He shrugged easily, though his heart had shriveled. “Or perhaps not.”
Thomas stirred in his seat. “I wouldn’t think you’d be inclined to go to any more fairs.”
Lady Phoebe perked up. “Why do you say that?”
Griffin arched an eyebrow at his brother, a sudden memory lightening his mood.
“Because Griffin nearly got himself killed by a pack of traveling tinkers at the last fair he attended,” Thomas drawled.
“Really?” Phoebe leaned forward.
“Indeed. He was in the act of stealing—”
“Merely examining,” Griffin interjected.
“Stealing,” Thomas rolled over him with his parliamentary voice, “a trinket of some kind.”
“A penknife,” Griffin murmured to Phoebe. “It had a ruby on the hilt.”
Thomas snorted. “Paste, most likely. In any event, one of the tinkers, a man of at least six feet tall, caught him by the scruff of the neck, and had I not intervened, I would be one brother shorter today.”
Griffin smiled wryly, putting down the knife and taking a sip of wine. “Even then Thomas was rather renown for his oratory.”
Thomas grinned and Griffin remembered that long-ago day. The sudden fear, the complete relief and gratitude when his bigger, older brother had come to his rescue. He looked down at his plate, nudging the knife with his fingertip. That time seemed centuries ago now.
“How old were you?” Hero asked softly.
He inhaled and looked up, meeting her far-too perceptive eyes. “Nearly twelve.”
She nodded and the conversation moved on to a piece of gossip Miss Picklewood had heard.
But Griffin was silent, contemplating that past when he and Thomas had been so close.
And the present when they were so very far apart.
Chapter Nine
Queen Ravenhair looked at the offerings of her three suitors and nodded regally. “Thank you,” she said, and led them into the dining room where she turned the conversation to other matters.
But that night as Queen Ravenhair stood upon her balcony, the little brown bird flew to the railing. She took the bird into her cupped palms and saw that he had a string about his neck, and at the end of the string was a small iron nail.
And then she smiled. For her people used nails to build their houses, and that—her people and their homes—was the foundation of her kingdom….
—from Queen Ravenhair
Hero stared at herself in her dressing room mirror the next afternoon and wondered what sort of woman let her fiancé’s brother make love to her. The woman in the mirror looked the same as she remembered—widely set gray eyes, neatly coiffed red hair, steady, serene gaze—everything in place, in fact. But somehow she was different than the person she’d thought herself just a week before. That woman—that Hero—would never have sinned, would’ve scoffed at the mere suggestion that she might.
And yet she had.
Hero lightly touched a curl at her temple.
“It’s quite lovely, my dear.” Lady Mandeville’s voice broke into her thoughts.
Hero glanced down at herself. Yards of shimmering pale silk apricot swathed her form, pulled back in front to reveal a cream underskirt embroidered with green, blue, and pink posies. The embroidery continued along the seams of the dress and framed the deep, round neckline. It was indeed a lovely dress.
Why, then, did she feel like weeping?
“You do like it, don’t you?” Lady Mandeville inquired. “We can have it remade or have an entirely new one made if you don’t. There’s still time before the wedding.”
“No, no,” Hero said quickly. “It’s a lovely dress. The seamstresses have done a wonderful job.”
The little woman kneeling at her feet flashed her a grateful smile before bending again to the hem.
She’d always known who she was, Hero reflected. A lady of principles. A woman with compassion and a few ideals, but one who had a level head on her shoulders. She’d always prided herself on her common sense. Yesterday had been a very sad blow to both common sense and the image she’d had of herself. She was four and twenty—a mature number of years. One would think by now that she’d have a firm grasp of who she was.
Apparently not.
“There,” the head seamstress said, sitting up. She eyed the hem critically. “We’ll take that up and then add some lace to the sleeves and bodice. It’ll be very fine when we finish, my lady, never you fear.”
Hero dutifully pivoted to eye the dress from the side. Such a perfect dress. If only the woman inside was as perfect. “I’m sure it will be very nice.”
