A Gentleman Undone (43 page)

“It’s very forward of me. I beg your pardon for that. Shall we walk?” They started south, the widow’s skirts swishing in rhythm with her own. Time to set her shoulders and plunge ahead. “In fact I’ve come on a particular errand. My cousin left yesterday’s visit in a state of some confusion.”

“I should be surprised if he hadn’t.” Mrs. Talbot dimpled suddenly, blushed, and shook her head, averting her gaze to the pavement. “Please tell him I’m sorry for the awkwardness. Assure him he was no more astonished than I was to hear of Mrs. John Talbot’s assumptions.”

“You did look … startled.”

“Perhaps I oughtn’t to have been.” She lifted her chin and frowned into the distance. “My sister-in-law would like very much to have the house to herself and her husband and her own children again. Little wonder, I suppose, that she’d jump at any chance of another establishment for me and my son.”

This was near enough, wasn’t it, to a denial of any expectation? It wasn’t as though he could marry the widow in any case. And yet to know for a certainty—to be able to go back to him and say
you have not disappointed her hopes in the least
—would be a prize worth some risk. Lydia tightened her fingers where they gripped her cloak together. “I should think you must wish for that too. It must be very hard, living with relations who make you feel you’re a burden. Marriage, to say nothing of marriage to a man with Mr. Blackshear’s merit, must be an attractive option by compare.”

“Not for me.” She studied the pavement again, then brought her chin round to address Lydia straight on. “I’ll be frank, Miss Slaughter. Your cousin appears to be an excellent man. Mr. Talbot spoke well of him in his letters, and his kind attentions speak for themselves. He
deserves a wife who will love him, not one whose heart was buried with another man.” Her eyes shone blue and pristine as a reflecting pool under a cloudless sky. “I’d never remarry at all, if I could avoid it. I certainly won’t inflict such unhappiness on Mr. Blackshear.”

And now she had the prize, a balm to his conscience, to take back to him. Better yet, she had a prize for Mrs. Talbot too. With the hand that wasn’t clutching her purse she caught the widow’s elbow and ushered her to one side of the walk. “Mr. Talbot must have known what would be your wish.” Was this a convincing story? Through the mounting haze of happiness she couldn’t be quite sure. “You’ll forgive Mr. Blackshear, I hope, for not telling you of this before now, but he wanted to wait until there was a result worth telling. The fact is your husband made an investment and left it in my cousin’s charge, and now that investment has made its return, and …” She was doing the right thing. Without doubt she was doing the right thing. “… and it’s my privilege, Mrs. Talbot, to ask whether you can spare an hour to journey with me to the bank.”

M
RS
. T
ALBOT
wept in the hackney. Her sweet dainty features concealed nothing, and Lydia could see the exact second when she understood that she was to have her independence. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted for an instant before she pressed them together in a futile attempt at command. But by then her whole lower face was trembling. She brought her hands halfway up and let them fall again, helplessly, and turned to the window. Then she gave up altogether and just let the tears come.

It was wonderful, one of the most wonderful things Lydia had ever seen. Her foolish heart felt like a teacup
into which someone had forgot to stop pouring. But that was all right. Such untidy brimming-over warmth kept the widow company in her untidy weeping.

“I recommend you set aside two hundred in ready money, to see you through the year and to discharge whatever obligation you choose to recognize toward your husband’s kin.” One helpless peal of laughter spilled out from between the helpless tears, prompting another slosh of sentiment in her heart. “That will leave you with twenty-five hundred to invest, which will bring you one hundred and twenty-five pounds per year.”

Mrs. Talbot found a handkerchief and pressed it to her eyes. “I scarcely know what to think. It’s Providential, isn’t it? That this money should come when I had no earthly hope of it?” She turned the handkerchief over to find a dry place, and dabbed at her eyes again. “My Jamey has two thousand pounds of his own from another such arrangement; did you know?”

She hadn’t known. But she remembered, of a sudden, the night she’d asked after the proceeds of Will’s commission. Part of it was tied up elsewhere, he’d said. She touched a gloved knuckle to each eye. “I’m so happy for you. I’m sure you’ve deserved it.”

