I’m not at fault. She felt as petulant as a small child sent to the corner unjustly, blamed for someone else’s wrongs. If anything, she had been more truthful with Crispin than wisdom recommended. He was right: she had married him for a reason. By admitting that the marriage could be undone, she had given him a weapon he could use to cast her back into the Masons’ poisonous embrace. It felt tremendously unfair to be punished for that.
More frustrating yet: she knew he did not intend to punish her with his courtesy. He was treating her just as she’d instructed. He was not flirting with her, seducing her, or touching her save when necessary. He was behaving precisely as she’d asked.
And what if I never remember? he’d said. Slicing so neatly to the core of her churning unease.
The answer in mind was unspeakable, but also inarguable. If she felt certain he would never remember, she herself would never leave.
Mr. Gaultier had written with news of a court date. In thirteen days, a judge would force her uncle to hand over her money. Why not take those days as a gift? Why not cast caution to the wind and live, however briefly, in a dream?
Indeed, why stop there? The marriage certificate was flawless. No one else knew her secret. She was already halfway to forgetting the truth herself. Who would be harmed if she did?
Mrs. Crispin Burke. Forever.
She leaned into him. He glanced at her, no doubt surprised, but as their gazes met and held, he seemed to read her thoughts, for some minute transformation softened his features.
“Jane,” he said, “I—”
“Burke.” The man who stepped toward them moved as stiffly as a soldier presenting himself to his regimental line. “Wanted to congratulate you.”
The man looked about forty, lean and handsome, his graying temples lending him a distinguished air. Jane did not recognize him, so she pressed Crispin’s arm.
They had mastered the routine. “A pleasure seeing you here,” Crispin said easily. “May I introduce my wife—”
“The Duke of Farnsworth,” the man said to her with a brief bow. But she barely registered his courtesy; Crispin’s sudden tension had distracted her, his forearm flexing violently in her grip. “My felicitations, ma’am,” the duke was saying. “Might I borrow your husband for a moment?”
The words were courteous, the tone perfunctory. This was not a man accustomed to issuing requests.
But mere rudeness could not account for the distress radiating from Crispin.
She felt cold suddenly. He did not remember the last five years. Why, then, should the sight of his lover’s husband distress him? Unless . . .
“Of course,” Crispin said, gently detaching himself from her grip. “Mrs. Burke, I will find you momentarily.”
Was it wise to let him go? Farnsworth could not be a friend to him. The duke would leap on any weakness he detected.
But Jane could think of no excuse to prevent their private meeting. Stomach leaping, she watched them walk away together—two men whose reputations, combined, caused the crowd to hurriedly clear a path for them.
She pressed a fist to her belly as the truth became clear. If he remembered a cause to dislike Farnsworth . . .
Why, then his connection with the duchess must be older than five years. It had not been a simple affair, after all.
“Jane!” Charlotte swooped up, smiling. “At last, Crispin lets you out of his clutches.”
“Yes,” she said. “He . . . the Duke of Farnsworth wished to speak with him.”
Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “I cannot like that man’s wife. What a blessing that Crispin found you!”
Something in that statement niggled at her. “Crispin had . . . hopes for her?”
Charlotte blinked, making some quick reassessment of the situation. “I—well, she was quite the star, the season we debuted. All the young men were infatuated.” But her smile now looked forced. “At any rate, she never took him seriously. She had aims for a coronet, that one, and no care whom she’d wed to secure it. Thank goodness for that! I always dreamed of a sister-in-law I could love.” She leaned over to kiss Jane’s cheek. “Now, won’t you dance? My husband tires of a left-footed partner.”
She felt sick. Why should she feel sick? She felt like a single great bruise, aching from some injury she did not recall. “I think . . . a moment’s rest might do me good.”
“Of course,” Charlotte said. “Goodness, I hope it wasn’t anything I said—it was all so long ago, Jane, and Crispin was a different man then.”
