by Erin Satie
Most people who knew the story praised him. But he’d never found it in himself to be proud, and he never wanted to be in a similar situation ever, ever again. No coincidence that when he’d returned home, he’d dedicated himself to growing flowers.
“It turned out,” said Loel, sidestepping the issue, “that the ship’s owner was a second cousin of mine. A man by the name of Bernard Howell. He was tried and hung here in England while I was abroad. I don’t know what my parents believed—perhaps they thought I’d been tainted by my involvement with the conspiracy; perhaps they thought I’d betrayed my family by exposing it—but that was the last straw for them. After Howell died, they cut me out.”
“Would you have spared them?” Jacob demanded. “If the decision were in your hands, entirely, would you let men who’d planned a massacre walk free?”
“No one wants to be an executioner,” said Loel.
“And yet many of us would like to take the place of a judge,” Jacob returned. “Why is that?”
“My father is a judge,” said Miss Kelly. “And he has often remarked that what is right and what is pleasant are rarely the same. I’m surprised that a man like you, Lord Loel, well educated and well traveled as you are, would be tempted to think otherwise.”
“Captain Royce cursed me with his last breath,” said Loel. “It’s not an experience I would wish on anyone.”
“Perhaps,” interjected Bonny, “now would be a good time for Mr. Benjamin to show us his beetle?”
After a brief pause, Jacob plucked a small cube of crystal clear resin from his pocket, within which he’d trapped the remains of a rainbow-hued beetle. “I believe you’re right. Here, take a look…”
Loel caught Bonny’s eye and mouthed a quick “thank you.” She touched her fingers to her lips and blew him a kiss, before turning attentively to Jacob’s lecture.
Bonny went looking for Loel after dinner and found him, predictably, in the greenhouse. He stood with his chin propped on his fist before the Odontoglossum crispum. The orchid had flourished in the rain and now sported several leaves, long tongues of green lolling about a budding stalk, but Loel’s eyes were low-lidded, his gaze unfocused. He hardly seemed to see it.
When Bonny reached his side, he stirred.
“A gardener at Kew once told me that, when all else failed and an orchid wouldn’t bloom, he’d drop the pot to startle it into action,” he said. “I thought he was mad.”
Bonny grinned. “So I saved your plant when I knocked it over?”
He slanted a look at her. “Perhaps.”
“Then perhaps you owe me a favor.”
“We’re married, Bonny.” He grimaced. “If you want something, tell me.”
Bonny hesitated. “You said we had money left over from the sale of Bowl of Cherries?”
“A good amount. You have plans for it?”
“Cordelia will need money if she’s going to have a chance on her own. If we could help… She’s very dear to me. I want her to succeed.”
“What do you see in her?” Loel asked. “She’s judgmental and difficult—”
Bonny interrupted. “Not another word.”
Loel’s eyebrows rose in astonishment.
“She has more courage in her pinky finger than most people have in their whole bodies,” said Bonny. “She is fiercely intelligent, scrupulously honest, industrious, principled—”
Loel showed her his palms in surrender. “Point taken. How much?”
Bonny hesitated. “All of it?”
“All right.”
“Truly?”
“It was your painting. If you wanted to throw the money down a well, I’d refuse. Short of that, I’m happy to abide by your wishes.”
“Thank you.”
He touched her elbow, brow furrowing. “You could have told me how much it meant to you.”
“And you could have told me what happened aboard the Incitatus.”
He nodded slowly. “Why do you think I didn’t?”
“I don’t know.” She understood his ambivalence about the hangings—she couldn’t imagine carrying the burden of those deaths on her shoulders, however justified—but the people of New Quay treated him so badly. He deserved better. “People ought to know, Loel. If they could see you as I do—you’re a good man and a worthy—”
He silenced her with a finger over her lips. “You sent me to London to sell that painting when it would have been easier and simpler just to let me forgive you. Why?”
Bonny froze.
