Chapter Twelve #2
Lord, he even wanted to introduce her to Timothy, even if he exposed himself to eventual cuckoldry, because then she could see how neatly she and Beckett fit together.
Forget that she was Cornelius Smalls, forget that she had concealed that truth from him.
There were a million small things that he had concealed from her, not out of spite or secrecy, but because those things hadn’t come up in their conversations yet. “It is urgent,” he added.
She bit her lip, and the sight of her teeth worrying the plump lower half of her mouth did something to him that no other woman ever had.
He wanted her. Oh, he’d had women before, yes, but this was the first time he wanted one so wholly.
To climb inside her mind, to lick her neck, to twine his fingers with hers. To consume and be consumed.
Nell did not pay attention to the dinner party. Not when Jane’s father stood and gave a speech and they all raised their glasses and toasted the happy couple. Not when Fatima kicked her under the table to catch her eye and ask wordlessly if all was well.
Everything was too loud in her brain. The swirling voices of conversation, the heavy clamor of rain that passed over the house, making clean thought impossible.
But the loudest of all was Beckett next to her.
The heat of him, the dark presence, the clean, reddish-brown smell of his aftershave, the low murmurs of insistence his body made to hers.
They needed to speak, and if she had received such a request via note, she would have thought he was rescinding his proposal and dropping her like a stone. But the other language, the wordless one she misconstrued time and again with other people, yet seemed so clear with Beckett, said otherwise.
When the dinner party was over, and the fruit and cheese and nuts had all been picked over, as women retiring to the next room over for tea was observed, but not for long, as the house was not large enough to hold separate conversations.
The church bells rang, alerting everyone to the time.
Still, the rain pattered on the roof, and guests were dismayed by walking in the downpour.
Beckett slipped from the room, watched by all of them, for it was difficult not to note the tall man in the best clothes.
But when he returned, he whispered to Mr. Smith what he had done—arranging hacks for the entire party, sending his own coachman out to gather them up and paying for them himself.
Everyone admired him for his generosity, and several leaned over to her to whisper congratulations at hooking a wealthy man.
More than one made vulgar jokes about if he didn’t want to marry her, it would be worth it to still be the man’s mistress.
It wouldn’t be worth it, Nell wanted to say back, but she knew enough to keep her mouth shut and plastered over with an embarrassed smile.
The hackneys arrived, and two-by-two, guests were piloted away into the night.
Fatima had rubbed Nell’s back and whispered, “Be careful. Send for me if you need someone,” all the while eyeing Beckett like a pickpocket.
“I’ll be fine,” Nell reassured her, and Fatima donned her bonnet and heavy coat and gloves and was escorted out in the rain with another couple, climbing into the hackney bound for a nearby dwelling. Finally, all that was left was Jane’s Rafe, Beckett, herself, and their hosts.
Jane took Nell’s hand and eyed Beckett like a dog whose rival scrutinized the same beloved bone.
“You can stay the night, if you wish,” she said, looking only at Nell. “The weather is horrendous.” Jane smiled, but Nell knew this expression, and knew it wasn’t genuine.
“Oh, my dear, it is such a fright out!” Jane’s mother said, supporting her daughter’s offer.
Nell knew the gesture was a way to rid the household of Beckett if Nell so desired. To give her an avenue of escape if she needed one.
In some ways, she did. If she did not allow Beckett to take her home, she could live a little longer in the realm of uncertainty, where she did not know for a fact that Beckett no longer wanted her.
She could pretend that they were both still in the place where he kissed her, where he made her believe—for an afternoon anyway—that she was as capable as anyone of giving and receiving love.
But she was not a woman prone to falsehoods.
Ignorance was never an excuse, in her mind.
Beckett waited nearby, ready to act on whatever wish Nell expressed.
He was handsome and dark in his finery, the picture of a novel’s savior, here to whisk her away.
And so she should be whisked. The story needed its conclusion, for good or for ill.
“Thank you, Jane, that’s kind of you. But I shall allow Lord Beckett to escort me home, where I can sleep in my own bed. I’m sure my maid already has a bedwarmer prepared.”
