by Evie Dunmore
“There is no question that you did,” he said coolly. “The question is, why. Why, Caroline? I had an election to win. Why not wait before carrying tales to Her Majesty?”
She carefully set her cup on the table between them. “I was not sure you would win the election without . . .” She bit her lip.
“Without what?”
She released a sigh. “Without an intervention from the only authority you accept. Before matters with Miss Archer became too public. I confess I never expected the queen to react in such a manner.”
He gritted his teeth so hard, it took a moment before he could speak. “You had no right.”
She folded her hands in her lap, a small, sinewy knot against her blue skirts. “Had word got out that you were jeopardizing your name for a country girl, the opposition would have used it to shoot your credibility to pieces. Had I approached you directly, you would have put me in my place.”
“And so you went behind my back,” he said, and damned if she didn’t display an utter lack of repentance.
“The prison director told his wife,” she said. “Apparently, it doesn’t happen often that a duke walks into his office at night to personally extract prisoners. His wife unfortunately is a gossip, and before I could blink, every lady on the committee knew that you had freed a number of suffragists and a few thieves, and had threatened to personally shut down Millbank, and no matter how much of that is hogwash, these ladies went home to their husbands, and half of those men are not your friends.”
“Do you think I wasn’t aware of that risk?”
“Of course you were,” she cried. “The very fact that you obviously chose to ignore it is what frightened me. Why not call in a favor and send some other peer to do it for you?”
“Ask another man to jeopardize his reputation on my behalf?” He shook his head. “And I always tend to matters personally when they pertain to the people I love.”
Caroline paled. “Love. Montgomery, this isn’t like you.”
“Don’t presume to know me,” he said softly.
“I know enough,” she shot back, the knuckles of her clasped hands bone-white. “I’m keenly aware why you asked me to be your lover. You are reluctant to use courtesans, and your code of honor forbids you to bed your own tenants or staff, or to cuckold men below your station. Likewise, you wouldn’t take up with the wives of fellow dukes. I was tailor-made for your needs: a widow, an equal, and in close proximity. Sometimes I wondered how you would have solved this conundrum if our estates didn’t share a border.”
The slight quiver to her chin was far more revealing than her words.
“Be assured I was fond of you for your own sake,” he said. “Other than that, I fail to see the point in your rant.”
A humorless smile curved her mouth. “The point is that nothing you do is ever impulsive. And from the start, your actions over Miss Archer defied rules and reason, beginning with you galloping around the county with her on your horse. I didn’t believe it until I saw the two of you together. The very way you look at her—”
He cut her off with a dark, dark stare.
She swallowed. “History is riddled with men brought to their knees by a pretty face,” she murmured. “I could not just stand by and watch. I couldn’t.”
“It is remarkable, the things women do to try to save me from myself these days,” he said.
A glance at his pocket watch said the fifteen minutes of a social call were over.
On his way to the door, she called out for him. And for old times’ sake, he turned back.
She stood, perfectly composed again, like a steely reed at the center of the room.
“She is a lovely young woman, Montgomery. Society will bleed her dry by a thousand cuts if you officially make her your mistress. In such matters, the woman always bears the brunt.”
“I’m aware.” He nodded. “Good-bye, Caroline.”
Chapter 32
A light rain fell over Parliament Square, redolent of spring, of tender greens and wispy white cherry blossoms. New beginnings, Annabelle thought, whether one was ready for them or not. She handed a suffrage leaflet to an elderly earl striding past. She knew him from sight; he might have sat in front of her in Claremont’s music room a while back. He took her leaflet with a nod, and she moved on to the next man, slowly working her way to the entrance to the House of Lords. Catriona and Lucie were behind her, catching whichever gentleman had slipped her net. Hattie should be waiting for them now in the Ladies’ Gallery, as that was something her father allowed. Luckily, Julien Greenfield had never found out about Hattie having been in the thick of the demonstration a few weeks ago. But the headlines they had made had put the Married Women’s Property Act back onto the agenda of Parliament, though Lucie predicted that the peers would spend hours debating an inane import tariff just to avoid ever discussing women’s rights, mark her words.
The gallery was surprisingly uncomfortable, considering that some of the peers in the chamber below sometimes had their lady wives watching from here. The ceiling was too low, a grille separated them from the men, and the air was stuffy with the smell of rain-damp hair and fabrics.
“Be glad the old chamber burned down,” Lucie murmured when she saw Annabelle tilting her head this way or that to get a clear view through the dizzying pattern of the interstices of the grille. “Women then had to sit in the ventilation shaft to listen in on meetings. I hear it was boiling hot.”
“One could almost suspect they don’t want women to watch them make laws,” Annabelle muttered.
Down in the chamber, the peers began debating the first point on the agenda—a possible half-percent tariff increase on Belgian lace.
The droning speech of one of the lords was disrupted when the door to the chamber creaked open again. Someone was running late.
