Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 01]
Page 33
Even Simon was unprepared for the outcry that followed. Foul names were flung at Lavinia, and the crowd tightened around both women until Agatha was blocked from his view.
Mobs could turn ugly at moments like these. Worried, Simon pushed forward through the crowd. He could only see Dalton towering over the rest, obviously trying to get Agatha to safety.
Someone grabbed Simon’s arm. He shook them off and continued on to Agatha. Then Liverpool pulled him roughly to a stop. “Simon, stop this immediately!”
“She’ll be hurt!”
“Etheridge has her. See, they’ve made it into the building. Now remove yourself!”
Simon turned on his superior, a snarl on his lips. “You simply stood there! You stood there and let her be laid bare to ridicule.”
“Not at all,” declared Liverpool calmly. “I made sure it happened.”
Rage boiled through Simon, and he itched to take Liverpool to pieces with his bare hands. “You made her a laughingstock on purpose? Why?”
“It was necessary. You’ve become too attached. You can’t afford such a point of weakness in your position and you know it.” Liverpool smiled then, a chill reptilian smile, and Simon understood the depths of the man’s inflexibility.
Liverpool would spare nothing and no one in his defense of England. He had precisely the ruthlessness that Simon had always cultivated within himself.
Until Agatha had come along.
“It was she who saved your life. I won’t let her be your sacrificial lamb.”
“You must. You belong to England, Simon, not to her. You are irreplaceable. She is not.”
Liverpool delivered a flinty stare, then turned away and was lost in the crowd.
* * *
Agatha closed the door to James’s room and ventured back downstairs, her weariness like a leaden cloak about her shoulders. Despite her joy that James would be all right, she could scarcely feel anything at all.
It was full night now, the end of perhaps the longest day of her life. She had not slept more than a few hours in the past three days, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could force herself to function.
She had yet to pay the physician, who disapproved of her so mightily that he refused to bill her later. She’d not even have been able to force him to come to her house had it not been for Dalton.
It had been Dalton who had stepped in to save her from the crowd and who had arranged for Jamie to be brought home. If it had not been for Dalton’s strength, she didn’t know how she would have managed.
She needed to rest before she became seriously unhinged.
When she reached the parlor, however, she found that the doctor had gone. Dalton awaited her alone.
When she entered the room, he turned from his contemplation of the fire. She was struck yet again by his picture-book perfection. He was indeed a grand fellow and was proving himself a good friend as well.
“I took care of the doctor for you, Miss Cunnington.”
“Thank you.”
He stepped forward to take her hands. “Please, you must sit. You appear ready to drop.”
“Oh, no. I dropped hours ago. I’m sleeping now, and you are only a dream.”
He smiled at that.
“You don’t smile often, do you? Neither does Simon.” She smiled wistfully. “I always feel as though I’ve won a prize when I can make him smile.”
Dalton led her to the sofa and took the chair alongside. His expression was thoughtful. “What are you going to do now?”
“I suspect I’ll stay in for a while. James needs me to care for him, and I’m not feeling very sociable.” She tried to make light of her predicament, but in truth she was fast realizing precisely what she had done.
Not that she regretted releasing Simon. It was what he needed, to be free of her. But when she considered her future and the future of the child she might even now be carrying, she felt deep dismay. It was one thing to bear an illegitimate child in sheltering isolation, but now …
She herself would likely be well enough at Appleby and in the village where she was known and loved, although if they decided to pity her it might be worse. But her child would always be ostracized by everyone who knew. And now everyone knew.
Bastards were only acceptable if they were from royalty. A chimneysweep’s child would have no easy road. And she had purposely done this to her innocent babe. Her selfishness truly knew no bounds.
“What about when James has healed?”
“Home to Lancashire, I suppose. Life in London has lost some of its appeal, I fear.”
She decided a change of subject was in order. She attempted a bright smile. “Did you know that James is to be decorated as soon as he can appear before the Prince?”
“Yes, I did know. He is to be congratulated. I believe his act of heroism will go a long way to disproving any hint of his collaboration with the French.”
She blinked at him. “You know about his involvement in intelligence?”
His smile was only slight. “Yes. I am rather involved as well.”
It was too much. Agatha began to laugh, soft, helpless laughter with a tinge of bitterness. “Of course you are. I declare, if I should pick an attractive man out of a crowd, he’ll prove himself to be a spy.”
Dalton looked surprised. “You find me attractive?”
Agatha snorted. “Utterly. You are an absolute god. Therefore, you are guaranteed to be wholly committed to something else. It is a basic mathematical formula, proven time and again. I think I’ll name it Agatha’s Theorem.”
Dalton’s reflective gaze became sympathetic. “You’ve really had a time of it, haven’t you?”
“Don’t pity me,” Agatha retorted sharply. “Not unless you wish me to collapse in a puddle at your feet.”
He held up both hands. “God forbid. Very well, I shall offer you no pity. I shall, however, offer you an option, as Collis puts it.” He took her hand gently in his. Without a speck of passion in his voice he said, “Marry me. Immediately.”
