The Sinner (12 page)

“How long a spell?” Dante asked.

“I would think that, barring any surprises, the court will have this thoroughly buried in a year, eighteen months on the outside.”

“A year! We hope to have the school almost completed by then.”

“The slowness of the courts works in our favor. Of course, there is one way in which matters will be settled at once. If you are blessed with a child, this will end immediately. The issue of your judgment becomes moot then. The Church will never set aside a marriage for such a reason if there are children.”

“I expect that is true,” Dante said.

“Most definitely.”

Dante offered his hand to help her to rise. “Then we must double our prayers for a child, isn’t that so, my dear?”

Dante aimed Fleur away from the carriage when they emerged from the building. “Let us take a turn before we ride back. I wish to speak to you and do not want Luke to overhear.”

He guided her firmly down Chancery Lane so she could not disagree. She looked as if she would like to.

Her glance darted to where he tucked her arm against his body. Wariness flickered in her eyes as she gave him a sidelong gaze. She was thinking about that kiss. He could just tell.

A mild breeze swam around them. It contained the freshness of spring, and even the smells of the old city could not contaminate it. Its rise and fall fluttered the ribbons on Fleur’s bonnet. It was one of her new ones, a pretty little heart-shaped design that sat back on her crown and tied under her chin. The bonnet was part of the new wardrobe that was arriving at the house.

The dress she wore, with its low, broad neckline and full sleeves and skirt, complimented her form in ways her old ensembles never had. Her beauty had bloomed again as she prepared to reenter society. She wore the new garments even in the house, and now wore her hair in a fashionable style. She was enjoying the indulgence more than she would ever admit.

So was he. Sometimes when he returned from his calls he came upon her unexpectedly and she took his breath away. Some detail would mesmerize him—a lock of dark hair skimming her cheek, or the glow of her ivory skin above her bodice. As they chatted he would burn relentlessly, the flame getting larger and hotter until all he wanted to do was pick her up and carry her to bed.

She cast him another sidelong look and his own gaze met hers. During the next five steps of their stroll an entire love affair played out in his head.

In flashing fantasies of startling clarity, he nuzzled and nipped the lovely, flushed ear just visible within the frame of her bonnet. He licked the tight nipples of the breasts pressing against that blush muslin. He lowered the petticoats and skirt and laid her back on a bed so that he could kiss down her naked body and spread her thighs and use his tongue to claim her deepest passion. She resisted none of it in the secret world of his mind. She accepted and joined and begged.

The shout of a passing peddler pulled him out of his reverie. Or perhaps it was the stiffening of Fleur’s arm, as if she guessed what he was thinking.

“Hampton’s advice is worth heeding. There is nothing else for it, Fleur. You must delay the plans for the school.”

“I cannot do that. There is a schedule.”

“Explain that the schedule must change because you must not sell any property at this time. The poor will always be with us. Your school will be needed a year later.”

“I do not want to change the schedule.”

“I must insist that you do.”

“You are so confident in Mr. Hampton’s judgment?”

“I am confident in my own. His merely agrees with mine.”

“Except it is
my
judgment that rules in this matter. You agreed that I would have full control over the management of this part of my inheritance.”

He was beginning to hate much of what he had agreed to, and her pointed reference made his mood sharpen. “I am fully aware of the limitations imposed by that settlement, I promise you. However, you sought this marriage for a reason. It is imperative that Farthingstone be given no cause to make a case that will justify an annulment. As to my interfering, I did not bargain away the duty to protect you. Turn your attention to other charities. It is the sale of land that is at issue, not your other contributions.”

She pulled her hand free and stepped away from him. Their suddenly stationary bodies formed two obstructing boulders in the flow of the crowd. Passersby jostled and bumped and cursed, but Fleur was oblivious to them.

She faced him with eyes glistening with tears of frustration. “You do not understand at all. This is not like other charities.”

“The ultimate goal of them all is the same. So is the satisfaction.”

“I never felt
any
satisfaction in the rest of them. I only got involved in such things because I had to do
something
since I wasn’t going to have a family. I thought charity work would make me feel my life had some meaning, but it really didn’t. Not until I thought of this school.”

