Chapter Twenty-One

"Daughter of mine, is there something you'd like to tell me?" Roxana said from the bedchamber doorway, her voice silken as

syllabub and her delicately arched brows hinting at only the barest degree of suspicion.

Honoria pretended complete innocence, blinking owl-eyed as she lifted the flounced hem of her green skirts and sank a foot

into a waiting slipper. "Hmm... No. At least, nothing that I can think of at the moment, other than the fact that you look

positively radiant this morning."

That much was true. Dressed in russet and gold, Roxana's skin fairly glowed. But with her chestnut hair pulled back into an

elegant chignon, it drew attention to her dramatically dark features. Especially the look of knowing in the impish tilt at

the corners of her eyes.

"And I suppose if I were to tell you that a dozen octogenarians were waiting in the parlor, the news wouldn't surprise you

a whit?"

Honoria affected a stageworthy pout. "Only a dozen? How sad. I'd sent out seventeen invitations. Either I'm losing my appeal,

or some of them weren't able to make the journey. I should make a note of it and visit those who couldn't be here."

"There is also an ample supply of suitably aged gentlemen in attendance."

"Well, I certainly didn't invite them ."

At the moment, she was only interested in interviewing candidates for elopement. The more aged and infirm, the better. She would also prefer him to have plenty of sons so no one would expect her to conceive.

Until now, she'd never really given the thought of elopement fair consideration. But it was time to rethink her options. After

all, marriage might not be too unbearable as long as it was on her own terms. And the fact that she'd come to this decision

after her picnic with Oscar had nothing to do with it whatsoever.

"No, I don't imagine you did," Mother said. "The others are likely here because word has spread about Vandemere's return,

and the fact that the banns have yet to be read has given them a semblance of hope." She lifted a hand to her temples. "Consequently,

the entire house is beginning to smell like a hothouse from all the bouquets they've brought, giving me a megrim. And Verity

and Magnus have fled to Swanscott Manor to spend the day with his grandmother."

An Aubusson rug in rose and ivory muffled Honoria's steps as she crossed the bedchamber. Dutifully, she pressed a kiss to

her mother's cheek. "I think the solution is to send all the younger gentlemen on their way."

Roxana slanted her a look of omniscience that motherhood had honed to perfection.

But Honoria refused to feel guilty. So she offered an offhand shrug. "Unless, of course, Thea wishes to entertain them."

"Your sister's primary interest in the horde waiting below is to cast them in a Homerian epic, then have them entertain her on the stage. She has already asked if she could borrow the servants to throw pails of water on the men drawn helplessly

to the sirens for the shipwreck scene."

"Oh, that's actually quite"—Honoria faltered when her mother's look darkened—"clever, isn't it?"

"I'm more concerned with the cleverness of my middle daughter at the moment, or lack thereof. I just hope you know what you're

doing."

Honoria swallowed. "Of course I do. You've always taught us to let our hearts guide us, and that's just what I'm doing."

Because her heart was telling her to stay far, far away from Oscar Flint.

***

By the time Honoria entered the overwarm parlor, her dozen octogenarians had dwindled to seven. She discovered that two had

been caught up in fits of sneezing from all the flowers. A third had an attack of gout. The last two had fallen asleep and

were taken away by their nursemaids.

Those who remained were fading fast in the summer heat. It seemed an hour of plying the men with strong black tea to keep

them awake had backfired somewhat. Five of them required the use of the retiring room. Four of those never returned. She imagined

them lost somewhere in the house, ambling endlessly in the corridors and stopping to chat with a marble bust.

Stifling a giggle at the thought, she trained all her wiles on the final three.

She was thankful that Thea had been willing to take the younger men to the music room, with Roxana as chaperone. Honoria didn't

want their mother to witness what she was about to do.

But as every woman knew, desperate times called for... décolletage.

With a graceful lift of her hands to touch her hair, she pretended that she had no idea that the action offered her breasts

a little boost in their gusseted cups. And when she lowered her arms, the firm swells strained against the pink beribboned

edge of her bodice.

