Chapter 3

Where the devil are they? Leah had been waiting in the corner of the refreshment room for what felt like an eternity. Anna had gone to fetch the carriage, bringing it around to the side of the manor, so Leah could avoid using the main thoroughfare where her mother and father would surely spot her. Meanwhile, Matilda had gone in search of the missing chaperone to inform her of the imminent departure.

"Excuse me?" Leah raised a hand to catch the attention of a passing servant.

"Yes, m"lady?" the footman replied.

Leah hesitated. "Might you do me an enormous favor?"

"That depends, m"lady. What is it you would have me do?"

Leah glanced at the door to the refreshment room. "Could you bring me paper, a quill, and some ink? I have a very important note to write, and it cannot wait."

It was one thing to abscond ten minutes after arriving at a party and test her father's patience, but it was quite another to leave without a word, and she did not want to put her mother in the firing line of her father's guaranteed outburst of outrage.

"Of course, m"lady." The footman bowed his head and made his way to a heavy brocade drape on the far side of the room. He disappeared behind it, no doubt using the network of servants' corridors. Leah made note of it—just in case she had to flee in a hurry. Well, a greater hurry.

Agitated, she edged toward the refreshment table and swiped a bottle of port that had been left unattended. She poured a hearty measure into her pewter cup and retreated back to the corner, sipping the potent fortified wine in a vain attempt to calm her nerves.

What do I care? she told herself, hoping it might convince her if she repeated it often enough. They are nothing to me. I should stay and prove how unbothered I am. But she knew, as well as her friends, that seeing Jonathan was not good for her health. Every time they encountered one another, it left her feeling as she had the morning he jilted her, shrinking her heart, mind, and soul to that humiliated woman, undoing all the progress she had made over the past three years.

The brocade drape swept back, and the footman reappeared with surprising swiftness. "Your requested items, m"lady." He placed the inkwell, quill, and a small rectangle of freshly cut paper onto the side-table next to her.

"Thank you." Reaching into her beaded reticule, Leah tried to offer the footman some money for his efforts, but he put up his hands.

The footman dipped his head. "I can't take any coin off you, m"lady, but your thanks are welcome."

A moment later, he scurried off as if Leah had torched his tailcoat, making her wonder what she had done wrong. Perhaps, even the servants knew it was unlucky to be seen near Leah Bolton, the famed young lady who had declared her unyielding love to her betrothed in an inebriated stupor the night before he neglected to turn up at the church for their wedding. At least, that was the story that society liked to tell whether it was the truth or not.

Taking a gulp of strong port, she set the drink down and turned to the task of writing a note for her parents. They would, of course, be furious, but she did not care. Indeed, she would not have been surprised if her father had known that Jonathan would be there.

Her inked quill had barely written the words, "Dear Mama and Father," when a voice startled her so badly that her entire wrist jolted, sending a scratchy streak of black across the pristine white of the page.

"Lady Leah, is that you?"

Leah gripped the quill, hand shaking.

"It is, is it not?" the despicable voice continued in a soft tone as if the owner cared. "It has been so long; I hardly recognized you. Are you well?"

Sucking in a steadying breath, Leah turned, her gloved fingertips covered in black ink, ruining the ivory silk. "Quite well, thank you," was all she managed to reply, the sight of that awful man robbing her of her ability to think or move or speak or say precisely what she thought of the wretch.

Worse still, he looked well, dressed in a forest-green tailcoat and matching waistcoat that complemented his dark brown eyes; his blond hair perfectly coiffed and longer than she remembered it. He had always been handsome in a classical fashion: tall and broad and impossible to ignore when he strode into a room. It was the first thing she had noticed when she was informed of their betrothal three years prior, his looks and that false, gentle tone softening the initial blow of the match.

You cannot trust beauty, she had since learned, turning her gaze toward the exquisite young lady standing at Jonathan's side: his wife, Dorothy, a slim, unfairly pretty creature of just one-and-twenty with big blue eyes like a doll and the most flawless, alabaster skin that Leah had ever beheld. Her silky, golden hair matched that of her husband as if they were made for one another, prompting Leah to push back a wayward strand of her own dark blonde hair: a duller, dimmer version of Dorothy's gleaming halo.

"Did we interrupt you?" Jonathan asked in that same, saccharine voice as deceitful as the rest of him. "Goodness, you have ink all over you. Shall I fetch you some napkins and water? Some new gloves, perhaps?"

Leah forced a stiff smile. "No, thank you. I shall fetch my own replacements when I have finished my letter."

I shall be long gone when it is done, she thought to herself, calmed by the notion. Although, her friends still had not returned. What could be keeping them?

"A strange place to be writing correspondence, is it not?" Jonathan slipped a protective arm through his wife's, pulling her closer to his side as if worried that Leah might suddenly lunge forward and try to claw out Dorothy's eyes with her stained fingertips.

"It is an urgent letter," Leah replied, her gaze darting to the refreshment room door, praying for her friends to reappear. Matilda would have sent Jonathan running with his tail between his legs within seconds.

