He detected the slightest welling of tears before she blinked them back. “I will not have my daughter raised on the outskirts of town like a leper. Coming here tonight was like a slap in the face, that I’d not expected. My mother was never allowed entry into this residence. Nor was I while my father was alive. I was kept away from his deathbed. To be honest, I didn’t even know he’d died until I read about it in theTimes. Chidding might not have sired her, but I think he can be a good father to her, a father in all ways that matter. Although I’ll be better able to judge once I view his reaction to the truth.”
Something she’d judged Ari’s sire couldn’t be. A good father. “I complicated your life five years ago.”
“I’m not angry about it any longer, Arthur. The memories of that time are no longer bitter, but once again sweet. Maybe you were correct about my true reasonsfor penning the tome, to bring you back into my life. To help me resolve my feelings, to prepare me for accepting another.”
In your placewent unsaid, but he heard it all the same. “I wish you naught but happiness.”
“We shall see how Chidding reacts to my news.”
“Unless he’s a fool, none of it will make any difference at all.” He knew they were coming to the end of this tune. Perhaps she did as well. Because they spoke no more but merely watched each other intensely as though to ensure that during all the previous staring not a single iota of their features had been overlooked by the other. He would never again hold her, touch her, or be this near to her. His chest felt so tight he was amazed his ribs didn’t simply shatter with the force of it. He inhaled deeply in order to take in her gardenia fragrance one last time. They smiled at each other, but it wasn’t one of joy, rather one of knowing, of acknowledging the final farewell.
When the dance came to its end and they stilled, he held her gaze while lifting her hand to his lips. “Be happy, Reggie.”
Then he escorted her off the dance floor and into another man’s keeping.
When she’d first arrived, been greeted by her half brother, introduced to her half sisters, Regina had experienced a sense of rejoicing at finally being admitted into this inner circle of family. She’d wanted to shout, “Look, Mother, here am I at last, where you and I should have been all along. Accepted and welcomed.”
When she danced with Chidding, after finishing off the flute of champagne he’d brought her, she extended the acceptance to him, no longer comparing him to Knightly. Without words, she and her former lover had bid each other adieu. It had most assuredly hurt, but pain was often necessary in order to move on. She thought she’d done it when she went to Europe, but she’d only delayed the true parting. Tonight, she felt completely unencumbered by their past. He’d been her first love. Now she could ensure Chidding became her last.
It hadn’t been difficult to dance with each of the Chessmen, even knowing that Knightly had probably put them up to it in order to ensure she wasn’t viewed as a pariah tonight. Bremsford hadn’t asked for a dance, and she was actually glad of it because she didn’t think either of them was ready for such proximity, an actual coming into physical contact, and their choice would be to either stare at each other or strive to make conversation. Perhaps in time, because they were certain to encounter each other more in the future. Surely his edict that he wouldn’t attend any ball to which she’d been invited no longer applied.
When they were more than an hour in, after just finishing her second dance with Chidding, she waited on the dance floor with him for the next waltz to start because he’d claimed it as well. He’d informed her that he intended to be scandalously bold this evening and dance with her four times rather than the acceptable two. Tongues would be wagging come morning. But rather than begin another tune, the orchestra remained quiet.
Guests were no longer being announced. Bremsford and his wife had been making the rounds, and danced a couple of times. Now from the top of the stairs, he called for silence with a booming voice she suspected could be heard out on the terrace. He’d inherited that thunderous sound from their father, and she wished he was with them at this moment to see all his children gathered in one room. What joy it might have brought him.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my dear countess and I are honored to have your presence here this evening. We also have an esteemed and revered guest to whom it is my intense pleasure to introduce you.”
In spite of the massive throng, somehow his gaze landed on her, and her breath caught. He was going to point her out to the crowd, publicly acknowledge her as his sister. Reaching out blindly, she grabbed Chidding’s hand. It was an odd time to notice it was smaller than Knightly’s. She chided herself. No comparisons. The time for comparing was well past. His grip was still reassuring and firm.
“Ladies and gentlemen”—he waved a hand over the sea of people as if to part it in order to reveal his find—“I present to you... Anonymous.”
Horrified, she was aware of icy tingles skittering along her spine and a chill sweeping through her. The bastard. With every word he’d uttered, he’d been setting a trap, and she, so desperate for acceptance, had fallen into it.
“Miss—”
“I am Anonymous!” suddenly rang out with an explosive boom that made Bremsford’s voice seem like the squeak of a mouse.
The earl couldn’t have looked more shocked if he’d just been told his head was to be placed on the block and the executioner was whetting his axe. Knightly was slowly and methodically prowling his way up those stairs, a feral predator on the hunt who would show no mercy to his prey. Regina was left with the impression he was striving to determine how many limbs he could tear from Bremsford before he would be stopped.
“You—you—you can’t be,” her father’s son stuttered. “You’re Lord K.”
“I can be both, man. Why would I not, while penning a novel, base the main gentleman of the tale after myself? And it is fiction, of course. My fantasies that I could so seduce a woman as to put her under my spell that she would do anything I asked of her. Isn’t it the dream of every man in attendance here tonight... to be so adored?”
He’d nearly reached Bremsford. The earl backed up and slammed against the wall, apparently forgetting it was there. “Why not publish it with your name on it?”
“The intrigue.”
“It’s not you.” His voice wasn’t quite so loud or quite so sure. “It’sher. It’s—”
“Watch what you say, Bremsford, or you’ll find you can’t say anything at all with a broken jaw. I’ve warned you before of what would happen if you spread lies.”
The earl blanched, his skin taking on a sickly hue, suggesting he might bring up his accounts at any moment. Regina was confident he had no proof to substantiate what he’d been on the verge of announcing. Otherwise, he’d have tossed it in Knightly’s face.It was a bluff. But once he’d have named her, the damage would have been done. Lies took on a life of their own, were often impossible to stop. Without proof, she didn’t think he could have regained the trusts, although maybe he could have convinced the trustees she was no longer deserving of the benefits they provided. She was fairly certain he could have sown enough doubts, so she’d no longer be welcomed in any grand parlors. So Chidding wouldn’t marry her. He was striving to take everything away from her.
Knightly was saying something to Bremsford that caused the earl to flinch and grow deathly pale.
Then Knightly turned to the crowd with a confident, dashing smile and a spread of his arms that encompassed the entire chamber. “I’m more than happy to sign your books.”
Chapter 23