"More tea?" she asked as she bent over to pour a cup for Baronet Roth who was, incidentally, a perfect candidate at eighty-nine. His wiry brows lifted as he followed the gesture, a tea-drunk grin on his lips. Then his eyes glazed over, and a dribble of saliva pooled over his bottom lip.

Oh, dear. Perhaps she'd gone a touch too far. Losing another, she rang for Mr. Mosely.

Just as the butler and one of the footmen were helping Lord Roth back to his carriage and his traveling physician, a white-haired

termagant stormed in on a huff.

She went directly to the portly Lord Windrow and slapped his plump, ruddy cheek. "‘Just going for a drive, my pet,' you said.

‘Won't be but a minute,' you said, only to find you in the company of this... this harlot." She cast a disparaging glance

to Honoria and her mostly modestly covered bosom. "Ain't I given you the best years of my life? Baked your bread? Washed your

stockings and drawers? Gave into your slap and tickle for nigh on twenty years now? Said you'd make an honest woman of me.

Well, no more. I refuse to be strung along. And, mark my words, I'll never cook or clean for you, or rub that belly when you've

ate too many Banbury cakes, ever again."

As she stormed back out, Lord Windrow shot to his feet. He stumbled after her. "Pudding, don't go! You know that you and your

Banbury cakes are all I've ever wanted. Pudding, please..."

A door slammed in the distance.

And then there was one, Honoria thought with a sigh and closed her eyes.

But in the next breath her eyes sprang open when she heard her father's stage bellow coming from the foyer. "What the deuce

is going on here?"

"I'd lay odds that your middle daughter is behind it," an all-too-familiar voice of raw silk replied.

Devil's doorknocker! What was Oscar doing here?

She whirled around to her one remaining octogenarian and clasped her hands over her rabbiting heart. "It is such a lovely

day. I wonder if you might escort me for a stroll in the garden, sir."

Sir Russel Covington—ninety in September—eyed her blandly with two slow blinks over cloudy blue eyes. Like a pillar of beeswax left overlong in the sun, his face was long and narrow, with a sloping nose and a wide mouth tipped down at the corners toward drooping jowls.

When her question was met with that blank stare, she recalled that he was hard of hearing and tried again a bit louder.

"I'm not one for flowers and such," he answered after a third attempt, his voice a cool monotone. He cast a withering glance

to the bright bouquets bursting from the vases and pitchers that crowded every flat surface.

Hearing footsteps on the stairs, she took two more steps into the room. "Then, perhaps the library."

"Too much reading addles one's thoughts."

She hid her disapproval of that statement and briefly thought that she would still have the option to smother him in his sleep

on their wedding night... if she could simply get him to stand up and walk with her. Perhaps she could shove him into his

carriage and hie off to Gretna Green this afternoon.

But the instant a footfall stopped behind her, she knew it was already too late.

She caught the scents of amber and sandalwood beneath saddle leather, horse and sweat, and hated that the mélange of fragrances

set her moths aflutter. Stupid moths.

"Why, Lord Vandemere, what a pleasant surprise," she said without turning to face him.

He came up beside her and settled a warm hand against the small of her back. "Is it, my dear?"

No. No, it most definitely was not.

"I should have thought you'd be busy plundering the abbey's coffers," she muttered through gritted teeth, all the while keeping

a smile on her lips for the sake of her guest.

"The abbey had other plans for me," he said. "Would you care to introduce me to your... caller?"

She despised that amused I can see all your cards tone of his. "Sir Russel Covington."

"Eh?" Covington asked, his waxen features nudging into alert confusion.

Honoria raised her voice. "I was just introducing you to Lord Vandemere."

"Puppeteer, you say? Bah!" He sneered and pushed a gnarled hand through the air. "Never been one for puppets. Childish things.

No man... should... waste..."

