“You’re an idiot.” Her voice trembled.
“That’s what I just said. I never did have any sense.” But he didn’t leave. Instead, his arm crept around her. His body warmed hers. He wouldn’t leave; she was sure of it. Sure of him, when he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers again.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured.
“My darling scoundrel.”
He let out a little laugh. “Precisely. I’d rather leave you wanting than stay and earn your hatred.”
And then he did pull away. The air was cold in his sudden absence; the night was dark. He gave her one last smile—as cocksure and arrogant as any he’d ever given her—and then he began to walk away. Really walk away, as if this were all over.
“Edward,” Free called before he’d made it six paces.
He paused, straightening, and then half-turned, looking back at her.
“We both know you’ll return,” she told him.
For a long while he stood, not saying anything. Then he shook his head.
“I know,” he said. “I never did have any sense.”
Chapter Fifteen
“ALL I WANT,” EDWARD SAID, “is to know if he dictates a letter with her name in it.”
His brother’s secretary sat across the table from him, a glass of ale in front of him. Peter Alvahurst frowned primly, as if he were pretending to have morals.
“I don’t know,” he demurred.
Alvahurst had been the one to bribe Mr. Marshall’s undersecretary in the first place. Edward knew precisely what sort of man he was, even if Alvahurst would not admit it.
Edward took a second banknote out and set it on the table between them. The surface was sticky with layers of spilled ale.
“I understand your concern,” Edward said smoothly. “I don’t want you to reveal the contents—that would be wrong, of course, and you aren’t the sort of man who would betray his employer for money.”
“Too right.” This was said with a self-righteous nod.
Mr. Alvahurst was precisely the kind of man who’d meet a shady character in a darkened pub and let that man dangle money in front of him. But Edward had always found that preserving a man’s illusion of himself was more important than simply offering money. Let someone think himself upright and honorable, and he’d slit a man’s throat for a halfpenny.
“You know how much difficulty your employer’s last encounter with Frederica Marshall caused him,” Edward said. “And I know how loyal you are to him. We’re much alike, you and I. We’re looking out for his interests.”
“That’s true.” Mr. Alvahurst licked his lips and glanced at the ten pounds on the table. There was no evidence at all that Edward was looking out for Delacey’s interest—no evidence but Edward’s word and ten pounds. Edward took out a third note, but he didn’t slide this one any closer. He held it lightly, letting Alvahurst know of its existence.
It had been three days since he’d left Free in the mews. Three days, in which he’d tried to convince himself to walk away as he should. Three days, during which he’d heard her words ringing in his ears. Y’ll return.
No.
He knew what he did, and what he did well. If he came back to her—really came back—he’d start telling himself lies, just like Alvahurst here. He’d tell himself he was noble, that he was doing things for her.
He could feel the tug of all his old dreams.
Free wasn’t naïve and she wasn’t stupid. But she believed in a future—believed in it so hard that she made him want to believe, too. He could almost see that garden she’d talked about, blossoming with every step she took.
And he’d told her the truth of himself: There was nothing left to him but a scoundrel.
And so the scoundrel in him smiled at Mr. Alvahurst. “So just send a message, a short one, if he mentions Miss Marshall. We both know he’ll do it, so you won’t be telling me anything I don’t already know.”
Only now, when Alvahurst was most vulnerable, did Edward add that third banknote. That made the stack on the table worth half a year’s wages to the man. Alvahurst shut his eyes. And then slowly, as if savoring the moment, he reached out and pulled the notes to him.
Edward simply smiled. He might not be able to keep Frederica Marshall, but at least he could keep her safe.
And maybe, just maybe, he could give her one last thing before he walked away from her for good.
FREE HAD NEVER QUITE believed that Edward would disappear entirely, but days passed with no word from him.
So when he appeared late one afternoon, she felt a frothy, bubbly joy, one that could scarcely be contained.
He stood in the doorway of her office. He was, as always, the consummate scoundrel. He leaned against the doorframe, smiling—almost smirking—at her, as if he knew how rapidly her heart had started beating.
If that was how they were going to do this…
She simply raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Oh,” she said with a sniff. “It’s you.”
“You’re not fooling anyone,” he said.
She could feel the corner of her mouth twitch up. Last time she’d seen him, he’d kissed her so thoroughly she had not yet recovered.
“I’m not?”
“I heard it most distinctly,” he told her. “You might have said ‘It’s you,’ but there was a distinct exclamation mark at the end. In fact, I think there were two.”
“Oh, dear.” Free looked down, fluttering her eyelashes demurely. “Is my punctuation showing once more?”
His eyes darkened and he took a step into her office. “Don’t hide it on my account,” he growled. “You have the most damnably beautiful punctuation that I have ever seen. You make a man feel greedy.”
She couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
“It’s a shame,” he continued, “that I’m not here to be greedy. I’m here to say farewell and to leave you a memento.”
All that bubbly, incandescent joy turned to sharp crystal. She inhaled slowly, looking up at him. He was smiling still, but there was a sadness to that smile.
