Not the Dukes Darling by Hoyt, Elizabeth (3)

He’d been a skinny boy with a man’s full height at eighteen, but not his weight. He’d looked like a medieval king, his face long, sensitive, and ascetic. And his eyes had been blue, luminous, and beautiful—at least that was how Freya remembered Christopher Renshaw.

She sipped her tea and contemplated the Duke of Harlowe. He was fully formed now, big and solid, his shoulders wide, his calves muscular in his fine stockings as he stretched his legs before him in his chair. His face had filled out into craggy cheekbones and a strong jaw. He was no longer a dreamy poet.

No, now he more closely resembled a warrior king—hardened and merciless. A man who could betray his friend without thought.

A man who still didn’t recognize her.

Well, why should he? she thought rather irritably. When Harlowe had last seen her she’d been a skinny girl in the schoolroom. The younger sister of his great friend Ranulf. Someone he’d had no reason to notice. A child while he’d been a young man and a student at Oxford with Julian Greycourt and Ran.

Freya pressed her lips together to stop them trembling at the memory. They’d been so bright, the three of them, shining like young gods. She’d thought them invincible, and now…

Now Ran was crippled because of Julian and Harlowe.

“Does your head ache?” Arabella asked softly beside her.

“No, not at all.” Freya caught herself frowning. She forced a smile and turned to the elder Holland sister. “Have you recovered from the carriage ride this morning?”

“I’m glad to have a bit of a rest from bouncing up and down,” the younger woman replied with feeling.

“What do you think of Lady Lovejoy’s guests?”

“You mean the gentlemen?” Arabella asked with a wry twist to her lips.

Freya winced. “I was trying to be more subtle than that.”

“I don’t know that there’s any point.” The younger woman sounded bitter.

Freya glanced at her quickly.

Arabella gave her a half-hearted smile. “I know Mama wishes me wed before Regina, and with Mr. Trentworth ready to propose…”

She shrugged.

Freya tightened her mouth and silently patted Arabella’s hand, which felt like no comfort at all. Ladies of Arabella’s rank sometimes didn’t wed, but the vast majority did, and Freya knew that Lord Holland expected his daughters to not only wed but wed well.

Freya silently gave thanks that she was a Wise Woman. If she wished to, she could certainly marry and have a family, but it wasn’t an imperative. In fact, were she to wed she might be less welcome at the estate in Dornoch. The Wise Women were very careful about which men they let into their sanctuary.

Freya said, “If you truly dislike everyone you meet here, I have no doubt that your mother will give you time to find another suitor.”

“Yes.” Arabella scanned the gentlemen in the room with an oddly dispassionate eye. “But I’ve had three years to find a husband. She and Father cannot wait on me forever.”

“You sound quite grim.”

Arabella turned and gave her a small curl of the lips. “I’m planning a campaign to find a husband, Miss Stewart. Such things should be done most gravely.”

Freya took a sip of tea, trying to cover her own unease. So many things could go wrong in a marriage, and once the vows were said there was no returning to what freedom there was in maidenhood.

A grave business indeed.

Freya cleared her throat, attempting a lighter note. “Lord Stanhope is quite beautiful, don’t you think?”

Arabella sent her an appalled glance.

Freya tried to look innocent.

“You’re awful,” Arabella whispered. “Lord Stanhope looks like he swallowed a toad. And quite recently.”

Freya repressed a smile. “Perhaps he’s shy.”

Arabella widened her eyes disbelievingly.

“Well, he might be.” Freya shrugged. “I’ve noticed that sometimes gentlemen who present a forbidding exterior are simply timid.”

“Timid.” Arabella raised a single eyebrow. “Then the duke must be a rabbit. He was kind to introduce Regina to darling Tess, but I would never have guessed him to be so gentlemanly from simply his appearance. He looks as if he might bite one’s head off if his tea wasn’t to his satisfaction.”

Freya glanced at Harlowe before she could stop herself.

He was seated with Lord Lovejoy. Tess was under his chair, watching the assembly alertly, her head on her crossed paws. Harlowe listened with a frown on his face to something their host was saying. As she watched, he glanced at the fire and then the door and shifted in his chair, almost as if he wished to leave the room.

