Chapter Nine

November 23, 1812

The silence would have been getting to Edie, if she hadn’t been enjoying herself so much.

Most people promenading up and down Rotten Row did not appear to be having much fun. Perhaps it was the chilly, wintery breeze. Autumn had most definitely ended, temperatures dropping with every successive day and the nights drawing in. There were more scarves and fur-lined gloves being worn today than there had been last week. A few people strode along the path for ten minutes or so, then departed.

Not them.

Edie glanced at Frederick, who was walking alongside her in silence. She had attempted to slip her hand into his arm when they had first met there—partly for the closeness, but admittedly, partly for the warmth—but he had stepped aside.

And in truth, for probably good reason.

“Do we have to do this?” muttered Frederick.

Edie smiled, heat fluttering through her at his mock irritation. At least, she was almost certain it was pretend. “What, walk up and down?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You do not like to be viewed by all of Society as we promenade?” Edie asked gayly, as though this were one of her favorite activities.

In truth, as evidenced by all the stares, the whispers behind cupped hands, she loathed it herself. Though there was something extraordinarily strange today about the way passersby always seemed just far enough away to avoid a conversation… But she knew that wasn’t what Frederick had meant.

He jerked his head over his shoulder. “You know precisely what I mean.”

Edie’s smile widened as she glanced over her own shoulder. There, about ten feet behind them but maintaining that distance at all times, was her father arm in arm with Mrs. Teagan.

Just out of earshot, so the newly engaged couple could have a modicum of privacy… but not too much.

“They don’t trust us,” said Edie with a wry look, turning back to Frederick. “And who can blame them?”

He snorted with a teasing grin, and molten-hot lava trickled from Edie’s stomach to between her legs.

After all, it had been her father who had discovered them. Who had walked into the library and discovered them kissing. And not just kissing. Frederick had managed to pull down her gown and free her breast, teasing her nipple with his—

Edie swallowed, hoping the pink in her cheeks could be ascribed to the chilly wind.

It was certainly not a circumstance a polite and genteel young lady was supposed to find herself in. She was fortunate, indeed, that Frederick had agreed to this charade. If the truth had got out…

“I know it’s the proper thing to do, but you would think Society could trust me to talk you on a walk in public,” muttered Frederick.

Edie looked at him, attempting to discern if he were truly irritated or just teasing. It was one of the things she was swiftly learning about this man—or rather, not learning.

His humor was different from hers. Not better, or worse, not necessarily. Just… different. He said things sometimes to plague her, and Edie was learning it was not a personal slight, but merely how Frederick made jests.

She had never met anyone like him.

Nor had she met anyone with such wild and untamed hair. Honestly, there was nothing to be done, according to Frederick. It just flew about all over the place.

“Edie?”

Edie cleared her throat loudly and concentrated on the path before them. It wouldn’t do for Frederick to know just how closely she had been watching him. “Father and Mrs. Teagan are protecting my reputation, that’s all.”

“And very soon, that will become my role, or so they think,” Frederick said in a low voice.

Excitement thrummed through her. If only that were true , she found herself wondering wistfully. If only Frederick had been charmed by her and had instead of agreeing to this false engagement…

But there was no point in dwelling on such matters. The fact was, he clearly had not wished to be entrapped into a marriage by her father, and she had done the only honorable thing and offered him a way out. If he had been serious about marriage, he would have told her he’d had it in mind before dragging her off to the library…

“If they’re not too careful, people will start to think that your father and Mrs. Teagan are themselves courting,” added Frederick with a mischievous look.

Edie’s lips parted. “Frederick—my lord! You cannot say such a thing!”

“Why not?” he quipped. “Stranger things have happened.”

She closed her mouth hurriedly and took another swift glance over her shoulder. There did not appear to be any great cordiality between her father and her chaperone. They were walking in almost complete silence, arm in arm along Rotten Row behind her.

