The Bewildered Bride (Advertisements for Love)

by Vanessa Riley

  “Wycliff, you want me to beg?” Uncle came closer. Out of the shadows, he looked even older but still deadly. There was no doubt in Wycliff’s mind that the man would exact revenge if he could. Good thing they’d visited the bankers, in addition to the bawdy house. Soulden would be jailed in days.

  “I just need one more shipment, Wycliff. Then Nicholas and I can start over. He’ll be left something. That’s what matters now.”

  “Do you think Captain Steward’s widow would agree that you two should be left something?”

  Nickie was jumpy, nervous. “I told you there was no reasoning with him.”

  “Things happen, Wycliff. What will it take to convince you to let bygones be bygones?”

  “Four years of my life back with my father.”

  “We didn’t kill him.”

  “You made him suffer, even set him up for the fate you now have, debtors’ prison.”

  “There’s nothing more to be gained, Wycliff. You’ve made me suffer. Nacknel is gone. Johnson committed suicide in Marshalsea this evening.”

  “Yes, but you are still here, Uncle. You’re too old to be impressed into the Navy.”

  The music started to ramp up. Intermission would soon happen.

  “Nephew, your father would want peace. You know that.”

  Wycliff felt his smirk fade. “Yes, but he’s dead. Your absconded fortune is now gone, too, restored to those you’ve defrauded.”

  Uncle shook his yellowed fists, ones that used to strike fear in Wycliff. “Those accounts had more money in them. They had my profits, too.”

  “You’ve paid interest. Well done, gentlemen.”

  His cousin charged.

  Lawden stepped in his way, guns drawn. “Gentlemen, intermission will happen soon. Let’s be speedy.”

  Uncle Soulden pulled Nickie back. “In spite of all, we are family. Wycliff, you were the one who wanted to be a vicar. I’ve not forgotten. You lived. Now have mercy for Nicholas’s sake.”

  “Pray for relief, Uncle. My answer came in four years.”

  Nickie shook free of his father’s grasp. “We don’t have four years.”

  “Then you have your answer, gentlemen.”

  Uncle Soulden glared, his face turning redder and redder. “You think you’ve won, but it’s not over. Every man has a weakness, one that will bring him to his knees. I will find it. You’re not invincible.”

  Nickie stuck his hand in pocket. “Bluster, old man. We’ve found nothing he cares for. Everything takes too long.” He raised a knife. “A Blackamoor dead in the theater…”

  The world slowed. The audience claps masked the sound of the hunted becoming the hunter.

  Wycliff pushed Lawden out of the way. Then snapped his sjambok and lashed at Nickie’s hand. The knife fell to the floor.

  “Nickie? Showing off for the old man? That’s wasteful, since you, darling Nickie, are responsible for me ‘living’. It wasn’t Johnson that had me impressed, but golden boy.”

  Soulden’s big-eyed-scowl at his son was priceless and cruel to a fool bent on proving himself.

  The rest of Wycliff’s grooms came from the stairwell and laid hands on his uncle and cousin. “Take these fellows back to their seats, the cheap ones. Make sure they watch the whole show. It’s quite good except for the soprano. Theater before prison, gentlemen. Oh, I called your notes today. You’re done for. My deck-swabbed hands need do no more. That should make my dearly-departed father proud.”

  Wycliff picked up the knife and lent a hand to Lawden, helping him up.

  Intermission began.

  The corridor filled with patrons. Wycliff watched his men escort the muttering fools past his box and then down the stairwell.

  He waited until the last moment, until the heavy door slammed shut.

  Lawden walked with him, and they cut through the crowd and headed to the theater box. “Nothing like poverty to make a man born to means crumble, but you shouldn’t have told them about the notes. They may flee.”

  Wycliff handed Lawden Nickie’s knife. He had Ruth’s. “We should’ve tossed them down the stairwell. That would be more satisfying, but they’ve no money to go anywhere. I want them sweating so they can’t be concerned about Ruth. It will be Marshalsea for Uncle before Friday. I can handle Nickie. His father’s disappointment in him will destroy what’s left of the fool.”

