The Most Wicked Of Sins (24 page)

Grant wrinkled his nose. “Well, after tonight, Ivy, I truly don’t reckon you’ll have to worry about that eventuality…at all.”

“What of Tinsdale? I saw him talking with you when the carriage passed Almack’s. Did he make any threats?” She was sure he must have, for telling her father, and the courts, about her ruse was the only control he had over her. But now she had humiliated him before the
ton.
Her passion for Dominic was undeniable. Grant was right, Tinsdale could never marry her now. But he could, and likely would, try to follow through with his threats.

Not that his threats carried so much weight anymore. He’d sully her name. And her father would surely fling her to the street. But she had earned that eventuality.

“Tinsdale did the talking, but no, he didn’t promise to reveal your game. He was, however, quite adamant that I tell him where you had gone—he had no doubt you were with…
the actor.
” There was an unusual glint in her brother’s eyes when he mentioned Dominic.

Ivy stared deeper into Grant’s eyes. “You know what Dominic said to me, don’t you?”

“If you mean that he is Dominic Sheridan, the Marquess of Counterton, then aye, I do.”

At his response, Ivy faced forward and started walking again. For some reason, his knowing Dominic’s true identity before she did stung.

Grant lunged and caught up her arm again. “But he admitted nothing more, I promise you. I swear to you, Ives, that I didn’t know he was the true Lord Counterton until tonight.”

Ivy shot him a doubtful look.

“Well, I might have had my suspicions that he was more than a stage actor, but that is all. He told me tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Gads, he had to give me a damned good reason to let him into the assembly room you had me guard like a sentry.”

At the mention of Almack’s, high emotion surged through Ivy again. “I am sorry, Grant. It is only that I don’t understand—why didn’t he tell me sooner? Why? I was willing to risk everything to protect him from Tinsdale.”

“I wish I could tell you.” Grant hugged her tight, drew her back, and, bending a bit at his knees, leveled his head with hers. “Listen to Counterton. Let him tell you. He will if you give him the chance. He’s a good man, Ivy. He’d never hurt you. I think you know that.”

Ivy rubbed her forearm across her damp cheeks. “In truth, I do not know what to think anymore. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t been so envious of Miss Feeney. I never loved Tinsdale. I only wanted him back because she had stolen his attentions from me.” She gave her brother a weak smile. “Oh, I have made a royal jumble of things, haven’t I?”

Tilting his head to the side so she’d have to look at him, he raised his eyebrows and smiled in that upside-down way of his. “As only you could, my dear outrageous sister.”

Though her eyes still welled, he forced a wee laugh from her.

“See here, Ivy. You love him. I know you do. And he loves you too,” Grant told her. “The rest will sort itself out. I’m always right about these things. Come now, you know I am.”

Ivy nodded and turned to face the front door again. “Da is inside, isn’t he?”

“I cannot say, but I would expect so.” He reached down and squeezed her hand. “Be truthful and candid with him. He may not agree with your actions and decisions, but he will respect your honesty.”

“I will.” Ivy sucked down a deep breath as Grant opened the door.

She slowly removed her wrap and set it on a hook near the door. Every one of her muscles protested each step into the parlor, where she knew her father would be impatiently waiting.

Fear tightened her chest, making it harder to breathe than wearing an overtight corset. She reminded herself then that it had been her choice to come directly home after she found Grant at Almack’s. She could have delayed this inevitable confrontation with her father for a time.

She could have prevented this moment altogether and turned away from Dominic when he appeared on the dance floor. She could have gone to Tinsdale, and let him make the announcement that would have sealed her fate. She could have married the man who sought only to use her family’s connections to enhance his own standing with Society, in order to protect the man she loved.

Then, too, she could have remained in the carriage and listened to Dominic’s explanation. It was the alarm of hearing that he was the true Lord Counterton that had driven her to leap from a moving vehicle. It was shameful, the lengths she had gone to secure Tinsdale’s offer—lying, hurting Miss Feeney, stealing a gentleman’s identity with no more than a fleeting thought of how doing so might affect others, including the true Lord Counterton.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love him. She did.

And it certainly wasn’t that she doubted his love for her.

