After the Wedding

by Courtney Milan

  She loved him, but it would end. She loved him, and she’d learned to pull her confidence about her like a cloak. She loved him, and he had brought her to Jane and Laney, her sisters in marriage annulment, and it was for them that she did this—for all the women who had been given no choice.

  She patted his hand. “Don’t worry,” she said cheerily. “I won’t fail us.”

  His fingers convulsed around hers. She made herself smile at him as brightly as she could, and he almost flinched at the sight.

  She’d misjudged it, unfortunately. Too bright, then.

  She pulled away and started off down the road.

  Miles wasn’t there; he was the one who had made it all go to hell. Miles wasn’t there, and she had discovered that she was stronger than he’d thought. Miles wasn’t there, and…

  And Camilla was walking up the path. She felt a little out of sorts, almost as if she were observing herself from a distance. The brick-and-ivy walls of the rectory seemed impossibly far away, even when she was standing on the stoop.

  She didn’t knock; only someone who did not belong would knock. She opened the door to the rectory and walked in. She kept walking, down the hall, past the parlor and into the rector’s office. She knew what she was looking for; she knew where the record books were kept. She kept going forward, reading spine after spine. Her heart beat heavily in her chest; her fingers tapped in time with that rhythm as she went. Not this one, not this next one—

  “Camilla?” The voice came from behind her.

  She whirled around. Damn it. Why? Why did she have to jump like a scolded child? She reached for her rationality, her confidence.

  “Kitty?” Her voice trembled. God damn it; she had practiced. Why hadn’t it been easy, the way she had practiced?

  It was something in the air, something in the place where she stood. It sapped all pretense at confidence.

  Kitty took a step forward, frowning at Camilla. “Camilla.” She, too, was trembling. “Camilla, Camilla. You’re back. You’re back. I thought I’d never see you again.”

  “Here I am.” Camilla managed to sound bright and cheery, which was a good first start. She reached for some useful truths that would form a false impression. “It’s funny. You seem to be upset. The rector—”

  “I had to,” Kitty said, bursting into tears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I ever called you Half-Price anything. But he did it to me before you arrived and I was just so grateful that it wasn’t me anymore that…” She choked. “That I went along with it? And once I did, there was no turning back. He ordered me to lock you in, to put the keys in your pocket. And he offered to give me money, and my girl, my girl, she needs it so much, my sister has her—” Kitty wiped away tears. “My sister has her, and she’s kind enough, but you know how it is—she’s going to think of herself as Half-Price Ellie if I don’t do something about it, and she’s only three.”

  Camilla should be angry. Kitty had just admitted to lying, to creating that horrific scene that had trapped her. Camilla would have been enraged a few weeks ago.

  Instead, she reached out and took Kitty’s hands impulsively. “None of us have to be Half-Price anything anymore, you hear?”

  Kitty just shook her head.

  “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

  “He said—if I didn’t tell anyone—” Kitty hiccuped.

  “Oh, Kitty. What happened to me here was terrible. I doubted myself. I doubted reality—there were nights I wondered if I had maybe put the keys in my own pocket. I doubted my own senses.”

  “You can’t forgive me.” Kitty bowed her head. “I didn’t expect it, honestly. Truly. I didn’t.”

  Camilla squeezed her hand. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I am telling you that more than anyone in the world, I know what you’ve been through. You’re not the one in need of forgiveness.”

  “I prayed to God for the chance to make things right with you,” Kitty whispered. “But what can I do?”

  “You can change everything now,” Camilla told her. “Come with me. If you want to make things right, come with me and we’ll tell the truth. We’ll find you work.”

  Kitty sniffled. “Who is we?”

  “Me and Adrian. I mean, Mr. Hunter.” Camilla’s hand landed on the book of records that she needed; she opened it and looked through it, flipping until she came to the right date. There. She had it. Now she just needed his personal accounts. “You want to make it right. Would you be willing to swear that he had you lock us in? That he asked you to tell untruths?”

