“‘Misplaced’ is right.”Gloria put a hand on her hip.“Your perfume didn’t help your confidence at all.Your only faith was in chemical compounds, when you should have had it in yourself.”
“I am now incredibly confident in my ability to destroy the best thing that ever happened to me,” Penelope assured her.“I interrupted a declaration of love to tell him it wasn’t real.Now he’s gone.”
“Do you remember why you two argued when you first met?”Gloria asked after a moment.“What did you tell me?”
“That Saint Nick was on a mission to stopDuke,” Penelope said with a bitter smile.She’d been so sanctimonious.“That the gallant rake feared confused, hapless women would find themselves leg-shackled to all the wrong men.”
Gloria crossed her arms.“And what did you say to that argument?”
Penelope sighed.“I told him women aren’t hapless.Dukestarts the conversation.Women decide where it goes.”
“Listen close,” Gloria said.“Men aren’t hapless either.He chose you.Not your scent.The whole package.”
Hope pricked Penelope’s heart.Might it be true?CouldDuchesshave worked as designed, yet not have manipulated the final outcome?
“You have to trust,” Gloria said softly.“Have faith that what you feel is right.All sorts of non-verifiable things exist.If a rake can choose love, surely a lady chemist is capable of the same.”
“I want to believe more than anything,” Penelope whispered.“But it would truly be a miracle.The chemical compounds used inDuchess—”
“Are you wearing it?”Gloria asked, coming closer.
Penelope took a step backward.“What?”
“Are you wearing it right now?”Gloria sniffed behind Penelope’s ears.“You don’t smell like anything but Penelope.”
Penelope pushed her away.“I washed it off as soon as I realized it had been a mistake.The trial is over.I’ll never wear perfume again.”
“When did you get rid of it?”Gloria insisted.“Did you pause to have a quick wash-up between accepting his gift and breaking his heart?”
“Of course not,” Penelope said, exasperated.“If you must have every detail, I scrubbed it off last night before curling into a ball and failing to sleep.”
Gloria grinned.“Then you weren’t wearing it.”
“What?”Penelope stammered.
“You weren’t contaminated with your evil perfume.”Gloria lifted her chin in triumph.“When he declared himself to you,Duchesswas out of smell range.You were talking to the real Nicholas.”
Penelope sniffed both wrists, then stared at Gloria.
“Duchessstarted the conversation,” Gloria reminded her.“You had the power to finish it.”
The power to ruin it, rather.
“It happened too fast.This was my first kiss, my first sexual encounter, my first—”
“Your first time glancing up from your notes,” Gloria put in dryly.“You never came out of your laboratory.Not completely.Eligible gentlemen could leer at you all day long and you wouldn’t notice.UntilDuchessgave you a reason to start.”
That… sounded uncomfortably accurate.
Penelope had done everything in her power to block herself off from the outside world.She hadn’t realized just how well she had succeeded.
“He said he doesn’t love me.”Penelope’s chest tightened with shame.“That he didn’t know me at all.He’s already gone.”
Her heart cracked.She’d managed to realize both her worst fears at once.
Love was real.
And she’d lost it.
