Page 7

D enbigh had always been clever. That’s one of the reasons she’d so enjoyed sparring with him.

He possessed a sharp wit and a keen intellect.

He enjoyed debating the enlightened philosophers, and he read everything from Wordsworth to Voltaire.

But even if he hadn’t been the cleverest fellow, even if he’d suffered a fall from his mount and had his faculties knocked around, it wouldn’t have taken much for him to deduce the fact that she had a daughter.

Even when Laurel had caught herself and addressed Alice as Miss and not as Mama , she’d seen it in Denbigh’s stunned, clear blue eyes—he’d have known the identity of the little girl at her feet.

He’d been so tender, so gentle. Alice had a glimpse of what life would’ve been like with a man such as Laurence, good, honorable, wonderful with children, loving to all, as her father had been.

Instead, Alice made the mistake of finding someone who’d been a shadow of Laurence.

He’d put on a great show, whereas Laurence’s had never been an act.

He was who he was. A good man, and an honest man.

It’s why she’d asked him to meet her here.

Now, at quarter past eleven o’clock the next night, she dismounted in Hyde Park and let her borrowed mount—one she was freely allowed to use by the Earl of Dynevor—wander. He found a nearby patch and made it his own.

And Alice waited.

She wasn’t alone. She knew that. One of the guilty pleasures she’d allowed herself during her time at the Devil’s Den were midnight rides at Hyde Park.

After all, at this hour, one could be absolutely certain there’d never be a respectable lord or lady about.

Not in these grounds. No, this was when peers and peeresses were attending fancy soirees, lavish balls, theaters, and operas. This was Alice’s time .

But she wasn’t alone. The proprietors at the Devil’s Den allowed their female staff freedom of movement, but they also ensured that protection and security were provided. Guards went with them anywhere, but they kept their distance and stayed away.

Alice’s unease had nothing to do with the surly, scarred guard in the shadows.

No, it had everything to do with her impending meeting.

The spring breeze tugged at her cloak. Not that she feared seeing Laurence.

Strangely, if she’d have been face-to-face with her brother, in a chance meeting, she’d have felt a great deal more awkwardness.

She supposed, however, she should feel a great deal more dread at this meeting she’d requested with Laurence.

Alice rubbed at her chilled arms and looked around for a sight of him.

Oh, she wasn’t nonchalant or unaffected.

Maybe, more than anything, it was that her joy at seeing him again proved greater than all the discomfort that would come after she let him in on her secret.

It was a secret only her non-blood family knew.

Laurence was like family. When she was sixteen, she’d opened her heart to him and admitted the long-held secret that she loved him.

He’d handled it with the grace and aplomb only the Earl of Denbigh could.

He’d basically patted her on the head and said her feelings were just confused.

That she was Exmoor’s sister and she’d find the real gentleman she loved one day.

And what had she done instead? She’d settled and made a muddle of her life in the process.

The gravel crunched on the path behind her. Alice stiffened and looked toward the sound.

Laurence stepped from the shadows. Attired in a fine black wool cloak, black breeches, black boots, and a short black hat, the only thing that set him apart from a highwayman was a black domino.

Alice let her arms fall to her side. “I expect you have questions,” she said, by way of greeting.

The small, boyish half-grin he’d always worn around her quirked his lips, and it still had the same effect it always had.

“Well, what I was going to say was good evening,” he riposted with a teasing wryness.

Just like that, the tension eased from her body. He’d always had that effect on her, and thank God it persisted even now, when she’d asked him here to share something he’d likely already gleaned.

Clasping his arms behind him, Laurence tipped his head back and inhaled the clean night air. “It’s interesting that you should ask to meet me here now.”

Alice stared at him. With his eyes closed, it was all too easy to take in his chiseled features, his strong, nobly cut jaw with a slight cleft in his chin, his sharp cheekbones, and a nose cut like it had been plucked from DaVinci’s Michelangelo , then affixed and brought to life upon this living, breathing man.

Her belly fluttered inside. A thousand butterflies danced in time to the light flicker of his tawny eyebrows. He might’ve been adamant that her feelings for him would go away, but they hadn’t. When she failed to respond, Laurence opened his eyes and looked at her.

Alice cleared her throat. “And why is that?”

“I come here every morning with your brother.”

Her features froze, and her heart stuttered. If she moved wrong, she’d break.

“I didn’t know that,” she whispered, her voice catching.

She came here because this was the place where her family had gathered for the last time before Alice left.

It had been Caroline and Winchester’s wedding day.

The sun had shown brightly and they’d all gathered.

Laurence had been the best man, teasing and tossing coins in the air.

Knowing that not only her brother, but Laurence too, came to this very spot that she herself visited nightly felt like a full-circle moment, as if they’d been inhabiting the same world in the exact same place, but at different times.

“I’ve missed you, Alice.” Laurence’s profession came through the quiet.

Tears formed in her throat.

“I have missed you too,” she said shakily. “I’ve missed you all,” she hastily amended.

How humiliating it would be to admit that she always had and always would carry a torch for him.

Alice moved deeper under the protective cover of the white birch’s high canopy of green leaves, sat, and drew her knees up against her chest. She patted the place next to her, inviting Laurence to sit.

He joined her on the ground and took up a like pose.

They sat that way, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, and knee to knee. Neither spoke. They just stared out at the same spot where Alice’s brother had fallen in love, a place of happiness and peace, a place of calm.

“You always said I would fall in love,” she murmured.

“And…you did?” Laurence ventured.