“His Grace, the Duke of Montgomery,” the usher announced.
Annabelle froze in her chair, shock turning her blood to ice.
Of course he would be here. He’d be the last man in England to shirk his political duties.
She didn’t dare move, as if catching a glimpse of his blond head would turn her to stone.
She felt Hattie’s hand on her arm, the soft pressure helping to quell the chagrin ripping through her.
She had made her choices. Sensible choices.
Perhaps one day, when she was ninety years old, they would feel like good choices.
“My lords,” she heard him say, “I request to bring the Married Women’s Property Act forward on the agenda.”
The sound of his dispassionate voice sent a powerful wave of longing through her. So much so that the meaning of his words didn’t register until Lucie muttered a profanity under her breath.
“Request approved,” said the Speaker.
“My lords,” Sebastian said, “I request permission to speak on the Married Women’s Property Act.”
A bored “Aye” rose from the benches. “Permission granted,” the Speaker said.
Annabelle gripped the edges of her chair. Cold sweat gathered on her forehead. Knowing Sebastian was only a few dozen feet away and feeling all her senses come alive in response was distressing, but witnessing him launch a tirade against women’s rights, in front of her friends no less, would be unbearable. She fumbled for her reticule. She had to leave.
“Gentlemen, many of you will remember the speech John Stuart Mill gave on the floor of the House of Commons fourteen years ago,” Sebastian said, “the speech where he claimed that there remain no legal slaves in Britain, except for the mistress of every house.”
That elicited a few Boos and calls of “Shame!”
A small hand touched her knee as Annabelle made to rise. “Stay,” Lucie murmured. “I have a feeling this could become interesting.”
Interesting? It was nerve-racking, being forced to endure his presence so soon, when her heart t
hrobbed with the phantom pain of a severed limb . . .
“The problem is,” Sebastian went on, “when one compares a married woman’s current legal status and the definition of slavery, it requires a great deal of self-delusion to ignore the similarities between the two.”
The peers made ambivalent noises.
Annabelle sank back into her chair. What was he saying?
“We try to smooth over these technicalities by investing women with other powers, more informal powers,” Sebastian said, “and there is of course the matter of keeping them safe. The world of men is a brutal place. And yet women visit our offices, approach us in the streets, and send us petitions with tens of thousands more signatures every year to ask for more freedom. They feel that their safety comes at the expense of their freedom. And, gentlemen, the trouble with freedom is, it isn’t just an empty phrase that serves well in a speech. The desire to be free is an instinct deeply ingrained in every living thing. Trap any wild animal, and it will bite off its own paw to be free again. Capture a man, and breaking free will become his sole mission. The only way to dissuade a creature from striving for its freedom is to break it.”
“My goodness,” Hattie whispered, her eyes searching Annabelle’s uncertainly. “Is he on our side?”
“It appears so,” Annabelle mumbled. But why? He had made it perfectly clear that it would harm his interests to do so.
Indeed, a stony silence had fallen over the chamber.
“Britain has avoided the revolutions of France and Germany because here in this chamber, we always knew when we were approaching a tipping point, when it was time to make a concession to the people to keep the peace,” Sebastian said. “The suffrage movement is rapidly gathering momentum, and what will we do? Will we strike back harder and harder? I for my part am not prepared to try to break half the population of Britain. I am in fact unprepared to see a single woman harmed because of her desire for some liberty. I therefore propose a bill to amend the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870.”
The collective gasp in the Ladies’ Gallery was drowned out by the shouting on the floor below. Annabelle didn’t remember rising, but she stood, her fingers curling over the grille brass work like claws.
Sebastian stood at the opposite end of the chamber, and even from here she could see his contemptuous frown as he surveyed the tumultuous scene before him.
“To any suffragists in the Ladies’ Gallery,” he said, his voice rising over the noise, “I say—brace yourselves. For many people, your demands amount to a declaration of war on the master of every household. It is a war you will not win in the foreseeable future. But today, you gain another ally for your cause. I hereby resign from my role as election campaign advisor.”
“No!” Her outcry echoed through the chamber.
Sebastian’s head jerked toward her.
He couldn’t possibly see her here, behind the grate, dozens of yards away, and yet he caught her eye.
The world seemed to slow on its axis as their gazes locked.
“No,” she whispered.
Sebastian folded up his paper, never taking his eyes off her. “And, gentlemen,” he said, “I am leaving the Tory party.”
Chaos erupted.
Annabelle turned on her heels.
“Annabelle, wait,” Hattie called out, but she was already squeezing through rows of stunned spectators to the exit. She hasted blindly along the corridor, her blood pumping in her ears. What had he done? His life’s mission depended on him winning the election.
She skipped down a flight of stairs. A startled footman swung back the heavy entrance door for her, and she bolted into the open. Wet droplets hit her face. The light rain had morphed into a roaring downpour; the skies had turned the color of iron.
