Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
S he couldn’t seem to breathe properly. “ Marry you?”
“Yes. Marry me.”
“But…” She tried to think. “But how would we…?”
“In St. James’s Church. Before a clergyman. I am told that it is a simple procedure. Would Monday suit?”
His hands were still warm on her arms. Her eyes searched his. The fire caught the gold sparks in the hazel blue, and a slight smile was still playing about his lips.
“ Monday? This Monday?”
“Yes. Monday. By special license. I know you too well, Miss Talbot. I am not so foolish as to risk having banns read. That would give you three entire weeks in which to change your mind and run off again—to St. Ives, or Inverness, or—well, who knows where.”
She closed her eyes and allowed herself to imagine it. To see Keynsham every day… to know that he was hers… that they belonged to each other. To speak with him, to make plans together and share private jokes, to be able to kiss him—and… well, more…
And then the sick feelings of fear and shame came back. All of that was a foolish daydream. Her life was poisoned. Nothing good could happen for her as long as Wilkes was pursuing her, bent on vengeance. And he would never stop pursuing her. He was the violent legacy of her father’s fraud.
“Miss Talbot? Celia?” His voice was gentle. “What is wrong?”
She opened her eyes, but kept them fixed on the floor, unable to look him in the face. “I—I cannot.”
“Cannot what?”
“I cannot marry you. Or anyone.” She stared into the carpet—cream, with pink and green pattern of leaves.
“I see.” His tone was neutral. “Well, perhaps it is ungentlemanly of me to ask, but… why?”
She shook her head.
“If this is about Wilkes…” He stopped. “Surely you cannot imagine that I am frightened of a gangster and his hired thugs. And surely you are far too sensible to have any notions of sacrificing yourself on his account.”
“But you do not know what my father…” She broke off. “I am entirely unsuitable. And you do not know how dangerous Wilkes is.”
“Really? I think that I have enough experience now to have a fairly good idea. I do not underestimate Wilkes. I simply do not believe that he ought to control our lives.”
She took a shaky breath. “But I—I have learned the reason that Wilkes is pursuing me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I went to see my father’s solicitor. I had wondered whether…” She stopped and swallowed. “Well, it does not matter. What matters is that my father cheated Wilkes out of a great deal of money. Deliberately. Which means that he was just as much a thief as Wilkes is. That is why Wilkes is so angry. He wants it back.”
Keynsham half-turned toward the fireplace. “I see.”
His expression—what she could see of it—was serious. He must be disgusted. Anyone would be.
“And you were right when you said that my father had—well, schemed to—to sell me to Wilkes. Indeed, it was worse than…” She broke off. She couldn’t bear to tell Keynsham that her father had even tried to get the title of the estate away from her. “So now you know the truth. My father was a fraudster.”
She felt sick. But Keynsham would see why he had to allow her to slip out of London… and out of his life. “Any connection between us must be out of the question. My family name is tainted. And Wilkes is a danger to anyone that I should… well, anyone with whom I associate.”
“What?” He turned back to her, his dark brows drawn into a frown. “Well, that is simply nonsense.”
Despite everything she bristled. “It is not nonsense .”
“It is nonsense. Tainted family name! Good heavens! What utter… flummery! You are not your father any more than I am my father. And Wilkes will not dare threaten you when you are married to me.”
He reached for her hand. Part of her—most of her—wanted to believe him. But he hadn’t listened to her. Not really. “Yes, he will. He will never stop. There can be no doubt that influential people are in his pocket already. Politicians. Peers. I saw him insinuate himself into my father’s life. He has access anywhere that he wishes to go. Anyone who is close to me is at risk.”
He snorted. “Miss Talbot, if you have not noticed, not only am I a peer of the realm, but I have bested Wilkes every time that I have met him or his thugs.”
“For heaven’s sake! Now is not the time to be… to be arrogant!” She stopped herself. “I do not doubt your fighting abilities. But Wilkes would have shot you dead in Grosvenor Square, had your coachman not arrived at the moment that he did.”
Keynsham opened his mouth to reply, glared at her, and shut it again. Then he was silent, frowning. “Well, I suppose that in that particular case, you are right.”
She was caught off guard. “I… I beg your pardon?”
“I take your point. If Young had not run him down, Wilkes would have fired upon me.” His frown deepened. “But it does not follow that I agree with the rest of what you have said.”
“At least admit that I know him better than you do, and do me the courtesy of respecting my judgment.”
He was still frowning. “It goes without saying that I respect your judgment, Miss Talbot. It is your plans that I question. You are telling me to accept that the only solution to this situation is for you to vanish on a stagecoach to some distant town where neither Wilkes nor I will ever find you. And that is pure nonsense if I have ever heard it.”
“I wish that you would stop using that word!”
“Well, in this case it is apt. You have developed a certain expertise at running away. And that has preserved you. But sometimes one must take a stand. And I am taking a stand against Wilkes. Because he is a bully, and because…” He stood in silence. “Well, because I cannot bear to let you go.”
