Chapter Seven

May 20, 1812

The thin, delicate ribbon moved smoothly through Alice's fingertips. The glinting light from through the modiste's shop windows made the navy fabric shine, almost shimmering as she turned it between her fingers. First one way, then the other.

At first, it just looked like an ordinary piece of ribbon. Dull, a dark navy, nothing much to look at. Then a slight twist, and the silver that had somehow been woven through the threads glittered, transforming it into the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Alice swallowed as she forced herself to put the ribbon down.

The last thing she needed was to gain attention as a thief when she was merely dazzled by a little luxury.

"And I told her, I said, we'll never get an appointment just turning up," a woman with thinly pursed lips said to another, perhaps her daughter, who looked dour. "One cannot simply turn up at Madame Jacques and expect her to be available! Why, she is one of the best—"

Alice took a gentle step along the wall of seemingly unending ribbon samples. It took her mercifully away from the irritable chastising of the couple of ladies, but unfortunately brought her into earshot of an entirely different pair.

These two were about her age. They looked joyful, almost carefree. One held a straw bonnet, and the other was attempting to persuade her friend that nothing but a new ribbon would do.

"Look at that color, it simply does not work!" she said earnestly. "Now if you'd just had me with you when you went to buy the wretched thing, you would never have—"

"I like it," the first woman said stubbornly. "And I'm not asking you to wear it—"

"I would ask that you do not wear it anywhere near my presence, unless you intend to remove and burn it!" giggled her friend.

Alice allowed a small smile to drift across her face as her fingers gently moved over the great number of buttons on display.

Strange. It had been... what, four years since she had been able to jest and quip in public like that?

A lifetime ago.

The modiste's shop was bustling, divided into two halves. The front half, the shop, was filled with fabric, ribbons, buttons, thread—all the tools of her trade. Waiting customers could spend their time reviewing the different materials that would one day become the most sumptuous of gowns. It was packed with at least ten people, as far as Alice could see. She was doing her utmost not to meet anyone's eye.

The counter divided the place in half, and behind it was the fitting area. Only one lady was invited back there at a time by Madame Jacques, which would explain the first woman's disgruntled point that arriving without an appointment was foolish.

Alice swallowed. Unless, of course, you have a card signed by the Duke of Cothrom...

"Madame Jacques will be with you shortly," the shop assistant had said the moment Alice had provided the card, blushing, when she had entered. "She will not be long."

It had been long, but Alice was hardly in a position to complain. Just being permitted entrance into the stylish and fashionably popular Madame Jacques's was more than she could have hoped.

And after that kiss . . .

"Wh-What . . . what were you saying?"

"I have no idea."

Alice knew her cheeks were pinking. There was nothing she could do to stop them—it had been a curse ever since she was a child. The moment heat started to blossom on her face, her cheeks did their absolute best to announce it to the world. Raising a hand to her face, Alice almost cringed further at the boiling temperature of her cheeks.

Everyone would see! Worse, someone may take it into their heads to ask her precisely why she was flushing so deeply. And it was not as though she could tell them.

"Oh, because I have tricked a duke—a duke!—into proposing to me, and now I've kissed him, and he is far more than anything I could have hoped for."

Not a conversation she could ever have. With anyone.

Turning close to the cabinets that lined the walls, Alice pretending to show an intense interest in the sample of muslin that was before her.

All she had to do was remain as invisible and uninteresting as possible while she waited for Madame Jacques. And that meant she could lose herself in thoughts. Thoughts of...

William.

Alice swallowed as desire rushed through her body, accentuating every sensation against her skin. The smoothness of her clothes, the tightness of her stays—

She really shouldn't be thinking about him at all.

If only the Duke of Cothrom were not such a delicious kisser. It would be much easier to concentrate whenever she was around him, Alice told herself sternly. And it would make using him in this way far less distasteful.

As it was . . .

It was working well, Alice thought as her stomach tied itself into a knot. The plan had been to find a gentleman, and it was working. The moment she had access to funds, she could pay off Shenton and that would be the end of it. She could live happily ever after. They both could. All three of them.

As long as William never found out about—

He never would, Alice cut off the thought, trying to settle her raging panic. She had been most clear that she wished to wed swiftly. By the time Shenton discovered her plan, it would be too late.

