The Duke Heist (The Wild Wynchesters #1) - Erica Ridley Page 0,63

rasping as if he had not meant to speak them aloud. “I missed you.”

“I was here yesterday,” she reminded him. It was she, not he, who had spent every moment apart thinking of their kiss. “You spent all night in Parliament.”

She had watched him. He had been glorious.

“Part of the night,” he agreed. The hand holding hers came to his lips for a kiss, then stopped just before contact. He lowered her fingers back to a safe distance with a tortured expression. “The rest of the night I spent wishing I were kissing you.”

Damn him for saying so! As much as Chloe would like to believe his restless night was due to thoughts about her, she did not let herself believe such pretty balderdash. After tonight he would belong to Philippa. Chloe was merely a temporary diversion.

If he honestly missed her, he could ask her to visit. He now knew where she lived. He could have sent a carriage, or a note, or a messenger kitten. But he had not—and would not.

“You’re not wearing your bonnet,” he murmured.

She’d placed it under her bed, where she would not have to confront his memory by looking at it, but where it would remain close enough to slip into her dreams as she slept.

“If the fripperies in the bonnet trunk would be useful to you, I’d be happy to loan you anything you’d like for tonight’s ball.” He smiled. “A rakish feather, perhaps?”

“I don’t want one.” The words erupted from her mouth more harshly than she had intended. She did not soften their blow.

If gazing upon his handmade gift in solitude was too much for her aching chest, wearing it while she watched him court someone else would be impossible.

“All right.” He asked no further questions.

She frowned. What happened to his twenty-minute explanations about everything?

“You won’t try to convince me?”

“It’s your hair and your life.” His eyes held hers. “You’re clever enough to know how you wish to live it.”

If only it were that easy.

“Knowing is not the same as doing,” she mumbled.

He stopped dancing and pulled her closer. “Did something happen?”

Everything had happened. Her entire childhood had been a constant barrage of knowing what she wanted and not being able to have it.

“It’s nothing,” she said.

His expression was open. “You can tell me.”

She sighed. There was far too much. An entire lifetime he knew nothing about. But if she had to pick a single defining moment…

“You and your peers aren’t the only ones who hurry past rookeries as though there aren’t real people there. Within the poorest parts, there are still haves and have-nots. I was a have-not.”

He winced. “Because of the orphanage?”

“The orphanage is the reason I’m alive. It was everything to me. I did not make the same impact on it.” She gave a sad smile. “I was a plain child. You might think being ignored would make me misbehave, but I saw what happened to unruly children. Blending in was better than standing out. I didn’t want to be cast away from the only home I ever knew. Not again.”

He frowned. “Again?”

“I’m not an orphan.” Or at least she hadn’t been at the time. “I wasn’t sent to live in an orphanage because there was no one else to take me; I was discarded because my family didn’t want me—tucked into a basket with a note that said I was one mouth too many in a family that already had more than enough.” Her throat tightened, as it always did. “My parents looked at all their children and decided the helpless baby was the one they wanted the least. Me. The most useless of the lot.”

She’d been the newest, the least loved, the least familiar. A blank little slate, indistinguishable from any other squalling infant. An expensive mistake that wasn’t worth the cost.

“I’m sure they loved you,” he said quickly. “I’m sure they planned to come get you as soon as things turned around.”

“Is that what you think? It would have been a difficult task. They did not sign the note or leave a token or even mention my name. I had to borrow someone else’s.” The headmaster’s mongrel had been called Chloe. It seemed to fit her, too. “The orphanage did not have enough funds to feed those mouths, either. Once I was old enough, I would slip out to beg for crumbs.”

“That was how you got enough to eat?”

“No.” She snorted. “People looked right through me. My only chance for a halfpenny was to scrounge through discarded