Apparently, the sudden burst of activity exhausted him, and he nodded off, the sagging lids over his rheumy eyes drifting

shut. As his chin melted against the voluminous folds of his cravat, he let out a snore.

"And then there were none." She sighed. "I hope you're hap—"

Turning to glare at Oscar, she startled at seeing a thin red cut over his left eyebrow. "What happened?"

When she reached up, he covered her hand and drew it down. "It's nothing. A wayward chandelier. Thankfully no one was hurt."

"You were hurt." Hearing the tenderness in her own voice and realizing that her hand was resting over his heart, she stepped

back and issued a shrug. "Of course, I would have preferred a fatal accident."

He smirked and seized her hand, tugging her out of the parlor. "For that cruel remark, I believe you owe me a walk." And when

she tried to pull free, he added, "Unless you'd rather speak with your father. I believe he's in the music room making inquiries."

She ended up allowing him to curl her hand around his sleeve. But she wasn't happy about it.

"Where are you taking me?" she groused as he steered her away from the house and past the gardens.

"I don't trust you, Signore. The minute I release you, you're likely to load Covington into a wheelbarrow, toss him into his

carriage and abscond with him."

The fact that he was uncannily accurate vexed her to no end, and she jerked her hand away. "You don't know as much as you think you do."

"I know a desperate play when I see one. You're betting all your fish tokens before the cards have been dealt."

"Perhaps I have complete faith in my hand. Did you ever think of that?"

"What I think is that you like to be in control, and it scares you when you're not."

She scoffed, but her pulse scurried in a panic. It felt as though she were dressed as a target and he had just struck the

red eye in the center.

She hated being so transparent to him!

Of all the gentlemen she'd met in her life, not one of them had ever seen past her beauty. Until Oscar. He saw through all

her disguises and deeper still, leaving her vulnerable. And yes, it was frightening. But she refused to tell him that.

So she stayed silent as they walked the winding path through the meadow, the air sizzling with the rustle of tall grasses,

the droning buzz of honeybees, the crackle of grasshoppers and the distant susurration of cicadas.

The pompous blackguard beside her didn't bother to hide the smug arch of his brow as if he'd read every one of her thoughts.

Before she could tell him to go to the devil, her gaze drifted up to the angry red slash on his forehead, and something pinched

in the center of her chest.

"You should apply salve. Otherwise, you'll have an unsightly scar."

"It will just be one more to add to all the others."

" What others?"

The shoulders beneath his coat lifted absently. He ambled over a stile and held his hand out to assist her. "Where is the

woman who planned to murder me in my sleep?"

"Still perfecting her poison," she countered, choosing to ignore his open palm.

But he refused to let her proceed on her own and set his hands on her waist before slowly lowering her to her feet.

The churning maelstrom of unwanted feelings made her want to run in the opposite direction. Either that or wrap her arms around

him, hold him close and reassure him that she would keep him safe. Him , the very man who'd been blackmailing her.

It was absolutely ridiculous.

Before those all-seeing eyes could read those thoughts as well, she shoved away from him and stormed off, around the bend.

Her steps faltered when she saw where they were.

She rarely walked by the river. Even though it was a hot day, seeing the sun glinting off the surface of the water gave her

a chill.

She chafed her hands over her arms. "Why did you have to lead us here?"

"I thought we might enjoy a change of scenery. We haven't strolled by the river yet, and it's hot as blazes. Hot enough to

take a swim."

Behind her, she heard the splash of water. Her blood suddenly ran cold. As if caught in a bog, she turned slowly. She saw

him remove his coat. Saw him walk toward the river's edge. Saw him lose his footing and sink down—

"No!"

Without thinking, she bolted. Charging toward him with her arms outstretched, she caught him around the waist just in time

to knock him—drag him—back onto the path.

He fell with a hard thud, her body sprawled over his.

"What in blazes, Honoria! One minute, I'm bending down to wet my face and the next you're—"

He broke off, his scowl abruptly fading into concern as he looked up at her.

