A Gentleman Undone

by Cecilia Grant

  “You were stronger than you thought.” He could see the rest of her story without her telling. She’d set out to destroy herself layer by layer, but at her core she’d found an unexpected will to survive, and with it, the ruthlessness that had powered her through life ever since. Out of the ashes of catastrophic misfortune she’d reinvented herself as something formidable, honed and tempered by each disaster she weathered.

  She hadn’t, thank God, succeeded in destroying herself. She’d lived. And he’d found her. And here she was, in his lap, in his arms, confiding all her most difficult secrets, and he could not for the life of him see how he was ever to let her go.

  “Stronger in some things, perhaps.” Her words tugged him back to the conversation. “But in others, wrecked beyond any hope of repair.” She shifted in his lap. He knew the language of her body now; she was preparing to say something important. “I will never love anyone again, Will. I cannot. You understand, I hope?” She didn’t look at him. She waited, still and taut, for his reply.

  “Because … you don’t want to risk that kind of loss again?” Everything in his field of vision wobbled a bit, the way it might if he’d run at full speed into a brick wall.

  “I cannot.” She articulated the syllables with painstaking precision. “Forgive my presumption. I don’t mean to imply that I believe you had any hopes of … I only want you to understand.”

  “Of course.” Dry husks, those words, rattling all the way up his throat and out into the air. He did have hopes. And he didn’t understand. How could she give him this gift, spilling out her dark history, leaning on him for comfort, trusting him as he knew in his marrow she’d never trusted another man, and then slam a door and bolt it against what ought logically to follow?

  He filled his lungs on one slow breath. She was waiting, hushed and motionless in his arms. She knew Of course could not be the whole of his answer. “I won’t lie to you, Lydia. If I’m not in love with you already I’m within striking distance of the state. There’s nothing presumptuous in your wanting to warn me, given what you must have observed these past few days.”

  “We couldn’t ever have—”

  “Shh. I know.” He set his hand at the back of her head, smoothing her hair to tell her she needn’t comfort him with all the reasons his love could never have come to fruition. “I can’t afford to keep you, and I know you don’t want to be kept. Our stations put marriage out of the question. And there are other reasons, besides, that prevent my offering myself to a lady. Nevertheless I wish you would love me. For all that I know better, I can’t help what my heart wants.” He eased his right arm out from under her knees until she sat upright on his lap, supported only by his left arm at her back. “There, I suppose, is another difference between us.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her face was near his. Her eyes were red and swollen. “I like you very much, and I—I think my body spoke for itself this morning. But that’s all I can give. I wish I could grant you what you want, but it’s too late for me.”

  “Never mind about it.” He pressed a kiss on her forehead. “It’s been a frightfully long day. Let me pour you some water and you can wash and go to bed.”

  He lay awake for well over an hour after she’d dropped into sleep, partly on the watch for nightmares, partly reviewing all the scenes of their acquaintance as though he could somehow rearrange them to arrive at a different ending.

  There ought to be a different ending. They belonged with one another. Her broken edges fit with his.

  But Fate had no use for neat arrangements. Here they were, just as they’d been that first morning at Chiswell when he’d looked over his shoulder and seen her, hatless, in her insufficient cloak. Here after all was their condition, perched on their separate wind-whipped summits, in view of each other, but too distant to reach.

  Chapter Nineteen

  WOULD SHE never wake in the right bed again? That thought barely had time to take a toehold in her brain before a bolder, more reckless thought shoved it aside: This is the right bed.

  Nonsense. She was sleep-addled, and not thinking clearly. The last few days had taken too much of a toll. Her brain had more important matters to weigh.

  She lay still and let her senses wake one at a time. Linen against her skin, her hair loose on the pillow, no body touching hers. Several scents threaded together and apart. Bay rum and the man who wore it. Coffee, making her mouth water. Chocolate? Toast. Breakfast had somehow appeared.