  “At least you didn’t let them hit you, my lord.”

  “No, Lawden, they did enough of that four years ago.”

  Wycliff went into his box and allowed the groom to leave.

  Ruth was sitting with her arms folded about her. He stood in front of her. “I’m fine. All is well.”

  Her countenance was shadowed and angry.

  “It’s not well. This is happening again.”

  He tried to touch her, but she wouldn’t allow it.

  “It’s the same as four years ago. We’re the same.”

  He put his hand to her cheek, and she jumped. It was as if she didn’t recognize him.

  Was this a fit?

  Had his absence triggered it? “Ruth, everything is almost over. We are almost free.”

  “No, we aren’t. They’ll kill you. I heard them. I heard them as they passed by. I heard them.”

  Wycliff realized that she wasn’t in shock.

  She remembered their voices from the night of the attack.

  He knelt beside her. “You heard them, not just him? Two voices?”

  “Yes. Two.”

  His uncle had been at the attack, Wycliff knew that. But Nickie, too?

  Music started below.

  The play began again.

  Wycliff clasped Ruth’s hand. He had to know her secret, everything that had happened after he had “died.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Boundaries, The Choices

  In Adam’s carriage, I couldn’t get comfortable, not with the fact that this man had misled me, but that the same people who’d hurt us were still after us.

  We’d left the theater, but I kept looking out the window to see if we were being followed.

  I couldn’t look at him, not while I decided how hard to slap him.

  He nudged my hand and gave me Papa’s knife. “This thing is too small to be effective.” He sighed. “Ruth, I don’t want to take you back to the Croomes, not like this.”

  “Go ahead and decide. It’s not as if I need to know, when you decide things.”

  “Your opinion matters.”

  “Does it? I told you I heard the men that killed Adam at the theater. They said they are going to kill you.”

  “My uncle and cousin are upset. They want me dead, but I’ve outplayed them. They won’t win.” He brought his thumbs to his lips. “You’re sure Nicholas was at the attack? You don’t know his voice from Madame Talease’s?”

  “You are the worst.”

  “What?”

  “So caring and kind. My champion. Lies.”

  “Ruth, I care so much I ache for you.”

  “Why not just call me a liar, Liar? Ruth can’t be reliable because of her vision. Ruth can’t be trusted because she suffers from fits.”

  “Your vision is poor, and you do have moments, but I believe what you are saying. Nickie is more involved than I thought.”

  “More involved? I was there, Wycliff. I know what happened, but everyone makes up an excuse as to why Ruthy be lying. The girly is a lying.” I mocked him like I was Mrs. Carter with her condescending voice, daring him to admit the truth.

  My tears wouldn’t quit. Adam was alive, sitting across from me, lying to me, thinking me capable of falsehoods.

  “I believe you. If you say my cousin was there, that he directly sought to kill me, then yes, he did.”

  “Kill me? That’s what you said.”

  “Yes, Ruth that’s what I said.”

  “Now you admit it, just so you won’t lose an argument.”

  “Ruth, I am Chatsworth Adoniram Wilkinson. I hate that name. I shortened it to Adam, then
shortened it again to Adam Wilky.”

  “Why? Why did you do this to me?”

  He took my hands and put them to his face. My fingers sank into his silky beard. “It’s me. We lay in bed that morning until the innkeeper kicked us out. I wanted to go back to Scotland, you wanted to go home to see your parents.”

  “I remember.”

  “I remember your birthmark to the right of your delicious bosom that looks like a date. We joked about it, and I promised to feed you a mound of sugared dates while we lay in my bed. I know you are ticklish—”

  “You should have told right away. You are so cruel. So manipulative.”

  “Look at me.” He knelt in front of me and picked up the lantern. Positioning it close to his face, he caught and held my gaze. “Look at me, Ruthy. Look past age and the changes that nearly dying caused. I know I aged centuries thinking you were killed by my enemies. My voice, Ruth, because of the ropes they bound me with, I’ll never sing a melody to you, never as I once did. But my heart is the same, still stupidly yours. Does a name matter?”