That was when she realized what she'd just done. She'd barreled into him, for heaven's sakes. Just launched herself at him

out of the blue. And she felt like an utter fool.

Mortified, she tried to push herself off him, but her limbs were too weak.

"What is it? You're whiter than my backside, and you're trembling." Oscar sat up, pulling her onto his lap, his hands cradling

her face.

Her entire body shivered, her teeth chattered. And she wished she could will herself to stop.

But when she closed her eyes to concentrate, all she saw was a vision of him, face down in the water. "I thought... you

were... falling."

"I wasn't, but even if I were, I don't think that's the reason you're crying right now."

Was she? Devil's doorknocker, she was. How humiliating! She could feel the wet runnels on her cheeks as he wiped them away

with his thumbs. Could this moment get any worse?

Then she sniffled so hard that her nostrils closed, making a snorting sound at the back of her throat. And she had her answer.

When she tried to scramble away, he held her close. "Shhh... Whatever it is, you know you can tell me. I am the keeper

of your secrets, after all. And you are the keeper of mine."

"Oh, why must you say such tender things? It makes it so difficult to hate you."

"All part of my diabolical plan."

Her head found the niche between his neck and shoulder that seemed formed just for her, and she felt the press of his lips

against her hair.

"I had a twin," she said softly. "His name was Ernest, and he was"— the other half of my entire world , she thought—"lovely. We were still in the nursery, still climbing into the other's bed at night. We'd never spent a day

apart. Until the day he drowned."

Oscar's arms tightened around her, and he cursed softly. "Forgive me. I didn't know."

"You likely think the way I behaved just now was foolish."

"You're wrong," he said. "I know all too well how a loss at that age can change everything. It's hard to have the world you

know crumble beneath your feet."

Those words, that simple acknowledgment and understanding, meant more to her than he would ever know. She closed her eyes,

feeling the damp press of her lashes, hearing the reassuring beat of his heart, strong and steady.

"I still think of that day," she said. "We were playing a game, blowing bubbles in the water. The pure delight of laughter

echoing in the garden like raindrops plinking down a well. We were forever challenging each other. Everything with us was

always in halves. When I finished, he crouched down to begin.

"I still remember his dimples and the way his eyes turned to crescent moons when he smiled, the way his flaxen hair looked

like curls of sunlight and how they fanned out like threads of a silken halo around his head when they touched the surface

of the water. And he said, ‘Watch me...'"

A breath shuddered through her, and Oscar held her closer, his lips brushing her forehead. "But I'd heard a strange sound,

a cry or shout of alarm. It came from my grandmother. She'd stood up from the bench. Then, just as suddenly, crumpled to her

knees, her eyes wide and confused in a way that frightened me. So I climbed over the side of the reflecting pool and ran off

to find the nurse who was fetching flannels for Ernest and me."

Honoria remembered everything, every moment: the shouts of her grandfather to summon a surgeon from the village, the commotion

of the servants, the strange and terrible chill that had crept over her.

She shivered, and Oscar rubbed his hands down her back in soothing passes. "I think I knew even before the nurse screamed. Even before the gardener lifted his limp body out of the water. Even before I saw that his pink cherub's mouth was tinged blue. And the last thing I remember about that day was the howl of anguish from Grandfather as he fell to his knees holding my brother's limp body and Grandmama in his arms. And all because I didn't watch—"

"No," Oscar interrupted, his tone hard even as his hold remained soothing. "It wasn't your fault. You were a child and saw

the world through a child's eyes. There was no way for you to know."

"But if I had just—"

"Stop. No amount of guilt or regret can alter the past. Those pages of our stories have been glued in place. Trying to pry

them apart and rewrite them so they have a different ending is not only impossible but leads to misery." He tilted up her

chin and forced her to meet his gaze. "You will never learn to live your life—truly live it—until you stop trying to change

what happened and let yourself mourn for what was lost, not for what might have been."

