The Duke Heist (The Wild Wynchesters #1) - Erica Ridley Page 0,98
that the estate was wholly entailed to the son, besides a few tokens for the orphans. No dowries for any of them.”
The orphans. Lawrence ground his teeth in disgust. As though children’s parentage were their defining feature!
Mrs. Overton tugged on her daughter’s hand and gave Lawrence an aggressively encouraging smile. “My daughter is the very epitome of breeding and taste.”
The epitome of breeding and taste looked as though she’d rather sink through the grass and disappear than endure her mother’s unsubtle matchmaking.
The door to the tea shop swung open and out strode Elizabeth, Tommy, and Chloe in turn. They linked arms before crossing the street, glancing ahead as though to scout the best spot to wait for their ices.
Chloe’s eyes met his at once.
Someone else might think the slight pause in her step was due to an obstruction in the road. Lawrence knew it was because she’d seen him—and whom he was standing with. At Chloe’s pause, Tommy and Elizabeth followed their sister’s gaze.
“They’re not… They cannot be looking our way,” said Lady Castlereagh.
Lady Jersey glared down her nose. “It’s His Grace who has caught their eye. Everyone knows that Wynchester girl has been angling for him—not that she’ll have any success.”
His muscles tensed. When he’d first agreed to owe Chloe a favor, an invitation to his gala wasn’t much of a sacrifice. He’d planned to be married to Miss York by then and no longer in need of the patronesses’ good favor. He could afford an act of charity.
But it wasn’t an act anymore. His love for Chloe was very, very real, and his social and financial straits more precarious than ever. If he defended the Wynchesters, his standing would instantly and permanently fall.
“Are they walking toward us?” Mrs. Overton whispered. “Tell me they’re not.”
“Of course they shan’t,” Lady Castlereagh said with satisfaction. “Could you imagine?”
Lawrence could indeed imagine. Those three young ladies mattered far more than the opinions of gossipy matrons. He might not be able to offer Chloe everything he might wish, but neither could he allow her to be slandered.
Come what may.
“The Wynchesters,” he said coldly, “are the epitome of…”
What were they the epitome of? Certainly not breeding and grace. These siblings were more likely to rob Almack’s than to simper in it.
“…excitement, cleverness, and wit,” he finished, lifting his nose to its coldest angle. “I, for one, prefer the frank conversation of women unashamed to be who they are over the petty gossip of ladies who build themselves up by tearing others down.”
There was no going back.
33
Late the following afternoon, Chloe strode through Green Park toward Hatchards. It was an unrelentingly dreary day, full of dirt and fog and overcast skies, but there was a spring in Chloe’s step as she leapt nimbly around the growing puddles.
She was off to decide on her first reading circle recommendation, which was cause enough for celebration. On top of such good fortune, Lawrence was to meet her at the bookshop—ostensibly to gauge the price of a few volumes in his collection, but actually, as he had told her over breakfast in bed, because he’d miss her.
Her bosom swelled as she once again failed to keep a sappy grin from taking over her face. He missed her. They’d spent the night together for the second time in as many days, and she’d returned home only four hours earlier. But he missed her.
She missed him, too. The more time they spent together, the more impossible it became to be apart.
A little voice inside her asked: Must they stay apart? Didn’t this mean he’d had a change of heart about the importance of a perfect reputation? Might he think Chloe his ideal match?
Yesterday, when she’d spied Lawrence outside Gunter’s, she’d expected him to pretend not to see her. He had been chatting with the fashionable and the powerful. Just because Chloe wasn’t allowed at Almack’s did not mean she couldn’t recognize the women in charge of deciding which individuals were welcome.
No Wynchesters, of course. Lawrence could lose his subscription for fraternizing with her.
But he had strolled over to where she stood with her sisters and eaten his ice cream with them beneath a tree as though it were perfectly unexceptional for a duke to publicly acknowledge an association with her scandalous family before dozens of high-society witnesses.
What if it could be? What if it was? She had not allowed herself to dream about a life with him because she had not believed it possible until yesterday.