Page 22 of My Deceitful Duchess
“I am aware, Miss Amberley.” She let her voice linger suggestively over the words—Nerissa, for all her fine connections, had never taken on the marriage mart. Jenny suspected that her sharp tongue bore too close a resemblance to a viper’s fangs for comfort. And there was something just a bitsoullessabout her eyes. The sort of emptiness that spoke wordlessly of a void within; the sort of shallow coldness that could freeze a body even from a distance. “However, we have certain…expectations of our patrons.”
Nerissa’s eyes narrowed to slits, giving her narrow face a pinched look, as if it were collapsing in upon itself. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re implying.”
“I am implying, Miss Amberley, that we only accept patrons whose finances are secure.” There was some little pleasure in the fact that the jab had struck well. Nerissaquiveredwith rage, her mouth puckering with it.
“Who are you to say such things of me?” Nerissa gritted out.
“Only a woman of business, with a vested interest in protecting it,” Jenny said, with a gentle incline of her head. “Several years ago, you patronized my dress shop. You ordered several items, for which you then failed to pay. You’ll forgive me, Miss Amberley, if I find myself less than willing to offer you the means to do so again.”
Nerissa’s eyes widened, and Jenny considered how veryunlikelythis situation was. Probably Nerissa had never been called to account for herself before—the aristocracy so rarely paid for its sins. But neither was Nerissa prepared to surrender in shame; she had come here for apurpose. “Well, what is the amount, then? I will pay it now,” she said, rather desperately.
Jenny allowed herself a patronizing smile. “I’m afraid that is quite out of the question, Miss Amberley. We have our sources, after all—neither you nor the duke are in quite the position you once were. We cannot offer a subscription to someone perennially short of funds.”
Nerissa’s face bleached of color. Even her lips whitened, looking chapped and wrinkled with distress. Once, the Amberleys had been a force to contend with, their finances flush. But their excesses over the better part of a decade—years and years of lavish spending, with no prudent investments to show for it—had seen their coffers dwindle to nearly nothing. Probably it was their guilty little secret—that they had murdered for a fortune, and then run through it in record time.
“I’ll have you dismissed,” Nerissa said in a reedy snarl. “You’renothing. Only a faux French bitch, no better than you ought to be.Iam the sister of aduke. Lady Clybourne—”
“—Is a dear friend,” Jenny interjected. “Who knows full well that you have been refused a subscription. But you are welcome to speak with her yourself.” Jenny gave a little shrug. “I would recommend doing so privately, if you do not wish for others to learn of your financial status. We do not typically share what we know, but Lottie will not deal kindly with threats—and neither will her husband.” She gave a vague gesture toward the doors. “Good evening, Miss Amberley,” she said, pointedly. “I believe you know the way out.”
A rough sound of wrath clawed its way from Nerissa’s throat, but she turned and strode for the door at last, her pride having received a sound beating. And as it slammed behind her, Jenny almost laughed.
Only a faux French bitch.
Perfect.Perfectlyperfect. Nerissa had not had even the slightest flicker of recognition. A dizzying sense of relief swept over her, and she let out a low sigh.
Alice peeked out from behind a column, her hands fisted in her apron. “Will you be wanting anything, ma’am?” she inquired, her voice awash in relief.
Jenny spared a smile for the timid little maid. “A brandy, if you please. To my room.” And she swept toward the stairs, climbing them two at a time, a jaunty little tune dancing through her head.
The brandy arrived only a minute or two after she did—Alice reallywasa dedicated employee—and Jenny sipped it slowly as a tension that had been settled at the base of her spine foryearsgradually slipped away from her.
It was too bad that there was no one to know exactly what sort of foe she had vanquished this evening. A lonely existence it was, being a woman living beneath a false name. Perhaps in time, she would tell Sebastian—tell him that she had meted out her own tiny slice of justice this evening, to a woman who could not be more deserving.
Curiosity propelled her toward her window, which overlooked the mews. She could probably see his window from this angle. Flicking back the curtain, she gazed out into the velvet black of night, staring across the mews at the tidy row of homes behind Ambrosia.
There, in the upper rightmost window. The curtains were drawn back, and light glowed within.
A chair had been pulled close to the window, and she saw the gleam of untidy gold hair, the curl of a bare shoulder above the wing of a chair. Long legs stretched out, one ankle over the other. A small book held casually in long, elegant fingers. Not a textbook—anovel.
The cad wasreading. And he had wanted her to know it.
Chapter Ten
“Ienjoyed it immensely.”
Jenny swallowed back a tart response, arranging her features into a bland expression as Sebastian arrived at her side. “I don’t believe I asked,” she said primly, between bites of her breakfast.
“No,” he allowed. “But you must have wondered.”
“I’m certain I did not.” Ofcourseshe had—but she would die before she admitted as much. “And besides, I told you I wouldn’t meet you.”
“Andyet, here you are. You might have arrived a few minutes earlier, or a few later. You might have chosen a different bakery. You might have simply elected to eat at Ambrosia rather than to come out.” There was a sliver of satisfaction in his voice. “But you did not. You are here, speaking with me.”
“Why ought I change my habits merely to avoid you? You could have done the gentlemanly thing and kept your distance.”
“But then how would I have returned your book?” He produced it from his pocket and dangled it before her nose, and she was obliged to snatch for it and to shove it deeply within the confines of her pocket before a passerby—of which there were not many, admittedly—could catch a glimpse of it.
He chuckled, and the low, rich sound seemed to echo in her ears. “Do you know, I have not read much fiction,” he said, slowly. “I tend to spend my leisure hours in scholarly pursuits, and there has never seemed to me much value in reading fiction, which I assumed would hold little enrichment for the mind. But now—now I can see that I was much mistaken. Thereisenrichment, even in fiction. Perhapsespeciallyin fiction.”
