An Untitled Lady (31 page)

“Not in the martial sense, though they do look quite fierce. In the sense of how they wish to change our world, certainly.”

“They just want a sliver of what we take for granted.”

“They want more than that. Opening the vote to unlanded men would put them in the immediate majority. If they voted
en masse
against our interests, they would win.” Deacon shivered theatrically. Maddie didn’t smile.

“They want the same things we do: Safety, security, family.”

“The means they wish to secure them by—that marks the difference. They wish us to give our money to them. Simple as that.”

“I don’t believe it is that simple.”

“Now you really do sound like Nash.”

Maddie turned to face him almost straight on. “Did you pay for Nash to marry me?”

Deacon’s mouth turned down. “I did and I didn’t. Don’t look at me like that. I did supply a dowry for you, but Nash would never have married solely for money. In the event, he played me for a fool: You are a treasure.”

After a mile of silence, Maddie could hold it in no longer. “I’m going to march.”

Deacon jerked back from her. “Driver, stop!” The carriage lurched to a start so violently she was nearly thrown. He caught her by the waist and settled her back on the bench as he spoke to the driver at the door.

“Check on the horses. One might have a stone in its shoe. Now.” The man obediently stepped down and checked his horses.

“Saints have mercy,” Deacon hissed at her. “Did Kitty put you up to it?”

“Women should have the vote, too.”

“Don’t even start. But answer me: Did you decide this of your own will?”

“Why?”

“Because this would be great political theater, my dear. How much ink would be given to a poor weaver’s daughter marching for her vision of justice? None. How much would be given to the wife of the biggest goods trader in Manchester, the sister of the local earl no less, doing the same? Columns.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Doesn’t it? Kitty will tell her hero, that Orator fellow, who will trumpet it from the stage. He might even call you out of the crowd. How proud Nash will be.”

“It’s nothing like that.” Maddie suddenly wanted to cry.

“You think a sister of reform wouldn’t use you for her own purposes? Why ever not? She knows a good deal when she sees it.”

“You’re not being fair.” Kitty was her sister, and would only want what was best for her and the family. Then again, she and Kitty could well have different pictures of what was good for the family. Was she being manipulated? No. This was her decision, and it was the right one. She should be represented in her government, and so should the workers be. The surge of doubt left an ache in Maddie’s heart. “Stop. I’m sorry. Don’t cry.” Deacon’s movements were all agitation. He waved his scented handkerchief at her, nearly choking her. It had his initials in five places. With so much stitching, it would scratch the nose of anyone who dared to use it. She had to laugh.

“Merciful heavens.” Deacon leaned out the door of the carriage to call the coachman back. “Nothing? How odd. Let us resume.” Soon they were rolling again for Manchester.

“Do what you must, Maddie. I’m with you, despite your minx of a sister. I must give you a word of warning, though; I know how appearances can work against you. If you wish to preserve the peace at home, lay low. Don’t lead a regiment, above all. If anything goes wrong, know that you can come to me, always. Above all, don’t breathe a word of what you are doing to Nash.”

{ 34 }

Nash forced himself admit it. He was jealous of his brother.

Deacon could take Maddie out to the country, give her a lark of an afternoon, just the thing her heart needed. Nash could only cage her in this sooty, seething town he could never seem to find time to escape. Just a few more days, and then perhaps he’d take her to Liverpool, or even to London. If the Netherlands deal went belly-up, though that seemed less likely by the day, they’d best have their fun while his funds allowed.

After she’d left the warehouse, the afternoon had ground so to a halt he’d checked to make sure the clocks were running. He’d stuck it out, though, rearranging boxes in a new order Jem suggested. There was no rush to the project, but he hated coming home to an empty house now.

He thrust open the door and saw her bonnet, hung neatly as always. He matched it with his hat, and lit up the stairs to Maddie’s sitting room. She was already standing when he crossed into the room, a pattern magazine on the table beside her, with cuttings of fine white cotton. She set down the shears and came to embrace him. He drew in the scent of her—sun, meadow, and fragrant skin.

This was a proper homecoming.

He dropped into the seat across the small table from hers. “A dress?”

“Apron. Deacon says hello. He says you work too much. He says you should have come.”

“Next time. Did he tell you tales out of school?”

“We talked mostly of the meeting, like everyone else. We saw the workers rehearsing for parade.”

Nash sat up straight. Of all the bone-headed maneuvers. “You went to see the drilling?”

“It isn’t drilling, or not for any martial purpose.”

“But you went?”

“Deacon took us. It was just a ride in the country.”

“A ride that took you directly to one of its most dangerous areas?”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “You do sound like a magistrate. There were no guns, no cudgels, no pikes. There were babies, and women, and children. Families, Nash.”

Something was wrong. She picked up the scissors, but her hands shook and she set them back down. Nash’s chest went cold. He didn’t say anything. Best to wait her out.

All that churching must have trained her well. She neither moved nor spoke.

Nash rubbed his chin. In all the excitement, he’d forgotten to shave today. “How did Deacon decide to drive to Middleton? He usually prefers the dells.”

Her hands twisted in her lap.

“Maddie?”

