Secret Admirer

  “I would have nothing, no life, without Lawrence. He has given me everything. This is the only way I know to repay him. To win you back for him.”

  A hundred memories flashed across Tuesday’s mind. “He probably won’t take me back.”

  “I think he will.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “Do you still love him?” Maria had only to look at Tuesday to see her answer. “Please,” she said. “Please just try.”

  Tuesday felt both better and worse than she had at any time since she first saw Maria months earlier. She took both the woman’s hands in hers and asked, “What would you have me do?”

  “The horses on the coach outside should be rested now. I’d suggest you take it and get to London as quickly as you can. You see, tonight is his betrothal ball.”

  Tom spurred his horse back to London as quickly as he could. His Lady was even more beautiful than he had remembered her. That was what made him understand. She had purposely kept herself from him, for three months, just so that he would be more forcefully spurred to action. And it had Worked. Boy had it Worked. He could feel the W poking through his leggings even as he rode.

  He had been great before, but never so great as he was now. As he was about to be. The Grand Tournament was finally about to begin.

  Chapter 38

  Tuesday was astonished at the change in Pickering Hall. Not just the decorations for the ball, which were lavish and omnipresent, but by the fact that it was jammed with furniture. All of it was beautiful and well chosen and elegant. But somehow it felt wrong. As if the place were wearing a dress that was not quite flattering.

  “Christopher,” Lawrence began without looking up from his work when he heard someone step into the room. “In the future I want you to announce all my guests. Not just those, like Lady Waverly, that you disapprove of.”

  “I’m afraid it is too late for that, Mr. Pickering.”

  Lawrence froze. The sound of her purr thrilled him. His head came up slowly.

  Lawrence and Tuesday stared at each other for a long moment. It was the most painful moment in both of their lives.

  “What are you doing here?” Lawrence’s voice was a rasp.

  Tuesday was asking herself the same question. Why had she believed Maria? Why had she come? This man did not love her. This man, in his perfect house with his perfect clothes and his perfect ball about to get underway, this man who looked at her with eyes she only wished were empty so she would not have to see his hatred; this man wanted nothing to do with her.

  Tuesday picked up what looked like an ornate wooden box standing on the small table next to her and it fell into a dozen pieces in her hands. She hastily dumped it back onto the table in a little mound, upsetting the stack of papers next to it so that they slid from a perfect pile into a crooked heap. She clasped her hands in front of her and stared hard at the floor.

  “At least you have not lost your ability to create chaos out of order.”

  Tuesday looked at him again. She would have given anything for him to be smiling, but he was not. “It looks so different. Everything. I mean, with the furniture.”

  Lawrence did not say anything, did not move.

  “Are you happy?” Tuesday blurted.

  “Amazingly.”

  “Oh.” Tuesday looked at the expensive rug again. “Because I am not. I haven’t been. I—” She looked up. “I have missed you so much, Lawrence.”

  “My name is Lord Pickering.”

  He meant it to sting, but it didn’t. “Yes, sitting here like this, in your splendor, you certainly do look like Lord Pickering.”

  Why did it sound like an insult? Why did he care? What the hell was she doing there? He wanted her out. Now.

  “Was there something in particular you needed to say to me? I have been barraged with interruptions today and I have a few things to finish before my betrothal ball begins tonight.”

  “Am I inconveniencing you, Lord Pickering?”

  “Does this visit have a purpose?”

  “Yes. I came to tell you that I was wrong, that I made a huge mistake, and that I am very sorry. I came—”

  “Thank you. Good evening, Lady Arlington.”

  “I am not done.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Damn you, Lawrence. You are not mad at me for barging in here and ruining your schedule. You are mad because you think I betrayed and abandoned you. But I did not. I left because I thought you had betrayed me. I thought you were married to Maria.”

  “I am aware of that. You were, as you no doubt now know, wrong.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why didn’t you trust me?”

  Tuesday paced in front of his desk, looking for words. “I was too upset. The idea that I had destroyed a marriage, destroyed a family, destroyed the life of another woman just like me, made me furious.”

  “And yet you could not believe in me? Could not have waited a few hours for me to explain? Could not trust me not to have been a man who would behave that way?”

  “Why couldn’t you trust me? What was I supposed to think when you did not even deny it? How was I supposed to know?”

  “I really cannot say, Lady Arlington, nor do I care to give the matter any thought.”

  “You said you loved me, Lawrence. I was ready to give you my whole life. I shared things with you I had never shared with anyone. I thought we had something extraordinary. Special.” She took two steps and put her hands on his desk, sending papers skidding in all directions. “You said you wanted to be with me forever and then you did not even come looking for me.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Changed your mind?”

  “Why is that so hard to believe?” He looked up at her as if puzzled by her confusion. “Certainly you do not think that what we had together was unique?”

  Tuesday shook her head. She managed only to mouth the word, “No.”

