a four of spades onto the table.

Drew looked at his hand of cards. No spades. He would trump them all with a heart.

“But didn’t Pembroke warn his little sister off you?” Harry persisted.

“He has warned her off every man with a speck of dust in his closet. A man must have a spotless reputation to be considered.” Peter Brooke, Drew’s closest friend smiled.

“As if Pembroke can judge,” Harry pressed. “That man is no saint, he is not spotless himself.”

“But reformed,” Drew answered. He un-looped his arm from the chair, leaned forward and set his card on the table, then looked at his friends, a wry smile twisting his lips. “Maybe the woman has a little contrary in her soul, though. Ever since he warned her off she’s been watching me. Or perhaps she just has a taste for risk or badness hidden beneath her cold denials, or likes being naughty – any of which appeal, they are all to my advantage.”

The group laughed.

Peter leaned forward to lay his card. “Well, I would not cross Pembroke or any of her family for that matter, they are far too influential. She calls a quarter of the House of Lords Uncle, even if her father is only a second son.”

Drew did not need reminding.

Yet he intended winning her. He had waited a year, given her, and himself, the time to be sure. He was sure. She had come back to town this season and her eyes had still searched for him across the ballrooms, and the first time he’d seen her again he’d felt slain. The girl was beautiful, rich, innocent and his best hope of constancy – and ever since the night he had danced with her, he’d felt pulled into choosing her. It was a physical feeling, not simply a mental choice.

She had lived with him for a year, in his dreams, both in the day and at night.

Yet as certain as he was of his choice he was equally certain her family would not allow it. They would say no if he asked for her.

His contrary streak itched. He did not like being told no. No, was temptation. Like the girl running, it only made him want to chase. But he did not think she would run, not now – unless it was towards him. He smiled at his silent humour.

“You are going to wed her then?” Mark clarified.

“I’ve no choice. The duns are on my tail. I need to marry money. She’s interested, available, and she has it. Plus she is remarkably kind to the eye.”

“Kind to the eye.” A sarcastic smile twisted Harry’s lips. “That is lacklustre. The girl’s the darling of society. They all fawn over her. She’s stunning. I would have a go at her if I thought I stood a chance, but she’ll not look twice at me. You however…”

“You have the looks and the knack, Drew,” Peter expounded, “while we are all left to petty jealousy.”

Drew laughed. “I have not won her yet, and you are just as capable.”

“No. But we all know you will win her. I would not even waste a wager on it,” Mark enthused.

“The question is, what will you do with her when you have her?” Harry laughed. “Now that is what I would like to see, however, after that, what on earth will you do with a wife?”

Drew looked past his friends at his small living quarters.

His rooms in the Albany were a decent enough bachelor’s residence, but he would need something more once he’d wed. He longed for a property of his own. Somewhere outside of London and he would need space to lose a woman in. He did not wish to be crowded. In the last year, when he’d thought of marrying Miss Marlow, he had never considered the detail beyond the wedding night and receiving the cheque.

Still once he’d wed, he’d have her dowry and he could buy a bigger property, perhaps something with land, to make a profit from. She would understand that life and fill her time without his assistance.

His hands itched to be out of town and free of his reliance on Peter. His debts had swelled in the last year, barely anyone allowed him credit now and so more and more he’d become reliant on Peter’s kindness. It unmanned him, but he refused to return to earning his living through sex.

But how the hell would he fit in a life with a wife…He had not one daisy petal of an idea how to manage land, let alone how to manage with a wife.

All the wives he knew spent their time cuckolding their inattentive husbands.

But that was why he’d settled on Mary, chosen Mary – he thought her different to those women. He’d watched her family for a year. They were all in what society deemed love matches.

Love – that word was false, in his experience. A non-entity. People did not love. They used the word to wound and hurt.

His mother declared she loved the Marquis, but cuckolded him constantly. While on the occasions the Marquis came to town he spent his hours with chorus girls. His mother’s favoured companions were the sons of society and she was regularly in town.

Their behaviour was typical; he knew that because his mother’s friends had begun his initiation into their world of fornication when he’d been fifteen. Ten years on and society had not changed.

But he had changed.