She shook her head at her own ridiculousness. Harlowe was hardly the sort of man to be shy in a gathering. No, Arabella was right.

He did appear rather intimidating.

“I should avoid him were I you,” Freya found herself saying.

“What do you mean?” Arabella asked. “I’ve always thought that when a man has the devotion of a dog it shows his true character, and Tess quite obviously loves the duke.”

The thought of Arabella setting her cap at Harlowe made Freya feel irritable. She glanced back at the girl.

Arabella’s brows were knit.

Freya shook her head. “Dogs are such loving animals, and really it takes little to win them over. Food and companionship, mostly. I don’t think the duke is very nice.” Arabella looked so young in a pretty pale-pink gown. “At least, not nice enough for you.”

“You’re quite cynical on occasion, Miss Stewart,” Arabella said. “Sometimes I wonder if a gentleman hurt you in the past. If there was a beau who spurned you and broke your heart.”

“Alas, nothing so romantic,” Freya said dryly. “What do you think of the younger Mr. Lovejoy? You’ve met him before, I believe.”

Arabella gave her a disconcertingly considering stare. “You always turn the conversation away from yourself. Really, I hardly know anything about your past.”

“There’s not much to know,” Freya said lightly, meeting her gaze.

“Hmm.” Arabella sighed and glanced again at the gentlemen. “As to your question, yes, I danced with Mr. Lovejoy at a ball last winter. Once. He danced with Regina twice.”

Freya ignored the last. “Mr. Lovejoy seems quite nice.”

“Mama would prefer a titled gentleman.”

“Of course,” Freya replied, refraining from rolling her eyes. Naturally the lineage of the prospective groom was more important than whether or not the bride actually liked him. “But Mr. Lovejoy will inherit a barony someday—and quite a wealthy one at that. I think, in the end, Lady Holland wishes above all that you be happy.”

“I know she does, but I also know Papa would like me to marry someone of rank.” Arabella raised her eyes, meeting Freya’s gaze frankly. “I want to make them both proud of me, but I’m not as vivacious as Regina. I don’t know if I can attract a titled gentleman.”

“You can,” Freya said, taking her hand. Arabella’s vulnerability made her heart want to break. “I know you can if you set your mind to it. You are kind and intelligent and very witty when you wish to be. We simply need to find the right gentleman to appreciate you.”

Arabella looked uncertain, and Freya pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to see Arabella hurt.

“Arabella,” Lady Holland called. “Lady Lovejoy has the most intriguing embroidery patterns. Come see.”

Lady Lovejoy had joined Lady Holland on a settee.

“Of course, Mama,” Arabella said obediently, rising to cross and sit with her mother and their hostess.

The fact was that Freya wasn’t certain the girl could make a suitable match. Titled gentlemen had their pick of aristocratic ladies. What she wished she could tell Arabella was that there was no need to worry. That there was plenty of time for Arabella to find a gentleman who was kind and who loved her for herself.

But the awful reality was that Arabella was expected to marry. To make familial ties for her father and to breed the next generation of aristocrats. The girl really had no choice.

Freya might, on the surface, work as a companion and chaperone—quite near the bottom of aristocratic society—but in reality she had more freedom than any duchess.

Because she was a Wise Woman.

And now she had only a fortnight to save the Wise Women.

She had to find something to hold over Lord Randolph.

Freya sipped from her teacup and scanned the room. Her gaze almost immediately clashed with the duke’s.

He was staring at her, his sky-blue eyes narrowed in what looked like consideration.

The sudden surge of hatred for him caught her off guard. Made her chest so tight it was hard to breathe. Had Harlowe forgotten not only her but Ran as well? It was a thorn in her breast, the knowledge that he was living his life freely and without remorse while her brother Lachlan toiled over the remaining de Moray lands.

While Ran hid himself away from the world.

Across from her, Arabella laughed at something.

Freya glanced over. The girl was smiling at the pattern book Lady Lovejoy was showing her and Lady Holland. If only Arabella could be so relaxed when conversing with a gentleman. Unfortunately she became stiff when—

“Miss Stewart,” a deep voice said next to her.

