Page 14 of The Duke's Auctioned Virgin
He thought about Valeria. He had been thinking about her since the moment she stuck out her hand and looked at him.
He was buttoning his cuffs when the knock came. It was light and quick. A shuffle of feet retreating.
He opened the door, but there was nobody. Only a covered dish on the floor. He carried it to the table and lifted the lid. There was no food. However, there was a note.
Your bride is stuck in the labyrinth that is her garden alone. Find her and bring her back before something terrible happens, and before anyone else sees her in such a state!
He read it twice. Folded it. Smiled.
The games had begun, then.
Valeria was not stuck. She was exactly where she wanted to be, deep in the hedge maze. Back pressed against an old oak, face tilted up to the sky.
Mr. Fife, the gardener, had spent three months shaping the hedges into a proper labyrinth at her request. Her gift to herself.
She had been there since dawn. The note was sent out to every man with their morning tea. Even the cleverest would take hours. That gave her a whole morning alone.
The game would test the men’s protectiveness, the first trait on her list. The rules were simple: find her, bring her back, do not panic, do not give up, do not send a servant to do it for you.
She had been very specific about that last point. Three of the gentlemen had already asked their valets to go in their place, and Mary had intercepted every one of them.
“Sir Marcus sent his valet with a compass,” Mary had reported, trying not to smile.
“Send him back,” Valeria had ordered.
“Already done, Your Grace. Lord Barton asked if there was a map.”
“There is no map. That is the point.”
“Mr. Ashworth said he would write a poem about the labyrinth and dedicate it to you instead of entering.”
“That is entirely in character for Mr. Ashworth.”
It also meant that she did not have to smile at men she did not trust over poached eggs. She could sit in her garden and be alone and not perform for anyone.
She pulled her shawl tight. The sky was flat and pale. It could go either way. She should go back.
But she did not go back. Instead, she let herself think. Of her father’s laugh when John told a joke, loud and helpless, the kind that shook his whole body. Of Evan shaking his head from across the table, mouth tight, pretending he was above it. He never was. Of Bridget’s baby, whom she had met only once. The baby had grabbed her finger and held on to it. She had wanted to cry, but she had not, since Gordon had been standing in the doorway.
She thought of the letters she was not allowed to send. She had written dozens in her head.
Dear Bridget, the house is cold, but my husband is worse.
Dear Caroline, please do not worry. I am eating plenty.Which was a lie, but a kind one.
Dear Father, I forgive you.Because she did, mostly, on the good days.
She never wrote any of them down because Gordon regularly checked her inkpot and counted the sheets of paper in her drawer.
She thought about dancing. She missed it so much that sometimes her feet moved on their own, tapping out the steps of a waltz under the breakfast table while she ate.
Gordon let her attend only one ball in three years. She had worn a blue dress. She had picked it herself, and she loved it and felt beautiful in it for the first time in a year. Gordon watched her from across the room the entire night. Arms folded. Jaw set. She did not dance. She sat in her chair, held a glass of wine she did not drink, and watched other women laugh and spin, all while holding back tears because she had trained herself not to cry.
Afterward, in the carriage, he told her the dress made her look common. She said nothing. She folded her hands in her lap, looked out the window, and did not say a single word for the rest of the night. The following morning, she put the blue dress in the back of her wardrobe and did not take it out again.
Until the day after his funeral. She put on the brightest blue shawl she owned and walked in the garden twice. Nobody stopped her. Nobody said a word.
She thought about the man who had kissed her hand. His green eyes. The Scottish lilt in his voice. The bread he had put on her plate without asking.
