His Secret Heroine (9 page)

"Privately, of course. And I should wish you to call me Reggie, as that is how I am known by my intimates. Privately."

Chloe nodded. Her tongue felt wrapped around her teeth.

He lifted her fingertips to his lips and held them there a moment too long. "And my moment has gone. As you have said, I cannot stay. I must be away for a few days on matters of a personal nature, but I shall look for you next week at Lady Greville's ball and hope you will grant me the supper dance."

"Yes, of course, Lord Reginald." The words all but strangled her.

"Reggie."

"Yes. Reggie."

He took his leave. Chloe ran up the stairs to her chamber and slammed the door, gasping.

She'd done it! Reggie! The Duke of Marmount's second son had all but committed himself to marriage! And she, by her astonished silence, by the acceptance of his name, had all but agreed! Her sisters were going to be saved, and long before Chloe found herself in danger of the bars of debtor's prison.

But the bars of a different prison were closing in on her. The trembling returned.

* * *

Reggie hopped off the gelding and slapped the reins into the groom's hands. He'd done it! Miss
Englefield was to become Lady Reginald, his wife. She was perfect. Wonderful beyond imagining.

And he was sure she would keep their understanding private while he hid away and finished
The Adventuress
. He wouldn't have to worry about Vilheurs stealing a march on him, yet at the same time, his father was not likely to learn anything that would raise suspicions.

Atop all that, he'd found the scenes that had been eluding him. But now he'd have to change the ending. Why hadn't he already known that? How could a hero fall in love with such a woman, then nothing more happen? No, it was not just a sea adventure. It was a love affair. The love affair that surpassed all those that had come before. Yes, Nicholas Argent would fall in love with Circe, and in the end, they would separate tragically.

He goaded the gelding to an energetic trot. Something was not right about that.

Idiot. No, they wouldn't. Nicholas was hardly the type to let the love of his life just walk away. He would pursue her. He would find her, in the place to which she had returned. In an elegant ballroom, he would find her,
having reverted to the formal steps of the minuet, and he would take her into his arms for the waltz. It would be a metaphor of the waves of the sea, of the fervor of their love. And he would make her his own. Happily ever after.

Reggie dashed up the stairs and burst in the door. Puckett merely looked up and set down the vase he had been polishing.

Reggie ripped off the coat before Puckett could assist him, and snatched up the smock. "What sort of flowers did you send to Miss Englefield, Puckett?"

"Irises again,
My Lord. Dramatic, but not committing to any particular thing."

"That will not do now. It must be roses.
Red. Every shade of red you can find. A bouquet that speaks of everything." Reggie pulled out the manuscript from its secret compartment.

"Everything,
My Lord? Already?"

"Yes, already. Every day. And there is not to be so much as a posy sent to another lady, unless she is married and is not likely to mistake its meaning. Miss
Englefield will suit nicely in all respects. And we can manage on her money and mine until I can compensate her, until either my writing takes off, or I snatch the Featherstone legacy from my father." He shuffled to the last chapter and scanned over the pages. "How are you doing with the copying?"

"Quite well,
My Lord. Upwards of eighty pages, I believe."

"You are amazing, Puckett. I am nearly done. I have my ending now, but I shall have to compose it entirely from scratch. You may inform Mr. Ludwick the new version will be complete within days."

"Then I shall keep pace, My Lord. This has become your best work, and I have the highest of ambitions for it. Mr. Ludwick cannot refuse it this time."

Puckett's words trailed off from Reggie's consciousness as the dramatic ending absorbed him. Pen, ink and
paper became words, and words the fantasy from his imagination, that in itself became his new reality.

* * *

"My Lord?"

Puckett's voice penetrated the haze in Reggie's mind like a bright lantern. He blinked and sat up, shaking off sleep. Oh, yes, his bed. He ran a hand over the raspy stubble of a beard more than a day old and frowned at his rumpled clothes. Oh, yes. He had finished, and collapsed atop the covers without so much as another cup of coffee. When had that been?

"My Lord," said Puckett. "I finished the draft. Ludwick has it. I left him reading."

Still drugged from sleep, Reggie rose. Dear God, it was almost like coming off a high flyer! His head hurt like his brain had come loose and banged around against his skull.

"It's Friday, My Lord. You finished yesterday afternoon. You meant to do the Greville ball this evening, did you not?"

"I've slept an entire day?" No wonder his head hurt like he was muzzied. Reggie never slept so long.

"Yes, My Lord. But considering you have not slept for several nights, it is hardly surprising. I have a bath prepared for you, and coffee. There's some fresh biscuits sent up by Mrs. Monroe, to tide you over a bit."

Puckett took care of everything. Reggie thought he had never needed coffee, biscuits and bath more in his life. He let the comforts ease him back to reality as Puckett filled in the details.

The first time around, Ludwick had liked the book, but thought it lacked something. Reggie, although disappointed, had known the man was right, and he'd had to accept the need to revise it. But at least the man had said he would see it again if the anonymous author should fix whatever it was that was missing. Reggie thought he'd found it. But would Ludwick agree?

"I saw the look in his eyes while he was reading,
sir. Couldn't wait to get to the next page. He'll see it our way, I'm sure."

But Reggie had been through that before. Hard to get his hopes up.

What if Ludwick bought it? He could be free of his father's domination, and marry Chloe. If it sold well, that was. Ludwick was just the first step, and the rest was not foregone. But Ludwick had just begun his printing business and was eagerly seeking new stories. He could set type fast, and print quickly. The book could be out in weeks. Well, a month or so, perhaps.

