“But I couldn’t, Tony!” Ellen wailed as Tony unlocked the gilt and white door to the hotel suite. “After we’d come so far, I simply couldn’t just give up on them. I would have come on alone…”
“I know you would have,” he said in a long-suffering voice, closing the door behind them. “Which is why I’m here with you. It’s bad enough I’ve aided in the destruction of your reputation. I’m not going to abandon you besides.”
“Dear Tony,” she said. “You take these things too seriously.” She glanced around her at the elegantly appointed drawing room. “This is lovely,” she said, moving over to inhale the fragrance of the roses in the crystal vase. “Do you realize I’ve never been in a hotel before?”
“What about Paris?” he inquired, stripping off his gloves and hat. “You visited for a while, after…”
“After I was jilted?” she supplied with surprising equanimity. For some reason the old pain had vanished, melted away. One more shameful reminder that it had simply been her pride, not her heart, that was wounded. “I did. But I stayed with one of Lizzie’s cousins. Tell me, is it very noisy in a hotel?”
“Not any worse than a country inn, Ellen. Just a little grander.”
“You know, Tony, I like it,” she said naively. “Do you suppose we might stay a few days once we retrieve Ghislaine? She’ll provide an admirable chaperon, and we won’t need to worry about gossips.”
“Let’s worry about that after I locate the missing couple,” Tony said repressively, moving past her and glancing into the bedroom beyond. Whatever he saw displeased him, for he turned back to her with a fearsome scowl on his face. “I’m going out to see what I can discover. I don’t want you to leave this room.”
“You sound like my father,” she grumbled, making a face.
“And it’s a tragedy you never learned to obey him,” he shot back.
“Now that’s where you’re dead wrong. I’ve been a meek, obedient female most of my life. A dutiful daughter, a helpful sister, a dependable friend. And I’m going to end my days a meek, kindly aunt to all my hopeful nieces and nephews. Surely one brief fling of madness will be overlooked in such an otherwise respectable life,” she said.
His scowl lifted for a moment as he stared at her for a long moment. “Is that how you see your life?” he asked softly.
She didn’t want to look at him. These last few days her longing for him had grown to unmanageable proportions, longing for his comfort, his humor, his tenderness. Longing for something more, something she didn’t dare put a name to, something that was set off by too long a perusal of his tall, muscular form, his handsome face, his sleepy eyes and lazy smile. She turned and walked to the large window, staring out at the elegant park surrounding the hotel. “That’s the lot of most women,” she said. “We do as we’re told, we abide by other people’s decisions, we’re tossed back and forth with no choice of our own. We listen to our parents, our brothers, our husbands, and then our children. We do what’s expected of us.”
“You don’t have a husband.”
She turned and glanced at him then, but his expression was bland, unreadable. “No, I don’t.”
“It was a lucky escape. Purser wouldn’t have done for you, you know. He was a prosy little bore, a bully, with little wit or’ grace. He would have immured you in some parsonage with a half a dozen brats and spent your inheritance. You could have done far better.”
“I
had no better offers,” she said, unable to keep a mournful note out of her voice. “Besides, I like children.”
“So do I.”
She stared at him, uncomprehending. Before she could ask him what he meant, he sketched a bow. “I’m not certain when I’ll return. You will stay indoors, won’t you?”
She cast a longing look at the bright sunshine beyond the window. “If you insist,” she said reluctantly.
“I insist.”
She remained at the window, half her mind registering the sound of the closing door. There were people outside, well-dressed, happy-looking people, including children. All in all, this adventure hadn’t been nearly as dangerous as she had expected it to be.
To be sure, Tony’s company was far from peaceful. Being cooped up in his presence for day after day had proved dangerously exhilarating. But the pleasure of Tony’s presence carried its own form of frustration. Trapped with her in the carriage, then on shipboard, he’d been punctiliously correct, and all her efforts at teasing him had gotten her nowhere.
She could trace it back to that night in Scotland, the night they’d shared a bed. She wasn’t sure what else they’d shared, and she’d been too shy to inquire. When she woke the next morning, her head was pounding, her mouth was tender, and her heart was aching. She was alone in the decrepit little hovel, with Tony’s coat thrown over her for warmth. And she almost thought she could remember the feel of his hands on her; gentle, deft, arousing.
