After the Wedding

by Courtney Milan

  He didn’t scream at her for doubting him.

  He exhaled slowly. “You’re right. From your point of view, it makes not one lick of sense. What can I say or do to convince you?”

  She lifted her head. “There’s no need.” Her eyes bored into him. “I told you, I have spent the entire day in contemplation. I will receive no references from the rector. I have almost nothing. Honest labor in places where I will not be disturbed will be nigh impossible to come by. Rationally, intelligently, I have come to the conclusion that my best hope for continued prosperity is to become a prostitute.”

  His eyes widened. “That’s—that’s—”

  “That’s logic,” she told him. “That’s the cold hard truth I have had to face while you have been off doing whatever you have been doing. I have no idea how to be a proper prostitute, mind. I don’t mean the trading money for favors part—that, I assume, is simple enough. But I have enough experience to know that prostitution is a business like any other business. There are ways to do it well and ways to do it badly. I haven’t even the option to take an apprenticeship. But I’m not stupid. I imagine I could figure it out. Eventually.”

  She had rendered him dumbfounded.

  “There.” She stood up and offered him her hand. “There is nothing you need say to convince me of your story. I believe you, even though it’s idiocy to do so. I believe you because you were kind. I believe you because you did come back. I believe you because holding onto my hopes, however irrational they are, is better than the alternative, which is horrid. You don’t need to convince me. Just—please. Don’t disappoint me.”

  He looked into her eyes, and very slowly, he smiled. “You’re a bit of a tiger, aren’t you?”

  It was her turn to blink at him in confusion. “A what?”

  “A tiger,” he said. “Large-ish cat? Orange and black stripes? Occasionally eats people?”

  Nobody had ever called Camilla a tiger before. Likely nobody had ever thought it. She stared at him a moment before shaking her head.

  “I’m really not,” she said slowly. “I only knew what to say just now because I had an entire day to plan it out.”

  “There, you see?” He dusted his hands together. “That settles it. Tigers are planners.”

  “What do you know about tigers anyway?”

  “Well, I know you now,” he said unhelpfully.

  Well. Then. She wasn’t going to hurt her head trying to figure that out. “Enough about me. Tell me about your uncle and the…telegram malfunction that delayed you, or whatever it was.”

  Mr. Hunter rolled his eyes. She didn’t think he was rolling them at her this time.

  “You did say he’d be able to help us with an annulment, didn’t you? Were you wrong?”

  He licked his lips and looked off into the distance. “You…are not the only one here who tries to see the best in people, it turns out.”

  “Ah. He disappointed you, then.”

  His eyes shivered shut. “A little. It’s…not the first time he’s done it. I really shouldn’t be surprised. Grayson—my older brother—he says I’m too trusting. But…”

  “But?”

  “But my uncle does need my help,” Mr. Hunter said. “And—I’ve thought it over—if we are to annul our marriage, we’ll have to offer some reason why Lassiter and Miles, two men of the church, acted as they did. My uncle is not wrong to insist that I find proof of Lassiter’s wrongdoing. I just don’t know how to get it.”

  “Oh.” Camilla found herself smiling. “How sad. If only you knew someone who had spent eighteen months in Miles’s household. If only you had talked to her this morning.”

  He looked at her. “Do you know something?”

  She bit her lip. “I know someone who might know something. There’s only one small problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’ll need to stay somewhere in the vicinity while we ask questions,” Camilla said. “It’s late. And I would vastly prefer not to stay one more night in a place where I am expected to start the exciting profession of walking the streets at any minute.”

  He just looked at her for a moment before nodding. “I can find somewhere in town for me—there’s a rooming house there. For you…this may sound odd, but I know just the place for you.”

  * * *

  “Here, here, sit down,” said Mrs. Beasley. Camilla had met the woman a few times before, when she’d been sent to the telegraph office in town, but they’d never said much to one another—certainly not enough for the woman to be bustling about and fetching her tea. “Poor dear. You’ve been through quite the ordeal, haven’t you? I’m sorry I haven’t much better to offer than a space in the back.”

