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She is right. With this news . . . the business is likely to close.
“Chloe, please.” Leo moved to her side of the carriage. He didn’t care if it was against convention. All he cared about at this moment was protecting her. Fishing a hand into his tailcoat, he pulled out his handkerchief and offered it to her, before peeling her hands away from her face, urging her to look at him. “You do not need to hide from me.”
“When I’m crying like a child? Oh, I very much do!” She covered her face with the handkerchief, hiding from him once again.
“No, you do not.” Leo didn’t hesitate in placing his arm around Chloe’s shoulders, pulling her into him. She cried on his shoulder, heartily, still covering her face with his handkerchief. “Trust me, Chloe, we will find a way through this.”
Yet Leo’s mind kept going back to the scandal sheet. He detested everything that was written there. The mere suggestion of Chloe exchanging favors for good deals on materials sickened him to his core. Then he remembered the gentlemen turning up at her door with flowers. If more had come, he had to wonder who had seen them there.
“My dream, Leo. It is in tatters.” With her whisper, she lifted her head a little, revealing her red and tear-stained cheeks.
“No, it doesn’t have to be.” Leo bent his head a little, prompting her to look at him. “Scandals are written every day in those sheets, and half the time they are not true.”
“People believe them anyway.”
Leo held his tongue, knowing she was right. It would take a great feat indeed to wash away the stain this article had placed on Chloe’s reputation and her shop.
“What happens now?” she whispered into the air. “If I go back to the shop, no one will come in, will they?”
Leo wrapped his arm around Chloe’s shoulder another time. She fell into him, clinging to his tailcoat as she cried.
The devotion Leo felt for Chloe in that moment was staggering.
I must protect her. I must!
Yet the thought did little good, for he had no idea how to go about it.
“We will find a way out of this,” he whispered, somehow hoping those words would help even as her sobs increased. “There is something I do know.” Leo’s eyes flicked to the carriage window. They were moving so quickly through the streets that the people were becoming a blur. As they neared Leo’s lodgings, the crowd changed, and became sparser. There may have been less people, but Leo knew if he was seen taking Chloe to his apartment, it would no doubt cause more whispers.
“We need to change our destination.”
“What? Why?” Chloe asked, lifting her head. “I’m sorry, Leo, but I can’t go to the shop. Not now. Take me to your apartment instead.” She was panicking, her voice growing breathier by the second. “I just want somewhere to hide. And I . . . I do not want to be alone.”
“So, what? So, you can drown your sorrows in tea and brandy?” Leo placed a hand on her shoulder, hoping to calm her.
“I was going to go straight for the brandy.” She spoke with a fleeting smile, showing his help was doing something, even if it was small.
“I’m tempted to agree with you.” Leo smiled a little, thrilled to see Chloe’s humor was still there, even if it was masked by the desperation. “Yet I have another place we can go, somewhere we might be able to find help.”
He released Chloe and sat back in the carriage, thumping on the wall to make it stop. It halted a few seconds later, and Leo opened the door to jump down, leaving Chloe in the back of the carriage, hastily trying to dry her tears with her handkerchief.
Leo gave the new address to the footman before he climbed back into the carriage, to be met by Chloe’s questioning gaze.
“Where are we going?”
“It will take a little while to get there from here, but trust me, it will be worth the journey.” Leo nodded with confidence. “Maeve and Benjamin may have an idea.”
“Leo! By going to their home, surely, I will just taint them by association.”
“They are already associated with you.” Leo shrugged, showing how little that it mattered. “Besides, you think that would keep Maeve away from you? The second she hears about this, she will show up at your shop banging on your door anyway. No, we shall go to them, Chloe, and pray they have an idea about how sort this mess out.”
“I am not sure it can be sorted out,” Chloe murmured as another tear fell.
Uncertain what more to say, Leo did the only thing he could. He took Chloe’s hand, hoping to offer comfort through that touch, and her fingers entwined with his own, without restraint or hesitation.
Chapter 21
Chloe