“Kitty decided.”

Kitty. That one was getting too familiar for his tastes. No doubt she knew exactly what they would find on their little drive.

“Deacon listened to her?”

“They were flirting.”

“My god.”

“It wasn’t real, and besides, it’s over now. They argued, and she refused to go home with us.”

“Smart lass.”

“What do you know of it?” Maddie’s attack took Nash by surprise, and immediately made him suspicious. He didn’t rise to her bait.

She looked at him as if trying to read him. He held out his hands, an open book. “How did Kitty come riding with you?”

“He sent a messenger to her house, inviting her.”

“Treating her like a lady, proper miss.”

“She is so a proper miss, at least, as much as I am.”

“You are my wife.”

“Is that all I am to you?”

Here it came. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think women aren’t allowed to have ideas of their own.”

“Certainly they may.”

“We may have the courage of our convictions, true, so long as we do not act on them.”

What could she be on about? “What do you want, Maddie? You’re a cipher.”

She put her hands palms down on the table. “Why can’t women have the vote?”

“Sweet mother of pearl, do we need to talk about that now? I have enough on my plate.”

“Kitty speaks at the reform meetings, and votes, and the world has not come to an end. Men respect her because her words carry wisdom. Mine don’t?”

“It’s not the same, voting in the back room of a noisome bar and electing a member to Parliament.”

“Can we not start somewhere?”

“Let’s talk about this later. Everyone’s nerves are set on edge tonight.”

“You mean mine, of course. Men don’t have nerves.”

“We have plenty.” She was still too fragile. He’d been wrong about her speedy recovery. Dark circles under her eyes, and the lines at the corners of her mouth, spoke volumes. She still startled at every sound, even some he couldn’t hear.

The tension this weekend was affecting everyone; surely it was harming her. He had to get her away from here. He’d miss her in his bed, but knowing she was safe and on the mend at Shaftsbury would ease his mind, if not his loins.

“Maddie, listen. Tomorrow, I want you to go to Deacon’s pile and stay there.”

“Why?”

“I want you out of the city in case anything happens.”

“You keep telling anyone who will listen that nothing is going to happen.”

“I’m willing to consider I may be wrong. I won’t risk you.” She’d had enough pain in her life already. He thought he saw her face soften a moment, and then she crossed her arms, scowling.

“I see no reason to go to Shaftsbury. Do you order me to go?”

“Not an order, a request. It will be deadly dull here, in any case. Why not spend some time with Deacon’s ledgers?”

Her face hardened, and Nash realized with a curse he had said the exact wrong thing.

“I do not need to be protected from the mob, as you put it, because I will be one of them.”

Did she mean she would go to the meeting? She couldn’t be serious.

She was. Pride and fear crossed and re-crossed her face. She seemed to be holding her breath waiting for his reaction. Nash held his breath, as well. Otherwise he would explode all over her. He counted slowly to ten. And ten again.

“Absolutely not.”

“You forbid it?”

“I do.”

“If I do march, despite your misgivings?”

“Misgivings? Frankly, Maddie, right now I fear more for the safety of your mob than any danger that might spring from it. Let them have their meeting. This is not your fight.”

“It is. For all women. For my family.”

“I am your family now.”

She sat silent, eyes closed. He thought back to when they first met in May, her determination, the steady pressure of her moral strength.

He might lose this argument, he realized. His Maddie might have the soft manners of a Southerner, but she’d been born with a spine of pure Lancashire iron, strengthened by all she’d endured.

She’d fought for her place with Deacon, and lost graciously. She fought for a place at the warehouse, and wasn’t she there again? Now she had found what looked to her a family; what made him think she would not fight to keep it?

She had to know she was his family now; he couldn’t lose her. She filled his days, his life. She fit with him. Their edges might be rough, but he had faith they’d smooth out as they rubbed along. Faith, patience, and love.

“I love you, Madeline.”

She blinked, and her gaze locked on his. Her mouth opened in that inviting way. It was the first time he had spoken those words to her. All the other times had been silent promises, said over dinner, or on the walk home, or over her sleeping form.

“Oh, Nash.” Her gaze shuttered, locking him out. Her disappointment seared his bones.

“I want to keep you safe.”

“You don’t fight fair.” She stood and headed for the door.

He scrambled in his mind for something to say, something that would hold her here. She could not go. He would not let her go. “Don’t do it.”

She reached the doorway and grasped the doorknob, then looked back at him. “Or what?”

He let out a gust of breath. His throat ached; even his eyes ached. “Or we are through.”

{ 35 }

Maddie nearly fell down the stair, afraid Nash would chase and catch her and at the same time afraid that he would not. There was no sound of pursuit, no hand on her shoulder as she threw on her bonnet and pushed herself out the door. Before she knew it, she had crossed two streets, and her chest heaved, gasping for breath.

He told her he loved her. He told her to obey. He said he was forever family, and he would never leave her. He said that if she defied him, he would cut her loose.

Maddie hardly registered the greater numbers of people in the streets on a Saturday night. Once she saw where her feet were taking her, she could only wish to arrive faster. No one was in the graveyard where her mother lay. Maddie brushed a leaf off the marker. She sank to the ground and leaned against it, the edges of the letters and numbers that marked her mother’s life cutting into her back.