She could only stare at him for a long moment. “You are sincere, aren’t you?”
“Entirely. I think we’d suit. I need a wife to add stability to my reputation, and you need a powerful husband to salvage yours.”
“I hardly think I’ll add anything to your reputation except scandal.”
He dismissed the notion. “Gossip. It will die away once you’ve wed me.”
The thought snaked through her foggy mind that if she could wed him immediately, and manage to bed him—for he wasn’t entirely unappealing—then her possible child would be completely acceptable to the world. As Dalton’s coloring was close enough to Simon’s, she need never let on otherwise, even to him.
Another lie. She could not do it.
“Dalton, I will answer your question after you answer mine.”
“Yes?”
“Would you be able to raise another man’s child as your own?”
That threw him, she could see it in his eyes.
“You’re increasing?”
“It is a possibility.”
“But I thought—Simon didn’t seem the sort—”
Agatha smiled wearily. “I was quite determined. Simon didn’t stand a chance. Please don’t hold it against him.”
He shook his head slowly. “I won’t. But that does change things.”
She couldn’t help a pang of disappointment. A quick marriage to a man she respected would have been a bearable solution to her problem. “I rather thought it might.”
His eyes narrowed. “But not the way you think. I’d no idea the involvement was so deep. The best arrangement would be for you to work this out with Simon.”
She shook her head, a quick, painful denial. “That is not possible.”
“Perhaps,” he said with a nod. “But first, I must make certain.”
Her eyes were threatening to close with exhaustion. Agatha stood abruptly. “Fine. If you decide that your answer is yes, then mine will be yes as well.”
The stairs were a mountain and the hall an endless path, but at last Agatha closed herself into her own room. There was a fire in the hearth, but no candles were lit. Nellie must have gone on to bed.
Agatha reached behind her neck to remove the gown she had donned immediately upon reaching the house in Carriage Square. But Nellie had helped her into it, and now Agatha found that her wrenched shoulder would not allow her to undo it.
Almost weeping with frustration, Agatha tried again. She was only able to fumble a few buttons free. Then warm fingers covered hers, moving her hands gently aside.
“Let me.”
“S-Simon?” She tried to turn, but he prevented her.
Tenderly he shushed her. “I came to ease my mind about you. Let me help you, damsel.”
She stood still in the near darkness while he undressed her and laid her things neatly on a chair. Finally, he led her, clad only in her chemise, to the bed, then made her sit while his fingers worked to free the pins in her hair.
“I’d like to help you wash the Thames from your hair, but I think you need sleep more.”
Agatha only whimpered as his warm hands began to knead her shoulders. Then he lifted the covers and helped her slip between them.
“Lie down, sweeting. Go to sleep.”
She fumbled for his hand. “Stay.”
He smoothed her hair back and dropped a gentle kiss on her forehead, then one on her bruised lips. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving.”
She couldn’t keep her eyes open to watch him in the dimness, but she was aware of the sound of him undressing. Then his large warm body joined hers beneath the counterpane, and she melted wearily into him.
He enclosed her in his arms, tucking her into the curve of his body until he surrounded every bit of her.
Only then, finally, was she able to leave the world behind and sleep.
Chapter Thirty
Simon hadn’t meant to sleep. He’d intended only to watch over Agatha for the night. But his own exhaustion had caught up with him as he lay wrapped protectively about her.
When he awoke a few hours later, it took him a moment to recall where he was and why. The only immediate awareness was of warm, sweet woman cradled against him. His body reacted even before his mind truly put a name to the sensation.
Then he remembered the river and the foiled assassination attempt. And, painfully, Agatha’s very public downfall at his hands.
The entire city would have the story by morning, he’d no doubt. She’d been ruined beyond the limits of public forgiveness, and would forever be known as “the Chimneysweep’s Whore” or some other foul name.
“Let me send you away from England,” he whispered against her neck.
“No,” she whispered back.
He hadn’t known she was awake, but now he was glad she had heard him. “Why not? You could go to the West Indies. It is the perfect solution. No one will know you. You may start over.”
She rolled to face him, although he could scarcely see her in the dim final glow of the coals. He could feel her hand as she raised it to caress his face.
“I’ll not run, Simon. I ran from Reggie, and look what happened. This would only follow me, as Reggie did. If I have learned anything, it is that challenging the past is the only way to conquer it.”
“You may never truly be part of your world again. I know. I have spent my life on the outside. It is not a good place to be.”
She didn’t respond for a moment. Then he felt her move, and felt her lips gently on the corner of his mouth. “I shall make my own world,” she whispered. “And you will always be part of it, though I never see you again.”
He dropped his face into her neck. It was over, almost as soon as it had begun. Yet in their few short weeks together, he had fallen so deeply he thought he might never recover.
Her fingers entwined gently in his hair, and she softly ground her body against his. “We have this night,” she murmured.