  There was a moment’s pause. Then… “Yes,” Kitty said.

  Camilla nodded.

  “Come. Pack your things and meet me across the way. There isn’t a lot of time.”

  Kitty smiled ruefully. “Don’t worry. I haven’t many things.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Over the last few days, Theresa had learned a great deal that she hadn’t ever expected to know.

  She and Benedict had pooled their allowances and managed to hire an investigator of dubious origins who had gone to the place where Camilla had been married in order to obtain information about the couple. He’d come back with a description of a woman who could have been their sister—“plump, dark-haired, eager to smile, chatty”—and the man she’d married—“a valet of African ancestry.”

  They had wed under circumstances that the man had been unable to determine precisely, but which sounded extremely suspicious.

  After that success, Theresa had run into problems. Where the newly married couple had gone, nobody had been able to say.

  Maybe south. Maybe north. But after the first night—when a Camilla Winters had taken rooms in a nearby inn—the man they’d hired had been unable to find hide nor hair of her in inn registries in all directions. The trail had disappeared.

  That was, up until yesterday, when by chance, Benedict had spotted a note in a newspaper about trading, of all things.

  Contact Captain G. Hunter, in his office by the Catherine docks with regards to sale of good quality telegraph cable, or make inquiry with Mr. A. Hunter in Harvil, Bristol county.

  Hunter was a common name. There was no reason that a valet should be associated with these Hunters, but it was something to do while they waited for their investigator to widen his search of inns. They’d scrambled to make an appointment; here they were.

  The office they’d been directed to was small, the sort taken temporarily by traders who arrived in town for a few weeks in order to sell their wares. They waited in the hall, listening to two men argue, then laugh, then agree to terms.

  Captain G. Hunter was, by the sounds of it, an American. Well. Theresa supposed there were worse things in the world.

  The door opened; one man left. A woman ushered them in.

  The man who sat at the desk watched as they entered, then frowned at the two of them. He had brown, piercing eyes. His skin was a dark brown; his hair was short and curly.

  Theresa shoved her hands deeper into her muff.

  “Captain Grayson Hunter.” He didn’t stand. “You’re Mr. and Mrs. Worth?” He sounded dubious.

  She would need all of her dignity for this. Theresa raised her chin. “I am Lady Theresa Worth. This is my younger brother, Benedict Worth.”

  Captain Hunter’s eyes touched on Theresa’s hat, then her muff, as if sizing up her wealth. He glanced at Benedict’s cuffs. Then he leaned back in his chair, one arm over the edge. Piercing eyes indeed. “You’re here to answer my advertisement about telegraph cable?” His accent was definitely American.

  “Um.” Benedict looked at Theresa, a clear sign that meant I’m bad at lying, you go ahead.

  Captain Hunter looked up at the ceiling in entreaty and shook his head before looking at the two of them. “I’m sorry, I know that actual adults look younger and younger to me every year—but are the two of you even of age?”

  Theresa’s hands clenched together in her muff. “We’re not children. I’m—”

  “Old enough to sign a c
ontract?”

  “That’s not my fault! I’m older than I appear.”

  “You must be all of thirteen years old, then.”

  He was mocking her. Theresa felt her cheeks heat. “I’m fifteen. Two months ago. And I don’t wish to sign a contract. I wish to speak to you about one Adrian Hunter.”

  “Oh.” He let out an amused huff. “Has my brother offended you somehow?” He leaned forward, and his voice seemed almost a mockery. “Was it by existing?”

  “I don’t know if he’s offended me!” Theresa shot back. “He could have! That’s why I’m here. Do you have any idea what he’s been doing these last few weeks?”

  Something in her voice made him stop. He glanced to his side, at a stack of papers, and then pressed his lips together. “And here I thought he was back at Harvil, seeing to the china plates. Suppose you tell me.”

  His tone was mild—too mild, really. Theresa stared at him in something like awe. He was even better than the dowager, refusing to give away any information until he’d gotten it himself.

