Don’t let go,he thought.Don’t let me go, Win.
But she did not seem to hear him.
Chapter 15
The night air felt wintry on Winnie’s nose and throat as she stepped down from the carriage. The Duchess of Vale’s residence on Grosvenor was lit by gas chandeliers—another thing Winnie had never seen. The lights in the windows glittered off brass and crystal, larger and warmer than a candle flame, but all she felt was cold: sharp and scouring.
Spencer had lain beside her in the bed for a long time. Neither of them had spoken.
She had not been thinking clearly. She had gotten lost somehow in him, in his scent and his body and his eyes, searching and honest.Tell me what you want,he’d said, and she had. She had wanted him. She still wanted him, fiercely and possessively.
She had wanted Spencer, and he had given her all of himself, exactly as she’d feared.
It had not been until afterward that she’d realized what she’d done. By taking Spencer to her bed, she had entrapped him. One more tie binding them together; one more snare that he could not escape.
He was a good man. It would not occur to him to deceive the courts. He would go along with the marriage—he would not even condemn her, at least not at first.
But how long until he realized what she had done? How long until he looked at her—a sheep farmer, a jewel thief,nothinglike a countess—and regretted his choices?
How long until he left?
Do you want the Champs-Élysées, or the money?
She had told herself for ten lonely years that she did not want more—did not want love and companionship, did not want a family. One more lie to add to her tally of deceptions; one more untruth that Spencer had swept away with the warm touch of his freckled hand.
She wanted more, now. She wanted Spencer, and she wanted him forever.
It hurt already, the wanting. It would hurt far more when he left her.
She had told herself a thousand times these last weeks that she needed to protect him. She could hurt him, if she was not cautious—hurt him with the effects of the lies she’d told, disrupt his careful life, wreck his relationship with his sisters. She could hurt him so easily.
But what had hidden, curled beneath the words, had been the truth of her fear.
He could hurt her.
Each day she lost herself in him a little more. In the slow exploration of his gentle hands, the joy at the corner of his mouth. His diligence, his playfulness, his care. Each day she fell more in love with him, and each day she knew the pain to come would be even sharper, even keener.
And she was lonely—cowardly—terrified of her own vulnerability and the coming pain.
Eventually he had risen, pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder, and dressed quietly before going out through the connecting door. She had watched the angle of the light change through the window until it was full dark, and she could see her own reflection in the glass.
She’d gotten up. She’d gone to the desk, drawn paper and a quill from the drawer, and written page after page, scribbling and crossing things out, working until the words were perfect and then making a fair copy. She’d written all the way through dinner, and when Spencer had knocked on the door to ask if she was coming down with him, she’d told him she would meet him at the duchess’s ball.
“Don’t wait for me,” she’d said. Her voice had sounded unnaturally calm to her own ears. “I’ll be there later on.”
“Win,” he’d murmured back, “tell me what you mean to do. Let me help.”
“Nothing outrageous. No more adventures. I promise.”
It was the truth.
He hadn’t said anything more.
She’d scrubbed the ink from her hands and prepared her letter for the post. She dressed her hair and adjusted the tailoring of the silk gown she’d purchased earlier in the week. It was a deep navy, with an inset panel of silvery sage green; the flowing drapes of fabric covered her from neck to toe, hinting at the column of her body when she moved. It had reminded her, when she’d seen it in the dressmaker’s shop, of Spencer’s dressing gown. It had made her laugh.
Finally, when it had been full dark for hours, she slipped the last necklace, the dreadful acrostic spelling outFLORA,into her reticule. She had no need for subterfuge this night.
When she opened the door, she saw that Spencer had left a tray of food outside for her, and when she went downstairs, she learned he’d hired a hack and left the Warren carriage for her to take. She would emerge from the carriage alone, but with the solid protection of his name ever-present.
