All these events, one after another, had kept her mind too busy to return to the bracelet, and although Bea knew it was merely an object—only gold and gems—she could not squash the devastating sensation that what she had really forgotten was her mother. Having finally discovered the truth about her parents, their lives as much as their deaths, she’d turned her attention to other matters, allowing them to fade in the distance like a ship sinking below the horizon.
It was terrible, the remorse she felt at her callous disregard, and yet she could not regret anything that demonstrated so plainly Kesgrave’s grace and goodness.
Incapable of speech, Bea raised her head and stared into his eyes, dazzling and blue. How could she possibly express the strange and unsettling mix of shame and pride she felt?
It was all so much more than anything she’d ever imagined.
She’d had fantasies, of course. Like any schoolroom miss on the precipice of her first season, she’d pictured her ideal suitor and conceived of something vague and benign: a kindly gentleman with even features, modest manners, and an interest in biographies and travelogues. The details of their life together were equally nebulous and consisted mostly of pleasant afternoons passed in companionable silence, each of them engrossed in their book whilst sitting shoulder to shoulder on the settee. Deeply contented, she would pause every so often in her reading to sigh happily over his quiet decency.
But this breathtaking surge of admiration, this rush of emotion, wild and overwhelming, was dizzying in its intensity, and to feel it now, again, anew, on this day of all days, when he had already awed her with his insouciant unraveling of the ropes that had bound them in that pitch-dark cellar under the Particular, was truly unbearable.
It was only luck, she knew, that placed her in the drawing room in Clarges Street with the Duke of Kesgrave, a fickle act of an indifferent god, and she felt in her bones the fragility of fate. One slight alteration in the fabric of time—if she had chosen to read the Vicar of Wakefield rather than seek out a biography in the Skeffingtons’ library on the night Otley was killed—and she would have lived her entire life without him.
Gratitude for the capricious hand of fortune almost crushed her, and determinedly pushing it aside, she struggled to come up with the words to express her appreciation for his thoughtfulness in remembering her mother’s bracelet.
Alas, when she opened her mouth to thank him, her composure deserted her completely and all she could manage was a low, distraught plea. “You must stop doing this!” she said desperately.
It was not the response Kesgrave anticipated.
Oh, no. Having been impressed by Bea’s pluck and daring from the very first, even while her refusal to abide by his authority drove him mad with frustration, he’d never imagined that the presentation of a simple band could have such a disastrous effect on her self-possession.
Kesgrave’s confusion, so readily apparent in the way he drew his eyebrows together and pursed his lips, helped relieve some of Bea’s distress. After two decades of falling short of her aunt’s unreasonable expectations, it was still revelatory to exceed his.
Taken aback by her discomfort, Kesgrave immediately complied with her request, promising never to repeat the event. “I could not even if I desired to,” he assured her, “for the bracelet is the only item of your mother’s in need of reclaiming.”
It was perfect, Bea thought, the characteristic pedantry of his reply, and under ordinary circumstances, it would have elicited from her a fond mocking rejoinder. But everything about the moment felt remarkable, even the sunlight filtering through the window, bathing them in a golden glow, and she answered instead with terrifying honesty. “You must stop making me love you more, Damien. The feeling is already so overwhelming, I can scarcely breathe.”
His features remained steady but his eyes—oh, yes, his eyes—blazed with emotion and he raised his hand as if to touch her. Mindful of their situation, however, he let it drop before he made contact, and his lips curved slightly as he shook his head to deny her request. “I fear I cannot, Bea, no. Your brief spells of breathlessness are the only advantage I have in this relationship, and I am not prepared to relinquish it.”
The duke spoke softly, emphatically, and Bea waited for amusement to enter his eyes, for she knew he was teasing, but his expression remained fervent. Warmed by his gaze, she longed to move closer, to draw his lips to hers, and it was only the presence of her family that kept her firmly rooted to the spot. Vaguely, she realized Nuneaton had stepped discreetly away and was now correcting Russell’s pronunciation of vixere (“It’s a W, my dear chap, not a V”). She heard Aunt Vera thank the viscount for his attention to her son, who grumbled that he knew how to speak Latin, thank you very much. Flora laughed at her brother’s embarrassment and asked Lady Abercrombie about the contents of Bea’s trousseau.
Unaware that he could strike Bea dumb with a single, searing look—another advantage he had in their relationship, she thought wryly—Kesgrave held up the strand and said, “May I?”
“Yes, please,” she said, offering her arm and immediately admiring the delicate band as it encircled her wrist. It was, without question, a beautiful piece of jewelry, with its heart-shaped links and marquise-cut stones, but what made it truly extraordinary was the way it traversed time and space to deliver her mother there, on her wedding day.
Oh, how you would have loved him, Mama, she thought, her throat constricting painfully as her grace entered the room with the minister in tow.
Briskly, as if she were hosting a second ceremony later in the afternoon and needed to move the first couple along, the dowager arranged the occupants of her drawing room in a half circle beside the fireplace and directed Beatrice and Kesgrave to stand in the
