A Gentleman's Guide to Scandal (31 page)

“Colin.” Elinor stepped forward tentatively. She didn't know what to say. There were no scripts for a thing like this. No sequence of words that would make this right. “I know you are hurting.”

He gave a choked laugh. “Your insight never ceases to amaze.”

“Don't be cruel,” she said softly. “Please, Colin. I can bear it when you blunder into cruelty, but not when you embrace it.”

“You shouldn't,” he said. “You should not bear cruelty by any means, from anyone. Least of all me.” He set down his glass and turned his back on her. “I want to be alone, Elinor.”

“I know,” she said. “And I'll leave you alone, in a moment. But today I found myself wishing very much that I could be alone, and very disappointed that I was alone without you waiting for me. And I wanted you to know that I am waiting for you, when you are done being alone.”

He turned slowly. “Waiting?” he said.

A tremor went through her. She knew, she
knew
she could not have him, but she could not stand beneath the weight of this feeling any longer without saying something. “I love you,” she said. “I am quite ridiculously in love with you, against all my best judgment and reason. I know that you do not feel the same way, and it needn't obligate you to anything. I need only be your friend. But I need you to know that you are only as alone as you wish to be, because I am waiting if you need me.”

“Because you love me,” he said. His voice was dull. She wet her lips.

“As I said, I have no expectations,” she said. “You're engaged, and—”

“I'm not,” he said.

“Not what?”

“Engaged. At least, I don't believe I am.”

“I see.” She paused. This was not an eventuality she had planned for.

“I've had an idea, though,” he said.

“What sort of idea?” she asked.

He took her hand, and reached into his pocket. He withdrew something small, something concealed in his palm, and pressed it into hers.

It was a small, carved cat, its tail tucked over its paws. Her token. She curled her fingers over it.

“I thought maybe I could get engaged again. To you,” he said. “You see, I've been rather inconveniently in love with you for five years.”

“What?” She stared at him. “But you never
told
me,” she said, shock making her tone accusatory.

To her further surprise, Colin threw back his head and laughed.

Once Colin began to laugh, he found it quite difficult to stop. He knew he should. He knew he shouldn't be laughing in the first place. There was so very little to amuse him, today. Even as he laughed, Foyle's words kept playing through his head.

His sister had killed herself, and he was happy. Was
laughing
. He choked on the convulsive sound, and wrenched himself into silence. “You must think me insane,” he said.

“Not really.” Elinor hadn't moved. “I'm a bit too much in shock to think much of anything.”

“I was at your house to tell you,” he said. “To explain how much I love you. To ask you to marry me. It was supposed to be happy. It would have been.”

She smiled, shook her head. “I think we are too old for such simple happiness,” she said. “Life has grown too complicated while we were distracted.”

“You could never be described as a simple woman,” Colin said. He shut his eyes. It was too much all at once. But his grief did not own his happiness. “Tell me again,” he said.

She did not have to ask him what he meant. He heard her draw forward, felt the very tips of her fingers against his cheek. “I love you,” she said.

He caught her hand and kissed the palm. “And I love you. I have loved you for so long the constant pain of it made me numb, but somehow you have opened up my wounds anew.”

“I wound you?” she said. “Colin. Your eloquence is sometimes lacking.”

“I swear, I am only ever so foolish around you,” he said, and kissed the smile that was beginning to form at the corner of her mouth. She turned her head and met his lips. It was only a kiss, soft and gentle and sweet, and yet it was the most intimate act they had shared. It felt as if there were no space between them, nothing around them. Only the beating of their two hearts, and all the complexities of their lives twined together. “I should have told you long ago,” he said.

“Oh, no,” she said. Their fingers were laced together, their bodies nearly touching. “If you had told me long ago, I would not have listened. We had to wait, you see. For the people we have become.”

“Are we different than we were? I confess I hadn't noticed. I still say the most foolish things. Sometimes I even mean them. You really shouldn't love a man like that,” he said. He was waiting for her to realize her mistake. To take it all back. For it must be a mistake. She could not be saying what he had dreamed for so long.

“I told you. I don't mind it when you don't mean it,” she said.

“And I told you that you should.” He kissed her again, quick and light. “I am sorry for all the foolish things I've said without meaning them.” He kissed her again, lingering for a long moment. “And I am deeply, deeply sorry for all the things I said intentionally. You did not deserve them.”

