“Open it,” Hannah urged. “We thought the same, but then he showed us—oh, just open it, Nell!”
“But perhaps hold your breath while doing so,” Simon said.
She surprised herself with a short, hard laugh. “Aye, that’s a bright idea.” Her hands trembled a little as she unrolled the cloth.
A fine silver spoon winked up at her.
“What on God’s green earth?” She lifted the spoon. Turned it around in her hand. The handle was engraved with scrolling initials: CRA.
Simon held out his hand. Arrogant cheek, she almost called it, but then he said, “May I?”
Reluctantly she passed it to him. “It looks like a christening spoon,” he said immediately. “CRA: Cornelia Rose Aubyn.” He lifted a brow. “Well,” he said softly. “How interesting.”
A bit too interesting, Nell thought. “Why on earth would he have had it?”
“He said it was your mum’s,” Hannah offered. “He found it tucked under a floorboard along with a Bible.” She grimaced. “Which I’m sure he didn’t know what to do with. Probably moldering in the rubbish right now.”
He’d probably sold the Bible. “Why didn’t he pawn the spoon? Did he have a story for that?”
Hannah shifted in her seat. “Well, he didn’t hand it over, precisely. That ten pounds you left me—”
“You gave that to him?” Nell slammed her palm onto the arm of her chair. “That was meant for you! I told you if I didn’t come back—”
“But it was yours,” Hannah said. “Calm down, then, Nellie! I didn’t have a choice in it. He came by wanting me to speak to you about buying it—I reckon he thought you’d be willing to buy it at a better rate than Brennan would. And you know Michael; if I’d waited for you, he’d have gone off and gotten blind drunk and been robbed of it—or gamed the spoon away, maybe. And I couldn’t let that happen, could I? It’s proof! Ain’t it? That spoon must have been yours!”
“You did very well,” Simon said, as gracious as a lord of the manor with his peasants. “And we’ll recompense you for what you spent. With interest,” he added, ignoring Hannah’s protest as he continued: “This is a very fortunate development, as you say.”
“Which I still don’t trust an inch,” Nell said to Hannah. “If that spoon belonged to Mum, he’d know what it meant. He could have bullied and bribed me for a good deal more.”
Hannah’s lips parted but for a moment she didn’t speak. Then, hesitantly, she said, “Ten pounds, Nellie. It’s no small amount.”
Nell felt her skin crawl. “Of course.” She cast a quick, abashed glance toward Simon, expecting to see smugness: he’d said much the same to her once.
But what she saw on his face was something else entirely.
She looked quickly away, down to her hands in her lap, the blood pounding through her face. The sympathy in his expression felt harder to bear than a smirk. She felt exposed by it—and caught up in the strange idea that he understood her better than she’d guessed.
But it made no difference. If he’d truly understood her, he’d never have lied to her. He would have dealt with her plainly instead of cozening her into his bed.
“Well,” Simon said. He tucked the spoon into his jacket pocket, asking, as an afterthought, “May I keep this for you?”
Nell realized the question was for her. Highhanded, even on his best behavior. “Go ahead,” she said.
His tentative smile struck her like a knife. Her traitorous heart trembled. How beautiful the world had seemed when she’d thought they were going to walk through it together.
God save her but she was weak! The idea of getting back in that coach with him suddenly terrified her. He’d ask again what ailed her; he’d start in with his questions and she had no faith in herself not to bend, not to give, not to yield again. She’d come so close to loving him completely; her feelings for him felt like a fatal crack running through the core of her. If she let him close now, if he hit on that crack, he’d break her clean apart.
The matter of the spoon settled, the ladies took up their drinks and chattered on, trading the easy gossip of women reuniting after an absence. Meanwhile, Simon found himself listening with a sense of increasing disbelief.
