“Then . . . there is no hope for Lockwood. And the others.”
He sighed. “Auburn has put a search into motion. It will take a week for the instructions to reach Australia—Marlowe said that his Elland was not the same as the government’s. We’ll find out soon enough. If he was telling the truth . . .” He paused. “It’s a very large place. Elland will be the proverbial needle in the haystack.”
“But the letter, Crispin. Do you remember? The letter said the place was in revolt.”
“I’m not sure that’s a comfort,” he said at length. “Revolts tend to get crushed.”
“We’ll help with the search.” She took hold of his arm. “Half my fortune still leaves a good deal for private investigators, for a fleet of ships to go looking—”
“Jane.” His laughter was soft. “Do you really think I mean to let you honor your promise to Mason? He’ll not have your money. Nor will he harm a hair on your head, no matter how great his debts. Not on a cold day in hell.”
“But . . . I promised him.”
“So you did.” His mouth found hers in the dark. “Let me be your villain,” he whispered.
Pleasure rippled through her. Her very scalp seemed to relax, her cheeks to warm as she kissed him back. But then, after a moment, he eased back from her. “I said I would take you home. Shall we go?”
“Now? So late? Charlotte will wonder—”
“Let her wonder,” he said. “It is far too late, Jane. There is something I should have shown you long before now. Will you come see it?”
* * *
Outside, a light rain was falling. In the light of the streetlamps, the raindrops glittered and the puddles winked. Jane sat close to Crispin, warm and drowsy beneath the lap blanket he’d tucked around her after drawing her against his chest. Home, he’d said to the coachman.
“We’re still not married,” she said softly.
“One problem at a time,” he said, and kissed her temple. Then, when they drew to a stop, he lifted her and carried her up the short walkway into the house.
He carried her straight through the entry hall, a bleary-eyed Cusworth looking on with a valiant effort at impassivity. She did not even feel embarrassed. She put her arms around Crispin’s shoulders, feeling strangely childlike. Feeling . . . safe.
She expected him to ascend the stairs. Instead, he carried her into the study, where he set her down on the leather sofa. “Just a moment,” he said as he turned up the gaslights. Then he knocked three books from the shelves and pulled the hidden lever.
She sat up, clutching the lap blanket around her. The shelf creaked open, an unsettling sound, the sound of bones grinding together. Old skeletons best left buried. Crispin disappeared inside the secret room, and she swallowed the urge to call him back. To tell him that whatever he had found, he did not need to show it to her. Let the past go. That was the only way to move forward.
When he stepped back out, he held a cloth-bound bundle. She spoke before he could open it.
“Don’t,” she said. “Whatever it is—everything in that room is finished now.”
He set the bundle on the carpet before her, then knelt in front of it. “That isn’t how it works,” he said gently. “If we turn our backs on everything that came before, on the people we were, then they will haunt us, Jane. Honesty is the way forward.”
She hesitated. “I have been honest with you. You know all of it now. And you—”
“Honesty is my aim here.” Still kneeling before her, he laid his hand over hers. “All of the things you want for yourself—the chance to change the world, to do good with the blessings that life has offered you—I also want those same things for myself. But for that very reason, I can’t give up on what we found in that room. Do you understand?” He paused, his gaze searching. “I am done with the tactics of intimidation—the bribery, the bullying, the corruption. But I will not disown the ambitions, Jane. After all, the ability to do good depends on the power to do good. And I still mean to pursue that power.”
She swallowed. “You . . . still want the prime ministership.”
“Yes,” he said steadily. “But not for the sake of power itself. Rather, for the chance to use that power for good. To ensure, as you once said, that the machine of progress does not crush those most desperate for its boons. And I would rely on you”—his grip tightened—“to keep my eyes fixed on those who need our help the most.”
Our help. He painted a riveting picture. But power . . . “Power corrupts,” she whispered. “And you are a man . . . you were a man . . .” Who could not resist its temptations.
“It’s all right,” he said with a wry smile. “Speak your doubts. Honesty also means acknowledging whence we came—and understanding it, too.”
She cleared her throat, suddenly anxious to have her fears quelled, even if only by empty words. “But you have changed. And so have I. Haven’t we? That’s the only reason we’re here together. The reason I . . .” Her throat closed. Say it. Don’t be cowardly. “I love you, Crispin.” His gaze darkened, his mouth softening, but she continued quickly, before he could interrupt her. “And I want to stay with you. I want to be your wife. I believe you; I believe that you’re different, that you will be incorruptible now.”
“Do you really?”