Jane knew that better than anybody. “Of course. No, it’s only the heat in here.”
“Come,” Charlotte said. “I’ll show you to a quiet spot.”
* * *
“Dined at the club today,” Farnsworth began casually as he followed Crispin into the morning room. He shut the door with a sound thump. “Heard the most curious rumor. Seems you are persuading your confederates to drop their support for the bill.”
Any man might resent his wife’s former suitors. But this man’s hostility was not casual, the product of impersonal circumstances. He watched Crispin with the bright, glinting aggression of an enemy. “No sewing circle,” Crispin said, “could outdo a club for the gossip on offer.”
“And yet so much of that gossip has a way of becoming news,” Farnsworth drawled. “So tell me. Is it true? Have you disowned the bill?”
“If so, I can’t see how it should concern you.” Although at present, Farnsworth looked ripe to shift from concern into fury.
“We had a deal, you and I,” the other man growled.
Crispin felt an astonished, somewhat black admiration for his former self. Nobody would have accused him of lacking brazen initiative. From mere gentlemen to dukes, nobody escaped his machinations. “Your vote is your own, Farnsworth. If it passes to the Lords, you’ll make your own decision, with no comment from me.”
The man looked to be wrestling with some inner demon. His lip curled back, exposing the topmost row of his teeth; he made a fist as he hissed out a breath. “I held my tongue for longer than any other man would have done. I thought—I told myself, fool that I was—that matters would take their own course. That my best chance lay in patience. A man such as you, who takes no act without calculating his own gain—I told myself that she would come to see it herself, given time.”
She?
“But I was wrong.” Farnsworth’s voice dropped to a raw whisper. “It isn’t you she sees, after all. It’s . . . who you were, and who she was, back then. The dreams she had. A vision, a fantasy. How can a man compete with a fantasy? It changes, it reshapes itself to fit whatever need I have failed to meet on any given day.”
A terrible premonition rolled through Crispin. He felt himself paralyzed, unable to speak, lest it be fulfilled.
“So I am done,” Farnsworth said, sharper and stronger. “Done with waiting. Done with hoping that there remains a shred of decency in your twisted soul. I am taking her away, Burke. And if she so much as receives a mention of you from some passing acquaintance—”
The door flew open.
Laura stepped inside. She swept a contemptuous look over her husband, causing him to fall silent and flush.
“And how will you take me?” she snapped. “Will you tie me up and drag me off in a cart? I carry your child, sir, but that does not make me your property.”
“In fact,” Farnsworth said coldly, “it does. Or so near to it as to make no difference.”
She yanked the door shut, locking them all into this airless little salon. “The law has changed. You voted to make that change. A woman may divorce now, given proof of abuse and infidelity. I think I can supply both.”
“Infidelity, I’ll not argue.” Farnsworth’s words lashed like a whip. “But abuse? I challenge you, madam, to name one instance of it.”
“I will have that, once you remove me from London. For I’ll not go quietly. You will need to use force.”
Farnsworth stood quivering, his fists white knuckled at his sides. And then,
with an explosive cough, he stalked past her to the door—turning back there with a snarl. “Have it your way, madam. But the child in your belly will be a stranger to you. That, I guarantee.”
The door slammed behind him.
Laura did not lose a beat. “Crispin,” she cried, and came rushing toward him, stumbling once on her diaphanous silver skirt before throwing her arms around him. “My God—I was worried! Not one word from you, and I dared not write—he has been watching my post, looking for evidence against me!”
The smell of her was jarringly familiar—the same rosewater seasoned with musk that she had favored as a debutante, laughing at her mother’s criticism that the scent was too heavy for a girl. As it crept up his nose, the world seemed to lurch around him.
He was in his parents’ house, but it now counted as a blessing that this room held only one door. He knew without looking that he had lost his way again.
“Laura,” he said, grabbing her arms, unlocking them from around his neck and guiding her forcefully apart from him. “What . . .”