“Shall we go for a walk?”
“You mean,” he said pitching his voice low, “should we escape the view of your employees and find a nice, empty field hereabouts where I can kiss you senseless?”
“Yes.” She would not blush. “That is what I mean.”
That flare of want, the way his hand clenched at his side before flattening against his trousers… She could almost feel him on the verge of acquiescing. But instead, he shook his head. “We’d better not. It was painful enough stopping the first time. As I said, I’m here to give you a present.”
“How exciting.” It wasn’t. She didn’t want a present. “So you brought me a present. Is it a nice present? Will I like it?”
“Not particularly,” he responded. “And I don’t know.”
She laid her hands on her desk and sighed. “Drat. I was so hoping that you’d somehow procured the right to vote for women. That would have been lovely.”
That won her another smile. And oh, what a lovely smile it was, lighting his entire face, lighting the entire room. But he simply shook his head again. “Miss Marshall, you had better learn to be more acquisitive and less political. Until then, I suspect any presents you receive will always disappoint you. Do you wish to be the sort of curmudgeon who hates Christmas?”
Even now, she couldn’t work up a proper outrage against him. “Oh, very well. You’ve convinced me. I don’t wish to hate Christmas.” She gestured; he entered her office, shut her door, and then seated himself. This was as far as they’d come since their first meeting weeks ago: They were still on opposite sides of this desk.
She looked away from him, lining up her inkwell with her pens and pencils. “I knew you would come back.”
He leaned over and deliberately turned one of her pens at an angle askew with all the other implements. “When we finish this conversation, I’m going to stand up and walk out of this room. I won’t stop until I reach the train station
. I’ll be across the Channel by tonight.”
Her chest squeezed. She let out a long, slow breath. But he returned her pen to a straight line and leaned back in his chair.
“There are too many things I haven’t told you.” He looked her in the eyes. “But the first thing you should know is that I don’t just want you in my bed for a week or two. I want you forever.”
She felt as if she’d been thrown back against the wall. Her lungs did not seem to be functioning properly. But he’d said it so smoothly that she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.
“I don’t always take everything I want.” For an instant, a glimmer of a smile passed over his face. “No doubt this attack of morals is temporary on my part. Suffice to say that if I stay much longer, I’ll begin to forget all the reasons I’m terrible for you. Selfishness makes a man lie to himself, and while I have no problem being selfish, you make me want to tell myself the sweetest lies. And while I’ll lie to the entire world, I don’t choose to lie to myself.”
“What sort of lies?” she asked.
His lip curled sardonically. “The worst sort, Miss Marshall. You make me think I could be someone.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
She frowned at him.
“Nobody good. But I believed I was. Once.” His hand shifted to cover his jacket pocket as he spoke. “My family was wealthy. Not so socially exalted that we could do whatever we wished; we stood just high enough to be hampered by every last expectation.”
He’d rarely spoken of his past. Free sat, waiting for him to continue, afraid that if she so much as breathed too loudly, he wouldn’t go on.
But he did. “I was friends with the son of one of my father’s servants. Good friends.” He set his hands—still gloved, she noticed; she’d never seen him take off more than the one glove. “A little unusual, I suppose, but there weren’t many other boys my age about. Normally, such friendships vanish when a boy goes to school.” Edward shrugged. “This one didn’t. When I was seventeen, his father was kicked by a horse in the course of his employment. He fractured four ribs and broke a leg in three places. He wouldn’t have been able to work for months. Rather than granting the man time to recover, my father hired someone new in his place. After twelve years of service.”
Free sucked in a breath.
“Of course I spoke up. It was unjust, and this was my friend being cast out, with an injured father who would have no way to make a living.”
“That was good of you.”
He shook his head. “That was foolish of me. There’s nothing more stupid than telling dangerous truths to a man who controls your life. By that time, I had some fairly unusual political notions.” He smiled vaguely at that. “Reading is dangerous. I thought we could organize a mass response among the tenants, demanding—ah, well. Never mind that. It didn’t go well. The tenants balked, and instead of revolting, they told my father. The end result was that my father realized, after years of ignoring me, that I had developed dangerously plebeian sympathies. So he didn’t just toss my friend and his family out on their collective ear. He had my friend and his brother whipped for attempted rabble rousing. In front of me.” He let out a long breath. “And then he banished me. He had it put about that he was sending me to France to work with the masters. For my art.
“He did send me to France. But he sent me to live with a blacksmith in Strasbourg, not some painter in Paris. He thought I’d get a taste of manual labor, of the life of a regular man, and I’d recant all my beliefs in exchange for a taste of white bread and the comfort of a valet.” That smile twitched up even more. “It didn’t work. For two years, it didn’t work. And then war was declared with Prussia. I asked my father to send a letter of credit so I could return home; he refused. I went to the consulate in Strasbourg before the army arrived, only to find that my family had told them there was an impostor pretending to be me in the environs. I was ejected without assistance.”
Free made an involuntary noise of protest. He had already told her what had followed—have you ever seen plaster dust ignite in the air? He’d hinted at far more.
