Chapter Nine

May 28, 1812

Only when the large blob of ink had entirely obscured the letter Alice had been writing did she realize she had been holding her pen for too long.

Far too long.

"Botheration," she muttered, folding the paper carefully so the ink did not spill out onto the small writing desk and dropping it into the wastepaper basket beside her, though she wasn't sure why she bothered.

When Alice had made her plans to come to London and find an unsuspecting husband, she'd been forced to sell most of her extraneous possessions. Fine writing desks were a luxury she could ill afford.

This small travel writing desk was more than sufficient for her needs. Even if the hinge was broken, and the ribbon was fraying, and there was a gash mark across the lid that looked as though in a past life, someone had taken a swipe at it with a knife. The plain fact was that a little ink stain upon the thing wouldn't make a huge amount of difference to its quality.

The real tragedy was the paper.

Alice tutted at the small pile of paper to her left. "Careless."

She could hardly justify wasting any more paper, and that meant no more daydreaming about a particular duke.

"And yet there must be something about you. Something different. Something within yourself that you are fighting. Some other nature, if you will."

Alice brushed a lock of hair from her eyes as she sat back in the hard wooden chair in the small drawing room of the house that would soon no longer be hers.

William Chance, Duke of Cothrom.

With every interaction with him, she discovered something new, something precious. It did seem rather ridiculous that this whole charade had been concocted with the intention of finding a sap she could easily woo and convince to propose to her. Instead, she had ended up with a strong-willed gentleman whom she had somehow still managed to woo.

Even after he discovered her identity at the Earl of Chester's ball...

A slow smile crept across Alice's face as she considered the dinner, just a few nights before.

An introduction to the entire Chance family had felt like a rather tall order, yet William's brothers were far easier to sway than he had been.

And his care for them, his dedication. The genuine spirit he had for protecting his family name, the ferocity with which he would do anything, even sacrifice his own happiness for them...

Alice's stomach lurched.

It was a characteristic she knew well.

Steeling herself for the task ahead, Alice leaned back over the small travel writing desk and picked up the pen which had so recently been dripping ink all over the place.

Try as she might, she could no longer put off writing this letter.

Frowning as she started to write in a clear, bold hand, Alice spent about ten minutes carefully considering each word. It had to be perfect. It was the only letter she could afford to send this week.

When she finally placed down her pen, Alice gave a long sigh. She'd hardly noticed the air she'd been holding in, keeping her lungs taut, but now the wretched letter was written, she could breathe easy.

She would breathe far easier when her daughter could be brought home.

Dear Mrs. Seaby,

Thank you for your last letter. I am delighted to hear you have found some plums, and that little Maude is eating them. Please be careful to ensure she is never permitted to eat them alone, however. I would hate for a stone to become lodged in her throat. You will be careful, won't you, Mrs. Seaby?

I have been enjoying the weather of late. I hope it has been warm with you. I will endeavor to have a shawl for Maudy sent to you, but if it does not arrive and the temperatures change, you may use the one I left.

Plans for my marriage continue apace, and I am delighted to say that the date is set for June 12th. Of course, I will not be able to have the honor of your presence, or Maudy's, but know I will do my utmost the moment I am a wife.

Please find a pound note enclosed. It is the last of my money. If you require more, would you be so good as to keep a tally? When I am married, I will naturally pay off all debts.

Thank you, Mrs. Seaby, for your kindness.

I remain faithfully yours,

Alice Fox-Edwards

Alice examined the letter. It was not overly cautious, she hoped. Being a mother from afar led to worries and concerns she could never have predicted when her little one was carefully curled up in her arms.

Closing her eyes, Alice took herself back to the last time she had held Maude. Her child. Her darling one.

She could almost feel the weight of the girl in her arms, almost smell the delicate scent of her hair. Almost hear the laughter, the giggles that provoked tears in both of them.

Her conscience wrenched as though about to be pulled from her.

Alice blinked back tears as she opened her eyes. She would do it—she would offer up her heart from her chest if that was what it took.

But she couldn't.

Or was she? Was she, in fact, doing just that?

