The Love List (6 page)

“I know who you are,” Hestia Wright whispered.  She sank down onto the bench that Letty had just vacated.

Brynne stood silent a moment, absorbing this.  This was hardly the welcome she’d hoped for—or imagined at least a thousand times over the last hours.  “Then you’ll know that my father . . .”

“Your betrothed,” the other woman cut in, her voice sharp.  “I know who your betrothed is.”  She waved a hand, beckoning, and Brynne answered, sitting down beside her on the bench.  Hestia Wright ran a caressing finger along her hair, across the breadth of her cheek, and then she reached down to grip her hand tight. 

“Dear God,” she whispered.  “How I’ve felt for you, feared for you, but I never dreamed that you would . . .”  Her other hand shook as she raised it to her mouth, but it couldn’t contain a bitter, almost hysterical laugh.  “The irony of it—of you coming here, seeking me out—I can scarcely take it in.”

Brynne’s breath caught.  “Then you’ll help me?  I can stay?”

Hestia Wright’s beauty was legendary.  Even in mussed nightclothes she might have been a work of art, an idealized figure of warm golden curls and an iced sapphire gaze sprung straight from a master’s brush.  Brynne could only watch, hopeful, helpless, as those renowned eyes narrowed, staring over her shoulder at a future she could not see.

“Miss Wright?”

“Yes.”  Her grip tightened around both of Brynne’s hands then.  “Dear God help us all, but yes.  You can stay.”

Three

I have danced through the halls of the finest palaces, dandled Princes on my knee, entertained the greatest minds of an Age.  But I have also knelt next to a bleeding woman in the meanest streets, plucked infants from the bodies of their dying mothers and tried to blaze a torch of light against the black depths of despair threatening so many.  An extraordinary life it has been, and a happy result is many friends in places both high and low.  Remember that as you listen to my story.  It begins in Bath . . . 

—from the journal of the infamous Miss Hestia Wright

London, Three Months Later

Weary, the Duke of Aldmere shifted in his seat.  A futile effort, since his discomfort came from within and was in no way due to the furniture.  To the contrary, he regularly referred to the padded leather monstrosity as his
throne
.  Crafted specifically to his measurements and situated elegantly behind an expansive desk of polished mahogany, the thing might well have been gilded and bejeweled, for without a doubt it was from this seat that he ruled an empire.

A duke’s days—his days—were filled with duty, responsibility and obligation.  Estate management and agricultural concerns vied with financial matters and business interests, and that didn’t take into account his political duties or the piles of social invitations that arrived daily.  Morning, noon and night Aldmere granted audiences and granted favors, he took his seat in the Lords, he attended meetings and chaired committees, and very occasionally he allowed himself to be rigged out in formal dress and dangled like a brass ring before the hopeful mamas and daughters of the
beau monde
.

Thus was a dukedom run, and his life lived.  His days stretched out before him, endlessly busy, endlessly the same . . . and today, just seemingly endless.

“Your Grace?  Your Grace?”

Startled, he looked up, his attention caught by the concern in his secretary’s tone.  “Yes, Flemming.  What is it?”

“A letter, your Grace, from Killingworth Colliery.”  The man’s expression was oddly hopeful.  “Their locomotive is nearly complete and Mr. Stephenson invites you to attend the testing of it.”

This should have been exciting news.  He’d been keenly following the intriguing developments of locomotive engines in the North lately, and yet he stared at the letter, waiting for a rush of enthusiasm that would not come. 

He nodded.  “Thank you.  Just leave it there and I’ll attend to it directly.”  He lifted the report in front of him.  Five and thirty years he would mark at his next birthday.  The prime of his life, surely.  Too young to feel so jaded and . . . bored.  Too young to stare down the corridor of his remaining life and feel his ballocks shrink at the sheer meaningless of it all. 

He stifled a curse.  One might imagine that if you were afflicted with such a terrible lethargy, it might at least come with a bit of calmness or tranquility.  But oh, no.  Aldmere faced the empty years to come and suffered a surge of restless frustration that he could do nothing about.  When was the last time he’d felt simply normal, at peace?  He damned well knew the answer—he’d been fifteen years old and as green as grass.  Perhaps it was time and past to just accept the fact that he would never feel that way again.

