“I’m not engaged to the Duke of Harrington.”
“Not yet,” Mama said. “But I think he may ask you tonight.”
“No, Mama.” She shook her head. “I don’t think he will.”
Papa frowned. “What do you mean, you don’t think he will?” Papa met her eyes, and she did her best to remain emotionless. His eyes widened. “He’s already asked you, hasn’t he?” Papa stood and pointed to the door. “Go downstairs and tell him you’ve changed your mind.”
“No, Papa, he didn’t ask me. We spoke and—” Her voice broke. She couldn’t tell them that although he hadn’t asked her to marry him, he had told her he was planning to ask her father for permission to do so. “He isn’t in love with me. He told me he wasn’t in love with me.”
“He came here early in order to tell you he wasn’t in love with you?”
“No, that isn’twhyhe stopped in. But he said it, nonetheless.” He’d also made it very clear he was nearly in love with her. All he needed was for her to love him back. But her parents couldn’t ever know that.
“Stopped in? Has he left already?”
Mercy couldn’t tell them he was still downstairs. They would speak to him, and the first thing Nicholas would do would be to ask for her hand in marriage. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to verbally lie to Papa, but she did give him a short nod. A nod could mean anything. Perhaps she had nodded as a simple goodbye. Mercy jumped from the bed and put a hand to her forehead. “I need to prepare for the ball.” She needed out of the room. She needed the silence and quiet of her own room to process what she had learned. Rosalind running off with another man? Richard letting her slip from his grasp? How had any of it happened?
Apparently love couldn’t be measured by lingering touches and pounding hearts. Her own sister had proven that.
What was she going to do about Nicholas? He was going to feel obligated to marry her because they’d kissed. She wouldn’t be the reason his family line became tainted again.
She rushed down the corridor to her room. She couldn’t go back to the drawing room. He would take one look at her face and know something was wrong. And she didn’t trust herself to not give in and marry him, scandal and all. Rosalind must’ve gone to her old room, because Mercy’s was blessedly empty.
Nicholas would find his way into the ballroom eventually, and with enough people around for her not to be tempted to cry or fall into his arms, she would inform him of her decision not to marry him.
Or, even better, she could write him a letter. Then she wouldn’t have to speak to him face-to-face. After he read it, she could simply refuse his calls until after the scandal with Rosalind broke out, at which time he would stop calling on her and find a more suitable woman to court.
And if he wanted to call on her after the scandal broke?
No. She wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of hope. He’d been clear about what he needed in a wife, and she no longer fit hisrequirements. She carefully pulled Nicholas’s necklace from her pocket, walked over to her jewelry box, lifted the lid, and lowered the chain slowly, watching the delicate silver pool into a circle at the back of a compartment. After looking at it for far too long, she pulled a piece of paper out of her writing desk. Writing to him was hardly proper, seeing as they weren’t engaged, but after what had transpired in the drawing room, a note was the least of her concerns.
Chapter 27
Nicholas was still in thedrawing room twenty minutes after Mercy left him when the first guest arrived. The first few minutes Nicholas waited for Mercy and her parents to return had been filled with a jittery hope. He’d clumsily retied his cravat with shaking fingers, cursed himself for being a fool, pulled it off, and after a long, slow breath, finally got it right on the second try. His mind had bounded to the future—his future. He’d thought Mercy and her parents would return at any moment, and if all went well, they could announce their engagement at supper.
It wasn’t until Mercy had been gone for a full ten minutes that his first doubts began creeping in. If neither Mercy nor her father came to speak with him before the ball, what would that mean? Mercy’s broad smile had been answer enough only a few minutes earlier, but as the mantle clock ticked incessantly, a sneaking uncertainty started clouding his thinking. She hadn’t agreed to marry him. She had only told him she might.
An oversight he would remedy the moment he saw her.
But now, with the first guests’ voices trailing into the drawing room from the entry hall, he was no longer certain of anything.
Why was he still here? Mercy or one of her parents would fetch him, wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t have a duke skulk about the house and enter the ballroom on his own, without being announced.
More and more guests arrived, and Nicholas paced. A steady stream of people was arriving, and he didn’t want to leave the room while anyone was in the entrance hall. He pulled a book from a side table and sat in an armchair. It was a history of Ireland, and a ribbon marked a page with a drawing of the rolling hills of Wicklow County. Mercy had mentioned that being the home county of her family’s new scullery maid. Who had been reading this? Mercy? Or the maid? He ran his fingers down the drawing. Perhaps both of them. Mercy would want to showthe young girl something of her homeland, and she would mark the page for her so she could come see it whenever she was feeling homesick. He ran a finger over the largest hill, and a smile crept over his face.
He continued to riffle through the book, looking for any mentions of locations some of his friends had come from. It wasn’t long until the raps at the door became less frequent. He stood. If the ball was well underway, then it was time he made an appearance.
The moment his fingers touched the doorknob, some of his worries softened. Mercy had shut the door solidly behind him not forty-five minutes ago, in order for him to kiss her more thoroughly. How much could have changed in forty-five minutes? Preparing for a ball would be a huge undertaking, and the family could have easily gotten swept up in urgent matters of puddings and musical choices.
He cracked open the door. A footman standing near the front door immediately caught sight of him. He was not the one who had let him in, nor did Nicholas recognize him from his other visits. Nicholas straightened his back, crossed the hall, and handed him his card. Whatever surprise had registered on the footman’s face when he stepped out of the room was schooled as he read his name. He gave Nicholas a bow and led him to the ballroom, handing his card to the master of ceremonies. Nicholas was announced just as well as if hehadcome in through the front door.
Mercy’s parents’ heads whipped around at the sound of his name. He wasn’t certain exactly what expression he had expected to see in their eyes, but their quick glances between each other and schooled expressions made a knot form at the base of his neck. They did not look happy to see him.
And he didn’t see Mercy anywhere.
He swallowed and marched forward, as if this were a typicalevening ball. The ballroom was a small one, lined with grand paintings of biblical scenes. He hadn’t been in the room before, but he suspected it was typically used as a large gathering hall or walking room and the furniture had been removed for the event.
Patience and Ottersby immediately excused themselves from the conversation they were having and wove their way through the crowd to meet with him.
