Chapter 14 Climbing
CLIMBING
Persephone sliced her shovel into the soil and heaved it up and over the edge of the grave. She’d been shoveling and thinking for hours, just as she had been doing since her return to London a fortnight ago—shoveling, thinking, and finally coming to a conclusion.
She could dig.
Or she could climb.
She would—
She screamed when a body fell from the sky and right into her grave. But instead of landing horizontal, it stretched up toward the sky, boots firmly on the soil, head popping up slightly above the ground.
The Duke of Morington crossed his arms, kicked her bucket out of the way, and leaned against one dirty wall. “Thank God I finally found you. Of course you’d be here, filthy as a worm. Where’s your fairy light? Doesn’t matter. Finish up, Persephone. We’re going home.”
“A worm!” She stuck the tip of her shovel in the ground and rested one arm on it. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to get you.” He straightened his cuffs, rolled his eyes. “What else would I be doing here? Robbing graves?” The slightest tug upward at the corner of his lips. “Sadly, I’ve given up the criminal life. It’s likely the only way you’ll have me.”
Her heart stuttered. “I… I’m so proud of you, Victor. Today, at Hyde Park… you were glorious.”
“Lord Driditch thought so, too. He’s completely financed the creation and launching of Peabottom’s aeronautical device. Peabottom is my alchemist partner. Brilliant fellow. Somehow terribly dim at the same time.”
She drew a line in the soil with the toe of her boot. “Congratulations.”
“I’ve already a pile of alchemists begging for my help selling their devices. I’m saved.”
A worm poked up out of the soil then dove back down, undisturbed in its sinuous journey.
“That is wonderful, Victor.”
“I owe it to you.”
She shook her head. “You did it. You… you didn’t even tell me.”
“Is that why you ran?”
What answer could she give? She’d run for multiple reasons, not the least of which was a fear he didn’t want her there. She gave a small, pitiful laugh. “A duke’s mistress should not be seen with him in public.”
“Damn it, Sephy.” He ruffled a hand through his hair.
“I didn’t tell you because I was terrified I would fail, and I didn’t want you to see me failing.
I’ve been failing for years now, and you’ve seen me at my worst. I wanted you to see me at my best. In the vain hope it would convince you to marry me.
I should have just accepted your parents’ offer in Manchester. ”
Her head shot up. “What offer?” She knew he’d spoken with her parents, changed their hearts toward her, but they’d not mentioned an offer.
“Right after you hied off with my money, they paid me a little visit, offered you up with mountains of gold attached to you. A little wedding present. But I told them no and”—he grinned—“taught them a little lesson, I hope.”
“You denied my parents?” She was terribly confused. Her heart didn’t know whether to expand with joy or plummet in despair. “You could have married me, took the money, and solved all your problems!”
He nodded. “I had everything I’d wanted in the palm of my hand.
” He held his hand up, palm to the sky like he had when he’d made dancers waltz across his palm.
“But it wasn’t right. It felt like theft, and I know how you feel about that.
Besides, your happiness… your future… I could never steal that.
I am a rather wretched thief after all. What a bloody fool I am. ” He dropped his arm to his side.
“I thank you for your foolishness.” She was silent a moment. “I would not have been unhappy. Married to you.”
He lifted a single eyebrow.
“Oh, I would have raged at my parents for selling me off without my consent. I would have stomped about and led you on a merry chase.”
“I would have run after you. Exhausting proposition.”
“You could have simply drawn a bath and waited. I would have come back. Poverty is not… easy. And money can help alleviate it for so many if in the right hands. I am determined my hands are the right ones.” Yes, she’d decided to climb, to stop digging.
And she would lift as many up with her as possible.
“You’re determined to use my newly hard-earned money for charity work, then? I’m not surprised. Very well. I allow it.”
She grinned. “Oh, not your money, your grace.”
He tilted his head to the side, a storm cloud growing over his head.
She waved it away. “This is delicious. Hold onto the dirt, Victor, or you’re sure to fall down.”
He crossed one ankle over the other.
