Page 68 of My Deceitful Duchess
“Why?”
“Because you could not.” The words seemed to stick in his throat. “Because you could not, and it was my fault. And because I knew the path, and that there might be innocent women who ought not to have suffered further because of me. Women you would want to help, if you could.” But shecouldn’t. Because first she had been a prisoner in jail, and then one in Ambrosia. “There was one just recently—”
“Eliza. Yes. She came.” Her fingers trembled as she brushed back a lock of hair that had slipped free of her hairpins; he could see it only in the sliver of moonlight that washed over her.
“She was…badly beaten,” he said. “I hope she stayed.”
A light shrug. “She did, for a time. I sent her on to Exeter, to her sister’s.”
“I’m glad for her, then.” Sebastian turned his face to the moonlight. “That was when I knew,” he said. “That night. Seeing her like that.Thatwas when I knew it had happened to you, why it was so important to you to help other women in need. I don’t think it occurred to me before then. I’d never seen a woman in such a state.”
“It is a unique privilege of men, Mr. Knight, to be able to turn their faces from the devastation caused by those of their gender. To never have to concern themselves with the wreckage they leave in their wake.” Her fingertips found the rough brick of the building they walked alongside, and skittered over it. “Men will ignoreanything, right up until they must look it in the eyes. And sometimes even then.”
He knew what she was saying—the evidence had been there all along, if only he had cared to look for it. That his ignorance had been thewillfulsort. That he alone had been responsible for what he had not cared to see or acknowledge. She had never owed him any sort of explanation, and it had been cruel and unworthy of him to demand one.
“Do you know,” she continued, her voice light, nonchalant, “For men, marriage changes nothing much. A man gains aservant; an employee he need not pay for her efforts. A woman who must warm his bed and cannot even demand coin for it. A housekeeper who may not seek other employment should her position become untenable. A cook, to feed him his breakfast and his lunch and his dinner. A laundress, a secretary, and a valet as well, should his clothing require more care than he chooses to give. A womb for the breeding of his heirs.” He heard the shuddering breath that squeezed itself from her lungs. “For women, marriage is more often a prison. Of servitude; of neglect. I have been imprisoned, Mr. Knight, and I have been in the prison of marriage. Would you care to know which I preferred?”
Sebastian was reasonably certain he could hazard a guess. “I understand,” he said quietly. “But you must know our marriage would not be like that.”
“Must I?” To his surprise she turned, stopped there on the pavement, and extended one hand to him. “Your guarantee, sir.”
“My…guarantee?” He stared at her cupped palm, his brows drawing down.
“Your guarantee. I would like you to place it in my hand. I would like toholdit, Mr. Knight, so that I may assure myself of its veracity.” Her voice dropped to a muted hiss, and her eyes, dulled by the darkness to a glacial grey, narrowed pointedly. “Or do you expect me to pledge myself on faith alone? Ontrust?”
That familiar shame settled over his shoulders, sinking them low and lower still. And her palm remained empty—as empty as she considered his words to be.
∞∞∞
The walk seemed longer now than she remembered. Perhaps it was that it had simply seemed to pass more swiftly when Jenny had been glad of Sebastian’s company, when they had chatted as they walked. Now it was just a monotony of empty streets and silence, and but for the occasional press of Charlie’s head against her thigh, as if to remind her of his presence, she would have found it very lonely.
Sebastian spoke only when spoken to—in sparse sentences, as if compelled to keep himself to the fewest number of words possible. Itshouldhave made her glad, but instead each short, stilted phrase he uttered only made her feel shrewish and petty.
There was an anger in her, a righteous seething storm of it, and she had let it make a cudgel of her words. But there was no relief in the pain they caused, no lightening of the heart or fading of the grievance she carried. Instead there was a new shading to the conflict within her; a second storm rolling in beneath the high winds of the first.
Because the same heart that had shattered itself to shards beneath his callous disregard wastouchedthat he had kept up her vigil even in her absence. There was no reason for him to have done it, no reason a man of his position ought to concern himself with the women she had so often taken beneath her wing—except thatshehad. He had done itforher, even when his opinion of her had been at its lowest.
As they approached the mews behind Ambrosia once more, Charlie whined, dancing on his hind legs as he leapt up to pelt her face with slobbery kisses. Jenny crouched to put her arms round his neck, enjoying that bristly, wiry little body pressing up against her own. He washerdog, really—he onlylivedwith Sebastian. And she had missed him.
He settled slowly, his chin pressed against her shoulder as she ran her hands down the coarse fur of his back. But he would have to go with Sebastian, since Ambrosia was no place for him.
“What was your plan?” she asked, uncertain why she had done it. “When you thought I was a murderer?”
She heard his short intake of breath in the darkness. “I knew they didn’t want to hang you,” he said. “I suggested exile instead. Anywhere away from England’s shores.”
“Not Australia?”
“A penal colony might have sufficed for an average prisoner. But I suspected they only wished to bedonewith you, and I was correct.” He remained some distance away, lingering in the shadows.
“And what was to stop me from deciding I had done with exile?” she asked, burying her fingers in Charlie’s wiry fur.
A hesitation. Seconds drew out in silence. At last he admitted, “Iwas.”
“You?” Perhaps Mrs. Knight had not been quite as much in error as she had thought.
“I was to be your…” But the words drifted off into nothingness, fading into the night.
“What? Jailer?” she suggested, allowing a sardonic twist to permeate her voice.
