With This Ring (22 page)

Lucky Garrett.

It was the other offer, the stunning, outrageous, astounding offer, that he made next.

Cabot refused that one as well.
He simply didn’t think no would be an acceptable answer, not to the man who made the offer.

“Your loss, mate,” Garrett informed him cheerfully.
“You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

Garrett ambled off, replacing his hat on his head with, of course, a jaunty tilt.
For a moment, just an instant, Cabot envied him fiercely.
To be free, to walk away from the constant ache in his chest, to turn love from pain back into play.

However, he had a place in the world.
He had work, and responsibilities.
He had Button’s respect, and Button was obviously fond of him, in poor-orphan-boy sort of way.

Not precisely what Cabot had in mind.

Nevertheless, it was better than no Button at all.

Wasn’t it?

*   *   *

At Worthington House, Cabot found Hastings first.
“Ah … sir.
My master has a message for you.”

Then it was the violet silk for Miss Elektra.

Hours later, in her bedchamber, Elektra gave herself one final glance in the mirror.
Cabot stood behind her, hair ribbons still trailing from one hand, a vial of scent held in the other.

“I think this is the best I can do,” Elektra tilted her head this way and that.
“Do you think it is enough to win the Duke of Camberton’s attention?”

“If he isn’t looking at you, then he must be looking at me,” Cabot said flatly.
“You make me wish I admired girls.”

Elektra turned to flash her dearest friend a delighted grin.
“Cabot!
That’s the nicest thing any man has ever said to me!”

Cabot lifted a brow.
“Wouldn’t that send the eyebrows to the ceiling?
You and I, stepping out together?”

Elektra’s grin faded.
“What’s wrong?
Something’s wrong.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Tell me.”

Cabot turned away and let the ribbons drift from his lax fingers to the top of the dressing table.
“I think I may be going to the palace.
The Prince Regent needs another dresser.
It seems he broke the last one.”

“Oh!”
Elektra raised her hands to her cheeks in delight.
Then, she let them fall.
“Oh.
Oh, dear.”

“I do believe those were my exact words upon receiving the offer.
Well, nearly, for I might have added a few harmless expletives.”

Elektra bit her bottom lip.
“Will you go?
Will you truly leave him?”

Cabot turned back, but his gaze remained on his empty hand.
“I believe the question is, will he let me refuse it?
‘For your own good’ and all that rubbish.”

“But … he
needs
you,” Elektra said delicately.
“You know he does!”

“Does he?”
Cabot looked up at last, and his lovely gray-mist eyes were the eyes of a man walking to the gallows.
“Does he indeed?”

Elektra crossed her arms.
We shall see about this!

Mr.
Button was as dear to her as her own parents—but enough was enough!
Her toe began to tap, rather in the fashion of her bossy older sister, Callie.
When she realized it, she stilled the wayward foot, but forgot to erase the determined scowl from her features.

Cabot blinked and drew back slightly.
“No.”

“No what?”
Elektra was still thinking furiously.
When she got through with Button and his ridiculous notions of right and wrong and—

“No.
No Worthington shenanigans!
No outrageous plots involving mechanical geese or the twins clad as harlequins or some clockwork flaming phoenix!”

Elektra beamed her most innocent look at Cabot.
“Why, how could I dress the twins as harlequins with Poll gone off to the Alps?
Or has he reached Turkey yet?”

Cabot passed one hand over his eyes.
“Just … just wait, please?
I need to do a bit of serious thinking and I won’t be able to if I’m worrying over a sudden delivery of a flock of monkeys!”

“It isn’t called a flock, it’s called a troop, or … well, I’ll have to ask Orion.
And anyway, it was only a single monkey and I only kept it for a day.
Not at all nice, as I recall.”

“Elektra?
Promise me that you’ll give me time.”

“Well, there is this ball I must attend tonight.
And then in the morning I expect I’ll be receiving at least one important proposal.
And then there will be my artfully but innocently worded acceptance to compose…” She let out a breath.
“Very well.
You have forty-eight hours.
Then I will unleash the combined might of the entire clan upon his foolish head!”

“God.”
Cabot shuddered.
“If I hadn’t gone through a decade of impotent longing, I would almost feel sorry for him.”

