The Bride Behind the Curtain (12 page)

His eyes popped, and he grunted and doubled over. As he did, Helene slammed the candlestick she'd held behind her onto the back of his head. Lewis gave one more grunt and toppled over.

Miss Sewell rang the bell, but her man of all work appeared so fast, Adele suspected he'd already been on his way, probably summoned by the housekeeper. “Taggert, take this outside and get it into a hackney. It is to be delivered to the Valmeyer residence.”

“Yes, miss.” Taggert grabbed Valmeyer by the collar and the waistband and heaved him out through the door Miss Sewell held open. Madelene watched this treatment of her brother and said nothing at all.

Adele watched, too, but suddenly, it all seemed very distant.

“James.” She was whispering his name. “James.”

He was gambling with her dowry. Her fortune. He hadn't even married her yet. He hadn't even asked. He'd gained her heart, he'd raised her most precious hope. He'd made her trust him. And then . . . and then . . .

“I'm sorry, Adele,” whispered Madelene.

Adele looked at her. The room had taken on a peculiar angle, and the light was failing. In a moment, it would be quite dark.

In a moment, it was.

***

“Well.” Marie folded her arms. “It is a pretty sight, is it not? I feel as if one of us had turned privateer.”

They sat at the parlor table. On the plain blue cloth lay a heap of notes and coins such as their family had not seen in decades. There was a watch and a ring and a ruby stick pin, and a promissory note as well. There was, in fact, the whole of Octavius Pursewell's fortune glittering in the light of their small fire.

And as James gazed on it, all he felt was sick.

The moment James had been able to gather his winnings, he'd run from Bassett's assembly rooms to the livery stable. He'd roused the boy to hire a horse so he could race to Wimpole Street. The sun had just been coming up when he rang at Miss Sewell's door, to be confronted by the lady novelist herself.

“She will not see you, monsieur,” she said. “She has heard what happened.”

She has heard what happened. She will not see you.
He had no memory of what he babbled. He thought he might have tried to push past Miss Sewell, but she'd remained unmoved. He backed up into the street and shouted up at the curtained windows. The curtains did not move. Adele was behind them, again, but this time she was not coming out to him. This time, he had gone too far.

“What will you do now?” Marie asked James.

“I will do nothing. There is nothing to do here. I will take the money to Paris and help our father.” He began gathering up the notes, tapping them into tidy piles.

“You will run away,” Marie corrected him.

“You say going to help our father is running away?”

“I do say it,” Marie shot back. “And it is exactly like you.”

He pocketed the first heap of bills. He'd need a money belt. He tucked the ring and the ruby pin into another pocket. Those could be sold quickly for the price of his passage. “You are talking nonsense,” he muttered.

“Am I?” said Marie. “Brother of mine, you have always stumbled away to find yourself a new problem. You do not want to go to Paris, so you become a gambler and blame your inability to help us the way you wish on bad luck at the tables. You cannot do enough at the tables, so you become a fortune hunter. You do not like becoming a fortune hunter, so you stumble between heiresses. You break things with your heiress, you stumble off to Paris with no idea at all how you will be able to help your father, but I'm sure you'll find some way to make a mess of that as well.” She threw up her hands. “
Peste!
I am done with you. Go. Break your heart and milady's. Break our father's heart and the last of our mother's health. Drown yourself in the Channel while you are at it and see if any of us care!”

James concentrated on the banknotes as tightly as he had ever concentrated on the cards. He would leave enough money for three months, he told himself. There would be plenty. As to the rest . . .

But Marie slapped her hand across his, forcing him to stop and look up at her.

“Before you do go,
mon frère
,” she said grimly, “think on this. Milady believed in you. She trusted you. You must decide, James. Will you be the man she believes in, or the man you believe in?”

***

“Adele?” Madelene said tentatively. “I'm sorry, I don't want to disturb, but . . .

