The Most Wicked Of Sins (22 page)

He grasped her shoulders and eased her back enough that he could look into her eyes. She was shaking. “My God, what is it, Ivy?”

“So much has happened, Dominic. I don’t know where to begin.” Her voice was thick, as though she’d been crying while she waited for him. “After our encounter with Lord Rhys-Dean, Tinsdale became suspicious of you. He paid Cheatlin to tell him whatever he knew about you—and Cheatlin told him everything. Tinsdale knows about the ruse. You have to run, Dominic. You have to leave London now.” She fumbled in her reticule, then, in frustration, pushed the whole bag at him. “It’s all I have left, but it should be enough to see you far from here.”

“I am not going anywhere. I won’t leave you, Ivy.”

She shook her head frantically. “No, no! You must go. My father has come down from Scotland, and Tinsdale is asking for my hand right now. If I don’t agree, he is going to expose us both. I will be banished from my family, and his cronies at the courts will see you to Newgate.” She blinked back a tear and stepped back from him. “Don’t you see? We have no choice.”

“You can’t marry Tinsdale, Ivy.” Nick silently slid his hand into his pocket until he felt the emerald ring between his fingers. “You don’t have to.”

“I do.” Ivy swiped away her tears and walked past Nick and opened the parlor door. “I am sorry, Dominic, but I do.”

As the front door closed, Nick released the ring he held and removed his hand from his pocket. He walked over to the cold hearth, and rested his hands on the marble mantel. Damn it all! He couldn’t be the cause of Ivy’s being cast out of the family she loved so dearly. He couldn’t cause her such pain.

But neither could he allow her to marry Tinsdale.

The creak of the floorboards caught his notice. “Felix,” he asked without turning.

Felix quietly walked into the parlor and set his hand upon Nick’s shoulder. “So, the game is over.”

Nick turned his head to the side and peered at his cousin. He stared for several moments in silence as an idea spun and formed in his mind.

“Nick?” Concern tightened the skin around Felix’s blue eyes.

Nick pushed back from the mantel, letting his cousin’s hand fall from his shoulder, then started from the parlor. “No, Felix,” he called out as he turned into the passage. “This game has just begun.”

People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.

Lord Chesterfield

The Sinclair residence
Grosvenor Square

When Ivy burst through the front door, she found her brothers and sisters gathered in the parlor. Her cheeks were damp with perspiration from running, heedless of who might have observed her, from Berkeley Square all the way back to Grosvenor Square. She peered down the shadowy passage toward the French windows leading to the garden, then turned her questioning eyes toward Siusan.
p. “They’re still talking,” her sister told her.

“Negotiating,” Grant said. He lifted an eyebrow at Lachlan, who guided Ivy into the parlor and settled her into an armchair.

Killian handed a small crystal of whisky to Ivy over the arm of the chair. “Scottish fortitude.”

With a trembling hand, Ivy grasped the glass and took a sip.

Priscilla came to her and sat on the tufted footstool beside Ivy. “Isn’t this what you have wanted all along, Ivy?”

“Aye.” Ivy brought the glass to her lips and took in just enough of the amber liquid to wet her tongue.

Priscilla stroked Ivy’s free hand. “If Da accepts Tinsdale’s offer, then he will welcome you back into the family. You will have your life back.”

Ivy nodded. “I know.”

“Then why aren’t you smiling?” Priscilla stared up at her with her shadowed eyes.

“Because…I will never be happy.” Ivy’s eyes began to well with tears.

Siusan looked pointedly at Ivy. “Then don’t do it. You do not have to agree.”

Ivy turned her chin downward, and a tear rolled down her cheek and dripped from her jaw into her glass. She watched the circular ripple radiate from the middle until it had swept the entire surface.

Ivy raised her eyes and peered back at Siusan. “I have to. There is no other way.”

A door opened at the far end of the passage. Everyone heard it and knew what it meant. The negotiations for Ivy’s future had concluded.

Ivy and her brothers and sisters all came to their feet and waited for their father and Tinsdale to appear. One look would tell all.

