Alas, not entirely true.
But she could only imagine her friend’s reaction if she confessed he had led her to a secret corridor and encouraged her to view the sinful, lustful copulation occurring within the walls of his establishment.
She had seen Eversley without a stitch of clothing, cavorting with two similarly unclothed females. Because he wished to be watched. She had witnessed his rigid…member. His maleness. And that woman had seated herself… Frederica flushed to think of what she had seen now, and her instinctive reaction to it. Part horror, part curiosity. Not for the dreadful viscount or the Cyprians with whom he romped, but rather for the notion such raw surrender to baser urges existed.
Shameful, she knew, but she could admit it to herself if no one else.
“I’m relieved no harm befell you, but my God, Freddy, even you must admit you cannot continue in this mad fashion. All it requires is one person to discover what you’re about. One servant catching you up at dawn. Do not ruin yourself, my dear friend. How can a novel be worth that?”
Frederica frowned at Leonora. “My dreams are priceless. I do not know what any of the rest of it is worth. But I cannot ruin myself if I am discreet. The gambles I’m making far outweigh the potential reward. All I have ever wanted is to write a novel and see my work in print. I am so near to achieving my goal, to being taken seriously, but the plot concerning the baron must be unshakably realistic.”
All this was true as well. Most young ladies aspired to marriage. Frederica had been groomed to attain the proper ladylike arts. She could sing, she could play the pianoforte, she could dance and curtsy and manage a passable effort at watercolors. She had been courted and wooed by earls and viscounts.
But all she truly wanted was to hold her book in her hands. She wanted the characters and stories rioting in her mind to come to life in ink and paper. She wanted readers to pluck her book from a shelf and share her world. It was a desire that had plagued and spurred her in equal measure from the moment she’d first held a book in her small hands as a girl. The story had captivated her, and she had known what she must do.
“I know how much you wish to finish your novel, Freddy.” Leonora kept her voice hushed, but her expression was determined, jaw stubborn and hard. Her disapproval was clear. “But it is not only unwise to put yourself and your reputation in jeopardy in such a fashion, it is the height of folly. Once was bad enough. To think you wish to return…” She shuddered with dramatic flair, allowing her sentence to trail off before continuing. “You cannot think the risk of ruination is worth the reward.”
“I can and I do,” she insisted stubbornly. Drat her friend for being the voice of reason she did not wish to hear. She had been hoping Leonora would be as intrigued by the prospect of her return to The Duke’s Bastard as she was. “I have decided being ruined may be a fate preferable to that of becoming Lady Willingham. Indeed, it holds increasing appeal by the day.”
Perhaps by the hour.
Certainly since she had made the acquaintance of one Duncan Kirkwood.
What was it about the man?
Leonora gasped. “You cannot mean it, Freddy.”
She raised an incredulous brow at her friend. “Would you care to be the Countess of Willingham?”
Leonora flushed and looked down at her lap. “At six-and-twenty, I suppose I should accept his suit and be grateful.”
Frederica’s stomach flipped, weighed down by the instant boulder of self-loathing. “Oh, Leonora, pray forgive me for my thoughtless tongue.”
Frederica cursed her thoughtlessness, for no one knew better than she that her friend wished to become a wife and a mother more than she wished to take her next breath. While Frederica had never aspired to becoming a gentleman’s wife, Leonora did. Her painfully shy manner around gentlemen and her limp had rendered her a wallflower. As the years went by with nary a marriage prospect—not even a dubious one like Willingham—she crept closer and closer to spinsterhood.
“You must not fret on my account.” Leonora flashed her a smile of forced brightness. “I harbor no illusions about myself. How can I? Limping Leonora, with a brother who has been absent from England for years, an invalid mother, and hardly a dowry to speak of, cannot aspire to lofty prospects. It is a small mercy I have been able to gain entrée to society as I have.”
“You are the daughter and sister of an earl,” Frederica argued, for she hated the complacent manner in which her friend denounced herself. “Any gentleman would be fortunate to take you to wife. Indeed, there are none worthy of you. You are the kindest, most intelligent, and most beautiful lady in all London.”
“Pish.” Leonora waved a dismissive hand through the air, as though she were discreetly shooing a bothersome fly. “I am lame as an old horse. I cannot dance. I do not flirt. I am not a great wit, and I cannot even play the pianoforte. My singing voice rivals a rooster for jarring shrillness. My family is awash in scandal, and I have no great fortune as my saving grace. Even my youth slips away with each day. I do not fool myself, Freddy. I know precisely who and what I am.”
“You are perfect, and I refuse to countenance any of the things you’ve just said.” Frederica was firm on this.
She was protective of her friend. Unlike Leonora, she had never been subject to such mockery or ridicule. They had become quick—if unlikely—friends, and Frederica was more grateful for her with each passing day. Leonora was the sister she’d never had. Each of them had one brother only, and together, they had found a mutual camaraderie borne of necessity and mutual respect.
“My darling Freddy, you are blind as ever in regard to me.” Leonora pursed her lips. “It is one of the legions of reasons why I adore you. But because I love you so, I must caution you against the rash decision you have made. Indeed, I must not just caution you but advise you not to return. It is a miracle you arrived at such an establishment on your own and returned unharmed. But the thought that dreadful man had you in his office, alone, makes me long to hunt him down like the miscreant he is and lay him low.”
She blinked at the vehemence in her friend’s tone. Leonora was not ordinarily possessed of a violent nature. Frederica performed another cursory inspection of the chamber, making certain their maids remained otherwise occupied. Leonora’s was stitching, and Freddy’s appeared to have fallen asleep.
“He is not as much a villain as one would presume,” she found herself defending Duncan Kirkwood.
Much to her shock.
And dismay. And shame. Great shame. But there was some part of her—some deep and previously undiscovered part of her—that felt a connection to the man. An interest. Even an attraction.
Leonora’s mouth fell open. “Not as much a villain? Have you forgotten he is the illegitimate half brother to Lord Willingham, a man you detest?”
She almost had. The two men were so different that it was far too easy to forget. “He is nothing like the earl. Indeed, he is…”