Jonathan made a face of pity. "Are you certain you are quite well, Lady Leah? You seem… troubled."

"I am troubled that I shall not send this letter soon, if that is your meaning?" she replied, finding some strength in her voice again. "Indeed, have you never worried that a truly important note will not arrive in time? Say you are to meet with a friend, and you suddenly become unwell; you would not want your friend to worry for your whereabouts, would you?"

She saw the slightest twitch of annoyance in Jonathan's right eye, while Dorothy looked bewildered by the entire encounter as if she had not wanted to approach in the first place.

"We should leave her to her letter, dearest," Dorothy whispered, tugging lightly on his arm, but Jonathan did not seem to like that he had been subtly held to account for his actions.

"But I am concerned for her wellbeing, darling," he said coolly. "What is the nature of this urgent letter? Is a friend awaiting you? Are you suddenly unwell?"

Leah laughed. "I do not mean to be rude, my lord, but it is none of your concern."

"Darling, please." Dorothy tugged more insistently on Jonathan's arm, but the more she pulled, the more steadfast he became.

"As a friend of your father's, I should say it is my concern," he said. "There have been many worrisome stories circulating about you of late, pertaining to these… unsavory friends of yours. A Spinsters' Club. They are not holding you against your will, are they? Are you writing a letter to request help?"

Leah desperately wanted to throw the remainder of her port on the vile specimen, but to do that would only have put her name in the scandal sheets, and she was determined not to give him that satisfaction.

"You must be reading some peculiar lies, my lord," she said, smiling. "I have never been happier, and as for my "unsavory friends," I suppose you must have missed the latest news."

Jonathan frowned. "What news?"

"One of my friends has recently become a Duchess," Leah replied proudly.

Jonathan's expression relaxed, his smug smile returning. "Not you, though?"

"Not yet," she countered, grinning until her cheeks ached, "but I do not expect it will be long before I am as blissfully married as you and your wife seem to be. Then again, if I wanted to leave an uncomfortable situation, my beloved would not make me stay so that he could taunt a poor woman for his own amusement."

Jonathan paled while Dorothy's hand shot to her mouth, stifling a gasp. Meanwhile, Leah's insides churned, and her heart punched the inside of her ribcage, punishing her for her stupidity in saying such an outlandish thing. Not the insult, but the mention of a beloved and soon becoming a wife.

What did you do that for? she scolded herself, cursing the man before her. It was his fault, riling her up like that.

"I approached you out of the goodness of my heart," Jonathan said, visibly struggling to maintain his calm. "I approached you for your father's sake, and this is how you would speak to me? Evidently, you are unwell, for only a madwoman would make up such… awful untruths."

Leah held her nerve, tilting her head to one side. "Oh, I do apologize. Which part is untrue? Perhaps, I could clarify it for you."

"Who is this beloved gentleman?" Jonathan asked haughtily as Leah had known he would.

"Goodness, you are inquisitive for a gentleman who barely knows me," Leah shot back, scouring the surrounding area with desperate eyes for anyone who might be suitable. Better yet, anyone who might play along if it came to it. Daniel, perhaps—she knew he was in attendance somewhere.

Dorothy nodded. "Let us leave her be, darling."

"No, let us hear her, for if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is a liar," Jonathan replied curtly.

Leah raised an eyebrow. "How ironic."

"Pardon?" Jonathan's eyes narrowed.

Leah forced her brightest grin and lifted a hand in a wave though there was no one else in the room. She was more or less praying for a miracle while Jonathan and Dorothy had their backs turned to the main entrance. "I said, "how ironic." As in, how strange that my beloved should appear at the very moment he has been mentioned."

Neither of the supposedly happy couple turned, both clearly doubting everything that came out of Leah's mouth. Jonathan's smirk of satisfaction had returned too, the wretch likely savoring the moment when he would finally turn around and find no one standing there, for that would assuredly confirm his suspicions that Leah had become quite mad since the jilting.

Please, please, let someone walk through the door. Even if it is the footman, I shall pay him handsomely to pretend,Leah begged inwardly.

"Come now, Lady Leah. I have heard of no such man," Jonathan insisted. "You do not have to lie to spare your pride. All you have to do is apologize for your uncouth words to me and my wife, and we shall part ways on agreeable terms."

Just then, as if sent by the heavens themselves, the door behind the heavy brocade drape burst open, and a figure tumbled into the refreshment room. Leah's reprieve had arrived in rather dramatic fashion, prompting Jonathan and Dorothy to whirl around sharply.

"There he is," Leah said, clasping a hand to her chest to try and prevent her racing heart from jumping free of her body altogether. "He has always had impeccable timing, which is more than can be said for some gentlemen I know."

Jonathan flashed her a nasty look, but she was already breezing past him, heading for the figure who was in the midst of a wrestling match with the drape that had snarled around his leg.

One more miracle, she pleaded, for if she could not get the fellow to play along with her charade, there would be one more person in the world who thought she was mad… and Jonathan would never have that smug smile wiped off his face.