Wayward One (22 page)

Upon arrival, he stood in the doorway a long minute, watching her. With soft light streaming in through the window, she looked like a pre-Raphaelite beauty. Her hair twisted up on her head, with a few tendrils gracing the length of her neck. The pale yellow of her dress drank up the sunshine, and she bent over her work in a charming curve of neck and shoulders.

The only noise in the room came from her pen scratching across paper.

She looked too lovely to touch. Like he’d sully her if she knew what he was thinking of. Lucky for shady men like him, that was what marriage was for. To let him touch her in wicked ways without scuffing her up too much, and also allowing him the chance to keep her. Forever.

He moved on quiet feet and feathered a kiss over the exposed velveteen of her nape.

She jumped with an indrawn gasp. “Fletcher. Please don’t do that.”

Leaning over the back of her chair, he was struck by how much different she smelled than the last person he’d bent over. Sera meant flowers and freshness. “Which do you mean? Sneak up behind you, or kiss you without warning?”

From his angle, he could just see the pink sweep over the tops of her cheeks. He could also see the slightest hint of shadow between her breasts.

“Either,” she said. “Or both.”

He drew back to a more proper distance. “So sorry to inconvenience you.”

She crumpled up the sheet of paper. The gesture seemed unlike her. He’d have rather thought she might neatly stack up her castoffs and consign them to some more noble purpose. “Please don’t be like that.”

He eased into a chair and stretched out his legs. It had been a bloody long day, and he’d expected to come home to a warmer reception. That she would have been watching for him, only to run to him and throw her arms around him… Patently ridiculous. To hope for a little warmth didn’t seem that much.

After the attack, she’d melted so sweetly for him. He’d felt like a bloody king to have won her so. The response had been fleeting. She’d wrapped herself in her measured rules before the next morning. Even by the time the inspector had arrived to question them, she had tucked and pulled and smoothed herself into respectability.

“What are you working on this morning?”

She shuffled some papers and then turned to face him. “Household matters. As a matter of fact, I would like to ask you about the third best bedroom.”

“And which would that be?”

“Silk moiré curtains and a damask bedspread. Peacock-pattern wallpaper.” Though she peered at him expectantly, he only stared at her. A faint smile crossed her mouth. “The second door down from this one. How do you not know the rooms in your own house?”

He shrugged. “I know how many rooms there are and how much I spent. Do I need to know more than that?”

“Of course you do.” She sounded rather affronted. “One’s home is their bastion against the world. Every choice reflects upon you.”

He couldn’t help a chuckle, though he risked sending her past affronted into raging mad. “Perhaps. But now I’ll have you to take care of those details.” As he’d meant all along.

He levered out of his chair and planted one hand on the table and one on her seat. The silk of her dress did nothing to dampen the warmth emanating from her skin.

He dared a kiss, this one on her sweet mouth. For a too-brief moment she flowered under him and her lips opened to accept him. She tasted like honey. Before the power between them could build, she pulled away.

When he stood, a dark shadow flitted across her features. A tiny wrinkle marred her brow, and she seemed to be trying not to scowl.

He traced it with a fingertip. “What’s wrong?” She shook her head, but he wouldn’t be that easily put off. “Tell me. I can’t help if you won’t say what you need.”

Her mouth curved into a frown. Her gaze dropped to his neckcloth. Small fingers wiggled under his jacket. Her voice squirmed almost as small. “What if I make the wrong choices?”

He brushed his fingers over her ear. Even such a simple thing carried the magnitude of their differences, with Sera so small and delicate. “You won’t. I’ve every faith in you. You’ll turn this gaudy place into a showroom. A row of showrooms.”

“Despite Mrs. Waywroth’s lessons, I’ve never actually been in control of a household before. To leap into the fray with one so large as this… It seems utter hubris.”

“You’ll be fine. What’s the worst that can happen? You choose the wrong wallpaper and then what? The empire will fall to pieces?”

“Please do be serious.”

He stole another kiss. Feeling her hand spread across his chest was gratifying. “I am utterly serious.”

“The dinner for the earl… What if it doesn’t go well?” How concerned she could be, even with her lips rosy and parted.

“Then it doesn’t. We’ll try again. As many times as you like. I’ve every faith in your abilities to create the perfect home.”

She nodded. Her shoulders firmed with renewed energy. “All right. If you’re so certain, I’ll simply try harder. I can manage everything.”

Fletcher walked away to his rooms with a spring in his step and a whistle threatening behind his lips. If he were able to cure every worry of hers throughout their marriage so easily, they’d be blessed indeed.

It was only hours later, when he was already at his club, that he realized the little wrinkle above her dark eyebrows had never gone away.

Chapter Seventeen

Sera would be a married woman in less than an hour. A matter of minutes.

The stacked stone walls of the chapel’s anteroom pressed in on her. Her heartbeat clomped through her chest like a runaway carriage team. Beneath her gloves, her palms were damp with sweat.

Lottie and Victoria had foolishly left her alone to consider the exterior door of the anteroom. It seemed a simple door, but it let out on a foul back alley of London. Hiring a hackney might be difficult initially, but she could go three streets up and one over to find them swarming like flies. Poof, she’d be gone.

The ivory dress she wore might be a little conspicuous however. Fletcher had insisted she order new clothes, though she’d quite accurately pointed out that with such a small audience, her best gown would be sufficient. After all there would be only her friends, Mrs. Waywroth and Rick Raverst to witness. Victoria’s dotty aunt, Lady Dalrymple, was in attendance as well, but only to give a semblance of chaperonage to their assembly.

