The Handmaiden's Necklace

Dani rolled her eyes, thinking that she hadn’t had a chance from the start.

“Well, then I shall leave you to dress,” Aunt Flora said, making her way out the door. “You may join me as soon as you are ready.”

Giving in to her fate, Dani made a resigned nod of her head, and as soon as the door was closed, Caro hurried over to the armoire against the wall. At six-and-twenty, a year older than Dani, Caroline Loon was taller and more slenderly built, a blond woman, attractive in a different sort of way, with an incredibly sweet disposition.

Caro was a gently reared young lady whose parents had died unexpectedly of a fever. Penniless and orphaned, she had arrived at Wycombe Park nearly five years ago, desperate for any sort of employment.

Aunt Flora had immediately hired her as Danielle’s lady’s maid, but over the years, the two of them had become far more than mistress and maid. Caroline Loon, a vicar’s daughter likely destined for spinsterhood, had become her best friend.

Caro opened the door of the armoire. Though most of Dani’s clothes were packed away in heavy leather trunks in preparation for her journey, a modest assortment of gowns hung inside.

“What about the saffron muslin embroidered with roses?” Caro asked, dragging out one of Dani’s favorite gowns.

“I suppose the saffron gown will do well enough.” If she had to go to the blasted tea, she intended to look as good as she possibly could, and wearing the bright yellow muslin always made her feel pretty.

“Sit down and I’ll do up your hair,” Caro instructed. “Lady Wycombe will have my head if you make her late for her tea.”

Danielle sighed. “I swear, between the two of you, I am surprised I ever get to make a decision.”

Caro just laughed. “She loves you. She is determined you return to society. She wants you to be happy.”

“I’ll be happy—once I’m on my way to America.” Dani reached over and took hold of Caro’s slim, long-boned hand. “I am only grateful that you have agreed to go with us.”

“I am glad to be going along.” Caro managed a smile. “Perhaps we will both find a new life in the Colonies.”

Dani smiled, as well. “Yes, perhaps we will.” Danielle certainly hoped so. She was tired of her nonexistent life, tired of being hidden away in the country with few friends and only an occasional visit from the children in the orphanage to look forward to. She was eager for the chance to make a new life in America, where no one had ever heard of The Scandal.

In the meantime, she had to find the courage to get through her aunt’s miserable tea.

Rafael slipped a forest-green tailcoat on over his beige piqué waistcoat. His valet, a short, slight, balding man who had been in his service for years, reached up to straighten the knot on his stock.

“There you are, Your Grace.”

“Thank you, Petersen.”

“Will there be anything more, sir?”

“Not until my return, which should be sometime late this afternoon.” He didn’t intend to stay at the affair very long, just drop by and pay his respects, and of course leave a sizable bank draft for the orphans. After all, it was his civic duty.

He told himself it had nothing to do with the notion Danielle Duval might also be in attendance, convinced himself that if she were, he would ignore her as he had done before.

He wouldn’t say any of the things he had longed to say five years ago, wouldn’t let her know how badly her betrayal had hurt him. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing how devastated he had been, that for weeks after it had happened he had barely been able to function. Instead, he would make clear his disdain for her without a single word.

His coach-and-four waited in front of the house, a lavish three-story structure in Hanover Square that his father had built for his mother, who now lived in a separate, smaller, but no-less-elegant apartment on the east side of the mansion.

A footman pulled open the carriage door. Rafe mounted the steps and settled himself against the red velvet squabs, and the coach rumbled off down the cobbled street. The afternoon tea was being held in the gardens of the Mayfair residence of the Marquess of Denby, whose wife was deeply involved in the charity for London’s widows and orphans.

The mansion, in Breton Street, wasn’t that far away. The carriage rolled up in front and a footman opened the door. Rafe departed the coach and made his way up the front porch steps past two liveried footmen, who ushered him through the entry out to the garden at the rear of the house.

Most of the guests had already arrived, just as he had hoped, and they clustered here and there on the terrace, or walked the gravel paths through the leafy foliage of the garden. A group of children, plainly dressed but clean, their hair neatly combed, played at the base of a stone fountain on the right side of the garden.

