Twelve hours after Lord Leo had taken his leave and night having since descended, one thing became abundantly clear—her brother had no intention of speaking with her.
Chloe growled. She crushed the note she’d written, which had been delivered back to her. “What do you mean he is unavailable to speak with me? He just returned.” From whatever pressing affairs had called him away earlier that afternoon. Chloe, however, didn’t mistake his conspicuous absence as anything other than what it was—a bid to avoid her. Well, if he believed he could avoid her by disappearing, only to return when the rest of the house was abed, he knew her less than even she believed. She’d been stationed at her window seat since Lord Leo had come and gone.
Her maid shifted back and forth on her feet. “Uh…” The girl shot a desperate look over her shoulder. When she again faced Chloe, discomfort contorted her features. “His lordship instructed that he was otherwise busy,” she repeated in a rote manner that indicated the words had been served directly from the lord of the household.
“Should I summon her ladyship again?” she tentatively ventured.
Call Jane? For what end? She’d no sufficient answers on Gabriel’s thoughts and had proven largely unforthcoming on the details surrounding Lord Leo’s visit. “No, thank you,” she murmured distractedly. All the while, her frustration mounted.
He’d been invisible when she was a girl, absent while she’d confronted their father’s abuse and cruelty. And now, when she was a woman, he’d interfere and exert control over her life. It didn’t matter that he did so out of a fraternal love of her and a desire to protect her. The time for that had come and gone long ago. She wanted to be treated as one whose opinion he, at the very least, heard. Alas, he would never grant her that courtesy. He was incapable of it. Crushing the page in her hand, Chloe hurled it across the floor. That small, childlike display of outrage didn’t do anything to quell the fury roiling in her chest.
Her maid winced and took a step forward. The maid’s fingers were outstretched to rescue the scrap. She stopped abruptly, and indecision over which move to make filled her eyes.
Chloe tamped down a sigh. It was hardly the young woman’s fault that Gabriel was a pompous bastard who’d even now ignore her note. Nor would she keep the tired-eyed servant up any longer than she had. “That will be all, Kay,” she said, gentling her tones.
The freckle-faced girl’s shoulders sagged. “Thank you, my lady.” She expelled her gratitude on a whisper.
“I don’t require anything further this night.” Chloe should have learned long ago that if she wished for or wanted something, she had to see to matters herself.
“Thank you,” Kay repeated, sinking into a hasty curtsy. And as if she feared Chloe would change her mind and force her into the uncomfortable role of go-between for Chloe and her brother, the younger woman bolted.
As soon as the door closed, Chloe sank back into the down pillows behind her. How dare Gabriel? How dare he so effortlessly cut her out of any decision or discussion over her fate and last evening’s scandal? In his mind, he’d resolved himself to the only solution—Chloe’s marriage to his best friend, the Earl of Waterson—a match he’d been in favor of and pushing since she’d made her Come Out. And one that he’d not relinquished. Instead, in a bid to maneuver her into a safe marriage that would see her cared for and her reputation salvaged, his efforts would be renewed with an even greater intensity. Chloe grabbed her cane. Propelling herself to her feet, she gritted through the pain, welcoming the distraction that sharp ache brought.
With fury fueling her movements, Chloe limped to the door. Balancing her weight over her cane, she pressed the handle and let herself out. She hobbled from her rooms, through hall after hall, until she reached the sweeping stairway.
Sweat beading on her brow from her exertions, Chloe made the slow, arduous journey belowstairs. She paused midway down and borrowed support from her cane. One-two-three-four-five-six steps. There were just six of them. How many times had she taken those same stairs two at a time, sprinting up to her rooms, either escaping her mother or avoiding her father? And yet, now, with her ankle injured, she appreciated what a gift each previously effortless step had been.
Exhaling slowly through her compressed lips, she forced herself to continue.
Think of your brother exerting control over your life. She completed another step.
Think of him once more determining what is best for you. Chloe descended the next.