  “I can’t imagine what you expected to achieve by coming here today and disorganizing my office, Lady Arlington. I will, however, take advantage of your presence to tell you that any feelings I might have thought I had for you turned out to be utterly illusory.”

  Tuesday nodded, letting the words sink in. She took her hands from the desk and stepped backwards. “I am sorry to hear that, my lord, because mine for you were not. When I thought you had a wife and child that you had been cheating on with me, I wanted to die. To be the instrument of another woman’s shame, to have made another woman feel how I felt with Curtis, was the worst punishment I could imagine. And yet I could not stop loving you. Not then. And not now.”

  Lawrence regarded her blankly.

  “Your face, your smile, were in front of my eyes every day. I have relived every moment of our time together, relived it to keep from going mad. I loved you with a love so strong it could not be killed by what I thought of you.” There were tears in Tuesday’s eyes but she did not care. “You were the best thing to ever happen to my life, Lawrence Pickering. And I think I could have been the best thing to ever happen to you, too.”

  Now Lawrence did smile. And what he said was, “Don’t overestimate your attractions, Lady Arlington.”

  The words hung in the air until Christopher stepped into the doorway and announced, “It’s Lady Waverly, my lord. Again. I told her you were busy but she insisted.”

  “I am not busy,” Lawrence said, his eyes boring into Tuesday. “Lady Arlington was just leaving.”

  “Yes.” Tuesday turned and almost walked into Olivia Waverly. She said, “Congratulations, Ollie on your engagement. I hope you will be very happy.”

  Olivia smiled. “Ollie. No one has called me that in a long time. It reminds me of our girlhood.” She gave Tuesday a searching look. “Thank you for your wishes. I have—I have always valued your good opinion.” Then she moved quickly past her toward Lawrence and began asking about packing for their wedding trip.

  Tue
sday walked from the room with her shoulders back and her chin up and tears streaming down her face. She walked like that down the corridor. She walked like that into the entry hall. She walked like that almost all the way to the front door.

  Then she gripped the wall and let out an anguished breath and collapsed onto the floor, upending a table and shattering the glass vase (a wedding present) into a thousand splinters that glittered like diamonds on the hem of her dress.

  Christopher found her there five minutes later. He knew exactly what do with her.

  It was just past dusk when Crispin entered Lawrence’s office. None of the candles were lit and the place was filled with violet shadows. Standing among them, staring at the window, was Lawrence. He did not hear Crispin enter, and for a few minutes Crispin studied his friend’s reflection in the glass.

  Lawrence turned around suddenly. “I thought you were going to be in Italy or something.”

  Crispin shrugged. “Only during your ball. That is still two hours away.”

  The two men faced each other across the carpet. In the half light of the chamber, expressions were unreadable, but there was something strangely intimate about the encounter.

  “It looks like your office was hit by a huge gust of wind,” Crispin said, noting the upturned piles of paper and ornaments.

  “Tuesday was here.”

  “Ah.”

  “She came to apologize.”

  “Did she?”

  “Did she what?”

  “Apologize. If you looked at her the way you’ve looked at me the past few times I came here, I imagine it would have been a challenge.”

  “She apologized.”

  “Did you accept it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Ah.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “What?”

  “ ‘Ah.’ ”

  “What should I say instead?”

  “Nothing.”

  They stood in silence until Lawrence said, “I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that I should have accepted her apology. Aren’t you?”

  Crispin did not say anything.

  “Answer me.”

  “You just told me—”

  “Crispin.”

  “I don’t think it would have been compromising your principles too much to accept it, no. Especially as you are still in love with her, have been mourning for her for three months, spend every waking hour thinking about her, and have made fifty families go without their income just because you had to go without her. Yes, I would say that I think you should have accepted her damn apology.”

  “That is what you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.” A long pause. “I think you are wrong.”

  “That comes as a surprise.”

  “I should not have accepted her apology because she does not owe me one. I should have gotten down on my knees and begged for her forgiveness. She came here and apologized and for what? Do you know why she left me?”

  “Actually, I—”

  “She left because she thought I was married to Maria and she was upset for her. For Maria. Not for herself. She came and apologized for being too generous, too selfless, for caring about other people too much.” Lawrence shook his head and looked down at his hands, which were clenching and unclenching as if trying to grasp something intangible. “Nothing is an obstacle to her, nothing is too hard. She has experienced so much, overcome so much, and she is not bitter. She does it gracefully and effortlessly. She makes everything she touches better.”

  “I don’t suppose you told her any of that.”

  “Do you know what she said to me this afternoon? She said that she still loved me. Can you believe that? What a fool. She loves me. Me. And do you know how I replied?”

  “No, but I imagine it was charming.”

  “I said, ‘Don’t overestimate your attractions, Lady Arlington.’ I threw it away. Because I was too stubborn and too proud to admit that I had been wrong, that I should have trusted her. Because of that I threw away the most amazing gift any man has ever received.”