"You are," Alice whispered, eyes flickering unseeing across the letter. "But it's William Chance's heart you could be ripping out."

She swallowed. She had never meant for something like genuine affection to grow between her and the man she marked as her husband. That had never been part of the plan.

Perhaps that was why the guilt stung so much.

But she couldn't back down now—she couldn't call off the wedding. The Duke of Cothrom was about to become, though he did not know it, the benefactor to her child. All her pin money, once she had access to it, would go to Maude.

And then everything would be—

"There you are," said a quiet, warm voice. "I am so accustomed to you answering the bell, I worried you were indisposed."

Alice rose so hastily her chair tipped to the floor. The noise was nothing to the thundering of her pulse, the panic pouring through her.

William—William, here?

Her instincts drove her to act.

"William," Alice said, trying to speak lightly as she turned back to the writing desk, quickly folding the letter to Mrs. Seaby. "I did not hear the bell, my apologies—"

"What have you there?" asked William curiously, stepping into the drawing room. "Not a letter to another gentleman, I trust?"

Her best, most carefree smile was plastered across Alice's face. "Of course not!"

The letter remained in her hand, folded once and so obscuring the words, but not safe.

Where could she put it? Where could she hide—

"May I see it?"

Alice blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

William's cordial expression had faded, and there was a look of gentle mistrust on his face. As though he knew she was hiding something.

Of course he knows you're hiding something, Alice chastised herself silently. You've acted in the most guilty manner possible!

"The letter. I wish to see it," said William.

His voice was low and utterly serious. He had stepped closer, now just a few feet away.

Alice steadied her breath and resorted to the only manner which she knew: flirtatious.

"Why, William, I do believe you are jealous!" she said playfully, tapping him with her free hand as the other—containing the letter—moved behind her back. "Well, I am sorry, but until you marry me, my correspondence is—"

"I am not jesting, Alice. Show me the letter," said William, his voice controlled.

No. Not entirely controlled. She could hear the quaver in his voice, sense the distress in his tone.

This was madness! A man could not just demand to see the private correspondence of a lady!

Perhaps a duke could, a treacherous voice whispered in her ear. Perhaps a duke should, if he were marrying a woman with a secret...

"Give it to me, Alice."

"N-No," Alice said, taking a step back.

She would not let him. It would all be over between them, everything she had tried to build—the genuine connection they had found. The marriage would be over, and Shenton—

"Alice!"

William lunged forward. Thanks to his longer arms and dexterous movement, he snatched the letter for Mrs. Seaby from Alice's fingers before she could stop him.

Red hot anger coursed through her veins. "What about privacy? What about respect for—"

"If the letter was innocent, you would not wish to hide it," William said quietly, face impassive. "You know my guiding principles, Alice. You know I could never permit—"

"You immediately think of scandal, of course," she said bitterly, blinking back the tears which had so recently sprung from happiness. "You cannot imagine innocence!"

"You immediately tried to hide the letter," William pointed out, most unfairly. "Why not let me see it, if there is truly no scandal within?"

How dare the man speak in such a reasonable tone while behaving so rudely!

"Marrying you doesn't mean every secret—"

"So it is a secret?" William said quietly, lifting the letter and gesturing to it.

Alice swallowed. Oh, how could this have gone so wrong? "I... I... When you asked me to marry you—"

"From memory, it was you who first demanded matrimony," said William slowly. "Why was that, Alice?"

It was all tumbling down around her, but Alice would not permit this engagement to end merely because she had been caught with a letter. Oh no, she was far cleverer than that.

Wasn't she?

"Why not?" she asked boldly, meeting his gaze despite the dread seeping through her lungs. "Gentlemen can demand ladies marry them. Why not ladies?"

"Because that is not the proper order of things, and you well know it," William said, his voice growing curt. "Damn it all, Alice, but you know my position! Keeping the Chances' good name, it is all I do—"

"You might try to trust me," said Alice tartly, lashing out through her pain. Oh God, what would he do? "You might trust my discretion, my discernment—"

"And it will be all the easier once I have read this letter," William said, unfolding it and looking away.

Alice swallowed, her throat dry, as she watched his eyes flicker, taking in every line.

