She was real. Nell could have watched Katherine Aubyn forever: moving, talking, hands waving, voice a bit shrill as she spoke.
“This can’t be happening,” Lady Katherine said. “What sort of trick is this?” She was kicking up her russet-brown skirts, furiously pacing the carpet in Lady Allenton’s library. The hostess had been creamily solicitous, deliciously glad to offer a private room for their historical reunion, as she’d put it.
For her part, Nell stood stiffly beside a chair. She felt as though somebody had brained her with a cast-iron pan. Try as she might she couldn’t muster a coherent thought other than: she’s real. Which was stupid. Of course she was real. Had there ever been any doubt?
But a photograph hadn’t captured the vividness of the living woman.
This woman pacing the carpet might have been Nell’s double.
She felt as though she were watching herself.
She couldn’t look away, although she was the object of stares of her own: a portly lady, Katherine’s chaperone, gawked; Katherine’s guardian—the balding, nasal-voiced man called Grimston, glared from the corner, where he was exchanging terse words with Simon.
Lady Katherine suddenly pivoted. Her hands were locked together at her waist, an angry grip by the livid color of her fingers. “Who are you?” she burst out.
“Katherine,” came the low, oily admonition from the corner. Sir Grimston stepped forward. “Perhaps we should go—”
“No.” Katherine came toward Nell, elegant in a collar of diamonds, her hair piled high, her face pale, her eyes a touch wild. “You can’t—I can’t—” Her hand lifted, trembling, as though to touch Nell’s cheek, but at the last second, her fingers curled away as if from a flame. “You’re …”
“Yes,” Nell managed. “I think so.”
“Enough,” said Grimston. “This is a very clever sham, Kitty, but you mustn’t—”
“A sham,” Katherine whispered, staring at her. “You’re wearing my mother’s bracelet. Her necklace. Are you a sham?”
Nell took a breath and looked down at the emeralds on her wrist, at the pristine white elbow gloves that disguised the hands beneath them, the rough calluses on her palms, the freckles that spotted the backs of her knuckles. “No,” she said softly. She looked up. “I don’t think so.”
Katherine opened her mouth. Shook her head as if the words wouldn’t come.
Nell knew how she felt. She felt the empathy quicken her heartbeat and draw her forward. Her own hand unsteady, she reached out to take Katherine’s.
They stared at each other. It just … didn’t seem possible that they were so much alike. That this gorgeous creature, who’d walked into the drawing room so casually, who faced her now in a fortune of diamonds, whose face had looked down at her rags in Bethnal Green, could be related to her.
Blood.
Her twin.
Katherine blinked, tears threatening to fall. “Where have you been all these years? Why didn’t you come back to me?”
“I didn’t know. I didn’t remember. I couldn’t.”
“Oh!” A soft, shaky syllable. The hand in Nell’s turned, gripped her fingers hard. “Was she very cruel to you?”
“No,” Nell said softly. “She was … I thought she was my mother.”
Katherine let go, physically recoiled a step. “That monster! Your mother!”
“I didn’t know,” Nell said. “How could I know?”
“But you must have felt it!” The girl’s voice turned pleading. “Didn’t you—miss me? Didn’t you long for your sister? Not a night passed that I didn’t wish for you, pray for you to come back—”
Nell shook her head, mute, miserable. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just didn’t …” Know.
How hadn’t she known? Seeing this girl before her, she found her own ignorance astonishing. Hideous. Shouldn’t she have known she was missing the other half of her?
“But where were you?” Katherine took a sobbing breath. “Father looked and looked—did she take you from the country?”
“No. I was right here in London. So close. Only in Bethnal Green.”
“Bethnal Green …” Katherine frowned. “But that’s … the East End? Dear Lord,” she gasped. “And you … you lived in such filth? How did you—” She looked Nell up and down, as if searching for proof of the tale on Nell’s body. “How did you survive it?”
“I worked,” Nell said—and realized too late that the question had been rhetorical: the shock, the horror on her sister’s face, gave that away. “Respectably,” she stammered. “Proper jobs, at factories.” It didn’t seem to penetrate; Katherine’s mouth had fallen agape. “Not anything—low,” she said. “First I made boxes and then I rolled cigars.”
