“Here you are.”
She inched to one side so Crispin could step out to join her. An hour had not passed since her return. Had her outburst been in vain, then? She would not regret it, either way. It had hurt her to speak harshly to people who had been nothing but kind to her. But their kindness had become an unbearable hypocrisy, the more unjust for all the times they had denied it to him.
He seemed content to stand beside her, breathing the night air. Spring was fully upon them now, all the flowers in bloom. But their novelty had worn off. She could no longer smell them. “So?” she asked at last.
“So.” His hand found hers. She did not have the will to pull away. Not yet, at least. “You’re a fearsome woman in a temper.”
“I take after my mother that way.”
“I would have liked to know her.”
The darkness above offered no features to admire. So she stared fixedly into the darkness below, the square terraced garden where the kitchen staff grew herbs. “She was clever, and witty, and a great collector of jokes. She was my father’s fiercest champion; he had not been raised to expect greatness of himself. He would have remained a businessman, I think, had it not been for her. All her charities—she did not take them as lightly as a lady should. She wept for the people she couldn’t help. And she railed at the injustice of it. And she infected him with her passion, and gradually she persuaded him to do what she couldn’t.”
He lifted her hand. She felt his mouth in the dark, warm against her knuckles. “So the blood runs true.”
She drew a ragged breath. “My mother never lied, though.”
He turned toward her. She could not make out his face, only the silhouette of him. But perhaps he saw better in the dark. He hooked a curl away from her cheek, the movement unbearably tender. “Shall we go inside?” he asked. “Or shall we settle it here?”
“In the dark,” she said roughly, “would be easier.”
“But you’ve never taken the easy way.” The faint sound that escaped him sounded like a laugh. “The scene you left behind . . . the clamor they made. The confusion, the protests . . . and then my sister speaking out. ‘Well, she is right,’ she said. ‘And if you all won’t admit to it, then Richard and I will walk out, too.’ ”
Her breath caught. Bless Charlotte. “And then?”
“And then . . . tears from my mother. My father tried to steady her, but she wouldn’t have it. She turned on him as you had turned on her. The very same tone, in fact. Telling him that they had much to account for. And then . . .” A kiss on her brow now. “Apologies, Jane.”
“Oh.” Her eyes closed. “That is . . . good. But not enough.”
“A start,” he murmured. “Exactly what I wanted. I didn’t know, until I heard my father admit to his failings, to . . . apologize for not having routed Farnsworth . . . how much I needed to hear it.”
Her last chance. No additional harm could be done, surely. She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
He embraced her in turn, pulling her so hard against him that her breath wheezed. Harder, she thought. Crush me, imprint me with you.
But then he eased back. “Come inside with me now.”
Nerves jumped in her stomach. She stepped inside her bedroom quickly, walking ahead of him, pacing to the bed, bending to reach under the mattress.
“Here,” she said as she turned, holding out the marriage certificate.
“Is this what you wanted from the General Register?”
“Yes.” Say it. “It’s fake.”
His brows lifted as he took it. He glanced from the sheet back to her. “Indeed? A forger for a clerk?” His tone balanced carefully between humor and puzzlement. “He didn’t look the type.”
“The forger was the late archbishop whose demise Mr. Gaultier informed us of. He drew up the marriage record. You never proposed to me, Crispin. We were never truly wed.”
He took a breath as though to speak, then blinked and sat down. She locked her hands together at her mouth, ground her knuckles into her lips, and braced herself through pain.
They stared at each other.
“Well,” he said at length. “This, I hadn’t guessed.”
His next pause seemed to last forever. She could not move, could not breathe.
He lifted the certificate, tilting it toward the light of a nearby sconce. “Remarkable,” he murmured. “I didn’t know he was quite so good as that.”
Confusion weltered through her. “He?” She had imagined this moment so often. Had anticipated his disbelief and then his rage. Had rehearsed her own defenses. But it was not going to plan. She stumbled over her next words. “He, the archbishop?”
“I doubt anyone else could have managed it.” How dry he sounded!
“You—you knew that he made false marriage lines? Five years ago, you knew?”
