To Have and to Hold (Finders Keepers #4)

Chapter Two

Cecily slipped her arm through that of her best friend, Mrs Arabella Sandhurst. They’d met during Cecily’s first season, and had both married at similar times. Arabella to the penniless second son of an earl, whom she loved, and Cecily to her baronet, whom she didn’t.

They didn’t always promenade in Hyde Park, but Arabella had insisted, dragging Cecily out in her best walking dress. And instead of the grey pelisse Cecily had reached for, Arabella had insisted on a deep emerald one, delicately laced.

“It brings out your eyes,” she’d said.

Cecily, all too happy to look her best, had tied the buttons with a smile. Now Percy had effectively relinquished his claim on her, she had a sense of freedom. Now, more than ever, she could do as she wished. More than that—he wanted her to.

He had asked to be separate. Finally, after four years of wishing, he had given in. And so Cecily had chosen her most fetching bonnet. Perhaps she would find a new beau to flirt with.

Arabella certainly seemed to think she would.

“What is this surprise you have for me?” she asked now, tilting her head so her bonnet shielded her face from the sun. The very last thing she needed was to encourage more freckles across her nose.

Arabella laughed, her plump face glowing. “That defeats the object of the surprise.”

“Whom are we to meet? I presume that’s why you brought me here.”

“You should not be so observant.”

Seizing her opening, Cecily mentioned how observant she had been at the opera—what she had seen, and what the outcome of that had been.

“How cruel he was to humiliate you!” Arabella said, indignant in a way that spoke of her own love for her husband, who would never have stooped to such tricks. Then again, she would never have flirted with Lord Featherstone as a form of revenge.

After consideration, perhaps she and Percy were both as bad as one another.

Regardless, it was better they no longer lived as husband and wife.

“It’s not so bad,” Cecily said, patting Arabella’s hand. “Of course, he should not have done it so publicly, but I don’t think he will do so again, and it’s hardly as though I sought his affection. Why should I care if he bestows it on another?”

“Odd that I never heard of Caroline Spenser’s name being linked to his. I’d have thought, if they were openly seeing one another, I would have heard something.”

“You do not have all the gossip.”

“I assure you, if I don’t know it, it is not worth knowing. I have the ear of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, and she is a formidable creature. She confides in me. The rest, my husband gleans from his fellow officers. So, you see, I know everything. I could tell you all the names of Caroline Spenser’s former lovers.”

Cecily waved a hand; she had no desire to know anything further about Caroline Spenser. “My point is, he will no longer be attempting to win me over, and I have the freedom to live my life as I wish without having to endure his attentions.”

“Do you intend to find a lover?” Arabella asked curiously.

“No! At least, I don’t know. I don’t think so.” She touched the ring on her finger, concealed by her glove. When Percy made his announcement, she’d considered taking it off. Not all ladies wore rings—and most gentlemen did not. More bound them together than a sliver of gold. Still, she kept it on, and she rubbed it as she spoke. “I’m not interested in finding anyone else.”

Arabella twinkled at her. “ No one else? I can think of at least one gentleman who caught your eye.”

“When we were children,” Cecily said with as much dignity as she could muster, although four years ago felt like both a blink of an eye and a lifetime when it came to a broken heart. Well, perhaps not a broken heart. She had not precisely loved him, but she’d thought she might. And whenever she thought of Percy’s shortcomings, she found that the largest one she could think of pertained to the fact he was not William Devereaux.

“What if,” Arabella said with false solemnity, “I told you that you have another chance at charming the infamous Mr Devereaux?”

Cecily turned, thoughts of Percy forgotten. William had left England for the continent shortly after Percy had found them together, and she hadn’t seen him since. Not when her mother had announced she had arranged a marriage with Sir Percy, and certainly not when the same man—after stealing her every chance of happiness—had the gall to expect her to fall in love with him. As though her heart were a berry ripe for the plucking by any gentleman who might come along, rather than a sacred thing saved for the man she thought the best of.

All this time, she had not seen the one man she’d always supposed she would give her heart to.

“He’s returned?” she asked.

“While you were witnessing your husband’s betrayal, I was receiving the latest updates from my friend Miss Patricia Helmsworth, and—”

“Don’t tease me! What did you discover?”

“Why, that your dear William had returned from Italy and has been in London these two weeks since. I came this morning with the intention of seeing if we could find him. I’ve heard that he sometimes rides out in the morning. Or perhaps he will walk. Either way, if he’s here, then we will find him. And if you mean what you say about your situation with Sir Percy . . .” Arabella sucked on her lip. “Far be it from me to encourage any unwifely behaviour, but perhaps you could put this newfound freedom of yours to good use when you see him. Not, I suspect, that your husband could have stopped you if you had chosen to do so before.”

No, Percy certainly could not have stopped her. But although she’d had plenty of flirts, and more than one gentleman had presumed that because she was easy with her smiles she would be easy with her other favours, they had all discovered she was not.

This, however, was entirely different. A matter of the heart, not of the body.

William Devereaux, finally back from his self-imposed exile.

“Weeks?” she said. “He has been here for weeks and hasn’t come to call on me?”

“Why should he, dearest? You’re a married lady now.”

The ring on her finger burned.

William had returned.

