The Earl Not Taken Page 15

  Eyes wide, Nicholas took a step back. “Her mother didn’t share the letters until after the initial agreement was made?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  He stammered then regained his composure. “I was not aware of that. I assumed Lady Faith was privy to the odd courtship from the start and her mother was keeping things proper by acting as correspondent. To be honest, if you read the letters, you would have assumed the same thing. Even though they were addressed from the Countess of Dornbury, some were quite personal. It seems I have made an incorrect assumption if you are in Lady Faith’s confidence.”

  Could this be true? Had Lady Dornbury been so overzealous she wrote love letters rather than business correspondence? “I only know Faith knew nothing about you until a week before your return to England. At that point she was given leave to read your letters. And to be frank, she knows little more now.”

  “I…I…” He took a deep breath and fisted his hands at his side. “This is a surprise. I will give the matter some thought.”

  “And perhaps speak to Faith about the entire situation.” Poppy tipped her head to one side and affected a playful smile to lighten the mood but still get her point across about communication.

  “Of course.” He bowed.

  Poppy turned and went to the pianoforte where she relieved Mercy of her duties and muddled through a piece of music. Her mind spun with everything she had learned. The desire to pull the Wallflowers out of the party and tell them everything was strong. That would not go over well with the rest of the guests, though. If most of the eligible female dance partners left the room, there would be little point in continuing the dancing.

  It would have to wait. She sighed into one of three tunes she knew how to play.

  * * * *

  It was close to midnight when the knock came on her door. Poppy knew the three raps, a pause, and one more meant a Wallflower wished to enter.

  Jumping from the bed, she didn’t bother with her wrap.

  Faith pushed through before the door was fully opened. A moment later Mercy and Aurora tiptoed in as well.

  They all piled onto the bed.

  Poppy hopped in as well. “Is this an official meeting or could none of you sleep?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Faith said. “I went to Mercy’s room and found her awake as well. We thought it might be nice if we all could chat like old times, so we gathered Aurora and here we are.”

  “It is splendid to sit like this.” Poppy’s heart filled with love for the friendships she shared with these wonderful women.

  Mercy leaned back on her elbows, and her green eyes flashed. “I miss these days.”

  “But now we are all at the West Lane house.” Faith crossed her ankles, and her billowy white nightgown puffed around her.

  They probably looked like four meringues sitting on the bed.

  Aurora sighed. “Not for long. Soon each of you will marry and I’ll be left in that big house alone.”

  Confused, Poppy said, “Why would you worry over something that might take years to happen? Besides, I have no interest in marriage. If I can find a way to avoid the ominous prospect, I intend to do so.”

  Mercy laughed, but there was something hollow about the sound. “It’s not likely I’ll ever marry. I have no dowry and am far too tall.”

  “That is your aunt talking,” Faith scolded. “You are smart, lovely, and funny. You will marry if it is what you want. Besides, you’re the same one and twenty as the rest of us.”

  “That brings me to an important point, Faith.” Poppy leaned forward. “Why are you so rude to Breckenridge? Aside from the secret keeping, he is charming and handsome.”

  Throwing her arms up and letting them fall and deflate her nightgown, Faith whined. “I don’t know. Something about him brings out the worst in me. He talks of farms and houses, and I want to jump out the window.”

  “What do you want him to speak of?” Mercy cocked her head and lifted her chin. Her spectacles dipped down her nose, and she pulled them off.

  “I don’t know. Books and theater maybe. Something that gives me a clue about him.”

  “Why don’t you bring up those subjects instead of rolling your eyes and dancing as if someone has sewn your lips shut?” Poppy waited for a reply while Faith gazed into the corner.

  Faith sighed and flopped her arms down around her skirts, which had ballooned up around her. “I suppose I could try a bit harder.”

  “Or at all,” Mercy put in, popping her glasses back on to give Faith a stern look.

