Page 69 of Lady Daring
He was so tall, so elegantly dressed, so overwhelmingly potent, and so dear. She felt struck like a bell, as she had upon seeing him at the door of her cell. Every nerve vibrated, every thought fell away as one clear truth washed through her, bright and obvious.
“Darien.” She breathed his name, feeling her chest tighten. “I did not expect—” She had feared she would never see him again. Yet he was here.
He shrugged. “I felt I should look in on you all,” he said. “See if—” But he bit off the words.
Henrietta rose and crossed the room, holding out her hands. As if he understood everything, he took her hands in his own, pressing her palms against his chest. His eyes burned bright blue.
“I did not know Lord Lucien was lost in Mysore. I am so very sorry to hear it. I don’t know how you can bear to be around us.”
He held perfectly still, yet she felt he leaned toward her, body and heart. “Your father is not to blame for what the King did with his money,” he said gruffly. “And Lucien is not lost. He’s alive. He’s coming back.”
Henrietta studied his face. In his eyes she saw the swirl of emotions, the bleakness, the longing, the fear. Her heart swelled. She longed to put her arms around him. She wanted to hold him and never let go.
“Then I look forward to meeting him,” she said in a quiet voice, and the bleak look in his eyes eased. He pressed her palm to his cheek, his skin firm and warm and freshly shaven. The rancor between them was gone, dissolved in a moment, and in its place was a low harmonic hum, like a struck chord that resonated through both of them.
“So the child is here.” His voice was a low rumble.
“Safe. Do you want to meet her?”
He hesitated, his eyes a cloudy violet hue. “No.”
Henrietta nodded. If he wasn’t ready, she wouldn’t press him. And if he didn’t see her, there was less chance he would try to take the babe away.
“I named her Celestina.”
“Little heaven,” he said softly, rubbing his jaw along her knuckles. The gesture seemed uncalculated, comforting, and yet it rattled her. “I will have my solicitor find a suitable family, perhaps someone on my estate. You may interview them if you like.”
“I intend to keep her.” Her lungs heaved for want of air, and she steeled herself against his response. But nothing could induce her to give up this child. Not even Darien.
He scowled. “An unmarried woman? You cannot. It would mean your ruin.”
“I think you know I am already ruined. You recall where you found me this morning?”
She tried to tug her hands from his grip, but he refused to release her. He held to her as if she were the one thing keeping him tethered to Earth. He held her as if he could be her shield. And, in fact, she did not wish to let go of him either. That cleartruth still flowed through her, dazzling, iridescent. Everything inside of her shifted to make room for it.
Darien held her arm when Dearbody announced the coach was ready. He sat beside her on the short ride to Great Russell Street and the British Museum, his thigh brushing her skirt, their shoulders touching. He held her hand on his arm as their group passed through the gateway and into the great, high-ceilinged hall of Montagu House, and she let herself fall into step with him. Nothing had been resolved, and yet they allowed the current to bear them together in its silent, inescapable pull.
At the top of an enormous staircase, they met Miss Forsythia Pennyroyal and her mother admiring the figures that were floating across the frescoed ceiling.
“So much bare skin,” Mrs. Pennyroyal said with a sniff of disapproval. “One hardly knows where to set one’s eyes.”
“Oh dear. We cannot escape Miss Wardley-Hines anywhere we go.” Forsythia turned from a line of broadsides tacked to one wall and wrinkled her nose as she saw Henrietta approaching. “We have heard of nothing but you all day, you and the Minerva Society. TheTimesestimated there were a thousand people come to hear your radical ideas.” She avoided looking at Darien.
“Equality for women will not seem radical when it is an accepted truth,” Henrietta said. She made no move to step away from Darien; if she was ruined already, why bother? “I wish you would attend a meeting of the Minerva Society, Miss Pennyroyal. You might enjoy our discussions.”
“It sounds far too fast a set for me,” said Miss Pennyroyal. “I have my reputation to consider.” She lugged her mother away, Mrs. Pennyroyal’s nose in the air in an attitude identical to her daughter’s.
Darien took down the broadsides, and Henrietta considered the cartoon. In it, she stood on the dais of the London Tavern, a flaming torch in one lifted hand, the red Phrygian cap of theFrench revolutionaries atop her curls. Her other hand was lifting a sheer skirt to show a set of men’s pantaloons like those of the so-named sans-culottes,the Frenchmen who were agitating for liberty.
The ornate script of the caption read “Lady Revolution Lights the Way.” Among the meleeof fighting men, Thomas Hardy had his fist planted in the face of a King’s officer, James was cracking his whip, and Mr. Equiano lofted a second torch inscribed “Abolition!”
Henrietta shook her head. “At least my gown is fetching in that one. Has it come out yet that I was taken up by the watch?”
“It will. Not even your uncle can hush the reporters. Pitt has certainly found he can’t.”
“How glad I am Marsibel’s future is secure.” She looked wistfully across the room to where Marsibel and Rutherford stood with their heads bent over a terra cotta vase, cooing like turtledoves. How sweet to see Marsibel so adored, but it made her feel melancholy too.
“There’s a certain freedom to being ostracized,” Darien remarked. “One may do as one likes.”