Kitty wanted her to prove her love to her family by marching. Nash wanted her to prove her love to his family by not marching. What would her mother want?

Only to love her, by the heartful. Maddie sank her fingers into the ground, as if to find her, even as she knew what she wanted to find—a flesh-and-blood woman ready to embrace her—did not exist. Maddie’s chest ached, disappointment and growing despair and a grief her heart could no longer contain. She turned toward the stone and traced the letters, one by one.

“She were so young. You be older now than she ever was.”

Over top of the marker, she could see the head and shoulders of her father. He sat, his back against the other side of the marker. “It were a different time, then. Wives had babes soon as they could, not like now.”

“You talk to her, too?”

“She gives good counsel.”

Maddie blinked back tears. He was talking with her! She struggled with what to say next. She took too long; he was the first to speak again.

“My Kitty says you would march. Didn’t sound right to me. Thought I’d ask my Mary.”

Softly, she said, “Did you love her?”

“I did. I’ll never look at another.” He lapsed into silence.

It warmed her soul to think she had been conceived in love, a wanted child, a joy. If only she had that with Nash. His love was conditional, which really was no love at all.

She closed her eyes. She’d say goodbye tomorrow, and start looking for employment. She’d need to make her own way. Perhaps Mr. Heywood would make good on his offer of a bookkeeper’s position, but she knew better than to expect anyone to keep a promise.

He stirred, sighed. “That be the problem with thee. To look upon you is to see your Ma. Couldn’t bear it when you were wee, and it’s worse now you are grown. Strikes me a blow fierce every time I catch sight of you.”

His words made no sense to her. “I look just like Kitty.”

“My blue-eyed devil? None a bit of it. You have the angel in you, and it’s the weakness in me that cannae stomach it. Can ye forgive me?”

Of course she could forgive him, but how would that change anything? Perhaps if she could please him, he might alter his opinion. Her mother was gone, but part of her lived on in Maddie. Couldn’t he love that part? And perhaps that love might—someday, not tomorrow—it might extend to the whole of her. She had to try.

“Do you think you could stand it if I marched?”

“I believe so. She would have it so.”

Maddie rose to her feet, her knees creaking in protest. The sky was purpled with oncoming night. She stepped back on the path, away from her father. She could see a leg stretched out, but no more.

“Then I’ll see you at the meeting.”

She would go to Middleton with Kitty. They could stay at Shaftsbury overnight; it was only a mile or two from the village. She would join the marchers.

Her mother would have it so.

* * * *

After she returned home, Maddie and Nash sat to supper, and then sat together reading until time for bed. Looking in the window, their evening looked much like many others. Inside, though, one could hear the difference. No one spoke.

At eleven, they readied themselves for bed, still like a theater piece without sound. Maddie used the washbasin first as Nash disrobed, then they switched places, a mockery of a minuet.

Without a word, they slid under the sheets from separate sides of the bed. Maddie wore her night rail; Nash, as usual, wore nothing.

For a long minute they lay side by side on their backs, not touching. Maddie wondered if she ever would touch him again.

Nash had made it clear that should she disobey, should she march, he was through with her. She would march. There was nothing more to say.

She closed her eyes. Only a few months ago the idea of leading a quiet life as a bookkeeper for a man like Mr. Heywood seemed the best of a ream of bad choices. Now it felt unbearable.

What the people were doing was right. She should help them. She must. It was her cause, too. She could work; she would not starve. Perhaps she could set up a small school, as Miss Marsden had done in Bath. Perhaps, in a decade or so, she would have buried her longings and her loss in good deeds and those beautiful moments of discovery that shone in children’s faces.

That imagined joy was years away. Right now, she loved Nash’s touch, his breath, his scent of new wood, coppery tea, and man. His rumbling tenor voice in the other room. The constant surprise at his grace though he was such a big man.

He was starting to understand her, too. To know her, as no one else ever had. As no one else ever would. Or so she’d made herself believe. Her breath hitched.

His hand took her hip and rolled her to her side. Pulling her close, he wrapped himself around her. Their bodies quickened, unfettered by their minds’ arguments against the connection.

He planted kisses behind her ear and along her neck and shoulder while his hand massaged the deep curve in her back. The gentle touch seemed to push her fears away.

“Stay, Maddie.” The words croaked out of him, rusted from an evening’s disuse. She spun to face him, his eyes wide in the darkness. “Please.”

She took his mouth with such passion it pushed him onto his back. Without letting go for one second, she moved over him, hiking up her rail and fitting her bared hips into his.

He groaned and arched against her, his bulge pressing against her. His body wanted her, but she wanted it more. Without waiting for Nash to do it, she took the base of his cock and positioned it. Inch by inch, she slowly sank onto him, taking him fully inside, as far as she could. She savored every moment, every thrust and gasp and drop of sweat on her skin.

She memorized the lines of his body, the rhythms of his breathing and thrusting and calling out. The wonder that was Nash.

She would need to recall these things in the life to come. She knew they would not be repeated.