“Yes!”
His laugh made a gentle mockery of her. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “If only you were so naïve. But I think you have a few small doubts left, darling.”
She yanked her hand free, suddenly furious. Why could he not simply accept her word? “I said I believe you. I’m done with the past!” She wanted so desperately to be done with it!
“But you aren’t done,” he said evenly. “Nor am I—not until we, both of us, can look at it together and see the same thing. I could tell you now that I love you as well . . .”
Could tell her? A terrible pain pinched in her chest. “Could tell me?”
She had not meant to squawk. She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide, and he laughed. He laughed!
“Yes, well, I do,” he said, and retrieved her hand, playing with her fingers. “But when I say I love you, Jane, that isn’t a sign of how I’ve changed. It isn’t a mark of some radical break from the man I once was. If it were, how could you ever trust anything that I say to you now? A man cannot alter his very nature. But he can awaken to a better aspect of himself. That is what I mean for you to understand.”
She could not let go of his hand. She gripped it fiercely, desperately. Enough of the man he’d been! She wanted to hear more from the man before her. “Say it again,” she demanded. “That you . . . love me.”
“Repeatedly,” he said. “Very soon. But first, do have a look at this.”
He opened the canvas and unfurled the object within.
It was her needlepoint.
Amazement rolled through her. “It . . .” The needlepoint was half-burned, the colors sooty and dull. But the fire hadn’t destroyed more than half of it. There stood her uncle, trampling on his poorest constituents. And there, at his elbow, was Crispin as the devil, his horns emerging distinctly from the smoke of hellfire behind him.
“How on earth,” she whispered, “did you get this?”
“I took it from the fireplace that same night,” he said. “After I saw you safely into the house through the garden. I walked in the front door and went to the drawing room to retrieve it.”
“And you saved it,” she said.
“And I saved it.”
“But . . . why?”
“Because I couldn’t let it burn,” he said. “It was worth coveting. It was clever and sharp and devastating, all the things that you pretended not to be. But I was already well on the road to being devastated by you.” He leaned in to kiss her. “Even then,” he murmured. “No great break, Miss Mason. Even that night, I was on the road to loving you already. And on the road to being a better man as well, for the sake of deserving you.”
His mouth, for a long moment, took all her atten
tion. He came onto the couch with her, and she climbed into his lap, dazed and flush with the miracle, with the proof that faith should not require, but that an imperfect woman might need, regardless.
And she had it. She closed her eyes, but the sight of the burned embroidery remained with her. She smelled smoke as she kissed him. Not sulfur, but the sweet promise of warmth on cold nights, a fire in the hearth, and his arms around her.
At last, her lungs protested, and she eased back, gasping. “Miss Mason, indeed. I don’t care what the government says—”
“Yes, that’s the last task on my list.” Crispin kissed her nose. “Will you marry me, Jane?”
* * *
It was two months later, a week after the close of Parliament, that the cable reached them. The telegram had been received in Gibraltar and then misplaced by a porter who apologized repeatedly, breathlessly, to Crispin, his face reddening by the syllable. He had glanced over Crispin’s shoulder just once, and now was doing a manful job of pretending never to have noticed Jane sitting on the cabin balcony. The suite was a spacious maze of five rooms, certainly large enough for two, but it was registered only to Mr. Burke. Besides, had it been the size of a palace, the porter still would have been shocked to find a woman in it—much less Miss Mason, who had her own equally handsome suite on the floor above!
“Thank you,” Crispin said, pressing a coin into the boy’s hand and gently extracting the cable from it. “I was also hoping for a word from the captain. I had put in a special request . . .”
“Oh, yes, sir!” The boy snapped to attention. “He relays his congratulations, sir, and expects to meet you . . .” The boy trailed off, his eyes rounding; boldly now he looked at Jane again, and began to grin. “He hopes to see you at the bow at a quarter to four, sir.”
“Very good,” Crispin said. “That’s worth another coin, I think.”
The boy beamed, clutching his bounty to his chest and bowing low as he backed out of the doorway.
Jane came inside, and Crispin paused to admire her before breaking open the envelope. The brisk sea breeze was the only lady’s maid she needed. It had teased the curls free of her chignon, arranging them in a wild halo around her newly freckled face. Her cheeks glowed. “News?” she asked.
“Overdue news,” he said. “The cable was sent two days ago.”
She came to his side to read over his shoulder, gasping once. “But that’s . . .”
“A miracle,” he said softly. The telegram was from Auburn. “Or . . . God forbid, false hope.”
