Proof by Seduction (26 page)

Damn him. The facts were simple. He was a lord. She was a ruined woman he had taken on as a mistress. She accepted as payment the casual kindnesses he offered.

It had been many years since Jenny had allowed herself to cry.

She did, now. She cried hot tears for her own stupidity. For that raging desire that still burned inside her, her determination to be strong and respected. She buried her face in her blanket and sobbed. It felt strangely exhilarating to let her tears loose.

She’d always thought it weak to indulge in tears, but nothing else seemed to answer for the situation. Crying didn’t solve any problems, but not crying hadn’t proven particularly effective, either. She let herself weep.

The creak of hinges interrupted her. Heavy footsteps sounded in her front room, and a metallic scrape. Jenny looked up through tear-blurred eyes in time to see Gareth come down the short hall between her rooms. His hands were full; he held a bundle under one arm, and the kettle from the other room in his hand. He set the kettle on the hob-grate over the fire.

Then he glanced over at Jenny and froze in shock. The cloth he’d used to hold the kettle fell from his hand and fluttered to the floor. It landed with an ignominious plop.

“I’ll be damned,” Gareth said slowly, “if I ever have any idea what to say at times like this.”

Jenny sniffled. “You didn’t leave?”

He looked at her as if she belonged in Bedlam. “Of course I left. I was hungry, and I couldn’t find anything to eat. I bought a loaf and some cheese. And oranges.” He set his paper-wrapped package on the table. “Wait. You mean, you thought I had left. Without saying a word to you. Would I do that?”

He drew himself up, cold and affronted.

Jenny nodded.

His jaw clenched. “Damn it. You know better than most I’m no good at these things but even I am not
that
bad. Really, Jenny. Why would you believe such a thing of me?”

“I don’t know,” she said, mulishly. “Maybe because you once told me all you wanted from me was a good shag?”

“
I
said that?” He looked surprised, then contemplative. Then, apparently, he remembered, and winced. “God. I said
that?
Why did you even touch me?”

She glanced away so he could not see her heart in her eyes.

Steam was billowing from the kettle. Gareth stooped and plucked the cloth from the floor and grasped the handle. Jenny watched in fascination as he poured water into her teapot.

“What kind of a lord are you? You make your own tea?”

He set the kettle down with a faint sniff. “I’m not
completely
helpless. I lived with only a small entourage in a Brazilian rain forest for months. I can make perfectly respectable tea. And coffee. And porridge, for that matter.” He gestured with the cloth. “You like oranges. Here. Let me peel one for you.”

Jenny hiccuped through her tears. “How do you know I like oranges?”

“Why else would you have had one in that sack the day I met you? Now, come over here and eat. You’ll feel better.”

Jenny wrinkled her nose at him, but he was undoubtedly right. She sat and he handed her a section of orange.

“Tears,” he said as she popped the tangy fruit into her mouth, “are irrational. You needn’t fear I’ll leave you with nothing but a silver bracelet. I’ll take care of my responsibilities.” He handed her a piece of cheese.

Jenny held up her hands in protest.

“No,” she said in a low voice. “You won’t.”

“What do you mean, I won’t? Of course I will. You can’t imagine the money would mean anything to me, and so why wouldn’t I—”

She jabbed a finger into his chest. “You won’t,” she said, “because I won’t let you. I have…I have enough money. Saved. In a manner of speaking.” Where that manner of speaking was exaggeration. She licked her lips. “And I don’t want to be your responsibility.” That she was more certain about. “I’m never going to be your responsibility. Do you think I
want
a periodic payment from you?”

“Why ever not? Most people would.”

She shook her head mutely. Then she burst into tears again.

Gareth stared at her in horror. “What? What did I say
this
time?”

She kept crying.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he cried. “It’s inexplicable. You’re an intelligent woman, Jenny. There’s no need to cry because a man offers to provide a little financial assistance.”

The admonition had no effect.

She had harbored girlish dreams about her mother. She’d never wondered, though, what her mother had experienced. Had she, too, been shunted off when some man she cared for coldly offered her a stream of dreary coins?