Imagine a lifetime being under your family’s thumb and Mother’s influence. Yet another and another step completed. Each tortured step represented her reasserting a say in her future and circumstances. Her brother believed she was undeserving of answers, or so much as a discussion, and used her seeming inability to seek him out as a way to avoid her.
Chloe reached the bottom of the stairway and, through the agony each step had cost her, smiled through the pain.
She’d done it. Forcing herself onward, she made the trek through the corridors. It was an odd thing, pain. It made one appreciate something previously taken for granted—level land, a plush carpeted floor. With the aid of her cane, she finally found her way to her brother’s office.
From outside his doorway, muffled voices reached her ears.
“See this delivered posthaste. Instruct him…”
Leaning over the head of her cane, she pressed her ear against the wood panel. A faint hum further muted the discussion taking place, and she strained to hear the intermittent revelations.
“Your mount has been readied, my lord…”
Frustration turned over in her belly. She stood here, listening at the keyhole as though she were a child. Straightening her shoulders, Chloe grabbed the handle with her spare hand and pressed it.
“I trust he’ll not come ’round,” her brother said, shrugging into his jacket. “But in the event he does…” His words trailed off.
Brother and loyal servant stared back at Chloe.
Joseph cleared his throat and tucked the ivory vellum inside the front of his jacket. Most other servants would have averted their gaze. They would have dipped a perfunctory bow and scurried off. Joseph smiled, a kindly smile that met his rheumy eyes. One that belied the tension spilling from her brother’s taut frame. “Lady Chloe.”
“Joseph.” She acknowledged his greeting with a smile.
That seemed to spring her brother into action. He started across the room. “You should not be out of your bed,” he bit out.
Chloe made a show of pressing both palms to the head of her cane. “And why is that?” she returned with an equal terseness. “Because it is far easier to make decisions and discuss my future when I’m conveniently abed?”
Her brother jerked to an abrupt stop. Color suffused his cheeks. How very predictable her brother was, and had always been. Even with the great changes brought by his marriage to Jane, he still would be the proper lord, mindful of appearances and decorum. He smoothed his palms along immaculate lapels. “Thank you, Joseph. That will be all.”
After another bow, Joseph slipped from the room, but not before offering her a commiserative wink. That slight, teasing response, in light of her family’s—and the entire household’s—grimness, righted what had become an uncertain world, restoring Chloe to her usual self.
“Well?” she demanded as soon as the faint click of the door signified that she and Gabriel were alone.
“You should not be down here,” Gabriel repeated, joining her at the front of the room.
She leveled an arch look at him. “If you had seen to answering my missives, I would not have found my way to your office.”
“Touché,” he muttered, scraping a hand through his hair in a wholly un-Gabriel-like way. That break in his composure provided a glimpse into the effects last evening had left. “Let me help you to a seat.”
“I am fine,” she said impatiently, limping over to the new, dark leather button sofa. She lowered herself slowly into the crisp folds. And waited.
And continued waiting.
Her brother was always contemplative, and never given to filling voids of silence, but even this quiet did not fit with his usual composure.
Chloe searched her gaze over his face.
The grim set to Gabriel’s mouth, the dark circles under his eyes all bespoke the direness that had followed them from Lord Waterson’s affair.
Unease knocked around her breast. For there was something more real, more sobering in being here with her shaken eldest brother than the isolation she’d known in her rooms.
Determined once more to gain her footing over her scandal, she folded her arms. “What did he want?”
Her brother opened his mouth. He closed it. He tried a second time.
“And do not think to fob me off by pretending to not know of whom I’m speaking,” she warned. Eventually, she’d pull the truth from him.
A muscle twitched at the right corner of his mouth. “How did you…” Guilty color immediately splotched his cheeks.
Chloe arched an eyebrow. “How did I know Lord Tennyson had come to call?” With a bouquet of wilted flowers and trailing those petals in his wake. “I’ve been confined to my rooms,” she drawled. “Not a tower, Gabriel.”