“Cigars!” The girl laughed: a high, hysterical sound. Trembling fingers covered her mouth. “Oh, my God.” She turned toward Grimston. “A factory girl?”
“Ludicrous,” he said flatly.
“Can you imagine—” Katherine wheeled back to her. “What people will say—”
“Calm yourself,” said Grimston. “Nothing has been proved yet.”
“You look so like me,” Katherine said slowly. “But …” Her eyes narrowed. “You say you didn’t remember me? I remembered you—I remembered my sister every day of my life!”
Nell swallowed. “I can’t explain it. But—”
“How could you forget?”
“I don’t—”
“You were in the same city, so close, but you never once tried to come home?” Katherine retreated another step. “You can’t be her,” she said hoarsely. “Cornelia would have tried—” She shook her head. “You’re not Cornelia,” she hissed. “I never forgot. Never. My sister never would have forgotten me!”
Nell sucked in a breath. The words scraped over her like razors. Caused her ears to burn. To be turned on so quickly—did this girl not have eyes? Did she not see?
Oh, yes. Katherine saw, all right. She was looking at Nell now like a bug that had just crawled out from under the carpet.
Anger felt good. Like a cure. What right had this girl to judge her? Of course Lady Katherine had remembered: she’d had the whole world reminding her of what she’d lost. Probably had been pitied and coddled every time she’d wept. She’d never had to lift a finger her whole bloody life. How dare she judge?
Nell spoke hard and sharp, with scorn—aimed at this girl and at herself for letting such a creature wound her. “Sure and I’m not your sister,” she said. “Funny how quickly your mind changed once you found out that I’d done a bit of honest labor. I suppose you’d be happier if I’d been locked in a box all these years.”
“How dare you.” The girl turned to Grimston, lifting her chin, announcing it: “This is not my sister.” Her voice suddenly trembled. “My sister is dead.”
“Curious,” Simon said. He was suddenly beside Nell, his hand a warm, steady pressure on her back. “You felt so strongly to the contrary in the courtroom last autumn.”
“Enough,” Grimston harrumphed. “This was wicked of you, St. Maur—”
“Rushden,” Simon said mildly.
“—bringing her here, imposing her on these unsuspecting people! And you—” Grimston faced Nell, his face purpling. “You, young lady, are either a very clever confidence artist—”
“Aye,” Nell said sarcastically, “it took an awful lot of work to end up with this face I’m sporting. I do confess, I wonder why I didn’t choose a prettier one.” She sent a pointed look toward Katherine, who bridled.
“A natural daughter of the late earl,” Grimston said curtly. “Of that, I’ve no doubt. But whether you are a deliberate fraud or the innocent, ignorant victim of Lord Rushden’s evil games, I cannot say. Nevertheless, you should know that you are testing dangerous waters with this stunt. We will prosecute you for fraud and extortion—”
“And isn’t that the Aubyn way,” Simon said. “So warm, so familial.”
“You mustn’t think you can simply swan into a room of your betters and find welcome. The insult!” The man glowered. “The effrontery! Your claim will be easily disproved. There are distinguishing marks, evidence of which you”—Grimston directed a venomous look at Simon—“have never been made aware of.”
“Nor Lady Katherine, apparently,” Simon said.
The girl in question wiped the puzzlement from her face. “You know nothing of me,” she snapped at him. “You’re a boor and a blackguard and a—the worst sort of gentleman—not a gentleman at all, but a wolf in sheep’s clothing! You drove my poor father into an early grave—”
“Save it for the stage,” Nell cut in.
“We’ve endured enough of this.” Grimston straightened and turned to Katherine’s chaperone, snapping his fingers at her as though to call a dog. “We will speak through our lawyers. Rushden, you may depend on hearing from me.”
“Oh, I do,” said Simon. “You owe my wife a considerable sum of money, I believe. Something near to … nine hundred thousand pounds?”
A strangled noise burst from Katherine. “Beyond vulgar! To see my father’s station reduced to this—to you—who would play such a cruel and tasteless joke—when I have longed to see—oh, I cannot bear it!” She spun on her heel and fled from the room—Grimston and the older woman following.