  “I don’t know,” she heard herself mutter. “We’re just children, how could we know anything of importance?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t mind me. I’m a bit prickly these days; England does that to me. And I don’t dislike children. It’s hardly your fault you were born a short time ago. Can you tell me something I don’t know about my brother?”

  She suspected he was still mocking her. She didn’t care. She took a deep breath and bulled ahead. “I think your brother married my sister.”

  He picked up a series of interlocked iron rings that sat on his desk and turned them over in his hands. He did not react to this, not for a moment, just turning them over and over. “You think. You…think. Do you not know who your sister married?”

  This was where matters became delicate. Theresa was trying to figure out how to explain the tangled knot of their family, wondering whether to start with the treason. In her experience, it never turned out well when she started with the treason, but no story ever made sense without it. Drat.

  “We lost her,” Benedict said simply.

  Captain Hunter blew out his breath. “You…lost. Your sister. That seems careless.”

  “Well, the fact that you haven’t immediately denied the claim suggests that you lost your brother, too.” Theresa shot back.

  “Point.” Captain Hunter looked up at the ceiling. “I told him so.”

  “Do you really trade ambergris?” Benedict asked, picking up a piece of paper off his desk. “Why ambergris? Why not tea or rum or cotton? Isn’t that what traders into London normally trade?”

  “Benedict!” Theresa grimaced. “This is no time to get excited by trade!”

  Captain Hunter did not seem even slightly disturbed by this rapid change in subjects. “Yes, I trade ambergris. Among other things. And no, I have not lost my brother. He has just been unusually evasive for the last month, and given what he was supposed to be doing… He would not want to admit to me if things went amiss. How he could imagine he would hide something like a marriage… In my defense, I spent four years fighting off privateers and blockading Charleston. I have to work hard not to order my family around. Apparently, I didn’t work hard enough. But you don’t want to hear my family history.”

  God, she wished she could do that. That insouciant look up at the ceiling as if he didn’t care about either of them. Theresa did her best to copy him. “A convenient excuse to lose track of family.”

  His lips twitched. “I was fighting for the freedom of millions. What was your excuse, little girl?”

  Benedict took an eager step forward. “You fought privateers? You were in a blockade?! What was that like?”

  Oh, God. Benedict had latched on to the man. Theresa tried not to groan aloud.

  Captain Hunter glanced at Benedict. “Not as exciting as it sounds, unfortunately. The most fun I had the entire time was getting struck by lightning thrice, which tells you precisely how entertaining the endeavor was. Now, as to my brother—”

  “You were struck by lightning? And you lived?”

  “There’s a trick to it, but—”

  “I want to be struck by lightning!”

  For a moment, Captain Hunter seemed to be struggling with laughter. He set a hand over his face and shut his eyes before looking up. “I don’t endorse it. Now as to my brother—”

  “What’s the trick?”

  Captain Hunter sighed. “Little boy. I’m an incredibly inconvenient case for your hero worship. Choose someone else, if you please. My brother, Adrian—”

  “How does one become a person who fights privateers in the first place? I want to fight privateers! It sounds loads better than going into law.”

  Captain Hunter turned to spear her brother with another gaze. When he spoke, his words seemed excessively dry. “You make laws that starve them of income, that’s how you fight privateers. If you have to do it with guns, you’ve done it wrong. Stick with law.”

  Benedict subsided into confused rejection.

  “Every so often, some spoiled child decides he wants to learn about trading from me. His parents pay a vast sum of money for him to come along on a journey, and the only reason I ever allow it is the child inevitably gives up because he doesn’t want to actually do work. If I wanted to answer a thousand irrelevant questions about what I do, I’d have an apprentice. Right now, I want to know about my brother.”

  “And I want to find my sister,” Theresa said. “I have some information. You have more. If we pool what we both have, we’ll achieve greater success, don’t you think?”

  Captain Hunter considered her. “That depends. How did you lose your sister?”

