Page 43 of Bad Luck Bride (Scandal at the Savoy #3)

I n any crisis of life, there were always one or two things to be thankful for.

Etiquette required that Kay return the wedding gifts that had come in and inform the invited guests that the wedding had been canceled, but she was not required to explain why. Not that an explanation was needed anyway, not with her name splashed across every paper in town.

Kay didn’t read the articles. In a slew of fresh tears, her mother provided her with all the details every morning at breakfast, whether she wanted them or not.

Josephine was a brick, of course, constantly asking how she could help, offering to keep her company, and inviting her along for any social occasion possible, insisting she was welcome.

Kay, however, refused all these kind gestures, assuring Jo that she could be of the most help by carrying on with her season, especially since that meant Mama would have to chaperone her and wouldn’t be glued to Kay’s side, regaling her with recriminations and woeful prognostications of the dire future that awaited them.

Jo, much to Kay’s relief, appreciated her point and kept Mama occupied as much as possible.

In the fortnight following the infamous elopement, Kay also discovered and rediscovered who her true friends were, and predictably, they were not the paragons of society she’d been bowing and scraping to all these years.

Idina wrote, inviting her for a sketching holiday to Ireland, an offer she found both amusing and touching.

She knew Idina had never had any talent for drawing, nor any interest in it, but she appreciated the kindness behind the offer and told Idina so.

She wanted, however, to remain in town for Josephine’s season, and declined the invitation.

But she also expressed the hope that she and her old friend could see more of each other from now on, and to her happy surprise, Idina responded by inviting her and Jo to come for a visit after the start of the grouse, an invitation she happily accepted.

Some well-meaning and not so well-meaning acquaintances also came to call.

Some were motivated by kindness, she knew, but others had more unsavory motives, and Kay soon wearied of all the sympathetic tut-tutting and thinly veiled curiosity about Wilson and Lady Pamela’s shocking elopement, and despite all the years of effort she’d put in trying to win over these people, she soon began asking the Savoy footmen bringing up their calling cards to say she was not at home.

In doing so, she discovered that turning them away was not particularly difficult.

Climbing back up the ton’s social ladder was probably a lost cause for her now.

And, more important, she’d lost the impetus to try, for she found all this false sympathy irritating and the ghoulish curiosity distasteful.

There was, however, one person who called on Kay who knew instinctively what would do her the most good.

One evening shortly after the news hit the papers, Delia arrived at her door with two bottles of the Mayfair’s best claret, a box of French chocolates, and a tray of éclairs.

She enveloped Kay in a heartfelt hug, asked in an offhand way if she wanted to talk about it, and upon receiving a resounding no, proceeded to open the wine and regale her with humorous tales of life as the general manager of a hotel.

And though drinking that much claret and eating that much confectionery in one sitting caused Kay to wake the following morning with rather a headache, her friend’s visit helped enormously to revive her spirits.

She did not speak with Devlin. Not that he didn’t try. He called, he wrote, he approached her at a ball and asked her to dance. He even sent a telegram, of all things, but she steadfastly ignored these attempts to gain her attention.

She was still angry at him for the high-handed kiss that had thrown her life into this mess.

But she also knew that by not shoving him away and slapping his face, she might have given him cause to believe he had a gentlemanly way to make up for his most ungentlemanly actions.

And she wasn’t about to let the scoundrel have such an easy way to ease his conscience.

After she pitched his ridiculous telegram in the trash, a week went by with no other word from him, and she hoped he’d given up. But two weeks to the day after she’d refused his proposal, the Savoy brought a delivery to her door, one that made Kay realize Devlin had not given up at all.

“Heavens, what’s all this?” Magdelene cried, causing both Kay and Josephine to look up from their afternoon tea.

“Delivery, my lady,” a male voice said from the corridor.

“What is it, Mama?” Kay asked. She leaned first one way, then the other, but from her seat at the table, there was no way to see past her mother into the corridor beyond.

“Something for Josephine, I think,” Magdelene turned to her youngest daughter, her face lighting up with delight. “It seems you have acquired a most ardent admirer, my dear.”

“Begging your pardon, my lady,” the voice said from the corridor. “But these aren’t for Lady Josephine. They are for Lady Kay.”

“Me?” Kay rose from the table, and she could only stare in shock as her mother moved aside and a seemingly endless line of footmen entered the suite, each carrying an enormous vase of pure white flowers.

