Page 38 of Private Arrangements
She struggled a little over what to say, gave up, and smiled at him instead. “Sorry. I will be ready in a minute. Then we can leave.”
He studied her, his face serious, his eyes opaque. “Can you manage that by yourself?”
Without waiting for a reply, he came to her aid, turning her around and applying himself to the intricacies of her corset. She sucked in a breath, held it, and admired his progress in the mirror. He had such a light yet sure touch, his hands as dexterous as those of Apollo himself. She loved admiring him, a divine sensation, all joy and breathless pride.
“Done,” he said.
She spun around, but he turned away just as she was about to reach for him. She hesitated. Perhaps he did not see her outstretched hand. She grabbed a hairbrush instead. “I don't know why my maid isn't here yet. I've only the most rudimentary idea how to manage my hair.”
He stood gazing out a window that overlooked the park behind the house. “No hurry, take your time. I gave the staff the day off. We are not leaving.”
“But you are already late for your classes.” She dragged the brush through her tangled hair. “The train doesn't depart Bedford 'til half past one. We still have plenty of time.”
His lips curved into something that resembled a smile but wasn't. “Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I didn't sayIwas not leaving.”
Many years ago, at a family gathering, one of her cousins had pulled the chair out from under her as she was sitting down. Though the fall had been less than two feet, the collision had jolted every organ inside her body.
She felt like that now, a moment of physical jarring and utter disorientation. “I beg your pardon?”
“I thought I'd come and say good-bye before I left,” he said, as if he wasn't proposing to do something as absurd as leaving her the day after their wedding,the morning after the most memorable wedding night in history.
“What?” she cried stupidly, too stunned to think.
He glanced at her. His eyes glittered with something she couldn't read, something frightening. “I thought it was always the plan, that we go separate ways after we consummated our marriage, until it was time for heirs.”
An utterly asinine response formed in her head.Don't you know anything about contracts?she wanted to ask him.You turned down my offer, therefore that offer no longer stands. This marriage is contracted on an entirely different set of premises.
“What—what about our reception?” She hated how baffled and despondent she sounded. But she could not grasp how he could have been that devoted, tender lover only hours ago and now speak as if he had never meant for it to be more than a marriage of convenience. Why, then, had he come to see her every day of their engagement? Why had he made plans with her for the future? What about the engagement ring that sparkled upon her finger? What about Croesus?
“There will be no reception,” he said.
“But we've already decided on the menu, and the wines . . .” She took a deep breath.Stop. Stop all that blabbering.
A new emotion invaded her, a fast-spreading, horrified anger. She'd been played for a dupe. He had never been interested in anything but her money. All the sweet, joyful hours they had shared was but his way of insuring that she did not change her mind on him. She slammed down the brush.
“This is very new to me. I have been under the impression that we were going to live together after our wedding. My mother and I have authorized a good deal of financial outlay to secure us an apartment and a staff in Paris, to ship over my furniture, to”—suddenly she could not bring herself to mention the Érard piano that she had ordered for him—“I'm sure you get the idea. Important decisions have been made on the assumption that I could trust you, that you have actedin good faith.”
Calmly, he listened to her tirade, her lecture. Then he turned around and picked up a porcelain figurine of a giggling girl from the vanity table. For one terrifying moment, his eyes burned, and she was sure he was going to throw the thing at her. But he set it down, without a sound. “Haveyouacted in good faith?”
She opened her mouth, but her reply withered before his stare. She had no idea he could look at anyone, much less at her, like that. It was the gaze of Achilles the man-killer just before he slaughtered Hector, a gaze that held nothing but blood rage.
It scared her all the more that he seemed otherwise as collected and civil as he had ever been.
“I . . . I don't know what you are talking about.”
“Don't you? I find it surprising. How do you forget your own schemes?”
The deafening cacophony in her head was the crashing of her happiness, that grand, shiny edifice that she had built upon a foundation of quicksand. She swallowed, trying to stay above the bog of despair.
“I'm curious about one thing. Where did you find a forger? Did you have to wade into a den of confidence artists? Or are they to be had everywhere in Bedfordshire?”
“My gamekeeper at Briarmeadow was a forger in his youth,” she answered numbly, not realizing until it was too late that she had negated his last doubts, if he had any.
“I see. Quite clever of you.”
“How . . . how long have you known?” she asked, as composedly as she could.
“Since yesterday afternoon.”