“We’ll require three more fittings, I think. May we call upon you next Tuesday morning, my lady?” The seamstress and her helpers were already extracting her from the dress.
“That will be fine,” Hero murmured.
“I shall come to that fitting as well,” Lady Mandeville announced. “We can discuss the family jewelry and what pieces you might want to wear.”
“Of course.”
Hero met her own eyes in the mirror as the seamstresses worked around her. Calm and gray. She’d committed a sin. She wasn’t sure she could ever resurrect her perfect facade again. She should be wracked with guilt and despair and yet… and yet, doing what she had done with Lord Reading yesterday had felt fundamentally right.
Soul-deep right.
That feeling was perhaps the most disturbing thing of all.
It took another half hour to dress again. Lady Mandeville chatted lightly as Hero made her toilet, and if the older lady saw anything odd about her future daughter-in-law, she made no sign. The seamstresses left after carefully packing away Hero’s wedding dress, and then Lady Mandeville rose as well. She drew on her gloves, watching as Wesley crossed the room to fetch a jacket for Hero from the wardrobe.
“Are you sure you like the dress, my dear?” Lady Mandeville said softly.
Hero looked at her kind face and had to blink suddenly. She didn’t deserve this wonderful woman as a mother-in-law. “Oh, yes.”
“It’s just”—Lady Mandeville touched Hero’s shoulder lightly with one finger—“you seem rather melancholy this afternoon.”
Hero smiled, pulling the crumbling shards of her facade about her. “Bridal nerves, I expect.”
Lady Mandeville looked uncertain, but in the end she nodded. “Of course. But if you would like to talk to me about anything—anything at all—well, I do hope we’ll have that sort of a relationship.”
“I hope so too,” Hero said in a rush. How she longed to confess all her doubts and worries! But Lady Mandeville would no longer look at her quite so kindly if she knew how Hero had deceived her son. “Thank you.”
Lady Mandeville gave one last tug to her gloves. “Good, my dear. I’m glad. Now, don’t keep Thomas waiting too long. I know he expects to take you driving this afternoon.” So saying, the lady bid her farewell and left.
Hero donned a pretty green jacket with Wesley’s help.
Wesley stood back to admire her work and nodded, satisfied. “My Lord Mandeville will be quite taken with you today, my lady.”
Hero smiled slightly. “Thank you, Wesley.”
She descended the stairs and found Mandeville already waiting for her in the sitting room.
“My dear,” he said as she entered. “Your beauty puts the sun to shame.”
She curtsied. “Thank you, my lord.”
“And how are the wedding plans progressing?” he asked as he guided her from the sitting room and down the front steps. “I hear the dress is nearly finished.”
“Yes, only a few more fittings.” Hero glanced at Mandeville curiously. This might be the most personal interest he’d ever shown in her. “Your mother told you before she left?”
He nodded and he helped her into his open carriage. “My mother loves a wedding. You should’ve seen the flurry she was in when Caroline was married. I think her only disappointment now is that a son does not require a trousseau.”
Hero glanced at her hands folded in her lap and hid a smile at the thought of Mandeville being outfitted in new stockings and chemises. “I quite like your mother. She’s been a great help with the wedding plans.”
“I am happy to hear it.” He concentrated on the ribbons for a moment, guiding his lovely matched bays into the crowded London street.
Hero tilted her face up surreptitiously. The sun was out today, a welcome last stand of autumn. The London traffic ebbed and flowed around the carriage in a giant stream. A heavy miller’s cart trudged along ahead of them, and sedan chairmen deftly wove in and out of slower pedestrians, their passengers jogging along in upright boxes. A few soldiers on horses clattered by, ignoring the shouted insults of a pair of butcher’s boys who’d been splattered by the horses’ hooves. A single tattered woman bawled a song by the side of the road, her two children at her feet with hands outstretched.
“She likes you, you know,” Mandeville said.
“Your mother?”