  A rustle of paper interrupted the silence: the page of a newspaper turned. She opened her eyes. Will Blackshear sat fully dressed in an armchair near the bed, the Times in one hand and the other hand feeling for his coffee on the bedside table. He landed upon it and lifted it just that way, palm curved over the top, fingertips spaced all round the cup’s perimeter, with no regard for the handle. He drank from it that way too, the arch between his thumb and forefinger providing sufficient space for the purpose. When he set it down again he found the saucer on the first try, never looking away from his paper. She might just lie here, and watch that, and never get up from this wrong bed again.

  His fearlessness took her breath away. Facing highwaymen unarmed. Telling a lady he was near to loving her after she’d already warned him the sentiment could meet with no return. She would never regret anything she’d shared with this man; not her body, not her numberish skills, not the grueling confidences of last night.

  On her side of the table sat two cups. Coffee and chocolate, they must be. He hadn’t known which she preferred so he’d brought both. He’d set the saucers atop the cups, too, to keep them warm.

  She closed her eyes. Something about the sight of those two covered cups struck at the rawest place inside her, the part that never gave up wishing for things she could not have.

  If she were able to love him … if she could somehow undo the corrosion that had overspread her heart … if they could forge an arrangement as independent men and women sometimes did … she would only lose him in the end. No matter how he might love her now, he must finally leave her for a respectable lady who could give him children.

  And it was right that he should. He ought to have children. He deserved a blooming, sunlit, honest kind of love, not a connection built on heedless grappling in dark hallways and other people’s beds. He deserved a wife who could know his family and take her place among them.

  He deserved, first of all, to be released from any obligation that might jeopardize such a future. “Will.” Her eyes opened. “I don’t think you ought to meet with Mr. Roanoke. I think you must call off the duel.”

  He frowned, slightly, letting his paper fall as he studied her. Indeed they were odd words with which to make a morning greeting. He reached for his coffee. “Why?”

  “Because it could end in your death.” Her fists clenched under the covers, where he wouldn’t see. “And it would be a very poor reason to die.”

  “Don’t think much of my chances, do you?” He raised his cup, this time by its handle and this time holding the saucer beneath with his other hand. There was a formality in his manners this morning, a distance that had not been there last night. She could see him seeking the proper tone to take with her, now he knew he could not hope for her love.

  “Your chances might be excellent. I don’t know enough about your marksmanship and Mr. Roanoke’s marksmanship to render a judgment. But the consequences of losing are too great to justify even a marginal risk.”

  A smile flickered over his lips, as though there were something comical in evaluating risk. Then he shook his head and went grave. “He hit you, Lydia. I don’t have it in me to let that pass.”

  “You didn’t let it pass. You knocked him down.” She had reason on her side, and if reason wouldn’t sway him, she had a few unscrupulous tricks up her sleeve as well. “What will become of that soldier’s widow, if you’re killed? What will become of Mr. Fuller, and the ship you meant to help him buy?”

  He frowned again, at his coffee this time. He’d asked himself these same qu
estions, obviously. And obviously come up with no good answer. He set his cup aside and rubbed an absent palm on the knee he’d hurt in fighting the highwaymen. “I don’t know what will become of them. But the only way out of the duel is to apologize. And I simply cannot do that.” His gaze, gentle but resolute, came to her. “You know the difference, I think, between won’t and cannot. You know it’s not a matter of persuading me.”

  She knew no such thing. His weak spot, clearly, was his sense of duty to the people depending on him. She would go after that weak spot without mercy.

  He reached across to her side of the table and took first one, then the other of the saucers off the cups, replacing them underneath. “You ought to drink one of these before it gets cold. Did you know you slept the whole night without any nightmares? At least, none that announced themselves to me.”

  Her hand stopped halfway to the coffee. Her whole body remembered the way he’d held her last night as she’d delivered up her sorrow. As though he’d known she might fly apart into irretrievable pieces if he were to let go. She felt for the cup, and finally had to turn her eyes away from him. “You must be a very light sleeper.”