Certainly not today, at any rate.  Flemming still stood across from him, waiting.  He didn’t look up.  “Was there something else, then?”

“Yes, sir.  I wondered,” his secretary hesitated.  “I wondered if there was something . . . special that I might do for you?”

That had him raising his head and piercing the man with a frown.  “Special?”

Flemming nodded.  “I can’t help but notice how restive you’ve been lately, your Grace.  Even the staff has mentioned it.”

Aldmere waved a dismissive hand.  “I’m fine.”

“Yes, sir.  And yet, I thought there might be something I could do to help.”

He merely glared at the man and waited.

“It’s been a while since Lord Truitt has visited, I could send round a note.  Or I could send an acceptance to one of the invitations, perhaps.”

“Good God, man, don’t do that.”  Dropping the report, he stood.  “Your concern—it is appreciated, but not necessary, Flemming.  I am fine.” 

But his secretary was not finished yet, it seemed.  “Well then, I thought that we might investigate some of the issues going before the Lords,” he said in a rush.  “A short speech, perhaps, just to awaken your old skills—”

He reared back, his fists clenching.  Flemming paled. 

Aldmere strived to tamp down the swift rise of anger.  “Be careful where you are stepping,” he growled.

“Yes, sir.  My apologies.”  His man nodded unceasingly, his eyes riveted to the desk.  “I won’t presume again, sir.”

Relenting, Aldmere scrubbed a hand along the back of his neck.  “Go along and hunt up that mineral survey from the Northumberland estate then, would you?  I need to go over it again.”

His secretary’s shoulders drooped as he trudged to his own small office off the back of the room.  Aldmere, in turn, left his desk behind and went to stand by the window, trying to curb his spiraling irritation.  Flemming’s intentions were good—but the man could have no idea of the turmoil inside of him.  Yes, he’d been a firebrand once, ready to set the world ablaze with the strength of his passion and the power of his words.  Known at school for his skills at debate and his idealistic fervor, he’d been sure that he would right wrongs and change the world. 

But he’d been forced to change his grand plans when he’d inherited the title.  And later, when he’d tried to reclaim his own dreams, fate had intervened, teaching him without mercy and with much pain, the folly of such youthful ambitions.

Yes, he’d been punished for his arrogance—but others had paid the price.  As his penance he’d learned to embrace the counsel of older, wiser heads.  And so he was left with duty and obligation, with a hollow emptiness inside of him and nothing to fill it besides this intermittent, restless ache. 

Yet it hadn’t been so intermittent lately, had it?  Discontent and agitation wouldn’t fade as it had in the past.  It had a death grip on him and had ever since that fateful night of the Dalton’s ball, when he’d walked into that library and seen—

Her
.

He gave a great start and stared out the window.  Miss Brynne Wilmott.  He wasn’t seeing things.  She was right there on the pavement in front of his house.

Surprise numbed his brain.  It rolled in waves down his spine and caught up short against an unexpected and inappropriate flush of pleasure. 

She’d caught his interest that night.  Later, he’d watched avidly as the scandal of her escape flared high and only begrudgingly died a slow demise.  Eventually the crowds and the caricaturists and scandal rags had moved on, but he hadn’t forgotten. 

Damn, but her rebellion had looked and felt so familiar.  He told himself that was the explanation for his unusual attentiveness as he watched it play out and felt something stir up from his unplumbed depths.  If he’d been younger he might have labeled the churning in his belly
dread
.  But he’d left young behind long ago, and experience had taught him the meaning of words such as
inevitability
and
cynicism
.  And so he’d wondered—was she still happy with the trade she’d made?  Or had fate already stepped in to snatch her resolve out from under her?  He’d resigned himself to never finding out.

Except that now she was here, rigid with purpose, right outside his home.  In one hand she carried a parcel.  The other gripped the wrist of a young man lagging behind her.  The boy’s reluctance was clear, but she didn’t let it slow her down.  Ignoring the fearful awe on his face, she yanked him along and marched boldly up the stairs.

Aldmere spun around.  There was something there, deep inside his chest, far below the numbing layers of endless obligation and encompassing duty.  A twitch.  Interest?  Intrigue?  He could scarcely say. 

