He needed scars. His polished skin required wounds, bruises, signs of what had happened here and would be over tomorrow. She turned her nails into him as her teeth moved down his chest, closed on the flexing muscle that banded his waist. He made a guttural noise but it spoke no protest; he arched beneath her as his fingers made quick work of her gown. The fabric sloughed from her like the skin of a snake, leaving her stronger, more resilient beneath: she was a creature who made her own protection, who carried it in her very skin. She pressed herself against him, naked, exulting in the heat of his flesh.
They rolled again, limbs tangling. He caught her hands, placing them above her head, pinning them within the circle of his fingers as he reached down to bring his cock against her. His eyes seemed lit from behind, his expression fierce, feral, as he thrust into her.
She bucked beneath him, wanting more. She wanted that small pain she’d felt that first time—or, no, something worse, something awful to balance out the perfection of this moment. It was too much; it was enough to keep her from sleep for the rest of her life. He released her hands and gripped her jaw as he thrust into her slowly, steadily, his eyes pinning hers, daring her to look away as he took her. The slap of their bodies grew louder, an excuse if she wanted it, but she held his gaze, not even blinking.
Only when he lowered his head and took her mouth did she shut her eyes. She wrapped her hands, her arms, around his head and pulled him down to her, then rolled and came atop him. It should have been her victory, to put him beneath her and take him inside, but his hands at her hips directed her, urged her faster, and when the contractions seized her, it was with nothing like joy. The pleasure hurt; it spiraled beyond her ability to bear; at last, her courage snapped, and she hid her face in his chest as he shuddered inside her, hoping, praying, he did not feel her tears.
When he woke in the morning, she was gone.
It took Simon less than a quarter hour to understand it. He’d slept so lightly, waking twice in the night, the last time in the hour just before dawn; he remembered viscerally his relief at finding her still wrapped around him, at how pliantly her limbs had entangled with his as he’d drawn her closer. How had he gone back to sleep? When had she slipped out of his bed?
He didn’t find her in her rooms.
The dining room was empty, though the breakfast dishes sat ready, covered, awaiting her usual appearance.
She was not in the library.
It was the little blond maid who put to rest the growing suspicion in him. As he turned to mount the stairs again—thinking, still, that he had missed her, telling himself that she would be upstairs—he found the maid standing helplessly above him, her hands twisting at her waist.
“The d-dresses are gone,” she stammered. “My lady’s dresses!”
He nodded once and turned on his heel, not knowing where in damnation he was going.
He found himself back in the library. Staring sightlessly at rows of books. One still sat open on the table, marking the spot where Nell had abandoned it. She’d found another of her mother’s books. The Tempest. Some weeks ago, they’d had a discussion—some vigorous, miraculous debate—about this play. Had she come down here at dawn to dwell on that conversation? He recalled little of it but his own astonishment, his growing wonder, at discovering the woman across from him to be so much more than he’d imagined—a world unto herself, begging to be explored.
A passage on the page leapt out at him.
You taught me language, and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you,
For learning me your language!
Words spoken by Caliban, the poor, savage monster whom Prospero had sought to tame. Nell had reviled him, refused to grant him an ounce of pity. At the time, Simon had found her opinion diverting. He’d wondered smugly if she gathered the irony of a woman from the slums, come to convert herself into a lady, sneering at a spirit who had resisted being enslaved by the hypocrisies and strictures of Prospero’s civilization.
He touched the page with a hand that trembled. The memory of his amusement sickened him now. Caliban had nothing to do with her. It was not she, but rather he, Simon, the bloody Earl of Rushden, who had learned a new language during her time here. He’d rediscovered it, maybe, gained a better understanding of it, a new fluency.
He had no doubt where she had gone. It was not the first time a woman he loved had measured her prospects and chosen a better offer. He couldn’t blame her. Their situation had looked dire last night. Grimston’s payment was a wise choice by any view.
His hand made a fist. The page ripped, a long, tearing, ugly sound. He exhaled slowly.