Stalking over to his sideboard, Gabriel poured himself a snifter of brandy. “It doesn’t matter what he wanted,” he said. The steady stream of liquid grated on her frayed nerves. His conceit infuriated her. Again, he’d made a decision for her, and there was to be no discussion of it. He set aside his bottle and faced her. “I assured him, once more, that I have no expectations of him.” He carried his drink over, joining her at the hearth. For all intents and purposes, they might as well have been any sibling pair chatting over mundane familial matters.
Chloe narrowed her eyes on him. Once more, everything came to Gabriel’s role as head of the family. It was a wonder he’d not only allowed, but fully supported, Jane’s establishment of Mrs. Munroe’s. But then, no one and nothing could prevent her sister-in-law from conquering the whole of Great Britain if she so desired it. Striving for calm, Chloe flicked a speck of dust from the sleeve of her dress. “And what about my expectations for him?” she asked when she trusted herself to speak through her annoyance.
“For…” Gabriel gave his head a befuddled shake.
“Lord Tennyson,” she said simply as he sipped his brandy.
Her brother choked on his swallow, dissolving into a sputtering fit, until tears streamed down his face. Leaning across her seat, she slapped him hard between the shoulder blades.
“You have none of him or for h-him,” he finally said when his paroxysm had faded to an intermittent cough. “You’d be wise to have no expectations for one such as Tennyson.”
Yes, there was certainly some truth there. “Given Philippa’s first husband was one of the most proper peers in London and nearly killed her in his hopes for an heir, I think I have good reason to have limited expectations of most gentlemen,” she pointed out.
Gabriel was already shaking his head. “Tennyson is different even from Winston.”
“Why?” she pressed, settling back in her seat, wholly warmed to her argument. “Because he presents himself precisely as he is to the world?” She smiled drolly. “I would venture there’s something at least honest in it.” The scandalous Marquess of Tennyson didn’t make himself out to be anything more or anything less than what he was—the wicked image he presented was precisely what he was. “It is the ones who don a façade who are to be feared,” she murmured softly, a reminder to herself.
As though you require any reminders.
She shivered as the unwanted memories that would forever be with her whispered to the surface.
I’ll find you now, chit. If you come out now, it will go easier for you…
Gabriel set his drink down hard on the rose-inlaid table beside them, jerking her back to the moment. “You cannot even begin to fathom the depth of Tennyson’s depravity.”
You needn’t put either of us through this show. You are on… your seventh Season now? Certain freedoms are permitted more seasoned women.
She cursed the blush she felt burning up her cheeks, giving thanks for the cover of darkness that concealed that telling reaction. “On what do you base your opinion of Lord Tennyson?” she interjected, infusing curiosity into the query. “Rumors? Gossip?” She smiled wryly and continued on before her brother could speak. “Or have you yourself kept company with the gentleman?”
“Do not be silly,” he sputtered, surging to the edge of his chair. “Kept company with him?” he muttered, giving his head a shake. He grabbed his brandy.
“Ah.” Chloe inclined her head. “Then rumors.”
Gabriel paused with his snifter halfway to his mouth. “Do not.”
She held her hands up, settling her features into her most innocent expression. “I couldn’t even begin to gather what you’re speaking about.”
Her brother jabbed a finger in her direction. “Do not make me to be the dishonorable one.” His nostrils flared. “I would never dare sully the reputation of an innocent lady as Tennyson did you. The way he has countless other women.”
That was the manner of the world they lived in. Where, as far as ladies were concerned, appearances mattered most, and the world saw nothing more than the surface. Where one’s insistence that nothing untoward had taken place couldn’t be believed by one’s brother because of the reputation of the perceived offender.
Her patience snapped. “Sully a lady’s reputation? He carried me injured to a nearby sofa.” That was not all it had been. His touch had been electric, hot and dangerously tempting, the kind of forbidden caress for which virtuous ladies traded their reputations. “It was not as though we’d snuck inside a theater alcove and toppled out after stealing an embrace.” As her always staid brother had been discovered with his now wife—then Chloe’s former companion.