“Drew, I’m sure you’re thinking of what the woman will be like in your bed, but you will not be saying goodbye to her come morning. I said, what will you do with her once you’re wed?”

He had no idea. What the hell will I do with a wife?

Lock her away somewhere so she will not lay with other men. Or could he truly trust her.

She was not like them. Miss Marlow was his best hope of fidelity and yet she would not be in love with him… and he would not be in love with her. Theirs would not be a love match… He did not know how to love, he did not even really believe in it.

Perhaps if all failed he would follow his false-father’s path and leave her to get on with it, find a country sanctuary for himself and rooms in town for her.

But quiet words whispered in his head, she would not be false.

Deep down, he hoped so hard.

That desire was another secret he was keeping from his friends. They thought him a pleasure loving rogue. He was still, in a way, but…

God, how they’d laugh if they knew a man with his reputation hated the women he was meant to seduce. He could not stand female promiscuity anymore. Not since he’d discovered a group of women who abhorred such things.

The Pembroke women had become like idols to him.

He met Harry’s gaze, his friend waited on his answer with an inquisitive grin, as the others carried on playing cards.

A self-deprecating smile twisted Drew’s lips. “The devil knows.”

“Pass her on to me!” Mark laughed. I’ll entertain her when you’re bored.

Drew’s jaw stiffened, his hand itching to form a fist.

He threw down another heart, the knave, and claimed the trick.

Then he forced his shoulders to relax and leant forward, to pull all the cards towards him. But while he did so, he shook his head. It was an adamant, no.

“Why not share, you’re hardly the monogamous type.” Harry laughed.

Drew tidied the cards into a pile at his elbow. Then looked at Harry, and Mark. “Perhaps not. However, I require that quality in a wife. She shall be monogamous, and if any of you touch her…” His gaze passed to Peter too, “I shall call you out.”

They all laughed.

Drew did not. It was not a jest.

“My God, Drew, have you fallen for her?” Peter charged. He knew Drew too well. They’d known each other since they were six.

Drew made a face at Peter, calling him ridiculous. “No, why would I? That is hardly my style. I just do not fancy being done to—”

“As you have done to others… Chickens coming home to roost, Fram?” Harry threw Drew a broad smile.

“Exactly, I’ll not be made a fool of.” He’d willingly admit that much.

Let them know he would insist on a faithful wife, he just did not wish them to know how important it was, or that he planned to be faithful to. They would think him a fool.

* * *

A week had passed since the Jerseys’ garden party, a week to contemplate her foolishness. Yet no matter how stupid Mary knew it was she had not ceased looking for Lord Framlington at every event. Her traitorous body refused to heed the frequent warnings of her conscience and her common-sense.

She had not seen him, but tonight, as she walked into the crush of another ballroom, on her father’s arm, her eyes immediately identified her heart’s quarry.

He stood in the far corner, with his elbow on a marble bust, leaning forward and speaking with a woman, the Marquis of Kilbride’s wife. A beautiful blonde woman. Mary’s heart sank and she looked away before Lord Framlington felt her observation as he always did.

John is right. She’d told herself so a thousand times in the last few days, and yet even as she said it her mischievous mind recalled the press of his lips and the feel of his hand cradling her breast.

Heat rose across her skin and awareness leaked into her senses, prickling along her nerves.

Why am I so attracted to him? This emotion never clawed at her when she looked at other men, and she had danced with dozens. It was just Lord Framlington her heart and body craved.

Ninny! her common-sense screamed. But her senses still whispered Lord Framlington’s nearness.

He walked past, barely feet away as if he knew his proximity made her senses sing.

Yet he did not look at her.

Mary gripped her father’s arm more firmly. I will overcome this attraction.

There must be some man she could feel as much for. A man who did not have a wicked reputation. Who she could trust not to treat her ill.

“Miss Marlow, I would be extremely honoured if you will allow me this dance.”

Mary turned and faced Mr Gerard Heathcote, one of her staunch admirers. He bowed deeply. He was a wealthy merchant’s son who’d courted her last season. Her family liked him. He was charming, in a genteel way.

He’d made her an offer last season. She’d refused, saying it was too soon to settle on a husband. But that had been kindness. He was good natured, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. But her heart craved dark brown locks and laughing brown eyes with a wicked glint.

