Secret Valentine (8 page)

"I told you before, you are far too pretty to
be a witch." All right, he was going to finish what he started
earlier. He would kiss her and leave her with her worthless
chaperone. He couldn't count on Barnes to save him from himself
this time.

Her dark eyes widened, and she shrank back
against the wall. Her words came out in a rush. "Do you think your
mother is going to remarry?"

Was Cecelia trying to avoid being kissed? He
pulled back, about to make a remark that would show his
nonchalance. "God, I hope not."

"Why? Wouldn't you want her to marry
again?"

"I don't know. You women drive me crazy. My
mother wouldn't put on mourning, and you won't take it off." Devin
turned and leaned against the wall beside Cecelia. "I wouldn't try
to stop her."

Cecelia waited in a companionable silence.
She wouldn't continue to pry if he didn't want to talk, but she
understood there was much more to be said.

"Her lover is barely older than me."

"I see."

"What do you see, Cecelia? Because I don't
really understand why she had to run off to Europe and go
wild."

"Your father, like mine, was so much older.
She wouldn't have had a chance to be young before he died, and
there's not much time before her own youth runs out. It drains
something from you when your spouse is decades older. I don't think
my parents had a very happy marriage. Although, I know my father
adored my mother."

Devin turned and watched Cecelia talk.

She paused. "I think my mother loved my
father, but it wasn't the same for her. I think your mother loved
your father, but she needs to be free now."

But she'd left so soon after his father had
died. He had begged her to stay, told her that he needed her. She
had patted him on the cheek and told him he didn't need her; he
would be fine. She had been right. He had been fine. Then he'd
inherited Cecelia.

"Things would have been better for you, if
she had stayed."

Cecelia smiled softly. "I wouldn't have
wanted her to hold back living for my sake. I think your mother
must be incredibly brave. She's thrown open her arms and embraced
life."

Perhaps she had, but Devin couldn't quite get
past that she had needed to turn her back on him and society to do
it.

Devin looked at the selection of cards. He
noticed several with a pair of hands painted in the center of the
card with the words;
For The
One
Who
Holds
My
Heart
circling the hands or
underneath. And he had thought he had been original with that
phrase.

He picked out two of the frothy confections,
one with the hands, and reluctantly, one with a long poem penned
inside on slips of foolscap between the outer pasteboard folded in
half. It was almost like a miniature novel, with ribbons lacing it
together. If Cecelia wanted love poems, he wanted to give them to
her. He just wasn't going to be the one writing them. That much was
clear.

"You must 'ave many sweethearts," said the
shopkeeper.

Devin looked up startled. "No, just one. I
send her a card and gift every day. Can you deliver these?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Along with the gifts?"

The shopkeeper touched his forehead and gave
him a smile. "For a small fee, say sixpence for anything under a
stone."

Devin handed over the box containing a gold
locket. "This is for tomorrow. Sixpence to include some fancy
wrapping and a bow."

The shopkeeper nodded. "I'll need an
address."

"May I use your pen?"

The shopkeeper passed the pen, ink and a
plain white card across the counter. Devin wrote out her name and
his address. He turned the first card over and the shopkeeper
watched him. Devin pushed the address card across the counter.

The shopkeeper picked it up and jerked
back.

Devin looked up, startled. He couldn't even
say what had broken his concentration on thinking what he wanted to
write on the back of the valentine.

The shopkeeper set the address card back on
the counter and darted to a curtained backroom. "Be right back,
gov."

The fellow was a little cheeky, and had a
gimlet eye to his profit, but Devin didn't mind. He signed the
first valentine and opened the one with the poem. His mind went
blank. He needed gifts, too. He had planned to send more material
for dresses, but for some reason Cecelia seemed uncomfortable with
the idea of having dresses made up for her.

What did she want? What did she need? He
closed his eyes and thought about what he had seen in the attic.
Lace, ribbons. She had plenty of those, and it might not be
entirely appropriate for him to send the makings of undergarments.
There also had been the pasteboard ladies liked to use for
paintings. There had been paints, and if he remembered right, the
vial containing red was nearly empty; the one with white was only
about a quarter full.

"Do you have paints, watercolors, perhaps a
case for them."

The shopkeeper set a small painted box on the
counter in front of him and hurried off in another direction. He
came back with a large black leather case and opened it. Inside
were removable trays and several bottles and jars and camel-hair
brushes. Pens and different-colored inks were on the other side.
Well if she was penning a novel, the pens and inks would go over
well, too.

"I'll wager that is just over a stone."

"Just under," shot back the shopkeeper with a
steady look.

Devin grinned, knowing he would pay this man
one way or another. "Fine for Saturday. Can you deliver something
on Sunday?"

"If I have to do it myself, sir." The
shopkeeper held up the painted box he had set on the counter. He
lifted the lid. "I'd stake my eyeteeth, she'd love this."

Devin listened to the waltz play and shook
his head. "She hates to dance."

"Don't 'ave to dance to like music. Ladies
love these. I'll throw it in for Sunday. You pick out another
card." The man pulled out the most extravagant card in the display
and put it in front of Devin.

There had been times he had been sure that
Cecelia tapped her slippered foot in tempo with the waltzes played
at the balls. What the hell, if there was the chance it would bring
her pleasure, he wanted to give it to her.

Something had happened last night as he
leaned against the wall beside Cecelia. He had wanted to kiss her,
but he hadn't wanted to violate the moment. For that space in time,
just being with her had been enough to soothe him.

It struck him as ironic that she lived in his
home, yet he only had stolen moments with her in the front hall. He
was eagerly anticipating Saint Valentine's Day when he would reveal
that he was the one giving her the gifts.