Jane took the cable from him, sitting down and smoothing it out on the surface of the cane table. “Singapore,” she said. “Then Calcutta. Lockwood would be making his way west.”
“Making his way home.” He sat down beside her. “Assuming that it is Lockwood, and not an impostor.”
“But to take out a line of credit at a bank, someone would need to vouch for him,” Jane said. “Someone who knows him.”
He nodded. “Plenty of Englishmen in both those cities.”
“The timing, though . . .” She paused. “Or—” Their eyes met. “ ‘Elland in revolt,’ ” she quoted softly. “Perhaps it makes sense.”
“The mutiny succeeded.”
But her flush of pleasure faded into a troubled frown. “What a strange journey it must be. If it really is Lockwood. Escaped after so long . . . plunged back into the world . . . So alone.”
“I never knew the man,” Crispin said with a shrug. “But I’ve heard tales of him. He has the devil’s own charm, they say. So he won’t be alone for long.”
“But three years a prisoner.” She bit her lip. “A man might survive that. But his charm . . . I think not.”
For the first time in months, the silence between them felt heavy and fraught. Crispin knew where her thoughts had gone, for his followed exactly. Three years unjustly imprisoned—who could say what Lockwood had become?
If his westward route was any indication, England would soon find out.
Crispin and Jane would not be there to greet him, however. Crispin had fulfilled his parliamentary duties; had spent the spring working with Jane to build a new coalition of support in the Commons. He had also spent long evenings with his family, Jane coming to know them almost better than he did, for no jagged history lay between them requiring careful maneuvering and slow amends. And the nights . . . ah, the nights. He had not wasted those, either.
He gently took the telegram from her. The open door to the bedroom called like an invitation. But while the sky behind her was a bright, cloudless blue, it was well into the afternoon now, closing hard on a quarter to four.
This afternoon had been long in coming. The captain of a British vessel had every authority to marry British subjects, and no cause or call to consult the General Register to make sure the couple was not already husband and wife in the eyes of the law.
But this solemn mood was not what they would carry with them to meet the captain.
“Are you pleased,” he said, “with the destination?”
Jane smiled at him. “You cheated and consulted the schedules before we went to the docks. Didn’t you?”
“Such suspicion,” he murmured. She was right, but not even on his deathbed would he admit it. “One might think you didn’t trust your husband.”
“Well, that would be foolish,” she said just as softly.
“Then it’s fate you suspect? My betrothed is a cynic.”
Laughter tugged at her lips. “What an ingrate that would make me,” she said, “when fate brought me to you.”
He could not watch her fight laughter without wanting to coax it free. Every effort she took to restrain herself, to temper her opinions and watch her words, seemed now like an unbearable provocation to him. Freedom in all regards: that was what he desired for her. He nipped her ear, and her laughter finally spilled out. He put his face into her hair and breathed in deeply of lavender and the salt of the sea.
“We should go,” he murmured. “The captain will be waiting.”
“Oh—my hair,” she said, her hand fluttering up to feel what the wind had wrought. “I’ll just go dress—”
“You’ll go exactly as you are.” He caught her hand to draw her to her feet. “You’ll set a new trend in hairstyles, and tell everyone in New York that this is how London beauties prefer it.”
She grinned up at him. “I don’t think that will convince anybody. But very well. Let the captain be scandalized. So long as that doesn’t keep him from marrying us.”
“What’s a marriage at sea without a little scandal?” As she ducked and protested, he pulled the rest of her pins free. She was laughing again as he led her out the door.
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SHELLEY MCGUIRE
MEREDITH DURAN is the author of ten previous novels, including The Duke of Shadows (winner of the Gather.com First Chapters Romance Writing Competition), Wicked Becomes You (included on the Woman’s World list of Best Beach Reads for Summer 2010), and the USA Today bestseller and RITA Award–winning Fool Me Twice.
She blames Anne Boleyn for sparking her lifelong obsession with British history, and for convincing her that princely love is no prize if it doesn’t come with a happily-ever-after. She enjoys collecting old etiquette manuals, guidebooks to nineteenth-century London, and travelogues by intrepid Victorian women. Visit her at www.meredithduran.com, or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Meredith-Duran
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ALSO BY MEREDITH DURAN
The Duke of Shadows
Bound by Your Touch
Written on Your Skin
Wicked Becomes You
A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal
At Your Pleasure
Your Wicked Heart
That Scandalous Summer
Fool Me Twice
Lady Be Good
Luck Be a Lady
A Lady’s Code of Misconduct Page 32
