by Rose Lerner
In a few weeks he’d be gone, and her confession with him. It was like King Midas’s barber shouting his secret into a hole in the ground—although that hadn’t worked out so well, had it?
She slid her eyes towards him and felt a jolt. He was so near and solid. His eyebrows were dark slashes of ink on a page, the realest thing there was.
It was Will all over again. He was here, and handsome, and she wanted desperately to escape from her own life.
“I know exactly what you mean,” he said, and she almost laughed because it was so precisely what she wanted to hear, so precisely what everybody always wanted to hear. “I was madly in love with a nurse in the hospital in Spain.”
“Really?”
He watched the river. “You can’t imagine the power of a woman’s smile in a place like that. I lived to see her. I lay awake composing sonnets to the perfection of her nose. I spent hours imagining what her ears must look like.”
“Her ears?”
“She was a nun. I never saw her without her veil.”
A Spanish nun! For a moment she was so blinded by the romance of it that the pathos of his situation, alone in a foreign hospital with no one to smile at him but a nurse, didn’t strike her. That, she supposed, was his point—that the romance had distracted him, too.
When she had been sick, she’d had her family. “Was it very bad in the hospital?”
A shadow crossed his face, but he shrugged. “No one likes to be in hospital.”
“Tell me.”
He shook his head, smiling. “I’m afraid it’s not fit for a woman’s ears.”
Of course. They weren’t equals. This wasn’t friendship between them. He was kind to her out of chivalry, soft-heartedness and a dash of political self-interest, not because he liked her or would dream of confiding in her himself.
Mrs. Sparks’s face fell. Nick had hurt her feelings.
Lady Tassell had another rule that went hand-in-hand with Never confide in a voter. Nobody likes chatting with a Sphinx. You had to give in order to get, but if you gave too much, you lost.
He’d used the rules with his men in the army. There was an art to maintaining a proper distance without being standoffish, revealing enough about himself to seem human without compromising his authority. But of course, his men had never expected to be his equal. When he’d encouraged Mrs. Sparks to confide in him and given her only that small story about Sor Consuelo, she’d seen at once that he was treating her like a subordinate. Voter and patron.
He had invited her on this walk to find out about her brother-in-law. For Tony’s sake he couldn’t like her; he couldn’t help her or confide in her. He had to marry her off and be done with it.
But he couldn’t do that if she was offended, now could he? He’d give her something small. “The conditions weren’t the best in the hospital. There were rats and flies, and the smell—well, my nose stopped smelling it after a while.”
Her own lovely nose wrinkled. A little more, and she’d be glad enough when he stopped. He kept his eyes on the path. “But the boredom and loneliness made everything a hundred times worse. The bullet broke my leg, and the surgeon had cut the wound open to take out a piece of bone that had split away. It was a long incision, and”—he hesitated a moment, figuring out how to avoid the word thigh—“so placed that if infection set in, they would have no choice but to amputate at once. I kept it clean with injections of sweet oil. That also kept the maggots away, it turned out.”
She covered her mouth with her hand.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “I was a newspaper editor’s wife. I’ve read accounts of prisons and workhouses. You won’t shock me. I want to know.” And he believed her; she wanted to know. So few people did. They wanted to shut their eyes and their ears—
But was that true? Or was it only what he had told himself, because he didn’t want to tell the story? Would his brothers really have flinched back? His friends from school, his fellow officers? Hell, some of them had asked him, and he’d ignored them or played it off with a joke.
He’d never wanted to talk about it with anyone, until now. Somehow Mrs. Sparks drew it out of him with her simple friendly curiosity and those serious eyes.
“Please,” she said. “Go on. If there’s more.”
“There was nothing to do, no one to talk to. The two other officers in the cell with me—the hospital was in an empty convent—were delirious or unconscious most of the time. And every other day, Sister Consuelo would come into that room and look at my wound.” He didn’t mention the feel of her hands on his thigh, but it had been the one good physical sensation he had had in those days. “She’d tell me I was healing nicely, and then she would smile at me. I felt as if the whole world were a lantern and she’d lit the candle.”