Her heart was beating wildly. She wished that he wouldn’t say such things. Already, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to make herself leave.
“I understand if your feelings are not… if they do not yet match my feelings. My proposal is sudden. But I hope that you will consider it. I know that my own feelings and wishes will not change. Because they have not—not since the night that we met, on the outskirts of Whitechapel—where I first saw the bravest lady I have ever known.”
“But I am not…”
“Let me finish confessing to you. After that, you may dispute everything that I say—as I have no doubt that you will.” For a moment, a smile flickered around the corners of his mouth again.
“From that moment, I felt something for you. But I told myself any number of stupid things—that it could not be appropriate to follow my feelings, that I did not know you well enough, and that I must simply be infatuated—perhaps because you were so different from the other young ladies to whom I had been introduced.
“And—well, you were clearly in some sort of trouble—which I reminded myself was not a quality that ought to recommend you to me, the heir to a viscountcy—let alone to my family. In fact, the arguments that I invented for why I should forget you might be nearly as good as any that you can muster yourself.”
She felt her face warm.
“Well.” He took a breath. “And they may be perfectly valid arguments, in the eyes of many. But—well, in the night that we spent together, I saw more of your character than most couples see of each other in the accepted week or month of chaperoned dances and formal calls. And no one in the ton raises an eyebrow at those courtships.
“I saw your bravery, and your resourcefulness—and your dignity in the face of cruel treatment. I saw that—whatever you may say now—you are a lady through and through. And after you got on that stagecoach, I realized that none of the arguments that I had invented to persuade myself to let you go could change those feelings. When you left, you took my heart with you. And I realized that I ought to have done something to stop you from leaving.”
She pulled her hands away. “You could not have stopped me. I had made up my own mind.”
“I could have offered you enough money to live on.”
“We both know that it would not have been proper of me to accept it.”
“Well, I could have insisted upon intervening in the troubles that you so clearly faced. Something. Anything! Because within a very short time after you’d gone, the thought of never seeing you again was…” He broke off.
“I planned to follow you north, while it might still be possible to learn where you had gone. But when I got home I discovered that there was a crisis within my family—a crisis with which I had to—well, help.”
Her mind went back to his grandmother’s ball, when his mother had told him that she must talk with him about his sister.
Keynsham looked into the fire, silent for a moment. “Less than a week later, my father—who was only two and fifty—died. He had, as I told you, concealed the estate’s financial position. By the time I had even begun to come to grips with it—and settled the most pressing demands from creditors—many weeks had passed. I knew that there was no longer any chance that I could trace you.”
There was a flush on his cheekbones. “And that is when… well, I used to pretend that I was having conversations with you. I am not mad,” he added quickly. “I was aware that these conversations were imaginary, and that you, yourself, were not…” He rubbed his forehead. “Oh, God. I do sound mad.”
“No.” She had to force the words out. “No. You do not. I—I thought of you, too.” Confessing her own feelings was the most frightening thing that she’d ever done. Compared to this, running away from home, taking a public stagecoach and lying her way into a job were nothing. “I felt something too. But I—I told myself that I was imagining it.” She felt as though she’d run a mile. It seemed hard to catch her breath, and she was lightheaded.
“Celia!” A blazing smile broke across his face. He seized her hands again and held them to his chest. “Celia! That is, Miss Talbot! I feared that I had frightened you!” He lifted one of her hands to his mouth. He kissed her knuckles. He kissed her folded fingers. He turned it over and kissed the inside of her wrist. Each kiss sent a fresh shiver up her arm and into her already perfectly useless brain, making it even more useless. She didn’t want to think anymore. She wanted to melt against him.
“Tell me that you will not talk of leaving again.” He uncurled her fingers and kissed her palm. “And say that you will at least consider my proposal. You need not decide right away, if it is too sudden. But if you wish to marry me, you need only say yes.”
His hot, tickling kisses on her palm were making it impossible to think. She’d admitted that she shared his feelings. It was already too late to simply leave London and pretend that none of this had happened. She closed her eyes. There was a roaring in her ears that she realized was her own pulse.
“I know that you are brave enough to defy Wilkes.” He kissed her fingertips, one by one. “And I will be with you. I will be at your side—always.” He kissed the inside of her wrist. “Nothing that either of our fathers have done can matter. What matters is the future, and what we do together—you and I.”
Her knees were weak. Even her skin felt weak. The moment that she’d confessed her feelings, she’d become vulnerable.
He ducked his head again, trying to meet her eyes. “Miss Talbot, we may both be mad—but we are meant to be together. ”
She tugged her hands away again. “I—I do not know!” She hid her clenched fists in the folds of her skirt so that he couldn’t see that she was shaking.
“I beg your pardon.” His face was suddenly serious. “I did not mean to… It appears that I have pressed you once again, despite assuring you that I would not.” He turned away to the fire and studiously rearranged the coals with a poker.
