Page 40 of The Proposition
“Stevens? Show them,” Lady Veitch commanded, gesturing them away with her fan. Before they had taken a single step, she had already returned to discussing the layout of the room with Tansy, and describing the Indian mural she wanted to place above the fireplace in that room, all of it in glass tiles, the glazing would be exorbitant but so worth it….
“She is terrible,” Boyle breathed when they had walked from the sofas to the other side of the room, out two tall French doors and onto a balcony decorated with a profusion of ferns in white clay pots.
Clemency closed her eyes. The breeze rolling in from the park smelled lightly of violets. Common dog-violets were probably blooming all over Mayfair, lending their delicate perfume to the neighborhood. She had always found it curious that something that smelled so charming came with such an unfortunate name.
“You seem to be enjoying her company. And anyway, she is rich,” Clemency corrected him. “She is exactly how one would expect her to be.”
“That’s harsh. I am sure there are many people with more wealth and better sense,” Boyle replied. His tone was not argumentative; it had not been, not for a single moment, since they reunited in London. Clemency glanced over at him, to maintain her façade of friendliness, and for a moment, she could forget all that he was. When he was not lying to her or berating her or snubbing her, he was effortlesslypleasant. It had been that way between them before he proposed, and she had imagined herself passing many years in his company, the two of them the rare and special love match.
“Surely not all of the very wealthy are so ridiculous,” he stated with some finality.
“Like you, for example,” she replied. “You are not ridiculous.”
Or rich.
“There,” Boyle said, beaming. “You have settled it. So clever you are, undoubtedly from all that ill-advised reading.”
A joke! How sweet. Clemency nodded absently. His statement was true enough. Audric, though not of the nobility, had a fortune to rival Lady Veitch’s, and he was not ridiculous. No, he was something special.Someonespecial.
Now her imagination presented her with a more tantalizing possibility—passing many years in Audric’s company, the two of them giggling at the Veitches of the world, never taking themselves too seriously or letting his money rob them of compassion and humility. Perhaps they could do some real good with it, open an orphanage or a home for unfortunate mothers, something to address the unfair stipulations of society that had caused Delphine her pain. They could be the rare and special love match…
She blinked, hard, and felt her breath come quicker at the mere thought of Audric. Four nights was hardly an age, but she already looked forward to, and perhaps pined for, the next time their paths would cross.
“You look so beautiful just now,” Lord Boyle whispered. Her skin ignited, not with passion but with revulsion. Still, she let him take her hand, lift it to his lips, and brush a kissacross her knuckles. To withstand it, to keep from striking him, she imagined Audric’s lips there instead. Or where his lips had been before, tightly pressed to hers. “This light,” he added, “this gown, whatever womanly secret is making your eyes sparkle like that…”
At that, she smiled genuinely. “Alas, a lady never tells.”
He kissed her hand again. Clemency noticed the edge of a bruise near his shirt collar, the remnant of some brawl over a woman or a debt, no doubt. What would the angelic Denning Ede have to say about that? She stared at the well-formed lips that had just kissed her hand twice and imagined honeyed lies pouring out of them, fooling Delphine, and Ede, and Lady Veitch. Fooling her.
Fooling the world.
Her hand curled up in his grasp like a dead spider. Before he could notice, she jerked it away and went to place her palms on the bannister.
“A dressmaker is coming to the house tomorrow,” she said, adopting a lighthearted tone. “I am to choose the fabrics and lace for the wedding gown. Honora was planning to help me sew it, but Tansy says none of the ladies in London do that. They all go to this dressmaker. It is the fashionable thing to do.”
“Then, you should do it. I want you to have the best things.”
Clemency smirked into the wind. She had agreed to make Boyle feel secure in his finances. “I can make do, Turner, there is no need to strain your resources.”
He gave a low, rumbling chuckle and sidled up next to her, his hip brushing hers. It was an agony to stay still and let him touch her lower back, but an agony she endured for the sakeof the plan. None of it would hurt as it should if he was not fully, truly in love with her. It was no small feat to make a career swindler recommit his heart, but Clemency would find a way.
“It is the least I can do,” he murmured. “After the way I acted, the things I said to you…giving you a wedding that will be the envy of the ton is a little, little thing.”
“Nothing too extravagant,” Clemency murmured. “But it will be nice to meet this dressmaker.”
“Of course it will be. Shame I cannot be there for an introduction,” he said with a sigh. As he always did when nervous, Turner Boyle pushed his hand through his mop of red curls. “There are a number of debts I need to attend to, now, of course, before we begin our life together. I do not want another incident like the one in Round Orchard. I will never forget the embarrassment.”
Clemency played the sad maiden and bit down on her lower lip. It was a mystery to her how he intended to keep the charade going. Would he really find a way to pay for her wedding gown? For a house? Just how influential was this Denning Ede person? When did he intend to make it clear that something had gone awry and their only funds would be her dowry and whatever they could beg off her father and the Bagshots?
His first night with them at the Bagshots’, William had naturally brought up the help Jack Connors had given them in getting safely to London. She had watched, intrigued, as a fascinating array of emotions played across Turner’s face. As her brother spoke, she could all but see Turner calculating what to say and how, though in the end he simply stated that he and Mr. Connors were no longer associated with eachother, but he was pleased that they had all arrived in town without a scratch.
Clemency wondered if that was really true, if he was avoiding Mr. Connors even after the poor, strange man had gone out of his way to defend Turner. Lies on top of lies. When, she wondered, would the house of brittle kindling collapse and burn?
“Miss Fry! Miss Fry…” Lady Veitch’s screech pierced the peaceful quiet of the balcony. “Stevens? Stevens! Bring her in at once. All that cold air will undo the tonic’s effects completely! I say, Stevens, fetch them here to me at once!”
“Back into the fray?” Boyle asked, offering her his arm with a sly, exasperated smile.
Clemency was silent, and nodded, and forced her arm to obey and touch him.This is not the fray, Lord Boyle,she thought.You will know when the fray truly comes, when we bring it to you. There will be no mistaking it.