  “It seems that you are both fools.”

  Lawrence came out of his thoughts enough to glare at Crispin. “I don’t know what I am going to do. I have got to get her back.”

  Crispin shook his head. “It sounds to me like that will be impossible. I think you ruined whatever you might have had together for good.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You have never liked to be lied to, Lawrence. I am telling you the truth. You had better go upstairs and change. Your guests will be arriving in less than two hours.”

  “Do you really think I am going through with this betrothal?”

  “What else are you going to do, Lawrence? She is gone. You sent her away. You took her offer of love and pulverized it and stomped on it and—”

  “That is enough, Crispin.”

  Crispin shrugged. “I don’t think you have any choice but to go through with this betrothal, to get on with your life. Olivia Waverly is, as you said, a lovely woman. Marry her. Be as happy as you can knowing what you have sacrificed on the altar of your stubborn ego. It is all you can do.”

  Lawrence stared at him with an expression so bereft that Crispin almost felt sorry for him. But then he remembered how Lawrence had been behaving the last few months and the urge passed.

  Lawrence Pickering deserved exactly what was coming to him.

  Crispin waited at the bottom of the stairs to make sure that Lawrence had gone into his bedchamber before he ran to the kitchen to get his bet down.

  “Fifteen minutes,” he announced as he walked in.

  “Bianca already has that. You can have four minutes or ninety-four minutes.”

  “That is all that is left?”

  “The betting has been pretty fierce. Tristan took everything from twenty to forty. Sebastian, Grub Collins, and Christopher picked up most of the rest of the first hour. CeCe staked everything she has on eighteen.”

  Crispin looked back on the conversation he had just had, did a bit of calculation and made his decision. “Four minutes.” He wished Lawrence knew how much faith he had in him.

  Lawrence’s bedchamber was as gloomy as his office and it suited his mood perfectly. He knew he should start dressing, but he could not face it. He went to the bed and stretched out on it.

  And sat up.

  She was there. She was there in his bed, right there, right where he could touch her, Tuesday, his Tuesday. She was sleeping it looked like. She did not know he was there.

  How had she gotten there? Should he wake her? What did it mean?

  He stared at her, willing her to open her eyes, but she didn’t.

  Tuesday there in his bed. He felt like Jack, he felt like a boy, he felt like the luckiest man in the world.

  He began to eye the windows of his bed chamber. Why had he thought it would be nice to be on the third floor? If they were lower, he could have carried her out through the window while she slept and they could have made their escape easily. As it was, he would have to wake her up.

  Why was she sleeping?

  He looked at her profile, studied it, checking it to make sure it was—what? All there? The same? It wasn’t. Something was different. Or his memory was wrong. Because she was even more beautiful to him than she had been before. That had been the very first thing he thought when he looked up and saw her in his office that day, that she had somehow gotten more beautiful, more striking, more lovely, in the time since she had thrown him aside.

  Her beauty had been like a goad to him, and then she had stood there and said, “I am sorry” and “I love you” and all those things he did not deserve to hear.

  Why wasn’t she waking up?

  He reached out a finger for her cheek. It was painfully soft. “Tuesday,” he whispered in her ear. Her eyelashes did not flutter. “Tuesday.”

  Nothing. She did not sleep this soundly normal
ly, he knew. What if there were something wrong with her? What if she wasn’t asleep.

  What if she were pretending?

  He leaned close to her ear and slid his arm under her head and whispered, “You were.”

  She did not move. She was not pretending. Something was wrong with her. He had to get Bianca. He—

  “Were what?” she asked sleepily.

  “What?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Lawrence, you can’t do this again. Whisper riddles to me and then not give me the answers. What were I?”

  Her eyes opened and he put his head down on the pillow so their noses were almost touching. “You already were the best thing that ever happened to my life. Were and are.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “You can’t know how much.”

  “Where am I?”

  “My bed chamber.”

  Tuesday suddenly had a vague recollection of falling down, of Bianca’s face hovering over hers. “How did I—”

  Lawrence’s laughter interrupted her. “Crispin, you scoundrel,” he said aloud.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll tell you later. It’s not important.” He curled a piece of her hair around his finger. That was important.

  “Lawrence, I am so sorry I did not wait for you to explain about Maria. I should have trusted you. I should have—”

  Here she was, this woman he had wronged, who he had insulted to her face, and she was apologizing to him. He put his finger to her lips. “Stop. I never want to hear another apology from you. It is I who should be doing all the apologizing. I know I can never make up for how I treated you today but I want to try, try as hard—”

  She looked wary. “What did Bianca tell you?”

  “Bianca? Nothing. I have not seen her. Why?”

  “Then you just apologized, because you wanted to?”

  “No. Because I needed to. Because I want to ask you to marry me and if you say no I’ll go out of my mind. Tuesday, I do not deserve you, but I will do everything I can for the rest of my life to try. Because you are the most courageous, the—