Harry Connor had lost a finger to the cutting machine. David O’Riordan had been picked up by the coppers for lying dead drunk in the road; his wife had come down to the pub and struck deals with three separate men, out in the alley, to get the money to post him. A weaver had caught one of his apprentices thieving, and had chased him into the lane with a whip; nobody would have objected to a thrashing, but he’d not laid off at the sight of blood. It had taken all the women coming into the lane to pry him off, and he’d still not apologized, which didn’t seem right, did it? And so Peggy Hart and the Miller twins had decided to box his ears for good measure.
Crises and solutions, street justice and casual cruelty, heartbreaking, told in the cheerful voice of harmless gossip.
He looked at his wife, who was smiling faintly, nodding to show that she listened, and steadfastly avoiding his regard. She had grown up in this rough place, ducking her stepbrother’s fist, working at a place where men lost their fingers to feed their families. And somehow, in the midst of all this, she had fashioned herself into a strong, honest, intelligent woman.
His temper slipped away from him. Its loss left him altogether flat.
A half hour later, as the conversation wound down, his wife finally seemed to recall his presence. She stood, and he followed suit, only to hear her say: “I’m staying here for the night.”
The words seemed to startle her as much as they did him—and her friends, who exchanged a speaking look.
“No,” he said. He was not leaving her in this godforsaken neighborhood.
Her expression darkened. “Just for the night,” she said.
He was across the room at her side in three steps, where he took her by the elbow and said to their wide-eyed hostesses, “Thank you for your hospitality,” before leading his wife straight to the door.
She yanked free of him as soon as the door closed behind them. In silence they descended the stairs. As they stepped into the lane again, he said, “If you wish to spend more time with them, you are welcome to invite them to the house.”
“Of course,” she said tonelessly. “Until my money’s in your accounts, I reckon I’m too valuable to be risked in the rookery.”
He pushed out a breath. God knew the denizens of this street would find nothing novel in the sight of a public argument. Indeed, it might be educational to them to learn that a whip was not required to settle their differences. But he did not quarrel in the road.
The mocking look she gave him said she knew he was biting back words. “Imagine your fine friends seeing you now,” she said. “Strolling with a guttersnipe in the filth.”
“With my wife,” he said.
The smile that curled her lips was slow and unpleasant. “For how long?”
He walked faster, longing ferociously for the bend in the lane that would yield the first glimpse of his carriage.
Her voice came softly behind him. “I heard you,” she said.
He swung back. “You heard me,” he repeated. “What does that mean?”
She fixed him with a clear-eyed look, then stepped around him, taking the lead around the turn.
The carriage stood where they’d left it, and the sight of it in the open sunshine—the sight of his footman moving to open the door, to take them both away from this place—made him feel as though he were finally waking from a nasty, senseless dream.
Her next words, however, made it clear that the nastiness was just beginning.
“I heard you with the lawyer,” she said over her shoulder as the servant handed her into the vehicle.
For a moment, one foot poised on the step, Simon did not understand. He’d met with Daughtry this morning to discuss an egregious piece of libel masquerading as journalism, a piece no doubt paid for by Grimston, which claimed that Nell was a cle
ver imposter who, in cooperation with her new husband, was scheming to steal a fortune. Simon had wanted to take action against the newspaper. A woman might be grateful for such husbandly urges.
And then, all at once, he recalled Daughtry’s exact objections to these urges.
He leapt into the landau.
She sat tucked into the corner. “Well?” she asked.
“Before I knew you,” he said rapidly, grabbing onto the strap and taking his seat as the coach lurched forward, “before I really knew you, I asked for Daughtry’s advice—”
“Yes,” she said. “You knew you could end the marriage whenever you wished.”
“I don’t wish,” he said fiercely. The very idea now seemed ludicrous. She was his wife. “Did you hear my reply to Daughtry? Did you hear me say that I had no interest in an annulment?”