However Gerard was a good dancer and he’d become a friend, as were many of her beaux. But none of them were anything more. She felt nothing beyond like.

Mary swallowed back her growing impatience, letting go of her father’s arm. She offered her hand and Gerard drew her away. Usually she enjoyed dancing, but tonight it was one endless boring whirl.

Since when did I become so jaded?

Since the rogue kissed me.

From this moment on, unless Lord Framlington repeated his kiss, her life would be dull.

* * *

Arms folded across his chest, with one hand loose, the stem of his wine glass dangling between his fingers, Drew watched the dance floor.

She was dancing again. Her hand held that of the young heir to the Earl of Warminster as she skipped along an avenue made by their set. It was a boisterous country dance. The boy was smiling as was Miss Marlow, brightly, giving her beau all her attention, and Drew had none of it.

He was beginning to wonder if instead of increasing her interest he’d jumped his fences with that kiss and made his horse bolt. He’d not once caught her looking at him tonight. She was instead doing everything she could to avoid looking at him.

She’d spent the entire night amidst a gaggle of youths – a mix of her female friends and their beaux.

The child she danced with laughed at every word she said. Drew suspected the boy would laugh no matter what she said, and undoubtedly Miss Marlow was bored. But even so her eyes focused intently on her idiotic companion while her female friends fluttered their fans, along with their eyelashes and cast their gazes about the room seeking to hook some unsuspecting male.

Irritation burned in Drew’s veins.

He’d expected Miss Marlow to at least come closer. He’d even given her a clue earlier, by walking past her, suggesting a silent game they could play, passing close without touching, in secret acknowledgement. She had not picked up his gauntlet. She’d left it where it lay, kiss and all, and instead blatantly ignored him.

He leaned his shoulder against the wall silently seething. He’d thought this the victory leg but despite her youth and innocence Miss Mary Marlow was not going to be easily caught.

A challenge. He sighed, suddenly, letting the tension in his muscles ease with his outward breath. A challenge was like a chase, it whispered to his male instincts. He liked to be challenged. What fun would there be in life, if everything came easily?

Raising his glass of wine to his lips he watched her let go of young Warminster’s hand.

Then she turned to take her place in the line of the set. Her eyes lifted, and her gaze reached across the room. It was literally a glance, only an instant, but in that instant their gazes collided. She had looked for him. She had known he was watching her all along and exactly where he stood.

A smile curved his lips as she looked away and began to clap, watching another couple skip along the middle.

You will be my wife, Mary Marlow. You will. And you will beg me to offer for you, when I do.

He was going to change his tactics, though, perhaps she needed a little less subtlety and a little more urging.

* * *

Lord Framlington’s gaze made Mary’s skin prickle on the back of her neck as she looked along the line of dancers. He’d stared at her for an hour. What he expected her to do she did not know. Perhaps he thought she would seek an assignation with him. She could even hear his words in her head, “Come and meet me, Mary, outside where it’s cooler, where it’s quiet”.

It was nonsense of course, she was not psychic. It was her urge. Yet he’d applaud her weak conscience if he heard it and say, “Listen to it, do what you want to do, not what you should”. It was his voice she heard.

“I know you feel the same for me as I feel for you! Stop running and come back to me!” he’d called when she’d run away from him, along the pathway.

How could he know, and how had Lord Framlington managed to invade her thoughts so utterly after one kiss? But it had not just been since his kiss, ever since she’d danced with him she’d heard his voice and seen him in daydreams, and when she slept.

His gaze left her, like a physical touch slipping away.

Mary looked to see him set his half empty glass on the tray of a passing footman before he strolled away, leaving the ballroom, and she presumed the ball.

A sense of desertion tugged somewhere in her stomach and an odd ache settled like a cloak about her heart.

Was that it then? Was it over? Had she spurned him successfully? That had been her intention, to cut him dead and she’d succeeded until that final moment when she’d dropped her guard and glanced his way.

Perhaps he’d taken the hint regardless and tired of playing with her. There were a dozen other heiresses on the market, she was not his only choice.

But you are his choice. Her traitorous, wicked heart thought it a compliment that a man of Framlington’s looks and reputation wanted her as his wife.