He picked up the book and threw it.
It slammed into the dead fireplace. Pages flew, flapping like the wings of mourning doves.
He waited for the lash of humiliation, the deep burning breaking feeling that had driven him after Maria’s desertion, that had hounded him for years afterward: Not good enough. Not worthy.
But it didn’t come. What filled him was a wild, unmanageable grief. He couldn’t blame her for leaving. He’d seen enough to understand what drove her. Perhaps she even returned his love, but his love was no guarantee in her eyes. From the moment she’d discovered the option of the annulment, she’d known how little his words had meant when he’d vowed to take care of her, in good fortune and bad. What was love next to the guarantee Grimston had offered?
But she was wrong to trust that bastard. She was smart, savvy, shrewd, but her heart was not black enough to lead her imagination down all the possible avenues that Grimston would have charted.
He leaned heavily into the table, staring at the book where it had fallen.
She’d gone to his worst enemy, and it made no whit of difference.
He still had to find her.
Some commotion in the hallway brought his head up. The door flew open. Paralyzed for an instant—joy, relief, anger, love swelling in him—he stood there staring at her, her face tear-stained, her lips trembling.
“I was going to look for you,” he said hoarsely, then came to a stop, the words tangling in his head: it would have made no difference had she gone to Grimston; he wanted her to know that, to know he was done with pride: he would have gone to find her all the same.
And then she blinked, swallowed, and that small movement was enough to break his daze, to shatter it into shards that spread through him as a prickling, rippling, ripping realization.
“Katherine,” he said slowly. “What are you doing here?”
She made a panicked noise and came toward him. “Listen to me,” she said. “I was—I was wrong to deny her. But he—you cannot understand, for so long he has hounded me—I did not want to marry him, he only wanted my money, he told me I could choose where I liked so long as I denied her—and I didn’t know!” Her voice was high, frightened. “I couldn’t be sure of her until—until—”
“Don’t concern yourself,” he said softly. “I have plans for your guardian.”
“Oh.” She went paler yet. “But I think—I think he has plans for her. I told him, you see, that I mean to acknowledge her as Cornelia. And he thinks it is his fortune that will be halved in the process. I think—she’s in very great danger.”
Nell left the two plainest dresses at Hannah’s and bundled the rest into a ruder carpetbag, borrowed; the one she’d taken from Mayfair would attract too many eyes. Brennan’s was a long walk down the broken pavements, and Hannah had wanted to accompany her, but she couldn’t bear talk right now. It was enough simply to keep moving; she did not have the strength to explain anything, to put into words what she’d just done: gutted herself, used a knife to slice through her life, putting herself squarely on this, the bleaker and bleeding side of the rest of her days on earth.
She would never see him again.
Never touch him.
Never hear his voice.
She took a deep breath as she crossed the street. Her mind was dull but her body remembered the way, bol
ting to safety around the onward charge of a coach, the driver throwing a curse at her in passing. She stepped through a muddy puddle without feeling the damp soaking through her kid shoes.
Better the shoes be sullied. Bright, new shoes advertised to curious eyes certain comforts that she no longer had to spare. She was back where she belonged, on the narrow road between crouched buildings, where broken glass littered the ground and people leaned against buildings, talking in loud voices, eyeing passersby curiously, nodding to acquaintances.
But nobody nodded to her. Familiar faces fell silent as she looked into them. The greengrocer lifted his brows and turned away, whistling in astonishment as his shop boy gawked.
The back of her neck began to prickle. Eyes were following her, prodding into the back of her skull. She forced a smirk onto her lips and held it there as she walked. “Nellie,” she heard someone mutter. “That’s Nellie.”
“What on earth? Do you think—”
“Don’t look so flush now, does she—”
“—bloke left her flat?”
“God save her,” someone whispered.
A shiver passed through her. For a moment, in dumb reflex, her thoughts flew toward Peacock Alley, the only place here that she’d ever called her own. Before Mum had taken ill, that flat had been her safety.