  “When I have cause to be.” So clearly could she picture him lying beside her, attuned to her slightest sound and movement because he had … feelings … tender feelings … for her. She’d spat as hard as she could on feelings and tenderness, and she hadn’t dissuaded him one whit.

  This, too, is his weakness. Use it against him. She pushed herself to a sitting position, took up the cup and saucer, and forced her gaze to his. “You said last night we might speak of my prospects this morning, and what is to be done.”

  “Indeed.” He crossed one leg over the other, angling his whole body to face her. “What day do you expect Mr. Roanoke back in London?”

  “Sunday.” This was Wednesday. In the space of four days she must find new lodgings, secure Jane’s safety, and persuade Mr. Blackshear to abandon the duel. “Will.” There could be no question as to where she must start. “I’m sixteen hundred and twenty-eight pounds short of what I require for my annuity. How much more money do you need to buy your ship?”

  “Eight hundred and some.” His eyes quickened with alertness. He knew where her thoughts were tending.

  “I need to go back to the hells. I need you to come with me.” Need, need, need. The chisel at which she would tap, relentlessly, until his resistance lay in pieces at her feet. “Allowing me an extra hundred for expenses until the annuity begins to make its return, and let us say two hundred to keep you until you see a profit from that ship, we’ll want two thousand, five hundred, and twenty-eight, altogether.”

  “We can’t possibly win that much in four nights.” But everything in his face said he was waiting, hoping, to hear his assertion refuted.

  “We’ll have five nights, at least.” She bolted a quick swallow of coffee. “If Mr. Roanoke returns on Sunday, then Monday at dawn would be the soonest you’d meet. Tuesday is more likely. I scarcely imagine he’d rush straight out upon coming home to enlist a second and send him off to arrange things with the viscount. Let’s presume six nights.” She sat straighter. “We need only win an average of four hundred twenty-one pounds, six shillings, eight pence per night. You’ll recall we won eleven hundred sixty-two in a single evening, our first time out.”

  “You presume we’ll win every night.” A sound, sensible objection, but hope was blazing through him now like a wildfire over parched cropland. He wanted, so badly, to make his word good with Mr. Fuller, to keep his promise to that dying soldier, and to be of service to her, even though she would not love him.

  “Not at all. I spoke of an average. Some nights we may lose, and some nights we’ll surely win more.” Another bracing swallow of coffee, and one last well-aimed thrust. “In any event, there’s no question I must go. All my hope of a decent life, for my maid as well as myself, depends upon my winning more money.”

  “We’ll play, then. Beginning tonight. You know perfectly well I cannot stand by and let you go into those places alone.”

  She drank more coffee and said nothing. The silence would give him time to reflect, to note that if he lost his life in the duel she certainly would be going into the hells without his protection. And once they were at the table tonight, and winning, he would be reminded of all the good he could do with those winnings. By the time he’d amassed what he needed to be a partner in Mr. Fuller’s business, and to see to the security of that widow, he would surely feel such an attachment to life, to his own bright prospects, as would render the very idea of the duel preposterous.

  THAT NIGHT they lost twelve hundred. He, of course, lost most of it. She called him in at a presumably advantageous moment, and he played every hand and wagered just as she cued him to do, and still the cards fell out wrong and he watched his pile of counters shrink to almost nothing.

  “Do you think the banker may be cheating?” Will said when she’d finally signaled for a conference. The establishment, which used no name beyond its address, was grimmer altogether than Oldfield’s. It offered no convenient corridors or anterooms for a private meeting: the door to the gaming parlor led straight to the stairs and the further doors that shut out the world beyond. They had to speak in a corner of the very room, in full view, pantomiming a drunken flirtation in contrast to their hushed, sober words.

  “I don’t think so. If he is, they’re better tricks than any I know.” She let a hand fall on his sleeve and curved her lips into a smile that promised such tricks as no gaming-hell banker ever dreamed of. “The wrong cards come up sometimes, in spite of the odds. Just like when I showed you three cards and you found the ace of spades on your first try. Over time the odds will prevail.”