And William would never know what she had done.

It was easy to get lost in such thoughts. Perhaps she would have continued thinking that way if not for something spoken just a few feet away which caught her attention: her own name.

"—Miss Fox-Edwards, they say, though I don't see why such a woman as that should get to marry a duke," a woman was saying snippily by the buttons. "I have never heard of her! Why should a woman barely known in London claim the hand of—"

"You have never heard of her either?" interrupted an older woman with a gleam in her eyes that Alice looked away from. "The name is familiar to me, though I cannot precisely remember... there was a scandal—no, a hint of a scandal—"

Alice tried to take a slow and calming breath, but it was all for naught. Her lungs simply would not cooperate, her body shifting painfully from carefree delight in the memories of William to desperate panic within seconds.

There had been no scandal. No true scandal, anyway. No scandal anyone knew of.

But try telling that to half the gossips in the ton...

"Yes, I heard something about her," said a third woman who had joined the first two. "I am sure it was outrageous, for why else would I remember?"

Alice closed her eyes, just for a moment, fighting to force down the nausea rising as the conversation continued.

Was this to be her life? Constantly waiting for the sword to fall, knowing that one day William would have the truth presented to him?

Not that anyone other than herself knew the truth.

Well, herself and one other person. A person she despised and could not risk—

"—not sure it will last," the first woman was saying dismissively. "The Duke of Cothrom has refined tastes. If there is a whiff of scandal, the man will be backing out of that engagement faster than—"

"Bold words from you, Mrs. Pullman," boomed a new voice, one Alice had not heard in the modiste's before. "Did not your own daughter survive a failed engagement?"

The whole place went silent.

Slowly, hoping the new arrival to the conversation would sufficiently distract those in the modiste's, Alice glanced over her shoulder.

The woman was tall, elegant, and well past her prime in the eyes of the ton. Yet her silvery hair and the unfashionable nature of her gown did not detract anything from the power that she so evidently wielded.

Alice's gasp caught in her throat. This had to be—

"Lady Romeril," said a woman with flushed cheeks, curtsying low to the doyenne of Society. "I-I did not see you—"

"No, I suppose you were too busy besmirching a woman's reputation," said Lady Romeril in a lofty tone.

Alice swallowed.

Lady Romeril. She had met her but once, years ago, and the woman still demanded the respect and attention of any room she was within, clearly.

She held many of the cards of the ton. Giving and taking away Almack's vouchers was just the start. Alice had once heard that anyone in Society could be made—or broken—by simply a look from the well-respected woman.

She had not believed it then. She believed it now.

"I do not speak to offend the lady," the poor woman who was being subjected to Lady Romeril's glare said in a hurried voice. "I would certainly not wish her to think I was—"

"Then you are both foolish in the extreme, and the height of rudeness," boomed Lady Romeril, not caring to let the woman finish her sentence.

Apparently that was too far. Alice's lungs tightened as she watched the two women.

She was not alone. Every single person in the modiste's had turned away from their conversations and was staring at Lady Romeril and her combatant. Even the shop assistant at the counter had let the ribbon they were supposed to be measuring fall between their fingers.

Oh, this was a nightmare. Alice had never intended to be so... so prominent in Society. Not after leaving all those years ago in what could have been disgrace.

And now she was present to witness an argument between Lady Romeril, of all people, and another woman. About her!

It was mortifying. Alice's body responded to the tension as she knew it would: by stiffening and making it impossible for her to escape.

She should never have come to the modiste's...

"I am not foolish, nor rude," the woman was saying, though her flushed cheeks suggested she secretly thought otherwise. "I—"

"You are foolish, because you have not noticed Miss Fox-Edwards is just a few feet from you," said Lady Romeril with a crooked smile. "And you are rude because I believe you would have spoken ill of her regardless. Miss Fox-Edwards."

With a sickening feeling spreading through her, Alice caught the gaze of Lady Romeril as the woman turned to curtsy to her.

Could this get worse?