It was over. There was nothing she could do to avert this disaster, one of her own making.

Why had she not taken more notice of the time? She had known William was due at three o'clock. Why had she wasted so much time in daydreams?

Her heart was in her mouth as she watched the tension in William's jaw slacken. He blinked rather rapidly then folded the letter, offering it out to Alice.

Try as she might, Alice could not be calm. She snatched the letter back, placing it behind her back again.

As though that would make any difference, she thought dully, meeting William's gaze as defiantly as she could. It was all out now, the truth. It was over.

"When," William said quietly, "were you going to tell me about your ward?"

Alice's jaw dropped.

She closed it hurriedly, her mind whirling. Ward?

But of course, William was an honorable man. He would not look at her and presume the very worst: that she had a child, secretly hidden in the countryside. He would think of the most logical and most respectable solution.

A ward.

Alice swallowed. It was not her lie—and if she were careful, it would never have to be.

"Alice," William said gently. "When were you going to tell me about... about this Maude?"

Hearing her daughter's name in William's mouth stirred Alice to action. But first, she slowly lowered herself onto the sofa. Her knees could only take so much strain.

"After the wedding," Alice said quietly. "I... I was going to use my pin money. Nothing would have come from your accounts—I was determined about that."

"How old is she? This child?" William asked.

She had expected anger, rage. Perhaps a little pique that she had kept a secret from him.

Yet there was none of that in William's eyes. In fact, as he stepped forward and slowly lowered himself to sit beside her on the sofa, there was naught in his expression but affection.

It was most unaccountable. A miracle! But... strange.

"Just . . . just over three years."

"And you are sending her money," William said flatly.

A spark of anger rose once again in Alice. Was William going to be one of those men who wished to dictate how she spent every penny? Was even her pin money not truly to be her own? Some ladies spent a small fortune at the modiste, the haberdasher, the bonnet maker, the jewelers. Was she to be forbidden from buying a shawl for a cold child?

"Yes," Alice said defiantly, lifting her chin to look directly into his eyes. Blue eyes. Sky-blue, dazzling eyes. "I care for her."

He held her eyes unflinchingly, and though it was difficult to hold on, Alice did her best.

This was it. The moment. When she would have to face the reckoning of what had happened all those years ago.

But as the silence dragged on, unbearably so, Alice found it more and more difficult to hold her tongue. Why was he doing this—looking at her in silence, saying nothing, revealing no judgment? Was it only so when he finally spoke, his censure would be all the more devastating?

The letter was now crumpled behind her, trapped between her and the sofa. Alice would have to write it out again later, there was no possibility of sending it in the post like this. Another piece of paper wasted.

Though depending on how this conversation ended, she may have to consider rewriting it. Perhaps she would be telling Mrs. Seaby she was on her way home. After all, her reputation would not survive the ending of an engagement with a duke.

"You have little," William said quietly. "It makes no sense."

Alice blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"This house is pleasant and well situated, and though you are smartly dressed, you are not rich, Alice, are you?" William said. His voice was low, the warmth of a summer's day, the gentleness of a breeze. "I see no luxurious furnishings here. And yet you send a pound—not an insignificant amount of money—to your ward."

Alice hesitated. She still had not lied—not truly. She had hardly corrected the man, that was to be sure. But that was hardly her fault, was it?

"I think it is only right," she said, determined not to look away and admit defeat, "to care for those in your dependency. Even if it means... personal sacrifices."

Like not eating three meals a day. And not lighting the fire unless you come to visit, Alice could have said. Like not having a footman, or a housekeeper, and making do with myself and Jane. Like knowing that my bills are racking up and unless you marry me, William Chance, I may find myself in debtors' prison.

Or worse. With Shenton over my head, crowing that my reputation and that of my daughter are ruined forever.

"Personal sacrifices," repeated William.

He had the most bizarre expression. Alice could hardly understand it. There he sat, gazing, somehow closer to her.

Far closer than she had thought. A shiver ran down Alice's spine as she realized William's knees were so close to hers, they were almost touching.

