by Rose Lerner
“Allow me to escort you.” Nick offered her his arm.
Lady Tassell smiled again and didn’t take it. “Oh, no, this is women’s business. You’ll only be in the way.”
He smiled back, equally insincerely. “I’ll just walk there with you, shall I?” He was almost looking forward to seeing Phoebe take on his mother.
Phoebe was going to have to go to Mr. Gilchrist and beg his forgiveness. She felt terrible for poor Mr. Moon, but there was no way— “No way in hell,” she said loudly, and winced despite all her attempts not to—she was going to give that bastard Tony Dymond one of her precious votes. Not today, not in the next election, not ever. If that meant marrying a Tory, then so be it.
Footsteps on the stairs. After a moment, she distinguished the telltale rap of a cane. Her stomach flip-flopped and the remnants of her heart ached. He had someone with him. Who? How would she get Nick alone to tell him what she needed to tell him? She should have gone to see him this morning, only she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.
She went to the door and opened it. Coming around the corner were Nick and—her eyes widened. He had Lady Tassell with him.
Nick’s mother was here, the mother he wanted to make proud. And Phoebe was going to humiliate him in front of her. Oh, God. It was beyond cruel, and he hadn’t done a thing to deserve it.
She pasted on a smile. “Mr. Dymond, what an unexpected pleasure. I was hoping to see you.” She gave Lady Tassell a deep curtsey. “My lady. Please be welcome to my home.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Sparks.” Lady Tassell sailed into the room with a warm smile and no notice of its dingy state. Of course not; this was what she did, wasn’t it? But her crisp white linen and new shoes showed up Phoebe and her attic anyway. The countess took her neat bonnet off to reveal charmingly arranged graying blonde ringlets.
Phoebe met Nick’s eyes meaningfully. He gave her an encouraging smile, evidently thinking her nervous about meeting his mother. “She wanted to talk to you before our marriage. Don’t let her intimidate you. She’s already promised to help your sister, and I trust that.”
He was so dear, and he looked—God, he looked happy. At his smile, the ruins of her heart made valiant efforts to knit themselves back together.
But her mind went coldly on. His words confirmed that his mother, as expected, opposed the match. Maybe there was something to be salvaged here after all—not her heart, of course, but her freedom. If Lady Tassell wasn’t planning to bribe her to jilt Nick, then Phoebe was Empress of All the Russias.
“Oh, run along, Nick,” Lady Tassell said with an indulgent smile. “As if I would intimidate Mrs. Sparks. I just want to get to know my future daughter-in-law.”
Nick leaned in and whispered, “The license will be here on the mail coach, no matter what. If you don’t want me to leave you with her, I won’t.”
Don’t leave me, she wanted to say. Don’t let me leave you. Instead she took a deep breath and gave him a smile she thought might actually be convincing. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you soon.”
“My money’s on you.” He squeezed her hand and headed out the door with a jaunty wave of his walking stick.
The door shut behind him. She and Lady Tassell regarded one another. Sizing each other up, Phoebe thought, resisting the urge to circle the other woman like an angry cat or a prizefighter.
“May we sit?” Lady Tassell asked with a smile.
First point to the countess for making Phoebe feel like an inept hostess. “Of course.” She sat on the settle, and Lady Tassell took Will’s chair with a regal sweep of her skirts. At least the hems of her petticoats were stained with mud, like an ordinary woman’s.
“So you want to marry my son.”
“Yes, my lady,” Phoebe said. The countess waited, but she didn’t volunteer anything more.
Lady Tassell leaned forward, the picture of motherly concern. “He told me about your sister. Is this really what you want, or are you only trying to help her?”
“I like your son very much.”
Lady Tassell smiled proudly. “Of course you do. He’s such a handsome, charming boy, isn’t he? And more than that, he’s kind and clever and he has a good heart.”
Phoebe nodded, trying to swallow the knot of misery in her throat.