The woman who had spoken so ill of her was spluttering. "M-Miss Fox-Edwards, I-I n-never—I would not have—Lady Romeril h-has quite misrepresented—"

It was all Alice could do not to turn around, away from the stares, the whispers, the scene Lady Romeril had so elegantly constructed, and march out of the door. Away from the modiste, away from everyone staring, away from the chance that William—that the Duke of Cothrom—might one day discover—

"I will beg for your forgiveness on Mrs. Pullman's behalf, even if she will not ask it, Miss Fox-Edwards," said Lady Romeril magnificently, sweeping her hands about the shop. "And on behalf of all those who have been whispering behind your back, as well. I do assure you, they are quite numerous."

Alice's fingers were numb. She glanced down and saw why. She had brought her hands together before her, unconsciously, and was gripping her own hands so tightly that the ends of her fingertips were white.

When was this nightmare to end? How on earth was she ever to escape it?

"Th-That... that is quite all right," she said aloud, hoping to goodness her voice would hold. "I—"

"After all, His Grace, the Duke of Cothrom, chose you, of all the ladies in the ton, to be his bride," said Lady Romeril, clearly not caring a whit to hear what Alice actually thought. "He must think you are impeccable—a cut above the rest. The only woman he could consider as his bride."

Alice blinked in the dazzling glare of Lady Romeril's look, and knew she had to speak. She had to say something. The silence in the modiste's was deafening. A pin, if it had been dropped in that moment, would have been most palpable.

As it was, no obliging pin was discarded.

Alice swallowed, mouth dry, shoulders slumping under the weight of such attention.

Speak, Alice!

"I-I..." She swallowed again, hating her darkening cheeks and trembling fingers. "I—"

"There you are, Miss Fox-Edwards," said a low, deep voice as a hand gently wrenched hers apart and placed one on a strong arm. "I thought you would have finished by now."

Alice turned. She looked up into the face of William Chance, the Duke of Cothrom.

There were gasps around the modiste's. Only then did Alice realize hers had joined them.

"Are you ready to leave?" William asked in that low, deep, comforting voice.

Alice considered attempting to speak, then simply nodded.

How much of that had he heard? When had William entered the modiste's? Well, it was over between them now, wasn't it? But the last thing she wanted was to give Mrs. Pullman, and all the others here, a show of the disintegration of her engagement.

William strode forward with that elegance and confidence only nobility appeared to have, and Alice clung onto his arm, pulled along in his wake.

And her mind spun. And what... oh, God, what was the world going to say when he broke off their—

"I apologize," William said stiffly.

Alice blinked as they stood on the pavement, the door to the modiste's clanging behind them. "I—I beg your pardon?"

"It is intolerable that you should have to suffer such ignoble behavior, but I am afraid that is the way of the world," said William, his face a picture of distaste. "It is something you will need to grow accustomed to as the Duchess of Cothrom."

It was a good thing Alice was holding tightly onto the man's arm, for without his support she'd have been liable to droop.

What on earth was he saying? William—the Duke of Cothrom could not seriously still wish to marry her after that nightmare?

"Come, let us walk, there are some pretty gardens along here," said William, seemingly not needing her to respond.

Their footsteps became even and measured, and after a full minute of walking in silence, Alice's pulse had slowed sufficiently for her to form words. "What the... how did... you?"

Oh, bother. Not coherent words, apparently.

William glanced at her as they entered the little garden in the center of Berkley Square, and there was something rather odd in his expression.

Was that . . . a smile?

"You are in shock after suffering such unpleasantness," he said gently. "It speaks well of you, as a lady, to be so astonished by hearing such rudeness."

Alice hesitated, then nodded.

Well, what was she supposed to say? That it was not the rudeness itself she had feared, but the fact that he would one day hear about the gossip?

"Your countenance, your flush, everything tells me you are a well-bred, delicate woman of principle," William said quietly, his voice soft, as though what he was saying was not for the ears of another. "You confirm all my suspicions. My hopes."

Alice could not halt the sudden intake of breath. "Cothrom, I—"

"You are reproachless," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Anyone who is about to be a duchess will be subject to envy. I am just sorry you had to hear it."

It took almost another full minute for Alice to understand what on earth was going on.

Then it hit her.

William believed she had been... slandered. He felt sorry for her! Worse, he was so impressed with her response to the supposed lies that he considered her absolutely spotless.