“Miss Sewell said you'd had a note,” said Helene. She didn't bother hanging about in the doorway, but stepped straight into the room. “Is it from James?”

Adele was sitting on the edge of the bed in Miss Sewell's spare room. It was late, and she had not yet dressed. There was a tray with tea and toast untouched on the table. Helene had come and gone. Madelene had come and gone. They had spoken to her, but she could not hear them properly. Or maybe she did not want to. At last, Miss Sewell had come in. She'd laid a piece of paper on the tray and left without a word.

“It's not from James,” croaked Adele hoarsely. She was so tired. Just holding on to the paper seemed to take all her strength. “It's from Mademoiselle Marie. She writes that James is taking the
Pride of Calais
to France.” She swallowed. “She thought I might want to know.”

Her hands shook again, and the paper fluttered from her fingers. Helene picked it up off the floor.

“They are to catch the midday tide,” she said.

“That means you still have time.” Miss Sewell stepped softly into the room to stand with Helene and Madelene.

“For what?” murmured Adele. She couldn't think. Her head was so full of anger and exhaustion it felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool.

“To see him,” said Helene. “To require an explanation.”

“No.”

“Adele . . .” Madelene began. “You must. You owe it to yourself.”

“I don't see how.”

“Because if you must make an end, you must do it to his face, not by hiding in your room. That is the coward's way,” announced Helene.

“Perhaps there is a misunderstanding,” Madelene said. “My brother is not the most reliable witness.”

Hope, cold and terrible, rose up in her. She suppressed it ruthlessly. She could not let James—Monsiuer Beauclaire—make a fool of her yet again.

“He used me,” she reminded them all. “He went behind my back and traded on my expectations!”

“If that is the case,” Helene said, “you must know that you can stand up to him and what he did.”

Adele lifted her head and looked at her friends.

“She's right, Adele,” Miss Sewell said.

“One of us can be with you,” Madelene offered. “Or all of us, if you want.”

It was this sign of courage that made Adele feel ashamed. “No. I will see him alone. I . . . You're right, of course. I was just . . .”

Dying. She'd used that word to describe the feeling of being held by James, that ecstasy that threatened to carry away all sense. How wrong she'd been. Dying was the opposite. It was this slow numbing and crumbling, the understanding that there was nothing at all left to hold on to, and yet no way to stop the fall into darkness.

“Adele,” Miss Sewell said. “If James has done what we all fear, it is terrible. Perhaps unforgivable. But are you sure sure it's enough to blot out the rest of what you and James have shared? Is it worth ending that all here, in this moment, in this way?”

“How do I answer that?”

“I don't know,” said Miss Sewell. “But you must.”

***

“You're lucky, you are,” said the man in the greasy waistcoat who sat behind the desk at the harbormaster's office. “Another hour and you'd be waiting until midnight, or tomorrow.”

“Yes, very lucky,” James said as he tucked away his tickets and his other papers. Outside the small office, men shouted back and forth in barely comprehensible sailor's cant, their voices mingling with the shrieking of the gulls. “You can show me to the ship?” He could have traveled overland to Dover, but he had decided on the water route. It was quicker, which meant he'd need to pack less. He wanted to be gone as soon as possible.

“Right this way, mon-sewer.” The man climbed to his feet and led James out to the bustling docks. James glanced back over his shoulder toward the city. Back there, Adele was sitting with her friends. Adele believed he had betrayed her, that all his words of love, all his kisses and their embraces were nothing but a ruse to gain her money.

Better for her. She can hate me and dismiss me and heal.
Never mind what Marie said. Marie was wrong.

James walked down the dock and tried not to feel the last of his heart crumble to dust to scatter across the foam.

***

“The coach is here, Adele,” Helene said from the doorway of the spare room. “Are you sure you don't want us to come with you?”

