She gave a bitter, hollow laugh. “I have been gossiped about, given the cut direct, been ridiculed in the gossip sheets. None of that has ever mattered to me. But to be shunned by my son, my only child? I have wanted to die every day, my darling boy. But every day I have reminded myself that today could be the day you forgive me. I know that is not today, but frankly I have nothing else to cling to at this point.”
Evers appeared in the drawing room doorway.
“Is everything in readiness?” she asked as she stood and took the heavy leather bag the butler handed her.
“Yes, Mrs. Atherton.” He bowed and left the room on silent feet.
She handed Leo the bag and took his arm to walk him into the foyer where a footman helped him into his great coat.
“Bring your bride back here. I will have chambers prepared and waiting.”
“She actually hasn’t said yes,” Leo said.
“She will. Lady Honoria is a sensible girl and she would be mad to turn down my son.”
Leo took a deep breath. In the harsh light of the chandelier overhead she looked small and frail. There was still much to discuss between them. He might always be angry with her, but he discovered he wasn’t certain he wanted to be.
‘Thank you…Mother. I will bring Honoria here as soon as I can. You and I…we’ll sort things out.” He stepped outside the door help by the footman and climbed into the large travel coach.
“Leonidas?” she said as she leaned in the window and kissed his cheek. “I am glad you have found someone you love more than you hate me.” She slapped the side of the coach and the horses sprang into a canter at once. Leo stared out the window at the woman who stood in the light of the lamps on either side of the townhouse doors and waved until he could no longer see her.
He leaned back into the squabs and closed his eyes. His life had become a whirlwind of madness, change, desire, and perhaps even a little hope. All of those things were wrapped up in a beautiful, sensual, brilliant woman.
Your Honoria
What if he was too late?
9
If the state of his travel coach was any indication, Honoria’s betrothed was a pinchpenny who cared little for comfort and even less for warmth. As his main residence was a castle in the Highlands, she suspected she’d have to don every article of clothing in the one meager trunk her father had allowed the housekeeper to pack for her. As her father knew little about her possessions and even less about her wardrobe, the boxes and trunks the entire household staff had helped her pack and secret to Julia’s house could eventually find their way to Scotland. She had Leo to thank for that.
His brief note of warning had struck her heart with terror and then rage. She’d paced her chamber for three minutes and then set to work. She’d set the staff to work and had sent Esme to Julia at once. Her father was a cruel man, but with a devious exacting bent. He chose his punishments with care. Had he caught Esme there when he arrived to rant like a madman about Honoria’s liaison with the Atherton Bastard Honoria refused to think what he would have done to the lady’s maid.
I would have had to kill him.
She’d had that thought so swiftly and coldly she began to think she was more her father’s daughter than she wanted to believe. Then there was Leo. As sure as she knew what her father would do, she knew that her lover would come after her. With his passionate nature and reckless bent he’d have crossed into Mayfair, beat down Father’s door, and either challenged him to a duel or beaten him senseless. She was counting on Carrington-Bowles to keep Leo safe.
They’d thrown her into the coach at midnight with a burly Scot who only spoke Gaelic and a surly skeleton of a woman as chaperone. At present the two of them were engaged in a contest to determine who could snore the loudest. The coach was old and a wreck, but the team was swift and the coachman determined. She’d likely be in Scotland before Leo knew what had happened to her.
She needed to stop thinking about him. She scarce could breathe now without lances of ice slicing her heart. Every turn of the coach wheels reminded her that she’d waited too late to tell him how she felt. Likely because she didn’t truly know how she’d felt until she realized she’d never see him again.
Never.
She’d been so sure the safest way to shield herself from a lifetime in a miserable marriage was to spend what now seemed like mere hours in the arms of a man who lived a lifetime every moment. She had not shielded herself. She’d tortured herself and the torture would go on until her dying breath. Now she began to sound like one of those Gothic romance heroines. She preferred to be one of the heroines of her naughty novels, the sort of woman who took what she wanted and demanded to be as satisfied in erotic pursuits as she was in every other aspect of her life.
But you didn’t do that, did you?
Oh these last weeks with Leo had been all she could have wished for and more, but she had walked away from the most important part. She fought against the lies women were told about sexual pleasure. She’d never bothered to fight against the lies that had made her the jewel of femininity her father had sold for the best price he could get. She’d made herself the thing all gentlemen of thetonadmired and wished to possess because that was the easiest and least dangerous thing to do.
And for her cowardice she’d lost Leo who saw her as the siren in his painting and wished her to be no one save herself.
“You fool,” she muttered. “You indolent, cowardly little fool.” Her two guards stirred. The man opened one eye, gave her a rough perusal and went back to sleep.
She wasn’t a fool. She’d shagged London’s most notorious rake on the roof of Albany in the middle of a thunderstorm. She’d left that rake tied naked to a chair in the middle of the most crowded ball of the season. She’d met him measure for measure and he’d delighted in it. He’d delighted in her. Hesawher and appreciated her for who she truly was.
He would come for her because of the way he looked at her. Julia had seen that from the start. Honoria had been too busy trying to prove herself to notice. Well, she’d noticed now. What did she intend to do about it?
She studied her companions. Who might she annoy the most? She set her sights on the governess who appeared as if the Scots duke had dug her up from a graveyard and dressed her in bombazine and plaid.