  Faith pulled a face. “You spent a long time talking to him tonight. Did he say anything that might give a clue what he was doing in France?”

  It was hard to determine the line between gossip and information gathering in this journey they were on. Poppy had to say something. “Did you ever read any of the letters your mother sent to Breckenridge, Faith?”

  Tucking her dainty fist under her chin, she leaned on her knees and frowned. “No. Only the ones he’d sent her. Is that significant?”

  Aurora sat forward, eyes wide. “What did you learn, Poppy?”

  “He said the way the letters were written he believed Faith had written them and Lady Dornbury had posted them in her name for propriety’s sake. He had no idea you knew nothing of the arrangement over the course of the months your mother and he were corresponding.”

  Mercy gasped. “I wonder what Lady Dornbury wrote. You believed he was telling the truth?”

  Poppy shrugged. “Before he could put on the indifferent mask he wears, he looked genuinely surprised and appalled.”

  “It is interesting, and Mother can be rather sneaky. I will give the matter some thought.” Faith focused on nothing in the corner while she did as she said.

  “On a similar yet different subject, what is going on with you and my brother, Poppy?” Aurora raised one slim eyebrow and patted her silken gold hair into place.

  Mercy sat up and leaned in. Her green eyes caught the firelight and flashed with golds and browns. A wicked smile curled her lips. “Oh yes, there does seem to be some heat there.”

  Hades’s breath, if they had all noticed, she was doing a poor job of hiding things. “Nothing is going on. We have become friends is all. You are so used to us being at each other’s throats, you are imagining more than there is.”

  Mercy narrowed her eyes and crossed her long legs under her mound of skirts. “The way he looks at you when he thinks no one is watching tells a different story.”

  “Mercy.” Poppy’s warning meant very little in this group, but she didn’t know how to stop the questions and didn’t want to lie to her dearest friends. Even avoiding the subject seemed dishonest.

  “You would be a countess.” Faith grinned in a way that said she was happy to join the fun and abandon her own problems.

  “If you care about such things,” Aurora added, teasing.

  Temper flaring, Poppy narrowed her gaze on each of her closest friends. “As you well know, I do not care about a title. I leave those concerns to my parents. I also have no desire to marry. If by some miracle I changed my mind, it would be due to a love that couldn’t be denied. The kind of love that doesn’t exist in our experience.”

  “Oh Poppy, you’re no fun.” Mercy pushed up her spectacles and turned her attention toward Aurora. “I danced with Garrett Winslow tonight. He spoke of nothing but you.”

  Aurora flushed and hugged her bent knees. “What do you mean? Why would he speak of me?”

  “He asked me about you too,” Faith said. “He wanted to know how you were and if you needed anything.”

  A deep crease formed between Aurora’s eyes. “He’s an old family friend who knows nothing of my marriage. He’s just concerned.”

  Aurora reacted with worry and maybe embarrassment. Aurora, who never cared what anyone thought for as long as Poppy had known her.

  Poppy leaned back on her pillow. “I suppose it’s of little consequence anyway. He leaves in a few weeks for Spain or Portugal. I can’t remember which. He didn’t give an exact date, though, and I had the impression as long as he’s enjoying England, he’ll be in no hurry to leave. Strange man, but I like him.”

  There was a half a second where sorrow filled Aurora’s eyes before she masked the emotion. “There you have it. He’s always wandering from one country to the next.”

  “One day he will be the Duke of Corbin. Perhaps then he will be more appealing to you, Aurora.” Faith studied her fingernails.

  “You might like to marry again one day,” Mercy said.

  Aurora sat up straight and propped her fists on her hips. “Never. Not even for a duke.”

  * * * *

  When her friends finally left, the clock had struck two bells. Poppy tried to rest, but her mind would not quiet with regard to the Wallflowers’ suspicions. Her affair with Rhys was the only thing she had kept from them in six years, and somehow it made a beautiful night seem sordid.