She wanted to shove away from him. Wanted to ball her hands into fists and pummel his chest for his audacity. Wanted to rail

at him for daring to think that he knew anything about her. But when she opened her mouth to do just that, a cry came out

instead.

It was an angry sound. Almost a shout, hard and bitter, her eyes slitted. She almost convinced herself that it was only anger.

That all she had to do was yell at him. She didn't know that releasing it would break the dam that had been holding back years

of the agony and utter loneliness she'd been hiding for most of her life.

When the emotions rose up in a sudden torrent, she wasn't prepared. They streamed from her eyes, stuttered from her throat

and drained her of the strength to hold them back.

Oscar held her tightly as she sobbed. She couldn't stop the torrent. Not even the reminder that she was humiliating herself

in front of her adversary could stop her. And he simply let her cry, holding her all the while.

Wrung out, she allowed herself to sink against him and heard him breathe in as his lungs expanded. Gradually, her own breathing slowed to match his, his comforting scent reaching inside to soothe her.

Oscar's lips brushed her temple. "You've had that locked inside you all this time, haven't you?"

"We never talk about Ernest in my family. And I refuse to force it because I don't want to upset my parents. But he should

be talked about, remembered. He's still part of this family."

"It was the same for my mother," he said after a while. "She lost her sister, her twin, before I was born. But she said it

was too difficult to talk about her because she felt as though half of her had died."

Honoria looked up at him in surprise. "That's precisely how it feels."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I think I understand you better now, the loss behind the reason you keep yourself guarded.

We are alike in that, as well."

She didn't argue. Even so, it seemed impossible that this vexing, blackhearted man could know her better than anyone. And

even more impossible that all she wanted to do was burrow closer to him, to let him fill that emptiness she carried with her.

But that wasn't something she was willing to do.

Therefore, she stood and brushed out her skirts, attempting to make herself look presentable. He did the same, moving around

behind her as she carefully avoided his gaze. Now that the moment was over and she was no longer in his arms, embarrassment

crept in again.

"Don't," he said gently, settling a hand beneath her chin to tilt up her face. Her mouth opened on an argument, and he pressed

his damp handkerchief to her lips, silencing her. "Don't start building your walls again, believing that I won't scale those,

too."

Then, holding her gaze, he proceeded to tenderly wipe away any residual traces of her tears. And whatever diatribe that waited on her tongue for his impertinence simply dissolved away.

She put her hair back to rights, setting a few loose pins in place before brushing the dust off his shoulders. She even reached

up to comb back the wayward dark curls that had fallen against his forehead, which seemed to amuse him.

With a grin tucked into the corner of his mouth, he captured her hand, then tugged her along the towpath, their fingers interlaced.

She kept pace beside him but inwardly wondered how this had happened.

She didn't have the answer. Then again, it wasn't a question she wanted to spend too much time thinking about either.

He stopped at the old ash tree, its trunk as wide as a carriage. "Look at this grand beauty. I've yet to see its equal on

the abbey grounds."

"We used to climb this as children. Reaching the top became sort of a rite of passage for us." She traced the names they'd

carved just above the first knothole. "It began with Truman, of course. Not to be outdone, Verity soon followed. You wouldn't

think it by looking at her, but she climbs a tree like a monkey. Then came me and"—she swallowed as her fingertips skimmed

the letters—"Thea."

But there was one name missing. Ernest never had the chance to climb this tree. She still remembered the day she'd carved

hers, and that night, how she'd cried herself to sleep.

Oscar gave her one look, just one, then reached down into his boot and withdrew a dirk.

When he stepped behind her, one hand anchored on her waist, she asked, "What are you doing?"

"What should have been done long ago." He stuck the tip of his dirk into the soft gray bark, exactly beside her name. Then he wrapped her hand around the hilt and covered it with his own. "We'll do this together."

Together.

By the time they finished, her eyes were swimming with bittersweet tears. That painful pinch in her heart suddenly gave way

to something else. Something that she wouldn't think about until much, much later.