  Camilla and Adrian had been ushered in and seated at a table near the mantel, in a room that appeared to be composed almost entirely of doilies. Doilies on the wall. Doilies under the plates. Doilies hanging off the table. Little decorative doilies had been bound together into pink covers that adorned the poker, shovel, and tongs that stood by the fireplace. The room was a veritable museum to the doily.

  Camilla inched a doily to the side and set her spoon down.

  Her head was spinning, and not just from a superabundance of doilies. Poor dear? She felt her ears heating with embarrassment at the moniker. It was bad enough that she had to accept this kind of charity; having pity thrown atop it was too much. She didn’t know how she’d ever repay the kindness.

  But she was too hungry to object to bread and stew being offered to her, especially when it smelled the way it did. This stew, unlike last night’s soup, was actually good—thick and warming with real chunks of beef.

  “My husband is out at the pub,” Mrs. Beasley said as she settled near Camilla in a rocking chair. “And the children are grown, so it leaves me with little to do of an evening but knit and plot the demise of my neighbors.”

  Mr. Hunter, sitting on the other side of the table, looked up at that in something like consternation.

  “A little joke!” She laughed. “I don’t knit! Obviously, I crochet. Also, I don’t wish to destroy all my neighbors. Only Ruford Shamwell and his uncontainable goats.”

  “Of course,” Mr. Hunter said. “I see.”

  “Hm.” Mrs. Beasley rocked in her chair. “Now that I’m making a list, I must add Bertrand Gapwood. He keeps throwing his chamber pot in the alley. I tell him over and over, no, we mustn’t do that, haven’t you read the newspaper, that’s how we all get cholera and die. But he never listens.”

  “Two neighbors seems quite reasonable,” Camilla said around a spoonful of beef.

  “Mm. Then there’s Stephen Wade. He yells at his wife. I’ve told him a thousand times that if they can’t get along, he should go spend his evenings in the pub like my Bobby, but he never listens. And he always yells about the same things. I enjoy hearing a bit of good gossip, but for heaven’s sake, have some imagination. Variety is the spice of life.” The woman frowned. “Well, that’s it—that’s all my neighbors, and they’re all on the list.”

  Camilla took another bite of stew.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Beasley said, in response to a twitch of an eyebrow from Mr. Hunter. “I must admit I’m a terrible intermeddler. But I’m not a gossip—at least, I only accept gossip. I don’t give it out. So don’t mind me. I’m sure the two of you have much to talk about, so go ahead, go ahead. Mr. Hunter won’t be staying here past eight, so you mustn’t waste any time. Pay me no mind.”

  Mr. Hunter took a bite of his own stew and glanced over at Mrs. Beasley. She was, in fact, crocheting. She concentrated on her yarn with an intensity that fooled neither of them.

  “Do you need anything?” Mr. Hunter finally asked Camilla in a low voice. “I’ve had occasion to carry your valise twice now, and while it’s very heavy, it doesn’t feel like a lot to contain all your worldly possessions.”

  Camilla shrugged. “I’m used to moving about. I don’t even bother acquiring things any longer. It’s much more convenient to not have to move them.” She l
et out a little laugh, because it felt like the thing one ought to do at a time like this.

  If she laughed, maybe he would be fooled into not feeling sorry for her.

  Mrs. Beasley, across the room, poked herself with her crochet hook and made a muffled sound.

  “About…that thing we talked about earlier.” Camilla dropped her voice. “I have an excellent memory, and if I were to guess, I would say that we should visit Mrs. Martin over in Highham. She’s angry at the rector about something involving money and a charitable donation. It would be a good place to start, don’t you think?”

  “Better than anything I could guess at.” He spoke even lower than her. “And we can converse further on the way there and back. Away from prying eyes.”

  “It’s my ears you should worry about,” Mrs. Beasley said, as if she were a part of the conversation. “Not my eyes. But never you mind, I’m just here crocheting. Paying no mind to anything you say.”