“Putting food on tables certainly has as much meaning as building a school. There is so much need that you can find many good causes.”

“This will be
mine
. It will be something that
I
conceived and saw through. These boys will not be nameless, faceless, deserving souls. I will watch them learn and grow. They will be the only children that I will ever have. Just planning for it makes me feel alive and young instead of old and drab. Can you imagine what it is like to live years with no purpose and then to find one that is exciting and vital?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Then you know that the notion of possibly losing it because of a delay—it is unthinkable. I must go forward.”

“I must forbid you to do so for now.”

Her chin tilted up. “You have no right to forbid.”

“I am your husband.”

“Not really.”

So, there it was, the part of this arrangement that definitely needed clarification. Soon.

“If you send money to radicals, if you use your income to buy an elephant, I will not say a word. However, if your plans threaten the security you sought from me, then I will exercise my rights as your husband. I am doing so now. I say it again. I forbid you to sell any property in the near future, and if that means that the school must be delayed, so be it.”

She glared at him. Tears made her rage sparkle.

She turned on her heel and marched back toward the carriage.

As he fell into step alongside, he glanced at her angry, distraught expression. He thought about her long years of being the saintly Fleur Monley who had put herself on the shelf.

The world thought she had answered a special calling. Such a life was supposed to bring enormous contentment. From what Fleur had just said, it barely sustained her.

She would not allow him to help her into the carriage. She refused to look at him when he joined her.

“I understand that you are disappointed, but there is no choice at this time,” he said. “I am sorry, but you must obey me on this.”

chapter
12

F
leur cocked her head and examined Luke. He stood in the middle of her morning room. Instead of the second-hand livery that he had worn since he came, a brand-new brown coat and white trousers encased his thin frame. The brim of a high hat shadowed his gray eyes.

Luke moved his arms and looked down his body. “Seems a bit tight.”

“You are accustomed to clothes that are too big for you. That is why this coat feels tight in comparison.”

Mixed with Luke’s skepticism was a heavy dose of awe. Fleur could tell that he had never had a single garment made new for him before. Like most of the people in his world, he lived in the castoffs of others.

“I’ll look fine holding the ribbons, won’t I? I’m getting better with four-in-hand too. Mr. Duclairc has been helping me learn and says I’m getting expert at it quickly.”

He examined his new clothes, half-awkward boy and half-cocky man, alternating between enthusiasm and caution.

Suddenly he looked up and his gaze met hers. Naked gratitude crossed the space to where she sat.

“There is another shirt in that package, and some other things,” she said, pointing to a wrapped bundle on the table.

He felt the bundle, frowning. “One shirt is enough. I’ll be needing to send my wages north, you see, and could wash the one shirt and then—”

“The cost of the shirts will not come from your wages. All of this is a gift from Mr. Duclairc. You will still have wages to send home.”

He pondered that, flushing and frowning. “They say you are an angel, they do. I think they are right.”

“You are here through my husband’s generosity, not mine.”

“If you had objected, he wouldn’t have done it. You knew I wasn’t really fit for the work.”

“You will be fine for the work.”

“I hope so, since I wasn’t fit for the pits. Kept coughing when I went in, like the dust sucked right into me. Others don’t, but I coughed so bad I couldn’t catch a breath.” He shook his head. “Not a bad life, even if it was dirty and long. Fine thing when a son of a collier ain’t fit for the pits.”

“Well, you will be fit for this work. Now, no more about my being an angel. The servants are foolish to speak of me that way, and I do not want to hear it from you.”

“Not the servants here who say it. It’s them in the north that do. The women, mostly. My mother told me about it last summer when I visited, how the money you sent kept food on the table when the men went out and didn’t work. An angel had sent them food, she said.” He grinned sheepishly. “Imagine my surprise to learn I was in service to one and the same. Could have knocked me over with a breeze when the cook told me your unmarried name.”

Fleur had never met anyone connected to the families who received that money. “It helped, then, a little? It makes me very happy to know that.”

“No one was eating meat, but no one in their village starved.” He patted down his torso, proudly feeling the new coat. “I’ll look the blood when I drive Mr. Duclairc tonight, that’s for sure. He said he’ll be using the coach.”