“A few days after I arrived in London, I went home from here, dirty as an urchin, and found my parents sitting in my rooms, looking horrified and pale. And contrite.”
“Rooms is generous. There’s only one, darling.”
She swatted his shoulder.
“They gave me my dowry, the one I should have had when I married Percy. And it’s mine. My hypothetical future husband cannot touch it. I don’t have to marry at all. It’s simply… mine. I’m a wealthy woman.”
He did stagger a bit, then, even though he rested against the dirt wall. “Do you mean all this time, this entire week and a half we’ve been rolling in bed together, I could have simply married you and been done with my troubles?”
She winced. “It’s true. But you could have accepted my parents’ offer. And you didn’t tell me about Peabottom.”
“We promised not to talk. But we’ll talk now. We’ll talk always. I want to know about every urchin you lift out of poverty.”
“And I want to know about every alchemist you partner with.”
He smiled so wide, and it looked like how she felt—brimming with light.
“Your parents really made you an heiress?” he asked with a little huff of laughter.
“Yes. I am so wealthy, I could keep you now.”
He popped away from the wall and took one tiny step toward her, enough to bring him so close the smallest inhalation would sway her into his arms.
“Can I keep you?” he asked, voice low, pulling her in like a silken spider’s web.
Her breath hitched, and she put a palm on his chest. “I’m afraid you’re not wealthy enough to afford me. How about we keep each other. In our hearts instead of in our pockets.”
“Pockets aren’t deep enough for us, I think. Only hearts will do.”
She was going to swoon, but his arm banding about her waist kept her upright.
“Marry me, Persephone. You can have my bathtub.”
“That tub is already mine.”
“We can haggle over it in the marriage negotiations.”
“That’s quite the proposal. Trying to withhold from me what is already mine.” She sniffed. “It does not incline me to agree.” But her heart was grinning, dancing.
“Do you want pretty words from me?” He pulled her closer, and oh it felt just right.
“These are the prettiest words I have. I would rather lie in this very grave and wait for death than spend another day without you. I would rather the soil fill my lungs and muffle my screams than not know what you look like when you wake up each morning or hear the sounds you make when you fall asleep each night.”
“I do not make sounds.” She laid her hand against his heart.
“You do. Little grunts and snorts and wheezes.”
“You’re very rude for a man who wants to marry me.” But she was smiling. And she couldn’t stop.
He nestled his cheek against hers. “I would rather do any horrible thing in the world than not have you as my wife. Because everything outside of that is torture, love.”
“You… love me?”
“I do love you. Probably enough to make other people’s stomachs turn. I want to look at you with dancing eyes, even though my eyes never dance. And I want to hold your hand, no matter who’s looking. If I were outside of myself, looking at myself, I would likely gag.”
She tapped his shoulder. “You’re being rude again.”
He nuzzled the side of her nose. “In short, I love you with so much of myself, there’s nothing left over that is not shaped by you, shaped by needing you. Now, will you marry me or not?”
“I suppose so.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, and she went up on toe and kissed him.
He kissed her too, and it felt like coming home. It felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket by the fire. It felt like finally finding where you were supposed to be your entire life.
“But I am going to finish digging this grave.” She broke from the kiss. It was fine to do so. There would be so many more kisses in the future.
“I would expect nothing less.” He leaned back against the wall. “You’re terribly stubborn.”
“You could help.”
“I don’t see another shovel.”
She chuckled, shoved her shovel into the dirt, and threw a clump of it up onto the ground above her.
Then he sighed loudly and elbowed her out of the way and took over.
She watched him dig, watched the ripple of muscle beneath his clothes, watched the smile stretch his lips, watched how he kept looking over at her as if she might disappear.
“I’ll have to marry you to keep you from a life of crime,” she mused, sitting on her bucket.
Abandoning the shovel, he knelt in front of her and pulled her between his legs, encircled her with his strength and humor, with the clean scent of him and with his wicked gaze. “Yes, darling,” he whispered against her lips, “you most certainly will.”