She’d found him outside, in conversation with Danvers, who’d arrived with a fresh team of horses and a cold breakfast. Tony hadn’t met her eyes at first, and when he did, he’d been cool and proper, friendly but distant. The perfect family friend. Not during the endless travel across the sea to Germany, or the long miles down to Vienna, had he ever alluded to that night. And something had kept her own unruly tongue silent, for fear she wouldn’t like what she’d discover. She wasn’t afraid to find that he’d despoiled her while she’d been in her cups. She was more afraid he hadn’t been interested.
She’d teased him about being staid and respectable, more to remind herself that his interest in her was brotherly than from an actual belief in his stuffiness, but ever since Scotland he’d lived up to her teasing. He’d been quiet, sober, almost repressive, watching her with an odd expression in his calm gray eyes. He didn’t tease her, didn’t flirt with her, barely touched her in the polite manner most gentleman used to assist a lady. In all, he treated her as if she were poison, and she couldn’t blame him.
After all, she’d trapped him into this dilemma. He must know perfectly well that society would hold him responsible for her ruined reputation. He must also know that society and her brother, his best friend, would dictate only one remedy.
She wouldn’t do it to him. She wouldn’t marry him, no matter how many people insisted that she should. She’d rather live in retirement, in ignominy, than to do that to the man she loved.
He needed a pretty little child, one just out of the schoolroom, to adore him without question, to present him with a large family. He didn’t need her.
She wasn’t convinced it would come to that. They had met no one during their travels, and since she already lived a great deal retired, it was unlikely that society would note her disappearance. Sir Antony was a different matter, but men’s actions weren’t questioned as closely.
And Lizzie would cover for her, even if Carmichael was in a rage over the affair. Lizzie was placid, affectionate, and knew how to manage even the most domineering of males, which her brother, Carmichael, certainly was not. Carmichael might fret and fume, but Lizzie would see that everything was covered up neatly.
All she had to do, Ellen thought mournfully, was stay put. Stay cooped up in this admittedly spacious hotel suite on a bright sunny day, when she longed to feel the warmth of the sun, the fresh spring breeze blowing through her hair. Surely Tony would never know if she made just a brief foray out into the afternoon warmth.
She glanced around the suite, looking at the room beyond, and remembered Tony’s scowl. What had displeased him so greatly? She pushed open the door and stood staring, perplexed. There was nothing but a bedroom, an elegant, tasteful bedroom, with an extremely large bed, piled high with silk pillows. It looked more than comfortable. So why had Tony scowled?
Her clothes had already been unpacked by the efficient staff of the hotel. She moved to the cupboard, seeking a light shawl, and then jumped back in shock. Her small valise had been unpacked, her clothing stored neatly on the shelves. Side by side with Tony’s fresh linen.
She slammed the door shut. It had to have been a mistake. And yet she knew, deep inside, that it wasn’t. Tony had registered them as Mr. and Mrs. Smythe-Jones of London. He’d frowned at the bed. He was going to share this suite with her. Lord knew, the poor man probably thought he would be forced to share the bed with her as well.
She’d set his mind at ease. Knowing Tony, she was sure his decision to share her suite would be unshakable and quite sound. A large cosmopolitan city such as Vienna was not the place for a woman to be without protection, even in as elegant a place as this hotel. He would only be thinking of her.
She’d insist he take the bed, and she’d make do on the sofa in the salon. She was a large female, but he was a much larger male, and he’d need that oversized bed. He’d argue, of course, but this time she wouldn’t give in.
Dear Tony, she thought, feeling a sudden stinging in her eyes. So determined to do the best thing, forced to bestir himself when he would be much happier in London, living his pleasant life of clubs and horses and balls. In trying to rescue Gilly, she’d brought Tony to the edge of disaster as well. It was going to be a close thing, extricating all of them from the morass Nicholas Blackthorne had tossed them into.
She almost hoped Tony would kill him in a duel. No, she didn’t. For one thing, Nicholas might very well kill Tony—he had already been proven to be both deadly and unscrupulous. For another, Tony was not the killing sort. If he did put a period to Nicholas’s wretched, troublemaking existence, it would cause an unavoidable scandal.