She thought of Mum’s grave, of the rough wood marker on which had been painted “Dearly beloved. Forever missed.”
Here, in this narrow lane, lined by broken windows and stares, she thought for the first time in weeks of Jane Whitby without feeling pain. They had something in common. They’d both fled that scented, plush world for these streets. Desperation had driven both of them; nothing else would have done it.
Whether or not it was right, she would forever miss Mum. Love didn’t have to be pure or blameless or free of anger to be true. You could blame somebody and love her anyway. You could blame him but love him none the less for it.
She pushed Simon’s face from her mind.
In the dark confines of Brennan’s, the proprietor nearly dropped his pipe for shock.
“You’re back!” Brennan’s rheumy blue eyes narrowed as they took in the bag she clutched. He missed nothing, the old codger. He glanced beyond her, toward one of the cracked mirrors he’d set around the shop to catch thieves: they gave him every angle.
He removed his pipe and tapped it thoughtfully against the counter. Ash floated down, landing lightly on her dark wool gown. She’d donned it herself, in the hour before dawn, wrestling with the laces on her corset, weeping as her fingers fumbled over the buttons.
“Tossed you out, did he?” Brennan asked.
She hauled the bag up onto the ledge. “I’ve got quite a load for you.”
“I read of it in the papers, you know.”
Her hands paused on the bag ties. His thick Irish voice held no glee for her comeuppance. “Did you?”
“Oh, aye, and who didn’t?” He put the pipe back into his mouth, squinting at her as smoke roiled up around his head. “Came here alone, did you? Best take care, Nellie. Been too much talk for you to traipse about as you please.”
She nodded once, her jaw tight. It was a warning, but not one she needed. She’d known what it signified when people failed to greet her.
The knot that closed the bag resisted her fingers. “This load should fetch a fine price,” she said. The words felt stilted. She listened to herself go on. “Only worn once or twice, each of them. So don’t be thinking to cheat me, old man.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t,” he said, his manner too kind, absent of the blarney he’d usually muster for such a charge. Leaning onto one bony elbow, he dropped his voice: “What happened, Nellie? I thought we’d never see a hair of you again. Wasn’t you that girl, then?”
Her hands stilled. She looked up into his face, so familiar to her—more familiar suddenly than her own in the glass behind him. Dizziness rocked her, a sense of being removed from her own skin. That pale girl with circles beneath her eyes: who was she now? Not Cornelia. Not the Nell she’d once been, either. She’d changed. Her very lungs had altered. The fumes from Brennan’s pipe felt unbearable, thick and toxic. Another minute in this shop and she’d be puking all over her wares.
She shook her head and shoved the bag toward him. “I trust you,” she said quickly. “And I’ve counted them to a stitch. You send a note to the Crowleys with your bid, aye? I’ll be back to let you know what I think of it.”
“Not alone,” he said softly. “You bring Garod Crowley with you, you hear me?”
She stared at him. “Aye,” she said. “Aye, I will.”
Back in the street, the clouds were thinning, shedding a clearer view of the sun, causing her eyes to sting. She stumbled over a chunk of pavement and slammed up against someone. Muttering an apology, she pushed past—and was caught and hauled back.
She blinked up.
“I was looking for you,” Michael said with a smile.
Nell tested the ropes again, flexing her fingers, trying to recover sensation. “Just fetch me a knife,” she urged. “Please, Suzie.”
Across the room, huddled against the wall, knees pulled to her chest, Suzie stared back, blank-eyed, as though she no longer understood language. In a bad way, was Suzie, bruised and battered, shaking like a leaf. “You shouldn’t have come back,” she said again, her voice barely audible. “You should’ve known, Nellie.”
“Should’ve known?” Nell’s laughter scraped her throat. It made Suzie shrink back into the wall. “Should’ve known what?” She was trussed to this chair, corded like a game hen—a solid, proper chair, a new acquisition, no doubt purchased with the coin Hannah had given Michael for the spoon. “That Michael’s a bloody lunatic? You’re right, no news there!”