Jenny wouldn’t accept it for herself. She’d lived on that sort of payment all her young life. Someone had employed a stream of uncaring women to raise her. She hadn’t run away from a life as a governess to lapse into another man’s
responsibility
. Because what a woman felt as cold obligation, a man saw as salve for his conscience. Financial absolution, as it were, in lieu of emotional ties.

She would not do this again. She’d become Madame Esmerelda because she didn’t want a master. She’d felt pushed into one box or another. She didn’t want to be another bloody line in his ledgers, and she’d be damned if she depended on another person again.

“Look,” Gareth said a bit desperately, “I’ll—I’ll send financial assistance.
And
an occasional fruit basket.”

Jenny couldn’t help it. She laughed at him through her sniffles. “Oh, listen to you. ‘A woman is not a millpond. She is a science.’ Good God, if the Linnean Society could hear you now, they’d drum you out of their ranks.”

“Well,” Gareth huffed, “I don’t know what to do. I was serious about the fruit basket. Or at least I would be, if it would make a difference.”

“I know. Why do you suppose I started laughing? Honestly, Gareth. Could you be any more helpless?”

“Helpless?” Gareth frowned. “I’m not
helpless.
I just can’t think of anything to say. And since you won’t tell me what the matter is, I can’t solve the problem.”

“If you could solve the problem, I wouldn’t be crying, would I?”

“What the devil am I supposed to do about a problem I can’t solve?”

Oh, if only Jenny knew the answer to that one. But her future loomed ahead of her with frightening blankness. There was no home for her to return to; no
back
to go back to.

“It would help,” Jenny said, her voice thick with tears, “if you would come over here.”

He pulled his chair next to hers and sat, somewhat awkwardly. “Like this?”

She nodded. “And you could put your arms around me.”

“Like this?”

She relaxed into his hold. “Almost like that,” she said, “but tighter. Right. Like that.”

It was an illusion, and one she’d browbeaten him into displaying. But for a moment, she could imagine that he cared.

The mirage lasted only a moment. “This isn’t a rational way to address a problem,” he complained.

“Hush. Listen. Sometimes answers flow without words, through touch.”

“Like completing an electric circuit?”

Jenny had heard only bits and pieces about the new theories of electric flow, and couldn’t answer that. After a space, she spoke again.

“As much as I may find to deplore in my past conduct, I can’t see what I would change. The life I rejected seemed very dreary to me, without possibility of reward or thanks. I know any God-fearing woman would not quail at such a thought, but God had never shown me particular favor. I felt as if I were being forced into a coffin, and told that if only I would lie rigidly enough, the screams of the damned would soon fade into gentle murmurs. I saw the teachers around me—cold, humorless women. They had no friends, no family. I couldn’t join their ranks. I was eighteen, Gareth. It was too young to die. But now here I am. I’m not sure how to go on.”

He ran his hand down her hair. “For now,” he said, and then stopped. He leaned down, his nose brushing against her forehead. “For now, I’d like you to go on with me.”

“See?” Jenny said. “That was good. A comforting gesture, and completely unprompted on my part. You’re a quick study. Even you will have to admit that, despite your appeal to logic, touch works. All the cold in me flows to you.”

“Cold can’t flow,” he said, pulling her closer. “Only heat. Thermodynamically speaking—”

“Gareth?”

He looked down.

“Don’t ruin this.”

He didn’t.

H
OURS LATER
, Jenny ducked her head inside the bank. There were three cashiers about. None of them, Jenny saw with some relief, was Mr. Sevin. She approached another man, one with whom she had made deposits before. He regarded her with attentive politeness. Thank God; Mr. Sevin had not spread tales about her.

“Perhaps you can help me,” Jenny said. “I seem to have, um, misplaced my passbook. And I had hoped to make a withdrawal.”

“Of course,” said the man. “I recognize you. Have you your account information?”

Jenny handed over a slip of paper. He scanned it and then disappeared into a back room. When he returned, he carried a sheaf of papers. His mouth contorted into a puzzled frown.

“Madame—Esmerelda, is it?”

Jenny thought about explaining further. But no. She’d learned last time not to admit to identifying herself under a false name until
after
she had her money in hand.

“Yes.”