“Idiot,” Mary said aloud, to her heart. Unfortunately as the dance drew to a close, Derek heard it too when he took her arm to walk her to her parents.

“What have I done to deserve that charge? Did I step on your toes?”

Patting his arm she shook her head, forming the false smile she’d relied on tonight. “I was speaking to myself, sorry. I agreed to dance with two partners for the supper set, I will have to apologise to someone.”

He accepted the excuse, without hesitation. Why would he not? Mary had not been in the habit of lying, until the day of the Jerseys’ garden party. Now she had lied twice.

When she reached her parents Lord Derek gave her knuckles a chaste kiss and bowed. The kiss did nothing to her innards. Unlike the kiss on her lips that had twisted in her stomach like someone hurriedly coiling embroidery threads.

Physical memories clawing at her soul, the room spun and Mary longed for home. The burden of pretence was too tiring.

“Mary, is something wrong?” Her gaze lifted to meet her father’s.

“I have the headache.” If sulking made her pathetic she did not care. “May we go home?”

“Already, we have not even eaten supper?”

“I know, Papa, but my head hurts.” Her fingers pressed to her temple. It throbbed with the pain of bottled up tears. She wished to cry over her insanity.

His brow furrowed and his fingers stroked her upper arm gently. “We will get you home.”

“I must use the retiring room first though, Papa.”

“Very well, you go up. I shall have the carriage called for, and tell your mother. We shall await you in the hall.”

Mary turned away, her head pounding. She felt a little sick as she climbed the stairs. The retiring room was quiet. Her mother’s maid was not there; she must have already been told they were leaving.

As Mary left the room, her fingers shook and she walked along the silent hall, with her thoughts screaming.

“Miss Marlow.” Her arm was gripped, firmly and she was pulled aside, into an alcove, and then pressed back against the wall as Lord Framlington’s mouth came down on hers.

She lifted her arms about his neck instinctively kissing him back with a longing that raged through her and took away the pain in her head, but then common-sense prevailed and she let him go, gripped his shoulders and pushed him away, whispering. “What do you think you are doing?”

“You have been playing a good game of ignoring me, but we both know you cannot. As I cannot ignore you.” His breath brushed over her lips his voice low and quiet. She would have turned and walked away but he gripped her wrist and held her still.

“Miss Marlow. Mary. Darling. Do not deny this. I know what you feel, because I feel it too.”

“I feel nothing.”

“And that is why you kissed me a moment ago, and at that garden party. You feel. You want. But I cannot come to you in a place like this, so if you want what I can give you, you will have to come to me…”

“What you give—”

“Kisses, darling. Happiness. A life filled with moments like this. You know I am looking for a wife, I know your brother has told you—”

“Most men do not look for a wife in the shadows of a hallway, or a narrow garden path—”

“I am not seeking any wife, I am seeking you, and if you wish to explore that, you will have to come to me, Mary.”

“No.” She pulled her wrist free, and turned away, her heart pounding as she began to run.

She heard his deep voice echo down the hall. “You may run but I know you do not wish to… You will come back when you have had chance to reflect and understand what you will miss… I will give you time, Mary, and then we’ll see.”

* * *

Drew watched her hurry away. She was scared but interested despite her better judgement. She had kissed him back. Her denial was pretence. He’d felt her attraction in her body, her breasts had pressed to his chest, as her slender arms had clung about his neck.

He sighed.

The power of emotion in him had caught him off-guard. At the garden party she had answered his kiss hesitantly, but tonight, it was as if she had longed to kiss him again. In the first instant when the shock had silenced her fears, she had thrust herself at him, and thrown herself into the kiss.

He smiled.

She had kissed him with innocence on both occasions.

His hand gripped the back of his neck for a moment, then fell. What if he had been the first man to kiss her? God that thought pierced through his chest, like a spear surging through him.

The first to press his tongue into her mouth.

Lord. The idea floored him with a sudden punch. But then he smiled, as the novelty of it bloomed, uncurling in him like a shoot from a seed, it rose up. Hope.

He walked along the hall; she had already reached the stairs and disappeared.

She was becoming more and more essential to his future. No other woman would do. She was his choice, and he was not going to be deterred.

She simply needed time.