Freya fancied that she could feel the reverberations to her bones. “Your Grace.”

She turned to find that Harlowe had seated himself in a chair pulled up beside the settee she perched on. He was at a perfectly proper distance. No one could look askance at the fact that he’d sat down beside her. But the point that he was talking to her might cause comment. She was the hired companion and chaperone. She wasn’t supposed to be noticed at all.

She didn’t want to be noticed.

And he was well aware of it. There was a gleam in his startlingly blue eyes as he murmured, “I find myself curious, Miss Stewart. I don’t think you are what you seem to be.”

“Are any of us?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps not.”

She smiled, aware that it was closer to a grimace. “What dire secrets do you hide, Your Grace?”

“How do you know I hide any?”

“Intuition?” She tilted her head, studying him, and picked her words carefully. If she mentioned Greycourt, the game would be given away directly. All the same she was tempted to do it. Instead she settled on something more vague. “You’re a gentleman past thirty, widowed, but in the two years since you gained your title you’ve not bothered remarrying.”

“I wasn’t aware that lack of a wife is a suspect state,” he drawled.

“It is for a gentleman who holds such a lofty title. Shouldn’t you be searching for a young, nubile maiden? One you can tie to your side and who will bear for you your heirs? Duty to the dukedom surely demands it.”

His lips curved cynically. “Are you acting as a pander for the Misses Holland?”

“No.” Her reply was curt. No, this man wasn’t for Regina or Arabella. He was a powerful man—a dangerous man. The woman who married him would have to be not only strong but stubborn, able to hold her ground. Not that she would wish marriage to him on any woman, of course. “I would not recommend you to a young girl.”

“Should I be offended?” His eyes were so blue it was hard to look away.

“Yes.” She lifted her chin. “You are not good enough for them.”

He was very still, and only the tightening of his jaw gave away his ire before he said caustically, “And am I good enough for you, Miss Stewart?”

“I am a companion, Your Grace. You know well enough that you are not for me.” This was too close to flirtation. She could not be distracted by cerulean eyes, blunt conversation, and her own heightened awareness of him. She turned her hand over in her lap, exposing the vulnerable palm. “Tell me. What are your thoughts on revenge?”

Silence.

She glanced up.

He was watching her as if she were a cannon poorly primed. “What an odd question.”

“Is it?” she asked carelessly. “I beg your pardon. I shall return to proper subjects of conversation. The weather is quite pleasant, don’t you think?”

He snorted and said seriously, “I think revenge destroys the soul, Miss Stewart.”

She felt an odd thrill. He’d accepted her conversational gambit. “I disagree. If I am wronged, shouldn’t I seek revenge for it?” She leaned a little toward him, wondering how much further she could push him. When he reached his limit, would he walk away—or turn on her? “What would you do, Your Grace, if you were vilely used, terribly hurt, had everything you held dear taken from you?”

“I would be more careful in the future,” he said slowly, but without hesitation, as if he’d actually mused on the topic before. “And I would try to live my life as honorably as I could.”

For the first time it occurred to her that perhaps he had been wronged at some point. After all, it was fifteen years since she’d last seen him. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the sinner was himself sinned against?

“What a paragon of restraint you are, Your Grace,” she said, sweetly mocking. “You would simply let your tormentor free? Wish him a long and happy life?”

“No, naturally not.” He sighed impatiently. “I am only human. I would want to bring him to justice. But justice is not always possible—or for the greater good. Surely you realize this.”

“I realize that to give up the drive for revenge—or justice, as you put it—is to relinquish a part of oneself,” she said far too passionately. “To succumb to the mundanity of life instead of reaching for the most valiant part of ourselves.”

“You think revenge valiant.” He glanced away from her as if he couldn’t bear to see her face. “And after you have revenged yourself, what then, Miss Stewart?”

She didn’t want him to turn from her. “Then I will have peace.”

His expression when he looked at her was sardonic. “Madam. Have you ever sought peace in your life?”

She couldn’t help the wry twist of her mouth. “Truthfully, no.”