As the door slammed behind them, Nell stood stock-still, gripped by astonishment, dumb with it.
A gentle hand closed on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” Simon said quietly. “I thought—” His laugh was brief, humorless. “I didn’t think,” he corrected. “I didn’t expect to see them here tonight, but no matter—it was terribly sloppy not to plan for it.”
She shook her head. What difference did it make how she’d run into them? “No wonder Mum took me,” she said. “My … other mum, I mean.”
“Yes,” Simon said after a moment. “Or what a pity that she did.” His fingers traced her cheek, and to her shock, she realized she was weeping. “What a terrible crime,” he said. “You deserve so much better.”
“Do I?” she whispered.
Not a night passed that I didn’t wish for you, Katherine had said.
But then she had taken it back: those words were not, after all, for Nell.
These tears seemed to ooze like pus from a wound. She felt infected, dirty, contaminated by this knowledge she hadn’t wanted or asked for. I am that lost girl, she thought, and there is nobody left who wants me back.
The landau was spacious. On the drive to Lady Allenton’s, Simon had taken the opposite bench to avoid crushing her train. Now he settled down beside her, causing her silk skirts and underskirts to crunch and shush in protest.
“I should have gone about this differently,” he said as the coach started forward. “Should have insisted …” He sighed. “Had she been prepared, it might have gone differently.”
Nell shrugged. Her tongue felt dead in her mouth. Now that her tears had dried, she felt embarrassed by them. The weeping seemed like a betrayal of herself. She’d spun such foolish dreams about what would happen when she met her sister. So much for them. Why should she care whether or not the bint acknowledged her?
Because that bint was her sister. Nell had looked into her face tonight and felt … an unspeakable wonder. You could know me. You’re one of mine.
Only it wasn’t true. Katherine Aubyn wanted nothing to do with her.
“Of course, it makes no difference either way,” Simon said. “Her support would have been helpful, but sixty of London’s most prominent persons acknowledged you tonight. That’s a triumph by any angle. And tomorrow, every newspaper in town will be declaring your return.”
There was a persuasive flavor to his voice. He was trying to hearten her, to charm her into sharing his view of things, just as he’d done with all those guests tonight.
His effort made her throat tighten. She reached blindly for his hand, lacing her fingers through his, not looking at him. This sadness rising in her seemed too large, too sharp, to manage with reason or words. Her skin would split with the effort to contain it.
Mum, what did you do?
Jane Whitby had robbed her of the chance to know the people who’d rightfully belonged to her. Her mother, her father, a sister who would have loved her.
Simon’s hand turned in hers, his grip firming. “There’s no cause for concern,” he said.
“Right.”
“Do you believe me?”
She nodded and leaned into his body. She supposed he knew more about her chances in a court of law than she did.
“You did brilliantly, you know.” His knuckle skated down her cheek. “We could not have hoped for a better performance.”
The words pierced her. Aye, it had all been naught but a performance. She’d enjoyed herself grandly, with the glee of a girl who felt she was getting away with something. But Katherine had seen right through her. A factory girl, she’d said with scorn.
Maybe the viscountess hadn’t been fooled, either. Perhaps that hadn’t just been jealousy jaundicing her manner. “Did you sleep with Lady Swanby?” she asked.
He tensed beneath her. After a long pause, he said, “Before I met you. Yes.”
“And now?”
His hand caught her chin, lifting it so their eyes met. The shadows suited him, emphasizing the stark beauty of the bones of his face. “Now I’m married,” he said.
A moment passed. His gaze remained intent, unwavering.
“All right,” she said softly.
The landau lurched to a stop at an intersection. She pulled away from him on the pretext of looking out the window. Under the bright lights of the shops, dozens of pedestrians paraded in Saturday evening finery, the gents’ canes flashing with fake gold plate, aigrette feathers bobbing in the ladies’ long hats.
“I’ll never know half of what she does,” she said to the street scene.
“Katherine?”
Slowly he said, “I think you misunderstand the matter of the viscountess. It wasn’t … significant, in any regard.”
