Chapter 13
Once outside, the lad began to move quickly, and Leonard found himself jogging to keep up.
He was surprised at himself, at the determination with which he was following this person he didn’t even know.
But his mind was fixed on that feeling that had surged through him when he had seen the boy in profile.
The shape of the nose, the jut of the chin… I know this person. I’m sure of it.
The boy rounded a corner. Leonard abandoned all pretense, broke into a run, and turned the same corner, finally catching up to him in a narrow alley.
He reached out and grabbed the young man’s shoulder, not roughly, but firmly, spinning him around. The man let out a cry—
A high pitched cry.
Something fell into place in Leonard’s mind, and the scene before him reorganized itself.
He wasn’t looking at a young man at all. He was looking at a woman. And the moment he thought of the person in front of him in those terms…
“Prudence?”
She froze beneath his hand, and he knew that he was right, but even so, he struggled to believe. He reached out and removed the cap from her head.
Her hair tumbled around her shoulders in waves. It was her. Unmistakably.
She looked up at him, eyes blazing with defiance. “Take your hand off of me.”
He was so shocked by everything happening that he went ahead and did it, even though as soon as he had unhanded her it occurred to him that she was in no position to be giving orders. “What is this?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“I—I didn’t…” she stammered.
He had never seen Prudence lost for words. For a moment, it made him worry. “Are you following me?” he asked her. “Is something the matter at home? Did you come looking for me?”
“No. I didn’t know you would be there,” she said.
“I told you that I would be out at the gentlemen’s club with my friend Gabriel.”
“There are many clubs. You might have meant any of them,” she said. “I didn’t know you were going to be at that one. If I had…”
“If you had then what?” An unpleasant thought was growing in his mind. “If you knew I would be there, you would have gone to a different club? Is that what you were about to say to me?”
Her face flushed. “Well, I didn’t go out intending to be caught by you!”
“What did you intend, then?” he demanded. “What could you possibly have been thinking?”
“I was cooped up in the house,” she told him. “You leave me there all day, and I have nothing to do. I ran out of things to reorganize and remodel. I can’t sit around embroidering handkerchiefs every day, you know.”
“Don’t speak to me as if I’m the one who’s being unreasonable here. You got bored and decided to dress as a peasant—a male peasant? And to sneak out to a gentlemen’s club? I can’t understand this, Prudence. I can’t understand what you were trying to achieve or why. What did you want?”
“I was just trying to have a bit of fun,” she protested. “I truly don’t see why it’s such a problem.”
“Really, you don’t?” He raked a hand through his hair.
“Let me see if I can help you, then. Right now, you and I are having an argument about this in a relatively private place because I’m the one who discovered what you were doing.
How do you think it would have been if someone else had been the one to find you?
What would have happened if someone had realized while you were in the club that you were actually a woman in disguise?
And not just a woman—the Duchess of Desford?
Don’t you realize the impact that would have on our reputation? ”
“Oh, you and your reputation!” she exploded. “That’s all you care about, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t all I care about, but it’s also not something I’m willing to completely ignore as you seem to be.
I feel as if you’re willfully looking the other way.
You must realize the damage you could have done here, Prudence.
Don’t you understand the things people would have said if they knew you had done this? ”
She lifted her chin. “Perhaps I don’t care what people say.”
“Well, you should. And after all I’ve done to protect you…” He shook his head. “I married you to ensure that your reputation remained intact, Prudence. I have given you my whole life in service of protecting your reputation, and this is the thanks I get for it?”
She let out a short, sharp laugh. “You didn’t do that for me. You married me to spare your brother and yourself from disgrace. Don’t present it now as if you were trying to do me a favor.”
“I took an action that I thought would benefit the both of us—and to be clear, it has benefitted the both of us,” he told her.
“You clearly don’t want to see that, and I can’t force you to see it, but you are better off because of what I did.
You are socially and financially protected because of it.
But what do you think is going to happen if people find out that the Duchess of Desford is sneaking about town dressed as a peasant boy? ”
“I think you worry too much. I’m not going to be caught.”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded. “I just caught you.”
“Well, you’re the only one who ever has,” she shot back.
“What—are you telling me that you’ve done this before?”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Many times. You think I don’t know how to take care of myself?
I have always taken care of myself. When I realized, a few years ago, that I was unhappy in the role life had assigned me, I stole these clothes from one of my parents’ servants and tried something new.
And some days, this life—this second secret life—is the only thing that makes me happy. ”
He stared at her, feeling as though he was seeing her for the very first time.
Who was this woman? Was this the person she had been all along? It was one thing to know that she was stubborn and that she didn’t bend to anybody else’s will, but he had never expected to see something like this from her. To know that she would engage in such reckless behavior—it alarmed him.
It frightened him.
Leonard needed the things in his life to be under his control, and he could see now how very unlikely it was that Prudence would ever be controlled.
She wasn’t the type to allow that to happen.
He’d thought the situation with the money had been bad, but this was on another level altogether. This could not be allowed to continue.
Will I have to postpone my departure—or even cancel it? I can’t possibly go to the country knowing that this sort of thing is a possibility.
The important thing now, he decided, was simply to get both of them off the streets. Even now, if someone were to come across them like this, it would look bad. She would be recognized now that her hair was down, and people would want to know what the Duchess of Desford was doing dressed like this.
And if people started to pull at threads, all sorts of scandals would be revealed…
He took hold of her wrist. “Come with me,” he told her. “We’re going home.”
He thought she might protest, that she might insist on staying where she was. If she did, he was prepared to be forceful with her. He wouldn’t harm her—that wasn’t in his nature—but he was certainly willing to pick her up and carry her out of her if it came to that.
But she didn’t resist him. Perhaps he had finally found the limit when it came to what sort of trouble she was willing to cause—maybe she didn’t want to make a scene.
She allowed him to steer her back to his carriage and boarded without a fuss, and a moment later they were in motion on their way home.
He looked her up and down as the carriage trundled along back toward Desford, trying his best to make sense of what had happened here.
“How long have you been doing this?” he asked her.
“I don’t see why it matters.”
“It matters if I say it matters.”
“Years,” she said. “And I’ve never been caught. Not until tonight. How did you know it was me?”
He didn’t want to tell her that he hadn’t known, that all he’d had was a feeling telling him something was amiss.
If he confessed that to her, she would insist that it confirmed her point, that there was no risk in the way she was behaving.
It had only been a fluke that she had been discovered after all.
Maybe that was true.
But it didn’t mean that Leonard was going to allow his wife to go on taking risks like this.
He had nothing else to say to her for the rest of the ride home, and she didn’t speak to him either.
They both looked out the windows of the carriage, as if trying to find something to focus on other than the events that had transpired today.
As if this predicament might disappear if only they could bring themselves to turn their attention to something else.
But when they arrived back at Desford, of course, nothing had disappeared at all, and the problem remained right in front of them, waiting to be dealt with.
I’m going to have to address this—and I can’t let another day go by without doing so because there is every chance she’ll do the same thing again the moment she has an opportunity.
He waited until they had stepped out of the carriage then turned to face her. “Go and change into something appropriate,” he told her. “Then come to my study. Do it right away—don’t waste any time. And bring those clothes with you.”
“Leonard—”
“Don’t argue with me,” he said, his voice as tight as he had ever heard it. “I’ll be waiting for you there. I suggest you don’t keep me waiting for very long.”