All Dressed in White

by Charis Michaels

  Tessa blinked at him three times, shook her head slightly, and then put her hands to her hair, grabbing long, blonde handfuls. She made a shrill noise of frustration and turned away from him, stalking across the room.

  “There is no winning,” she said. It was the loudest she’d yet spoken. “But what did I expect?” She dropped her hands and her hair slid down her back. “Honestly, what did I expect?” Now she laughed, a sad, deflated sound. “Actually, I expected far worse. Or rather, I expected far different, but in a worse way. Although . . . I’m not sure how it could be worse than this. I’m sorry, Joseph.” Tears cracked her voice, but she forged ahead. “I’m so incredibly sorry. Likely there are twenty different ways I could have handled the situation from the moment we met. Each time I chose what I could manage or what I could not resist. The indulgent life I have led up until this moment is no excuse, but still, I hold it up. To say I was unprepared to deal with the ramifications of an unexpected baby is such an extreme understatement. If my friend Willow had not placed the advert that brought you to me”—now she pointed to the advert laying half folded beside the chair—“God knows what I would have done.”

  Joseph listened, coming to terms with the reality of her authentic self, making an appearance for the very first time.

  “And what if you had simply told your parents?” he asked. “Tessa, what if you had simply asked for their help? They indulge you in most things. They’ve just thrown you the wedding of the century. Why not appeal to them?”

  Tessa shook her head. “Impossible. Indiscretion is something they would never tolerate. Their priorities for me revolve around the family’s reputation and place in society. I am to be beautiful but also above reproach. My mother plays the grand lady but her beginnings are nearly as humble as yours. She craves acceptance and esteem among the other women in her circle. She would not recover from the shame if she knew. My father could not look me in the eye if he felt I had succumbed to something so base as . . . as to conceive a child outside of wedlock. It is unthinkable to view me in this way. I asked you to conceal your history for the same reason. They would never have allowed the union if they’d known. They are . . .” She stopped and swallowed. “Things are either right or wrong to them. Proper or improper. Allowed or . . . banished. They have indulged me, yes. But conditionally. Their indulgence would not . . . extend to this situation. I had so few choices. So, I ruined your life instead.”

  “My life has not been ruined,” he said, an impulse. He narrowed his eyes to think this over. Had his life been ruined? His life had been given a detonating shock that rocked him to the very core.

  He heard himself extrapolate. “My life has changed course. I only intend to be married once. And now I find myself married, but . . . under entirely different auspices. So far from what I thought of my once-in-a-lifetime union.”

  “I had different intentions as well,” she said, turning away. “Of course my new path should not affect your path, but it does. For this, I am so sorry, Joseph.”

  “Yes,” he said. “How very sorry we both are.”

  There was a pause. He allowed himself to look at her, to take in her beauty.

  After a long moment, she said, “But what of our plans for your departure and your return? Will I . . . ?” She paused, watching him, waiting.

  He could feel her uncertainty. He almost broke under the pressure of the . . . was that regret in her eyes? But the phrase our plans echoed in his ears, as if the future they had so carefully planned together still applied, now that she had trapped him. He raised an eyebrow, forcing her say the words.

  She cleared her throat and began again, raising her chin. She was not accustomed to ungracious behavior. “Will I see you when you return from Barbadoes?”

  He’d not thought of this, of course. He’d only just learned his life was not as he believed, he’d thought of nothing.

  “I will deliver you to your friends in Belgravia tomorrow,” he said, a snap decision. “I can hop a steamship bound for the Caribbean tomorrow night. I . . . I cannot say what will happen when I return.”

  She began shaking her head. Her eyes shone. He gritted his teeth, hating that he had caused her to cry again.

  She said, “But are you certain this is what you want? Perhaps we should talk about—”

  “No,” he cut her off. “I’ve . . .” he exhaled heavily “. . . grown weary of talking. Enough has been said for one night. I’m exhausted. You are exhausted. I will leave you. There is another bedroom. I will sleep there.”