Lady Tassell sighed. “All of that, you could see on a moment’s acquaintance. But I’ve known Nick all his life, and perhaps I see a little clearer than you can do.” Her expression indicated reluctance and regret for what she was about to say. “Some men simply aren’t meant to be husbands. Oh, he’d do for an heiress. Maybe for better, for richer, in health, he’d stand by you.” She really looked pained. Did she believe what she was saying? Either way, Phoebe hated her. “But when worse, or poorer, or sickness sets in—he won’t know what to do.”
Phoebe knew she had to play this carefully. But oh, how she longed to give Lady Tassell a piece of her mind! Or a piece of her boot, one or the other. “He was an officer for years. You can’t call that easy. My lady.”
“Of course not.” Lady Tassell sounded so damn earnest it set Phoebe’s teeth on edge. “But that requires a different sort of strength of character than a profession in civilian life. All one has to do is follow orders, and give them to men bound on pain of death to obey. Naturally it’s physically demanding work, but he was always such a strong, healthy boy.” Her mouth twisted unhappily.
“He’s still strong and healthy,” Phoebe said. “It’s only a limp.”
Lady Tassell folded her hands on her knees. “My dear, I know how tempting it must be to go from this to being the Honorable Mrs. Dymond. But you haven’t thought about what it will mean. Let me stand as a mother to you for a moment.”
To her surprise, Phoebe thought, I’d take my mother over you any day.
“Our world, the world he comes from, is cruel. Perhaps his friends and their wives will be polite to you while he’s watching. They won’t be so polite behind his back. When the first flush of infatuation has worn off, he can’t help but notice that you don’t fit.”
Her gaze swept over Phoebe’s old gown and disheveled hair as if she could see to the mended stockings and messy heart beneath, that quintessentially motherly gaze of disapproval and disappointment that couldn’t be resented because there was no malice in it. “One can’t learn to be a gentlewoman, Mrs. Sparks. You’ll never quite manage to speak as they do. You’ll never dress or walk or sit on a horse the way they do. My dear, you’ll shut doors for him, and you’ll keep him from marrying a woman with money of her own. The annuity we give him might seem a great deal of money to you, but to a man of Nick’s rank, it’s very little.”
Phoebe hated her. She hated her for the ways she was wrong, and the ways she was right. She hated that even if she hadn’t already been planning to break it off with Nick, she’d have had to offer him this chance to cry off.
Most of all, she hated Lady Tassell for the way she talked about Nick. All he wanted was for his mother to see him, really see him. And all the countess saw were his faults, and her own notions of what he was like.
Phoebe held her tongue, because if she let herself become involved in this conversation, she would lose her temper. She could not lose her temper.
“You’re a strong woman,” Lady Tassell said. “You’ve worked hard. You’re talented and pretty. Among your own set, people can appreciate that. In my son’s, all they’ll see is that you aren’t one of them. My dear, money is no substitute for happiness and self-respect.”
Phoebe hoped that wasn’t true, because she was about to trade both her happiness and her self-respect for money. She waited silently for the offer.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lady Tassell spread her hands. “I can’t offer you the kind of financial security you’d have as Nick’s wife. But I can offer you something. If you marry Mr. Moon, I’ll help your sister and give you two hundred and fifty pounds as a wedding present.”
Two hundred and fifty pounds. Heavens. This was going t
o be a better deal than she’d hoped for. She tried to be glad of that. “I don’t want to marry Mr. Moon, my lady. But you—I think you might be right, about me and Mr. Dymond. If you pay for my sister to go far away to have this baby, and you find a good home for it—a good home, do you understand, with nice people, and Helen can meet them first and if she doesn’t like them you’ll find another—if you do all that, and give me the two hundred and fifty pounds, I’ll call it off with your son.”
Lady Tassell laughed gently, as if she were proud of Phoebe for bargaining. “Then what’s to keep you from marrying him later, once I’ve lived up to my part of the deal?”
“What’s to keep you from abandoning my sister, once I’m married to Mr. Moon? Besides, I thought you said Mr. Dymond had no staying power. Do you really think he’ll still want to marry me in seven months? Once I’ve taken a bribe to jilt him?” He’d never look at her again.
