The response was phenomenal. Gwanton’s nose started bleeding like a geyser while the man himself began shrieking like a schoolgirl. Several of the witnesses, who had ignored Letitia’s attempts to dispel them, gasped; one lady fainted dead away at the sight of the blood.
And people gasped aboutwhat a scandal it wasin at least three languages that Clio could hear.
Clio shook out her throbbing hand and, as the haze of temper dissipated, worried that this had been going perhaps abitfar.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!”
Letitia’s familiar hands were on Clio’s shoulders, then, and she bodily marched the younger woman toward the gangplank and down toward the dock. There were several serving men waiting to help escort the ladies down the narrow walkway, and more than one of them gave Clio an impressed look.
“Are you quite pleased with yourself now?” Letitia groused as she scanned the gathered carriages for the Duke of Redcliff’s coat of arms. She made a satisfied noise in the back of her throat when she spotted it, then steered Clio in that direction. “Why is it that you never listen when I say things like ‘Perhaps we should think about this a moment?’”
A very wide-eyed maid helped Clio and Letitia up into the carriage. The driver looked as though he planned to dine out on this story for years to come.
Merde, Clio thought, the swear words coming to her mind in French first after spending so many years of her life abroad.
“This is not good,” she said, looking at her friend as Letitia settled in across from her. There was blood on her gloves, she realized.
“It’s not,” Letitia confirmed grimly. “You were planning on having aquietreturn to England, as you might recall.”
With the red haze of her anger receding, Clio felt panic begin to rise up to take its place.
“We have to alert the driver,” she said, feeling as though the carriage walls were closing around her as her breathing came more quickly and her hands began to shake. “We cannot go home. Not yet. Not without making a plan.”
CHAPTER 2
“How is this going to help?” Letitia asked suspiciously as they pulled up in front of an elegant toy shop, which displayed adorable porcelain dolls and stoic cast-metal soldiers in its thick front window.
“Here is my plan,” Clio said, trying to sound authoritative and confident as she shooed Letitia into the shop. “I will purchase presents for my cousin Xander and Helen’s children. Then I will say to my brother, ‘Oh, Aaron, since I have bought these presents, don’t you think I should go visit the children? I’m sure they have grown tall or learned something! Children are always growing and learning things!’”
“You’re a natural,” Letitia commented dryly. “And, not to try to poke holes in your plan, but what about when your brother notes that I am about to go to the duke and duchess’ home, and therefore could quite easily convey your purchases with me?”
Letitia had served as a governess for Clio in the last few years that Clio had needed such a figure in her life, during the first years she’d spent in Belgium.
Now that Clio was—under protest—back in England, she’d arranged for her friend to serve as governess in her cousin’s household. This served them both well, as Clio got to have her friend relatively nearby, and Letitia was assured that she’d be adequately compensated … and that the master of the house would not have a wandering eye, as the Duke of Godwin was completely besotted by his duchess.
“The growing and the learning!” Clio reminded Letitia emphatically. “If you go without me, who is to observe the growing and the learning? See? The plan makes sense.”
“Does it, though?” Letty gave her a skeptical look. “One could argue thatIwas specifically hired to observe and cultivate such things, but what is the point of logic in the face of your scheming?” The words were exasperated, but Letitia’s tone was fond.
“Precisely,” Clio agreed as she perused a shelf of wooden swords. “As I said. It makes total sense.”
Clio suspected that the more she uttered the words ‘it makes sense,’ the less it seemed as though itdidmake sense. But making it sound like shehada plan seemed better than “I’m just running away.”
She didn’t like howthatsounded, not even inside her own head.
“Do you think that a two-year-old boy would like this?” she asked. Best to just forge ahead.
“He might, but nobody else in the household would thank you,” Letitia said, steering Clio toward a large stuffed lion. “Try this. And maybe a doll, for your niece, before you get any other ideas.”
Clio sighed. Those were very boring choices, but she supposed she should defer to her friend’s expertise in these matters.
“I will say,” Letitia went on, picking up the previous thread of their conversation, “I’m not certain that the gossip won’t follow you to the countryside. You could have been abitmore cautious.”
Clio waved a hand. “I’m not concerned about my reputation,” she said. “I’m only going to?—“
“Hide?” Letitia supplied sweetly.
“—retreat,” Clio corrected emphatically, “because I don’t want my brother to get ideas. He can be terribly missish when it comes to my reputation, I’m afraid.”