“Annabelle.”
She heard him clearly over the rain.
How had he caught up so quickly?
Because he is always one step ahead.
And her body was driven to flee, its animal instincts shrieking that he was out to catch her again.
She would not escape him today.
When his hand wrapped around her arm from behind, she whirled. “How could you?” she cried. “How could you do this?”
He was grasping for her flailing hands. “Do what?” he said. “Do what?”
“You quit your party, and your role as advisor?”
“Yes,” he said, and made to pull her close, and she twisted out of his hold like an angry cat.
“You have just caused a tremendous scandal for yourself!”
“I have, yes.”
He was already drenched, his hair plastered to his brow, the icy blond darkened to silver. Rivulets of water were streaming down his face and dripping into his starched collar. He hadn’t even put on his topcoat before coming after her.
“How could you,” she said, her voice breaking.
Sebastian’s eyes softened. “A very clever woman once told me to think about on which side of history I want to be,” he said. “I made my choice today.”
“Oh, don’t,” she said. “I have no part in making you commit this . . . self-sabotage.”
He shook his head. “No one can make me do anything. I decide who or what masters me.”
“Then why? Why did you decide to ruin yourself?”
Buffeted by the elements, pitching her voice against the roar of rain, she felt like the trapped wild creatures he had mentioned earlier. She noticed her hands were gripping the lapels of his coat.
“I’m not ruined,” he said, “but what I have done for far too long is make decisions that satisfied my duty, but not my personal integrity. The two are not always the same, I found.”
She should step back. She should let go.
He raised a hand to cover hers, and his energy surged through her like an electric current, and her heart thumped its first beat in a week. She might as well try to let go of a lifeline.
“The queen will be furious,” she managed.
He nodded. “She is. I was at the palace before coming here.”
“But what about Montgomery Castle?”
His face shuttered. “It’s lost,” he said softly. Lost. She sensed a sadness, resolve, but no regrets.
Had he known she’d be in the gallery today?
Through a veil of rain, she saw a small crowd gathering at a safe distance away. They were causing a scene, standing so close, the duke sopping wet, and she realized she was not wearing her coat, either. Water ran down her back like a river.
“I’m going to France for a while,” Sebastian said conversationally.
“To France?”
“Yes. Brittany. I remember it is nice in spring.”
So he would be a country, not a county away. Her foolish heart twisted with anguish.
“How about you?” he asked. His hand had wandered up along her arm and slipped around her back. Not much was missing for an embrace. “Have you accepted your professor’s proposal?”
“No,” she said dully.
His hand urged her a little closer into the shelter of his body. “Why not?” he murmured.
The rain had made his dark lashes spiky. How she wished she could be immune to his unlikely charms.
“Lucie made me an offer,” she said, “to help her with a new women’s journal.”
“And that is why you didn’t accept Jenkins?”
“He is a good man. He might not think he needs it, but he should be with a woman who truly loves him.”
A faint smile tilted Sebastian’s lips. “And you don’t truly love him?”
His other hand slid around her waist, and she stood in the circle of his arms, quivering like a doe ready to bolt. Too late.
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t love him.”
His mouth, smiling and damp from the rain, held her transfixed, and remembering how
it felt, both firm and soft, made her want to feel him against her lips. It mattered not that half of Westminster was watching now. Nothing mattered but feeling him again, absorbing the tender gleam in his eyes as he looked down at her. God help them, the pull of attraction between them had not eased, and probably never would, and the restlessness never ceased until they were close. Two halves of a soul, reunited, knowing they would be parted again in minutes.
She raised her grave eyes to his.
“I’m in love with you,” she said. “I love you so much that I’d rather be on my own than with another.”
He gently brushed a sodden curl back behind her ear.
“Come to France with me,” he said.
“Please. I don’t have the strength today to resist you.”
“Then don’t,” he said. “I understand my eligibility is much diminished. My ancestral seat is lost, I’m persona non grata at court, and there are going to be very unflattering cartoons about me in the press for the next year or so. Also, as a divorcé, I cannot marry you in a church. But all I have left would be yours, Annabelle, if you will have me like this.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I’d have you with nothing but the clothes on your back.”
He held himself very still. “Is that a yes?”
The sensation of balancing on the edge of an abyss gripped her, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. One word, and she’d take a mighty plunge. She had thought it took all her courage to build a life of her own, and now, swaying on the precipice, she understood she had to be even braver to give herself, heart and soul, into the hands of another and build a life with him.
Sebastian’s arms tightened around her ever so slightly, and she gave a strangled laugh. Come what may, this man seemed ready to catch her.
“I don’t know how to run a palace,” she sniffled.
His hold on her trembled. “You study at the best university in the world,” he murmured. “Something tells me you will be a quick study.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He swallowed hard. “Yes?”