The Duke Heist (The Wild Wynchesters #1) - Erica Ridley Page 0,37
need to please the patronesses of Almack’s.
Chloe didn’t require a husband for any practical reason. She had a home, she had a family, and she had her own money. Unbeknownst to the public, Bean had created a legal trust for each of the siblings rather than provide dowries for the girls. He was clever like that.
Dowries were funds bestowed upon a future husband, not on the bride herself. Chloe and her sisters would have had no say in how it was spent, because the money would not belong to them.
A legal trust, on the other hand, was held in the name of the beneficiary. Chloe’s money was hers to do with as she pleased. It would still be hers even if she married. Her husband would not be able to touch a single farthing.
Not that she would marry some fortune hunter who prized gold over love. She had a life she liked just as it was. She had fun.
Bean’s infamous eccentricity, more than his wealth, allowed Chloe and her siblings to get away with nonsense like Great-Aunt Wynchester. When no one expected any better of you, either you went home and cried about it or you turned it to your advantage. You let people underestimate you, because their dismissal gave you power.
So why was she peeling back the mask, if only a little, with Faircliffe?
“I believe you.” His words rasped oddly. “Lucky people always show it in their eyes.”
Her blood rushed so loudly, it sounded like waves pounding ashore. “What do my eyes look like to you?”
“Happy.” He reached up, not to hide her errant ringlet, as Chloe presumed, but to graze his thumb across the side of her cheek. This time he did cup her face, for no reason except that he wanted to. “Inviting.”
Yes. She was definitely inviting him to look closer. All this waiting and wishing had every nerve alive and prickling with awareness. This touch was different than the ones before. This time something momentous was going to happen.
His gaze lowered to her mouth.
She could not help but lick her lips in response. His eyes were no longer ice, but rather as hot and dangerous as the flicker of blue at the center of a flame. She was the moth who could not help but fly closer to danger.
“You look…” Her voice was breathless, her pulse fluttery. “…hungry.”
“Perhaps I am.”
He still hadn’t taken his hand from her cheek. His fingers curled gently behind her neck, supportive, possessive. He lowered his head until his breath tickled the corner of her lip, right where she could imagine his.
She tilted closer. “Hungry for what?”
He smiled as though they both knew the answer. “Hungry for—”
“Well, that’s the last time I eat beans for breakfast,” came Tommy’s nasal shrill as she clomped back into the room.
Chloe and Faircliffe jerked apart and guiltily inspected opposite sides of the room.
“Or was it nuncheon?” Tommy blathered on. “Was it beans or was it broccoli? Niece, did you make me eat vegetables today, or was that yesterday?”
“We serve vegetables every day, Aunt,” Chloe answered automatically. She could not bear to look at either of them.
Tommy leaned on Chloe’s shoulder as though to catch her breath and dropped a folded square of foolscap into Chloe’s lap.
“I don’t know what kind of gentleman you’re playing at,” Tommy quavered at Faircliffe, “but is it the kind that helps an old woman into her chair?”
He leapt up at once and set about seeing to Tommy’s comfort at the head of the table.
Chloe lowered her eyes to her lap and unfolded the message.
“Keys” was written at the top. Underlined three times. “Housekeeper on holiday. Can’t get inside. Maid saw me. Has to be you.”
Underneath was a rough map and a sketch of where the keys hung in the room.
She slid the missive into a hidden pocket and turned to Faircliffe, who was just finishing with Tommy.
Chloe resumed a look of naïveté. “Are there likely to be beans and broccoli at supper tonight?”
He nearly choked. “No, no. The Ainsworths have a prized French chef. What they’ll likely serve…”
As he exhaustively explained the composition of the same dishes she and Tommy ate at home on any given Tuesday, Chloe went over the map again in her mind. Even if there was a servant strolling the corridor, palming the keys would be child’s play.
All she needed now was an excuse to slip away.
14
Once Great-Aunt Wynchester had settled into Lawrence’s rightful place at the table, he turned his attention back to her great-niece.