Gabriel’s color heightened. “That was different.”
“Why?” She arched a brow. “Because it was your scandal? Or because you are a man.”
“Because you are my sister,” he gritted out.
“It is always different when it is someone else.” She pursed her lips. “Nay. It is always different when it is a woman involved.”
He jumped up. “My only intention is to protect you.”
How could he not see that he exercised the same control he had with Jane following their scandal? “Just like you attempted to protect Jane after you were caught in flagrante delicto?” she asked gently.
He recoiled like one who’d taken a blow to the belly. “We are happy—”
She lifted a finger, staying his defense, needing him to see. “Just because the end result was your loving union does not make your masterminding aspects of her life acceptable.”
Gabriel dragged a hand over his face.
Grabbing her cane, she shoved herself to her feet. With her spare hand, she took one of his in her own. “I love you, Gabriel, and I know you love me. But loving me in return and protecting me is not making determinations on information I should be in possession of.”
They stood there, locked in a battle.
Gabriel was the first to look away. “I should not have ignored your summons today,” he conceded.
She grinned wryly. “No. You shouldn’t have.” Her smile withered at his next words.
“But neither do I regret denying Tennyson access to you,” he said flatly. “He’s a scoundrel, in dire financial straits, and his coming here today is testament to the fact that he is a fortune hunter.”
“He offered to marry me?” It made sense. How else to account for his earlier visit and the hothouse flowers he’d arrived with? And yet… the wickedest rake in England had been willing to cede his bachelor state and take a bride. She chewed at her lower lip. The marquess couldn’t know what her dowry was—or was not. Nor had the man who’d backed out of Lord Waterson’s office with horror in his eyes been one who’d so easily consign himself to the parson’s mousetrap. “It doesn’t make sense,” she said quietly.
“It does if he’s financially bankrupt,” he said. She started, unaware she’d spoken aloud. “His wagering and whor—” Gabriel coughed into his hand. “Other activities have destroyed a once-great fortune of a once-respectable family.” Her brother spoke with an air of finality, as one who would not—nay, could not—be reasoned with.
And standing, the dull throb of her ankle a muted pain, she saw her life stretched out before her: the sister of a domineering brother who meant well, but whose decision ultimately prevailed. “I see,” she said softly, seeing too much, all too well.
Gabriel adjusted his cravat. “I am journeying to Leeds.”
She was already shaking her head. Her dearest friend and brother now awaited the birth of their first child, and Gabriel would impose on even that. “Imogen—”
“Mother cannot receive word from the scandal sheets that make their way to the country about… about… this.”
It was decided. That much was clear in the hard set of his jaw. A sound of disgust slipped from her lips as she spun with all the grace she could muster and shuffled slowly to the door.
“Chloe,” he called after her. “Let me help you abovestairs.”
“I am fine,” she bit out.
The floorboards groaned, indicating he’d moved.
“I said I am fine,” she said sharply, letting herself out.
Her brother wisely fell back.
And even as every step proved excruciating and moisture beaded on her brow, outrage kept her moving forward. Resentment at a woman’s lot sent frustration knocking around her chest. There were no freedoms permitted her. There never had been. This home had represented a prison when she’d been a child, one where she’d suffered through tortures better suited to Newgate, and now, it was a different prison. One imposed in a bid to keep her safe, but stealing control and power.
As if in a mocking echo of that very thought, heavy footfalls depressed nearby floorboards.
She paused, shooting a quick glance over her shoulder.
Gabriel lifted a sheepish palm. “I’m merely making certain you don’t require any assistance.”
Where were you ten, fifteen years ago? That unfair scream reverberated silently around the chambers of her mind. Mayhap it was guilt that drove him now. Mayhap it was regret for not having been there when he should have been. “I do not require any assistance.” Not sparing another look back, she resumed her trek.
Minutes? Hours? Later, she’d managed the slow climb of the stairs and found her way to her rooms. The same thrill of accomplishment that had met her earlier efforts now felt hollow, an empty victory that merely reiterated her absolute powerlessness.