His reference to the night had her heart sinking. If Dante wanted the coach, he must have some very special plans.

It was taking longer to overcome this silly jealousy than she had expected.

“He will be proud to have you at the ribbons,” she said as she left. “His friend will be suitably impressed.”

“There she is. The third peasant from the right. Hair like flames,” McLean said. “Her name is Helen. Came up from Bath two months ago, where she had done some small roles. Liza has taken her under her wing.”

McLean’s mistress, Liza, had the leading role, but the red-haired Helen almost upstaged her. Her sloe-eyed, milky-skinned, fine-boned beauty shone amidst the anonymous village folk populating the play’s last act.

“Two months and no protector?” Dante asked. He sat beside McLean in a box favored for its good view of the women displayed on stage.

“Liza has encouraged her to set high standards and avoid any casual dalliance that may cheapen her. Good advice. She has the potential to be the mistress to a duke.”

“If Liza is grooming her to be mistress to a duke, she will try to be very expensive.”

McLean laughed. “She will think that your face is as good as two hundred a month. Nor is she ready for dukes yet. With your change in fortune, you can afford her now.”

Probably. He had never arranged such a formal affair before. He wondered what Fleur would say if she discovered he was contemplating such a thing.

Nothing. Nothing at all. She assumed that he would take mistresses. She counted on him doing so. If he kissed her again as he had in the carriage three days ago, she might even demand outright that he get on with it.

Not that she hadn’t liked that kiss. Which made the whole situation only more hellish.

“What do you think?” McLean asked. “She is well disposed toward meeting you.”

“We will see.”

“You do not sound very enthusiastic. What more is there to see? She is a jewel.”

“I may not care for her character.”

“
Character?
You are going to keep her. If she had a good character, she would not let you.” He threw up his hands in exasperation. “This must be your wife’s influence at work.”

“Do not criticize Fleur if you value our friendship.”

“What ho! Do I hear anger? Chivalrous protection? An odd reaction regarding a wife whom you spend every night pretending does not exist. It is none of my business, but—”

“You are damn right. It is none of your damn business.”

A tense silence throbbed between them. On the stage the play began winding toward its
dénouement
.

“It
is
none of my business,” McLean finally said in an oddly gentle tone. “However, if you are here tonight, it is not hard to deduce what the problem is. I can offer no advice, except to say that I have always assumed that decent women, especially maidens of some maturity, require great patience.”

“You do not know what you are talking about.”

“Of course not. I have never bothered with either decent women or maidens. However, a lady who was both has taken you on as a husband and deserves whatever patience is required.”

“I do not need your guidance about women, especially my wife.”

“Mere hours ago I would have agreed. Yet you are so sullen and ill-tempered that one might think you are experiencing pangs of guilt. I find myself moved to tell you—and I assure you that the impulse astounds me—to go home to the sweet lady who is waiting for you.”

“It is laughable for you to lecture me on marital duty like some bishop.”

“Well, this bishop will be sore annoyed if his lover gets angry tonight because his friend insults a certain red-haired beauty. Now, the curtain descends soon. Are you coming? Then shake your insufferable mood. I don’t want to have to make excuses for you like you are some raw boy up from the country for the first time.”

McLean led the way down the staircase and to the corridor behind the stage. He pushed them through the clutch of men waiting to shower hopeful flattery on the actresses. He entered Liza’s dressing room like he owned it, and Dante followed.

They heard the roar when the play ended and then commotion in the corridor. Liza and Helen took their time coming. McLean occupied himself poking around pots of paint.

The door opened and Liza and Helen entered. Both carried several bouquets of flowers bestowed by admirers. Liza dumped hers on a chair and ran to McLean’s arms. Helen’s slanted eyes examined Dante from behind her colorful blooms.

His own gaze sized her up quickly. Her finely molded face would become either more beautiful or sadly hard as she aged. She exuded an awareness of her beauty, and a cautious reserve about bestowing her charms. She was more refined and inexperienced than Dante had expected.

Liza broke McLean’s kiss. “We are being rude, McLean. This is Mr. Duclairc, Helen. The gentleman whom I wanted you to meet.”

Dante said the right things and smiled the right smile. Helen looked in his eyes and her caution melted.