Adele shook her head and picked up her reticule. “I have to do this on my own. You were right.” She glanced at herself in the mirror. The girl who looked back was as far away from the beauty who took to Bassett's dance floor as could be imagined. She was puffy eyed and pale, and her shoulders sagged. She tried to rally herself and failed. So, she just clutched her things and started past Helene.

“We'll be here when you return.” Helene touched her arm.

Adele nodded. She'd made up her mind. She'd just time enough to reach the docks before James's boat sailed. Taggert would go with her as protection, but the others would stay home. She'd find James and she'd find out what he'd done and tell him exactly what she thought of it, so he did not dare try to charm her, tease her, seduce her again. Then she would . . . she would . . .

She couldn't think that far. A future where James was a betrayer was nothing but a mass of cold, gray fog.

Her friends filled the foyer to help her with pelisse and bonnet and gloves. Madelene opened the door, and Adele walked down the steps toward the waiting coach.

Then, something, the touch of some deep awareness, made her stop, and made her turn, so that her view of the walk was no longer blocked by the sides of her bonnet.

James was standing, frozen, on the sidewalk.

He was as much of a mess as she was. He'd changed into a blue coat and buff breeches, but he had no hat, his collar was open at the neck, his cravat had gone missing, and his curling hair was in a state of complete disorder.

James.
Her mouth shaped his name, but no sound emerged from her. James took one step forward, and another, his hand stretched out toward her.

She was going to faint. She was going to die. She was going to commit murder. She was going to run into his embrace and kiss him and cry and beg him to forgive her, or demand to know what he'd done to her.

She did none of these things. All her endless upbringing rebelled. It was ridiculous, but it would not be ignored. This was a public street. She could
not
be seen simply standing here waiting for this disheveled man to take her hand.

Adele looked back up at the house. Helene, Miss Sewell, and Madelene all stood at the windows, their eyes wide and their mouths open. James took two more steps forward. She could reach out and touch him if she wanted to.

The hired driver looked down from his box and cleared his throat.

Decision seized hold of Adele. She yanked open the coach door. “Get in,” Adele said. James hesitated, so she turned him and shoved him toward the waiting vehicle. “In!”

He obeyed. Adele clambered in after him. She slammed the door shut and yanked the curtains closed.

“Walk on!” she called to the driver.

The driver obeyed and touched up the horses. The coach started forward, swaying gently as they were pulled into the current of London traffic.

Adele crossed her arms. She looked at the swaying curtains that covered the windows. She could not look at James. She had too much to say.

“I was told you were sailing for Paris,” she said.

“I meant to. My passage was paid. I put my foot upon the gangplank, and I could not go.”

“Why not?” She forced her eyes to meet his. She sat still as stone when she saw the mute plea shining there. She remembered those eyes filled with fire and need. She remembered his burning touch and his hands holding her. She set all that aside. She told herself it didn't matter.

But it did. Oh, it did.

“I could not leave without seeing you and explaining what happened.” He paused. “Were you going home?”

Adele was certain she meant to lie, but the lie would not come. “I was going to the docks.”

James did not answer at once, and when he did, the note of terrible hope reached straight down to Adele's aching heart and seized hold. “Why?”

Adele wanted to scream. She wanted to say it was none of his business what she did now that he'd used her so treacherously. If only he wouldn't look at her like that. If only her heart was not beating so painfully. If only she could not feel his terrible, desperate, lost, impossible hope. And her own.

“Because I did not . . . I could not . . . I could not throw away the possibility of you . . . of
us
without some final word.”
Without knowing if it was true that you did not care about me. Without knowing for sure how much I have to grieve in losing you.

He wanted to reach out; she felt it. The space between their seats felt wider than an ocean and twice as cold, but he did not move, and neither did she.

“I was told you gambled with my dowry.”

“I did. It was the only way I could get Pursewell to keep playing. He had to believe that I was desperate, and that he had me caught in his trap. I had to play him long enough to see exactly how he was cheating so I could, as they say, turn the tables on him.”

“And did you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you cheat?”