He hadn’t pressed her. She wanted to tell him that. But her throat was too tight. Her father… Wilkes… her own mistrust of the future…
If only she could allow herself to want something and believe that she could have it. If only she could believe… that she was worthy of happiness. But though she’d daydreamed of Keynsham, she’d never dared to dream that they would have a real future together.
Only… his proposal was real. He was real. At last they were together. Perhaps that was all that she needed to know. She couldn’t be expected to see into the future—so perhaps all that she needed to do was take the first step toward it.
She took a shaky breath. “Yes.”
He glanced up the fire. “I beg your pardon?”
She didn’t think that she could repeat herself.
He understood. His face lit with joy. He straightened and took her hands. “If you need more time…”
She shook her head wordlessly.
“Then you are certain that it is what you want?”
For now, she would not fear what might be. She swallowed hard. “Yes.”
He kissed her knuckles. “Then I know what it is to be the happiest man in London.” He kissed them again. “In the country.” He kissed them again. “On earth.”
He pulled her closer and dropped a kiss on her temple. The brush of his lips upon the fine hairs sent a flare of heat through every pore of her skin. His voice was a vibration against her ear. “Fate has brought us back together again and again. And so, as to the wedding—well, the sooner we bow to Fate and marry, the sooner Fate will stop playing tricks on us.”
“No!” She drew back. “I mean, I—I do not like talk of fate. It is not at all amusing.”
The laughter faded from his eyes. “No. I suppose that you are right. After everything that has happened… Well, I ought not to joke about it.” He slipped a caressing finger under her chin. “Celia. Celia?”
She forced her eyes upward to meet his. And when they did, she wondered how she’d ever been able to look away again. She’d never imagined that the mix of tenderness and heat that she saw in his gaze could exist. So perhaps, although she hadn’t been able to imagine happiness, it might still be granted to her…
He caressed her cheek. “Until we are married, you shall stay with Lady Sophronia. You will be safe there. And as you have no relations in London, she is by far the most appropriate person.”
“Oh.” All of this was moving so quickly. She felt dazed. “I… but… who is Lady Sophronia?”
“My grandmother—a rather formidable lady, but also very kind.”
“But will she mind? And will she… will she remember me?”
“Mind! No. She will be pleased. She did not… Well.” He looked awkward for a moment. “I do not think that she will remember you, under such different circumstances. And she will act as your chaperone for the ball tomorrow night.”
A grand London ball! But she had nothing to wear but the clothes on her back. And how could she possibly mingle with wealthy and titled people when she knew no one at all? “Must I… go?”
“To the ball? Of course! Do not worry. It will not be a large, noisy affair. It is in honor of my sister’s come-out. She dislikes crowds. There will be—well, eighty people, at most. We will announce our engagement then as well.”
She thought almost longingly of her tiny, plain bedroom in Red Lion Square, and the small, predictable cast of characters in the house there. In the space of only a few hours, her entire life had begun to change beyond all recognition.
Mrs. Ellesmere’s book! She clapped a hand to her mouth, panicked. What had she done with it? Oh—it was still in her reticule, downstairs. But there was no way to get it to Mrs. Ellesmere! She would be furious!
Keynsham put his hands on her shoulders and drew her closer. “Celia?” A smile was flickering around his mouth. “Celia, I do not know what you are thinking of, but every detail that is worrying you now will be resolved. I promise it.”
He kissed her temple again. She closed her eyes and wished that she could absorb his optimism. There was but a tiny shift—perhaps a degree or two—wanted in her thinking… All she had to do was replace the constant fear of looming disaster that underlay all her thoughts with the belief that she was allowed to be happy.
For now, it was enough to be in his arms. Gently, he lifted her chin. His lips touched hers. A bolt of heat and light shot through her body. Even the skin of the insides of her arms came alive with exquisite sensitivity as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
She brushed her lips against his, exactly as she’d imagined doing so many times. But none of her fantasies could compare with this reality. The faint prickle around his mouth, the smoothness of his lips, the scent of his shaving soap… the totality of his masculinity, and the growing, intoxicating certainty that he was hers… all hers…
His mouth claimed hers more firmly, exploring the contours of her lips and urging them apart. His tongue brushed hers. She found herself slipping into a world of sensation—a world in which her fears of the uncertain future were replaced by a perfect present. Who might object to their marriage, or what Wilkes might do next, no longer seemed to matter.
Her hands explored the hard, flat muscles of his shoulders, and then lower, down the line of his spine. Without his jacket, his skin was hot through the linen of his shirt and the fine wool of his waistcoat.
He drew reluctantly back. “I suppose that we ought to leave.”
“Leave?” She laid her head against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat. It was faster than his steady tone would have hinted.
“So that I may drive you to Lady Sophronia’s house.”
“Oh. Yes. Of course.” She gazed at him and then glanced at the windows. “Only…”
“What is it, darling?”
“Well… it rains very hard.”