True, it was a silence that did not appear to be discomforting. Edie could well recall her father’s discomfort in sitting with ladies long after his wife had died.

Something twisted painfully in her stomach. Surely, her father would not… Her mama had been so wonderful, the flourishing rose of her Season. He wouldn’t—

“Careful,” said Frederick softly as he swiftly reached out and grabbed her arm.

If he had not, Edie would have undoubtedly toppled to the ground. A stone that had been placed there by a rascal attempting to dislodge a horse’s canter had been perfectly suited to entrap her foot. As she had not been facing forward, she would have fallen instantly.

Frederick’s hand was strong, holding her arm safe. Edie gave into the temptation, slipping her hand into his arm and holding on tightly. This time, he did not pull away.

The warmth that flowed through her was entirely ridiculous. This was all pretense. All fake. The moment would come when it would be time for them to act out a disagreement, and the fabricated engagement would be unmade.

He would go his way , Edie thought with a sudden lump in her throat. And I would go mine.

“You are very pensive,” said Frederick softly. His voice had lowered even further, now that they were walking arm in arm. “What are you thinking about? Not that ridiculous comment I made about my brothers, I hope.”

Edie cleared her throat awkwardly. “No. No, not at all.”

Not your ridiculous comment about your brothers , she could have said. No, I have been dwelling far more on what Lady Romeril said about your brothers…

“He’s only half a Chance.”

It had been impossible to dislodge the knowledge, once it had taken root in her mind. Still wondering whether she should have asked the doyenne of Society, Edie had gone back and forth in her internal arguments about whether to speak to Frederick about such a thing. She had tried to encourage him to speak of it, but he had not.

It was… scandalous. The idea that his father—that the late Duke of Cothrom had taken a mistress, the result of which was the man beside her…

It happened, Edie knew. But it does not happen to people you know.

“There is something on your mind.”

Her chin jerked up. “I assure you, there’s—”

“You can’t lie to me, Edie.” Frederick spoke softly, not just in volume, but in tenderness too. “I can see right through you, and I suspect… I wonder whether it’s something you think will harm me. Why else would you keep it from me?”

Edie swallowed. The tenderness was something she had not expected, and it was most welcome. The way he spoke to her, as though he really cared…

But what was it she had said at the dinner they had shared but a couple of days ago?

“I know we’re not—that this isn’t a true partnership. But I would like to be a… a friend to you, Frederick Chance. If you would let me.”

Well, she had attempted to draw them nearer, had she not? It had been her instigation, and now she was reaping the reward of that.

Or the price.

Unsure whether this was a good idea or not, and knowing she could not take back the words once they had been uttered, Edie inhaled deeply.

“Oh, dear,” said Frederick with a grin. “As bad as that?”

She gave him a crooked smile. “I am not sure. I had tea with Lady Romeril last week—”

He placed his free hand over his heart. “A disaster in and of itself!”

“Frederick!” Edie said, nudging him as she laughed.

He grinned back and there was a moment—

It was surely just in her imagination. The flirtation was not one of overt sensuality, after all. A brother and a sister could nudge like that, laugh like that, tease like that.

The sensations flowing through her body could not be further from that of siblings, of course, but there it was…

They stopped briefly to greet an acquaintance of her father’s and Edie did her best to hurry the conversation along, taking note of the way the wizened gentleman’s eyes kept cutting to the viscount beside her, over and over, as if he found her companion a strange species to encounter. Her father joined them and took over the conversation, and Edie used the excuse to guide Frederick forward, knowing her father wouldn’t linger for long.

“I was speaking to Lady Romeril, and she was speaking about you, naturally,” Edie continued once out of earshot.

Frederick groaned. “Naturally.”

“And she said… “ Edie hesitated. Did she truly have the bravery to speak openly about this? Did she even have the language to describe it?

Perhaps he guessed, merely from the hesitation. Maybe he saw the look on her face and immediately knew of which topic she wished to speak.

