Page 61 of Margins of Love
Fave gave Lizzie a dangerously sparkling smile. For her debut tonight, his little sister looked all grown up in an off-white gown with white Jacquard overlays. A small diadem with pearls completed her elegance.
“You have flourished into a magnificent lotus blossom, dear cousin.” Arnold bowed, then escorted Lizzie to the carriage. “Your debut will be a smashing success.”
“I am afraid of what will be smashed,” she confided in her cousin.
“So am I.”
Fave swept into their conversation, on the way out the door, for once oozing more zest for action than Arnold.
When the whole family was situated in the cabin, Fave felten garde, but tonight would not be for practice. “Lizzie, you look like a princess. You’ll be the belle of the ball.” He gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek and knocked on the carriage roof, signaling to the driver they were ready to leave.
In the carriage, the ladies fussed with their lace gloves and fans.
“I should have told her that I’m Jewish,” Fave mumbled to Arnold.
“Why didn’t you?” Arnold asked.
Fave ran his hands through his hair. He had been stupidly proud to think that Rachel would fall into his arms when she saw him at St. James’s Square. Then, at Pavel’s, when she had nearly snatched up his emerald, he had snapped. His worst suspicions were coming true, and she may have just used him to get close to the gem for the King’s jewel. How could he not have seen this earlier?
When the jasmine tea under the willow had washed away their first kiss, he recalled, he had felt an impossible loss. And yet, it had only been their first kiss. But she had completed him, had filled that pesky void in his soul. Then, the night in the garden had been a glimpse of how good life could be with this siren of a girl. She had awakened his sensuality and had matched him physically in a way that… oh, not again. He put his head on his crotch to hide his arousal—his whole family was in the carriage with him.
Fave looked out the window and tried to focus on the street. At the intersection of Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street, a man climbed on a tattered ladder against an oil lamp. He opened the glass cage, lit the lamp in one deft slide of his match, and climbed back down. Then he carried the ladder to the next lamp post, climbed up, and did it again. One by one, Fave thought he would illuminate the path before him just like the man on the wooden ladder—and tonight would be the first. He ought to regain control and get Rachel back. How could he have let her go? He should have stepped up right then at the orangerie when Bustle-Smith caught them. But then again, he had thought she was a gentile, unmarriageable and unattainable for a Jew. He had dishonored her, and the pinch to his integrity stung. No, it burned.
* * *
The ball wasin full swing by the time the Pearlers arrived. Eve and Lizzie had been beside themselves at their tardy appearance. It took no more than two minutes of polite niceties before Lizzie was claimed in dance, and Eve assumed her position among the matrons of the ton. Thereshewas. A vision in silk and lace. Her dark brown hair pinned elaborately atop her head, a few loose strands framing her beautiful face. Fave stood motionless as he watched Rachel across the room.
“Go get her, Cous,” Arnold said.
Fave looked at Arnold in disbelief. Had they not just established his responsibilities toward the family? They had a plan to preempt Bustle-Smith’s sharp tongue from unveiling their secret. If Rachel had not snatched up their emerald, he could court her tonight. He could not…
Arnold elbowed him in the ribs. “If you don’t, I will,” he jested with a boyish grin.
Fave did not like it. He knew what Arnold was capable of. He had told him that his lesson in the art of seduction had been but the tip of the iceberg.
“She took our emerald,” Fave said.
“We do not know that for certain. Pavel took it and will most likely enter it in the competition,” Arnold added coldly.
A crisscross of emotions overcame him, and cold sweat broke out along Fave’s back. He looked at Rachel’s tight waist, and her slender arms with the cascading sleeves that clothed only a tiny portion of her shoulders. She was at least twenty feet away, her back toward him, but her presence awoke his senses.
“This is how I see it, Cous. She’s Jewish. Unmarried.” Arnold shrugged as if he would help himself to a buffet of brides.
“She is getting married tomorrow,” Fave interjected.
Arnold shrugged again. “Not if you get her first.”
Fave thought that over for a moment. Could he steal away another man’s bride? He had no reference points, no guidance. His mother had taught him to sit straight, brush his teeth, but she’d never explained the protocol around stealing a bride from another.
“She is beautiful and smart. And Jewish.” Arnold tapped Fave’s shoulder and stood before him now, blocking Fave’s view of Rachel. “And if she gets her pretty little fingers on a better emerald than we can, at least we have a worthy opponent.”
The forbidden fruit that was Rachel was not so forbidden all of a sudden.
“Would you not rather carry on the legacy with a smart woman you love than one chosen for you by a virtual stranger?” Arnold, as always, had a calm head for business.
Fave’s pulse raced. He felt it in his temples. In his gut. In his breeches. “What about the contract? Father arranged the wedding for tomorrow.”
“If we cannot compensate the bride for the breach, I will step in your place.” Arnold sounded as if his mind were made up.