  “I saw you die. I watched those men wrap a rope about your neck. I saw them beat you to death. You should’ve told me this miracle. Or is this a last manipulation?”

  He set down the lantern and ripped off his cravat. “Undo the buttons to my shirt. See the scars.”

  I poked at the top button as if it would bite, but then undid the rest with a hunger to know every inch of him.

  There were the scars. Horrid scars ringing his neck.

  A gasp left me.

  The flesh at his neck looked so pained. I trailed a finger over the roughened skin that had scabbed over the burns. The rings seemed so dark against his light skin. “Adam?”

  “Yes, Ruth.”

  I fingered his birthmark on the breastbone below the gullet of his neck.

  “I’ve been wrestling with how to tell you. Agonizing every day. I’ve thrown so many clues into your path, I’ve lost count. Then it dawned on me. You didn’t want to remember, and I couldn’t blame you. I, as Adam, caused you so much pain.”

  My eyes stung. Tears flooded my face. “I’m another pawn for you to push about.”

  He took my hands from his throat. “No scheme. No pawn. We’re a miracle. When I regained consciousness, Uncle’s men had me. I kept repeating I was a son of a peer and the verses of judgement over and over. The wages of sin are death… So many verses.”

  He swallowed, and I saw it pained him. “Those men didn’t want to take any chances that they were indeed killing a white man, a peer’s son, or maybe it was the thought of hell’s fires. They kept me in a pen a week but were going to let me go when Nickie arrived. He gave me over to a ship captain and impressed me into the Royal Navy. I was there four years, thinking you were dead, plotting my revenge.”

  I wanted to lunge at him, fall from the seat into his arms, but I kept still. “You misled me.”

  “I wanted to tell you, Ruth. Then I just wanted to love you. I wanted you to love me without all the pain. To admit to being Adam would bring back all the memories, all the bad.”

  “You thought me too weak.”

  “Ruth, you hated Adam for what you suffered. I hated me, too.”

  Part of me wanted to wring his neck, part wanted to hold on to him, so I gripped him by the collar. “The men at Blaren House and at Drury Lane, all were involved with the attack. I know Nickie was at Blaren and the theater. I’ll never forget his voice. I hear his voice sometimes.”

  “What are you not saying, Ruth?”

  “I need proof. You won’t believe me if I say.” I released him and rubbed my temples. My headache was so strong. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  “I waited for you to recognize me, but you didn’t want to see Adam. I wasn’t going to force you. But you love me as Wycliff. I know that, Ruth, I know it—”

  “Like you know your own name? Here is my plan. Take me to the door, Adam-Wycliff. We will not tell a soul of this. I’m tired of bringing lies home to the Croomes.”

  “Ruth, what happened after I died? They dragged me away. What happened to you? Did they sell you to Madame Talease?”

  I was shaking with anger. Wycliff had lied and now wanted my truth. He wanted to make me guilty to justify him.

  “We need to go to Madame Talease. We’ll get proof of my story. You need proof, just like everyone else.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort. No more danger for you, Ruth.”

  He helped me from the carriage and took me to the Croomes’ front door.

  “You want danger, Ruth. Marry me again, marry your husband and commit to building a life with me. Do it. It’s wild and crazy. It’s us.”

  His breath was on my neck, his arms about my waist. Adam, the only man I’d ever loved was alive and a liar.

  But I still felt that draw, that craving for his embrace, for his furry beard on my face, for his love to surround me, consume me, and burn away the past. “This is too much, Wycliff.”

  “You have two days. No more living without you. That’s all I can do. You’re my wife. I want you and Christopher to be with me. It takes two days to secure a signature from the archbishop. I’ll come for you in two days.”

  “What of your revenge plot? Will that be done?”

  “Uncle Soulden is destined for debtors’ prison. My war will be done.”

  “What of Nicholas? Will he pay, too?”

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  “No, you won’t. You can’t give him what he deserves. Not until I have proof.”

  I needed to write to Madame Talease to get her testimony. I needed to give it to Wycliff.