Elektra nodded shortly.
“Confusion to the enemy, that’s what Lysander … used to say.”

She turned to gather up her fan and her shawl, already thinking about how to gain the stubbornly blind Button’s undivided attention.

“Ellie.”

She turned, startled.
Even as close as they were, Cabot rarely used her family nickname.
He stood there, with that slight crook in his lips that was the closest he ever really came to smiling, and then he bowed most formally.
“You are brilliant and beautiful and your heart is more golden than you realize.
You are more duchess than any duke deserves!”

Blinking back sudden moisture in her eyes, Elektra snapped her fan open flirtatiously before her face as she curtsied just as deeply.
“Why, thank you for noticing, kind sir!”
Then she stood and crisply shut her fan.
“Now, a-hunting we will go.”

Chapter Eighteen

In his own small room, Aaron tied the last knot in his cravat and turned slightly sideways to get a better look in the speckled mirror.
“I haven’t worn this kit before,” he informed his observer.
“What y’think?”

Where she sat on the floor, Atalanta Worthington stopped using Philpott’s best shears to snip her brother Dade’s third-best neck-cloth short enough to tie about her own neck and assessed Aaron’s getup with an artistic squint.
“You aren’t fooling anyone, you know.”

Aaron’s belly did a little flip.
He’d realized by now that sooner or later, Miss Elektra Worthington was going to discover his true identity.
He was simply hoping he’d be safely miles away when that happened.
Preferably in Scotland.
Or maybe Finland.

Then his gut twisted slightly sideways at the thought of leaving Elektra miles behind him …

Pushing all that aside, he gave Attie one of Hastings’s most mischievous smirks.
“I’m foolin’ everyone, all the time.
Just like you.”

Attie rubbed at the bridge of her nose.
“Anyone can tell that you’ve dressed up like this before.
I think you’ve been trying on his lordship’s ‘kit’ behind his back!”

She’d wandered in after Aaron had donned everything but the neck-cloth, so she hadn’t seen him struggling to button the extraordinarily fitted weskit.
“Well, a valet’s got to ’ave some all to do with ’is spare time!”

Attie lost interest in the cravat, now that she’d guaranteed a loud reaction from Dade, and crawled across the floor to where Aaron had laid out his coat over the chair by the fire.

“Get away from that with them scissors, you!”
Aaron could move quite fast when necessary.
He secured the shears on a high shelf and kicked Dade’s ruined cravat underneath and out of sight.
One almost fine cravat: noted.
Another item to replace when he regained his inheritance.

And will you buy a replacement for Elektra’s trust when someday someone points out the infamous Lord Anathema—formerly known as Lord Aaron Arbogast?

Someday wasn’t today, thank heavens!

To his secret dismay, it seemed he was fitting in quite well with this mad bunch after all, for his primary tenet now seemed to be “Don’t get caught.”

As he turned to leave the room, Attie spoke again.

“Do you want to pollinate with her?”

Aaron closed his eyes.
Damn.
He was halfway into the hall.
One more bloody second—

He inhaled deeply and turned to face one of his many personal demons—the shortest one by far.

“Why in the world would you ask that?”

Attie said, “Because when I say ‘copulate’ people tend to turn purple and sputter.”

He might be turning a manly shade of puce but he most definitely was not turning purple!
The sputtering, on the other hand, was unavoidable.
“How do you even know that term?”

“Mama gave me a book about the reproduction process.”

Aaron choked slightly.
“Erk?
Do you think it is appropriate to look at such things?”

She tilted her head.
“It was mostly about frogs and bees.”

“Oh … well.
Bees ain’t so bad I suppose…”

She shook her head at him in scorn.
“You think I should know more about bees than I do about humans?
But I am not a bee, so the information, while interesting, isn’t terribly useful, is it?”

Aaron gazed about wildly for succor, but there was no one in sight to save him from this conversation.
“I truly don’t believe it is appropriate to be speaking to you about this!”

“About what?”

“About … bees!”
With that he turned on one heel and strode away from the odd child.

She called after him, “You never answered my question.
Do you want to pollinate with her?”

Aaron cringed and hoped the rest of the Worthingtons were out of range of Attie’s reedy little voice.