Hell she had kissed him back with hunger tonight, albeit a little clumsily, but who cared. Who cared when he had been the first man to claim her lips – like a pioneer, and he intended to claim much more.

There was only one way he knew how to woo women, and that was with his body, he could teach the woman things she could never have imagined.

Innocent. He could not even remember how that had felt. But he knew how to make her feel good. He would give her the gift of sensual discovery and then she would never be able to refuse him. He would have her then.

But if she was running from kisses, she was not ready for that yet.

He needed another approach for the present and he had one; if the girl wanted to play hard to get, let her. If she wished to fain disinterest, then so could he.

He laughed.

He would give his little fish more line. Let her have some time to contemplate her choices. He doubted any of her young beaux made her heart race, or her bones melt. He doubted she had thrown her arms about their necks, and he had a very strong feeling she had never kissed any of them.

He would reel her in in a week or two when she’d had chance to realize his kisses were better than a hundred dances with the children she had danced with here.

What he had said to her was true, he felt the same… He knew she desired him, as much as he desired her.

* * *

Mary sat in her family’s coach bowling towards her brother’s town mansion.

The coach swayed on the uneven cobble. Its motion made Mary feel sick.

“It is unlike you to suffer with headaches, Mary, is something wrong?” her mother whispered.

Mary shook her head, then stopped as pain hammered in her skull.

“You look pale,” her father stated. “Has something happened?”

“I just need to sleep,” she whispered. She’d done very little of that in recent nights, and she feared she would not sleep tonight. The strength of Lord Framlington’s kiss still trembled through her nerves. “I will be well tomorrow.”

Leaning forward her mother pressed Mary’s knee. “We will be home soon. Would you like me to sit with you a while when you retire?”

“No, thank you, Mama.” Their kindness was cloying when Mary knew she was living a lie. She was not who they thought she was, she was not good, she was bad, or rather, she wanted to be bad. Everything Lord Framlington had said was true, she wanted to meet him, and kiss him again. He tempted her.

Now she felt as though he had poured himself into her blood, her body throbbed from the memory of their sudden encounter in the dark, and she could still feel his gentle grip on her wrist.

When they reached home, Mr Finch, her brother’s butler, opened the door. John and Kate were at a private dinner. Her younger brothers and sisters were all in bed. Her mother came upstairs with Mary, helped her undress and then tucked her in to bed, even though Mary had not wished her to.

“May I fetch you anything? Something for the headache?”

“No, Mama, thank you, I just need to sleep.”

Her mother smothered the candle then pressed a kiss to Mary’s forehead.

“I am not a child, Mama,” Mary whispered into the dark, although she longed to be held and for the turmoil inside her to ease.

Her mother sighed. “I know you are now nineteen. But you are still my daughter and you always will be, no matter your age.”

Her mother’s fingers touched Mary’s hair. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

Mary rolled to her other side, feeling guiltier than ever, and wept.

She’d done nothing wrong, not really, not yet, it had only been kisses that she had allowed, but she had a dreadful feeling she would. She could not quell this longing for a man she should not want.

* * *

For the third night after she had kissed Lord Framlington for a second time, Mary looked for him with no success. Her heart ached. She longed to see him. She missed the rogue, with his little knowing nods in her direction, and his charming smiles.

He had asked her to meet him but then disappeared and made that an impossibility. While his kisses continued haunting her…

She wished for wickedness. She wished for kisses and embraces.

“Miss Marlow. Damn it, you stood on my foot.” Mr Makepeace was a wealthy landowner, but he was double her age and as dull as working on embroidery. He was boring, and he was rude. She may have missed a step, because she had been daydreaming, about Lord Framlington, but it was ungentlemanly to curse at her for it.

“Forgive me.” The heat of a blush touched her cheeks as people along the line of dancers looked over at them. Oh, she longed for a dance she had shared with a man a year ago, she had barely heard the notes of it; her thoughts had been too absorbed by the colour of his eyes.

They were hazel; a light shade of cluttered brown, but when the light caught his eyes it turned the colour to honey, a soft amber or gold. It had literally gilded his eyes.

The men she danced with were young and weak in nature, and silly compared to him, or too old for her, like Mr Makepeace, and dull, or in between but so busy seeking to portray a fashionable ennui that they had no personality at all.

