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Chapter Eighteen

Selina

R ash the decision might have been, but the reward of seeing Mr. Drake’s face was ample compensation for Selina.

He had truly believed he had her beat. He had been almost crooning the entire evening.

But not anymore.

Now he was speechless.

Selina beamed with triumph, the flush of victory coursing through her like nothing in her life had done. And it was not even complete yet.

She took advantage of Mr. Drake’s shock, pulling her hands from his and setting her palm on his warm cheek. “You have made me the happiest of women.”

The door opened, and their heads turned.

Mr. Yorke and Mr. Fairchild checked at the sight of Selina and their friend in such close quarters.

Mr. Yorke’s eyes flicked between Selina and him while Mr. Fairchild’s brows lifted.

Selina let her hands drop, a flush creeping up her cheeks. This was not the opportune time for an audience .

“Perhaps we should return later,” Mr. Fairchild mumbled to Mr. Yorke.

“No, no,” Mr. Drake said, apparently gathering himself. “You are the perfect two people to felicitate us.”

Selina snatched his hand and squeezed it tightly, warningly.

Mr. Drake adjusted his grip so that they were holding hands. “Mrs. Lawrence—my beloved Selina—has just done me the honor of agreeing to marry me.” Turning his gaze to her, he brought her hand to his lips and pressed yet another kiss to it.

“That is famous!” Mr. Yorke said with a grin. “I do felicitate you, then.”

“My deepest well wishes,” Mr. Fairchild said with his own surprised smile and a bow.

Selina’s stomach swam.

This was not what she had intended when she had agreed to marry him—for it to become known. Twenty more seconds was all that she required to turn the tables back on Mr. Drake. His friends could not have had worse timing.

Their appearance complicated things in a way that made her cringe. But there was no helping it now. She could at least still deal Mr. Drake the blow she had intended.

“Thank you both,” she said warmly, turning toward Mr. Drake.

“I have long been searching for the happiness you have given me, Sebastian. How joyful a thing it is to know that I shall have you to care for me and see to my every need! It sets me at liberty to do the thing I have most wished to do but could not do as a husbandless widow.”

There was a glint of confusion and wariness in his eyes as he responded. “Anything you want, my love.”

She smiled as broadly as her lips would allow and gathered up his hands in hers. “I mean to donate my fortune to charity.”

If Mr. Drake’s surprise before had pleased her, the abject horror on his face now would sustain her for the rest of her life.

Mr. Yorke and Mr. Fairchild too were speechless, looking on and staring at their friend .

Mr. Drake’s hands tightened uncomfortably around Selina’s, as though he could undo her words with sheer force.

At such a moment, Mr. Tolliver and Phoebe came through the doorway.

Phoebe’s eyes widened, and Mr. Tolliver’s gaze shifted back and forth between Selina and Mr. Drake.

“What is the meaning of this?” Mr. Tolliver asked.

No one answered, but the question had been more rhetorical than anything. The fact that Selina and Mr. Drake were on the balcony together with their hands intertwined and their bodies so near drew a sufficiently clear picture for even someone as thick as Mr. Tolliver.

And if Mr. Tolliver knew…well, there was no stopping things.

Selina forced herself to dwell on the victory of robbing Mr. Drake of the thing he had most wanted rather than the complication of the engagement being known. If only she had been able to tell Mr. Drake of her intent to donate the fortune before anyone had found them…

Mr. Drake would have retracted his offer, and no one need ever know she had agreed to marry him.

But that time was past, and if the news was to spread, Selina fully intended to utilize it against him. He was trapped now, and she would make him feel the walls closing in upon him, even if she herself was to be crushed by those walls in the process.

“Mr. Drake and I are to be married,” she announced.

Phoebe’s hand stole to her mouth. She let out a muffled, incredulous laugh, then hurried over and threw her arms around Selina. “I knew it!” she breathed. “I knew it from the moment you met. You two were meant for one another.”

Even amidst the embrace, Selina’s eyes flicked to Mr. Drake, who watched her with a hundred emotions in his eyes. Or perhaps no emotion at all.

Guilt flickered through her, but it was quickly stamped out by pride. What right had he to be angry with her? He had courted and wooed her for her money. He deserved every bit of anguish he was feeling.

Mr. Tolliver was less effusive than Phoebe in his congratulations. He said not a word before spinning on his heel and returning inside.