That was that. The decisions were all his now.

“We need to dress, gentlemen. Helen’s things are here too, McLean, so you cannot stay. Out you both go.”

The corridor was emptying of admirers. “You seem more yourself suddenly,” McLean said.

Definitely so. However, the Helens of the world were child’s play. There was no challenge if you knew that you would not fail. And no illusions about what you won.

He would welcome the clarity of cost and benefit that would mark this arrangement. Some blunt sensuality would be a relief.

“I have a supper waiting in my chambers. Will you join Liza and me?” McLean offered.

“Has Helen ever seen your chambers? I did not think so. Better not, then. She is still capable of being shocked.”

“You think so? How like you to perceive the nuances. It is probably why Liza thought you would suit her.”

The door opened and Liza emerged. “Helen is still dressing. She will join us shortly.”

McLean took her arm. “I think not. Duclairc has other plans. We will dine alone.”

They ambled off, and Dante turned to the door. He stared at its panels and pictured the woman behind it. He had rather counted on her being coarse and vulgar. Or at least experienced and calculating.

You should go home to the sweet lady who is waiting for you.

He pictured Fleur in her new sitting room, writing her letters. Not waiting for him at all, but instead relieved that he was not at home. Glad to be free of the hunger that he could barely hide.

If she were completely cold, he could bear it. If she did not tremble when he kissed her, he would cease doing so. But her sensuality was not dead. It was very much alive, just incomplete.

The knowledge of that was slowly driving him mad.

He felt her body beside him in that bed.

He remembered her gasps of pleasure behind the hedge.

He saw her dismay after that last kiss in the carriage.

He pushed the paneled door open.

Liza’s maid was just finishing with the fastenings on Helen’s pale yellow gown. Helen tossed her flaming hair over a milky shoulder as she turned her head on his entrance.

He gestured the maid aside and finished the fastenings himself. Helen blushed but did not object.

“Liza has left with McLean. I will take you home in my carriage, if that suits you.”

She reached for a long blue silk shawl and draped it over her arms. “Thank you.”

He escorted her toward the carriage. She had dabbed herself with scent, and its musky, exotic odor wafted toward him like a hot breeze.

Fleur rarely used scent, and when she did it was a light floral one that reminded him of that fresh afternoon in the grass by the hedge.

“You are enjoying London?” he asked.

She responded at length. Her explanation of learning to manage the city’s size and complexity filled their walk to where he had told Luke to wait with the new coach.

Luke gaped when he saw the beautiful Helen. He barely hid his discomfort at aiding in his master’s infidelity.

Well, the lad had better get used to it. Dante gave Luke directions to Helen’s home, then climbed into the closed carriage and sat beside his guest.

“Liza said that your brother is a peer,” she said.

“He is a viscount.”

“She said that he married an opera singer.”

“His wife did not begin performing until after they had been married several years.”

She laughed. “But, of course, Mr. Duclairc. It could never happen any other way. It was very generous of him to permit it, however. Very understanding.”

“Many think it was insane and scandalous.”

“An unusual man, to have permitted it knowing many would think that. Don’t you agree?”

“She will be performing in London before Christmas. Perhaps you will be able to hear her.”

Helen let the shawl drop down her milky shoulders. “This is a wonderful coach,” she said with admiration. “My father had a carriage. No so fine as this, but it could take a pair.”

“He does no longer?”

“He and my mother died several years ago.”

Hell.

“I shouldn’t have said that, should I?” she said.

“I am interested in learning about you.”

“Not about things like that. Now you are afraid that I am going to pour out a tale about being left destitute with three little sisters and claim that I really would not have accepted your company except for my dire straits.”

“Is that your situation?”

She laughed again. It made her scent fill the carriage. “I was an only child, and left with a modest but livable income. The income gave me the freedom to go on stage, which is what I wanted to do. Rest assured, Mr. Duclairc, you are not taking advantage of me. I know what I am about.” Her hand slid up his chest to his neck. She leaned forward until her breasts pressed his arm. “I will show you.”

She kissed and caressed him. Not with great art, but it was enough. His arousal quickly traveled a well-worn trail. The pleasure suffused him, as familiar as a boyhood home.