She willed herself not to say anything more. But her fears wanted out. “It doesn’t matter, though. I don’t know anything about music, Simon. About how softly a man should touch the keys.” A gulping little laugh spilled out of her. “If he touches the right ones, that’s enough for me.”
“And there are countless things you know that I don’t,” he said readily. “But we can learn from each other, Nell.”
She shook her head. He knew all the right things to say. That was the gift of his charm. This voice in her gut told her that his charm wasn’t empty: he meant what he said.
He meant it right now. But would he always?
She turned back toward him, putting her face into his shirtfront, inhaling the scent of starch, the citrus of his cologne, the smell of his skin. She wanted so much to believe in him. It was an ache in her, this need to believe.
His arms came around her and the feeling of them was beyond a miracle. Here was why God had made arms in the first place. Now she knew.
It came to her that guarding her heart was a fool’s errand. She’d already lost it.
A tapping noise intruded into the silence. She felt his chin brush the top of her head as he looked toward the noise.
She bit her lip. She knew the cause of that tapping. Somebody was hungry outside in the night. “Give him a coin,” she whispered.
His chest vibrated beneath her ear as he spoke. “I’m not carrying any.”
Her eyes came open. The anger leapt up in her so quickly that she knew it had only been waiting for an opportunity. It was easier to be angry than to hope.
She withdrew from him in one jerky movement, grabbing the reticule that she’d discarded on the opposite bench. A lady was meant to carry nothing but a handkerchief, smelling salts, and perhaps a vial of scent. She jammed her hand inside, feeling for the coins Simon had handed over, laughing, when she’d collected on their billiards-game wager. She didn’t meet his eyes as she yanked down the window and thrust out her hand.
The beggar woman had gray hair, a face carved by time and too many cares, a threadbare shawl around her bony shoulders. She reached up with gnarled, shaking fingers that fumbled the coin. As the coach rocked forward, her head dropped out of sight. She had gone onto her knees to recover the best luck the night would bring her.
Nell sank onto the bench where her reticule had rested, putting her opposite Simon, who was staring at her as though startled into some dark revelation.
What he said was: “You carry coin in your purse?”
Aye, and I’ve gone on my knees, too, she thought. I’ve scrambled for a coin tossed by some pretty woman’s hand. Right before she’d taken to thieving, she’d done it. I’ve crawled in the mud and I’ll be damned now if I travel without a coin when I have one.
There were so many things he didn’t know that she’d never tell him. A hundred or more crowded into her mind, suddenly—among them that she had nothing to teach that he’d care to learn. What she knew was how to make a shilling or a pot of soup stretch further. How to use a candle flame to mend a crack in gutta-percha. The best time of day to find a likely bargain at the butcher’s. The safest road home in the dark.
What came out of her mouth was: “I’m not ashamed.”
He leaned forward. “You don’t need to be ashamed,” he said fiercely. “By God, Nell—what cause have you for shame? Katherine Aubyn is a silly, spoiled child. The viscountess is a vapid piece of fluff. Their opinions count for nothing.”
She tried to smile. “I know,” she said. She had the easier part in this marriage: she’d seen both sides of it, now, whereas he’d only ever know his own world. She couldn’t teach him the feel of the mud between her fingers as she’d scrabbled, or the hard strike of the ground against her knees as she’d knelt. He had no way of guessing that even now, after glorious meals in which she filled her belly, the memory of hunger still buzzed deep in her bones.
She didn’t want him to guess. She liked that he didn’t see the weakness and fear in her, that small, cowardly part of her that never felt safe. If he ever managed to see it, he’d look at her differently. And oh, how she liked the way he looked at her now.
“What is it that troubles you?” he asked. Frustration edged his voice, but she didn’t take it amiss: she knew it wasn’t aimed at her.
“I’ll never belong to your world.” She spoke carefully, with all the honesty she could offer. “Even after twenty years, Simon. Or forty.” The memory of hunger would still be inside her. It would prevent her from taking good fortune for granted as he did.
“But nobody belongs to that world, Nell. Nobody feels as if they belong, at any rate. They’re all watching each other—fearful of the laughter coming from across the room, wondering to themselves, are they the target? Are they the joke?”