Reggie couldn't wait that long. His father would have him shackled to Portia long before. In fact Reggie was already skating on thin ice. He hated to think to what subterfuge or force his father would resort if he discovered Reggie's plot before it was carried out, for the Duke of Marmount was capable of just about anything to get his way.

Reggie shuddered, thinking of what happened to those who dared stand up to the duke. His mother had done it, and found herself banished to a small estate barely suitable for a knight's widow. In sixteen years, his father the duke had not seen his wife, nor had the duchess indicated the slightest desire to see her husband. Reggie, being the inconsequential second son, had been allowed to stay with his mother, but Robert had been taken from her.

Reggie still remembered Robert's tearful pleading that had fallen on his father's stone-hard ears. That had been the beginning of a cold rage in Robert that
had not extinguished to this day. Robert had abandoned the duke at the earliest opportunity. Even the letters sent from Spain flatly refused to recognize his father. Reggie still had no idea how his brother had managed to purchase his colours and slip away without the duke discovering it, but Robert's success had only increased the duke's vigilance over his remaining son.

Reggie
was the last and only member of the duke's family to still tolerate him. And now Reggie was about to step over the same precipice.

He didn't want to lose his father. He loved the man desperately, and pitied the man equally as deeply. But he felt it coming.
He had to be free to be a man, in his own way.

The bath water had finally cooled, and Reggie stepped from the tub to be toweled off. He crammed a macaroon in his mouth and thought of what he was going to say to Chloe tonight. He had a proposal to make, and he had to be sure it was precisely right.

Chapter Six

Chloe peered around a pink marble column at the entrance to the Greville ballroom, where she had a good view of the top of the stairs. Perhaps he would not come. Perhaps she had allowed her imagination to dream up the words he had spoken to her. Or she had misinterpreted them.

She had taken this position near the grand entrance just for the purpose of seeing everyone who entered, and she had been watching between sets, during sets. She had even sent four gentlemen away with some instruction or other so she could continue her vigil. But he still had not come.

And now she saw Lord Vilheurs working his way back across the ballroom with her third glass of ratafia for the evening. She didn't know how she would manage to stomach it, and looked around unsuccessfully for a
different potted palm. She'd probably already killed the first one. Truthfully, she would rather plant Lord Vilheurs in the potted palm, even more than the drink, but the point would be moot if she could find no such plant in the first place.

She couldn't say she detested the man. She didn't at all, and truth to tell, rather liked him. He just wasn't Reggie. Lord Reginald.

Aunt Daphne looked back at her from her conversation with her dear friends Lord and Lady Standish and flashed a permissive smile. Chloe shook her head. Aunt Daphne would have never succeeded as a chaperone, governess, or any such thing. Her aunt would likely tolerate any havey-cavey activity as long as it was intelligently applied to the proper cause, such as marriage to the proper fellow. Or evading one who was not so proper.

Glee lit Lord Vilheurs's dark countenance as he approached her. He had clung like a leech for days, apparently i
n the belief that Lord Reginald-Reggie-had abandoned the field for something more attractive, such as his
Xanthe
. And Chloe couldn't help but wonder, herself. She gritted her teeth, forcing a smile, and glanced about again, just in case some straying palm had decided to present itself for her use after all.

"Ah, there you are, my dear," said Lord Vilheurs, as if she had wandered from the spot she had so perversely occupied all evening. "Forgive me for the delay. It is a sad crush, I'm afraid."

"Indeed, an immense success. Thank you." She sipped at the drink, and her lips puckered. "How odd. What a peculiar taste."

"Surely, only that it is warm," he said, and his voice reminded her of
slightly melted butter. "Surely one might more easily cross the Channel than to wend through such a crush."

Chloe bounced back an agreeable look and sipped again. No, it definitely was quite right. Holding up the glass, she thought the color just a bit too pink, too. She sniffed, but caught no strange aroma. She decided she would just hold the glass, pretending now and then to sip as she tried to think of some subject she had not already asked the man.

"Have you been abroad, My Lord?" she asked.

"
Mais ouì, mademoiselle
," Vilheurs responded. "As a young man, I was often in Paris, but then there was the War, you know, and my family returned home. Of course, one may not travel so freely now."

His hawk
-like gaze never leaving her, Vilheurs launched into an exhaustive discussion of Paris in the days before Napoleon that would once have fascinated her. But Chloe ached to escape him. What if Reggie did not come? What if he had decamped, just as Vilheurs constantly hinted?

"Miss
Englefield?"

Oh, she'd let her mind wander away again. "Oh, I am sorry, Lord Vilheurs, what did you say?"

"I asked if you meant to finish your ratafia, my dear."

She couldn't imagine finishing it. "Oh, I think not. I believe I have lost my taste for it. Perhaps if I had not had two already
..."

She saw muscles in his jaw tighten. Well, what if he was displeased? It was not as if she had asked him to fetch Atalanta's golden balls. Seeing a footman with a tray, she summoned him and gave up the wretched glass and its foul brew.

"Then perhaps another dance, Miss Englefield. I have had but one. Or better yet, perhaps you will reserve the supper dance for me."

"Taken, Villy. Miss
Englefield has promised it to me."

Chloe spun around to see Lord Reginald grinning at her.

Vilheurs's black eyes enlarged like dinner plates. "I hardly see how, Beauhampton," he said, glaring, "as you have not been around this age."

"Because I asked her last time I saw her, Villy. That would have been a week ago, would it not, Miss
Englefield?"

Chloe opened her mouth, but that was as far as
her words got.

"That would have been the night you tried to drown her.
" Vilheurs sneered. "Come along, my dear, you need not subject yourself to this sort of scoundrel." Lord Vilheurs grabbed her arm and pulled.