His gaze concentrated on her with a hawklike sharpness. “Better to ask what I knew even yesterday. The woman you are, Jane—you never would have married the man I was. And that man—he would never have married you.”
Concise truth, coolly spoken. It smarted regardless. She should feel grateful that he remained so calm. Instead, tears pricked her eyes. “I might have married you,” she said dully as she sank onto the bed. “To escape my uncle, I might have done anything.”
“Balderdash.” He leaned back in his chair, kicking his feet out and crossing them at the ankles. The casual posture, his conspicuous ease, felt grotesque, somehow mocking. “Since you began this conversation so truthfully, you may as well see it through the same way. Let me guess how it went: you heard that I’d been attacked and was not expected to live. You saw the chance to solve your problem: you would marry a dead man.”
“You cannot be so calm,” she whispered.
He flashed her a horrible grin. “Oh, I’m not calm. If you could take the measure of my pulse right now, you’d send for a doctor. But—bloody hell, Jane, what is there to do?” His laughter sounded wild. “The archbishop is dead and the government calls you my wife. Who’s to disprove it now?”
She recognized the cutting edge in his voice. It belonged to Mr. Burke. “You can disprove it.”
“Oh, yes, a fine idea. After managing to hide the injury to my brain, I will have it announced in three-inch headlines.”
She was angry now. “Is that all? It’s a scandal you fear? A divorce will be scandal enough! And Mr. Gaultier will ensure that you look the guilty party—”
He rose with such sudden, athletic force that she shrank back on the bed. Seeing her recoil, he twisted his mouth.
“It is not the scandal,” he said darkly, “that concerns me. It is your continued need for a villain. If it can’t be me—why then, it must be you. You didn’t tell me this news hoping I might understand your deception. You don’t want my understanding, or my forgiveness, either. No, you were hoping for my anger. That . . .” He paused, clawing a hand through his hair. “Why, that is why you had it out with my family tonight. Your final tribute, before I shoved you off. Oh, you wouldn’t leave when I wanted you safe—that would be too messy. You wanted a clean break, and me to cause it.” He swore. “Divorce, Jane? Have you already hired Gaultier to file the suit?”
“No,” she cried, and then, with a forced false laugh, “Listen to your nonsense! To divorce, we would first have to marry. And the moment you recover your memory—”
“Oh, to hell with that.” He came prowling toward her with a look that should have alarmed her but sank hooks into her belly and tugged. “You should be grateful to that man. The man you think I was—the man you fear I’ll become again—was precisely the man you needed.”
She threw herself to her feet. “You don’t—”
“Do you imagine that forgeries are sold on the open market, easy to buy as eggs? Or that you would have found some boy in a ballroom able to outwit your uncle? You needed me. Him.”
She swung around the bed, putting the mattress between them. “What of it? He was—”
“You
exploited him, Jane, as much as he did you. What makes you so afraid? That he will return? Or that you might realize you’re more like him than your conscience can bear? If he was a villain, what were you?”
She opened her mouth. But the wind felt knocked from her.
He gripped the bedpost, staring at her. “Oh, you had good cause to dislike him,” he said with terrible patience. “But this loathing you claim to feel for him? It grows tedious. It grows suspect. It’s useful to you, somehow. It makes a salve for your conscience, a justification for having gulled him. But no matter the reason, you used him. He wanted power. You wanted freedom. Both of you did whatever it took.”
She shook her head. “I—that’s not—”
“And as for me,” he said forcefully, “the man before you now—you want to see me as the innocent victim, the very opposite of him. But you’re wrong. He and I are one and the same. That is the other truth you don’t wish to admit. That is why you keep insisting that all will change once I remember. Because if it doesn’t, Jane—then you’ll be forced to see that there is far less difference between him and me than you want to believe.”
Her cheeks were stinging. She had braced for his rage, but this was worse. This offered no punishment, and no chance of atonement, either. He laid her bare to herself, in a few devastating words.