She bit her lip. He thought she was afraid that she’d be judged by his circles and found lacking. Evidently it had never occurred to him that she feared the lack in herself.
“They don’t feel that way when they’re with you,” she said. “You make them comfortable.”
“Not entirely,” he said. “Never entirely. It’s a world of pretensions, you see—not of substance. No one feels able to be fully himself.”
His words reminded her of a puzzle from this evening. “Is that why you don’t put your name to your music? You let people think it’s somebody else’s because you’re afraid they’ll make a joke of it?”
He frowned. “I’m not afraid,” he said. “I’ve told you, I don’t look for anyone’s approval. Not in those circles.”
“Don’t you think you’re owed some approval? For your music, I mean?”
“Perhaps. It doesn’t signify to me.”
She looked down at her hands. Moments like these, she felt the distance between them most keenly. He spoke of his own indifference as though it were a style he’d chosen, but she knew indifference to be a luxury that only the fortunate few could enjoy. At that moment when she’d dived to her knees for a passing coin, the whim of some glittering woman had been everything in the world to her.
He made an impatient noise and moved off the opposite bench to sit beside her. Taking her face in his hands, gripping hard, he looked at her. “Tell me,” he said.
She swallowed. He was a creature designed expertly to terrify her—not her dreams come to life, but rather the sum and total of everything she’d never even allowed herself to dream. “I can’t explain it.”
“You can,” he said. “If it’s not Katherine … then is it the injustice that troubles you? That beggar woman, I mean? You have the power to change that, now. You realize that, don’t you?”
So earnestly he spoke, trying to untangle her thoughts, to understand her. “That, too,” she whispered. But she was selfish. He was what troubled her most. This ache where my heart should be, she thought. That troubles me.
It was a sweet ache, though. How amazing to recall now that second night she’d known him, and how poorly he’d painted himself as he’d tended to her eye. She’d believed every lie he’d spoken of himself: a ne’erdo-well with nary a care in the world apart from his pocketbook.
But bad lies had a way of coming quickly unraveled. She lifted her hand to his face, cupping his hard jaw, returning his searching look with one of her own. He was kind and frighteningly clever, quick-witted and funny and—though he’d probably deny it with a gun to his head—sensitive. He did care what others thought. Otherwise he’d never have worked so hard to hide his true face, and his music, from the world.
“You’re a good man,” she said. “Do you know that?”
He mistook her meaning. “You’re right to care,” he said. “It should bother us. And those do-gooders who do nothing—you can teach them differently. As I’ve told you, everything is possible for you now.”
She felt herself smile and then his fingers were tracing that smile. “That’s better,” he whispered.
“It is,” she agreed. She pulled down his head and pressed her lips to his, asking for the taste of his tongue. He gave it to her, pressing her back against the squabs to kiss her in earnest, his hard arms coming around her, scattering her fears like night creatures from light. Teeth, tongue, a dark, sweet assault. His grip was firm, declarative: he had her and so here she would stay.
She slid her hands up through his hair and dug in, hard and harder yet. He made a faint noise of surprise but kissed her even more fiercely. No attempt to loosen her grip or pull away. He wouldn’t yield, wouldn’t give. She loved that about him.
She was the same.
The thought sparkled through her like fireworks lighting a moonless night. Here was their common ground: this obdurate place in each of them, hard and insistent as diamond. Here was the substance to bind them. Cut from the same hard stone, they would be bound together; they would hold each other hard. Katherine hadn’t wanted her but he did; he had married her and would keep her.
She took his tongue deep in her mouth as she reached for her skirts. Inch by inch the foaming silk and lace filled her hands, until her calves and knees were bared. Then she bucked beneath him, knocking him back, clambering over him to sit astride his thighs.
She felt his soft, hot sigh on her throat as she pressed their bodies together. He was tall, broad, light on his feet but so solid in his bones, the muscle of his spread thighs supporting her so easily, his grip on her waist sure and firm. How marvelous to be him; how marvelous to be against him. He felt like the answer to every curiosity she’d ever had, a promise of more surprises to come, always good surprises; he never disappointed her.
