“Very naughty.” Cora edged closer and whispered, “Bun in the oven.”
“Ah. Our heiress, I presume?” When Cora nodded, he went on, “I take it the squire had no dowry for his pregnant daughter?”
“Just so. The income from Squire Feathergill’s land wasn’t more than a few hundred a year. So instead of doing the honorable thing and marrying her anyway, Bosworth ran off to America, changed his name to Abernathy, and married some heiress from New York.”
“Clever bastard,” Rhys said with appreciation.
“The girl’s mother died some years ago, and the girl lived with her uncle’s family for a time. The uncle, being the squire’s son, inherited the estate, but the family was still quite badly off, and the girl came to London, got a flat, and began to earn her own living as a seamstress.”
“Sounds like something written by a lady novelist.”
“Doesn’t it? But so many girls are doing that nowadays. ‘Girl-bachelors’ they’re called. Scandalous notion. Anyway, the father made a fortune in those department stores of his. He recently died, and in his will, he left every penny to the girl.”
Rhys crossed his fingers. “How many pennies, Cora?”
“The income is over a million pounds a year, so they say.”
Staggered, he swallowed hard. “Good God. Even I might find it hard to spend that much money.”
“But there’s a catch. This is the part you’ll be interested in, darling. She has to marry in order to claim the inheritance.”
An image of those big brown eyes gazing up at him in obvious adoration flashed through his mind, and the gloom that had been haunting him began to dispel. He lifted the opera glasses for another look at Miss Bosworth-cum-Abernathy, and found that she was growing more luscious by the moment. “Over a million pounds a year, you say?” he murmured. “Fancy that.”
Chapter 4
A certain duke and a certain heiress have been spied tête-à-tête at the opera. What can it mean? Is love in bloom in Covent Garden?
—Talk of the Town, 1894
Prudence wasn’t sure she liked opera. She was just as fond as anyone of a rollicking penny revue or a Gilbert and Sullivan production, but the performance this evening was like neither of those. It was dark, heavy, and somewhat overwrought. The intermission came as a relief.
The moment the curtains closed across the stage and the lights came up, she leaned forward in her chair to survey the scene spread out before her. Between opulent crystal chandeliers that sparkled with electric lights, elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen sat in luxuriously appointed boxes.
So this is how the rich people live, she thought, amazed. It was still hard to believe she was now one of them. For two days she had slept in a luxurious gold and white bedroom at the Savoy, with its own marble bath and fresh sheets every day. She had worn silks, dined at the finest restaurants, shopped for jewels, and gadded about London in a brougham with red leather seats, making calls on people her aunt said were “the right sort.” Yet, despite all that, her situation still did not seem quite real to her.
Down below, people were strolling toward the foyer, and Prudence decided to do the same. “I’m going to take a turn downstairs,” she said and rose to her feet.
In unison, all her relations stood up as well. “Capital idea, cousin,” Robert said, offering his arm. “We could all do with a stretch of the legs.”
As she and Robert descended the stairs with his mother, Aunt Edith, and Uncle Stephen behind them, Prudence wondered in some exasperation if her relations were going to hover over her this way through the entire season. Only two days of their assiduous attention, and she was already beginning to feel smothered.
“Would you care for some refreshment?” Robert asked as they paused in the crowded foyer. “I’d be happy to bring you a glass of lemonade.”
“Thank you, but I don’t care for lemonade. I’d like champagne, please.”
“Champagne?” Aunt Edith’s surprised voice intervened. “Oh, no, Prudence, dear. You aren’t accustomed to spirits, and I should so hate for you to wake up tomorrow with a headache. Lemonade will do nicely, Robert, thank you.”
Prudence’s exasperation deepened. She wasn’t a green girl of sixteen, in heaven’s name. She opened her mouth to insist on champagne, but then caught sight of one man amid the crowd, and the words she’d been about to say went straight out of her head.
It was him.
There was no mistaking the broad-shouldered frame and windblown, golden beauty of the Duke of St. Cyres. He stood facing her about two dozen feet away, amid a group of acquaintances.