And it did. Two of the liveried footmen preceded the Duke of Sinclair and Viscount Tinsdale into the parlor and took posts on either side of the door. The duke entered next, his face devoid of all emotion. But Tinsdale was beaming. He’d been successful in his dowry request.

The duke sat down and looked at Ivy. Her face was still wet, and her eyes were still stinging with tears. “Sit down, Ivy.” He continued to look at her but dismissed her brothers and sisters with flick of his hand.

Grant paused at the door. “You don’t have to do anything, Ivy.” His eyes held hers far longer than Ivy would have considered wise, given that their father did not suffer his wayward children lightly.

“I know,” she mouthed. Then closed her eyes for a long moment, letting her brother know that she would be all right. Only then did he quit the parlor.

Her father turned his gaze to Tinsdale. “Ye’ll make the arrangements fer the announcement this day?”

Tinsdale bowed to the duke. “I will send notice to the
Morning Post
right away, Your Grace.”

“Then ye may go, Lord Tinsdale.” He flicked his fingers again.

“Ah, if I may, Your Grace.” Tinsdale gave a quick glance at Ivy and the duke nodded. “Lady Ivy, I should like it very much if you would join me for a drive in Hyde Park on the morrow. Noon—”

The duke shook his head, and, though Tinsdale was no longer facing the old man, he somehow saw the movement.

“Two of the clock? Would that be convenient?” Tinsdale was looking at Ivy, but his head was by then turned so that he could better discern the duke’s expression.

“Aye,” Ivy muttered. She lowered her gaze, then peered at the tea table, where she’d set her whisky when her father had entered. “Two of the clock.”

Within a minute more, Tinsdale had made his farewells, and then hurriedly departed. Ivy was left with her father.

“I am verra pleased with yer choice, lass. Viscount Tinsdale is everything my agent reported him to be and more. I shall be pleased to welcome him into the family, and with him, ye as well.”

Ivy nodded, but did not say anything in response. If she opened her mouth, she feared that she would scream.

“Lord Tinsdale requested that the engagement be announced tomorrow night at Almack’s as well. I have agreed. The wedding will take place within the week. A special license has already been procured from Doctors’ Commons.”

Ivy gasped. “S-so soon?” This was all too much to comprehend.

“Is there any reason to delay? I came to London to see ye wed, lass, and so I shall.”

Ivy wanted to tell her father that she would never have enough time to be ready to marry Lord Tinsdale. That there was only one man she wanted to marry…the man she loved, Dominic.

But that was a bliss that could never be.

Her life would be with Tinsdale—full of parties and balls, and trinkets galore. She’d have her inheritance, more money than she’d ever be able to spend in her lifetime.

And she would lament every minute of her good fortune.

Though the shelves were barren, save a single, cracked-spine edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the library was a welcoming room. The afternoon sun streamed through the windows, making it a serene place to collect one’s thoughts without the likelihood of interruption.

Ivy sat before a small desk near the great window, dipping her pen into a pot of India ink. The tips of her fingers were stained with ink, and several sheets of foolscap, each with a number of lines struck out, lay discarded in a pile at the corner of the old desk.

She was trying to write to a letter to Dominic, but the words weren’t coming. Not the right ones anyway, phrases that would soothe and make him understand that, while she loved him, accepting Tinsdale’s troth was something that she must do for the good of everyone.

In the end, she stopped trying to coat her words with honey, deciding that he would seek to change her mind, and that she could not allow.

And so, she sprinkled pounce over the short, inked letter and tapped it on the table. She read it once more, then withdrew the shining lucky sixpence her sister had tucked in her slipper when Tinsdale arrived to ask for Ivy’s hand, and slipped it inside the folded letter. She melted scarlet wax over the single candle on the desk and added her stamp, an I entwined with English ivy.

Blowing out the candle, Ivy rose from the desk to find Mr. Poplin and beg him to deliver her letter to the Counterton residence. She paused at the door, closed her eyes, and gave the letter a parting kiss—something she would not be able to give to Dominic herself.

Ten minutes past two of the clock
The next day

Tinsdale had arrived exactly at two, as Ivy had expected, and now, minutes later, they were nearly to Hyde Park. She hadn’t said a single word to him, but she doubted he noticed. He had too much to say to her.