  There was nothing for it. She was going to have to start with… Drat. “It all happened when my father committed treason,” Theresa said. “Our family was split apart. We haven’t seen Camilla for more than nine years. Our family fortunes have improved, and we are searching for her. We know she was married less than a month ago, in Surrey. And we know where they aren’t. Which is Surrey.”

  “Plus,” Benedict added, “it’s Judith’s birthday coming up exceedingly soon, and we should hate to disappoint Judith.”

  The man—to his credit—ignored the treason and the birthday and asked an even more irrelevant question. “Who solemnized the marriage?”

  “What?”

  “Who solemnized the marriage?” he asked. “It’s not so hard a question, is it?”

  Theresa fumbled for her book and withdrew her copy of the record. “It was…a Bishop Lassiter? Witnessed by a Rector Miles and a Catherine Shackleton.”

  Captain Hunter shut his eyes. “Fucking Denmore. Left him in the lurch once again. I told him—” He looked over at them. “Pardon my language. Small children. Ugh.”

  “No pardon necessary,” Theresa said brightly. “I’m not that small. I’ve used that word before myself. Twice!”

  “All of twice. My, my.” He didn’t look impressed by her ability to flout social stricture. “Very well, then. Your information is useful. Trading seems fair. Bishop Denmore is our uncle on our mother’s side. Adrian told me that he had hopes to bring Denmore around to recognizing our branch of the family. Denmore and Lassiter are at odds with each other. If Adrian has got himself in trouble with Lassiter, and if my gods-be-damned uncle didn’t officiate at his own nephew’s wedding, I know precisely what’s happening. I was right, Adrian was wrong, and he’s trying to work everything out so he doesn’t have to admit it.”

  “Your pardon?”

  Captain Hunter sighed. “I don’t know where Adrian and your sister are at present, but I know where they will be.”

  * * *

  Camilla had returned to Lackwich by means of Adrian’s cart. Kitty sat next to her, clutching her valise and not speaking much.

  Adrian had glanced at the two of them with curiosity, but hadn’t said anything, not until they’d gone to Mrs. Beasley’s home and asked if they might use her front room for a moment.

 
; She had agreed, and then—with one look at Kitty’s trembling hands—clucked her tongue and disappeared to fetch tea. Camilla had finally turned to Adrian.

  “We didn’t have much time,” Camilla explained as she handed the rectory’s account book over. “I haven’t had a chance to truly look through it. I took this and his personal accounts. I verified that it was the proper dates, but… I hope they’re enough. Tell me they’re enough.”

  She felt her fists clench and tried to tamp down that horrible feeling that felt something like hope, something like betrayal. Deep down, she didn’t hope it was enough. She hoped it wasn’t.

  He took the book, looking at her, and then at the woman who stood five paces behind her, head down. Adrian’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t she—?”

  “You may remember Kitty,” Camilla put in hastily, “from the time she perjuriously witnessed that we were legally wed? We found each other and spoke.”

  “I recall everything about that evening in vivid and excruciating detail.”

  Kitty winced and turned away; Camilla reached out and took her hand.

  “She also put the room key in my pocket,” Camilla said. “And we have an affidavit from Mrs. Martin about the funds, right? I thought it could not hurt to have testimony from someone who would explain that she had an active role in the circumstances. Kitty will say that she had been coerced by threats to expose the truth of her three-year-old child, born out of wedlock.”

  “Oh.” Adrian took a step forward. One of his hands drew up an inch—as if he was reaching out to touch Camilla—and then fell, slowly, as if he’d remembered not to do so. “Well done, you.”

  His voice was warm with praise, and Camilla blushed as if he had lifted that hand and run it along her lips.

  “Will it be enough, then?”

  Let it not be enough. She hushed that selfish desire and held onto her conscience with both hands, willing herself to do the right thing, the best thing. But oh, part of her wanted. Part of her wanted their quest to be hopeless, wanted him to look at her and say, “We’ve done all we can, let’s try to make this marriage work.”