“She mentioned you were not wealthy,” she blurted out, unsure whether she could bring herself to ask the question she truly wished to.

Frederick raised an imperious eyebrow. “Right. Well, Lady Romeril is correct, at least in part. I am not a wealthy man, not comparatively to some, I dare say. But I suppose that is relative. I own and maintain three homes—a country estate, a townhouse in Bath, and one here. I am hardly a pauper.”

Her cheeks tinged. Oh, she should never have brought this up… or she should have started with the question that was uppermost in her mind…

A deep breath escaped Frederick’s lips and he swallowed before speaking. “This is about my parentage, isn’t it?”

Edie’s shoulders sagged as guilt and relief mingled within her. “I am a cruel woman to bring it up.”

“No, you’re an honest woman. And a curious one, which I think is part of human nature,” said Frederick quietly. “I didn’t know if you knew. I didn’t think you did, but if you just learned last week, that explains it.”

They had reached the end of Rotten Row and Edie’s heart twisted. This was the perfect excuse for him to put off having this conversation—perhaps forever. He was completely within his rights to beg off the walk. They had been promenading together for some time. If he did not wish to tell her—

“Come, let us take another turn,” Frederick said softly. “If that is quite acceptable to you, my lord, Mrs. Teagan?”

Edie turned. Her father and chaperone had caught them up, but both expressed how content they would be to walk down Rotten Row again.

She stared at them curiously as she and Frederick began walking again, opening up the gap of ten feet. Could there be any truth to his guess, about her father and Mrs. Teagan? Surely, they wouldn’t—

“So,” said Frederick quietly, “I suppose you have a great deal of questions.”

Edie turned back to him with flushed cheeks. “I suppose I do.”

“What would be easier for you? I can explain the situation, if you would like, or you can ask me questions.” He spoke with such nonchalance, Edie was quite sure it was a pretense.

No one, no matter how much they had ruminated on their own history, could have been that calm.

She squeezed his arm and said with true feeling, “What would be easier for you?”

Frederick’s head jerked back as he met her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

It had seemed a simple enough comment to Edie, but she explicated on her remark. “I mean, this is your story, your life, your family. I have no wish to pry, though I will own I am curious. So… So whatever you would like to tell me. However you would like to tell me.”

Her arm lifted a few inches as Frederick took a deep breath, one that seemed to go to the very core of him.

He smiled, though there was little merriment in the expression. “You honor me with your patience.”

“And you honor me by even considering talking about it,” Edie said in a low voice. “I… I should not have listened to Lady Romeril.”

Or asked her about it , she thought wretchedly.

It was not difficult to see the pain on Frederick’s face, nor feel the tension in his arm. This was not a topic about which he liked to speak, and she had almost cornered him for the details.

“I do not imagine Lady Romeril has all the truth of the matter, no,” Frederick said dryly, inclining his head to someone as they passed. The gentleman ignored him.

Edie frowned. “Why did he not return your bow—”

“Because I am but half a Chance,” he said quietly. “Because my parentage makes it impossible for most people in the ton to accept me. You saw how your father reacted to me at Lady Romeril’s ball.”

She cast her mind back, attempting to recall the exact words.

“—can’t believe you would speak to such a man. Of all the people—”

Her stomach swooped. “I… I see.”

“My mother was a maid at Stanphrey Lacey,” Frederick said quietly. “That’s the family seat out in the country, the seat of the Duke of Cothrom. He was a kind man, but foolish, as far as I can tell. He should never have betrayed his wife, but there it was. My mother was dismissed the instant it was discovered she was with child, and for a time, she did not reveal who my father was. At least, that is what I have been told.”

It would have been all too easy for Edie to step in and ask a question, but something told her to hold back. The words came stiffly from Frederick’s lips, but they were coming—and now he had started, they became a torrent.