“Come on,” she said, hurrying forwards and dragging Arabella behind her. “Let’s see if we can find him.”

They had walked the full stretch of Hyde Park and were on the verge of giving up and returning home when Arabella stood on her tiptoes. “I think I see him!”

Cecily felt as though something had launched itself at her stomach. A brick, perhaps, or a particularly heavy flowerpot. The wind blew again, tossing her hair into her eyes, and she reached a hand up to clear her vision. By the time she had, she was face to face with a tall, handsome man. One she remembered from her dreams.

He looked as dashing as he’d been the day they had met, a little over four years ago, when she’d come to London dreaming of a great love. Dark eyes, raven hair loosely brushed back from his forehead, and a smile that curved so wickedly, she felt her heartbeat increase.

Yet there were differences, too. Creases around his mouth that didn’t speak of smiles so much as dissipation, and premature lines across his forehead. He wasn’t so very much older than her, perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six, but it was as though she could map the time they’d been apart across his features.

His gaze passed across her face, and Cecily swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She’d imagined this day so many times—imagined Percy having perished of an unmentioned ailment so that when they met again, she was a merry widow. Reality, however, rendered her girlish fantasies somewhat sour.

She was not a merry widow, and nor did she want to be. Percy may not be the husband of her dreams, and she certainly did not like him much, but she’d never wish death on him.

William, too . . . Well, in her fantasies, he had stayed the same as he always had been, but now he stood before her, she saw how ridiculous that assumption had been.

“Well I’ll be,” he said, taking her hand and bending over it with a graceful flourish. “Can it be Cecily Wexford?”

“Cecily Somerville now,” she said, taking her hand back. Her heart felt as though it was pummelling her ribcage. The sight of him, all the feelings she’d once had, come to attack her once more.

“Ah yes, of course. You married the baronet. My felicitations.”

“Thank you.” She looked into his face, and it felt as though he, too, were assessing her. Arabella joined William’s companion, and they all fell in together, walking along the promenade as they had once done over four years ago. “What has brought you back to London?” she asked.

“Merely that I felt I had been away from it too long. And, of course, away from certain ladies.” He inclined his head in her direction, and familiar warmth spilled over her. This was how it had been when they were together—he had always contrived to make her feel so special. A heady, almost desperate rush, sweeping her along in its tide. “Tell me, how are you?”

What a complex question. “Well.”

“Is that so? And what of your husband—does he treat you ‘well’?”

Aside from the opera, where she could concede she had behaved just as poorly, the answer could hardly be a negative. Of course, she hadn’t cared for his good treatment, and if she could have chosen, she might almost have wished he’d treat her badly, so she had more reason to hate him. As it was, all she could find to say was, “Yes, of course.”

“Hardly a surprise. I saw first-hand how very ardent he was.”

Cecily glanced around them, wishing she could loosen her dress to breathe more easily, though her stays were not tight. “We do not have to talk about him.”

“Indeed not. Now we have the pleasantries out of the way, shall we talk about you? You are looking ravishingly lovely today.”

“You seem to have come back a greater flatterer, sir,” she said, hiding a smile.

He doffed his hat at a passing young lady. “Do you think? Well, I’m glad. It’s my greatest pleasure to flatter young ladies—particularly when everything I say is God’s honest truth. You are one of the most beautiful ladies I’ve ever had the pleasure of conversing with.”

“Now I know you’re lying.”

“No, how could you say such a thing? You have always had such power over me. You could strike me down with a single look.”

She laughed. “I very much doubt that. So much time has passed.”

“Has it? It feels like a day, an hour. Barely a minute has passed since I was last in your company.” He gave her another wickedly slow smile. “No, but I must be honest with you. I am more than a little grateful we met in this way. I’d hoped to encounter you again upon returning to London, and finding you in such rare beauty is an additional blessing.”

“Had you anticipated seeing me ugly?”

“I’d convinced myself nothing could compare to the image of you I have in my mind. Utterly divine. Spectacularly lovely. And yet it transpires my imagination could not do you justice.”

She tilted her head, even as her heart gave another flip. Not the same flutter as it might have done four years ago, but a taste of former joy. She’d once lived for compliments like these, far more outrageous than the ones Percy had ever given her. No, he had always spoken about her as though her feet rested firmly on the ground. William spoke about her as though she were an angel.

“You are a shocking flirt,” she said, attempting severity.

“Why, am I? Surely it’s only because the temptation is so great. I defy any gentleman to spend time with you and not do so.”

“You’ve only just seen me again after four years apart.”

“Four painful years, I assure you. If you think I have forgotten, let me assure you I have not. I think about you every night.” This time, the smile he offered her appeared distinctly lascivious. “I think about all that might have happened if we were not discovered.”

“Yes,” she said, and sighed. That kiss had been lovely. “To think, if we had not been discovered and if Percy had not led you away, you might have had a chance to propose.”

A hesitation, more like a heartbeat, passed between the end of her words and the beginning of his next. “Never mind what might have been—we can still consider what can still be. I have a proposition for you, petal. There’s a masquerade at the Pantheon next week. Let me escort you.”

A brief surge of the reckless, heady feeling she’d once experienced with him suffused her, and she smiled, curling the hand with her ring into a fist. “Very well,” she said. “I look forward to it.”