“I heard it,” she said. The serenity of her manner struck him as ominous: she had the air about her of a woman who had survived, and now was recovering from, an illness that would not kill her after all. She no longer looked troubled in the slightest. “Tell me, am I meant to be grateful that today, your mood favored me? But what if our plan goes bad? What if a judge isn’t convinced by my face and a silver spoon?”
“Even then,” he bit out. “We are married.”
“Even then?” Her smile looked gentle. “You would consign yourself to poverty for my sake, you say?”
“Yes.” He was astonished by the readiness of his reply—and by the fact he felt no doubt of it. “Yes, I would.”
The afternoon light flooding through the window lit vividly the look of uncertainty that crossed her face, chased by a flicker of … fear?
Then her face hardened. “You talk a pretty game,” she said. “I’ve never doubted that.”
“But you doubt me,” he said.
“You’ve no idea what it means to be poor. Without a penny to your name—your affection for me would be the first thing to go, I warrant.” A little noise escaped her, poisonous. “For all that it’s worth.”
He sat back, briefly speechless. “I suppose you’re right,” he said at length. “I’ve no idea what poverty means.” God knew he liked wealth very well, though. His mind shied at any thought of how he might support them—the notion of teaching music to the whey-faced daughters of the middling classes was laughable.
“But I would find a way,” he continued slowly. “God help me, but if it came to that, I would figure out something.” A million uncertainties could be balanced, couldn’t they, by a single certainty? “You and I …” he said, and then trailed off, unable quite to find the words to persuade her that he saw a hundred reasons for hope in her, and a thousand more for his future with her. These thoughts were new to him; they surprised him as much as they would have done her.
But now that they were unfurling, he found himself riveted by the revelation. Alone, before, he’d never had cause to think ahead, or taken any joy in imagining what the coming years might hold. It had all been today or tonight, the sick rush of immediate pleasures, the empty mornings afterward.
But she had brought a new temporality into his life. Now he thought about tomorrows.
Now, when he sat at the piano, he did not play music for the company the notes provided him. He played the music so she might hear it, and come a little closer to him as she listened.
With dawning amazement, he looked at her and realized that since she had come into his life, he had never once felt alone.
“I would figure out a way,” he said. “But it won’t come to that, Nell. Daughtry feels certain we’ll prevail. The christening spoon only aids us further.”
She looked away from him. Evidently this made no difference to her. Or perhaps it weakened his argument to admit that he’d no belief they would need to face impoverishment together.
He tried a different tack. “An annulment is a legal device. Not a secret plot I fomented against you. Think on it, Nell. When we met, you threatened to kill me. You spoke like a criminal. I knew nothing of you apart from your willingness to commit murder and your miraculous resemblance to a woman I very much dislike. Of course I inquired about ways to safeguard my future, in the event that you and I should fail to deal well together. I thought you—”
The glance she sent him glittered suspiciously. His breath caught. Were those tears in her eyes? “You thought me an animal,” she hissed. “Yes, that was very clear.”
The urge to take her in his arms was nearly undeniable. Only the suspicion of how little she would welcome it held him in his seat. “Listen to me,” he said. “I should have made clear to you that the marriage could be dissolved. I admit that my reasons were cowardly, and I beg your forgiveness for it. But you cannot behave as though my past actions tar the present.”
“You tell me,” she said, “why I should believe your words now, when I was wrong to believe them before.” She tipped up her chin, looking down her nose. “Tell me,” she said, “why I should put my faith in the claims of a man who takes pride in advertising that he cares for nobody’s good opinion. Such an accomplishment, St. Maur—tell me why it should recommend you!”
Her aim was true and her scorn sliced through him like a blade. “What do you think, then?” he said hoarsely. “That I would cast you back into the rookery? Is that what you think of me?”
She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I think you lied because it was convenient for you. Because you knew that otherwise, I’d refuse to share your bed.”
He took a sharp breath. “That is the most insulting piece of vitriol I’ve ever—”
“What other explanation do you have?”