Loel continued, every word a blow. “If you don’t think you deserve forgiveness when your only crime, as far as I can tell, was to befriend me—”
She mirrored Loel’s gesture, silencing him with a finger across his lips. They stood like that for a few seconds, arms crossed and index fingers raised like a pair of fencers, or librarians—like a pair of fencing librarians, battling to shush one another.
Bonny giggled.
Loel cracked a smile.
The tension broke. They lowered their arms and waggling fingers, and stood in the sweet air grinning at one another.
“I’ll come to you tonight?”
Bonny rose up on tiptoes for a kiss. “Yes, please.”
She returned to her room, dressed and attended to her toilette, then glanced out the window. A lantern still glowed golden inside the greenhouse. He said he’d come, but when? In a minute? In an hour? She should have asked.
She paced while the rain slanted endlessly down, pattering against her window. Her thighs were slippery. She started when the door finally clicked, then dashed across the room and threw herself into her husband’s arms.
He caught her and held her, and he didn’t ask questions. He speared his fingers through her hair and kissed her fiercely. He didn’t make her explain what she wanted or tell him how. He bore her back onto the bed and pushed her nightdress out of the way, and she didn’t have to say a word, because he knew.
He knew everything. He could see into every dark corner of her mind; he could read the desires she pretended not to understand. How else to explain it? She could not have told him that she wanted his hand rough on her thigh, spreading her legs wide, because she hadn’t known it herself. She would have swallowed her own tongue before she asked him to penetrate her without pause or preliminary.
But it was exactly what she wanted. Exactly what he gave her, thrusting hard and deep and grinding his hips into hers while she hooked her leg around his waist and responded in kind. She felt twitchy and desperate, so lost to the moment that she only registered the faintest hint of shock when he flipped her over, lifted her onto her knees, and drove into her like that.
The new position was… more. Every stroke went deeper and vibrated out to her fingertips. When he reached between her thighs, petting and plucking, she climaxed almost instantly—she’d been so ready, right on the edge, for longer than she wanted to admit.
He followed soon after, clutching her tight and groaning softly before collapsing over her. She sighed and squirmed, just to feel him respond. Which he did, rolling to his side and fitting her against him, reaching around to cup her breast and nuzzle at her nape.
She wriggled loose, felt the spurt of moisture between her legs when she freed herself, then flipped to face Loel. She touched her forehead to his, full of emotions she didn’t know how to express.
He kissed her on the lips, softly this time, and it was exactly what she wanted. Exactly what she needed. She kissed him back, brushing her fingertips over his cheek. It went on and on, kissing without any sense of urgency and almost without heat.
Almost, but not entirely. When he rolled her to her back and pushed inside her again, she welcomed him. Gladly.
She woke to warm flesh at her back, arms wrapped loosely around her, breathing in a scent that she recognized on a primal level before her conscious mind put a name to it: Loel, husband, lover.
“Wake up.” He nuzzled his nose into her ear, pressed a kiss against her shoulder. “It’s time to wake up.
”
She rolled onto her back and rubbed her eyes blearily. Loel lay on his side, head propped on his hand, his gaze roaming hungrily over her bare—
Bonny squeaked and pulled the covers up.
“Pity,” murmured Loel.
Bonny turned wide eyes on her husband.
“I need to tend the stoves.” He slid off the bed and stood before her, unabashedly naked but proud as if a first-rate valet had just finished preparing him for an evening out.
Bonny couldn’t have looked away if she’d tried. She had touched that unblemished skin, so pale in the watery light. Those muscles had held her, moved her, lifted her. Looking at him made her feel content and smug.
“Join me if you like,” he added, giving her a sublime view of his tapering back and tightly muscled rear as he strode to the door.
Bonny flopped back onto the bed with a whimper. After a few moments, however, when it was clear she wouldn’t be falling back asleep, she decided to take Loel up on his offer. She dressed, drawing a cloak about her shoulders as she descended to the kitchens. She’d have liked to follow Loel but their guests would wake soon, and she wanted to have breakfast ready.