Jane smiled and squeezed her hand. Then she turned to Beckett, gave a short curtsy and then speared him with her words. “Take care of her, my lord. She is my dearest friend in all the world, and her pains are as acute to me as my own.”
Beckett stiffened, and indeed, even as Jane’s Rafe did. The fierceness of her tone could not be mistaken. It was a warning. From dear, powerless Jane. An ant cursing a lion. But done so for Nell’s benefit, and it warmed her, to know that she was that dear to Jane.
“Mrs. Reid is always safe in my company,” Beckett said, clearing his throat. Then he turned to Nell, each movement so pointed and so purposeful that he seemed almost threatening. “Shall we?”
Nell finished putting on her heavy bonnet and oilskin coat, her heavy leather gloves.
Holding Beckett’s arm for stability, they dashed together in the pelting rain into the carriage.
They sat in the enclosed air, humid and cloying, despite the chill.
Nell shivered. The rain was torrid enough that even in those few moments of a dash, her slippers and her hem were soaked through, weighing her down and causing her toes to numb.
She had forgotten to put back on her pattens.
Beckett thumped on the wall to signal the coachman to move, and the conveyance swayed and lurched into motion. But instead of speaking, they sat in silence. Nell couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“I have questions,” he said, at last.
“As do I,” she said. But the questions were not the same as his. The questions she harbored were about his emotions, his intentions, his world. She did not doubt what his were for her. The kind that left her exposed and vulnerable, flayed open for scrutiny.
But it was not long until the coach pulled up in front of her home. Nell couldn’t bear to go through this awkwardness a second time. And there was no way she would sleep unless they finished this conversation once and for all.
“You may come in, if you wish, to discuss this. Your coachman may tend to the horses and take a cup of tea in the kitchen with Jacobs, if he so desires.”
“Thank you,” Beckett said, and while Nell hurried into her home, informing Jacobs and Sabine of their company, Beckett told his manservant the same.
“Oh, but I’ve built up the fire in your room,” Sabine said. “The sitting room is like sitting in a block of ice!”
“Then we will have our conversation in my room,” Nell said, which was only sensible.
But Sabine gasped and Jacobs scoffed. “That’s not seemly!”
Yet, while peeling off the soaked garments, and even the wet oilskin coat that did not slick as well as it should have, being next to a warm fire was all she could think about. “We’ll catch our deaths otherwise, Sabine. Please prepare a pot of tea and two sherry glasses.”
Beckett ran in then, soaked even worse than she, for he had not donned an oilskin coat. His pressed white shirt stuck to his chest beneath his waistcoat, and his trousers clung to his thighs.
“The floors,” moaned Sabine quietly, and when Nell looked, indeed, the threadbare rug and wooden floors were caked in dark mud from Beckett’s shoes.
Beckett looked down and saw the mud. “My apologies, madam.”
Nell could not help but stare at Beckett. His formal clothing had become as indecent as a nightshirt.
He removed his hat, tipping water from its brim as he did so. They all watched as it pooled on the floor, making a further mess. “Terribly sorry.”
“If I may lend you something to wear, my lord,” Jacobs said, stepping forward and giving Nell a look that was perhaps a glare, and perhaps something else that she had not figured out how to read.
It was not the first time this man had need of a wardrobe at her abode. Spilling tea seemed so long ago.
“If you would be so kind, Jacobs. Thank you,” Beckett said, holding his position, as if he were trying to will no more droplets to fall from his clothing. But he did not control gravity, and fall they did.
“You remembered his name,” Nell said as Jacobs disappeared down the passage.
“I may be a slow student, but I am teachable,” Beckett said.
“Madam,” Sabine said, stepping forward, her eyes on Beckett. “Madam, can we get you upstairs and changed by the fire? I’m afraid you’ll catch your death.”
“Please,” Beckett said. “Jacobs will take care of me.”
Nell accepted his graciousness and went upstairs with Sabine.
Now that she was no longer occupied with the sight of Beckett, she found she was rather uncomfortable.
Her clothes were heavy, soaked as they were, and her teeth chattered.
Before she opened the door to her room, Nell felt her entire body go slick with bone-deep cold.
Sabine ushered her in, and the fire was a siren song, beckoning her towards safety and comfort.