She wrapped her arms around him, holding him fast as she moved against him, not letting an inch open between their bodies. Her balance was unnecessary; he had her. He would hold her. The only cause for concentration was this kiss, building like a storm between them. She arched as his fingers dug into her spine; she wanted to slip inside his skin and inhabit this wondrous body of his, to know what it was to move through the world as he did. That old Irish prayer, the road rising to meet you: the world rose to meet him; it clamored for him. There was magic in him and she wanted it.
Her cloak slid from her shoulders, thumped at her feet. His teeth slid down her throat. A little scrap of lace, a fichu, lodged between her breasts; he took it away with his teeth, deliberately, intently. His hands slid down her body, and she grew aware, suddenly, of herself more than of him: with his lips pressed now to the upper curve of her breast, his soft, heated murmur was muffled, too vague to interpret but … worshipful in tone. This man wanted her—she was well worth the wanting.
She laughed softly, exultantly. Her hand between them found the thick length of him, traced his outline through his trousers. Oh, yes, this was where she wanted to be, with her skirts knocked up above her knees and him beneath her, always. She wrestled with the tab, suddenly impatient, wanting all of him, his skin against hers, his cock inside her.
He growled in her ear, the thrust of his hips pressing his erection into the palm of her hand, thin fabric separating them for another infuriating second. And then he was free, springing into her fingers. She guided him into her, slowly sank down onto him, a long breath escaping her at the sensation rippling through her body. He filled her so certainly, as though he’d never known a moment’s doubt of her. His hair brushed against her skin, the strong, hot pull of his mouth on hers now echoing how he penetrated her below.
She closed her thighs around his lean hips, squeezing hard, and moved over him, her nails digging into his muscled shoulders as she rose and fell. Mine, she thought. Mine.
He was hers and she was not letting him go.
In the days that followed, something shifted inside Nell, so she felt as though she walked slightly off-balance. Aslant, the world appeared at new angles to her, revealing all kinds of joys she’d never guessed at.
She spent the mornings abed with Simon. Afternoons they passed reading to each other in the library or walking in the park. They toured the British Museum and debated the paintings. They returned to the house through the mews to avoid the newspaper reporters who’d taken to congregating on the pavement, despite the bobbies’ best attempts to drive them away.
Inside, they rarely took their hands off each other.
In the evenings, Simon played the piano. His music dazzled her, and then, afterward, he translated its mystery into words, explaining to her how music might be a science as well as an art. She came to understand what Lady Swanby had meant by one man’s piano being another man’s pianissimo. She laid her own hands on the keys and laughed as he guided her through simple scales. He kissed her where her neck met her shoulder and told her she had magic in her fingers.
She turned on the bench and drew him down beside her and showed him exactly what sort of magic she could work with her hands.
They dined together. They read side by side before the fire. They acted … domestically, as husband and wife. She spoke to him honestly, and only moments or minutes afterward did she remember, as though part of an irrelevant past, that she might have cause for caution.
But one sunny morning after breakfast, a note arrived that made her realize the fragile foundations of her happiness. Scrawled in Hannah’s unsteady hand, it mysteriously promised some news to do with Michael. Despite mention of her stepbrother, the invitation to visit should have overjoyed her, for she missed Hannah terribly.
The invitation did not overjoy her. It raised a bolt of panic sharp enough to steal her breath.
She looked up, through the bright light of the morning room, at the footman who’d brought the note. He was young, slim, with a smooth, hard face that revealed nothing as he said, “Shall I wait to take my lady’s reply?” But in his pale eyes she saw a shrewd glint that said he’d missed none of it: the broken penmanship; the misspelling of Simon’s direction; the lack of a seal; the cheapness of the thin, brown envelope.
“No,” she said. “That will be all.”
When he left, she followed him into the hallway, the note crumpling in her sweaty palm, bleeding ink across her skin. Five steps down the hall, she realized her intention: she was going in search of a place to burn this note—as though Hannah’s friendship was something sordid, to be denied and rebuffed.
The thought shamed her into stopping. She loved Hannah. She longed to see her. But if she accepted this invitation, Simon would want to go with her. He was so curious to know how she’d grown up. He’d asked a hundred questions about her youth, but she saw only now—in a blinding instant—that she answered him so freely because she knew it would never occur to him to ask the questions she truly dreaded to answer.