His hands were in his lap, clasped together. Almost unconsciously, knowing she could never be so forward and presumptuous to take them in hers, Alice nonetheless released the letter, leaving it behind her, and folded her hands in her own lap.

Mere inches away from his.

Lord, she was fooling herself. This wasn't working. He couldn't possibly believe in and accept her "ward." The Duke of Cothrom, as she must now think of him, would thank her for her time, politely inform her that their engagement was at an end, and that would be that. She would have to—

"Alice," William said stiffly.

And he didn't just speak. He had moved, his hands had taken hers, and the warmth of him—Alice almost gasped.

The intimacy of such a thing... if she had not been certain she was awake, she would have believed she was dreaming. William Chance did not do such things. Their kiss had been an anomaly, to be sure. He had been most clear it would not happen again.

Not until they were married, anyway.

"I must apologize," said William.

Alice's eyes widened. "I beg your—apologize?"

He nodded curtly, real contrition in his expression. When he spoke, it was in a rush, as though he had been holding back the tide but could do so no longer. "You can imagine what I thought—the letter, I assumed it was—but you are an honorable, good woman, Alice. And I never thought—to find someone who understands responsibility as I do, who doesn't just understand it, but lives it, even when it is difficult..."

His voice trailed away, and Alice realized to her astonishment she was being praised.

Praised. By the Duke of Cothrom. For her "responsibility."

"Ah," she said weakly. "Well, I wouldn't put it—"

"I never thought I would find someone who understood," William said, eyes aglow with something Alice might have called affection. "I didn't realize we were so alike. Alike in our obligations—"

"And in other ways," Alice said, a flash of inspiration coming to her. All she had to do was distract him, pull William away from this line of thinking about her "ward." She knew just the thing. "I think we share morals and... and desires, don't we?"

William looked at their intertwined hands.

Slowly, Alice told herself as she gently stroked her thumb over the back of William's hand. Just enough to show him what you mean, but not enough to evoke censure.

That was always going to be the balance with William, wasn't it? The man didn't have a moral compass, he was a moral compass. It would never do to—

William groaned, and it was so heartfelt, pulled from such a deep place, that Alice gasped. "Don't tempt me, Alice. The things I have considered—the longing I have for you—"

And he leaned forward, and Alice's pulse skipped a beat as he pressed an eager kiss against her neck just below her ear.

William's breathing was short, his hands tight on hers, and in the midst of the pleasure he was sparking as he trailed kisses down toward her collarbone, Alice quite lost all sense of what she was doing.

Honestly, how could she maintain it? The man certainly seemed to know what he was doing. Tendrils of temptation were twisting through her.

"But I mustn't," William said, panting as he drew back and fixed her with a devoted yet regretful look. "I... I mustn't."

And just like that, Alice realized she had entirely underestimated William Chance, Duke of Cothrom.

It was not that he did not wish to do the delicious things. It was that he desperately wished to and would not permit himself to.

The man was full of passion, yet his strength of character did not permit him to let himself go.

Now that was interesting.

"Do it again."

She had not intended to say those words. It was not part of her plan for to ensure William truly would marry her by way of this type of seduction. But she wanted him. She wanted his lips upon her skin, his warmth, his presence, the feel of him pressed up against her, losing control. What did it matter if a consequence of their shared pleasure was to bind him even more strongly to her?

"I mustn't," William said quietly, though he kept a hold of her hands. "I... well, I desire you very much, Alice, and I... if I give into such longing—"

"I don't mind," said Alice quickly, thinking rapidly. Yes, that would be an excellent way to ensure their marriage. And besides, if that little taster was anything to go by, she would very much enjoy being bedded by the Duke of Cothrom.

William's smile was roguish, just for a moment. "But I do. Alice, I want our first time to be special. Don't you?"

Alice tried to return the smile. First time. Ah. "Of course. In... in that case, shall we go for our walk?"

Taking a deep breath, and apparently gathering the strength to let go of her, William released her hands and rose. The mask came back down, and he was William Chance, impeccable model of propriety once more.

"I think that is an excellent idea, Miss Fox-Edwards," he said, offering an arm. "In public. Where we cannot—where I cannot—be tempted."