Let her believe it was the work of Providence. Well, and it was. Good people provided for one another. The best people made a solemn duty of it. People like herself could at least make sure they didn’t stand in the way of such noble intent.

At the bank she waited in that same line again, drawing inexorably nearer to the clerk whose insolent manners had thwarted her in a similar mission six weeks since.

Six weeks had wrought changes, though. She’d struck a man in that time, and shot two. She’d recovered her heart, with all its frailties and its strengths as well.

Besides, Mrs. Talbot was depending on her, as Jane
never truly had. So was Mr. Blackshear, though he didn’t know it. And the dependence of other people proved a remarkably fortifying tonic—by the time they reached the front of the line she could have faced a dozen leering clerks, naked, if she had to, without so much as a blush.

She only had to face one. And he never even worked up a proper leer. “Good afternoon, sir,” she said the instant she and the widow sat down. “May I present Mrs. Talbot, a widow of one of our brave fighting men. She’d like to invest in the Navy fund. She hasn’t a man of business, but she does have twenty-five hundred pounds.” She paused for an unhurried breath. “And she has me. And I will not leave this bank until she has her certificate, not if I have to sit down with a dozen of your worthy colleagues until I find one willing to help.”
Colleagues who might be interested to hear a few things I can tell of you
.

She didn’t have to say that aloud. His face told her, plainly, that his imagination had supplied it. He dipped his pen and began to take down the widow’s information, avoiding her own eyes all the while.

Thirty minutes later they passed through the doors onto the street, Mrs. Talbot clutching tight to her certificate and fumbling for her handkerchief again. “You’ve been so kind, Miss Slaughter. If I can ever be of service to you in any way—”

And
that
was all that had been wanting; the final value that would make the whole equation come out right. “In fact you can do me a very great favor. You’ll have means enough to employ a maid-of-all-work, and I happen to know one who’s in want of just such a respectable situation.”

H
E COULDN’T
say how long he’d been sitting in that same place on the bed when she finally walked through
his door. He’d spent some time on his feet, to be sure. He’d gone inch by inch through the rooms to see whether anything else had been disturbed, then searched every surface for a note of explanation. But the bulk of his time had been spent right here, staring at the drawer he’d ransacked and ransacked again. He’d left it out after his last rifling and it jutted from the dresser with a certain truculence, as though conscious of having failed him and determined not to care.

The latch hardware clicked and he turned his head slowly. He did not rise.

She was wearing the plain dark blue gown she’d worn that day he and Martha had encountered her on the street. A reticule swung limply from her wrist. She glanced about the room, and crossed with careful steps to the bedroom door.

He waited for her eyes to register him, to register the pulled-out drawer. He brought his own gaze back to the dresser. He couldn’t seem to form the question, but then he didn’t have to. A woman with only a tenth of her cleverness would know he wasn’t despairing over a lost pair of stockings.

“I took the money.” Damn her, she didn’t even sound sheepish. “I called on Mrs. Talbot. I told her Mr. Talbot had put you in charge of an investment, and it had come out well.”

“How much did you give her?” The air was feeling too thin, too insubstantial to breathe.

“Two thousand, seven hundred pounds.”

He surged to his feet, the desperate misgivings of these past hours galvanized into a panic that seized his whole form. “Lydia, that was
everything
.” In two strides he made the dresser and shoved the drawer back in. “That was all the money I had to my name.”

“Not altogether.”
Now
she sounded self-conscious,
because she knew this wasn’t the appropriate reply, but she could no more avoid making it than a clock could keep silent at the top of the hour. “You had sixty-two pounds three shillings sixpence besides. Have.” She corrected herself, holding up the reticule as though for proof. “You still have that.” A faint jingle of coins testified to the fact.

He rested his palms on the dresser-top and let his head sag until all he saw was faded mahogany. “I might have secured your future with that money.” His mouth filled with the familiar bitter taste of good intentions thwarted by circumstance. “I might at least have gone to that duel with the peace of mind brought by knowing I wouldn’t leave you destitute and alone in the world.”