“Yes.” He slapped the reins as the carriage cleared the miller’s cart, and the horses stepped into a trot. “She has a dowager house, naturally, but I find it’s easier if the two of you get along.”
“Of course,” Hero murmured. She straightened the edge of her glove. “Did she like your first wife?”
Mandeville glanced at her warily. “You mean Anne?”
Was it such an odd question? “Yes.”
He shrugged, returning his gaze to the horses. “Mother manages to get along with nearly everyone, it seems. She never showed any outward dislike or disapproval.”
“Did she show any approval, though?”
“No.”
She watched him for a moment as he handled the reins with expert ease. He was a private man, she knew, but in only weeks they would be man and wife. “Did you love her?”
He flinched as if she’d said something obscene. “My dear…”
“I know it’s none of my business,” she said softly. “But you never speak of her to me. I just would like to know.”
“I see.” He was silent a moment, a slight frown between his eyebrows. “Then I shall endeavor to assuage your curiosity. I was… fond of Anne and quite sad when she died, but I hold no disappointed love for her. You need have no worries there.”
She nodded. “And Reading?”
“What about him?”
“I’m afraid I’ve heard the rumors,” Hero said carefully. She remembered Reading’s own reply on the matter when she pressed him about whether he’d seduced his brother’s wife. No, God, no. “Do you truly believe your brother could’ve betrayed you so?”
“I don’t have to believe,” he said very drily. “Anne herself told me.”
* * *
THOMAS WATCHED HIS fiancée’s delicately curved eyebrows arch in surprise and felt irritation crawl under his skin. What had she thought? That he’d harbored some insane suspicion without any evidence?
And why the hell was she quizzing him anyway?
He faced forward again, guiding the bays around a shepherd with a herd of sheep milling in the middle of the road. They were nearing Hyde Park, and he longed for the open air. Wished he could give the bays their heads and let them run wildly down the lane.
Hardly a fitting activity for a marquess.
“I’m sorry,” Lady Hero murmured beside him, quietly contrite.
Well, even the most perfect of women became emotional once in a while. They could hardly help it, made the way they were. Anne had been a mercurial creature. Lavinia was passionate, but more controlled. In comparison to them, Hero was a model of restraint, really.
He sighed. “It was a long time ago in any case. I cannot ever forgive Griffin, but I can certainly try and lay the matter aside and go on. As I’ve said, you needn’t worry about what happened in my marriage to Anne. It’s in the past.”
For a moment he tried to remember what Anne had looked like that terrible night. She’d been hysterical, weeping as she tried to push her poor, dead babe from her body. At one time he’d thought the sights and sounds of that night would be engraved in his nightmares for the rest of his life. But now all he could remember was the still, gray body of the baby, its features curiously flattened, and the thought that all of the blood and hysteria hadn’t mattered anyway. The child had been a girl.
A tiny, dead girl.
“I see,” Lady Hero said beside him.
Thank God the gates of the park were within sight. He hated thoughts like these, useless and dispiriting. Ones that challenged his authority and his place in the universe: A marquess should not have to hear the dying confession of infidelity from his wife. Should not have to see the dead body of his baby girl.
“We won’t discuss this again,” he said. “Now that you’ve had your questions answered.”
She didn’t say anything, but then she didn’t have to. Naturally she would acquiesce to his wishes. It occurred to him that Lavinia would’ve kept arguing the point. Odd thought—and hardly helpful. He endeavored to put it from his mind.
The park was crowded today, the fine weather drawing out all walks of society. He guided the bays into the slowly moving line of carriages and horses revolving about one end of Hyde Park.
“I saw Wakefield yesterday,” he commented.
“Did you?” Her voice seemed a little cool, but then she was probably distracted by the passing parade.
“Indeed. He tells me that there is a possibility that he soon will have a titled gin distiller in his grasp.”
She stiffened beside him. Many women found political talk dreary, but he’d thought her more tolerant than most. After all, she was sister to one of the foremost parliamentarians of the day. And of course she knew of his own political ambitions.
