Page 45 of The Duke's Stolen Heart
Chapter 15
“Your Grace, I had no idea you’d still need the room at half past noon.” A bespectacled man in a taupe overcoat regarded him with eyes agog. Behind him was a cluster of children in bonnets and warm hats wearing curious expressions. One of the older boys snickered.
This was the dancing and music instructor whose studio Malcolm had paid an exorbitant sum to rent as an excuse to meet privately with Antonia.
Antonia wrenched away from him. Malcolm tried to gather his wits and failed. Noon. He had been here for hours. Now, the spell had been broken.
“We were leaving,” Malcolm mumbled, as they had clearly not been anywhere close to departing the premises. Antonia had scooped up her warm mantle and flung it around her shoulders. A duchess could not have radiated as much embarrassed pride as did the woman he had just kissed.
Who had kissed him back. A hot spike shot through his center. Malcolm scooped up his drawing kit with the now horrifyingly inappropriate sketches. He tucked it beneath his arm, where it burned against his side like a badge of shame.
He clopped down the wooden stairway ahead of Antonia so as not to step on the hem of her outerwear. Malcolm caught her gaze as she stood on the third step from the bottom.
“We may revisit that scene once this is over,” she told him steadily. “Until then, we focus on the mission.”
“The minute you bring me the necklace, Antonia, I am coming after you,” he rasped.
A haunted shadow fell over her features. “There’s no point. I must disappear, and if you do not understand why, then you have bought into the fiction of Antonia Lowry even more than I thought.” She swallowed. “It would be brief between us.”
“I need more than that,” Malcolm replied, half pleading, half desperate. What did she mean bymust disappear?
“Then perhaps it is best we don’t start down this path together.” She brushed past him. Malcolm caught the faint floral scent of roses and jasmine from her skin. Already his brain had latched onto her essence and assigned it meaning.
Perhaps she was right. Malcolm waited until Antonia had passed through the heavy oak door out to the bustling street. His heart pounded the way it had when he had watched another woman ghosting out of his life. If he couldn’t trust her to stay, then it was best to let this unwelcome flood of desire subside on its own in her absence.
* * *
Don’t think about him.
An impossible rule to keep when Havencrest was the constant topic of discussion. The earl and his wife were plainly pleased with Margaret’s suitor, and Margaret, in her fathomless need for approval, basked in her relative freedom. Tonight, she and Margaret were crammed into the seat opposite the Evendaws on their way to a house party. Antonia stifled a yawn. How did they manage this schedule of nightly entertainment and socializing? Even if her muscles weren’t still aching from her day of physical toil, the nightly outings were exhausting.
“You have had a most salubrious impact on Havencrest, my dear.” Evendaw leaned forward to pat his sister’s hand and nearly toppled out of his seat. Ruddy cheeks indicated he had indulged a second after-dinner port. Antonia kept her eyes demurely cast down or focused out the window on the streetscape crawling by. It would not do to rouse any hint of suspicion from Lady Evendaw. Once, she wouldn’t have cared, but now?
“I hope so, brother. Beneath his public reserve is a good man,” Margaret replied with apparent sincerity.What a bland description for a man of depth and feeling such as Malcolm Hepworth Dunn, Duke of Havencrest.
Agoodman would not hire a thief to steal his elderly grandmother’s most precious gem. Nor would he assist with the disposal of a dead woman’s body. No, Malcolm was decidedly not among the righteous. Yet Antonia also knew he had paid for the dead woman’s body to be buried properly in a graveyard outside London. She knew this, because she had attempted to do the same. After their disaster of a dancing lesson, Antonia had visited her bolt-hole, donned men’s clothing and gone to the morgue to inquire about the dead woman’s status. Gone, she had been informed. A great lord named Havencrest had seen the story and wished to give the anonymous woman a proper burial.
Guilt licked her insides. Antonia had spent years walling off her heart from caring about the impact of her actions on anyone. Her survival depended upon it, and, worse, it felt awful. Damn Margaret and Malcolm for making her care about people again. All that caused was anguish.
“Do you think so, Miss Lowry?” asked Lady Evendaw and Antonia realized she had not been paying proper attention to the conversation.
“Of course,” she demurred.
Margaret’s sharp elbow lodged painfully between her ribs. Antonia widened her eyes. “She can’t mean it.”
“I can’t mean what?” Antonia asked, thoroughly confused.
“That a marriage will take place before spring.” Panic had sprung to Margaret’s eyes. Oh, right, she and Malcolm had discussed marriage specifics and decided against them. Margaret was only interested in a marriage that let her have freedom. Malcolm didn’t want that. She must be terrified of her brother forging ahead with arrangements without her input.
“Only if you want it to,” Antonia reassured her friend. This earned her a disapproving frown from Lord Evendaw. Luckily, at that moment they pulled up to the front entry of yet another grand townhouse. To Antonia, the mansions were all starting to blur together. In the vestibule, she dropped her mantle and gave Evendaw another reason for disapproval. Gold tissue as delicate as a butterfly’s wings shimmered over her body. Deep violet embroidery puckered the pattern at intervals. Purple velvet trim at the cuffs, neckline and hem completed her sumptuous gown.
Lady Evendaw gaped.
Lord Evendaw’s brow puckered into a frown.
Margaret, who had already seen Antonia’s newest fashion before they had donned their outerwear and darted into the February weather, skipped eagerly ahead. As a matter of respect she ought to let her brother enter the ballroom first. Antonia gave her hosts a sidelong glance and glided after her oblivious friend.
The charmingly awkward American who had spent months shadowing the edges of London’s finest families was gone. In her place was a lady fit for aristocrat’s side. For months, she had hovered demurely at the edges of fine society, a pretty companion as docile as a spaniel kept for company. As long as she posed no threat to the women who sparred nightly for status, her friendships had allowed her to get close to the wealthy women whose jewels she plucked like ripe fruits from an ever-bearing tree.