“My mother sickened. She was a maid at a local inn—my father had procured her the position, all the better for him to…to visit. But despite his money for medicine, she would get better at first, then the sickness would last longer, and longer, and I think—I suppose she knew her end was coming,” said Frederick, his attention drifting off into a distance Edie could not see.

“She knew she… she was dying?”

He nodded. “That is what I have guessed. She took me back to Stanphrey Lacey, leaving me on the doorstep with a note, printed in her finest hand.”

There was sorrow in his voice, but Edie could also hear pain, and regret, and disillusionment. What had it taken for that poor woman to leave the boy in the hands of another?

“I heard later my father admitted to the… the indiscretion the instant I arrived,” Frederick said ruefully. “It broke his wife. Killed her, I think.”

“No!”

“The duchess died not long after, leaving behind three boys. William, John, and George. George was but a month younger than I, and most unhappy that I was there. All three boys were devastated at their mother’s death.” Frederick spoke with a harshness now Edie had never heard. “And I was never made to forget it.”

She squeezed his arm, hoping that through the small gesture, he could feel just how sorry she was. “Everyone seems to have suffered in this story. You, your father, the duchess, your brothers—”

“Half-brothers,” Frederick interjected, and there was a steeliness to his tone now. “The differences between us were… were stark. Different food. I had their hand-me-down clothes, never anything new. They had the best education, the best opportunities, and I… “

Edie could well imagine—at least, she could try to imagine. Separate in that large house, without a mother, a father distant, grief-stricken…

“It was after my—our father died that William, the current Duke of Cothrom, gave me the title.” Frederick chuckled dryly. “Our father had legitimized me before this death, but he had not let me know, had not treated me any differently. I thought at the time William’s act was a gesture of pity, and perhaps it was. But it has enabled me to join Society. In a way.”

“‘In a way’?”

He nodded. “You’ll soon notice, if you haven’t already, how differently I am treated to the other gentlemen of the ton . A mere mister will receive greater respect than I, a viscount—though I suppose I am not truly a viscount by tradition.”

There was such bitterness in his voice, and Edie wished for nothing than to kiss away the pain.

Kiss it away? Where did that thought come from?

“It was difficult when you were a child, to be different,” she ventured. “Set apart.”

Frederick sighed as another pair of gentlemen passed them—passed them, Edie noticed, and studiously did not make eye contact with Viscount Pernrith.

“It’s hard now,” he said quietly. “I’ve been cheated at cards and called a liar merely because of my birth. The Dulverton Club puts up with me, but I’m never welcome. I am given the cut direct on a daily basis—you saw it, just now.”

Edie bit her lip. She had, and it had been a most discomforting occurrence. To receive such a thing… she was the flourishing rose of Society. She knew those gentlemen, too, at least by name. Usually, they would have stopped to speak with her. Was her mere engagement to this man—a false engagement—enough to thrust her from the ton ?

How awful for Frederick, to experience such a thing on a daily basis.

“I am sorry.”

“For what? I cannot help my parentage. I am proud, in a way,” said Frederick with a forced cheerfulness that tore at Edie. “I have a foot in both worlds, in a way. A mother who worked, a mere servant—”

“Don’t say that,” Edie said quietly. “No one is a ‘mere’ anything.”

He looked at her curiously, and her cheeks burned. “Do you think so?”

Nodding softly, she said, “Your father was a nobleman who gave you less than he did his other sons, and your mother did everything she could for her child. Who was the better parent?”

For a moment, Edie was certain she had gone too far, but Frederick laughed gently at her words. “I suppose you are right. Yet that does not help me now, unfortunately. I am the outcast of Society, despite my name, but it is a name many believe is not my due. One of those people is my own half-brother.”

“He’s only half a Chance.”

Edie’s lungs tightened. What must it be like, to grow up in a household where you are not wanted? More than not wanted, blamed for the death of an innocent woman, merely because of your existence?

“I never had any siblings,” she said quietly. “I cannot know what it is like to have them but not be wanted by them.”