“I owe you apologies, as well,” Elinor said.

“You have only ever been cruel in answer to my anger,” he said. “And let us not begin this way. With recrimination and apology. Anything you have done, I forgive, though I do not accept the premise that there is anything
to
forgive. Except the matter of that small deception on your part. And I have a very simple proposal for making that up to me.”

“Oh?” she asked, but she was smiling, a knowing glint
in her eye. “I suppose we could arrange for such an act of contrition. Once we are properly married.”

“Must we wait?” he asked wistfully.

“Yes,” she said firmly.

He looked at her askance. “Why? I mean, I understand the normal reasons, but given our prior activities . . .”

“I want to wait,” she said. “Perhaps
because
of what we did. Call it ridiculous if you will, but after the way we began . . . I want something of sacredness in my love for you, Colin. And what we have done has been enjoyable, but it has been the furthest thing from sacred. I don't mean in the eyes of the Church, I mean between us. I want there to be more than pleasure.”

“There is,” he said. “And I will prove it.” He released her hands, and made for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To get a special license,” he said.

“Now?”

He turned, his hand on the knob. “I have waited long enough for this,” he said. “And I have spent long enough on matters of the past. I want the future to arrive, for it is bright and what has come before is anything but. And also—” He released the knob and returned to her, leaning close so that his mouth brushed her cheek. “I want you,” he whispered, and she shivered against him. “In every way I can have you. The sacred and the profane.”

“I think we've made plenty of progress on the latter,” Elinor said. Then, “Oh, hell. Martin.”

“What about him?” Colin asked. Martin was the last person he wanted to think about, right this moment.

“He would never forgive either one of us if we didn't speak to him first,” she said.

He groaned. “Can it wait until tomorrow? We'll talk to him between the special license and the wedding.”

“No. Before,” she said firmly. She planted a hand on her hip and looked at him sternly.

“I don't suppose I could persuade you by mentioning that
I've recently had some very bad news, and getting a special license would cheer me immensely,” he said. He smiled, but the smile was forced. The truth was, he had shoved the revelation of Marie's suicide aside for a few seconds, but now it was encroaching on him again, like a great beast prowling at the edge of a campfire's light. And Elinor, of course, saw it.

“I don't want to be a distraction,” she said. “Or you will only be disappointed when the whirl of motion ends, and we are at rest together. We must speak to Martin. But it needn't be today. Or tomorrow. It will be when you are ready.”

“But I am ready to be with you now,” he said.

She shook her head. “And I'm
not
, Colin. I need the marriage. Not the wedding, but the marriage. I don't expect you to understand.”

He kissed her brow. Of course he understood. “You don't want it to be part of the dream,” he shared. “Part of the game, the charade, whatever you want to call it. You want it to be part of your real life, your life here, and in that life, you would wait.”

She laced her hands behind his neck. “You know, I have spent so much time being irritated with you in my life, I have too often forgotten how smart you are.”

“Is that a compliment? It sounds almost like a compliment, yet it has the sting of an insult.”

“Your favorite kind, as I recall,” she said.

“You are beautiful, and brilliant, and I adore you,” he said, because he had never said it before, and because it made her laugh, made her kiss him. Made the sorrow at his heels fall back.

“Mrs. Fincher,” Elinor said, her lips against his.

He pulled away from her. “What?”

“Mrs. Fincher. The odd name on the odd letter. I've realized where I've seen it before,” Elinor said.

“What of it? Foyle's finished regardless.”

“You have to come with me,” Elinor said.

“Can we perhaps slot this in after Martin, the special
license, and the marriage? And the profaning?” Colin asked lightly, covering for his confusion.

“No. This comes first. I'm probably wrong. Surely I'm wrong.” Elinor frowned. “I don't think I'm wrong.”

“You rarely are,” he reminded her.

“Get Mr. Bhandari,” she said. “And have the carriage brought 'round.”

*   *   *

Colin's mouth went dry when he saw where Elinor had taken them. Mrs. Fincher's School for Girls was an austere, inhospitable building. Its entrance was gated with black iron bars, its windows shuttered and dark. When Elinor rang the bell, a plump woman answered, looking as drab and gray as the building itself.

“Can I help you?” she asked, peering at the four people on the stoop—for whatever impropriety she had tolerated so far, Lady Farleigh had insisted on coming along as escort.