Everyone had thought he was healing nicely. Then one day he had tried to stand and fallen. They’d realized the bone had healed thin and weak, and that he’d have to sell his commission. Consuelo had hovered over him. He’d wanted nothing more than for her to leave.
“Didn’t your friends visit you?”
“They couldn’t. My regiment was immediately posted away, and the hospital was some distance from the battle anyway. They took us there in carts, half-a-dozen miles over wretched roads, and when we arrived…”
“Yes?”
He’d gone too far. He gave her a crooked smile. “It’s an ugly story, and today is such a lovely day. Tell me instead about the cake Mr. Moon—”
She scrunched up her face, half in self-deprecation and half in distaste.
He laughed harder than he could remember laughing in a long time, as if talking about his pain and sorrow had brought all his emotions closer to the surface—the joy and laughter, too.
“I don’t like sweets.” She sighed, but her eyes were twinkling. “I’d much rather hear your ugly story. If you wanted to tell it to me.”
If he told her, she would see him for the weakling that he was.
In that moment, he wanted her to. He wanted her to see him, weakness and all. “They brought us there in carts and lined us up in the courtyard to wait for the surgeon. The bullet was still embedded in the bone, and it hurt like the devil.” She shuddered, frowning. “I’m sorry, shall I stop?” he made himself ask politely.
“Oh!” She shook her head. “Of course not. Just—please don’t say that word.”
“What word?”
She blushed. “You know. ‘His former name is heard no more in heaven.’ It’s bad luck to say it aloud.”
Enough of a country girl to fear the devil’s name, enough of a scholar to quote Milton. He smothered his smile. He shouldn’t curse in front of her anyway. He shouldn’t be telling her any of this. “The surgeon was throwing the severed limbs into the courtyard as he took them off, to get them out of the way. When a new hand or leg would come flying down past our noses and land in the pile, it made the most terrible sound I’ve ever heard. The weather was wet and warm, and we could smell them. I lay there for hours, men dying in agony all around me. I was sure they would take the leg. They would have if I’d been an enlisted man. I couldn’t see past that night into living as a cripple, into leaving the army.”
He was surprised at how flat and calm his voice sounded. His reaction to the memory felt dull and muted, as far away as his voice. But he must feel something, because he couldn’t stop. “I couldn’t think past the operation. I tried to ready myself by imagining it, and I couldn’t. Each time, I couldn’t go any further than the saw scraping against the bone.”
She put a hand on his arm, her eyes bright with unshed tears, and he confessed the deepest, darkest secret of all. “I wanted my mother.”
He’d been sure that she wouldn’t flinch at the sick thumps from that pile of limbs. He’d never seen her flinch away from anything.
“I wanted my father desperately after I lost my baby,” Mrs. Sparks said. “I would have given anything for him to tell me everything would come right in the end. He wa
s the only person I would have believed.”
Why couldn’t he accept that answer? But it was different. He knew it was different. She was a woman. “I should have been able to bear it.” He hadn’t had any trouble with the battle. He’d led his men over heaps of the wounded without turning a hair. He’d shown great personal heroism, everyone said. He’d even made a rousing speech at one point.
While he had been sniveling in that courtyard, three of his best friends and half his men had died. Any one of them would have made a better civilian than he did. There were days when he wished he could trade places. He hated himself for that. He should be able to bear it. “Before that night, I was a soldier. I was a man. Now I’m nothing.”
“You’re not nothing,” she said sharply. “No one is nothing. We all matter. All of us.”
He laughed bitterly. “And God loves the sparrows, but—”
She actually glared at him. “I’m a woman of no family and little income,” she said. “I was a newspaper editor’s wife, you know. I thought I would be one all my life. I thought I’d raise my children in the press room. I thought I’d have children. And no matter how angry I was with Will, no matter how bad our marriage was, I—” Her voice broke and her face crumpled. “I miss him.”