Her chest heaving from her exertions, she pressed her door handle. The door hinges squeaked, blaringly loud, as she let herself inside.
As soon as she’d closed the door behind her, she squeezed her eyes shut and collapsed against the panel. Her breath came in quick little spurts. Damning her brother. Damning her circumstances. Damning herself and… Lord Tennyson. Chloe grimaced. “It is hardly his fault,” she muttered, opening her eyes. “It is—” Her words came to a jarring halt. The cane slipped from her fingers.
The Marquess of Tennyson flashed a wolfish smile. “In my experience, it is invariably a gentleman’s fault,” he whispered and followed the droll observation with a wink.
As the cane fell to the floor, Chloe shrieked.
Lord Tennyson slapped his gloved fingers over her lips, swallowing the sound. The lingering clatter of her walking stick upon the hardwood floor sounded like a shot at night.
“Chloe.” The voice boomed from the hallway, and Chloe and the marquess looked to the door. He sprang into action. With his spare hand, Lord Tennyson reached past her and turned the lock.
Oh, bloody hell. Gabriel had been following her. Of course he would have made sure she’d gotten to her rooms. Her heart nearly beat a rhythm outside her chest. She cast a frantic look up at the blighter who threatened her reputation—for a second time.
“Quiet,” the marquess warned, nearly soundless against her ear.
“Chloe?” Her brother jiggled the door handle. If he learned the marquess was in here, there would be no help for it—he’d call the man out. Nor could there be any doubt that Gabriel, who’d never so much as sparred at Gentleman Jackson’s, would be destroyed at dawn by the blackguard. A man who’d built a reputation as a dastard had surely scores of duels to his name and experience. “The brother calls,” Lord Tennyson whispered against her ear, his breath a cool sough upon her heated skin. “Respond.” It was a shockingly strong command from a man who seemed too indolent to muster anything more than boredom in his speech. Lord Tennyson removed his hand slowly.
“Chloe.” Gabriel pounded at the door.
“I am fine,” she called out. “I…”
“You hurt your ankle,” the marquess supplied quietly.
“I hurt my ankle,” she repeated.
The rattling stopped. “May I come in?”
Panic mounting, she glanced up at her captor.
He arched a golden eyebrow.
“N-no,” she managed to force out. “I don’t want to speak any more. I’ve said all there is to say for now.” Silence met her pronouncement. That would deter him. He’d believe she’d gone off to nurse her frustrations and annoyances.
Unknowing all the while that she entertained the wickedest rake in England.
As if to punctuate that very thought, Lord Tennyson stroked his hand down the curve of her hip. She pinched his thigh. The efforts proved ineffectual against the heavily muscled contour under his black breeches. “Stop it,” she gritted out.
“My apologies,” Gabriel said tersely, incorrectly, but fortunately taking the directive as one meant for him. “It was never my intention to do anything but help this day. I will allow you your rest now.”
The quiet tread of his footfalls faded into silence.
And the ramifications of that hit her like a lightning bolt.
I am alone with the Marquess of Tennyson.
Chloe opened her mouth to blister his ears, but he touched a fingertip to her lips. “You are rot at subterfuge, love. Have a care unless you want me facing your brother at dawn.”
She clamped her lips closed.
“That is better,” he murmured.
Capturing her about the waist, he drew her back against his chest. Panic cloyed at her breast. The agony of her ankle forgotten, she shoved against him.
He pressed his lips close to her temple, the blend of vanilla and chocolate on his breath an innocent contradiction to the threat that poured off him in waves. “If your stuffy brother were scandalized by the sight of us in Lord Waterson’s office, whatever would he say if he were to see us now?”
Her stomach churned violently.
For… no one would see. She’d allowed her maid to retire for the night and ordered Gabriel gone. The whole house—including the servants—slept, meaning she was well and truly alone with the Marquess of Tennyson.
What have I done?