  He tried to kiss me, but I made myself stiff in his arms. I couldn’t pretend that his deception hadn’t hurt me. I had thought Wycliff was truth.

  “Ruth, send for me.”

  “I’ll think on this.” I couldn’t use the name Adam. Adam was dead. He could not be the man who’d made me feel so alive these past weeks.

  I ducked into the house and watched him storm away.

  Only one person knew the truth. She was my proof. I’d write Madame Talease right away.

  …

  It rained two days straight. Mama had the windows open, and the perfume of dampness, mud, and rosewater surrounded me in her parlor.

  I sat, knitting an ebony scarf. I wanted to give it to Wycliff to cover his horrid scars, but I also wanted to tie it around his throat and strangle him. Strangle him and his secrets.

  He was Adam. He was Wycliff.

  Mad at the two men who’d claimed to love me, I knitted. Stupid me. The first time in a long time I’d trusted myself, and I’d been cheated again.

  And I ached.

  Wycliff had heard how much I hated Adam, but I had never mentioned how much I’d loved him.

  I had. Those feelings had been forgotten. I should’ve remembered them before Wycliff thought there was nothing good in my memories.

  The parlor chairs were in place as if it was Knitting Tuesday, but it was Thursday. All the seats were empty, except Mama’s.

  The woman looked unbothered. I must look terrible, falling to pieces.

  Clancy brought in the silver service, but only two cups were on it.

  “Mama, are Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Daly not coming? What about Mrs. Johnson?”

  White mobcap in place, delicate lace shawl slipping down her active arms, my mother shook her head “I didn’t invite them. Just us two.”

  Uh oh, that means she wants to talk.

  An excuse, where’s an excuse when I need one? Chris running down the stairs, the house is on fire. Ester wanting to hear theater nonsense. Nothing.

  Resigned, I bent my head, my glasses slipping to my nose, “Yes, Mama.”

  “Ruth, tell me about Lord Wycliff.”

  That was one of those blanket statements—to allow me to inflict my own wounds.

  I smoothed my poppy-pink gown. It was bright, no way to hide on the sofa or between its pillows. “Nice, Mama.” I made my tone e
asy and light. “He’s nice.”

  “Is that it? You’ve spent quite a lot of time with him. You should know more of him.”

  Know him?

  Everything and nothing. He was my husband, the man I’d had my firsts with—the first kiss, the first time enjoying the comfort of a man who loved me.

  Knit one. Purl one.

  The man who’d held me tenderly, singing my name when the pain and pleasure of his love had overcome me. The man who’d caressed me when I’d had a nightmare about my uncle, when I’d cried for my parents’ fears.

  Adam had seen me bare, and bold, and now as Wycliff, broken then reborn, remembering the diamond that was me.

  Knit one. Knit one. Purl one.

  My palms were damp. My needles were slipping. “I know a lot of his character, some of his business.”

  “Ruth, what of his parents?”

  “His father recently passed. He doesn’t say much about his mother. Wait, he did tell me. She was a poet from America.”

  “Has he mentioned anything of his people?”

  “He has an uncle who hates him. Why do you ask?”

  “Ruth, he has a choice, as did I, to live one way or the other. But he’s not mentioned that other family. He’s told your father he wants to marry you. Will you be his wife in secret?”

  “I don’t think so. We’ve been very public at the parks, the theater.” I poured two cups of tea and sipped mine dry. “He asked me last night. I’ve not accepted him.”

  “Ruth, I know why you considered the barrister. Many men answered your advertisement. You chose the busiest one. One who looks at you with nothing in his eyes.”

  “Marks was not disrespectful. He’s a nice man.”

  “Yes, he is. He’ll make a good public husband. You serve his political needs. Your father’s money serves his monetary ones, but what of your needs? You deserve to be treasured, not just possessed.”

  “It was a marriage of convenience.” I wanted to say everyone was entering into them, but that was juvenile.

  “Wycliff wants a full marriage. He looks at you with everything in him.”

  “He’s made no secret of wanting me.”

  “This has the makings of being right.” Mama moved from her throne and sat beside me. “Ruth, are you ready to be married again?”