“Here is something else. Neither of us, he or I”—he offered her a brief, unpleasant smile—“has any intention of divorcing you. Or of accusing you of fraud. Or of mistreating you, abandoning you, or whatever your fearful brain has fancied. You, Jane, are the wife I want. And a fine thing.” He crushed the paper and tossed it onto the carpet. “For the law says you are the wife I have.”
She kicked the paper. “You are full of talk!” she screamed. “But talk all you like—I know you! And yes, you were a villain—but a villain I owe this much: to be free of me, once you remember!”
He seized her wrist and yanked her against him. “I remember.”
Her heart was drumming. She could barely hear through the rush of blood. “Wh-what?”
“You heard what I said.” His thumb stroked forcefully over her cheek, angled her face toward his. “You’re simply amazed that I haven’t sprouted scales and horns to announce it.” He gripped her chin. “Look at me. Men can change. Especially when fate intervenes and gives them a reason to do it. I am the man I am, in this moment, because of you. Not because of a head injury. And not . . .” His jaw flexed. “Not because I can’t remember otherwise. I remember it all, Jane. Barring the days before the attack.”
“What—how—” Her mouth had come unhinged from her brain. “When?”
“Three nights ago. When I woke beside you.”
And he had not told her!
Her vision contracted. He had remembered, and said nothing of it. He had sat across from her and asked her to explain Elland to him. Then, in the coach, he had asked her to look kindly on that other man he had been—
That man who was him.
She recoiled. He grabbed hold of her again. “Listen to me,” he said sharply, but she shoved him, broke free.
“What a great joke you made of me!” Her voice felt like an animal twisting from her throat. So much for respect. So much for trust! “Asking me if you might not have improved in time—” No wonder her answer had wounded him!
A pulse beat in his temple. “It was a fair question. Although I disliked the reply intensely.”
She stared at him, some great tumult of emotion quaking through her, making her tremble. His face was still beautiful, unchanged by his recovery. But those lips could cut now, for they had remembered their old smiles. His mouth could turn brutal. She remembered that first, awful kiss.
“Need no one, trust no one,” she whispered. “That’s who you are. You are toying with me. You’ll grow sick of me soon.”
His expression turned stony. “You admired that advice. You followed it yourself.”
She flinched. “We are nothing alike.”
“Liar,” he said. “Or is it cowardice?”
“Oh yes, I’m a liar indeed!” She swallowed. “Both of us, liars. No trust at all. What a fine basis for marriage!”
He reached for her, but she shied away. His jaw tightened. “There is trust here,” he said. “I trust you.”
She scoffed. If he truly trusted her, he would have told her instantly when he remembered. Only one fact would have made her believe he was truly changed. “Did you remember everything before you disowned your bill in the Commons? No!”
“I remembered,” he said fiercely, “before you sat in on my meetings to offer political counsel. I remembered when I arranged for the dinner with my family tonight. Had I not remembered, Jane, would those acts have meant more? They would only have proved something about who I was not. Instead, they show you who I am, now and here.”
“What a pair we make,” she whispered. Lies upon lies. “I—” She could not think clearly with him in the room. “I am going.” She needed time to think. “I need to be—” Elsewhere. Safe.
But from whom? The conspiracy shadowing this man? Or the man himself?
“I have to go,” she said.
His hands had made fists. But he said neutrally, “Of course. Charlotte, I am sure, would be glad to host you.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Charlotte proved remarkably tolerant of being interrupted at half past ten by two people whose icy silence seemed to frost her foyer. She was glad to host Jane for the night; it would be delightful, in fact. She showed Jane to a handsome bedroom done up in yellow silk, rang for hot milk and more pillows, and then pretended to leave before turning back at the door.
“I hope you don’t mind my asking. Is everything all right between you and Crispin?”
Jane had settled onto a pale settee by the window with a book. “The speech in the Commons set off a furor,” she said. “It’s become a perfect madhouse over there, what with all the constituents and hangers-on and the reporters . . . I hope my presence here doesn’t pose an inconvenience to you.”