  “Highham is eleven miles away.” Camilla thought of her shoe-leather, already painfully thin, and the mud, and her stockings, and then put those thoughts away as pointless and smiled instead. “That’ll be a nice walk, don’t you think? Especially since I won’t be carrying a valise for it.”

  He looked at her. “I can well afford to rent a carriage from someone.”

  She did not know what to say to that. Instead, she just licked her lips.

  “I know you’re only believing me out of necessity,” he said. “I know my story sounds ridiculous, and I can’t blame you for having doubts. But it really is true. I won’t even blink at the cost.”

  She took another sip of her tea. “Of course I believe you. If you say it’s so, it must be true.”

  He sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Follow my lead,” Mr. Hunter said in the carriage on the way over. “Just go along with what I say, and it will all work out.”

  Camilla considered—for a moment—not saying anything. Then she remembered that this was her life, too. She sighed. “Mr. Hunter, you said that when we were going to the inn. You told everyone I was a governess who had become lost, and then everyone discovered it was a lie. I was humiliated.”

  Mr. Hunter glanced at his reins. He looked over at her. His nostrils flared. “That was then,” he explained. “This is now. I’ve had more time to think of a story. This one will be better.”

  “Oh,” Camilla said, “I suppose…maybe…it will?” She’d tried to keep the doubt out of her voice, but apparently she failed. His nose twitched in annoyance.

  “Look here,” he said, “I pretended to be a valet for an entire week and nobody suspected a thing.”

  “Didn’t they?”

  “Well, not much. I didn’t pretend to be a competent valet. That helped a great deal.”

  “Well, in that case.” Camilla gave up. It was his idea to get the annulment, after all. “I’ll leave it to you and your particular brand of incompetence.”

  When they arrived a half-hour later, though, she regretted not pushing the matter.

  “No.” The elderly woman who swept into the room did not bother to introduce herself, nor to inquire after their purpose. She just stood in the doorway of the parlor, leaning on her cane, glaring at them from underneath a white frilly cap. “Under no circumstances. No. Good-bye.”

  It took Camilla a moment to recover from the surprise. She’d thought, after Mrs. Martin’s slightly less elderly servant had shown them into the parlor and allowed them to sit down, that they might perhaps be received. Apparently not.

  “Might we not put the question to you before you decide to reject it?” Mr. Hunter asked.

  Mrs. Martin—at least, Camilla supposed it was her—rolled her eyes. Her shoulders drew up, shortening what was otherwise a ridiculously long neck.

  The pause was of short duration. She tilted her head. “No need. I know what you want—my donation to some charitable cause that will benefit the least fortunate among us, et cetera and so forth. My thank-God-now-deceased husband crassly trumpeted the size of his fortune to all and sundry. You have heard, no doubt, my proclamation of a year past, that my disgrace of a nephew would receive not one penny from my hand, and you have thought that you, too, would try your luck.” She turned back to them. “Go. Shoo. Tell all the gossipmongers. It’s too late; I’ve learned my lesson.”

  Camilla blinked. “Oh. But we aren’t here to—”

  “I will never give another pound to anyone’s supposed charity project. I tried; it was no good. I plan to spend every last penny on myself in ways that will send me straight to hell, before I kick off this mortal coil. If I have to spend it on pretty young things to keep me company, so be it. Bring on the pretty youths.”

  Camilla couldn’t help herself. She almost smiled.

  The woman glanced at the two of them—dismissively, at first, and then, as if taken aback, giving them both a longer, more searching gaze. “You’re pretty enough. I don’t know why you’re here.”

  Mr. Hunter coughed into his glove. “Mrs. Martin, you’ve utterly mistaken our purpose.” When he spoke, there was yet another difference to his voice—a change in his vowels, an alteration in the rhythm of his speech. Camilla tried not to startle.

  “We are not here to ask you for charity or to solicit any other sort of favors. Let me introduce myself. I am acquainted with a wealthy, prominent family from the old Yoruba kingdom.” As he spoke, his eyes slid away from them, finding an unoccupied corner of the room.

  Mrs. Martin blinked rapidly. So did Camilla.