He stared at her, paralyzed by the immediacy of his response. He wanted to kiss her tears away. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to pour his heart into hers.
“But I found something new. I have my own life now, and I’m not nobody.”
On the transport ship coming home, when he’d seen the coast of England for the first time in four years—all around him men had been overcome with emotion, and he’d felt nothing. Now here it was, hope rising white and shining from the dark sea in his heart.
He wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Not about her. He could not—should not—would not kiss her, no matter that she made him feel the world was new, no matter that she was beautiful or that her well-worn boots and ill-tied bootlaces peeking out from under her petticoats made him want to lift her up and push her against the nearest tree. She would wrap her legs around him, and when he thrust into her, those boots would thump against the backs of his thighs—
He couldn’t pick her up anyway. Not anymore.
“I’m not,” she repeated, evidently taking his silence for disagreement.
“No,” he agreed. “You’re not. You’re one of the somebodiest somebodies I ever met.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think that’s a compliment.”
“It is. I’m not always good with words, but—”
She laughed. “‘And little of this great world can you speak, more than pertains to feats of broils and battle’? It’s about as convincing when you say it as when Othello did.”
He frowned, feeling obscurely attacked. He might write poems and letters, but his mother and brothers had the glib tongues, not him. “Believe me, I am showing the depths of my esteem for you in every action.”
Her eyes sparkled with amusement, at once the darkest and brightest feature of the landscape. “I’m afraid I hadn’t noticed. What does your disrespect look like, I wonder?”
He’d been so firm against temptation in his mind, and then somehow he’d led the conversation right here, confusion and turmoil coalescing into one simple, logical action. “It looks like this,” he growled, and curled his free arm around her waist and pulled her to him.
Chapter Ten
It went as smoothly as if he’d planned it. Maybe he had. His walking stick was in just the right spot, and he was holding it firmly enough that his leg didn’t even begin to give. He barely noticed the faint jolt of pain because he had apparently also planned for exactly where her mouth would be. By the time her body fetched up against his, he was already kissing her.
It felt so good. She felt so good, all of her, her soft breasts and the stiff busk of her corset, her strong legs, warm and heavy and real. She kissed him back with so much energy. She went up on her tiptoes to reach more of him, slinging an arm around his neck for balance so their lips wouldn’t have to part for more than a second. He’d noticed she was careful, usually, not to do anything that might overbalance him. She’d forgotten to be careful now. Her breath was hot on his cheek, and when she stretched upwards her breasts dragged against his chest. She made a small sound and clutched at him harder.
The pain in his leg was distant and dull compared to the warm, vivid pleasure of her kiss. It felt like sprinting, that exhilarating rush of energy you got when you held nothing back, just ran with every ounce of strength you had. No, better than that—it felt like battle, that thrill of intense physical risk, because underneath it all was a pulsing awareness of the enormity of what he was doing.
He slid his hand up to tangle in her hair. It wasn’t as soft as he’d imagined; there was a firm springiness to it that was somehow better. He traced the perfect curve of her ear with his thumb—
The town clock chimed the hour.
She pulled away so hastily he almost did lose his balance, setting his weight on his left leg with a painful crunch.
“I’m late,” she gasped, turning away to look towards the town. “Good God, what am I doing?” She glanced back at him, her eyes wide with horror. “I’m sorry, I’m late to meet Mr. Gilchrist, I have to—” She picked up her skirts and ran full-tilt down the path.
He couldn’t have caught up with her, so he just watched her go. She looked splendid running, all bouncing derrière and glimpses of rounded calf. Her hair was coming loose. He wanted to learn to draw so he could capture the bold lines of her. He wanted to touch her again. He wanted—
He wanted a whole hell of a lot, but he couldn’t have any of it. She was late to meet the Tory election agent.