Suzie folded her arms over her knees and set her head down atop them. “It’s not just Michael,” she whispered.
Nell stared at the crown of Suzie’s head, the crooked parting in her dark hair. Not just Michael? She gritted her teeth and gave the rope a hard yank, then hissed at the pain. For her efforts she was only wearing herself bloody. “Who else is it, then?” She had an idea. Where else would Michael have found the money for that cab he’d bundled her into?
Suzie didn’t look up as she shook her head. “I don’t know his name.” She drew a shuddering breath, then peeked up over her arms. “Posh bloke. Tall, thin—” She broke off on a gasp as footsteps thumped in the corridor outside.
Michael’s voice came through the door, sharp and angry. He wasn’t drunk, more was the pity. Sobriety, height, and muscle had worked to his advantage on the street. A few people had called out in protest as he’d knocked her around; Brennan had even come out of his shop for the first time in probably a decade. But when Michael had flashed the gun, not a single person had dared lift a hand to help.
“—better deal than you can offer,” Michael was biting out in the hall. “Maybe I should ask Rushden how much he’d be willing to pay for her.”
The reply was too low to decipher, but Nell recognized the voice all the same. Grimston. What in God’s name did he want with her? He was sharp enough to have put two and two together. He’d know that if she was back here in Bethnal Green, then she’d left Simon. He should be grateful; he’d gotten what he wanted without spending a penny.
The door opened. Michael stalked through, cursing. On his heels came Grimston, dressed from head to toe in black, his top hat crushed beneath his arm. He fixed Nell with a sour smile—which disappeared at the sound of Suzie’s whimper.
Pivoting, he glared. “What is this?” he demanded. “Who is this woman?”
Michael’s jaw jutted. Belligerent as a mule, he was; it was Grimston’s mistake to have taken him as a partner in this dirty business. “She’s none of your concern,” he said.
Grimston’s laugh cracked like dry twigs. “My God. What do you think we’re about? You invite witnesses?”
Nell went cold. Witnesses to what? What sort of occasion did they have in mind? Suzie was gazi
ng upward at Grimston, her tear-stained face, her slack jaw, lending her a strange look of awe, as though the tall man in his fine clothes had dazzled her beyond her senses.
And as Grimston looked back down at her, his expression shifted. For a moment, he looked mildly disgusted, as though viewing something unwholesome that he’d just knocked from his shoe. Then his face smoothed. A cold smile curved his mouth as he turned away; his hand moved into his jacket. “Very well,” he said. “Let her stay. No matter.”
Every hair on Nell’s body stood straight. My God, she thought. Her brain scrambled to deny it but her instincts insisted: he hadn’t come here bent on intimidation.
He meant nobody to leave this room save himself.
“Michael,” she said. “Michael, make Suzie go.”
Michael gave her a curious look. Grimston, his smile widening, gave her a wink.
“Get her out of here,” Nell said, pulling again, so uselessly, at the ropes, as Michael decided to enjoy the moment, the fool, grinning at her, his lips already moving to shape some gloating remark as Grimston pulled the pistol from his jacket and she threw herself sideways and he fired.
The explosion rang out and kept ringing, drowning out the world, flattening all other sound, setting up residence in her brain, ringing and ringing. There was blood; she could see the pool spreading but it wasn’t hers; she couldn’t tell whose it was; her cheek was flat against these rough floorboards where Mum had died.
A crash. Michael and Grimston rolled past her, tangling, Michael’s hand gripped hard over Grimston’s, holding the pistol up, away from the both of them. Michael was bleeding. She saw the stain spreading across his side, soiling his shirt.
A cold hand closed on her arm. She flinched convulsively, then cried out at a stabbing pain.
The ropes fell away from her wrists. Suzie knelt down by her feet, wielding a knife, cutting free Nell’s feet. Nell clambered up as Suzie spun away, lifting the blade in the direction of the two men rolling on the ground.