He nodded as if unsurprised. “I thought not. So tell me, who is this man you wish to revenge yourself upon? Was it one of the men chasing you through the streets of east London a fortnight ago?”

Good Lord, had anyone heard him?

She caught her breath at her own idiocy. She wasn’t a shallow girl, to have her head turned by a pair of pretty eyes. This was her enemy. “Do keep your voice down, if you please.”

“Why?” He lounged back, watching her with the dispassionate interest of a tomcat playing with a crippled mouse. “Are you hiding something?”

She widened her eyes. “Obviously.”

“What?”

“Why do you think you have any right to ask?” Talking to this man was far too seductive. She was perilously close to giving everything away. Freya took a sip of tea to cover her disquiet.

“Possibly because I didn’t throw you and your companions from my carriage,” he replied mildly.

“I am forever in your debt,” she snapped.

He paused, his eyes narrowing. “I could simply ask your employer.”

“You could,” she replied, a tight smile firmly in place, “but by doing so you admit that you are unable to handle me by yourself. And then I should know you for a coward.”

He stilled, and she knew she’d found the line.

Found it and crossed it.

“Most people in your position, Miss Stewart,” he said very quietly, “would be careful not to offend me.”

Christopher stared at Miss Stewart, aware that he couldn’t remember when he’d last been this angry. Come to that, he hadn’t felt any emotion so deeply in a long time.

She wasn’t cowed by his ire. Quite the opposite—those green-gold eyes were glittering with almost feverish excitement as she replied, “Your pardon. If you want careful argument, then you must seek it elsewhere.”

“I certainly would be a coward if I left the field to you,” he said softly. “And I assure you, madam, that I am not.”

Her smile this time was quick and real, revealing a dimple on one cheek. He caught his breath at the sight. This, this was what he’d been missing without even realizing it: genuine conversation. Genuine feeling.

In the next second her smile was gone, almost as if she were ashamed of the lapse. “I’ll have to take your word for it, Your Grace.”

Another insult. They seemed to spill off her tongue. What was it about this awful woman that held him so? Her appearance didn’t match her personality at all. On the outside she was dowdy and forgettable, her clothes prim and drab. The cap on her head particularly irritated him—it hid most of her brownish hair and distracted from the rest of her.

“You wear the most ghastly cap,” he said.

One never spoke to a lady in this manner. A gentleman always used polite little lies, glossing over anything that might distress a lady.

He remembered once when he’d tried to talk with Sophy about a maid who was stealing. His wife had been so upset over even the thought of reprimanding the maid that she’d taken to bed for the rest of the day. He’d dealt with dismissing the maid himself. Sophy hadn’t seemed to notice beyond commenting on the new maid’s lazy eye.

It had been better all around to live a polite fiction with his wife. A sort of make-believe life in which the truth was never mentioned. In which he always cared for her and her worries, and she existed in a childish state of dependence.

Never an equal adult.

Never a real partner.

Miss Stewart’s acid retorts were refreshing.

Her eyes had widened in something like outrage—certainly not shock. Is she shocked by anything? “How rude to say so, Your Grace.”

He tutted. “A miss, I’m afraid. Have you grown weary, darling?”

Her upper lip curled, baring her teeth, and for a moment he thought she might hit him. He inhaled, strangely anticipatory. Would she throw aside her thin disguise and reveal herself to the sedate sitting room as the warrior she was?

To his disappointment she controlled herself and in the next second was looking at him almost serenely. “I can’t think that you’re an expert in ladies’ millinery fashions. At least not respectable ladies’ fashions.”

He wanted to laugh at her restraint. “Are you attempting to imply I’m a roué, madam?”

She pursed her lips, drawing his attention to her mouth. Undoubtedly she was trying to look proper and disapproving, but she was rather betrayed by her own mouth. She might have the personality of a harpy, but her lips were voluptuously lush. Wide and plump and curved. Naturally tinted pink. Her smile would be glorious. And if she were to use that mouth for other, more erotic tasks…

No, those weren’t the lips of a prude.