“Oh, Cothrom and Aylesbury do their best, I suppose,” Frederick said brightly, though there was a forcedness to it that made Edie wince. “They were but children themselves, and… well. I know what it is to lose a mother. But I admit, it has been hard. To never be wanted.”

“I, too, know what it is to lose a mother.” The words came easily to Edie—but then, she had hardly known her mother, had she? “She died several years ago now. I nursed her until… until the end.”

Frederick swallowed. “So you understand.”

She hesitated, just for a moment. “I… I don’t think so. Oh, my father and I miss her terribly, and I have certainly felt the lack of a mother now that I am in town—but with every day that passes, my recollection of her slips. Her face… Without the portrait at home, I am not sure… “

Edie bit her lip. It was a most indecorous thing to admit, forgetting one’s mother.

Frederick’s grip on her arm tightened. “There is no moral failing in being but a child when you suffered the loss. Another thing we share, I think.”

Edie did not think about it. She merely acted on instinct, needing to be closer to him. Needing Frederick to know that she was alongside him, was with him—was not about to walk away merely because of an accident of birth.

And that was why her hand slipped from his arm, trailing down the forearm of his sleeve, her fingers entangling themselves in his.

Plainly startled, Frederick looked at his hand—at their hands, entwined together.

Almost holding her breath she was so nervous, Edie squeezed his hand. “No one should feel as though they are not wanted.”

“It’s the way of the world.”

She shook her head impetuously. “It’s outrageous—it simply should not happen!”

Frederick was smiling, and this time, there was delight in his eyes. As they continued to walk along Rotten Row, the winter breeze increasing in pace but not in temperature, he said quietly, “It happens every day.”

“I don’t want it to happen to you,” Edie said vehemently.

She could not put into words just why this mattered so much, but it did. The idea that Frederick had spent so much of his life feeling alone… It was awful. It could not be allowed.

“No one should be treated as you have been,” she said fiercely. “No matter their background.”

Frederick shook his head. “You are rare, you know.”

And her bravado, her proud defiance, melted away. Edie sighed, looking away to the path before them. “Yes. Yes, there’s only one flourishing rose.”

Yes, the conversation had to circle back to this.

“No, that’s not what I—Edie, look at me.”

There was such tenderness, such affection in his words, that she immediately glanced over at him.

That was when she realized that they had stopped walking.

Edie looked around herself for a moment. When had they ceased their movement? When had Frederick stopped? Had she been so absorbed by the conversation that she had not been conscious of her footsteps?

Her father and Mrs. Teagan had halted themselves and, clearly out of some deference for the younger couple, had remained about ten feet from them. They were in conversation now themselves and appeared most animated.

Surely, they would never—

“Edie Stewart, you are rare. And you are the Season’s flourishing rose, which I am starting to realize is more punishment than pleasure,” said Frederick softly.

Edie smiled ruefully. “Something like that.”

“But I said that you are rare for quite another reason.” He lifted his free hand, tilting her chin with his forefinger so she had no choice but to look him directly in the eyes.

She almost gasped with the intensity of the look within those liquid hazel eyes. No, they weren’t the Chance blue. They were so much more interesting than that.

“Most people don’t think like you,” Frederick said softly. “Most people don’t have the heart for people like you. Most… Almost no one I have ever met has been able to look past the labels the world has given me, and just see… me.”

Edie swallowed.

She did just see him. And he was handsome, and charming, and vulnerable, and he ached to be loved.

And the trouble was, she was starting to—

“It’s getting mightily cold,” said Mrs. Teagan, who was suddenly at Edie’s elbow.

Edie jumped. She released Frederick’s hand and saw to her great disappointment, but no surprise, that he had taken a step back.

How close had they been?

“Time to go home, my dear,” said her father with just a hint of sternness in his tone.

Edie nodded weakly as she exchanged a look with Frederick. Her stomach swooped. Swooped in that way it only did when she was with Frederick. “Yes. Right. Home.”