  A deep sorrow settled over her that she couldn’t dismiss. It was ridiculous. She was a grown woman who had made her own choices and had the most splendid night of her life.

  Poppy threw back her covers and pulled on her slippers. She walked to the door, grabbing her wrap as she went. In the hallway she tugged on the silky lavender confection.

  The house was drafty, and she pulled her wrap tighter as a shiver wracked her body just as her misery racked her mind.

  There were several identical doors along the hallway, but Poppy knew where to stop. She had made her own investigation earlier in the day to learn which room was Rhys’s. Another thing she would have to keep to herself. More tears poured down her cheeks.

  She knocked.

  A shuffling from within made it clear she had gotten his attention. Oh Zeus, what if he’d wasn’t alone? She shouldn’t have come.

  The door opened on a sleepy-eyed Rhys. Delicious in every way. He’d pulled his breeches from the evening back on, but his chest was bare, as were his calves. She’d seen him naked, yet somehow this was far more devastating.

  “Penelope, what is it? Are you hurt?” His sleepy state gone in an instant, he touched her shoulder.

  The heat of his hand scorched her through her nightclothes. Stepping inside his room was an act of madness, but she’d come this far. “I’m deeply unhappy.”

  “You’re freezing. Come by the fire. I’ll add some logs.” He wrapped an arm around her waist. It was possessive and comforting.

  She refused to look at the large bed with dark drapes or his blouse draped over a chair in the corner. The shadowy room gave away little of its content, and Poppy focused on the way his hand warmed her from head to toe. She shouldn’t have allowed it, but his touch felt too good to pull away. Sitting in one of two chairs near the hearth, she watched as a half-naked Rhys coaxed the fire higher.

  When he’d created a blaze, he knelt before her. The kindness and warmth of his expression made her admission even worse, and more tears pushed out. He thumbed one away. “Now, tell me why you are unhappy.”

  “I’m trapped with no one to talk to.” She covered her face and folded to her lap.

  Combing his fingers through her hair, he whispered, “You can tell me anything, sweetheart.”

  She looked up, captured by his startling eyes. “Don’t you see? I can’t speak to you about you.”

  Anguish reflected in those eyes she’d just admired. He took her hands and kissed them one at a time. “Then you do regret our night together.”

  “Yes. No.” Her mind was muddled with his closeness and the swirling emotions tormenting her. How to explain such a thing? He was all she had, so she forged forward. “I do not regret anything we shared together.”

  The red that had infused his neck eased back to a normal pink. Rhys tucked wayward strands behind her ear, leaned in, and kissed her cheek. “Then what is it, Penelope?”

  He might as well have branded her the way the heat of his lips seared her skin and filled her body with desire. “For more than six years, I have had the Wallflowers to tell all my secrets to. I have never kept any confidences from them. Suddenly, I’m hiding something.” She pulled her hands away and covered her face again. “I sound like a complete ninny.”

  With only a tiny chuckle, he eased her hands away from her eyes. “You are not a ninny. Why do you feel you cannot speak of our relationship with your friends?”

  “We have no relationship, Rhys. We had one night of…of… You know what it was. I can’t tell Aurora I’ve been ruined by her brother. As enlightened as the Wallflowers are, they would want you to marry me. I’m not trapping either of us into a life of misery.” She drew a long breath.

  “And marrying me could only lead to misery.” There was an odd sorrow in his statement. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, the warmth was back in his voice. “You can always speak to me, Poppy. I am your friend, but I think you underestimate the ladies. They would never want you to be unhappy no matter the circumstance.”

  It was true the Wallflowers loved her very much. Perhaps Rhys was right and she should trust them. She couldn’t look at him and kept her focus on her hands. He was too tempting. “You may be right. I will think about telling them.”

  “May I say something?” His usually assured and strong voice shook with some emotion she’d never heard before. It might have been anger, but she didn’t think so. Fear?