Her heart fluttered. It was precisely what Alice had hoped for, what she had worked so hard to achieve. The trust of a man like William. Yet now that she had his trust, now that he was so publicly declaring himself loyal to her...

A dark, bitter distaste for what she had done started to creep into her.

It was wrong.

Alice pushed the thought away as she and William slowly walked along the path, her arm on his, the early roses starting to lend their perfume to the air.

It was true that it wasn't particularly moral, what she was doing—but she was hardly hurting anyone! She would be a good wife, an excellent wife to the Duke of Cothrom. She would be loyal, quiet, demure, and spend most of her time in the country, if she could manage it.

And it would end the threatening letters, the fear of blackmail, the terror that at any moment her whole life could be torn apart.

Alice swallowed. All she had to do was ensure that William Chance, Duke of Cothrom, never found out the truth about her. How hard could it be?

"You are very quiet."

She tried not to laugh, but it was difficult. "I... well, I am rather surprised by the turn of events. I..."

Alice's voice faded as she caught a glimpse of her future husband's expression. It wasn't adoration. Not quite. But it was certainly a similar flavor, and it was something she simply did not deserve.

If he knew the truth . . .

But he never would. Alice had promised herself, even after the wedding, with the blackmail sorted and the entire affair behind her, she would never tell him.

The memory of the kiss floated back into her mind.

If a marriage with William was going to contain a few more of those kisses, surely both of them would benefit. It would not matter that years before they had ever met, she had—

"I am heartened by your distaste of such gossip," said William sternly. "False though it may be, there was no excuse for anyone saying such things. Your cousin's legacy, I suppose."

"Yes, yes, my cousin," Alice said peremptorily. "Second cousin. Removed, somehow."

She saw a dark shadow pass across his face.

"A pity," he said as they turned a corner. "She has done you much wrong by even offering a hint at a stain on your character."

Alice's stomach twisted in a knot. Before she could stop herself, she said, "You are very focused on propriety, aren't you?"

William halted, just before they reached the gate on the other side of Berkley Square, and fixed her with a look of genuine astonishment.

"No more than the next person, I presume," he said coldly.

Alice bit her lip. It had been the wrong thing to say—and yet it was true.

"Besides, I have a responsibility," William continued, his expression softening. "One that you cannot possibly... but no, perhaps, one day, you will."

Alice continued to stare. What on earth did he mean?

"Alice, if I may still call you that... Alice, you are to be my wife," he said quietly. "You will share in the joys, the privilege, of being a Chance, and I am afraid that means you will also necessarily partake in the ills."

The ills? What on earth could the man be talking about?

"The ills," Alice repeated.

William nodded, his expression dark. "Propriety may not be fashionable, but it keeps us safe. Safe from harm, from accusation, from losing the delicate reputations our father carefully built. I must protect my family, Alice."

And that was when her hopes started to sink again. "You must."

"I must, and I have, and I shall," William said fiercely. "One misstep, Alice, that is all it would take! One mistake, one hint of true scandal, and the Chance name would be over. There's no real fighting chance in reclaiming your position when it comes to the ton. You must always be on your guard, always seeking to be impeccable. And that is why having you as a wife is such a relief."

Alice blinked. She could not have heard that correctly. "I am sorry, did you say, relief?"

And most unaccountably, the man flushed. "Well, I call it relief. Comfort, then. To do life alongside someone who has the same values as I, someone who understands the importance of always being perfect. It will be... pleasant."

His light blue eyes met Alice's, and she could see the flash of desire in them. The longing to close the gap between them, to share in another kiss.

And yet propriety, if nothing else, held him back.

Oh, dear Lord. What was she doing?

The guilt Alice had managed to hold back since their engagement—aided, of course, by that scintillating kiss—resurfaced, this time twice as intense.

She was doing something wrong. She was contaminating this good, rather stiff, gentleman. And if she were not careful, she would drag him down with her.

"Just remember, Alice. I have the document, and you won't get it without paying a great price."

And the echo of Shenton's words forced her resolve, stiffened her spine, and made her smile up at the man who trusted her, despite having no evidence she was as good as he said.

"I look forward to it," Alice said quietly, squeezing her hand on William's arm. "To being your wife. To upholding the Chance name alongside you."