And Then She Fell (The Cynster Sisters Duo 1)

Confusion wasn’t the half of what he felt. Frustration roiled, mixing with a wholly unfamiliar panicky fear—a fear of not acting and through that losing her, which itself was solidly counteracted and blocked, stymied, by the weight on his shoulders and the horrible prospect raised by the question, What if she said no?

If he asked, and Henrietta refused him . . .

“I’ll inquire further at the teas this afternoon, but I suspect Miss Fotherby really will prove to be the most outstanding candidate.”

His temper snapped and flicked him on the raw. Goaded, he said, his tone terse and harsh, “All right. Enough of Miss Fotherby.” He looked at Henrietta. “Who else should I look at?”

Me. Say, Me.

She’d been looking down while she’d been speaking; now she drew in a deep breath as if girding her loins—and his heart leapt in hope.

“Well, we still have Miss Chisolm and Miss Downtree on the list, so I’ll ask after them, too.”

Hope crashed and died on the rocks of futility. The deflation that hit him left him feeling hollowed out inside.

“And you really should look further afield—we have Lady Hamilton’s ball tonight, and that’ll be another crush, so we may well find more suitable candidates there.” Raising her gaze from the grass, Henrietta was about to glance up at James—unsure of what might show in her own eyes, she hadn’t allowed herself to do so while speaking of Miss Fotherby—but as her gaze rose, she saw the lady in question standing a little deeper into the park and speaking with a very recognizable gentleman: Rafe Cunningham, gazetted rake, profligate gambler, and all-around hedonist.

The pair weren’t conversing; they were facing each other, several feet apart, and Rafe was clearly arguing. Hotly. Miss Fotherby had her back to Henrietta and James, but from the angle of her head, and her gestures, she was arguing just as hotly back.

A swift glance at James’s face confirmed that he, too, had spotted the pair.

Then Rafe spread his arms to his sides, hands open as he made some dramatic appeal.

Miss Fotherby threw her hands in the air, swept violently around, and strode swiftly toward the Avenue; all angrily swishing skirts, her face pale but with flags of color flying in her cheeks, her lips set in a trenchant line, her gaze fixed unswervingly ahead, she marched toward the carriages, where, no doubt, her aunt was waiting. She didn’t glance back once, and she didn’t notice Henrietta and James where they’d halted a little way away.

“Ah.” Henrietta glanced at Rafe, then looked at Miss Fotherby’s retreating back. “I suspect we can guess which gentleman has made Miss Fotherby an offer she doesn’t trust.” Rafe Cunningham was well-born and wealthy, the twin characteristics that, in a gentleman, made him eligible no matter his character.

Wondering how the information that it was Rafe who had approached Miss Fotherby might affect James’s view of that lady, Henrietta refocused her attention on him—and registered the tension investing his long frame. Glancing at his face, she saw that he was studying Rafe.

Was James already feeling possessive over Miss Fotherby?

To Henrietta’s dismay, her stupid heart lurched downward—which only proved that it hadn’t yet come to its senses over James. Inwardly sighing, she looked back at the carriages.

James watched Rafe Cunningham—standing stock-still in the park, his hands on his hips, visibly exasperated and openly frustrated as he stared after Miss Fotherby, his dark features set in an expression of utter incomprehension—and experienced a deep and undeniable surge of fellow-feeling.

Jaw setting, he steered Henrietta away from Rafe and the revealing look on his fellow wolf’s face. “Come on. We’d better get back or your mother will start getting impatient.”

He escorted her back to her mother’s carriage, handed her up, and made his good-byes.

With a brisk salute, and a last look at Henrietta, he forced himself to turn and stride away.

He’d hoped to regain some of the ground he’d lost last night, but instead . . . as far as he could see, he was further than ever from getting Henrietta to look at him as a potential husband. She seemed to have seized on the advent of Miss Fotherby as a solution to his problem, as a way of accomplishing her task of assisting him to find his necessary bride . . . but he didn’t want Miss Fotherby; indeed, he wished Rafe the best of luck with her.

He wanted Henrietta.

As he crossed the lawns, he consulted his inner self, but the answer was unequivocal. He wasn’t about to retreat, to back away and let Henrietta go—not now he’d found her, not now he’d finally recognized her as his.

So he was going to have to come up with some more definite way of reshaping her view of him.

Something powerful enough to change a Cynster female’s mind.

From her seat in the carriage, Henrietta watched James go, watched him stride off without once looking back. As the carriage rumbled into motion, avoiding Mary’s questioning gaze, Henrietta looked away across the lawns . . . and wished with all her unrepentant heart that Miss Millicent Fotherby had never crossed their paths.

Fate, Henrietta decided, was smiling on Miss Fotherby and her bid to become James’s bride. Most helpfully, that afternoon saw Henrietta, along with her mother and Mary, attending an at-home at Lady Osbaldestone’s house; her ladyship’s drawing room was crammed with every last grande dame Henrietta might wish to question.

Reminding herself she was honor-bound to do her duty by James, she duly set about inquiring as to what the assembled ladies could tell her of Millicent Fotherby.

Of course, in the way of ton ladies, gaining information required offering information in return. In that distinctly august company, her request for information on Miss Fotherby necessitated explaining what had caused what was, for her, a distinctly novel tack; as The Matchbreaker, she more customarily inquired after the bona fides of gentlemen, not young ladies. By and large, as she worked her way steadily around the room, going from group to group, she managed to excuse her query by simply stating that she’d agreed to help James, a friend of Simon’s, with his quest to find a suitable bride, and, if necessary, deflecting attention by asking about Rafe Cunningham, who, as she’d suspected, was, indeed, no better than she’d supposed. Most ladies swallowed her half-truths whole and happily related what they knew of Miss Fotherby, her family, her antecedents, her expectations, and her present situation.