Phoebe finally pulled back from Selina, her face wreathed in smiles as she turned to Mr. Drake. “I cannot express how much joy this news brings me, Mr. Drake. You could not have found a better woman than Selina, nor, I am sure, could she have found a better gentleman than you.”

The muscle in his jaw feathered, but he smiled. “Thank you, Miss Grant.”

She whirled toward Mr. Yorke and Mr. Fairchild. “Is this not the happiest occurrence?”

Selina took advantage of the moment to turn toward Mr. Drake, drawing near to him just as he had done during their dance. His grip was still tight around her fingers as she whispered against his cheek, “Shall we return to the ball, my love ?”

The intoxicating scent of cedar enveloped her, and her lashes flickered.

She drew back, and Mr. Drake’s eyes settled upon her.

“By all means.” He smiled, but oh, how sharp the edges were.

Were tears an expected side effect of victory?

They must have been, for Selina found her eyes full of them as she lay in bed that evening.

The sense of triumph she had been so certain would sustain her for the rest of her life was not, unfortunately, untainted.

Deep beneath the surface, she found less desirable emotions clamoring for her attention.

Anger, of course, was foremost amongst them, but as she sat with that anger and questioned its strength, she found it writhing and changing until it became something else: hurt.

She might claim victory over Mr. Drake, but victory did not change her situation—and it did little to lessen the pain of knowing she had been used and manipulated for her money.

She had not truly intended to donate her fortune to charity—it had been said as a way to punish Mr. Drake—but the desire was growing quickly within her. What had the money brought her aside from grief and suspicion?

Her parents’ admiration for George’s wealth had led Selina into an unhappy, loveless marriage. Since George’s death, she had avoided Society precisely because of the fortune. How could she trust anyone’s intentions toward her to be pure?

Now, she was engaged to a fortune hunter—a fortune hunter who had somehow managed to pierce the armor around her heart despite his selfish and sinister motivations.

He was charming and capable, her family loved him, he made her laugh, he made her heart skip and bound. He was the type of man who could inspire love—and the type of man she had refused to believe existed.

And he did not exist. But she had begun to believe he had, and that was the tragedy. Despite all her best efforts, she’d started to hope. Foolishly. Quietly. Desperately.

But Sebastian Drake was all artifice and ulterior motives.

One thing was certain: she could not remain engaged to him, whatever the consequences might be. And if ending an engagement and donating the majority of her fortune to charity was the only way she could relinquish the bitterness and hurt in her heart, so be it.

A woman with a pristine reputation to guard would not have made a visit to St. James’s in broad daylight.

But Selina did not have a pristine reputation.

At least not for much longer. Soon, she would not be Selina Lawrence, respected widow and heiress; she would be Selina Lawrence, brazen jilt of modest means .

The thought was strangely freeing. And perhaps just the tiniest bit lowering.

She was certainly testing the limits of the protection widowhood provided as she rapped the knocker against the door of Mr. Drake’s townhouse three times and waited patiently.

The servant who answered it stared at her with raised brows.

“I am here to see Mr. Drake,” she said firmly.

“Allow me to see whether he is at home to?—”

“That will not be necessary,” she said, pushing past him and into the entry hall. “He is expecting me.”

He was not. But he would see her despite that.

The servant hurried to keep pace with her. “Allow me to show you into the morning room, ma’am.”

“That will not be necessary, either. Which apartments belong to Mr. Drake?”

The servant blinked, but perhaps he was too intimidated by the force and confidence with which she spoke, for he replied a bit blankly, “Upstairs. First door on the left, ma’am.”

Selina picked up her skirts and made her way up the stairs.

She did not bother knocking when she reached Mr. Drake’s door, swinging it open and striding in as Mr. Drake whirled around from his current task: tucking his shirt into his breeches.

“What the devil?” he exclaimed.

Selina closed the door behind her and took a seat in the only chair in the room. “Good morning to you too, my love.” She kept her eyes on his face, studiously ignoring his open shirt and the strong chest beneath it.

“What madness is this?” He tried to do up the buttons of his shirt quickly.

“Calm yourself,” she said, shocked and emboldened by her own daring. “It is nothing I have not seen before.”

It was not strictly true. George had been a man of middle age, and his body had betrayed as much. Sebastian Drake was in his prime, and his body betrayed as much.

He let out an incredulous scoff, but his hands slowed as they worked at the buttons. That they struggled with the task gave Selina a morbid satisfaction.