From this distance her knock was muffled, but the ensuing argument with his butler was more easily discernible—and ringing clearer every second.  He moved abruptly away from the window and back to his desk.  Retrieving his report, he frowned down at it just as the door swung open. 

She stalked into the room, ignoring his butler’s protests and tugging the youth behind her.  And for the smallest moment in time, Aldmere stilled.  Not just physically.  All of him.  Inside and out.  Once again he found himself held in check by a peculiar green gaze.  He stared, and shockingly, felt all the tumult inside of him ease.

“Your Grace.”  The girl spoke and stepped forward.  Dropped a perfunctory curtsy and broke the spell.  And suddenly the restlessness was back with a vengeance, leaving him vibrating harder than his old music instructor’s tuning fork.

“Miss Wilmott, what a surprise,” he said smoothly.  He stood.  “It’s all right, Billings,” he said to the sputtering butler.  “I’m acquainted with the young lady.  I will see her and her friend, Mr. . . .?”

“Watts.  Joe Watts, yer honor.”  The boy—on closer viewing, Aldmere could see that he was indeed a young man, wiry, spotted and on the cusp of adulthood—snatched off his cap and worried it in his hands as Miss Wilmott relinquished his arm.

He nodded.  “Just close the door on your way out, Billings.”

She didn’t wait for the closing click of the latch.  “You made me a promise, your Grace, when last we met.”

“Hmm.”  He set the report on the desk.  “I do vividly recall the bit about no marriage proposals.  I hope you haven’t changed your mind about that.”  He gestured toward the seat before his desk and tried not to stare at her mouth.  What he recalled was the promise of a kiss that lived there.  And there it remained, waiting.  Pointedly, he turned his gaze away.

“
No one ever need know a thing about what happened here tonight
,” the girl proclaimed saucily.  Her color rode high, as did her chin.  “Were those not your very words, your Grace?”

He did not answer at first.  He just marveled at the sight of her here—so fey and dainty, such a
frivolous
looking creature, entirely out of place in this masculine shrine to power, privilege and obligation.  Yet her spine continued ramrod straight, and there was nothing frivolous in the direct and steely way she met his gaze.  She ignored the chair he’d indicated.  Instead she strode forward, up to the very edge of his desk and planted herself there, a quivering testament to indignation. 

“Were they?”  He’d forgotten the intensity of her gaze.  Emotion flowed over her face like sunlight over water. 

He blinked to clear his thoughts.  “Oh yes, they were.”  He shook his head.  “An easy promise for me to keep."

"Then why did you not?" she demanded.

He straightened.  "I kept my word, Miss Wilmott.  Though it didn't seem to guarantee your privacy, did it?"  He scowled.  "If you doubt me, then you should recall that although your name undoubtedly has become a byword in the papers, you’ll notice that mine has not.” 

Truly, though, byword was too soft a name for what she had become.  Scandal had bloomed three months ago when her disappearance from her father’s house became widely known—but that had been as nothing compared to the furor a few days later—when it was discovered just where she had gone. 

Miss Brynne Wilmott had become a sensation.  Londoners lived on a steady diet of scandal broth and her story was the thickest, meatiest offering to come down the pike in years.  Newspapers, scandal sheets and pamphlets had blanketed the streets.  The city’s caricaturists had exploded into action.  She’d been painted a villainess, a fool, a heroine or a cautionary tale, depending on who was talking and just who might be listening.  Mobs of onlookers crowded around Hestia Wright’s house for days on end.  They all wanted to see the baron’s daughter who had abandoned the safety of her father’s house and the promise of the Season’s best match to go and live in a house full of fallen women and semi-repentant whores.  Everyone repeated the story, from the most elegant parlors of the West End to the lowest taverns in the East.  Everyone in London and beyond burned with a single question:
Why?

Truth be told, the question had echoed in his own mind as well.  “I admit to being puzzled by your actions.  You begged me, that night, to keep quiet about your troubles and our meeting.  Discretion, you assured me, was the key to getting out of your predicament.”  He frowned at her.  “And yet, straight off you ran to the most notorious woman in London and ignited a scandal the likes of which London has never seen.  So tell me, Miss Wilmott, why did you do it?”