“I know. That’s what I was afraid of.” Without the smallest sign of repentance she slipped into the place beside him and laid her right hand over his left. “You made a vow to provide for Mrs. Talbot before you ever laid eyes on me. She has the prior claim.”

“She has a roof over her head. She has relations, however far from ideal. If I can only provide for one of you …” He stopped. He hated himself for even thinking of renouncing his promise to Talbot.

“Do you see?” Her fingers fitted themselves between each of his, knitting their two hands together. “You don’t even like to speak the idea aloud. You know the act would be unworthy of you.”

“I’ve been too much concerned with what would be worthy of me.” He turned his head aside. He might hate himself, yes. But self-hatred was a price he would have willingly paid in exchange for her security. “I begin to think honor is just another kind of vanity, and honor satisfied will be the poorest of consolations if—”

“No.” The brief utterance carried all the authority of a rolling thunder-peal. “Honor is the best part of you,
Will Blackshear. And I don’t make that pronouncement lightly. No woman could, who’s ever seen you naked.”

He let his head fall back. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to break the nearest breakable object, he wanted to run from the room, he wanted to pick up this woman and throw her over his shoulder and haul her straight off to the bed. Instead he drew his hand out from under hers and sent that arm, carefully, round her waist. Her head tipped to rest on his shoulder. “You called on Mrs. Talbot,” he said.

“She never had any thought of marrying you. She would refuse you if you offered, even if it meant remaining with those relations.” She craned back to look up into his eyes. “She was so happy to have the prospect of living independently. So grateful. I wish you could have been there to see.”

The intelligence did bring some solace, as did her nearness and the weight of her head on his shoulder and the knowledge that she was telling him this—that in fact she’d gone to find this out—because she knew the state of his conscience and wanted to deliver him from self-blame where she could.

He touched his cheek to the top of her head. “My sister will still know me, if I marry you.” Now he would tell her how he’d spent
his
day. “The one you met, Mrs. Mirkwood. Her husband as well. We’re to call on them next week provided I … provided we’re able. And I may take a position in Mr. Fuller’s business. I’m to speak to him next week too.”

An ache crept into the back of his throat. Even a day ago he hadn’t minded the prospect of dying so very much. But now that he had such a worthwhile future almost in reach, things took on a different complexion.

No point in dwelling on that. “You still have your own few hundred, I hope.” They would just have to fatten that stake as best they could, tonight and for as
many nights as remained. He couldn’t guarantee her security. He must let that ambition go. All he could do was shoot straight, when the moment came, and privately pray for luck.

B
Y
M
ONDAY
, when a note came from Lord Cathcart with the time and location of the duel, she had six hundred eight pounds, two shillings, and a farthing. They’d won at a decent pace these last three nights, but Mr. Blackshear had insisted on keeping their wagers conservative and, well, she cared too much for his feelings to argue. Hence, six hundred eight pounds and some coins. Not enough to keep a woman safe from want.

“I’ve written my sister’s direction on a paper and left it in that top drawer,” he said that night in bed. “I think she won’t refuse you help, if you go to her.” They lay chastely side by side. Gravity had shouldered its way into the bed and left no room for passion. “Or you might see how far you can prevail upon Mrs. Talbot’s gratitude. If she’s to have a home of her own …”

“Yes. Thank you.” A corpse would sound like this, if it could talk. But if she had been a corpse, she would at least know the peace of inertia. Instead she felt the way she did in her nightmares, screaming with all her might and never producing a sound.

The way she
had
felt in her nightmares, rather. She’d slept six nights in this bed without one.

Life needn’t be entirely devoid of purpose if you lose him, nor of joy. Remember how it felt to rescue Mrs. Talbot. Remember how it felt to make provision for Jane
.

No. Tomorrow she would begin meditating on those consolations, if she must. Tonight it was her prerogative to dwell unreservedly on the horror of watching him slip through her desperate clutching fingers.

“I do intend to survive the duel, Lydia.” He’d turned his head. Sidelong she could see his solemn dark eyes, glimmering in the moonlight. “But to prepare you for the other eventuality is only sensible.” His hand drifted across several inches of mattress to find hers. “I’ll have Cathcart send a message to you straightaway, whatever the outcome. You won’t have to wait and wonder.”