The truth was that it was time at last that she took responsibility for her behavior. It was time to become an adult.

It was time to atone for everything she’d done when driven by envy.

Ivy lifted her head, and, though she shook with fear and dread, she forced herself to put one foot before the other until she was standing before her father.

Alone in the parlor, her father was peering through a quizzing glass at a newspaper. At first, she didn’t think he’d heard her come into the room, but then he spoke.

“So, ye’ve returned.” He did not look up at her.

“I have.” She glanced sidelong at the settee, but she didn’t dare sit though her legs felt weak and in danger of giving out beneath her.

“Weel, what have ye to say for yerself, lass?” He raised his eyes then, letting the quizzing glass fall and dangle upon its chain. He stared at her for what seemed like a lifetime.

It was not as if Ivy hadn’t expected this question. In fact, she’d auditioned several curt answers during the short hackney ride from Almack’s to Grosvenor Square. It was the coldness of his demeanor that surprised her and stole the words from her head. Had he shouted in anger, a heated response would have been justified. But now it wasn’t.

There was no explanation that could remove the slap of humiliation her father surely felt when she left one gentleman waiting alone upon a dais to announce his betrothal to her while she displayed her love for another upon the dance floor.

There was no explanation he’d accept or understand.

Grant was right. All that was required was honesty.

“There are no excuses for my public behavior this night, Da. I apologize for the distress my actions no doubt caused you.” Ivy clasped her hands behind her back and wrung them. “But I am in love with Dominic Sheridan, the Marquess of Counterton. Tonight, he asked me to marry him, which I plan to do if he will still have me.”

The duke abruptly lurched forward in his chair, causing Ivy to take a step backward. “What of Tinsdale?”

“I never loved him. I set my cap at him because I knew you would accept him. If I married such a respectable member of Society, you would welcome me, your wayward daughter, back into the family. My fortune would be restored, and life would return to the way it was meant to be for a Sinclair.” Ivy lowered her head so her father wouldn’t see the shame in her eyes. “I convinced others to do terrible things, take part in potentially illegal acts, all to win Lord Tinsdale away from a woman who wished to marry him.” She raised her eyes and met her father’s gaze.

He looked startled. “Y-ye’re
ashamed.”

“Aye. For possibly the first time in my life, I am ashamed of what I have done—and of the reasons I considered valid to justify my actions.”

The old man remained calm, his face devoid of emotion.

“I know after tonight you will wish me gone from this house. I will abide by your wishes. I will be greatly saddened if you never wish to see me again, but I cannot endure living my life without Dominic. I learned that tonight.” She walked over and kissed his cheek, as though saying good-bye, then turned for the passage.

“Where are ye going, Ivy?” He jabbed his cane into the carpet and stood.

She turned around. “To my bedchamber to pack a small bag. And then I am going to find Dominic and attempt to make amends for everything I have done. I love him, Da. For the first time in my life, I am in love.” She swiveled and began walking toward the stairs.

“Leave the bag,” he ordered.

Ivy didn’t turn around to face him. It hurt too much. Her father was casting her out without so much as a brush for her hair. She walked for the front door instead, leaving her wrap upon the hook.

She paused at the front door, then looked back over her shoulder, hoping Grant might still be about so she could hug him and bid him good-bye. To her surprise, her father was standing behind her.

He lifted her mantle from the hook. “There’s a chill in the air. Take this.” There was a curious expression in his eyes as he settled the wrap around her shoulders, and she didn’t know what to make of it.

“Thank you, Da.”

“After ye’ve spoken with yer lad, bring him back with ye.”

“H-here? To Grosvenor Square?” she stammered.

“Aye. If he wishes to marry ye, I want to talk with him first.” He smiled then, something he so rarely did, and Ivy thought she’d topple over.

She hugged her father to her and gave him a tight squeeze. “I will, Da.”

Releasing him, she depressed the latch and darted outside, closing the door behind her.

Poplin was waiting on the pavers with the Sinclair town carriage. He let down the steps and opened the door for her. “Lord Grant thought you might need a ride, Lady Ivy.”

Ivy grinned. “Indeed I do.”