Sera smoothed the sleek silk of her skirts. Running her hands over her bodice gained her little solace when the rough nub of lace reminded her of the ridiculous expense to which Fletcher had gone. If the materials hadn’t been enough, he had insisted the seamstress attend her at the house and that it be done with a level of alacrity that must have meant the modiste spent two days sewing without relief along with five other workers.

What in the world had she got herself into? The man knew nothing of restraint or modesty. She both feared and anticipated what that would mean for their wedding night. He lived so large. She hardly knew what to make of him.

The door behind her opened. The one to the main chapel, not the one to the exterior. She began talking even before she managed to twist the train of her dress. “Lottie, I find myself…” The words died in the desert of her mouth.

Her friend was nowhere in sight. It was Fletcher.

He looked impossibly handsome. The stark black-and-white scheme of formal dress called forth the golden tone of his skin. His blond hair had been tamed for once and every strand laid in perfect alignment.

Really it was the way he looked at her. His pale blue eyes shone with admiration as if he saw a goddess or some saint ready to give blessings.

“Fletcher,” she squeaked. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

He came so near she could smell the citrusy scent of him. No matter what society meant she must change about him, that would be one thing that would never go.

“I know.” He traced the high neckline of her dress with a single finger. “Do you know, with all that lace and fripperies, you look rather like a wrapped-up present?”

The tips of her ears felt like they would wiggle right off her head. For the life of her she couldn’t tell if it was enjoyment or embarrassment. Maybe a mix of both. “I do not.”

“You do indeed. I can’t wait to unwrap you.”

She looked to the door, worried the reverend would burst in. “You can’t say such things in this place,” she whispered.

He didn’t seem to hear her. His gaze turned inward, contemplative. “I can’t remember the last time I received a present all prettied up in bows. Maybe never.”

A profound sadness struck her. Suddenly she knew with crystal clarity why she intended to marry him. So they could create together the sort of simple home life they’d never had. Her purpose and intentions had been floating just out of reach. At the same moment that he gave her the most perfect wedding gift, he also gave her the rest of her life. What she would work toward.

“Oh, Fletcher,” she murmured.

He waved off her concern. “I don’t need sympathy. It occurs to me, probably too late, that I likely should have wrapped this.”

From his pocket he withdrew an object. At first it was only a tumbled glint of gold in his large hand. But he tugged free a chain and dangled a locket.

She took it with hands that shook. A haze of tears clouded her vision. “Is this…is it really…?”

“Your mother’s locket.”

She fumbled at the clasp, but her gloves, which had seemed sinfully thin when she’d purchased them, were too thick to work it. She yanked one off with her teeth. It fell to the ground unheeded by either of them. The warmth of Fletcher’s body seeped into the gold.

The thickness in her throat became a knot she couldn’t swallow away when she finally got it open. Her mother’s face smiled out at her. The same dark slashing eyebrows she saw in the mirror every morning, the same full mouth. In the miniature portrait, she looked years younger than Sera remembered, which was unsurprising. The shocking part was the faraway absentness that turned her brown gaze into a fairy girl’s eyes.

Sera had always assumed Mama had developed that floating insouciance as a defense against the reality of their situation. Perhaps it had been what got her in trouble in the first place.

Fletcher smiled down at her with a palpable pleasure. She stroked her free hand over his cheek. He had every right to look so smug, having given her such a gift. “Where did you find it?”

“Rick gave it to me after the fire. It was found with them.” A slightly chagrined smile curled his lips. “I know I should have given it to you immediately, but first I worried about it being stolen at that school. By the time I could afford to move you to the Waywroth Academy a year later, I’d got rather used to carrying it around.”

“It’s all right,” she breathed. She leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss him. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

As fleeting as that kiss was, he insisted on more. One big hand wrapped around the back of her neck and held her still for a swift assault. Her mother’s locket clutched in one hand, she thrilled to giving him whatever he wanted, no matter their location.

“You’re not mad that I failed to wrap it?”

She shook her head. “Not mad at all. You could have thrown it into the fireplace cinders and I’d have still fished it out.”

He laughed. “I’d never put my angel through that.”

The locket felt so unsubstantial in her hand. A simple engraved heart with a starburst inside decorated the oval surface. She flipped it open again, just because she could. It seemed a minor miracle that she could look on her mother’s face anywhere outside her memories.

At the outside edge, near the clasp, a thread of her glove caught on a rough patch. She held it up closer to her face. No bigger than a hair’s width, a tiny gap seamed through the gold. She scraped it and was shocked when another layer fell open. Her breath caught in her throat.

Another miniature portrait nestled inside the hidden compartment. This one was a young man barely on the cusp of manhood. A happy smile turned out from the tiny gold frame. Otherwise unremarkable features assembled within a lean face. On the opposite side curled a lock of brown hair.

Fletcher leaned over her shoulder. “Who is that?”

She touched a fingertip to the brushy ends of the keepsake. It was softer than a watercolor brush. “I don’t know.”

Fletcher’s hand cupped hers, the better to angle the picture to the gaslight sconce on the wall. “He looks a bit familiar, doesn’t he?”

“About the mouth, maybe?”

“I think that’s it. He looks like he’s about to start laughing at any moment.”

Something soft and sweet bloomed inside her. “He does at that.”

“I feel like I ought to know him.”

Sera certainly shared the feeling, though perhaps for an entirely different reason. Maybe he’d been the star of all the romantic fairy tales her mother had regaled her with. “I think I’ll ask Victoria. She knows everyone in the
ton
.”

“Do you think…?” Fletcher’s gaze turned to her. Worry and concern commingled in his pulled-flat mouth. “Do you think he might be your father?”

She couldn’t seem to stop touching the little painting. The boy—because he could hardly be called a man—wore the round-collared waistcoat of the previous generation. “I don’t know. Perhaps. But even if he wasn’t, he’s still important to me.”