There was something dark and unidentifiable underscoring his deeper-than-usual baritone. It was a tone she’d never before heard from him. And one she couldn’t make anything out of. Alice couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She continued staring out. She nodded.

“I thought I did,” she said.

She’d wanted to be loved. She’d wanted to be in love.

She’d known she couldn’t have Laurence. He’d never see her in that light, and so she turned her gaze elsewhere and tried. She’d even convinced herself she had been in love.

It was secret. It was exciting.

“Obviously, the fact that he insisted it remain clandestine because of his reputation, and his need to build a fortune so that my brother would allow his suit, should have been all the warning I needed,” she murmured.

“I think I knew it. I just let myself not heed it. Eventually, he went on to die in a duel, killed by his lover’s husband. ”

“And you?” Laurence murmured.

“And I was left ruined in every way.” That whispered admission barely reached her own ears.

Alice remained still. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Instead, she suffered and sat in the misery of her own discomfort.

“Laurel is your daughter,” Laurence said quietly.

His wasn’t a question. He spoke with the absolute conviction of one who’d taken one look at Alice’s daughter and deduced her identity. Once again, she tried to see whether he felt disdain, disgust, or shock, but he did a remarkable job of revealing nothing and leaving her to wonder.

A muscle pulsed at the corner of his eye. “And so you exiled yourself and shut your daughter away from all her family and all her future. You consigned her to a gaming hell. Instead of—”

“How dare you?” Alice shot back. She nourished herself with his judgment.

It kept her from breaking down and collapsing into a million tears.

“How delusional you are. Acting as though I could live openly and freely with an illegitimate daughter and that there’d be absolutely no repercussions for my sister and Caroline and Wynn. ”

“So, Exmoor knows?” he demanded.

“I’m not discussing my brother with you.”

The relaxed demeanor of before left Laurence. He sprang into movement, launching to his feet and then into a fast back-and-forth pace. His restlessness proved contagious.

“I’ll ask you one more time, Alice,” he said, “is your family aware of your presence here? And the reason behind it?”

Enraged at his insistence and unsettled by this all-powerful, commanding stranger issuing directives and demanding answers, she climbed to her feet and stumbled over her words.

“It matters not. It matters that this is my place. Here I have a new home and a new life. And now you know why.”

Suddenly furious with herself for having leaned into a weakness of the past, she fumed. “My God, I can’t believe I told you any of this.”

He took an angry step toward her. Despite knowing he’d never hurt her, reflexively, she found herself backing away at his approach.

“Alice, when I came upon you, I understood, or I thought I understood,” he said, putting a steely emphasis on that particular word.

“You were always spirited and independent and loved art. I believed you were here of choice, that your Bohemian spirit sent you to this place, a gaming hell, of all places,” he hissed.

“But this.” Angrily, he slashed a hand up and down in the air.

“This isn’t a choice as much as you may present it as one.

You have not chosen to be here. You have forced yourself to stay here. ”

Alice sputtered, indignant and outraged at his high-handedness.

“Oh, you can deny it all you want, but I don’t believe for one moment that if you were free to live somewhere else with your daughter that you wouldn’t.

You’ve chosen a self-exile and imposed yourself here, believing your family will eventually resent you and hate you for circumstances that belong, not with you, but with some bastard who betrayed you. ”

Vitriolic rage dripped from his tone.

“A bastard who, if he wasn’t already dead, I’d happily hunt down and rip apart with my bare hands. He is the one who deserves to be punished. Not you. You, however, are determined to play the martyr, and in doing so you’d force your daughter into an unsafe, uncertain, and horrid exist—”

Alice struck out, catching him in the face with her palm, so hard, quick, and with such ferocity his head whipped back. The crack of flesh meeting flesh rang in the nighttime still.

Nauseous, her heart rang sickeningly against her rib cage. Alice stared at the mark her palm had left upon his beloved cheek. With a stoic calm, Laurence swiped his hand down his marked cheek.

Oh God. She’d struck him. “I’m so sorry, Laurence.” Tears filled her throat and made speech a struggle. “I didn’t mean to strike you.”

She’d rather pluck out her fingernails than hurt him. He’d driven her to such rage by questioning her intentions and her ability to care for her daughter but he wasn’t deserving of her violence.

Alice took in a steadying breath. “But questioning how I raise my daughter and everything I sacrificed for her… I will not have you disparage my intentions or my love or commitment to her.”

The solemn way in which he nodded and pardoned her offense only made her feel all the worse for that loss of control.

In his reappearing in her life, he’d resurrected all the old love and longing she’d carried for him and would forever carry for him. She’d let him in, and it had been a mistake. It would take her more than a fortnight to erect walls again.

It’d take her a lifetime to build a fortress big enough to erase this day-long reunion.

A steadying breath.

“It’s not my intention to fight with you, Laurence,” Alice said, with greater calm. “You are my friend. You’ll always be my friend.”

That’s what he’d said. He’d been the one who’d declared that to be the entire extent of their relationship forevermore.

“I would never hurt you, and I know you would never hurt me. As such, I’m asking that you not speak to my family about our seeing one another here. And for you and I, there is no further need for us to meet now. Everything else has been said.”

Before she did something stupid and reckless, like wrap her arms around his narrow waist and hold onto him and fight to never let go, she somehow managed to bow her head, return to her mount, climb astride, and leave.

They’d never really had a chance to say goodbye when she’d left the first time.

This marked an actual closure that both she and he were aware of, and it carried with it a finality that cleaved her heart in two.