  “Of course. I am your friend as well.” Whatever was troubling him, she wanted to help. Seeing him distraught churned something ugly in her belly. She didn’t like it. Sliding from the chair, she knelt on the rug with him.

  Rhys closed his eyes and took a breath. She watched his throat bob several times before he opened his eyes. “The idea you consider yourself ruined because of a night that was, for me, the most wonderful of my life, is untenable. I know popular opinion is women must be virgins to have value, but your worth is not determined by your virginal status. When you begin to think like that, the only way is down. You are a beautiful and wonderful woman, and I consider that night a great gift. Please don’t sully it with regrets. You not wanting to marry is your choice, Poppy. I would…”

  He left the sentence hanging, and Poppy was not brave enough to ask what he would do. Leaning forward, she hugged him. “That is very kind of you to say.”

  His caress started at her shoulders and eased down to her bottom. “I would never lie to you.”

  “No. You never have.” Unable to stop herself, she relaxed into his arms. It was so safe and warm, she wished she could stay like this forever.

  Wait. No. That wasn’t what she wanted, was it? Still, she couldn’t bring herself to push away.

  “Penelope?” His voice was low with a rasp.

  “Yes, Rhys?”

  “Despite our being friends, I am only human. If we remain intimate like this much longer, I shall want more from you.”

  It should have been shocking. Yet his consistent honesty prompted her own. “Me too.”

  He broke the tight embrace just enough to look her in the eye. “Do you want to stay with me for a while?”

  Her face was on fire, and she was sure her blush was the same shade as the russet drapes. She cupped his cheek and ran the pads of her fingers over his day-old beard. “I wouldn’t mind. Do you think me a complete wanton?”

  Leaning in, he tugged her bottom lip between his. The tender kiss sped her pulse until she thought she might lose her senses. “I think you are magnificent, sweetheart. It is all I will ever think.”

  He pulled a fur blanket from a small stool where it had been draped and lay on the floor in front of the fire. Easing her to her back, his smile rang with desire, delight with just a hint of worry marring his eyes.

  Poppy longed to ask him what worried him, but his fingers traced a path up her leg and she couldn’t think at all. It would be another night she would have to keep secret. The invading worry shot fear through her. “Rhys, I think this is a mistake.”

  His hand stilled. “You want to leave?”

  Pulling back, she had to avoid the longing in his eyes lest she be pulled back into the lovemaking. “I cannot continue to create moments that must be kept secret.”

  “I have not asked you to keep anything secret.” He stood and offered his hand to help her rise.

  Even his gentlemanly touch shot her full with desire. Perhaps she really was a wanton destined to be some man’s mistress. Shaking off the notion, she removed her hand from his. “No, but I cannot tell my friends about the intimate nature of our relationship. It is too embarrassing and unacceptable. I will have to learn to live with keeping the secret, but I’ll not create more.”

  He closed the gap between them, forcing her to crane her neck to keep eye contact. There was something dangerous in his eyes. They rang out some warning that Poppy didn’t heed as she stayed close.

  Easing his knuckles down her cheek to her jaw, the hardness in his gaze melted. “We could solve all of these problems by marrying.”

  It took her a full beat to realize what he had said. It wasn’t possible. “I…I told you I never want to be the property of a man.”

  “Must a marriage be so?” He dropped his hand away.

  Everything was confused. The loss of his touch left an emptiness in her soul while her brain screamed warnings over the idea of marriage. Images of her parents’ contentious life together streamed through her head along with Aurora’s various states of battery over the last three years. “I wish it were different, but this is how life is, Rhys.”

  “You don’t trust me.” Devastation rang in his voice.

  It was important she make him understand. The notion of him coming to despise her gnawed in her gut, though she saw no way around it. “If we married, you would realize sooner or later I was yours to do with as you wish. No one can resist that kind of power. The government has decreed a wife is the property of her husband, and men use that fact to their advantage.”