She took a long breath. So what if he saw her comfortable in the rookeries? What did she care if he was disgusted? Aye, she’d lived over a pig slop most of her life, with fever in the flat next door nine months out of the twelve. So what? What did she care for his judgments?
But these questions, which once might have stirred a healthy, solid anger, no longer worked to insulate her. She did care. She cared for his opinion more than anything. And once he saw how it was in Bethnal Green, his imagination would begin to wander down darker, truer paths. Instead of asking about her responsibilities at the factory, he might ask instead, How did you travel safely at night? How did you keep clean without running water?
It was easier to care for a woman when you did not have to imagine her being grabbed and groped by drunkards on the road, or scratching at the pricks of nits and lice.
Once he saw her in Bethnal Green, he’d realize that beneath these fine clothes still breathed the sort of girl a man like him would pass in the street without a backward look, were circumstances different.
She closed her eyes, hating to think such a thing of him. Hating herself, even, for thinking him capable of such small-hearted snobbery.
A sound caught her ears: his voice, coming dimly through a doorway down the hall. The low timbre triggered some dumb reflex that pulled her lips into a smile—and the smile, in turn, acted like a medicine. As her eyes opened, she suddenly could not doubt him.
Let him come with her. She trusted him not to judge her. And once he saw her in Bethnal Green and did not treat her differently for it, then she would have no cause in the world to doubt him.
His voice was coming from the study. She started forward, smoothing out the note, her heart drumming faster. Hannah has some news for me concerning Michael, she would say. No, I’m not sure what it might concern, but I thought to pay a visit. Perhaps, since you’ve seemed curious about the Green, you might wish to come along—
She was lifting her hand to knock when the conversation inside registered.
“—look so very bad,” someone was saying. Not Simon. That was Daughtry’s voice, she thought—the lawyer. “We guessed that Grimston might go to one of the newspapers, so we mustn’t be too surprised.”
Since her appearance at Lady Allenton’s, the newspapers had been full of speculation about Lord Rushden’s new countess. Only this morning, she had discussed with Simon the possibility of giving an interview to a friendly reporter.
“I’m aware of that,” came Simon’s sharp voice. “But the rest of these pieces speak of her fairly. Surely there’s no harm in making a public remark on yellow journalism.”
“I understand that you wish to decry the article,” Daughtry said. “However, I’ll say it again: I strongly urge you to ignore the whole business. Acknowledging these allegations may endanger your claim to ignorance in the case that the countess is ruled a fraud. It would become much more difficult to end the marriage.”
End the marriage.
“But that’s no longer a concern,” Simon said—distantly, dimly, through the pulses suddenly thundering in her ears. “I’ve no interest in an annulment.”
“Of course,” replied the lawyer. “Nevertheless, it would be wisest to proceed in a manner that keeps every option available for you. Surely we can agree on that.”
Every option?
She turned away from the door, staring blindly across this fine, quiet hallway, the handsome wood and morocco paneling, the stone busts with their haughty noses: it all looked unfamiliar suddenly. Nothing to do with her. And she could not catch her breath. She was panting like an animal, cornered, tricked into a cage.
End the marriage.
That ceremony—she’d feared the minister a fraud. But all along, it had been the groom playing the trick on her. All the while, Simon had known that the marriage could be undone.
She found herself walking toward the lobby. Where was she going? Fool, her footsteps clipped as she stepped onto the checkerboard tile. Fool, fool, fool.
The stairs. She put her palm on the balustrade. He had been planning all along to put her aside if she was ruled a fraud. My God, she thought. The steps towered before her, an endless climb; her bones felt brittle and rusting; her joints ached. I hurt.
She climbed slowly, too slowly: the conversation had come to a quick end, and now, below, in the entry hall, Simon and Daughtry spotted her. She heard Simon call after her. It took all her effort, with one hand on the banister, to keep moving. It seemed important not to stop. She throbbed as though she’d been slammed into a wall. Why should she hurt like this? The banister was so smooth; he’d slid down it laughing like a boy, carefree, untroubled by his lies. She’d followed him down, so happy that it had felt as though she were flying.