“My mother agreed that the benefits of an association with the Duke of Sinclair, his influence and, of course, his coin, far outweigh any detractions attached to your brothers or sisters.” He glanced across at Ivy as he snapped the ribbons and urged his team faster. “What do you think of my phaeton?”

Ivy shrugged.

“I bought it the day after our picnic in Hyde Park, when I saw the one Lord Counterton was driving. Had to have one. Even when I learned that Counterton was an impostor, I decided to keep the phaeton. Miss Feeney told me she finds a man who drives a high-perch phaeton to be quite masculine in demeanor and appearance.”

Ivy looked away from Tinsdale and rolled her eyes.

He took the ribbons in one hand, wanting her, she guessed, to admire his driving skills, but she didn’t. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was allowing too much slack in the reins. The horses could bolt at any moment. And she wouldn’t care. She didn’t care about anything anymore—except making sure Dominic left London that day, before her engagement to Tinsdale was publicly announced.

“Certainly you will be permitted to visit your brothers and sisters from time to time, but never alone. Mother and I have discussed this at length. I will accompany you, for guidance, to make it easier for you to avoid their bad influence.”

Ivy eyed the reins. She wanted nothing more than to snatch the ribbons from him and turn the phaeton back to Grosvenor Square.

“My mother will instruct you in the manners of Society. You will be expected to be kind, courteous, and grateful to her for condescending to train you.”

Ivy couldn’t take his patronizing prattle any longer. She grabbed the ribbons from his hand and halted the horses, then shoved the reins back at Tinsdale. Dangling her feet over the edge, she made to leap down, but Tinsdale grabbed her arm cruelly and pulled her back.

“Agree to everything I said, dear Ivy, and your actor will be safe.” He skewered her with an ice-cold stare.

With a nod, she acquiesced and lifted her feet back into the phaeton.

A smug grin slid over Tinsdale’s mouth. “Very good, Ivy. You made a wise choice.”

No, I only realized that I have no choice at all.
Ivy looked straight ahead and waited for Tinsdale to snap the reins.

Sympathy one receives for nothing; envy must be earned.

Robert Lembke

Almack’s Assembly Rooms

Ivy swept up the short train of her peacock blue silk ball gown, then took her father’s arm and walked up the staircase and into the assembly rooms. Tinsdale and his mother followed closely, with the Sinclair brothers and sisters trailing behind.
p. Naturally, the engagement would be announced at Almack’s, the most rigid and proper of the assembly rooms in London…or England, for that matter. Ivy decided that the location fit Tinsdale like a finely tailored coat.

Judging from the endless train of carriages lining the street outside, everyone of the
ton
would be in attendance. Even those who had not planned on using their subscriptions that evening must have abruptly changed their minds. How could they not? For the
Times
had somehow discovered and promptly reported that the Duke of Sinclair and his notorious offspring would grace Almack’s with their presence that very night for a momentous announcement.

The ballroom was abuzz with chatter when the Sinclair party entered. Ladies of all ages, and gentlemen, too, crowded around to get a look at the Duke of Sinclair.

Tinsdale and his mother were standing in their midst, but no one seemed to notice. The guests, instead, peered around, and Ivy heard murmurs from the gathering that sounded like a chorus of “Lord Counterton.”

An excited jolt wriggled through her, when at first she thought Dominic had ascended the stairs behind them. It took but a moment more to realize what was truly happening. The members of the
ton
had witnessed her public romance with the man they thought to be Lord Counterton—and now they assumed that the announcement to be made that night would be the engagement of Lady Ivy and the Marquess of Counterton.

Oh dear heaven, if only it could be.

Her father was smiling proudly at Ivy, and she tried with all that she was to force an answering smile. But it was impossible. She would be doing well not to cry…or become ill upon the floor.

The night moved as slowly as sap from a tree in winter, and, though it was a ball and the attendees were there to dance, Tinsdale waited nearly two hours before he led Ivy onto the floor.

The orchestra, led by a Scotsman, seemed to favor lively tunes. As Ivy reluctantly took her place on the floor for a Scottish reel, the first few notes of “Revenge” lifted into the air.