Beside her, Aunt Edith murmured something about a visit to the ladies’ retiring room, and though Millicent concurred with this suggestion, Prudence intended to remain right where she was. “Go, by all means,” she urged the other two women. “I shall stay here.”
Her aunt and Millicent departed, and Uncle Stephen said something about hoping they wouldn’t be long, for he wanted to have a pipe before the opera resumed.
“You don’t need to wait for them to come back,” Prudence told him without taking her eyes from the duke. “Go smoke your pipe. I don’t mind.”
“No, no,” he protested, but without much conviction. “I couldn’t leave you standing here all alone.”
“Oh, you needn’t worry about that,” she said at once. “Robert will be returning shortly. In the meantime, I shall remain right by this pillar. I shan’t move an inch, I promise. Go on.”
Uncle Stephen needed no further urging, and he departed for the smoking room, leaving Prudence alone at last. She continued to watch the duke as he conversed with several companions, and when one of them said something to make him smile, the strangest sensation happened inside of her. Her tummy dipped with a weightlessness that made her feel as if she were in one of those elevator contraptions.
Suddenly, he glanced past his companions and saw her. His gaze caught at her face, lingered there, and everything in Prudence seemed to freeze. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t turn away. Would he remember her? Surely not. A duke would never remember a mere seamstress. Yet, he did not look away, and a slight frown creased his brow, as if she seemed familiar and he was trying to place her.
When he murmured something to his friends, disengaged himself from their circle, and started through the crowd in her direction, joy surged up within her, followed at once by sheer panic. By the time he reached her, her heart was thudding in her chest with such force that it hurt.
She hadn’t realized until now just how tall he was. Prudence measured her own height at five feet and three full inches. Despite that somewhat optimistic estimate and the fact that she was wearing heels, the top of her head still barely reached his chin, and his powerful physical presence did little to calm her nerves.
“By all that’s wonderful, it’s Miss Bosworth!” he greeted her. Before she could gather her wits enough for any sort of reply, he took up her hand and bowed over it, lifting her fingers to his mouth in the proper manner, his lips not quite touching the fabric of her glove. “This is a lovely surprise,” he added as he straightened and let go of her hand. “I thought I would never see you again.”
He’d thought about her? Pleasurable warmth radiated through her body, adding to the quixotic mix of her emotions. “Hullo,” she said, wishing she could think of something charming and clever to say, but that short, inelegant greeting was all she could manage. Any further words seemed caught in her throat, suspended there by the sweetness of simply looking at him and trying to believe he was truly glad to see her.
“I hope you haven’t had to endure Alberta’s tantrums tonight,” he said, leaning closer, a teasing gleam in his green eyes. “If you tell me she has been abusing you again, I shall be forced to come to your rescue.”
His greeting and his words made her realize he didn’t yet know of her inheritance. The blissful warmth in her deepened and spread. “What a gallant offer,” she said, striving to sound nonchalant, as if she conversed with dukes every day of her life, “but it isn’t necessary. I’ve come for the opera.” She gestured toward the stairs to her left. “My cousins have a box.”
“A box? But surely a seamstress—” He broke off, and looked away as if embarrassed.
“Surely, a seamstress, if she could afford to attend the opera at all, would be in the cheap seats?” she finished for him.
He tugged at his cravat like an abashed schoolboy. “Sorry,” he muttered and returned his gaze to hers. “My mistake. Was that terribly snobbish of me?”
“No, it’s perfectly understandable, given how we met. But you see, I have had a change in my situation—” She broke off, reluctant to explain. Once he knew of her inheritance, he was sure to discover she was also illegitimate, and when that happened, his manner toward her would change. He was a duke, after all. Legitimacy of birth was everything to people of his class. Though it was probable that he would eventually learn the truth, she decided to postpone the inevitable moment as long as possible. “I have been rather at odds with my mother’s family,” she said, skirting the vital points. “We are attempting to reconcile.”