“Leaving?” the woman asked, and Rebecca couldn’t help but appreciate the beautiful gown she wore. It was cream with a lace fichu, red ribboning around the hem and neckline.
“Soon,” Rebecca said with a nod, eager to be away from the woman who may take on the role she had come to realize she very, very much would have aspired to assume herself — that of Valentine’s wife.
“Are you all right, Miss Lambert?” Lady Fredericka asked, peering up at Rebecca, for despite the fact that Rebecca wasn’t overly tall, this woman was quite short. Valentine would tower over top of her.
“I’m fine,” Rebecca said hurriedly. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Oh, no,” the woman said, shaking her head. “I just needed a moment alone in the powder room.” She blushed. “I suppose I shouldn’t admit such a thing.”
Rebecca couldn’t help but laugh. “If there is anyone that is comfortable in speaking of such things, it would be me.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Lady Fredericka said and then sighed. “Well, I am sorry that you are leaving. You seem quite lovely, and I could use a friend or two close by. Perhaps if we are both ever in London we could take tea together.”
Rebecca couldn’t hide her shock. “With me? Lady Fredericka, I am flattered, but I am simply the daughter of an architect, and you are—”
“Freddie,” she finished. “Call me Freddie. I much prefer it. Well, good day, Miss Lambert. I hope to see you again.”
Rebecca could only stare after her as she quickly and efficiently strode down the hall with her short strides.
Damn it. She liked her.
Rebecca didn’t come to him that night.
Valentine waited, quite impatiently, but she never showed up through his dressing room door. He took the stairs down to the long gallery himself, but when he arrived, it was completely empty of both her and any sign that she or her father had ever been there. The fire had even simmered to embers. It was as it had been before they had arrived. The thought filled him with such melancholy that he had to leave the room.
And try to determine just where her bedchamber was located.
He was like a prowler in his own home as he strode down the corridor of the guest wing. He had to be careful — her father had likely been placed in a room quite close. This was ridiculous, he reasoned as he stopped in front of one door after another, listening for sounds within. He was a duke for goodness sake, and this was his estate. He shouldn’t feel the thief.
And yet he was. He had stolen from Rebecca her innocence, despite the fact she had freely given it, and he felt the very bounder that he was. He was the son of a physician who hadn’t been good enough to follow in his father’s footsteps, so instead he had relied on his baser urges and become a pugilist. His decision had led to the loss of his brother. The fact that he was a duke now? Dumb luck, more than anything.
He was about to give up and return to his own bedroom when one of the doors opened a crack and a beautiful dark head emerged.
“Val?”
“Rebecca!” he exhaled, quickly crossing toward her. He was ready to take her in his arms but he stopped short. Would she reject him?
“May I come in?”
“Of course,” she said, opening the door wider, though she stepped back and crossed her arms over her chest, barring herself from him.
He closed the door gently behind him, looking around at the room she had inhabited during her stay here. The heavy curtains were pulled over the windows, leaving the room in near darkness aside from light from the fire in the grate and the lone candle that burned beside her bed.
“Where were you going?” he asked.
“Pardon me?”
“You opened the door.”
“Oh,” she said, the smallest of smiles licking at her lips. “I heard you in the hall. You were bumbling about with the grace of a brawler instead of the fine pugilist you are.”
He snorted. “I would hardly think you would have ascertained that from the fight you saw.” He sat heavily in the armchair near the window. “I am actually much better than that, you know.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. She wore a night-rail that was as elegant as she was. It lacked lace frippery or ruffles or any other adornment but allowed her true beauty to emerge.
Val leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.
“You didn’t come to me tonight.”
“I couldn’t,” she said, her teeth raking over her plush bottom lip.
“Why not?” he asked, the air still and tense as he waited for her answer.
“Because, Val,” she said, walking over to him, kneeling in front of him and placing her hands over his. She looked up at him and he nearly forgot himself in the forest of her eyes under her thick lashes. “Today was a reminder that you are not mine. You never will be. We have to stop this charade, for the more we are together, the more it will hurt when we must be separated.”
“I have no wish to be separated from you,” he said, his voice rough to his own ears. He was not a man used to expressing such emotion, and the words were foreign on his lips.
“That may be so,” she said with a sad smile, “but being with me would do nothing for you.”
“It could,” he said, hope and excitement spurring his heart to beat faster as he thought of it. “Perhaps, we could make it work, you and I.”
“What of the dowry you are seeking? The respectability?”
He shrugged, at a loss. He hadn’t thought it through, but the urge to be with her was overwhelming all reason.
“So we dispense with the renovations for now. We’ll keep your father’s plans, put them into place someday. You could be my duchess, Rebecca, and we will learn the life together.”
“We would never be accepted by the ton.”
They wouldn’t — not really. Oh, they would be welcomed, but ridiculed. He didn’t want that for Rebecca, and yet he couldn’t promise her much else. He thought of his father, what he would have said about him shuffling away his ducal responsibility for the woman he wanted in his bed, in his life. Valentine had always done what was best for him and no one else. Because of that, Matthew was dead. Now, what of his mother? What of Jemima? He ran a hand over his face, which Rebecca reached up and caught within hers.
“Tomorrow, my father and I will return to London,” she said. “There is work we need to complete, and he will start on the renovations to your London house. By the time you return, it will be livable. Perhaps, after some separation, we will know better what we both want.”
He didn’t want her to go, but he had no reason for keeping her with him any longer. He would return with her, but he needed to interview stewards first and put his affairs here in order.
“I will return as soon as I am able,” he promised, clutching her hand to his chest.
She nodded, her eyes shimmering in the dim light. He reached down and picked her up effortlessly, bringing her to sit on his lap as he held her close, wishing he could capture this moment as more than a memory, keeping her with him forever. He buried his nose in her hair, inhaling the scent of rose petals that had become so familiar.
Her hands came around his neck as she held him with the same strength. Valentine had no idea how long they sat there like that, no words required as they simply held one another as close as could be.