  “Mrs. Winters here,” he said, gesturing to Camilla, “is a woman of good family who has been advising me on the necessary social etiquette of Britain. I fear that her kind lessons are falling on deaf ears; please do not hold her in low esteem for my failings. I wish you very well, of course, in all your endeavors. Including your spending habits.”

  “Oh.” Mrs. Martin tilted her head and looked at him. “You are likely lying, and I’m too old to be taken in. But it is a nice story.” She glanced at Camilla, and her eyes softened. “You’re too pretty to fall into this sort of scheme, dear. You should know—men who lie never change. If you’re looking for work after this man cheats you, too, do consider coming to see me.”

  Camilla choked.

  “But do go on,” Mrs. Martin said. “It’s a new lie, at least, and at my age, you don’t often see new things.”

  Mr. Hunter seemed taken aback, but he continued. “I have been in Britain for the last four months, and I am astonished by the depths of poverty that I have seen in your country. I had thought to make some donation to a cause, to alleviate the situation of your unfortunates. I heard that you had given money to the parish, and thought it sounded like as good a way as any to offer my assistance.”

  Mrs. Martin clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s good, that’s good!”

  Camilla stared at her. “It…is?”

  “I know how this one goes now! You have access to princely funds, but you just need someone to make the donation on your behalf. You’ll give me a bank draft for my troubles or some such. Right?”

  “No!” Mr. Hunter shook his head. “No, we were just going to ask you about your experience donating to the charity fund Rector Miles set up in your name.”

  Mrs. Martin recoiled as if from a spider. No, Camilla realized, not that. In this scenario, Mrs. Martin likely was the spider; she was just recoiling. Her lips curled in a gesture of extreme distaste.

  “Urgh,” she said. “That’s a terrible deception. I don’t see how you make money at all that way.”

  “We don’t!” Mr. Hunter threw his hands up in exasperation.

  “Well, you are the worst pair of fraudsters ever to grace my doorstep,” Mrs. Martin said. “You need to practice your swindle—this one is dreadful. The absolute worst I’ve ever heard, and I’ve encountered a lot of them. Dear God, I have never heard such a pair of rank amateurs.”

  Mr. Hunter sighed. “Of course we sound like incompetent f
raudsters. It is because we are not fraudsters at all.”

  “Well, you are not telling the truth.”

  “Yes,” Adrian said, “technically, I am—that is, I do know someone who has ties to Yoruba, I suppose, broadly speaking? And also, I do donate money to charity.”

  He trailed off as Mrs. Martin shook her head, clucking her tongue. “You really are bad at this. If you have to put the word ‘technically’ in front of ‘the truth,’ you are not telling the truth. I don’t know what you’re after, but you won’t be getting it from me.”

  Camilla sighed. Well, she’d left the matter to him. That hadn’t worked. Should she…?

  Yes, she decided. It was time to intervene.

  “Mrs. Martin,” Camilla said, “you’re right. We haven’t been honest with you.”

  “Utterly shocking.” Mrs. Martin shook her head, singularly unshocked.

  “Rector Miles found me eighteen months ago,” Camilla said. “I was in another household, and I had developed the unfortunate habit of kissing a footman named James.”

  “Kissing.” Mrs. Martin scoffed. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

  “I, um—”

  “Just call it what it is. Fucking. The word is fucking.”

  Camilla felt herself turn bright red. She hid her face in her hands.

  “I can hear it without combusting,” Mrs. Martin informed her. “I’m old. If my ears were going to fall off, they’d have done so years ago.”

  “Rector Miles was worried about…the state of sin I was potentially dealing with.”

  “By fu—”

  “By kissing,” Camilla said, hurriedly. “Among other things that do not need to be detailed at length at this moment.”

  “Have it your way.” Mrs. Martin sighed. “Children these days. So circumspect about everything.”

  “Rector Miles offered to take me in. To provide me with spiritual instruction. He kindly offered me half wages for his trouble.”

  “Hmm. And did he provide spiritual instruction?”