* * *

Cecelia knew there was another box waiting in
her room, but she was getting desperate to finish the orders in the
few days before Saint Valentine's Day. One of the shopkeepers had
sent a note complaining that he had sold every last one of her
cards and needed more.

Yesterday had been a golden locket in the
shape of a heart.

So that my heart might be near yours.

your Valentine

She could feel the weight of it against her
skin under her dress. But the locket was empty. She was starting to
feel a vague uneasiness about the gifts. The gifts and words that
accompanied them were so right, almost uncannily right, as if
someone were studying her and knew her almost better than she knew
herself. How could anyone know her so well, and without her knowing
who he was?

It couldn't be Devin. He was just—well, too
self-absorbed to be that aware of her. Not that she faulted him for
it. He had simply been raised to believe he was entitled to
everything he wanted because he wanted it. He'd never been
encouraged to think of anyone else's needs.

He could have made it easier for her to be
introduced to society. He could have let her get her feet wet,
before thrusting her into the glittery world of the
ton
where all the other younger marriageable misses were dressed in
dazzling white. She in her blacks stood out like a buzzard among
swans. He had thought she would know how to go on because she had
been born to the right parents. She hadn't known anything.

But it hadn't taken her long to realize that
his attitude was the one everyone took as their lead. She was to be
tolerated, but not welcomed. He performed introductions, but he
didn't go out of his way to do it. She didn't think he meant it to
work that way.

He had engaged a suitable chaperone for her
and then gone about his merry way. Not that he hadn't tried to pull
her into the center of attention. When he had asked her to dance a
cotillion, she had refused vehemently. She had known as he walked
away shaking his head that it had never occurred to him she didn't
know the steps. She had been too mortified to clarify later.

So when he asked if she would bite the head
off of any gentleman he sent to ask her to dance, she confirmed she
would. She had told him, when she was ready to dance, she would
find her own partners. So it was partly her own fault that she had
been left to her own devices.

She knew enough about him now to know that if
she had confessed her shortcomings, he would have seen to it she
learned to dance. If she had told him her fears, he would have done
what he could to allay them. But he never would have thought about
her problems if she didn't point them out to him.

"Miss, the dressmaker is here."

Cecelia sighed. She stood up and capped her
ink. She didn't have time this week. Couldn't he have scheduled
this for next week or the week after? No, she answered herself. How
could Devin have known that she needed every second this week for
her work?

She stopped in her room and eyed the gift on
her bed. Unable to postpone any longer, she untied the ribbon and
removed the paper. Inside was a leather case. She opened the case,
and bottles of paints, pens and different-colored inks were inside.
Now, this was like someone who knew she was creating her cards
would send her.

She reached for the card. It was one of her
more elaborate ones with a poem inside. Impatiently, she flipped to
the back.

Your Valentine

No note?

She put it aside and ran down the stairs and
found the butler. "Barnes, I need to know who is sending me these
gifts."

Barnes looked uncomfortable. "I can't rightly
say, miss. They're always delivered."

"By whom. A footman? Is there livery?"

Barnes shook his head. "Boys."

"Pages? You have to delay the delivery boy
next time. I have to know where these gifts are coming from."

"Yes, miss."

"Cecelia, the mantuamaker is waiting for you
in the sitting room."

Cecelia swirled around and stared at Devin,
who had leaned out of the library. "Are you doing it?"

He folded his arms across his chest. "Doing
what?"

Cecelia wanted to sink into the carpet. Of
course he wasn't sending the gifts. He was Zeus and Apollo and
every god there was rolled into one, society's darling, the catch
of the century, and she was a penniless dependent, a mere mortal, a
buzzard among swans. She was a problem to be solved. "Sending me
gifts," she said in small voice.

"What gifts?" He watched her with those
intense blue eyes.

The realization that she wanted him to be the
one giving her gifts squeezed her heart. There were still four days
left before Saint Valentine's Day. She didn't want to know it
wasn't him now. She wanted to stretch out the dream a few more
days. And then what?

Her business was successful, lucrative. She
would start looking for a house for herself, perhaps in one of the
outlying towns. Someplace with enough space to set up a large
workspace. And the gifts, perhaps she needed to return them when
the sender revealed himself to her.

She turned and walked toward morning room.
"Never mind."

"Cecelia, is there something I should know
about?"

"No."

"You keep too many secrets."

It had to be the slick shopkeeper. Who else
would know to give her what she needed to create her valentines?
His intentions were honorable. He had sent the handkerchiefs she
could toss in his direction anytime. But she didn't want him.

"I know who it is."

"What?" said Devin.

The shop owner must have sent her the other
card to throw her off the scent. Every time she went around to his
shop, he had grown more personable. More smiles and winks, an offer
to make her tea the last time she had been there.

He was sharp as a the razors he sold. He
watched his customers and knew exactly what merchandise they looked
at. Would it be so far-fetched to believe that he had noticed what
caught her eye as she wandered around his store waiting for him to
be free? He seemed willing to sell anything that would make a
profit for him. And it was his business to notice what people
wanted.

Hell's Bells,
he would probably be
Midas rich some day. She reached for the door handle. "I didn't
think he could afford the gifts, but well, of course, he can."
After all, he could get them wholesale.

Devin stared at the door of the morning room.
He ought to barge in and demand to set the record straight, but
there was a dressmaker in there and every chance one of the ladies
could be in a state of undress. Not that he wouldn't mind seeing
Cecelia in her undergarments, but he did not want to see Aunt Marsh
anything other than fully clothed.

Bloody hell, was some other bloke getting
credit for his gifts?

He should have just given into his baser
instincts and made her his. He couldn't stand to hang around
waiting until they were done with the dressmaker. He had committed
to attending a pugilist match weeks ago. Maybe he needed a bit of
solid, straightforward, male companionship. It certainly couldn't
foul his mood any more. He slammed out of the house.