Page 35 of Til Death Duke Us Part
Was that why he’d not married any of the alchemists’ daughters? Because even if they did have keen minds, they had probably been told that a transcendent like him didn’t want to see it, so they’d kept it to themselves. But that still did not make sense. Better to marry a rich girl with few brains than no one at all. He needed the damn money. That he’d not married the first girl served up by her rich father on a platter meant that… something else… mattered to him… more? Than money?
No. Impossible.
But what other explanation was there? That he had standards beyond his coffers was utterly ridiculous, yet his coffers were still empty despite the train of willing heiresses he’d waltzed across ballrooms all season. Nothing explained it.
Oh, some might say his parents’ relationship had shaped him in foundational ways, had built in him emotional expectations for marriage.
But hell, his parents hadn’t even married for love. His mother had expected her husband to lay in other women’s beds. When Victor and Jane had been old enough, they’d been told the story of their father’s marriage, Jane’s birth, and the subsequent birth of—Victor tried not to gag, then and now—their own marital love affair. Victor’s mother and father had married because they’d been forced to by their parents, and it wasn’t until Jane showed up on their doorstep, proof of his father’s wandering cock, that they’d begun to fall in love.
Classic love story really. Boy forced to marry girl. Boy betrays vows to girl. Girl doesn’t care. Girl acquires bastard daughter to raise. Boy feels shitty in his soul about it. Boy grovels. Girl refuses his apologies. Boy grovels for years, living like a celibate monk until girl realizes she loves his foolish arse and takes pity on him. They live happily and loyally together the rest of their lives.
Victor did not feel, because of any of that, any sort of deep, abiding expectations of marriage, or of the heart for that matter.
None at all.
But if he was going to grovel for years and become a damned monk, Persephone Graves was just the woman to inspire?—
No!
She was a grave digger. Had not a penny to her name. She wasn’t for him, no matter how her tides seemed to be dragging him happily out to sea.
“Is something troubling you, your grace?” Persephone asked. “You look stricken.”
“I’m having a very unwanted revelation about myself right now.”
“Would you like to talk about it?”
He looked at her, with her ocean mind and her spring-green eyes and her blue-black ember hair. “No. Not at all. Not with you. Not ever.”
“Well”—she wiggled—“I’ll try not to be offended. Look!” Excitement elevated her voice and bounced her off the bench. “There it is—the very tip of it.”
There at the end of the road where she pointed?—
“Manchester,” she breathed. “Heavens, it’s been years since I’ve been here.” A sort of excitement electrified her every movement, her every word.
Damnit to hell. Now she was an ocean, spring, embers, and lightning? He was going mad. Being around her was rotting his brain.
He urged the horse faster. “Let’s get there and find the cemetery and leave.”
“There’s still too much daylight left. We’ll have to find an inn first and wait till dark.”
“You sound almost excited. Changed your mind, have you? Ready and willing to help me rob graves now, are you?”
“Not at all. I’m hoping I can show you around Manchester. And convince you to find a trade other than thievery.”
“I suppose you can try, but I hate to see you break under the burden of failure.”
“I do love a good challenge.” She was wiggling again, and he… hell, he was amused to see it.
9
A DEVICE AND POTENTIAL
It had been years since Persephone had been home. Years since she’d walked these streets. The last she’d set foot here, it had been raining, a black night, Percy’s hand tugging her south. They’d been happy then. And that happiness had lasted for a little bit. Not long enough. She’d buried her happiness long before she’d buried her husband.
But oddly, her happiness had returned, resurrected by an entirely different and entirely unsuitable man. She felt light, like skipping, like lifting her face to the sky and laughing.
She and Victor had found a hotel, paid for a room, and set onto the streets. She’d spent hours showing him her old haunts, all the little corners and quirks of the town where she’d grown up. But for the past half hour, they’d walked in companionable silence, arm in arm.