He’d lost control. He’d risked her reputation and her future when she could least afford it, and worse, he’d failed Tony. He hadn’t found out about how it was going with Moon, he hadn’t asked about Jack Sparks—he hadn’t done anything he was supposed to.
If his mother knew, she wouldn’t even be disappointed. She’d just sigh and say, It was my own fault for sending you. I knew you couldn’t do it.
And yet—for all that, his heart was racing in the most pleasant way. He hadn’t felt this alive since Badajoz.
Phoebe realized she was smiling at Helen’s frowning face in the mirror as she hastily repinned her hair. Could her sister tell what they had been doing? She didn’t think so—her hair was messy enough on its own, and running accounted for her flushed face.
She was the most selfish woman alive, snatching a moment’s pleasure at the expense of every finer feeling. It was one thing to daydream about kissing a handsome young aristocrat, and quite another to actually do it.
But she didn’t know what could be a finer feeling than his lips on hers.
“We’re late.” Helen didn’t say, And you look like a slattern, but it was clear from the sweep of her eyes that she was thinking it.
“A sweet disorder in the dress kindles in clothes a wantonness,” Phoebe said giddily.
Helen looked down at her own neat clothes, her face shuttering. “I don’t think wantonness is the note we wish to strike.” All the guilt and shame she should have been feeling crashed down on Phoebe at once.
“I kissed Mr. Dymond,” she confessed, turning to face her sister. “Do you think wantonness is in the blood?”
Helen went white. “I warned you. I told you they had a reputation.”
Phoebe didn’t want to blame Mr. Dymond. She didn’t want the kiss taken away from her. “I provoked him into it.”
Helen looked at the ground, clasping her hands tightly. “So did I. And then he expected—he thought I was—”
Phoebe felt cold and sharp, like a knife. No matter what, her sister was not going to have to marry this man. “Thought you were what?”
Helen shook her head.
“Won’t you tell me what happened?” she asked gently, for the hundredth time.
“I can’t,” Helen whispered.
> The sight of her sister too ashamed to speak filled Phoebe with inchoate rage. “He was a muckworm, Ships.” She wrenched open the door to the stairs. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t make him a muckworm. Come on, we’re late.”
Helen followed her. “Mr. Dymond is a muckworm too, or he wouldn’t have kissed you.”
Phoebe noticed she didn’t defend her own seducer. “Don’t worry. He isn’t going to take any liberties I don’t want him to.”
“But what if you say no, and he’s angry? He could tell everyone you kissed him.”
“He won’t,” Phoebe promised as they half-ran towards the Drunk St. Leonard.
“How do you know?” Helen held her skirts up with one hand and her hair carefully in place with the other.
Phoebe just knew. “He wants my votes,” she said flippantly.
“What if you give them to the Tories?”
A knot began to grow in her stomach. Mr. Dymond wouldn’t betray her, would he? He esteemed her. He had said so. But he’d also implied that showing respect meant not kissing her, and then he’d kissed her. Did he feel differently now? Was he shocked that she hadn’t stopped him? You threw yourself at him like a two-penny whore, a voice whispered. It sounded like her mother.
Her sister was hearing that voice a hundred times worse. If Phoebe gave in to it, that meant Helen’s shame and fear was right. And it wasn’t.
Only, Phoebe’s freedom was forfeit because Helen had followed her desires, so maybe it was.
“It’s a tangle,” she told Helen as they fetched up below the swinging wooden sign of a haloed, bearded fellow quaffing a mug of ale. “But do you remember that William Blake poem—?”
“This isn’t the time for poems.” Helen seized Phoebe’s hand, crushing it in a fierce grip. “Promise me you won’t do it again.”
She didn’t want to. “Ships—”
“Promise me.”
There had been shadows under Helen’s beautiful eyes for weeks. Phoebe couldn’t let her worry over this, not when she shouldn’t be kissing Mr. Dymond again anyway. He might not even want to.