“You were skittish.” Christ, that did not sound convincing even to his own ears. He raked a hand through his hair, helpless, frustrated.
The coach slowed, the wheels thumping in a more regular pattern as they entered the flagstone paving of his mews.
“I’ll have my money,” she said at length. “And then”—a hitching breath interrupted her—”we’ll see who wants to end this marriage. An annulment can work for a woman, too. Perhaps Daughtry will advise me on how to be rid of you!”
A cold laugh escaped him. Brilliant. This was bloody brilliant. Not six hours ago, she’d been giggling into his neck, and now she was plotting to leave him. “He’ll advise you of no such thing.”
She slammed her hand onto the seat. “Who are you to stop me!”
He leaned toward her. Anger he could match. Anger was far easier. “Your husband, the Earl of Rushden.”
She stared at him. “And I am the countess,” she said faintly.
“Quite so,” he said. “No matter whom the court decides you to be, that will not change. I’ll still be Rushden, and you will be my wife. And if you think that does not give me every advantage in the world over you, then you’re more naive than I ever imagined.”
A pulse became visible in her throat. “I’m the last thing from naive,” she said. “I see you for what you are, now.”
“Oh? And so you think you cannot trust me? And yet,” he said, “from the moment you first stepped foot into my house, I might have done a thousand things to you far worse than ask you to marry me. So easily, Nell, so easily I could have misused you. You were nobody—nameless—threatening to kill a peer of the realm. My staff would not have helped you. The law would not have aided you. You knew this, once upon a time. You were not so naive then. But you stayed anyway—and why is that? Because you did trust me. You had faith that I wouldn’t abuse you. Did I betray that faith? Did I ever lift a hand to you or make you feel my power?”
Her face was losing color, her eyes widening. “What? I’m meant to admire you for not playing the devil?”
“No,” he said sharply. “You never admired me. But you counted on your faith in me, and you still do—even at this very moment, though you refuse to admit it. This coach in which you ride—this house to which you return—the locks on your bedroom doors—the very clothing on your body—they are mine. I could take them all away, or I could turn the
m against you; I could turn the locks and order the servants to forget your existence; I could do anything I liked. And yet I do not see you trembling for fear!”
“Maybe I should be,” she whispered.
“Then decide,” he bit out. “Which is it? Will you tremble? Am I a villain who deserves none of your trust? Or are you the villain, here—a coward grown too afraid to own your own feelings, though I have proved to you that I deserve your faith?”
The vehicle rocked to a stop. Silence pressed down between them.
He said, “Which is it?”
Her lips parted, then folded into a mutinous line.
“Fine.” He sat back. “Very well. Let me remove the burden of cowardice from you. I’m glad to play the villain. You will not be leaving me, Cornelia St. Maur. I am going to keep you, whether you wish it or no.”
The door opened. Her eyes remained locked on his, her face a blank mask. She made no move to rise.
“Go ahead,” he said curtly. “Go into the house. You know now that I mean to keep you there. You have no choice in it.”
A shudder moved through her. Then she burst to her feet and slipped down the stairs. Simon waved off the footman waiting to help him out and stared blankly at the spot where she’d sat.
The rage evaporated. It yielding on a sickening jolt to disgust. The Earl of Rushden. Quite right, he thought blackly. Never until this moment had he felt so akin to his predecessor. His own words might have come from old Rushden’s mouth. You have no choice in it.
Was this tyrannical act what she required from him? Did her long familiarity with bullies lead her to trust his threats more than his apologies? Would he do better never to mention love, and to speak instead of lust and possessiveness only?
God help him. He did love her. If she’d listened carefully enough, she would know that. He liked his wealth too well to give it up for anything less.
The humorless smile slipped away as he shut his eyes. After all, he was not like Rushden before him. He would never use his power to bend someone’s will.
But Nell was his wife. Whether or not she believed he meant to keep her made no difference. He did mean to keep her.