  She took a step toward him, and he froze, holding his breath. He honestly had no idea what he would do if she asked him to stay. His anger had cooled, but his hurt glowed like an ember. And still, the pounding desire he’d felt from the first was an urgent, underlying thud. He was shocked by the persistence of his desire.

  “The servants,” she said weakly. “My parents must not learn that we have not . . .”

  “Tangle the bedsheets,” he said, grimly satisfied to feel himself walk away. His pride had not left him entirely. He turned. “I’ve work that will see me up before sunrise—provisioning and ledgers. I will rise before the staff. They will not know the difference.” He sighed and stalked from the room. “We will leave before luncheon. No one need ever know.”

  Chapter Seven

  After . . .

  Ten months later, Joseph Chance returned to England with a plan to salvage his future. The plan had five tenets (six, if you counted the research he’d already done on Parliamentary districts).

  “Six tenets,” Joseph told Stoker as they strode down Upper Belgrave Street, autumn leaves swirling at their feet, “and not one of them includes hunting down my wife.”

  Stoker grunted, clearly disinterested, and Joseph amended, “Forgive me, my estranged wife.”

  “You could hardly return to London and not see her at all,” sighed Stoker. “You were always going to call on her eventually.”

  “Yes,” agreed Joseph, “eventually. In a fortnight. Or two months. The date was not important because it was never meant to be today, our first morning back. We’ve scarcely been on dry land for two hours. I’ve not even had a proper English breakfast or a bath.”

  After five weeks on rough seas, the partners had sailed into the Thames Estuary just after midnight. Stoker’s brig sat low in the water, weighted down by 150 barrels of guano squeezed into the hold. The haul represented nearly a million pounds in profit from anxious buyers, pending delivery.

  Pending being the pivotal word.

  “This does not happen to me,” Joseph grumbled. “It happens to other shipping merchants. To careless amateurs. Reckless, lazy men with no foresight.”

  “It happens to everyone,” said Stoker.

  “Not to me,” said Joseph emphatically. “By design, it has never happened to me.”

  Joseph and his partners were, at the moment, adrift. Their heavy-laden brig and sea-weary crew had coasted just outside of London and dropped anchor. Joseph and Stoker and two crew members had rowed a small tender boat to shore and checked in at the West India Docks to claim their docking rights for the brig. Joseph had reserved a slip, their spot in docks, more than a year before. But, when they presented themselves to the mooring officer, they learned their long-reserved slip had been canceled. Given over to another ship. Let go.

  By one Tessa Chance.

  “Is it a ploy?” Joseph asked Stoker angrily. “A joke?”

  “Honestly,” Stoker sighed, “this is the least of what I might expect. Considering.”

  Joseph continued, “This is a woman who could not have shown less interest in the brig or the island or the guano when she and I met. Her previous interests were fashion and dancing and kittens. And now she’s canceled my docking privileges and made off with hundreds of pounds?”

  “Things rarely carry out exactly as you plan them, Joe. Especially when you’ve been out of the country for the better part of a year. You know this.”

  Joseph ignored him. “What I don’t know
is why. Why would she begin to meddle now? Is she trying to drive me out? Is that it? Did she believe that barring us from her father’s precious dock would actually keep us from reaching London at all?”

  Joseph had reserved a slip at the West India Docks in Blackwall, the most established dockyard and warehouse space in London. Their sail date had been unknown, and he’d paid the highest price to guarantee a slip whenever they returned. It was true, Tessa’s father sat on the board of the West India Docks, but the slip had been bought and paid for before he’d even met the St. Croixs.

  “You believe her father is behind the canceled slip?” asked Stoker.

  “That’s not what the mooring officer said, was it?” Joseph ground his teeth together, remembering the scene in the dock house just hours before.

  “’Tis all been canceled, sir,” the jolly man had informed Joseph and Stoker. “More than four months ago.”