“Well, this is very strange. Typically, we do not maintain accounts when the balance sinks so low.”

Jenny sighed. She’d heard this before. “I know. When I opened the account…” Well. She didn’t want to alert him to Mr. Sevin’s involvement. If he decided to talk to the man, goodness knows when she’d see her money.

“Exceptions were made,” she said carefully. “The account was opened.”

The man made a dismissive motion. “Yes, of course. We all make exceptions from time to time. Technically, we are not authorized to do so, but, well.” He shrugged sympathetically. “It is just that nobody ever
wants
to maintain an account with a balance this low. There are no benefits to storing such a small sum, as the fees will eat any paltry interest.”

Trepidation fluttered through Jenny. Bank cashiers were not usually wealthy fellows. They would not call the twelve or thirteen pounds she earned every year “paltry,” no matter how flush the pockets of their clients.

“What amount is it that you see?”

“A little over one pound,” the man said. “There was a withdrawal a few days ago. Would you like to see the entry?”

Jenny’s mind filled with white-hot brilliant light. It washed out all thought, all emotion. She heard the sound of rushing water, as if she were the center of a deluge. She swayed dizzily and grabbed the counter in front of her to keep her balance. Her mind was empty. Completely empty.

Not so coincidentally, so was her bank account.

She’d been staving off panic by telling herself that her money was inaccessible. Unavailable, but there. An ineradicable bulwark against starvation. Twelve years of savings, insulating her from the depredation of time. She’d felt so brave sloughing off the trappings of Madame Esmerelda without the prospect of future income. She’d forgotten the panic penury could induce.

“There is something rather strange about this final entry,” the cashier was saying.

One possible oddity: All her money was missing.

“Usually, the person that records the totals breaks the numbers down by coins. You know—£1-3-4 in pounds, shillings, pence. But whoever made this last entry recorded it as thirty shillings straight. I wonder why.”

That
Judas
. Mr. Sevin had emptied her account and left her a message in the total. Less than subtle—but then, he didn’t need to be particularly sophisticated about his communication when he was stealing four hundred pounds. Although who Mr. Sevin believed to be the betrayed and who the betrayer, Jenny couldn’t say.

The bank clerk eyed her with a quizzical expression.

“Would it be easier,” Jenny said, “if I just closed the account now?”

He nodded and began counting coins. Jenny shut her eyes and did the same. Her total funds available hadn’t increased much. She now had three pounds and change. Not enough to pay her quarterly rent. Not nearly enough to do something about this robbery. If she had more, she could raise a protest. Maybe bring the matter before a magistrate. But she’d be on the defensive if she did so. Her story would convince no rational man to award her the money. After all, the only proof she had of his perfidy was in the account sheets in front of her—made out to Madame Esmerelda, with the fraud signed in Jenny’s own hand.

There was no need to panic. She had possessions she could sell. She’d have enough for months. And after that—well, surely she’d think of something. She always did. Her future was not imperiled. It was just…restricted.

“Sign here,” the cashier said, pushing over a sheet of paper. Jenny signed in a daze.

The coins he handed her weighed nothing in her hand. They were no shield against the future, which had just become significantly more frightening.

S
OMEHOW
, N
ED HAD MANAGED
not to slump as his servants washed and dressed him. He’d sat still as his valet applied soapy suds to his face and neck. And he’d looked straight ahead as the man plied the straight razor, shearing Ned of stubble, and rendering him fit company for a duke and his daughter.

It should have been a simple matter to wait in the parlor with his mother and all the stone statues. Her advice had as much effect on him as coins bouncing off a wall. She had talked to him in heartfelt terms about his duty, his future. He wanted to listen to her; she meant well. But none of her words made the least impression on the impenetrable numbness of his mind.

All Ned had to do was sit and wait, and Blakely would arrive and escort him to the imposing stone edifice where Ware lived. Blakely would arrange everything. Ned’s life. If Ware pleased, Ned’s death.

And yet Ned had not waited. Instead, he’d stood up, interrupting his mother midstream. She’d reached for him, but he’d walked right out the front door and down the steps, before she’d had time to understand what was happening. He’d not been able to bear the weight of her careful solicitousness.