The dance came to its conclusion, thank the Lord.

Breathing hard Mr Makepeace walked her back to her parents. She smiled at her mother. Then turned to Mr Makepeace. “Thank you.” He nodded in return then walked away.

Good riddance…

She looked about the room for Lord Framlington, he still was not here. She was becoming angry with him now. Why? Where was he?

She huffed out an unladylike breath. “Mama, I wish to go to the retiring room.”

“I will come with you.”

“That is not necessary, the hall is busy; I will not be alone.”

“Very well.”

Mary turned away and then pressed a path through the crush of people out into the hall and then across to the withdrawing room. She had foolishly hoped to discover Lord Framlington hiding somewhere. He had not been hiding anywhere.

The rogue had known how she would feel, how she felt… You feel. You want, but you know I cannot come to you in a place like this, so if you want what I can give you, you will have to come to me… But how could she come to him if he was nowhere to be found!

She hated him.

He was playing with her.

She loved him too, though. No one she spoke to or danced with compared to him, they were all a mile beneath him.

He was beautiful, witty, charming… and poor… A fortune-hunter, and a rake.

Her heart thumped as she hurried back to the ballroom still looking for him. He was not there. She did not return to her mother, she sought her friends. Someone to talk to. Though she had not spoken to them of Lord Framlington, they would think her mad. Everyone would think her mad. She could not even explain to herself why she liked him so much. But she did.

Her heart pounded harder even at the thought of him.

“Mary!”

“Emily,” Miss Smithfield was one of Mary’s more recent, less confident, friends. She had looked lost one evening, sitting out a dance against the wall, and so Mary had befriended her.

“Mary. You poor soul, I saw you had to dance with Mr Makepeace.” Lady Bethany Pope kissed the air beside Mary’s cheek.

Mary made a face. Bethany and Emily laughed.

“Hasn’t he asked you to dance every night this week?”

“Good heavens, yes, but hopefully never again, I stood on his foot.”

“Deliberately…”

“Perhaps.” They all laughed but Mary heard the hollowness in hers. Her life no longer interested her. She was bored. She missed the sense of danger hovering across the ballroom when Lord Framlington watched her. He made her feel different from everyone else, special. Every other man she danced with, danced with a dozen other women, she was no exception to any of them, and yet she had never seen Lord Framlington dance with anyone since he’d danced with her. Nor did he stare at anyone but her…

Although he had talked to that blonde woman the other day…

She sighed.

Had she lost him, by not conceding? Had he given up on her?

“Miss Marlow.” Mr Gerard Heathcote bowed before her. “May I have the honour of this dance?”

She wished to scream. No! She had danced with him ten dozen times, he was nice, polite… Boring.

Oh, her father had never spanked her, but he would wish he had done if he knew how wrong-headed she had become.

She dropped a shallow curtsy and then gave Gerard her hand. “Of course.” In reality she wished to run from the ballroom and out into the dark garden. It was raining outside, she quite fancied a thorough soaking. Perhaps it would bring her to her senses.

On the twelfth night after her second kiss with Lord Framlington, when she returned home with her parents, she stopped at her bedchamber door, and refused to let her mother in. “Please, Mama, I can retire alone. You cannot treat me as a child forever.”

“Yet—“

“I know it is only out of love, but I wish to retire alone, Mama.”

As soon as she shut the door, the tears came. They had been hovering all night as she had looked for Lord Framlington almost constantly. When she’d waltzed her gaze had spun about the room searching every corner. Her dance partners must have thought her mad.

But she had come to the conclusion that it was over. He’d given up on her, and so she ought to listen to common-sense if the man was so fickle.

But her bitterness was washed away by tears. The maid in her room unbuttoned the back of Mary’s bodice, and then unlaced her stays. Mary looked at her, the stains of silent tears still damp pathways whispering their presence on her cheeks. “Pray tell no one that I have been upset. You may retire.”

“Are you certain, Ma’am.”

“Yes absolutely certain.”

When the maid left, Mary did not even bother to strip off her clothes or blow out the candles, but tumbled on to the bed and cried. Not only because she had not seen him, and may not see him ever again… but because she was a complete ninny for wanting to see him.

“Fool.” she breathed into the sheets.