She shook her head. “That won’t be possible.”
“I think you’ll find it’s very much within the realm of possibility.” He took a step forward, as if closing the physical distance between them would also close the widening emotional gap. “I’m mad for you, Valentina. You must know that. You’re my obsession.”
The question in her eyes cleared. “Ah.”
“Ah?” He didn’t like the sound of herah. It wasn’t at all like the otherahs he’d been pulling from her minutes ago.
“And your obsessions must be kept secret, mustn’t they?”
How had it all spiraled out of his control so quickly?
She wasn’t finished. “Anarrangementwould put me beyond the pale with my family, and that isn’t something I’m willing to risk. Not even for you, Archie.”
And he knew.
He’d gone about this all wrong.
And he knew how.
He’d asked her the wrong question.
“Oh,” sounded a familiar voice, “there you two are.”
Archie and Valentina’s heads whipped around to find Delilah and Juliet entering the secret garden. For a few beats of time too long, they four stared at each other in silence. Though his sisterand cousin were innocents, they weren’t fools. They understood at once something had just occurred between him and Valentina. The knowledge shone plain in their eyes.
The instant after Juliet’s gaze caught on a diaphanous white patch in the shrubberies, so did everyone else’s. Archie could kick himself.Thatwas what had been missing from Valentina’s hurried toilette.The fichu.
Juliet untangled it from a tenacious limb and handed it to Valentina in discreet silence. Delilah’s chin notched up a full inch, her eyes gone hard. “Archie, I think it’s time for you to leave.”
He nodded. He deserved as much. Reflexively, he held out his arm to Valentina.
“Valentina stays with us,” said Juliet.
Right.That was him told.
Delilah and Juliet had closed ranks around Valentina, and he couldn’t deny that they were correct to do so.
He gave a bow that was equal parts irony and anger, pivoted on his heel, and strode from the secret garden toward the mansion. With each footstep, fury collected within him and settled deep inside his gut—a fury that was directed squarely at one person.
Himself.
He’d botched matters with Valentina, utterly and irrevocably.
Fool.
He entered the mansion, meaning to say his farewells to Tristan and Amelia, with whom he hadn’t yet spoken with this evening, but he’d taken no more than five steps inside when he heard a familiar voice at his back, “There you are.”
He inhaled a calming breath before pivoting to find one of his oldest friends in the world, His Grace Sebastian Crewe, the Duke of Ravensworth, watching him with a slightly lifted brow and his usual sardonic smile. While Ravensworth matched Archie for height, standing a few inches over six feet tall, he was bulkier in the way gentlemen who took boxing as their exercise were. And whereArchie’s hair shone at the platinum end of blond, Ravensworth’s was a few shades darker.
“Ravensworth,” said Archie.
His friend cut directly to it. “The opera singer… I’m not acquainted with her.”
“I’ve never seen her,” said Archie, in a hurry. “You’ll have to ask Amelia for her direction.”
Ravensworth’s smile reached his eyes, a rarity. “Not that opera singer. The other one.”
The breath froze in Archie’s chest. Ravensworth had noticed Valentina. Of course, Ravensworth had noticed Valentina. The man was a known patron of the arts—his name was on half a dozen buildings throughout England and the Continent. But that wouldn’t be the only reason he’d noticed her.