  “Canceled?” Joseph had repeated stupidly. “Canceled by whom?”

  “Well, by your wife, of course, Mr. Chance. She saw to it all.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Joseph had been certain he’d misheard.

  “It’s all been taken care of, never you fear. Your wife was very thorough and emphatic.”

  The conversation had revealed little more than this revised reality: the spot he had reserved to dock their brig upon return from Barbadoes had been let go by his wife.

  The River Thames was the busiest shipping port in the world. Without the guaranteed slip, he and his partners would have no place to dock their brig on the crowded river, a circumstance that could extend for weeks, if not months.

  “This might mean finding a dock outside of London,” Joseph said. “Imagine the losses. And that says nothing of the warehouse space.”

  “Before you convict her, ask her,” said Stoker. “She may have some surprise solution.”

  “Oh, she’s full of surprises,” scoffed Joseph.

  They rounded the corner at Chesham Place, bound for Wilton Crescent. Joseph scowled at the shiny new sign that marked the street. He’d left Tessa at the last townhome on this street some ten months ago.

  “If she’s bolted from that house, I swear,” Joseph said, “I cannot be held accountable for my actions.”

  “I’m on the brink of bolting myself,” said Stoker. “I only agreed to come as far as Hyde Park. You’re on your own when we reach the house, Joe. I’ve no wish to see Sabine.”

  “And I’ve no wish to see Tessa,” said Joseph.

  “That remains to be seen.”

  They walked half a block in silence, looking up and down the street. Belgravia was a hive of activity; lurching wagons, crews of masons and carpenters, and lines of men digging to contain the endless mud. The neighborhood held the promise of great majesty and aplomb, but at the moment, it was still being built, block by block.

  Joseph had visited the neighborhood only twice. Once before his wife’s confession of her pregnancy, and once after. On the first visit, he had regarded their forthcoming union as an unexpected love match—and how lucky they were. He’d gone to Belgravia to ensure that the house in which his new bride would live was safe and comfortable, and to make the introduction of the aunt with whom she and the other brides would live.

  On the second visit, he’d known the truth, and his heart and pride were in tatters. He came only to deposit Mrs. Tessa Chance with her friends and go.

  And now the third visit: an unscheduled call for which he did not have time, to ascertain why a cancella—

  A bell jingled across the street and Joseph looked up. They had just made the corner at West Halkin. The bell rang again, a shop door opened and closed.

  Directly in front of him, not three yards away, stood a petite young woman in a drab beige dress and a bonnet the color of mud. Her arms were loaded with parcels. A lock of pale hair, bright against the dark silk, dropped from her hat and fell across her face. She blew it away. The September sun was bright and she paused on the sidewalk and turned her face up to the warm light.

  Joseph stopped walking. Stoker continued and Joseph held out a hand to stop him. And now, everything stopped, the whole rest of the world.

  Her dress and hat were different, but she looked almost exactly as she had the very first time he had ever seen her.

  Tessa.

  Joseph grabbed a handful of Stoker’s shirt in his fist. Stoker swore and shoved him off, but Joseph didn’t notice. The only sound was blood rushing in his ears. He was shot through with a jolt of anticipation, like the snap of a mandolin string.

  But what did he anticipate? Confronting her? Demanding answers? Boasting about what a great success the expedition had been?

  His throat began to close. He drew a ragged breath. He was sweating.

  And then he felt the soft, buoyant feeling of his heart, rising in his chest. He felt . . . delight.

  And desire. Hot, hungry desire.

  His outrage took on a new shape, its true shape, and it had nothing to do with the cock-up with the docks or the lost money.

  The true outrage was that he wanted her still. Mind. Soul. Body. All of her. Even now, even after all these many months, after all the deceit and subterfuge.

  Joseph gritted his teeth, furious with himself for his reaction. He’d only glanced at her for a split second, for God’s sake, and from the width of the road.

  This, he thought, was why he had planned to stay away as long as he could.