And they were parting now. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh my dear,” he said gently. “Have you lost your nerve? Surely you can do better than that feeble riposte. Perhaps you can imply that I have the pox. Or simply stand up and call me a ravisher of women.” He watched her outraged eyes, enchanted. She had the loveliest dark lashes. “You must admit that if nothing else it would enliven the party.”

If he hadn’t been staring at her he might’ve missed it: a slight twitch of those luscious lips. The sight sent a thrill through him. He wanted to make her smile again—that full-fledged smile that brought out her dimple.

“I’ll do no such thing,” Miss Stewart bit out.

“Pity. I don’t see how you’ll make me face my sins otherwise.”

“Perhaps you need to face your sins on your own.”

“Oh, I already have.” He smiled humorlessly as he met her eyes. “I assure you.”

Her eyes narrowed in what looked like grudging curiosity. “What do you mean?”

“Do you think I’d tell you my weaknesses?” he asked softly. “You, my adversary?”

“I’m not your…” She caught herself before she could say it, blinked, and lifted her chin.

A point to him.

“You are.” He smiled. “You’ve taken pains to impress your antagonism upon me.”

“Have I?”

He gazed at her thoughtfully. “I’m not sure how I’ve offended you.”

“Aren’t you?” Her voice was mocking.

His jaw clenched and he said abruptly, “I’m not, you know. A ravisher of women.”

“I suppose I should simply believe you?” she inquired politely. “Because if you were a libertine that is exactly what you’d say, you realize.”

“I don’t recollect ever being so insulted,” he said slowly, “by man or woman. Are you trying to goad me into revealing to the party what you were doing in Wapping?”

She made an abrupt movement, then stilled. Her eyes when she looked at him burned. “You have no idea what I was doing in Wapping.”

“No, but I do know you don’t want me speaking about it,” he mused. “Otherwise I think you would’ve told me to go to the Devil. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me?”

“Tell you my secrets?” She arched her brows. “You, my adversary?”

For a moment he savored her repartee—the bright satisfaction in her eyes, the way she leaned a little forward as if waiting for him to bat back a tennis ball.

He let his lips quirk. “No, you’re right. That would be most unwise. For both of us, I think.”

He should stand and leave her. Go speak to another member of the party.

And yet he found something compelling about her, this seemingly ordinary woman.

Or perhaps he simply found her frank animosity refreshing.

He was about to say something else, see if he could make that dimple appear again, but there were footsteps and voices from in the hallway.

Christopher straightened, his attention entirely on the door. Had Plimpton arrived?

Two ladies entered the salon, and Christopher felt a shock of recognition that went straight to his core.

The nearest, a tall, striking woman with black hair, glanced up. For a second her gaze flickered to Miss Stewart, and then it was on him.

She walked toward them, her hands outstretched as her handsome gray eyes widened. “Christopher, darling, it’s been an age since we’ve seen you. How are you?”

The problem with having grown up with a person was that they never forgot that once upon a time one had been a girl.

No matter how old one might be now.

Messalina Greycourt watched as Christopher Renshaw rose from his seat beside Freya. “Messy?”

Her eldest brother, Julian, had christened her with the ghastly nickname when she’d been five and he a very superior eleven. Sadly the name had stuck…at least until the events of her twelfth summer, when they’d lost their sister, Aurelia—and with her Julian’s playfulness.

“Not even Julian calls me that anymore,” she replied. “Do you remember my sister, Lucretia?”

Christopher turned to Lucretia. “Of course, though I would never have known you.”

Lucretia curtsied. “I’m so glad. It would be rather lowering if I still looked the same as I did in leading strings.”

That provoked what looked like a reluctant smile from Christopher.

Messalina glanced from Christopher to Freya de Moray. The two had been deep in discussion when she and her sister had entered the sitting room, and she had a multitude of questions.

The foremost among them: had Freya told Christopher why she was working as a companion? Messalina had been curious about that for years.

Messalina looked away from Freya and nodded at Christopher. “We knew that you’d returned to England, but we never saw you. I think Julian even invited you to tea, didn’t he?”

Christopher simply shrugged. His smile was already gone.

Were he and Julian no longer speaking? If so, she’d not been aware of the rift. Although of course Christopher had been in India for all those years. And Julian was damnably closemouthed.