The Counterton residence
Berkeley Square

As the Sinclair carriage approached Lord Counterton’s town house, Ivy could see that there was a lone candle burning in one of the windows of the crimson parlor. No other light shone through the windows above, and so she assumed that if Dominic—Nick was at home, that is where he would be. The carriage began to slow, and so she rapped on the forward wall. She leaned out the window and asked the coachman to take the carriage around the corner before stopping.

The dampness of the night set loose a chill through Ivy. She bundled her mantle tighter around her shoulders and crept up the front steps to the door. She leaned on the wrought-iron rail as she peered into the window. Nick was sitting with his back to her. A bottle was on the table, a folded swatch of paper—her missive she assumed—and an empty glass accompanied it.

He set his elbow on the table then, turning something between his fingers. She leaned closer, and in the haloed candlelight she saw what it was—the emerald ring. Her heart clenched.

She didn’t risk lifting the brass knocker. Felix, or worse yet, Cheatlin, might answer and refuse to allow her inside. And so, Ivy tentatively pressed the door handle, and luck was with her. It opened.

Her gait was swift, and if her footfall made a creak on the floorboards, Nick didn’t hear it. His head was bowed, and his eyes closed, but she saw the muscles of his throat work, and she knew he wasn’t asleep.

Her eyes were wide against the near darkness as she moved stealthily through the parlor until she stood silently at his side. Raising her hand, she touched his hair, meaning to caress his head soothingly with her hands, the way he had comforted her in the carriage earlier that night.

His fingers were around her wrist in an instant, and he was staring at her as though she were his mortal enemy.

“Domin—
Nick,”
she gasped, “it’s Ivy.”

He shot to his feet without releasing her wrist. “Ivy.” Her name floated on his breath. “God, Ivy, is it really you?”

As she looked up at him, she saw that his eyes were brilliant and glistening in the candlelight. The distraught tightness of his mouth softened as he peered down upon her face. His lips parted and moved as if he were saying something she could not hear.

“Nick.” She slid her hands up over his chest until she wrapped them around his neck and pulled him against her. “I am so sorry…for everything I’ve done. I was confused and surprised, and, aye, more than a little ashamed when I learned who you truly are, that’s all.” She ran her fingers through his hair, and she pressed her lips to his.

When she broke the pressure of the kiss, he drew back his head and stared at her for several moments before he drew her to the settee with him.

“I should have made clear to you who I was sooner.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried in the carriage at Drury Lane, but you stopped me then, and when I learned your mission was to hire someone to impersonate me—live in my town house—I decided to go along with your ruse for bit. I wanted to learn the truth of your reasoning for such a plan. I could scarce believe the plan was to win over Tinsdale.”

“It was.” She lowered her gaze for a moment. “Once you knew, why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because I quickly came to enjoy being with such a beautiful and diverting woman.” He wedged a finger beneath her chin and made her look at him. “You were like no one I had ever met, nor likely will.”

“I can understand that much, but why didn’t you tell me who you really were…when you realized that you loved me?” Ivy bit into her lower lip, trying to rein in her emotions as she awaited his reply.

He took her hands into his and looked down at them as he spoke. “I was in love once before, but her father required her to marry a man of higher rank. My brother was Counterton’s heir, not I. I managed our land. I farmed. I wasn’t enough for her father. She died a year later giving birth, but I never stopped wondering that if, had she loved me even a little more, she would have resisted her father’s wishes and married me.”

Ivy blinked up at him. “I don’t really understand.”

“Do you not?” Nick exhaled as he gathered up his words. “When we met, you wanted me to help you win back a man your father would approve of you marrying—not a man you loved. Your father’s approval meant everything to you.”

“It did. I admit it. His approval meant everything—until I fell in love with you.” She pulled one hand from his and caressed his cheek. “From that moment forward, the only thing I truly cared about was you, my love.”

Nick closed his eyes and let her stroke his face. “I feel foolish that I realized the depth of your feelings too late—and by that time, I had almost lost you because you loved me, because you would have sacrificed your own happiness, your own future, to protect me.” He opened his eyes. “I am sorry, Ivy.”