  This was why her interference infuriated him.

  “Go, Stoker,” Joseph said, not looking away from her.

  “Gladly. But Joe—”

  “Go,” Joseph repeated.

  Stoker eyed him for a second, glanced at Tessa, whistled low under his breath, and was gone.

  Chapter Eight

  Mrs. Tessa Chance had embarked upon her new life in London by devising two lists. The first list outlined all the ways she would no longer behave. It covered affectations such as eyelash batting, pouting, playful, lingering taps with her fan, and the long, slow controlled fall she affected when a gentleman lifted her from a horse.

  The second list comprised all the things she would do. She would be serious, she would be reserved, she would be discreet and detached. She would be all the things that would never invite a man to attack her against a tree. Or marry her because she was tricking him into doing it.

  In short, the lists were meant to repel men who might betray her and keep her away from men that she, herself, might betray.

  She had worked many days devising the lists and even more days, weeks, and months adhering to them. She had made such progress.

  Until.

  Until her estranged husband stepped before her in West Halkin Street and called her name, setting off a jolt of reactions that were the opposite of progress.

  “Tessa?” Joseph Chance said, Tessa looked up, and there he was.

  Or rather, there was an (unbelievably) more rugged and handsome version of him. His skin was as tan as the pelt of a buck. His shoulders were broader—work-muscled shoulders—his waist leaner. His hair was streaked with shades of white-blond. He must not have shaved for a week.

  The sight of him set off the cold tingle of shock, as if all the blood had been drained from her veins. She stopped breathing. She somehow managed to stop her beating heart.

  Joseph is home.

  Home, standing before her, tanned skin and dusty clothes and all the rest. After ten months.

  She struggled to catch her breath. Blood and heat rushed quickly back in a rolling wave. She clung to her packages like buoys in the surf.

  “You’ve returned,” she heard herself say. Her voice was an airy little gasp, winded, absolutely nothing like she had planned.

  “Well, I’m endeavoring to return.” He raised his eyebrows. He waited. He sounded . . . sardonic? His voice was as flat and cool as the surface of a brick.

  Tessa was confused. She’d prepared herself for him to return when she least expected it, and she’d prepared for his residual
anger. But she did not expect him to stand in the road, raise his eyebrows, and speak to her as if he was throwing down a gauntlet.

  A small wagon pulled between them, and she held her breath, waiting for it to pass. She tried to think of what reserved, measured thing she would say next. She took a step toward him.

  “But have you all come?” she asked. “Cassin and Stoker, too? You’ve sailed the brig back to England?”

  “Yes,” Joseph said, “back to England.” He frowned as the tail of the wagon rumbled past. He moved around it and stepped closer, but not close. It was a cautious distance, an uncivil, suspicious distance. She stared at the four feet of gravel between them. It seemed as wide as the Atlantic.

  “Look,” he said, crossing his arms, “you’ll have to forgive my directness, but what the bloody hell have you done to the slip I arranged at the West India Docks?”

  She blinked. She had anticipated a great many things, but she had not prepared for him to accuse her. If she was being honest, she had not been prepared for him to fail to say hello.

  He went on, “The mooring officer has turned me away, naming my wife as the reason. We’ve dropped anchor in the estuary, but we can hardly remain there. I hope you can tell me why I have sailed for five weeks across the bloody Atlantic, carrying a fortune in cargo, only to reach London and have nowhere to dock the brig?”

  “But did the steam tug not give you my letter?” she said, trying to catch up.

  He sucked in a breath and held it, an exaggerated gesture of irritation. “What. Letter? I would be a rich man if I had a shilling for each time I’ve been forced to repeat something about this day that makes no sense.”

  I thought you were already a rich man, she thought, but she did not say it. The last thing she wished to appear was greedy. He would not cooperate with her plan for a house and modest income if she came off as greedy. And besides—she was not greedy. She did not want his money, she wanted only to survive.