“Yes,” he answered, and took her mouth with his. They had only hours left, and suddenly every moment counted. Every second, every sigh, every muffled cry mattered.
He had so much to prove to her, so much to reveal to her about her own soul and spirit. Assurances that he should have had a lifetime to convince her of.
“You are strong,” he whispered as he held her above him and let her ride him at her own speed, confirming her power over his heart.
“You are splendid,” he murmured into her as he took her to the peak of pleasure again and again with his mouth, teaching her the limitless pleasures of her own body.
“You are brave,” he told her as he stroked deeply into her from behind as she knelt before him, artlessly gasping her orgasm into the pillow.
“You are beautiful,” he cried into her mouth as he released into her for the last time and fell gasping to the bed beside her in the first glow of dawn.
Then she kissed him softly and replied to each and every lesson with three simple words.
“I love you,” she said. But he could not bear to answer.
* * *
Agatha woke alone, to late-morning sunlight streaming into her room. Her body ached, especially her wrists and shoulder. She was terribly weak and thirsty as well. But most of all, she felt overwhelmed with sadness.
Her eyes burned with ready tears and there was an invisible manacle of anguish about her chest. Blurrily she tried to think. Why should she wake with her heart aching so?
Then she remembered. Her loss exploded within her, and she could only curl into a defensive ball as grief tore through her in expanding waves.
She wanted to howl, to strike out, to throw everything breakable in the world against the stone wall of her pain, yet it was only possible to lie silent as hot tears ran freely onto her pillow.
There was no tantrum powerful enough to alleviate this pain. No fit of spoiled anger would begin to tap into her loss. Without anger to strengthen her, only the soul-killing sadness remained.
No one came to her all morning, and she did not ring for them. There was no room for anyone else, for her pain filled every corner.
Finally she rose to use her chamber pot, and the next blow fell. Her courses had begun.
There would be no child, and the loss of that beautiful possibility was enough to knock her to her knees.
Agatha knelt there with her arms wrapped tightly about her stomach, around what never was, until the blackness passed from before her eyes. She was weak from hunger, she realized. Not a bite had passed her lips since just before Reggie had come.
Two days? Indeed she must eat, although the thought did not appeal. She stumbled to the bell-pull to call for Nellie, then made her way back to the bed.
She was still standing with one hand wrapped about the bedpost, staring at her great empty bed, when Nellie popped into the room seconds later. The little maid must have restrained herself with difficulty all morning, for Agatha could practically see the sympathetic curiosity bubbling inside her.
“I’ve brought you some tea, miss.” Nellie set the tray upon Agatha’s small table and arranged the chair for her. Then she saw that Agatha still stood by the bed.
“Would you like your tea in bed, miss?”
The bed seemed to call to Agatha. Climb in and stay forever. Curl up and forget everything but the last night you spent with him here. You can live a lifetime in this bed, a lifetime in your memories.
Agatha shuddered. “Now that is quite simply pathetic,” she muttered. She cast a challenging glance at Nellie. “Do I strike you as pathetic?”
“No, miss?” The girl gazed at her warily, as if not sure that was the correct response.
“Precisely.” Agatha turned away from the bed and moved shakily to the table. “I’ll need a bath after breakfast, Nellie, if you please. And I’ll wear the yellow gown. The black is rather pointless, now.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Ask Cook to send up something plain, will you please? I’m not feeling quite myself today.”
“Nor should you, miss,” ventured Nellie. “You nearly died!”
“Well, I’m not dead yet,” resolved Agatha, and set about proving it to herself.
When she was fed, bathed, and dressed, her outlook was somewhat improved. She still felt as though her chest were full of shattered glass, and her eyes had a tendency to leak tears, but her strength and will were returning.
After checking on a sleeping James, who was pale, but not terribly feverish, Agatha restlessly made her way downstairs. There was nothing to do down there, either, but at least she would not feel so very much as though she were hiding out.
The table in the entry that had once overflowed with invitations held nothing but an empty salver and a vase of dimming flowers from the garden. Agatha was unsurprised.
She was a true pariah now. After all her experiences this week, she found little reason to care about the silly opinions of useless people. The only one with whom she might have enjoyed a closer acquaintance, Clara Simpson, gave her a small pang when she thought of what the young widow must think of her now. But it was only a pang.
She almost entered the parlor but decided not to subject herself to a room in which she and Simon had spent so much time together. The breakfast room was off-limits for the same reason. Finally, she ended up at the kitchen table, sharing a comfortable cup with Sarah Cook.
“I know it all seems dark now, madam, but you’re young yet. Men will come and go in a woman’s life. Fathers, brothers, husbands, even lovers.”
Agatha couldn’t help her piqued curiosity. “Did you have lovers, Sarah?”
“Did I have lovers? What a question. I wasn’t always just known for my pastries, was I?” The stout woman fluttered her lashes seductively.
Agatha managed a small smile. “But was there ever one man who was…”
“The one man?”
Nodding, Agatha ran a fingertip around the rim of her teacup. “I simply can’t imagine ever not loving him.”