The Handmaiden's Necklace. Kat Martin

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      He spent the next hour dancing with the wives of his friends, then danced again with Mary Rose. A brief speech was made by one of the co-chairwomen of the fund-raising event, and recognizing Flora Duval Chamberlain, he understood why Danielle had come.

      Or at least part of the reason.

      If there were others, he would never know. After the brief speeches ended and the dancing resumed, Rafe looked again across the ballroom.

      Danielle Duval was no longer there.

      Two

      “Did you see the way he looked at her?” Smoothing back a curl of her heavy chestnut hair, Victoria Easton, Countess of Brant, sat on the brocade sofa in the Blue Drawing Room of the town house she shared with her husband and ten-month-old son. Her blond, elegantly lovely sister, Claire, Lady Percival Chezwick, and her best friend, Grace Sharpe, Marchioness of Belford, sat just a few feet away.

      “It was really quite something,” Grace said. “There was fire in that man’s eyes. I have never seen quite that expression on his face.”

      “He was probably just angry she had come,” Claire reasoned. “I wish I had been there to see it.”

      Tory had ordered tea but the butler had not yet arrived with the cart, though she could hear the wheels rattling down the marble-floored corridor on the other side of the door. “You weren’t there because you were home with Percy doing something far more fun than attending a benefit ball.”

      Claire giggled. She was the youngest of the women and, even after her marriage, still the most naive. “We had a wonderful night. Percy is so romantic. Still, I should have enjoyed seeing a truly scarlet woman.”

      “I felt sorry for Rafael,” Grace said. “Rafe must have truly loved her. He tried to hide it, but he was furious, even after all these years.”

      “Yes, and Rafe rarely loses his temper,” Tory said. She sighed. “It’s terrible what she did to him. I’m surprised she fooled him so completely. Rafe is usually a very good judge of character.”

      “So exactly what did she do?” Claire asked, leaning forward in her chair.

      “According to Cord, Danielle invited a friend of Rafe’s into her bed—with Rafe and a number of guests just down the hall. He caught them and that was the end of their betrothal. It was all very public. The scandal followed him for years.”

      Grace smoothed a faint wrinkle in the skirt of her high-waisted apricot muslin skirt. “Danielle Duval is the reason Rafe is determined to marry without love.” A week ago, her little boy, Andrew Ethan, had just turned six months old, but Grace’s lithe figure had already returned.

      Timmons knocked just then and Tory beckoned the short, stout butler into the room. The tea cart rattled over to the Oriental carpet and stopped in front of the sofa, then the small man silently left the drawing room.

      “All is not yet lost,” Tory said to Grace, leaning forward to pour the steaming brew into three gold-rimmed porcelain cups. “You gave Rafael the necklace, so there is still a ray of hope.”

      Rafe had been instrumental in saving Grace’s life and that of her newborn baby. She had wanted her friend to find the happiness she had found with Ethan, so she had given the duke a very special gift. The Bride’s Necklace, an ancient piece of jewelry made in the thirteenth century for the bride of the Lord of Fallon. The necklace, it was said, carried a curse—it could bring great joy or terrible tragedy, depending on whether or not its owner’s heart was pure.

      “I suppose you’re right,” Grace agreed. “Rafe has the necklace, so there is yet a chance for him to find happiness.”

      Claire toyed with the handle on her teacup. “What if all the things that happened to you and Tory were just strange coincidences and nothing at all to do with the necklace? It could be, you know.”

      Tory sighed, knowing her sister might be right. “It’s possible, I guess, but…” But Tory couldn’t help thinking of the time the necklace had belonged to her, of the wonderful man she had married and their beautiful infant son, Jeremy Cordell, who was asleep in the nursery upstairs.

      She couldn’t help remembering that she had given the necklace to Grace, who had met Ethan and saved him from the darkness that surrounded him. Grace, who now also had a wonderful husband and son.

      And there was her stepfather, Miles Whiting, Baron Harwood, an evil man who had owned the necklace and now lay moldering in his grave.

      Tory shivered, shoving away the unwanted thought. “We know Rafe has a good heart. We can only hope the necklace will work.”

      Claire looked up from studying the leaves in the bottom of her teacup. “Maybe the duke will fall in love with Mary Rose. That would be the perfect solution.”

      Tory cast Grace a look and tried not to grin when Grace rolled her eyes. “That is a very good notion, Claire. Perhaps he will.”

      But when she thought of the searing glance Rafe had tossed at Danielle Duval, she couldn’t make herself believe it.

      “Please, Aunt Flora. I simply cannot do it. How can you even think of asking me to go through that again?”

      They were standing in Danielle’s bedchamber, in their elegant suite at the Chesterfield Hotel, a lovely room done in shades of gold and dark green. Aunt Flora had let the rooms for the next two weeks, until their ship set sail for America.

      “Come, now, dearest. This is an entirely different sort of affair. To begin with, this is an afternoon tea, not a ball, and a number of the children will be there. You know how you love children, and you are always so good with them.”

      Dani toyed with the sash on her blue quilted wrapper. It was not yet noon. The benefit tea would begin in a little over an hour. “The affair may be different, but I will be shunned, just as I was before. You saw how people treated me.”

      “Yes, I did, and I was proud of the way you conducted yourself. You made it clear you had every right to be there. I thought you handled the situation beautifully.”

      “I was miserable, every single moment.”

      Aunt Flora sighed dramatically. “Yes, well, I am truly sorry about the duke.” She looked up at Dani from beneath a set of finely plucked, silver-gray eyebrows. “At least the man didn’t cause you any trouble.”

      Dani didn’t mention the angry look he had tossed her, or the furious expression he couldn’t quite hide. “He would have been sorry if he had said even one word.”

      “Well, he won’t be there this time, I promise you.”

      She glanced down at her aunt, who was a good eight inches shorter and quite a few stone heavier. “How can you be so certain?”

      “It was merely a fluke the last time. An afternoon tea is hardly the sort of affair that would interest a duke. Besides, I wouldn’t ask you to go if I were feeling up to snuff. Lately I’ve been a bit under the weather.” She coughed lightly for effect, hoping to make Dani feel guilty.

      Instead, Danielle СКАЧАТЬ