This bloody house! The first night she’d entered it, she’d known it would end her.
The tears came all at once, a hot flood of grief that leaked from her slowly, steadily. She shouldered them away. Such a fool, she was, with no eye for reality, only stupid hopes. She’d trusted her mum. She’d trusted him. Clear enough, now, that she couldn’t trust herself.
Good God. Take him to the East End to dispel her last doubts, would she? A strange laugh ripped from her throat.
“Nell.” His arm hooked around her waist, firm, startlingly hot. He caught her, and with her momentum broken, she could do nothing but stand frozen, wobbling a little as he physically turned her to face him.
When he looked into her face, his own went pale. “What is it?”
She wet her lips. I heard you.
But when her lips moved, no sound came out. Some instinct demanded she keep quiet. He could get rid of her whenever he liked. Better not to displease him.
My God, she thought. Once again, I must keep a master happy for my keep.
His grip tightened. “Are you all right? What’s happened?” He looked down, but her body, of course, showed no injuries; her innards were shredded but he saw nothing amiss.
His eyes locked onto her hand; he took the note from her fingers, reading it quickly before looking up. “Has something happened to Hannah? I don’t understand. The mention of your stepbrother is ominous, but the note seems calm enough—”
God forgive her, that she’d scrupled to welcome Hannah’s invitation for fear of what he might think. Hannah was worth ten of him. Hannah always had stood by her, whereas he had always planned to leave her if his plot didn’t go as planned.
She saw the puzzlement come over his face and felt a spiteful, horrible pleasure at causing it. How easily his life had been laid out for him. He’d planned all the while to knock her out of it if she made it more difficult.
She didn’t owe him a word of explanation. She owed him nothing. She couldn’t bear to look at him right now, much less speak to him.
“I’m going to see her,” she told the space over his shoulder. Her voice wasn’t her own. Low and choked. Why did this hurt so much? If she had lost her heart, she could take it back. She would not let herself hurt like this.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll have the vehicle brought around. Wait here.”
She watched as though from a great distance while he turned and bounded back down the stairs, athletic, so damnably concerned. He always knew the right face to wear, the best attitude with which to charm a girl. But it was a thin mask indeed, for it covered the face of a liar.
Why had he lied to her? They’d married on the cold hopes of a fortune. He might have told her that he planned to end the marriage if she was not found to be Cornelia Aubyn. He’d have lost nothing by being honest.
She put her fist to her chest, where it seemed a great weight was slowly crushing her. What profit had he hoped to gain by lying?
Had he told her the truth, she’d never have gone to his bed.
Knowing the marriage might end, she would never have risked getting with child by him.
She swallowed hard against the urge to vomit. God save her if she was pregnant. God save her if she’d bring another creature into this world to tremble and dance at a rich man’s whim!
“All right,” he called. Climbing back to her, he said, “Five minutes.”
Her sluggish brain pointed out that he was pulling gloves out of his pocket, putting them on. “You’re coming?”
He gave her a look of surprise. “Of course,” he said. “I wouldn’t let you go alone.”
“Of course,” she echoed. Aye, he knew how to play the attentive husband. He was a hand at crafting appearances. Why not? He could order the world to conform to his wishes. He would lie when it suited him, as long as it guaranteed his comfort. She’d never seen him less than confident.
But not in the Green. The Green was her world. He’d not be comfortable there. “Good,” she said.
Some note in her voice caused him to frown. “Is it the mention of Michael that troubles you? You needn’t worry—”
“No. It’s nothing.” Nothing troubled her but him, and he wouldn’t do so for long. She’d not cater to his good opinions a moment longer. She’d learned her lesson now. It had seemed like a fairy tale because it had never been true. Now she saw the truth. His judgments were as rotten as his word, and just as useless.
Her anger sharpened into resolve, spiteful and hot. Let him see the truth, then. Let him see her as she truly was.
Let him try to charm away the disease and poverty, too. Let him try to stay comfortable in a lane filled with sewage. In the East End, his brand of charm got you nothing.
Aloud, she said, “You’ll want to change your clothing. Put on your shabbiest if you’re coming to the Green.”