The charity organized by Lady Denby was a good one. There weren’t enough orphanages in the city to care for the needy and many homeless children who wound up in infant poorhouses, workhouses, apprenticed as chimney sweeps, or grew up as vagrants and beggars, living hand-to-mouth on the streets.

Most orphans were taken care of by local parishes, often abominable excuses for homes. Foundlings brought into their care rarely lived to reach their first year. Rafe had heard of a parish in Westminster that had received five hundred bastards in a single year—and raised only one of them past five years of age.

But the London Society funded several large orphan homes of a very high caliber.

“Your Grace!” Lady Denby hurried toward him, a big-bosomed woman with glossy black hair cut short and curling around her face. “How good of you to come.”

“I’m afraid I can’t stay long. I just stopped by to present you with a bank draft for the orphanage.” He dragged the folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over, all the while scanning the guests to see who might also be there.

“Why, this is quite wonderful, Your Grace—especially since you made such a generous donation at the ball.”

He shrugged his shoulders. He could certainly afford it and he had always liked children. Having a family of his own was the main reason he had recently decided to take a wife. That and the fact his mother and aunt hounded him incessantly about living up to his responsibilities as duke.

He needed an heir, they said. And a spare. He needed a son to carry on the Sheffield title and manage the vast fortune entailed to it so that his family would always be taken care of.

“Tea is being served on the terrace.” Lady Denby took his arm and began to guide him in that direction. “Of course, we have something a bit stronger for the men.”

Smiling, she moved him off toward a table covered with silver trays laden with cakes and cookies of every sort, and tiny finger sandwiches so small it would take a dozen to fill him up. A silver tea service sat in the middle of the linen-draped table, along with a crystal punch bowl.

“Shall I have one of the servants bring you a brandy, Your Grace?”

“Yes, I’d like that. Thank you.” It might help him make it through the next half hour, which was all he intended to stay.

The brandy arrived and he sipped it slowly, searching for a friendly face, seeing his mother and Aunt Cornelia in conversation with a group of other women, glancing past them to the round, powdered face of Flora Duval Chamberlain. His gaze lit on the woman to her left, a woman with flame-red hair and the face of a goddess. Rafe’s stomach contracted as if he had suffered a powerful blow.

His expression instantly hardened. He told himself he hadn’t come because of her, but seeing her now, he recognized the lie for what it was. For an instant, Danielle’s eyes met his and widened in shock. Rafe felt a shot of satisfaction as the color drained from her lovely, treacherous face.

He didn’t glance away, certain that she would.

Instead her chin shot up and she gave him a look meant to burn right through him. He clenched his jaw. Long seconds passed and neither of them looked away. Then Danielle rose slowly from her chair, flicked him a last seething glance and walked off toward the rear of the garden.

Fury engulfed him. Where was the humility he had expected? Where was the embarrassment he had been certain he would see in her face?

Instead, she walked the gravel path with her head held high, ignoring him as if he weren’t there, making her way over to where a group of the children played at the back of the garden.

Inwardly shaking, Dani fixed her gaze on the children playing tag near the gazebo, determined not to let her unnerving encounter with Rafael Saunders show in any way. She had taught herself that after The Scandal, how to take rigid control of her emotions. Never let them know the power they held, how badly they could hurt you.

“Miss Dani!” Maida Ann, a little blond girl with pigtails, rushed toward her. “Tag! You’re it!”

Danielle laughed and felt a breath of relief. She had played the game with the children whenever they came for a visit to Wycombe Park. They expected her to play with them now. At the moment, she was glad for the distraction.

“All right. It looks as if you have tagged me. Now…let me see…which of you is going to be next? Robbie? Or maybe you, Peter?” She knew some of the children’s names, not all. None of them had living parents, or if they did, the parents refused to claim them. Dani’s heart went out to them. She was happy that her aunt was a patroness of the charity, which gave her a chance to spend time with the children.

Giggling, Maida Ann darted past her, just out of reach. Dani adored the feisty little five-year-old with the big blue eyes. She loved children, had hoped one day to have a family of her own.

A family with Rafe.