Secret Valentine (5 page)

Devin rubbed his gloved hand over his face as
he walked down the street. He had told the coachman to transport
his valet and luggage to the hotel and he would meet them there in
person, leaving his servants shaking their heads.

They weren't the only ones. How he assumed
Cecelia's offer of comfort was anything more than that? Just
because holding her in his arms had fired his blood to a slow boil,
he had leaned in to kiss her. If not for Barnes's timely
interruption, seducing her on the floor of the morning room wasn't
so far fetched.

Bloody hell!
What was wrong with
him?

Her embrace had been so tentative, yet had
driven him wild. What cracked notion had made him find her lukewarm
reception stimulating beyond measure? Her look of horror afterward
said everything.

He knew why. Because she had initiated the
touch after he had warned her his feelings and urges weren't so
above board anymore. Or, well, they were marginally above contempt
since he intended marriage. But they had nothing to do with respect
and regard, with the way he should treat his future wife, let alone
any female deserving his protection.

He wanted to possess her body in the worst
possible way. And because he knew he would be the first, the last,
to reach the hidden depths of passion hidden in Cecelia, to make
those velvet brown eyes turn liquid, he had a sense of being a
conqueror of old. Which was a pretty odd thing for a man who prided
himself on being civilized, urbane, unflappable. Bored.

Devin couldn't recall ever feeling this
ferociously, this alive, ever before. Possibly because he'd never
had to work hard for pleasure. No most often it was thrown in his
lap. But this situation was unique and tricky. Cecelia wasn't the
type of woman who would be won over by brute force and the strength
of his desire. She was too intellectual for that.

She had passion, but she would have to be
totally convinced in her brainbox that exploring it would be worth
the while. And she was buying books on
poetry
.

He had made it to the shopping district. He
stared in a window, his thoughts churning at a furious pace.

* * *

The package arrived midmorning. Across the
room, Devin looked around his newspaper at her. Cecelia pushed her
spectacles up on her nose so he became a hazy blur she could
ignore. Now, if she could just ignore the way she seemed to develop
a medical condition every time he looked at her. Perhaps she needed
a small dose of foxglove to get the wayward tempo of her heart to
rights.

Cecelia asked Barnes to have the package sent
to her room.

"Don't you want to open it, gel?" asked Mrs.
Marsh.

She gave a tightlipped shake of her head.
What could it be, besides some of her valentines being returned to
her. Her heart sank. One of the merchants carrying them must have
had trouble selling them. She surely didn't want to open it in
front of Mrs. Marsh and Devin.

Devin folded his newspaper. Cecelia could
tell that by the crinkling sound. He moved across the room and
Cecelia held her breath until he sat down by Mrs. Marsh. He leaned
forward and took her mittened hand in his. "I shall write a letter
to my mother this afternoon. Is there any message you wish for me
to relay to her?"

Mrs. Marsh looked over at Cecelia where she
perched on the edge of her chair. She slowly turned her birdlike
head back in Devin's direction. "I should imagine your news is
enough. Time she came home."

Cecelia wondered how those two comments fit
together. If she wasn't in such a stew about the contents of the
box that undoubtedly had found its way to her dressing table by
now, she would have paid better attention.

"I can hardly read her letters anymore, my
eyesight is getting so troublesome."

"If you should like to borrow my spectacles,
they might help," offered Cecelia.

"Surprising a gel your age needs them," said
Mrs. Marsh.

"I read too much, ruins my eyes," explained
Cecelia.

Truth was she had plucked them off her
father's desk after his death and put them on trying to feel closer
to him. But they weren't going to make something happen that hadn't
happened in life.

That was how Devin had found her, and she had
discovered it was much easier to view him through the distortion
the lenses caused, rather than stare at that perfect face, knowing
her plain face hadn't even inspired her father to love her.

She suddenly couldn't stand delaying opening
the box any longer and fled the morning room.

Sitting on her bed, she set the box down and
untied the ribbon. The box was wrapped fancily for a return of
merchandise. She would have expected brown paper and string, not
pink tissue and a blue satin bow. She opened the box, and as
expected, she saw one of her more elaborate valentines.

An odd queasiness in her stomach kept her
from reaching inside. The lace and satin decoration on the card
seemed intact. The words she had penned in tiny letters on the
front,
Faithfully yours,
weren't smeared. There wasn't a
note explaining the return as she would have expected. As if her
hand could stand the suspense no longer, she watched herself reach
inside and lift the card and slowly turn it over to the blank back
side of the card. In a script, not her own, were the words:

For the hands that hold my heart,

From your Valentine

The box yielded a pair of lavender kid
gloves. She gingerly touched the butter soft leather.

This couldn't be right.

She twisted, looking around until she found
the plain white card that had been tucked under the ribbon. She
scanned it, hardly believing her eyes. No mistake. She was the only
Miss Clemmons at this address. She was the only Miss Clemmons she
knew.

Who could be sending her own valentines back
to her? Devin? No, he would never go to that much trouble. Besides
he wasn't enamored of her. He was far too good looking himself to
even think of her as a love interest. No, he simply thought she was
a problem he needed to solve.

And yesterday—well he wasn't the kind to turn
away a gift thrown in his lap. She knew enough about his life and
had seen the way he'd been pursued by young women after
marriage—those he sidestepped quite adroitly—and young matrons
after something entirely different—those he didn't sidestep, but he
put out next to no effort in the chase. But then when all you
needed to do was flash that smile in the right lady's
direction—

Cecelia cut off her thoughts about Devin. One
of the shopkeepers who was blown over by her merchandising efforts?
Possibly. But which one? One of the young men that she had met last
season before she had finally dug in her heels and refused to
attend another ball where she clung to the wall in terror someone
would ask her to dance?