“Do you know who?” she asked, calming his sudden worry.
“He hasn’t said. Most likely keeping the matter under his hat until he’s certain. Your brother is a dark horse. Ah, there’s Fergus.” Thomas nodded to Lord Fergus sitting with his rather plain-faced wife. Behind them sat their two daughters, also, alas, plain-faced. “He’s in the naval department,” he murmured sotto voce as he pulled the bays alongside the Fergus carriage.
And then he was proud, for Lady Hero graciously nodded at the introduction of the ladies and then complimented Lady Fergus on her bonnet, prompting the lady’s sallow complexion to turn pink. The two girls leaned slightly forward, and all four were soon in animated discussion.
“A good match, Mandeville,” Fergus rumbled after they’d discussed the latest Lords scandal. “You’re a lucky man.”
“Indeed, indeed,” Thomas murmured.
His recent ridiculous doubts fled. Lady Hero was above all a calm and demure creature, not given to the type of awful drama Anne often acted out.
Fergus nattered on for another ten minutes—the man was prone to be didactic—and then they made their farewells.
Thomas took up the reins again. “I hope you didn’t find talking to Lady Fergus and her daughters too boring.”
“Not at all,” Lady Hero replied. “They were quite nice. Besides, I know how important these kinds of little meetings are for you and your career, Mandeville. I want to do everything I can to aid you.”
He smiled. “I keep forgetting that your perception rivals your beauty, my lady. I am indeed a lucky man.”
“You flatter me.”
“Don’t all ladies wish to be flattered?”
She didn’t answer and he glanced her way. Lady Hero’s face was in profile as she looked fixedly to the side. He followed her gaze and felt as if he’d been struck in the belly.
Lavinia Tate was two carriages over, laughing up into the face of that Samuel fellow who’d escorted her to Harte’s Folly. She wore a quilted jacket the color of spring poppies, and the sunlight glinted off her damnably bright red hair. If any man in Hyde Park hadn’t noticed her yet, it was because he was dead.
Or a fool.
“Who is she to you?” Lady Hero asked quietly.
“No one
,” Thomas said through stiff lips.
“Yet you stare at her as if she’s someone very important indeed.”
“What?” He tore his eyes from the sight of Lavinia and looked at his fiancée, her face too pale, her hair merely a tasteful, natural shade of light copper. She was a watercolor next to Lavinia’s vivid oil. “She’s… someone I once knew.”
“You no longer know her?” Lady Hero tilted her head in gentle inquiry.
Lavinia’s laugh floated on the autumn breeze.
Thomas wanted suddenly to shout at Lady Hero, to make that gentle expression fall from her face, to shake her until she quit her questions and her perceptive looks, and then he wanted to jump from the carriage and plant a facer in that stupid young buck with Lavinia.
But he did none of that, of course. Gentlemen of his rank never acted in such a way. Instead, he merely urged the horses on, waiting interminably to pass Lavinia’s carriage.
“She’s in my past,” he said through cold lips. “I met her when I was rather down, I’m afraid.”
He remembered when he was the man who she laughed up at, the way it had made his chest swell. And he remembered the sight of her in the morning light, so carnal, so wise. He’d been able to see every single line in her face, the slight sag to her breasts, and strangely it hadn’t made a whit of difference. She’d been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Would ever see.
He cleared his throat. “That’s in the past now. We’ll not talk of it.”
She sighed beside him, the sound sad and somehow lonely. “Perhaps you’re right. It’s best to put aside what might have come before. Our future together should be what we focus on.”
She laid a gloved hand on his elbow, slim and comfortable. “We’ll make an admirable pair, you and I, Thomas.”
He was able to summon a smile to give her. “Yes. Yes, we will.”
And then they were finally past Lavinia Tate.
WESLEY WAS PUTTING the finishing touches on Hero’s toilet the next morning when Phoebe burst in the room.
“You’ll never guess!”