Charlotte sank down beside her in a draft of warm air and spiced perfume. Her smile was soft, her regard inquisitive and curious. “You’re family, Jane. And whether you believe it or not, our parents did raise us with a great loyalty to family. I don’t know how Crispin became the scapegoat for so long, but I do know we’re in great debt to you for forcing us to see it squarely.”
“I doubt Lord and Lady Sibley feel so grateful for it.” She had wrecked her chance to have a family again, one that reminded her of her own.
“Oh no!” Charlotte squeezed her hand. “They do feel grateful to you. If they were staying in town, you’d know it by tomorrow, from their very own mouths. But they mean to go to Chestleigh for a few days.” She cleared her throat. “That is where it happened, you know. And where Jonathan is buried.”
Her miserable anger shifted, now all for Crispin instead of herself. “So once again, they place a ghost above their living son.”
“I think they go to lay that ghost to rest,” Charlotte said after a moment. “You didn’t stay, you didn’t see their faces . . . Things will be different now between them and Crispin.”
“That decision isn’t entirely theirs. Crispin was on the heels of victory, feeling generous.” But he was a man who never forgot a word spoken to him, much less a slight. Her uncle had always said so. Crispin Burke had mastered the art of a grudge. He’d lost faith in her uncle after the parliamentary debates about the uprising; thereafter, she saw now, it had only been a waiting game, as Mr. Burke looked for a way to declaw him. Elland had been his weapon.
Crispin Burke did not forget or forgive. It wasn’t in his nature. That he’d lied to her about remembering was the proof of it.
Eventually, like his triumph in the Commons, his passion for her would wear off as well. And then he would come to dwell on the wrong she had done him. It would appear in a new light to him—the original sin that explained his growing discontent with her. He would begin to look for a way
to punish her for it. It would not take any secret as dark as Elland, either. Somewhere along the way, she had lost her defenses against him. He would crush her so easily.
He would stop asking her counsel on politics.
He would stop caring what she dreamed about.
He would lose patience with her ambitions.
But she would be destroyed long beforehand. All it would take was his first show of contempt.
“Your brother won’t forget their old treatment,” she said.
“What a cynic you are,” Charlotte murmured.
Mr. Burke had said something similar once. Jane had discounted his remark. But maybe he’d been right.
“I have seen very few happy endings in this world.” Not the world of her parents, but of polite society, of power.
So leave it. Board a ship, find another place to belong. That was the solution. Why was she hesitating? Why was she here, rather than at a hotel?
She could go now. She had the means to stay anywhere she liked. The Carlyle, even. But as she gathered herself—slowly, her muscles feeling rusted—Charlotte made a soft, exasperated sound and stood.
“Sometimes I wonder if you know my brother.”
Jane gaped. “Sometimes I wonder if you do.”
Charlotte’s jaw squared. “Only since I was born, Mrs. Burke.”
Jane felt obscurely stung. “And through the last five years? Did you know him on the nights he came to visit my uncle, to lay plots in the parlor at Marylebigh? Or were those five years before his . . . change . . . simply an aberration, to be discounted entirely now that he once again suits your tastes?”
“How you talk about him sometimes! As though you loathed him!”
They stared at each other, Charlotte clearly waiting for a denial. But Jane felt too stubborn to offer one.
“I knew him then, too,” Charlotte said at last, forcefully. “I knew him when my first fiancé jilted me, almost at the altar. He was the only one who didn’t ask what I had done to cause it. He said, ‘I’ll handle the bastard, if you like.’ He said, ‘There’s no cause to go hiding in the countryside. Come stay with me if you don’t wish to go to Chestleigh.’ He said, ‘Why should the whispers even touch you? Hold your head high, Lottie, so high that you no longer notice the jackals sniping below.’ He has always been a brother to me, Jane—the brother I turned to when I needed help, when I needed comfort, when I needed courage. Do you think I was glad to see him so changed? Confused and not himself? I mourned for him. But I was glad to see him happy after so long. I thought you were the cause for that. That alone was the silver lining, but it was more than enough for me. All I’ve ever wanted was someone to be as good to him as he has been to me.”
A Lady’s Code of Misconduct Page 29