It was only too bad that he couldn’t also run away from the voice in his own mind.

Oh, yes. I want to pollinate with her.

*   *   *

As Elektra left her room, she could hear the babble of her family gathering in the front entry.
She smiled at the excitement in their voices, but it was a wry smile.
To them, this was simply more fun to be had.

Attie waited for her at the stairs, sitting on the top step with her elbows on her knees, her chin on her fists.
She wore a strangely mutated cravat tied about her neck.
Elektra realized that the knot was formed after a hangman’s noose.
She shuddered.

“Attie, may I have that cravat?
It’s just what I’ve been looking for to wipe my shoes before I walk into the ball.”

Attie sat up and pulled the macabre thing over her head, handing it to Elektra wordlessly.
Apparently it had accomplished its mission, which was most likely to give her older sister the willy-wiggins.
It was a classic Attie-style protest.
Translation: I am tired of being the only one to stay home.

Thirteen was difficult for anyone, more so for the youngest child.
Elektra remembered watching her older brothers leaving for evenings out, dreaming of when she might attend glittering balls clad in beautiful clothes.

Strange how it all seemed much more like drudgery now, instead of that scintillating girlish fantasy.
She might as well be a chimneysweep gathering his brushes for all the excitement she felt tonight.

Time to pay the bills.

So she passed Attie by with a swift caress to her little sister’s braids and made her way down the curving stairs to the once grand entry of Worthington House.
When she descended far enough, her family came into view.
Dade looked golden and handsome, if a bit dour.
He knew it was his duty to escort his sister and cousin, but Elektra could see him twitching at the inconvenience.
So many more important things to do, had Dade.
She had long given up wanting to explain herself to her dismissive eldest brother.
He couldn’t help his preoccupation, for he was both father and mother to them all now, with Callie gone away to the Cotswolds.

Next to him stood Orion, rather surprisingly.
Elektra wondered how Dade had managed to bribe his next-younger brother to accompany him.
Funds for a new experiment, perhaps?
Orion seemed willing enough to be there, in his distant way.
Elektra took two more steps down.
Bliss came into view.

Suddenly Elektra did not feel quite so resplendent.
Her dress was just as fine, having come fresh from Lementeur’s studio in Cabot’s hands that afternoon.
To be truthful, it was that bosom!
Elektra couldn’t help feeling that her quest would be so much more attainable if she were armed with that sort of man-bait.

In addition to her fine gown and her world-class figure, Bliss wore an expression of pleased serenity as she held out her arm to someone.
Elektra descended another step just as a male figure in black stepped into view to Bliss’s side.
It was Mr.
Hastings, clad in formal finery that a faraway part of Elektra’s mind identified as belonging to her lost brother, Poll.
Except for the rich blue silk waistcoat, which by the precision of the fit, had to be something Mr.
Button had made just for him!

The precise color of the butterflies in the meadow.

Oh … my.

She had never seen him out of his rumpled, brown suit, which was much the worse for all their adventures.
In black and sapphire, he was as striking as Dade, if a shade less golden.
His blond hair was as tawny as a lion, she decided, and his eyes—

At that moment his gaze rose to meet hers where she stood frozen halfway down the stairs, poised with her hand on the railing, feeling as if she wanted to vault the damned thing and then drift dreamily down like a feather into his arms, all the while holding that warm, gray gaze with hers.

Then he took Bliss’s arm.
Something spiked right through Elektra’s middle, just beneath her bosom, just above her belly.
She pressed one palm to that spot in alarm.
What was that?

I should have eaten something, instead of spending my day preparing for the ball.

The ache didn’t recede until Bliss slipped her arm away the better to adjust her perfect, pristine gloves.
Elektra quickly lifted her own hand from the railing, which still gleamed from her recent cleaning, but she meant to take no chances.
She refused to arrive at the Duke of Camberton’s ball smudged!

Her brothers realized that she stood above them.

“Ellie, good God, it’s about time!”
Dade checked his pocket watch.

His impatience cut at her.
She dared not fish for a compliment now.
Her eldest brother already thought her selfish and vain.
She wasn’t sure when he’d formed the opinion of her worthlessness.
All she’d asked for was proper Season, after all.
And that, only in the last year.