A single tear had slipped free of her eyes. It carried with it a dark trace of whatever unguent she had used to darken her lashes. She looked . . . no older than in his memory, no less beautiful, though her face was rounder, her arms plump, and her waist thicker.
With child. Her husband’s child.
By God—was it her husband’s? He felt nauseated. How deep did his own rottenness go?
She saw the change in his face, mistook it for some emotion that wanted comfort from her. He stepped out of her reach, retreating another pace. There was no other way to interpret what had just passed here. She thought it her right to touch him. Her marriage had not ended their connection.
“The child.” He made himself say it, though the words nearly choked him. “Whose is it?”
Her head tipped back, a reflexive puzzled gesture. “What—what do you mean? His, of course.” Her mouth twisted. “Do you regret insisting on it now? I told you that you would!”
He clawed his hands through his hair. Her face was so familiar; he could not look on her without remembering . . .
A dark hallway. Her desperation. Forgive me, he’d told her. Was I meant to place you above politics? Thinking of Farnsworth as he said it.
The memory was so clear. But he could not place it. It had happened, though. He felt certain of that.
“We broke it off,” he said slowly. “I . . . spoke with your husband.” Thank God for that! This man he had been, he had possessed some ounce of decency.
“In exchange for Farnsworth’s vote,” she said bitterly. “But now you don’t want it. Isn’t that so? That is what Culver told him. He’s been frothing ever since.”
Crispin loosed a sharp breath. By God, but he was done with surprises. No silver lining existed in the man he had been. He’d been a bastard, finis.
“But . . .” She inched closer. “I don’t—I felt sure you’d changed your mind! If you don’t need his vote . . .” Her hand alighted on his wrist, trembling, damp. “There’s nothing to keep us apart. I meant what I said, Crispin. It was a terrible mistake to marry him. And the divorce court, they say it favors the wife—”
“I am married.”
Her eyes widened. He’d once lived for the sight of those eyes, so magnificently blue, like the hearts of violets. “I know that,” she said. “But . . . haven’t you heard me? These marriages, they can be dissolved now.”
You could pursue an annulment, his wife had told him. Dear God, had Jane known of this? Had she been keeping this secret from him, this knowledge that he’d been entangled with Laura?
He felt light-headed. Laura kept crowding closer to him. He moved away again. “I have no desire to end my marriage,” he said hoarsely.
She scoffed. “You can’t claim to love her! The girl you called the brown goose? Why, she’s the daughter of a factory man! If it’s the money you need—”
“Enough.”
She fell silent, but a strange creeping smile came over her mouth. “I do love it when you order me about.”
He remembered suddenly his dream—that strange dream from weeks ago.
It had been true. The ugliness in her voice, the contempt in his own.
Christ! He started for the door, but she threw herself in front of him. “This is a punishment,” she said eagerly. “I understand. I knew you hadn’t forgiven me. Very well, I will wait for you. Punish me as long as you like! But I will be waiting, I vow it.”
She had plastered herself against the door. “Step aside,” he said.
“No. Not until you promise you will forgive me. Eventually, Crispin. A single mistake—years ago, and not even my own doing! Tell me you’ll forgive me, and I’ll let you out.”
He contemplated lifting her bodily. But the prospect of touching her made him queasier yet. For those dark feelings he’d dreamed . . . they still lived inside him. Like a banked black fire, the embers barely glowing, he could feel them preparing to kindle anew.
They felt alien. He wanted nothing to do with such feelings.
She thought he was softening to her. Her own expression relaxed. “I was frightened,” she said. “That was all. I had no idea Papa would lie about it. I know I should have guessed—he was so intent on making me a duchess! But I would never have allowed it. I promise you, no lie has ever given me such misery in all my life as that one.”
He had no idea what she meant. “What lie?”