Bonny and Loel borrowed Mrs. Twisby’s carriage to take Cordelia to the train station in Chester later that morning, a two hours’ drive away. Loel bought the ticket while Bonny and Cordelia waited at the track, crying and embracing by turns.
“This is for you,” said Bonny, folding the banknotes into Cordelia’s hand. “Write when you can.”
Cordelia tried to give the notes back. “It’s too much—more than you have to spare. I’ll be fine.”
“You will let me help,” said Bonny. “I won’t hear any arguments either.”
“But—”
Bonny put her fingers in her ears. “I’m not listening, I’m not list—”
Cordelia rolled her eyes and tucked the money into her valise. She searched through the stuffed compartment and brought out a folded note. “This is for my parents. Mail it to them, if they don’t call on you soon.”
“Of course.”
The train steamed away with a shrill whistle, and Bonny watched it go wistfully, wondering what adventures lay in store for her friend.
“You’re sorry to lose her,” said Loel.
“Sorry, happy, worried.” They were alone on the narrow lane, walking home, so Bonny threaded her fingers through Loel’s. “Do you think I’ve done enough?”
“There’s always more we can do,” said Loel, which was true if not comforting.
The Kellys arrived in the afternoon. Bonny might not have noticed their arrival since she spent most of the day in the greenhouse with Loel and Mr. Benjamin, except that she’d dashed into the main house for tea and on her way back, the cargo she’d crowded onto a heavy silver tray rattling in her hands, she heard a banging at the front door.
She put down the tray and peeked through the nearest window. She couldn’t see who waited on the stoop, but she recognized the Kellys’ carriage and their poor, sodden horse, standing patiently in the wet.
She opened the door. “Mr. Kelly? Mrs. Kelly? Would you like to come in?”
It might have been an awkward moment, but the rain made them practical. They stepped inside. Bonny had removed some of the protective sheets and dusted a bit—she’d always liked dusting—so the front hall, while dim and damp and dreary, had lost its usual funereal air.
“Bonny.” Mrs. Kelly untied her bonnet with trembling fingers and clutched Bonny’s hand to her breast. “Bonny, have you seen Cordelia?”
“Yes. She was here last night, but she’s gone already. I have a letter for you.” Bonny had placed it near to the door, expecting that they’d come. She picked up the folded paper and offered it to Mrs. Kelly. “It should explain things.”
Mr. Kelly took the letter. Bonny didn’t see much of him; he didn’t spend much time at home and hadn’t much patience for frivolities, though she’d always had the impression that he doted on Cordelia. They’d been stamped from the same mold, slim and severe, and Bonny had always liked him. She saw so much of her friend in her father.
He read silently and gave the letter to his wife when he was done. Mrs. Kelly began to cry almost immediately; Mr. Kelly simply stared at Bonny with the fierce, pale gaze he’d passed on to his daughter.
“Cordelia didn’t tell me exactly where she was going,” said Bonny. “I can’t be persuaded to reveal what I don’t know.”
When she finished reading, Mrs. Kelly crumpled the letter in her fist. “I blame you for this. All of it, from start to finish. You ruined my daughter.”
Bonny flinched.
Mr. Kelly pried his wife’s fingers loose, took the letter from her, and carefully smoothed the creases flat, all without taking his eyes off Bonny. “Why did you help her?”
“Because she asked me to.”
“Don’t you think you would have served her better by sending her home?” Mr. Kelly pressed.
“I trust her judgment.”
“You make me sick,” hissed Mrs. Kelly.
Mr. Kelly shook his head minutely at his wife. “Enough. She’s telling the truth; she doesn’t know.” He guided his wife to the door but paused before the sheeting rain for one last comment. “You realize that your family will pay for what you’ve just done?”
Bonny nodded. She did. What had her mother said? We make the best of the choices we have. I hope you’ll do the same. She’d tried.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” Mr. Kelly asked.
“Very much.”