There had been one spotty boy who had kept
her company more often than not. One who had not been put off by
her urgent plea that he not ask her to dance as she detested
dancing. What she detested was not knowing the steps and looking
like a six-footed lummox as she tried to follow the other dancers
in the complicated patterns.

A tear trickled down her cheek. Whomever it
was, she was incredibly grateful that someone was sweet enough to
use her creations to woo her. Even if it proved to be no more than
the gratitude of a shopkeeper who had found their association
lucrative. It couldn't be anyone who knew her well or he would
realize how little she deserved such special treatment.

She pulled the gloves out of the box and drew
them on. They fit as though they had been made for her. She leaned
back on her bed and put a gloved hand against her cheek. She
envisioned a new batch of valentines with the phrase
For the One
Who Holds My Heart.
The words would wrap in an oval around a
pair of hands.

She sprang off the bed and headed up to her
workroom.

* * *

Aunt Marsh poked him with her cane. "She know
it's from you, boy?"

"Not yet."

"You planning on telling her soon?"

"In a couple of weeks." Devin paced toward
the window.

"Turned you down, eh?"

Devin pulled back the brocade curtain and
looked outside at the dismal February afternoon. The sky was the
blanched gray of winter. Cold seeped off the panes of glass. He
didn't answer.

"Good for her."

"I thought you'd be on my side."

"I'm rather fond of the chit."

She was hardly a chit, Devin turned around to
argue, but he realized to one as stricken in years as Aunt Marsh,
they were all children. And what could he expect; women flocked
together.

"You could use new clothes, couldn't you?" He
changed tactics. "If I have a dressmaker brought in, you could
pretend it was for you. I'd gladly have a couple of dresses made
for you."

"What's this about?"

"Cecelia, Miss Clemmons, she's still in her
blacks. I believe she's refusing to have new dresses because she
doesn't want to feel like she's charity. If you could
persuade—"

"Is she charity?"

"There wasn't anything left of her father's
estate." In fact, there had been several debts he settled. "But
it's not charity. I want her to have clothes fitting her
station."

"What station is that?"

Aunt Marsh seemed a little short with him. As
a poor relation dependent on the pension he had given her, he
supposed she felt an affinity for Cecelia's situation. But Cecelia
had a decent marriage proposal.

"As my future wife."

"And if she continues to refuse your
offer?"

Why would any woman refuse him? He held a
peerage; he was considered handsome, charming; he didn't pick his
teeth in public. He told himself to calm down and answer the
question at hand. One sometimes had to sidestep passions. He
supposed what he would do if he didn't want to marry her. "I could
settle an adequate dowry on her."

"But you haven't."

"I never thought about it."

"Didn't you have her out last season? How did
that go for a gel without prospects?"

He'd put her through last season without any
hint that she would be provided for regardless of her father's
debts. "Not well, and this year she's refusing to take part in
anything. Although the attendance is thin still."

Aunt Marsh shifted in her chair. Her pursed
lips spoke volumes of disapproval.

"That's not fair. I was still sorting out her
father's affairs last season." Although it hadn't taken him long to
realize there wouldn't be anything left for Cecelia. And she had
known the lay of the land long before he had sat her down and gone
over the grim truth with her. "She doesn't seem to like the balls
or Almack's. She didn't put much effort out to interest a
suitor."

Truth was he never thought much about what it
was like for not having any money. He'd always had more than
enough. Until he caught Cecelia selling her father's books in
December, books he knew were precious to her, he hadn't even given
her any pin money. He had thought telling her to have her bills
sent to him would be enough. But, he realized now, it was less than
adequate.

"How old was she when her mother died?"

"Thirteen, almost fourteen."

"Bad time for a gel to lose her mother."

Devin studied his nails. Aunt Marsh obviously
saw a connection he didn't see. Did losing her mother on the eve of
becoming a woman make it harder for Cecelia to behave as one?

Truth was he should have assisted Cecelia
more, but he hadn't been prepared to suddenly become responsible
for a young woman of marriageable age. He didn't like Almack's much
either. He felt like a delectable morsel sacrificed on the altars
of ambitious mamas with marriageable daughters. He always felt
lucky if he made it out of there without being swallowed whole or
shredded to tatters.

He had never taken Cecelia to the literary
salons and soirées he enjoyed. Partly because he wanted to escape
the way her unassuming, but hopeful, gaze made him feel, and partly
because he hadn't seen many young unmarried misses at those types
of gatherings. Usually older women, married women, political
hostesses attended. Miss blue-stocking Clemmons would probably have
adored those types of events. He hadn't know enough about her then
to realize. A mother would have known.

"Is there ever a good time to lose a
mother?"

Aunt Marsh's reply was a soft snore, which
was absolutely of no help at all. For the first time in his life,
he could have used some advice, instead of being the one handing it
out.

* * *

For the second time in a year and this week,
Devin climbed the attic stairs. Cecelia had just finished binding
up her packets of freshly made cards and was getting ready to start
on a new card, when his rap on the door startled her.

"Cecelia, we need to talk."

There were slips of foolscap on her workbench
with the ink and pens arranged nearby. Watercolor paints rested
near the cut pieces of pasteboard. Her poetry books were propped
open to various verses she thought would work well on her cards.
Lace and ribbons flowed out of baskets under the table. While it
seemed obvious to her, there was really nothing that would give her
business away.

She tugged off her bleached muslin smock and
stuffed it under the table and opened the door. She re-turned to
her stool and sat down as if it were normal to let him into her
private sanctuary.

He hesitated in the doorway. "Do you want to
go downstairs?"

She stood up. "If you do."

"No, I just didn't think you wanted me up
here." He crossed the threshold.

"I don't when I'm working, but I suppose you
must see for yourself there aren't any wax effigies of you."

"I haven't experienced any unusual pains
lately."