She looked startled. “Both of them,” she said nervously. “But I never knew that Farnsworth told your father of it. How many times must I say so? If I’d known, I would have gone to Lord Sibley directly—I never would have let him believe such things of you.”
There was a peculiar sensation in his belly. Like something was cracking apart. “But he believed it.” Whatever it was.
“I didn’t know!” She made a frustrated noise. “And when I found out, it was already too late. You said it yourself—what good would it have done to tell the truth, once the corps had rejected you?”
“My father believed you.” This single fact fixated him. What had he believed? Why had he believed?
Her brows drew together. She had darkened them, too. A flake of black powder fell to her cheek. “Not me,” she said. “Farnsworth! But—perhaps he didn’t,” she said hesitantly. “I—I only know what you told me. Have you found out differently? I never credited it myself. What father would think his son capable of molesting a lady? No matter what Farnsworth said!”
The pieces swam together. “Farnsworth caught us together,” he said dully. “That was the cause.”
Her mouth twisted. “He knew you weren’t molesting me! He saw that we were standing two paces apart. We weren’t even touching! But to catch me alone in a dark room with you—oh, his pride couldn’t bear it. Sheer spite was what drove him. He’s a monster, I tell you. And I won’t stay with him!”
Farnsworth had caught them together. Laura’s father had smoothed over the scandal by claiming that Crispin had secluded her by force.
Farnsworth was the reason that Crispin had not been selected for a diplomatic posting.
And Crispin’s father—his own father—had chosen not to make inquiries because he knew why Crispin had not been selected. He knew the reason and chose to believe it.
He swallowed hard. This was an old, old injury. No matter that it felt as fresh as the slice of a blade. It was done. Over. Long ago. “Step. Aside,” he said through his teeth.
Paling, she obeyed. He went into the hall, dragging the untainted air into his lungs: no roses, no musk, thank God.
“Crispin!” His wife stood at the end of the hallway. Whatever she saw in his face caused her to snatch up her skirts and hurry toward him.
But as Laura stepped out, she skidded to a stop. Her skirts swung wildly. “Oh—pardon me,” she managed, and then turned on her heel.
Laura wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Do you see? Even she knows the truth. Nobody can come between us.”
&nbs
p; He did not acknowledge her by so much as a glance. “Jane,” he called as he started after her.
Her pace quickened; she pretended not to hear him as she cut left, away from the ballroom.
To hell with this. She was his wife. She would not run away from him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She could not outrun Crispin, so she did not try. But Jane could feel from the great heat in her face that she did not look as composed as she might hope. She felt gutted by betrayal.
Her skirts nearly tripped her as she stalked onward. The hall was empty, not that she cared if that one lone bit of good fortune held. She did not care if anybody saw her, or what they thought. How dare he closet himself with his mistress? Here at a ball to celebrate his marriage to another woman?
She tried the first door she passed. The library. Fireplace dark, only the dim glow of gaslights to illuminate the spines of books. The high ceiling of the balconied gallery receded into shadows. She leaned against a bookcase, panting. He would come inside in a moment. He had seen her duck in here. And then what would she say?
Damn you.
But no. He was not her husband. She had no right to expect fidelity of him.
He believed himself her husband, though!
She wrapped her arms around herself, struggling to calm her breathing. The duchess was his mistress. She had known that since her uncle’s ball. If Jane had interpreted Charlotte correctly, the duchess had also been Crispin’s first love.
It had been no passing affair.
Pain twisted through her. She’d assumed Lady Farns- worth to be one of a dozen lovers that Crispin Burke kept on the line. But maybe there had only ever been one. In which case, Crispin had forgotten more than his own dark nature. He’d forgotten that he loved a woman.
The duchess must be astonished by his marriage. Jane knew how others saw her: tall and frizz-haired, unaccomplished and awkward. She could imagine Lady Farnsworth’s incredulous demand: Of all women, her?
A Lady’s Code of Misconduct Page 19