“Where should we put them, my lady?” the first footman asked, looking at Kay over the bouquet in his hand.

“Heavens, I don’t know.” Kay scanned the dozen bouquets lined up in front of her and made a helpless gesture. “Anywhere you can find room, I suppose.”

“But who are they from?” Magdelene asked. She pulled the card from the midst of the bouquet closest to her, but Kay snatched it from her hand.

Ignoring her mother’s protest, Kay walked to the card table by the door, retrieved a pound note from the drawer and handed it to the first footman. “I’m afraid I don’t have enough change for each of you,” she apologized. “You can split this out later, I hope?”

“Of course, my lady.” He bowed and exited the suite, and the other eleven followed in his wake, each giving her a bow as they departed.

“Well, my stars,” Magdelene breathed, closing the door behind them as Kay opened the card. “Who on earth would be sending Kay flowers?”

Kay did not respond to this rather unflattering inquiry. She was staring down at the card, and the sprawling handwriting she knew so well.

Your favorite flower. If you want to know how I know that, you’ll have to stop ignoring me long enough to ask.

—DS

Blasted man, she thought, bemused and exasperated. Didn’t he understand what the word “no” meant?

“But who are they from?” Josephine’s voice interrupted. “Kay?” she prompted when her sister didn’t answer. “Do tell us.”

She might as well answer, since Mama would read the card the minute she was out of the room anyway. Taking a deep breath, she turned around. “They are from Devlin Sharpe.”

“What?” Magdelene looked almost as delighted by that as she had by the prospect of Josephine having a suitor, making Kay more exasperated than before. “Devlin Sharpe is sending you flowers?”

“Not just any flowers,” Josephine put in. “Gardenias, Kay.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “My favorite.”

As she said the words, pleasure rose inside her, pleasure so keen it almost hurt. She lifted the card to her nose, breathing deeply of the scent she loved so well. Just how had he known? she wondered. She’d never told him—

“Gardenias are so terribly expensive, too,” Magdelene said. “Especially at this time of year.”

“He must still care about you, Kay,” Jo said. “Why else would he send flowers?”

The pleasure inside Kay became sharper, keener, bringing fear as she realized her own vulnerability where he was concerned.

She jerked her hand down, shoving the card back into the slit of its wooden stake. “It’s absurd!” she cried as she turned away from the flowers and returned to the table where tea had been laid. “Absurd to think a few flowers will change my mind!”

“Change your mind about what?” Jo asked.

She hesitated, but she knew she had to tell them what had happened.

There was no way to keep Devlin’s intentions a secret, not if he was so determined to pursue her in this ridiculous way.

Taking a deep breath, she braced herself for the inevitable scene.

“After Wilson and Pamela ran off together, Devlin proposed to me.”

“What?” Magdelene cried in understandable astonishment, falling onto the settee almost as if it were a fainting couch. “Devlin Sharpe proposed? Honorable marriage?”

“No, Mama,” Kay replied at once, rolling her eyes as she reached for a scone. “Illicit relations.”

“Kay!” her mother admonished, sitting up. “Not in front of Josephine.”

“I know what illicit relations are,” Jo said impatiently. “What did you say?” she added, returning her attention to Kay. “It sounds as if you refused him?”

“Of course I did.”

“Oh, Kay,” Magdelene wailed, reminding Kay why she’d wanted to keep the whole silly business to herself. “But why?”

“Really, Mama! You needn’t sound so stricken! Must I remind you that you can’t stand him? You’ve been calling him That Horrible Man for donkey’s years, and now you want me to marry him?”

Magdelene looked away. “Any port in a storm,” she muttered.

“Oh, I see.” Kay gave a humorless laugh. “Now that I’ve once again been jilted and I’m being ridiculed by the scandal sheets as a result, even Devlin would be acceptable? You are impossible, Mama!”

Magdelene looked at her, her mouth taking on a decidedly mulish curve. “I don’t see why you say that, Kay.”

“The man was engaged to someone else scarcely two weeks ago!”

“So were you. That was then, and this is now.” Magdelene paused, fingering the edge of the newspaper beside her plate. “I heard he’s become quite rich.”

“Mother!”

“Don’t look at me like that, Kay Victoria! I’m looking out for you.”

“How unselfish of you.”