Promise Me Gold by Misty Urban

Author:Misty Urban [Urban, Misty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scarsdale Publishing
Published: 2024-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

“You’re certain of this?” Sidika worked a last flower into the coils of loose braids she had made of Vivienne’s hair while Vivienne sat quietly at her dressing table in the Barbarossa. “The danse de ventre can be very alluring.”

“I mean to be alluring,” Vivienne said. For one man, at least.

“You might not like the consequences, tatlım,” Sidika warned.

“But we won’t have to worry about those much longer, will we?”

A returning miner who’d stopped at the hotel for a hot meal reported seeing a man of Rewan Marrack’s description at one of the distant gold fields, but this sighting had been weeks ago. The place had disappointed others who had tried panning there, and claims could change overnight as men pulled up stakes and set out for new ground. Reg promised to hire and outfit men to send in that direction, track down the errant earl, and return him to his wife’s bedside. Then Vivienne’s days of dancing at the Barbarossa would end.

She wasn’t sure how to tell Jupiter this. She wasn’t sure how to tell any of the girls. She was surprised to realize how much she would miss them. However, she would miss Marquis Domino most of all, and she wanted him to know before she left.

If he turned up tonight and still wanted her, she intended to give him everything he asked of her. She couldn’t ignore the fact he was to wed Isobel, and the idea of his infidelity caused a bitter taste in her mouth, but Vivienne also couldn’t ignore how little time she had to spend with the man who had touched her heart and awakened her to passion.

She fastened the tiny chain that held her veil over her face, then draped a long cluster of necklaces over her head. Her tunic and leggings were Sidika’s design, the costume she had offered to fetch when Vivienne performed the dance of the ghawazi for the Rowe sisters in the parlor of Tremarron Hall. How distant that world seemed to her now.

Rewan would return, and she’d have her parents together again. They’d sail to Cornwall, and her clever father would find a way to thwart Bowen and restore his family home. Vivienne would see her grandmother and the Rowe sisters again. She might finally make her curtsey to the English queen and see her father seated in the House of Lords. There would be balls, dinners, galas, and more opportunities to travel, perhaps for diplomatic purposes, if her father retained his post. In time, in some nebulous yet unformed future, there might be a more appealing marriage proposal than the reverend’s dour offer to become his unpaid help.

However, if her clever father could not find a way to repay Bowen—if they returned to the same dire circumstances she had left—then Vivienne would submit to Bowen’s bloodless demand that they marry. Without money, she saw no other way to preserve her grandmother’s home and the Marrack legacy or for her father to hold up his head in Lords.

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