“A new family with a failing shop would need that money,” the countess said. “And of course, you would be Lively St. Lemeston Whigs, and I always take an interest in my family’s supporters. A woman alone, with no votes to give…”
“Two hundred pounds.”
Lady Tassell laughed again. “It’s really too bad. You’re a girl after my own heart. A hundred and fifty is all I can offer.” She looked grave. “You’re doing the right thing, Mrs. Sparks. I hope there are no hard feelings. It would be lovely to see you and your sister at the hustings with orange-and-purple rosettes. Plenty of non-voters come to show their support.”
Phoebe hated Lady Tassell. She and her cruel, spoiled brat of a youngest son were ruining Phoebe’s life, and they were doing it with smug smiles. For the first time in her life, she would rather have eaten worms than go to the hustings in orange and purple. Would Helen even do it?
Well, she’d have to. A hundred and fifty pounds would see the two of them truly independent. “If you give it to me now, I’ll shake hands.”
Lady Tassell pulled a roll of banknotes out of her reticule and counted out a hundred and fifty pounds. She had come prepared. Then she held out her hand, and Phoebe shook it. “What are you going to tell Nick?” the countess asked.
Phoebe drew herself up. “I’m going to tell him that I confided in you that I didn’t really want to marry, and you made that possible. I’m going to tell him it’s for the best.”
Lady Tassell put a motherly hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “It’s no more than the truth, my dear. You’re a good, brave girl. Did many people know of your understanding?”
Phoebe swallowed a lump. “No one knew of it.”
“We’d better keep it that way, don’t you think? For both your sakes.”
Phoebe picked up a copy of the Intelligencer and handed it to Lady Tassell, pointing to Nick’s article. “Read this; your son wrote it. He’s going to be a great man someday. Maybe soon.”
Lady Tassell’s eyebrows went up. “I’ll be sure to read it carefully. Thank you, my dear. It’s very much to his credit that he chose someone like you for his imprudent attachment.”
Phoebe went to the door and held it open, silently.
Nick didn’t like the pleased cadence of his mother’s walk when she came down the stairs. And he definitely didn’t like the sympathetic, crooked smile she gave him as she gestured for him to climb the stairs.
“What did she say?” he asked, heart sinking.
“I’ll let her tell you herself. I’m sorry, Nick.”
Nick swallowed the knot of fear in his throat. He could feel her watching him on the stairs, but just now he couldn’t care what she thought about his limp. He went as fast as he could. When he opened the door, Phoebe was waiting, looking small and unhappy. Small and unhappy and beautiful. “Phoebe?”
For the first time, she didn’t ask him to sit. Instead she stood, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m sorry, Nick. But she’s right, you know. It would never have done, you and me. You were only being kind, anyway. You wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t need to marry. You don’t really want to marry someone like me, and introduce me to your friends—”
“Don’t tell me what I want.” He barely recognized his own voice.
She turned those big dark eyes on him, pleading. “She’s going to help Helen without me marrying at all.” It took the wind out of his sails. What could he say to that? He knew she’d never wanted to marry.
He should be happy that Phoebe was going to be free, not as blindly, selfishly angry as a child balked of a toy.
He tried to see her, really see her and not his own disappointment and misery. She looked wretched and guilty. Sorry for hurting him.
It was humiliating that she knew how much this hurt him, how much he’d wanted her. He couldn’t shrug and pretend he’d never cared. She’d know it was a lie.
He had to be a man and take his lumps, and let her go without recrimination. It wasn’t hard to do, only hard to want to do. But here was his chance to secure someone else’s happiness first. He recited Childe Harold silently and slowly to himself. The furious, sick feeling in his chest didn’t go away, but it retreated enough that he could give her a smile, and look like he meant it. “It couldn’t have worked out better if we planned it, eh?”
To his surprise, that didn’t help. If anything, she looked more miserable than before. “Nick, I—if I were going to marry again, I’d want to marry you.”