If luck was finally with them, Tony would manage to spirit Gilly back to her. She and Gilly could share the bedroom, Tony could take an adjoining room, propriety would be satisfied; and while Carmichael might fret and fume, there would be no need for noble sacrifices on Tony’s part. And as the long, empty years stretched out in front of her, she’d remember her adventure, and the way Tony sometimes seemed to look at her, as if she weren’t just an aunt or a sister or a daughter, but a woman.
The one thing she wasn’t going to do was spend the entire day immured in the hotel suite. They’d been cooped up in a carriage since early morning, and for days before that. She intended a short, decorous stroll in the sunshine. If anyone accosted her, she would simply give them the cut direct, freeze them from speaking to her. And Tony need never know.
It was cooler outside than she’d imagined, and for a moment she wished she’d brought her shawl. She’d been unable to open that damning cupboard again, too unsettled by the sight of their snowy linen side by side, and she wrapped her arms around her as the wind whipped her skirts back against her legs. For a moment she was tempted to turn around and retreat, but the thought of those long years stretching out in front of her stopped her. She’d come halfway across Europe to rescue her best friend. Surely she wasn’t going to be intimidated by a little fresh air and company.
She set off resolutely, determined to make good use of her time, when a voice broke through her abstraction. A familiar, British voice. One that filled her with dread.
“I say, it’s Lady Ellen, isn’t it?” The arch tones floated over to her. She’d made the mistake of halting at the first sound of a genteel “yoo-hoo,” and she couldn’t very well pretend not to hear. “Lady Ellen Fitzwater?”
Ellen turned, and her heart sank to her slippered feet. Of all the people to have run into, endless miles from home, Augusta Arbuthnot was the absolute worst.
She plastered a correct smile on her face as she advanced to the woman seated on a marble bench, wrapped in layers and layers of clothing. “Lady Arbuthnot,” she murmured, taking the clawlike hand in her own shamefully ungloved one. “What a pleasure to see you. I had no idea you were in Vienna.”
“My husband was posted here last year,” she said with an airy little wave of her plump hand. “It’s a lucky thing for me our house is being painted. I can’t stand the fumes, so Burris and I are spending the week at the hotel. If we hadn’t been, I might not have run into you. My daughter will be so pleased to see you.”
Lady Arbuthnot was one of the most malicious gossips ever to frequent London. The daughter of a duke, she took great pleasure in making certain that those who were honored by her company lived up to her very strict standards. Those who failed to do so were given the cut direct. Ellen had always basked in her approval until she’d made the unprecedented move of retiring on her own to the country, but Lady Arbuthnot appeared to overlook such shocking behavior in her pleasure at discovering a fellow countrywoman, one who might be possessed of the latest gossip from England.
“How is Cordelia?” Ellen asked desperately, shivering in the bright sunlight, hoping and praying there might be a chance she could squeak through this encounter.
It was a vain hope. Lady Arbuthnot’s eyes had narrowed as she took in Ellen’s ungloved hand. “Where is your maid, my dear?” she inquired in a steely voice. “And who has accompanied you this far away from your home? Am I to have the pleasure of seeing your sister-in-law Fitzwater this afternoon?”
“Lizzie’s in England. She’s about to have another—”
Lady Arbuthnot’s face grew positively icy as Ellen almost committed the unforgivable breach of mentioning pregnancy in polite society. “Then who has accompanied you?” she asked flatly.
Ellen’s mind was an absolute blank as she searched for real or fictional relatives who could be cast on the altar of Lady Arbuthnot’s curiosity. “I… er… that is…” she stammered, feeling her face flush.
“I see,” Lady Arbuthnot said, rising to her full height, many inches lower than Ellen’s miserable form, staring past her, her narrow eyes dark with outrage. “I am horrified.” She turned and stalked away, just as her daughter Cordelia came toward them, a welcoming smile wreathing her pretty face.
Her mother caught her as she was about to reach Ellen, yanking her back with a few hissed words. The smile vanished from Cordelia’s face, and a moment later she was whisked away from her old friend’s contaminating presence.
“Didn’t I warn you to stay in your room?” Tony’s voice came from behind her, sounding infinitely weary.
Ellen blinked the tears away from her eyes before turning to face him. “You did. And now I’ve ruined everything. You have every right to be furious, Tony,” she said unhappily. “But I couldn’t …”