Messalina cleared her throat. “Do you mind if I call you by your Christian name? I’m afraid habits made in childhood are hard to shake.”

She glanced at Freya and saw her former friend staring at her, a haunted look on her face. Freya turned her head before rising and quietly moving away.

Messalina couldn’t help the pang of hurt. Damn Freya de Moray.

“Not at all,” Christopher replied, bringing her attention back to him. “I can hardly stand on ceremony when you once saw me after a night of very unwise drinking.”

She recalled her smile. “You did have trouble holding your liquor at sixteen.”

His expression was melancholy, but then it was Ranulf de Moray who’d been his illicit drinking partner that night.

“I’d heard you’d come into the title,” Messalina said to change the subject. “It was the talk of the ton for almost the entire season.”

She’d heard, too, that he’d lost his wife, Lord Lovejoy’s sister. What had been her name? Becky or Molly or Lizzy—some sort of diminutive at any rate. She wondered suddenly if there was anyone to call him by his given name now. Both his parents were dead, he had no brothers or sisters, and as far as she knew he hadn’t remarried.

“Yes, I inherited quite unexpectedly,” he said dryly. “The last duke was a second cousin, and suffered the tragedy of his own sons and grandson leaving this world before him. My cousin was ninety when he died and appeared to have placed far too much trust in a none-too-honest man of business. The title came with two years’ worth of work.”

“Your Grace?”

They both turned at Lord Lovejoy’s interruption.

Their host was looking apologetic. “I’ve word that dinner is ready. Perhaps you’d care to lead us in?”

Of course. Christopher was the ranking aristocrat.

He bowed to Messalina and strode to their hostess, offering Lady Lovejoy his arm. Lord Rookewoode, escorting Lady Holland, followed them. The rest of the company trailed behind.

Lucretia murmured beside Messalina, “Will you ask Lady Lovejoy for help tonight?”

Messalina shook her head. “Tomorrow, I think.”

“Mm.” Lucretia hummed. “He is very handsome, isn’t he?”

Messalina blinked at the non sequitur. “Christopher?” She’d never thought of him in that way.

“No, not him. It’s strange, I didn’t recognize the duke at all.”

“Well, you were only what, seven when we last saw him?”

“Eight,” Lucretia said with the exactitude for age found only in the youngest members of families, “and in any case, no, that’s not who I meant. I was referring to the earl.” She nodded at Lord Rookewoode’s back. “There’s something about him that just draws a lady’s eye. Though I suppose the duke is quite nice to look at as well.”

“Hussy,” Messalina murmured.

“I noticed that Freya is still ignoring you,” Lucretia whispered.

“Is she?” Messalina replied with feigned disinterest as they came to the dining room.

They had to part to find their seats before Lucretia could call her out. Naturally they weren’t seated together. Jane Lovejoy had done her best to seat them lady-gentleman-lady, and Messalina found herself between Viscount Stanhope and Mr. Lovejoy. Directly across from her was the earl, flanked on either side by Lucretia and Arabella Holland. And down at the bottom of the table was Lady Freya de Moray.

Messalina dipped her spoon into a lovely eel soup and considered Freya. It was rather ironic, really. As the daughter and sister of dukes she was in actuality the highest-ranking lady at the table.

Something that no one knew besides Messalina, Lucretia, and Freya herself.

And Christopher. Had he recognized Freya? Messalina was beginning to wonder. She glanced at him speculatively. Would Freya have told him who she was if he hadn’t recognized her?

Considering how matters stood between Christopher and the de Moray family, Freya might’ve kept her identity to herself.

It was a possibility at least that Christopher didn’t know who Freya was. Freya was no longer the skinny, tangled-haired wild lass of their youth. Now she was sedate, her adult curves confined and stifled by boring brown gowns, her red hair hidden and tamed. No doubt she fooled the vast majority of people she met, mostly by simply being overlooked.

Messalina humphed under her breath.

Freya de Moray had never been sedate in their youth, and she very much doubted the other woman had changed so very much in fifteen years. She didn’t know why Freya was presenting herself as such a staid and boring person, but that was almost certainly not who Freya truly was.