“I hope so,” Elinor said. “My name is Lady Elinor Hargrove. This is Lord Farleigh and Lady Farleigh, and Mr. Bhandari.” With each honorific the woman's eyes widened a touch, and she seemed to take in the quality of their clothes and the fine carriage behind them for the first time. “We're looking for a girl. She'd be about six years old.”

“We've got a few of those,” the woman said, but her eyes slid to Mr. Bhandari, standing at the rear. “But I think I can guess which one you mean. Come in.”

She stepped aside, and they filed in one at a time. The interior was far more welcoming, lit as best as it could be with warm lamplight, the floors polished and the walls papered with cheerful prints of daisies. Colin found that he was having a rather hard time thinking. Or doing much of anything. He looked at Elinor, entreating her to tell him that he was right in his guess of why they were there, that
she
was right, but she looked as nervous as he did. Mr. Bhandari and Lady Farleigh simply looked mystified.

“Wait here, then,” the woman said, and vanished down a side passage.

“What on earth is going on, Elinor?” Lady Farleigh asked. “Why have you brought us here?”

“I could be wrong,” Elinor said, sounding desperate.

“You aren't,” Colin said with certainty that he could not explain. And then the woman came back around the corner, leading a little girl by the hand.

She was small. So small, with wide brown eyes and dark brown hair that was almost black, bound up with a single red ribbon. She had a sharp, elfin face, a perfect echo of her mother's.

“Do you know her, then?” the woman asked. “We've gotten money for her upkeep every month and strict instructions, but no one's ever come to claim her. Is it you, then? Were you sending all that money?”

Colin couldn't breathe. Neither, it seemed, could Mr. Bhandari.

“No,” Elinor said. “We weren't sending the money, that was someone else.” She walked forward and crouched in front of the girl while the rest of them stood frozen. “What's your name, sweetheart?”

The girl looked up at her guardian, and the woman gave an encouraging nod. She looked back at Elinor. “Marie,” she said softly. “My name is Marie.”

“Well, Marie. This is going to sound very strange and startling,” Elinor said, and her voice fluttered with the hint of tears. “But your mother was a friend of mine. A very good friend.”

“You know my mama?” the girl asked. She grew quiet. “Is she dead, like Lettie says?”

“Your mother is gone, sweetheart,” Elinor said, touching her arm. “But your family is not. May I?” She looked at the woman, who gave a quick nod, her own eyes a bit starry with tears. Elinor took the girl's hand and led her back toward the others. Colin watched her come with a feeling in his chest like an avalanche. He was going to smother under it. He could not tell if he was overjoyed or choked with sorrow, and he never wanted it to end.

“Mr. Bhandari, may I present your daughter,” Elinor said.

Mr. Bhandari did not move. He stared at the little girl, his lips parted in shock. Lady Farleigh gripped his arm. “She's yours, can't you see?” she said. “She's yours.”

Mr. Bhandari bent to one knee with exquisite slowness, and touched Marie's cheek with the very tips of his fingers. There was no mistaking that face.

“You are my father?” the girl asked. She looked around at all of them, plainly confused, and just as plainly overcome with hope, with the promise of a fairy tale told by every orphan coming true at last. “But why did you leave me here? Why didn't you come for me before?”

“I did not know,” he said. His voice was thick. “I didn't know that you were here, my little angel. I did not know that you were mine.”

Lady Farleigh clutched Colin's arm in both hands. She seemed to be having trouble staying upright, and Colin wasn't certain he could offer much more stability. And then the little girl threw herself into her father's arms, her face shining with trust that her fairy tale ending had come. Mr. Bhandari swept her into the air, crushing her against his chest, a sound in his throat like a sob.

The woman—Mrs. Fincher, Colin presumed—looked at the rest of them in pleased befuddlement. “Is that true? He's her father?” she asked.

“It would appear so,” Colin managed. “She was never claimed?”

“No. Dropped off by a man hired to do it, and all she had was a note pinned to her. Said her mother drowned, and we were to look after her.”

“Why?” Lady Farleigh asked. “Why would Foyle lie to you, Colin? Why say she was dead?”

Colin's pressed his lips together in a grim line. “Never give up leverage,” he said. “If he thought he could take her out of his pocket when the need arose, why give her to us? And if he'd said she was alive, we wouldn't have let him leave without knowing where.”

“There's no question, then,” Elinor said. “It's not just me. She's Marie's daughter.”