He forced his smile wider. “And if I were ever going to marry, I’d want it to be to you.” He leaned down and gave her a casual kiss on the cheek. “I’m happy for you, truly.”
She didn’t let him pull away. Instead she wrapped one arm around his neck and, just like that first time, went up on tiptoe and kissed him with everything she had. He kissed her back without thinking. His hunger for her opened like a pit beneath his feet, fiery and deep. He couldn’t feel this. He couldn’t, because he couldn’t have her and it hurt too much, it hurt so he couldn’t breathe or think or remember words.
He wanted to shove her away, but then she’d realize how he felt. So he tipped his head back, just a little, and gently reached up to disentangle her arm. “You don’t want to send me back down to my mother looking thoroughly kissed, do you?”
For a moment her arm actually tightened—but then she let him go.
He’d thought he felt sick before, but real, physical nausea swamped him now, the kind you got when you’d been hungry for so long you didn’t even want food anymore. He took in a breath and nearly gagged, nearly doubled over. This was the last time he’d ever kiss her, the last time he’d ever touch her. The last time she’d press up against him with everything she had. She had so much, and he had nothing.
“Nick?” she said, sounding concerned.
“It’s nothing.” He forced the nausea and the hunger down and away, straightening his shoulders. “Congratulations. Give my best to Miss Knight.”
“I will. Thank you for all your help.”
“It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing, it was—”
He turned away. “My mother is waiting.”
Mr. Moon was alone in the front of the shop when she walked in, refilling some half-empty jars of candy in the window. For the first time, she really understood what Nick had done for her. He’d saved her from this confectionery. It was a very fine confectionery, but it would never have been home.
She hadn’t done anything for Nick except hurt him. Even if he thinks he wants you now, she told herself, that doesn’t mean he’ll still want you in a year, or five. Agreeing with Lady Tassell, even mentally, made her feel disgusting.
“Mrs. Sparks,” Mr. Moon said with a nervous smile.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Moon.” Despite the heavy feeling in her chest, she felt a smile coming on. “I’m not marrying you, and you aren’t going to lose the shop either.”
He stopped pouring candy, looking wary. “Pardon?”
“How much do you owe?”
“Fifty-seven pounds, but—”
She set her book d
own on the counter, pulled Lady Tassell’s money out of her sleeve, counted out a few bills, and handed them to him with a flourish. “You’ll have to find another way to get the freedom of the city, but this ought to cover what you owe.”
Mr. Moon’s brown eyes turned the size of platters. “What—where did you get this?”
“I can’t tell you that. And you can’t tell anyone I gave it to you either. But it was legal, and safe, and neither of us have to marry at all.”
He tried to push the bills back into her hands. “I can’t take this. Mr. Dymond already gave me fifty pounds towards my debts.”
For a moment she faltered. Nick had done that? “Please,” she said. “Keep it. Buy the freedom after all. I don’t want it.”
“You’re sure?” He squinted at her. “Is everything all right, Mrs. Sparks?”
No. It wasn’t. She tried to say it was, and couldn’t. “It will be. I didn’t—” I didn’t sell my virtue, she had been going to say, as a joke. But she had. She’d sold her goodness and her purity of heart. She’d sold Nick. “Don’t worry about it. Please, take the money. I owe it to you.”
He smoothed the bills through his fingers, his face alight. “I made you one last sweet. Would you like to try it?”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
He tucked the money into his pocket and led her into the kitchen. “Mrs. Sparks and I are not marrying,” he announced to Betsy and Peter. “But when she does, we’re making her wedding cake!” He went on into the cold room.
Betsy mostly looked relieved. But Peter said, dolefully, “I suppose you’ll want your book back.”
She almost gave it to him—but she liked it, and it had cost her a shilling ninepence. “Give it back when you’ve read it. You too, Betsy.”
He grinned. “Obliged, ma’am. What should I read next?”
Oh, why not? “I’ll get you a subscription to the library,” she promised recklessly. “I think you’ll like Tom Jones.”