  But they didn’t have time. After tonight they had five, maybe four nights remaining, and an even greater mountain to climb than when they’d walked in here, some hours since. He grazed a knuckle along her jaw, but he could not come close to matching her show of sangfroid. “Do you want to play on? I’ll trust your judgment.” He sounded every bit as ill as he felt.

  “I confess I’m distracted by our losses, and consequently duller than I’d like to be.” She caught his hand and brought the knuckle to her lips. Her lashes fluttered down. “Let’s leave.”

  His body couldn’t even muster a proper animal response to the tickle of her breath on his skin. That she would admit to being concerned by their losses only confirmed him in his kindling alarm. With effort he contorted his mouth into what might pass for a leer, and coasted his hand from her lips to her shoulder and on down her arm. “Very well.” He took hold of her fingers. “We’ll go.”

  Her flirtatious warmth vanished the instant they passed through the last door to the street. She went silent, remote, worry hanging over her like a small private cloud, and he didn’t have the least idea of how to drive it away.

  Ought he perhaps to take her to bed? He might at least distract them both from their worries for an hour or two. She’d be in his bed in any case. With the hells all in nearby St. James’s, and no maid to help her dress at home, they’d agreed she’d stay with him until—well, they hadn’t exactly filled in the until. Until she has her two thousand pounds and can take a house was the most hopeful way to end that sentence, but other possible endings loomed as well. Until Cathcart sends her word of my loss in the duel, for example.

  A streetlamp up ahead shed its halfhearted illumination into the fog and shadows of the quiet street. He couldn’t help a fleeting vision of her walking these same streets alone, going unprotected into the gaming hells or even soliciting gentlemen because he was no longer here to look out for her. The prospect would spur white-hot panic through all his veins if he dwelt on it.

  He touched her elbow. “Are you hungry? Shall I order something to be sent up when we reach my rooms?” Laughable, really, this compulsion to see to her bodily needs when he found himself powerless in regard to the larger questions of her future.

  “No, thank you.” Her opposite hand
touched his, almost absently, where he still clasped her elbow. “I think I’ll just go straight to bed, if you don’t mind. But feel free to order something and dine without me.”

  Well, that certainly didn’t sound like a carnal invitation. “Is there nothing at all I can do for you?” In the heavy night air his words hung and twisted, gathering weight. If all his utterances could be tossed in a pot and boiled down to their purest essence, these ten words would surely be what remained.

  “I wish I could be sure of your being here in a week’s time.” She made her answer without turning to look at him. “I wish you would give up the duel.”

  He sighed. “I told you this morning why that’s not possible. Nothing has changed since then.”

  She only nodded, and they finished the walk to Lewes Buildings in silence. He helped her out of her gown and corset when they reached his rooms, and they sidled round one another in the small space, carving out what privacy they could for washing and teeth-cleaning and the last layers of undressing.

  In bed, she lay on her back and felt for his hand. He closed his fingers over hers.

  “I don’t know what to do about my maid,” she said.

  “In regard to what Mr. Roanoke threatened, you mean?” He’d walked into the study just in time to hear the man’s coarse taunt. “Surely she wouldn’t agree to such an arrangement.”

  “I would hope not. But sometimes, for want of other options … if he refused to give her a character, for example, she’d have a difficult time finding another situation. She’ll face that same predicament if he doesn’t survive the duel. And a young lady in want of money can fall prey to so many different …” She trailed off, slipping into thoughts where perhaps no gentleman could follow. “I hoped to have enough money to employ her myself.”

  “You must be good friends, I think. You and your maid.”

  “Not really. Not at all, in fact.” Her hair brushed over the pillow as she turned. In the dim light, her face was all vague contours; no glimmer from her eyes. “We haven’t much in common and I suspect I bore her with talking of cards and calculations. It’s foolish, I suppose, that I should feel so responsible for her as I do.”