Page 14 of Unmasking the Silver Heiress
"Kent?" Nell said, her eyes wide and darting from aunt to husband. “You are from Kent?”
Her brother stood next to her with a scowl on his face, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Mm, near Dover," Zelda confirmed on Nate’s behalf, her arm jutting out to proffer the keys at Nell directly rather than offering them to Nathaniel. "You are to make yourself visible and amicable to all the people worth knowing in the area, but there is a particular family you will wish to lavish extra attention upon. It is imperative that you get an invitation to the winter masquerade at an estate called La Falaise. It is a very exclusive affair."
"Is it?" Nate asked, his voice a little louder than strictly necessary. “I’ve never heard of La Falisse nor a fashionable winter masquerade in Kent.”
"And for good reason," Zelda said with her back still to him. "Now, let us all sit down, have a nice cup of tea, and I will give you your assignment. Isn't that lovely? No need to trudge to Seven Dials or put on a silly costume. Do sit down with your husband, Eleanor, your tea has gone cold."
Nell gave a little sigh, squeezing her eyes shut for the briefest moment, then marching forward to obey her aunt's commands. When she settled down next to him, he reacted in instinct and reached for her hand.
If she was surprised, she did not show it. She kept her eyes forward, but gave his fingers a little squeeze. The gesture might have been gratitude or perhaps reassurance, but was regardless a comfort in this confusing whirlwind.
She did not comment upon her aunt and brother ogling their clasped hands as though it were something crude and unfathomably shocking. She stayed calm and cool, and did just as he had done some moments before. She allowed the silence to settle over them, which would force Lady Silver to speak first.
It was a mercy that his wife knew how to navigate this encounter, for Nate did not trust himself to speak any longer.
Chapter 8
"They are people, Nathaniel, not furniture! You can't simply parcel the lot up and ship them to the coast!" Nell cried in exasperation, following her husband around the foot of his bed while he tossed items into his valise. "We can hire new staff in Kent."
"I don't see what difference it makes," he huffed, sidestepping her approach with the elegance of a man who had avoided a great many unpleasant things in his life. "This is a house. Meridian is a house. They live in the house where they work. Why should they mind which house it is?"
She crossed her arms over her chest, her face screwing up in irritation. "Will you stop and listen to me for a moment? These people live in London! They likely have lives here, maybe even families. You cannot uproot an entire household and ship it east like a trunk of belongings. You will have to consult each and every one of them and take only the ones willing to make this change, which might be far more permanent than some winter ball we must attend."
"Fine," he said, snapping the lid on his valise shut and securing it. "Shall I poll them? Or would you prefer to?"
"They still don't even know who I am," she shot back. "They're likely all scandalized that I'm in your bedchamber right now, even without all the noise you're making throwing things about."
He hesitated, his hand going slack on the handle of the valise before he could toss it into the pile of luggage he'd been amassing. He turned to look at her, standing there with her back up and her chest puffed out like a prim little pugilist just before a match. It made him sigh, allowing a tendril of guilt to slip through the cracks of his outrage.
She had chattered at him all the way back from Bond Street and he hadn't really heard a word of it. His head was still spinning from the sheer gall of that woman, Lady Silver or Mrs. Smith or whoever she was, and her handing the keys to Meridian over like she had any right to the place! It was amazing to him that he'd remained seated when she mentioned his parents, rather than vaulting across the room and locking his hands around her throat.
Still, none of that was Miss Applegate's fault, was it? She had sat there next to him, holding his hand like he was a frightened schoolboy, and had looked to him first before answering any of her aunt's demands. In fact, he was increasingly suspicious that the girl didn't really know the nature of her family's work, even if she was neck-deep in it.
"I am sorry," he said finally, turning and collapsing to sit on the edge of his bed. He motioned for her to join him, amused despite himself at the sudden panic that sparkled in her face. "Come now, I won't do anything untoward."
"I know that," she said quickly, dropping her crossed arms and pacing over to the bed. She perched herself on the corner farthest from him, ankles linked and hands folded in her lap. She stared at him with those wide, gray eyes like he might pounce upon her at any moment.
He did his level best to control the twitching smile that threatened to escape onto his face, and instead put on his best expression of penance. "Eleanor," he began. "Nell. I apologize for my behavior. You recall in the carriage when I told you that I am without origin?"
She nodded, rapt with attention, but did not make a sound.
"Perhaps you believe this to be untrue now that you know I was born in Kent and lived for a time in an old house that belonged to several generations before me. You must understand that what I told you is what I believe. I have no feelings for that place nor that house that are not mired in something deeply unpleasant. I wish to God we were being sent anywhere but there. I do not intend to keep a permanent staff on once our task is completed, and as such I feel it is most pragmatic to simply move my current, trusted staff for this temporary interlude."
She bit down on her lip, likely stifling the urge to ask for details of these unpleasant memories he referenced, and cast her eyes to the side, avoiding his own gaze.
He watched her, still plagued with the feeling he had misused her somehow. "I will make an announcement to the staff forthwith," he told her gently. "I shall explain that we only wished to tell your family in person before making our union public. It is the truth, isn't it?"
"It is," she agreed, her voice soft and distant.
Silence hung between them, punctuated only by the whistling of the wind outside.
"I am sorry, Nathaniel," she added, suddenly raising her chin to meet his eye. "I feel I have dragged you into misery, and I do not know how to fix it."
He was stunned, scrambling for a moment to find the words to reply to her.Shewas sorry? Good God, how was this woman involved with anything that happened in the shadows? She was innocent as a lamb.
"You have nothing to apologize for," he told her. "This has been a bizarre and unprecedented time for both of us, I'm sure."