“So I vowed I’d never go back to them. I had my art, and what is art but the second cousin of forgery? It’s odd—lie about the world long enough, and everything in it stops feeling real. As if I’m nothing but a figment of someone else’s imagination. I don’t dare lie to myself, or I’ll lose touch completely.”
There was a great deal he hadn’t told her. She could tell it from the uneasy shift in his shoulders. “I imagine it wasn’t as easy as knocking off a forgery right away.”
He tensed. “Nothing is ever easy.”
“Nonetheless.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he finally spoke. “My father thought he could change my character with a little discomfort. He was wrong. It took pain.” He looked away. “Someday, try forging a letter of credit and delivering it to a man who is worse than you.”
That night after the fire seemed so distant—even though it was scarcely a week past. But Free could recall the words he’d given her late at night. Pain is a black ink. Enough of it and you can blot out a man’s soul.
“On second thought.” He gave her a brilliant smile, one that almost broke her heart. “Don’t try it. You don’t want to know what will happen.”
“Was it very painful, then?”
His lip quirked in disgust. “Just enough to prove I wasn’t the resilient white knight I believed myself to be. I was a liar and a fraud and a cheat, just like everyone else. I needed to learn that lesson.” He took a deep breath, and then he looked up at her. His eyes met hers. They sparkled with that look she knew so well, that black humor that she’d come to care for. “I didn’t much mind until now.”
Her heart thudded in her chest.
“I don’t think I can stop being a liar and a fraud,” he said. “But, for the first time in a very long while, I’m beginning to believe in something.” His voice dropped. “In someone. I’m sorry, Miss Marshall, but I can’t let myself do that.”
She could scarcely breathe. She didn’t know what to say. She only knew she couldn’t look away from him, couldn’t have told him to leave no matter what he revealed at the moment.
“There.” He brushed his hands together. “That’s said. It’s a pack of lies.” He shrugged. “It’s as honest as I know how to be at this point. That’s why I’m leaving, Free.” He looked over at her. “I brought you something.”
He reached into his jacket pocket. His hand closed on something—something large enough that he had to turn his wrist to get it from his pocket. She caught a flash of gray metal.
“Here.” He reached out and set the piece on her desk. “It’s a paperweight. You have papers; I thought you might put this to use.”
Free leaned forward and picked up the piece he’d placed before her. It was heavy and yet intricate. The paperweights she had seen before were fussy blown-glass balls encasing pleasant flowers. This bore no relation to those things. It was a single strip of iron, worked into a curlicued ball. The metal doubled and tripled back on itself. It was warm from resting in his pocket; the edges were rough against her skin. And yet it seemed surprisingly delicate.
“What is it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing but a big wad of metal.”
“This is beautiful,” Free said slowly. “Beautiful and somehow, sad. And harsh. All at the same time. I’ve never seen its like. Where did you find it?”
He shrugged indifferently. “Just outside Strasbourg. Some six years ago.”
“Did you commission it yourself or did the artist have a regular stock of these paperweights?”
Edward snorted. “I commissioned it,” he told her. “It’s just a trifle.”
She didn’t think it was a trifle. She turned the piece around, catching hints of half patterns hidden in every twist of metal. “Was this to commemorate some occasion? The artist that made this was an incredible genius. The loops look random at firs
t, but they’re not. When I look at it from this angle, I almost see…a rose? There are thorns on that part, I think, and these loops from this angle form petals.” She gave it a quarter turn. “But this looks like a hawk. I could stare at this for hours.” She looked up at him and suddenly frowned. “Edward, are you well?”
“Perfectly so.” The smile he gave her was just like every smile he’d ever delivered—easy, untinged by emotion and, Free realized, utterly false. His left hand gripped the arm of his chair so tightly that his glove bunched. His other arm was ramrod straight, braced against his leg as if it were the only thing that held him upright.
He was lying to her. Of course he was; he hadn’t given her this piece because it was an inconsequential paperweight that he’d commissioned on a whim. It was because it meant something to him.
“Don’t be such a man.” Free stood, rolling her eyes. “You’ve gone pale. Here. Let me get you a glass of water.”
“I am not pale,” he said brusquely. “I don’t need a glass of water.”
She came around the desk and she set her hand on his wrist. “Your pulse is racing.”
“It is not,” he said in contradiction of reality. He had begun to breathe fast, and his skin was turning paper white.
Free rolled her eyes again. “Stop being ridiculous. Now are you going to stay here while I fetch you something to drink?”
“Hmph.”
“That wasn’t definitive agreement, Mr. Clark. Let’s try this again: If you get up now, I’m kicking you in the shins. Your shins won’t like it, and my toes will like it less.” She gave him a tight smile and ducked away.
But as she found the pitcher of water, she considered. He’d said he needed to tell her a great deal the other night, but that he wouldn’t. She’d thought he didn’t wish to. She of all people should have realized that the memories he held were so painful that he couldn’t. After everything he’d told her, she should have understood that much.