And she could not ask Freya why she was essentially in disguise because, simply put, they did not speak to each other.

Messalina had first seen Freya in London society four years ago. It had been at an afternoon musicale, a quartet of string instruments or perhaps a harpsichord player, she couldn’t remember now. There had been seating on either side of the entertainment, and only a few minutes in, Messalina had found herself staring across the way into the eyes of Freya de Moray.

Her best friend from childhood.

It had been a strange experience. She’d had no doubt it was Freya, even though they hadn’t seen each other in years. She knew those green eyes, the shape of her chin, and the slight slope of her nose.

Freya had stared back without expression. Without recognition.

Without emotion.

As if they’d never hidden from Freya’s governess or begged cakes from Cook or lain together in a dark bed, whispering their deepest secrets to each other.

As if they hadn’t loved each other better than sisters.

Damn Freya.

She hadn’t been the one to lose an older sister that night. Bright, sparkling Aurelia, dead at only sixteen.

That long-ago night Messalina had woken to her mother weeping, Julian’s silent, white face, Lucretia confused and crying, and Aurelia’s twin, Quintus, vomiting again and again until the whites of his eyes were flooded red with burst blood vessels.

No, Freya hadn’t any cause to snub her. If anyone should be snubbing someone, it was Messalina. It had been Freya’s brother Ran who had murdered Aurelia.

Messalina reached for her wineglass and in doing so caught Lucretia’s eye. Her younger sister raised a pointed eyebrow.

Messalina nodded and inhaled to calm herself. She wasn’t here to brood on Freya, their awful past, and what exactly she was doing working as a companion under an assumed name now. Messalina was here to flirt, laugh, and, most importantly, find out what had happened to a very dear friend.

Eleanor Randolph.

Lord Randolph had buried poor Eleanor without ceremony or even notice. Messalina hadn’t even found out that Eleanor was dead until weeks afterward. The least she owed her friend was to find out how she had died.

Thus recalled to her mission, Messalina turned to her right and smiled at Viscount Stanhope. “I hope your travels were pleasant?”

The viscount swallowed before speaking in a marked Scottish accent. “I would not say pleasant precisely. The inns I was told to stop at were not at all as was expected. Loud and licentious behavior in the first, and in the second bed linens stinking quite terribly of mildew. I had something to say to both innkeepers, I can assure you.”

“Oh, indeed?” Messalina couldn’t keep her lips from twitching. Lord Stanhope sounded as if he spent quite a bit of his time complaining to innkeepers and the like. It was a pity really. He was quite a nice-looking gentleman, with wide beautiful eyes and a Roman profile—if only he didn’t have a moue of distaste on his face.

“I was very happy to arrive, I can tell you that,” the viscount said. “Although I think that Lady Lovejoy needs a firmer hand with her servants. There was dust on the picture frame in my room. Do you think I should inform her?”

“Well…” Messalina darted a glance at Jane Lovejoy. Darling Jane had eyes too small for her round face and a nose too big, making her rather plain. That hadn’t stopped her from becoming a popular London hostess. She was known for her salons and balls, quite packed with the cream of society. Though she was nearly two decades older than Messalina, they’d struck up a fast friendship on first meeting. “Perhaps not tonight. Our hostess no doubt has much to do.”

“Hm.” Lord Stanhope’s brows drew together. “I don’t see what. Surely she simply needs to make conversation.”

Messalina kept her smile intact with difficulty. Obviously the viscount had never planned a house party.

Fortunately she was saved from having to reply when Regina Holland said something to the viscount.

Messalina turned toward her other table mate and her eye snagged on Freya. Her former friend was staring rather intensely up the table. Messalina picked up her wineglass and took a sip to cover following Freya’s line of sight. She was watching Christopher.

Interesting.

Freya had had quite a tendre for Christopher fifteen years ago, but back then she’d been in the schoolroom. Surely Freya hadn’t started something with him now?

Messalina felt a pang of hurt. How could Freya forgive Christopher—who had been there that night with Julian and Ran—and not Messalina?

They’d only been children.

Back then they’d told each other everything.

Back then they’d been innocents.