“Ah.” He blinked. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”
He shut the door quietly, politely behind him.
Bonny returned to her tea tray, picked it up, but she started shaking on her way to the greenhouse. She propped the heavy silver on her hip to open the glass door, using her foot as a stop, and almost dropped it as she slid her arms around to take a firm grip on the silver handles. She slipped inside, hurried to the nearest table, and managed to put the tray down without breaking the porcelain.
She’d kept calm while face-to-face with them, but… Mrs. Kelly? She’d invited Bonny into her home, asked for her advice about fashion, held her up as an example to her own daughter… Bonny ought to have expected her reaction but “You make me sick”?
The memory of it would haunt her.
“There you are,” said Loel. “Are you all right?”
Bonny dredged up a smile. “Fine, thank you. I think the tea’s gone cold. Should I warm it?”
Loel came closer, tipped her chin up. “What happened?”
“The Kellys visited.”
“Ah.” He pulled her close, wrapped her tightly in his arms, and held her. He rocked back and forth a bit, not speaking, offering comfort. It helped. “I’ll heat the tea.”
He left Bonny to wander the greenhouse alone, which she did—just for the relief of it, the balmy temperature and sweet scents. For a few minutes she wandered the paths in an aimless circuit, thinking about everything that had happened.
The flowers calmed her, enough that she could think clearly. Beauty was like that, she supposed. The same way that bright sunshine made one squint or dipping one’s feet into an icy cold stream provoked a hiss, beauty soothed. A simple, automatic reaction.
Mr. Benjamin found her. “Tea,” he said, gesturing for her to follow. Loel had cleared the table where the Odontoglossum crispum used to sit and placed a few chairs around it.
“You must be eager to set sail,” said Loel while Bonny poured.
“Words can’t describe it,” replied Mr. Benjamin. “I’d rather face a raging storm than another evening soliciting donations.”
“A wish Mother Nature won’t delay in granting.”
“No doubt.” Mr. Benjamin turned to Bonny. “What about you, Lady Loel? Will this be your first trip to the auction rooms?”
“Auction rooms?” Bonny repeated.
“I told you about the quarterly auctions,” Loel supplied. “I thought you ought to come, if only to
see the Odontoglossum crispum sold.”
“Sold? Already?”
“If it’s budding now, it’ll be blooming at the perfect time,” Loel confirmed.
Chapter 19
The journey to London was an ordeal unlike anything Bonny had ever experienced before. First they secured all of the orchids into Wardian cases. Then they loaded the cases into a cart and drove to the train station, where they had to be transferred to the train. Loel stayed with his orchids while Bonny traveled alone in a passenger car, all the way to London—where the whole arduous process had to be repeated in reverse.
The flowers went to Stevens Auction Rooms, on King Street, Covent Gardens. The close, cramped rooms were crowded with the most bizarre collection of valuables Bonny had ever seen—colorful butterflies pinned onto pasteboard, postage stamps, fossilized eggs, and painted wooden masks.
They had to store the orchids with the auction house so that the auctioneers could catalogue all the flowers. Their experts would verify that each one belonged to the species that Loel claimed, divide them into “lots,” and then prepare the catalogue.
Loel spent most of his time with the orchids. Travel stressed the flowers and they needed extra attention. Bonny had an errand of her own, however. She’d brought Tess’s most recent letter to London with her; she and Olympia both posted their letters from the same address, which Bonny surmised to be Olympia’s home.
The letter had been encouraging.
Dear Lady Loel,
I suspect you have formed a fairly accurate picture of your future in New Quay. You know the town and its people. But in the wider world, your scandal is among the easiest to forget and—thus—forgive.
People who marry for love are tolerated in society, most of the time. Good families with empty purses are so common that many of my acquaintance would be relieved to meet a young woman who, given the choice, preferred a titled husband to a wealthy one.
Still, it would be best to remain in the country for some little while. After a year has passed, you’ll be a respectable matron whom I could meet in public without fear.