Forbidden to Love the Duke(20)

Ivy glimpsed her sister’s face in the mirror. “Do you feel well? Look at those circles under your eyes. I wonder if you took ill in the rain.” But then the four sisters had all been on edge lately. “Everything will be better soon.”

Rue smiled wanly. “Yes. I believe it will.”

Ivy told herself that whatever was wrong with Rue would have to wait until they returned home. She had to keep her wits about her when she dealt with Mr. Newton, the pawnbroker. She’d never had the sense that he cheated her, but business was business, as he said, and he paid her the best price she could expect due to the fact that he’d once gotten into trouble with the authorities for receiving stolen goods.

An hour later she watched him open her mother’s old jewel casket on his counter to examine the diamond-

and-pearl necklace. Rue stood at the door, her face turned to the street. “Oh, Lady Ivy, this is a magnificent necklace, crafted indeed to be worn by a noblewoman. I cannot pay you what it’s worth.”

“I’ll take whatever you can pay me, then.”

“It’s come to that?” he said in a worried voice.

“Take the pearls, and the casket. Fenwick is at stake.”

He removed his spectacles, laid the pearls on a velvet swath, and turned his attention to the intricately carved casket. “Keep the box,” he said after a while. “Only a few were made during Royalist times and carried secret messages for the exiled king.”

“It will only make me miss the necklace.”

“This is a unique item. There are panels hidden within that held secret messages, but, alas, all appear to be empty.”

“Yes. We opened them countless times as children.”

“I will pay you, my lady, but I do hope that this is our last encounter. You deserve better.”

“I’ve nothing left to sell, sir.”

When the time came, she almost could not bear to part with the necklace—ten pounds was generous for a pawnbroker but little compensation for what her family had lost. Rue stifled a sob, which so upset Ivy that she accepted her payment with a hurried thanks and steered her sister out of the shop. “It’s all right, Rue. Everything will be fine once we’re back at Fenwick.”

Rue pushed through the throng of pedestrians, presumably to reach their parked carriage. “Nothing will ever be right again. We should never have come to London. It’s only a place of endings, and dreams that can’t ever come true.”

Ivy hurried after her in concern. “You’re not making any sense. Stop a minute. You’re going the wrong way. I wouldn’t have sold the pearls if I’d known you felt like this. Rue, stop.”

But Rue didn’t stop.

And in her distress Ivy stepped straight out into the street in front of a speeding phaeton. The driver swerved to avoid hitting her. The lady in a plumed hat beside him covered her face with her hands.

Ivy would have done the same had she not reared back and fallen hard to the cobbles. A crowd drew around her, preventing her from getting to her feet. The driver jumped down to the curb and instructed his companion to move the phaeton from the flow of traffic. As his long brown hair swung against his face, Ivy braced herself for a public scolding.

Instead, he looked her over for obvious injuries and shook his head in consternation. Ivy wished he would speak his piece and allow her to disappear. She was famished, weak, and worried sick because Rue was acting oddly, and Ivy suspected that her behavior was not due only to the sold pearls.

The gentleman standing before her spoke in a museful voice. “I almost hit you.” He grasped her by the wrist and helped her to rise.

“It was my fault, sir,” she said, shaking out her skirt.

He glanced past her to the pawnbroker’s shop. “I shall write a sonnet to you. What is your name?”

Ivy studied him. She could hardly hear what he was saying for all the chatter that had arisen. “What in the world is he wearing?” she whispered to the kind matron who was brushing off Ivy’s cloak. “That long coat and ruffled shirt look like the castoffs of a pirate captain.”

“Oh, no. He pays a fortune for his wardrobe on Bond Street,” the matron assured her. “It’s essential for an artist of his standing to represent the romantic without appearing to try. He gives me palpitations.”

“Is he an actor?” Ivy asked.

“I am a poet, my dear,” the gentleman answered, apparently amused by this conversation. “You must be from the country not to recognize me.”

At last, a constable arrived, and the poet’s admirers broke apart. Ivy looked about for an avenue of escape and spotted Rue, waving to her from their carriage. She was laughing helplessly at Ivy’s predicament, a welcome state compared to her earlier despondency.