“Well, I…I do want a divorce but only because… I mean only so…”
“You can marry her for her money?”
“Malice…I am vexed you think so little of me that I would do that and set the law on you into the bargain…”
Her heart began to pound so loudly it drowned the strains of the Haydn minuet drifting through the open doors. After all these years. Years in which she had waited. Abandoned hope in. Lived like a drudge at times on a penurious income. She had him at a disadvantage. She reached inside her reticule.
“So you can live in a state you should like to become accustomed to? Ruining her as you have me?”
“Well, the thing is, the thing was, I had no choice regarding the law. That woman you sent to do whatever she was meant to do, she let you down badly.”
“Really?”
“I’m sure that your other ladies aren’t so workshy. Why, your business came highly recommended.”
She unfolded the square of gauze. His expression as she placed the square on her head then arranged it over her face was worth a king’s ransom. “That woman was me.”
Every scrap of color drained from his face. Not that there had been a great deal to start with. There never was. It was one of his many attractions, what gave him that boyish look at the age of thirty.
“You?”
“Yes Cyril.”
“Y-you mean… Well, Malice.” Give him his dues, his recovery was excellent. But then it had every reason to be. “May I say how very—”
“You may say nothing. But I will say I think we will agree there will be no divorce. How can there be when we are so very happy, so joyous together?”
“I don’t—”
“That I am having your child?”
“What?”
Was it any wonder his eyes widened? Widened so the wonder was they didn’t pop clean out his head and ping about the paving slabs? She tilted her chin. If there was ever a doubt she shouldn’t do this, that moment was past. What was he going to do? Have it all over London his wife ran a marriage wrecking business? That he was a cad who stole from the woman he had abandoned? Hardly. No, the man was a leech she would do well to stay married to. And one who would support her from now on.
“Yes, husband dearest. From that night, the one that was so special to both of us.”
“That’s a damned lie. That night you disappeared. Vanished right before my eyes. I shut them for a second. One second only and poof.” He snapped his fingers. Indeed, his face had contorted with such rage, the only wonder was he didn’t snap more with his fingers, he didn’t snap her neck. “If it was so damned special how come I don’t remember the first damned thing about it?”
“What do you think? I told her that her precious son was lost at sea.”
“You didn’t!” Fury did her best to keep her voice lowered, even though the Blue Chamber stood at the other end of the landing. The prescience that this only made things worse intensified. As if Thomas’s ghost had risen up to haunt her for pushing him on that staircase and keeping him in a box. “How could you?”
He frowned. “Because you didn’t leave me a whole lot of choice with that little story you told about his holiness, the Pope.”
“What was I supposed to say? That Thomas is lying dead at the bottom of the bay, because you put him there, after I kicked him down the stairs and kept him in a box in the cellar for several days?”
He canted his jaw. “Well, how about a thank-you for getting you out the hole you were in?”
“It wasn’t a hole. I just didn’t know he was a freemason. They keep these things secret.”
“And you didn’t seem to know he was a protestant either. Is there anything you do know?”
They were going to quarrel. It was not the place with Lady Margaret along the corridor. Maybe Flint had left Susan with her. But no doubt Lady Margaret had disposed of her and had her ear to the wall. Then there was Malmesbury. The thought of Malmesbury made Fury sick to the pit of her stomach.
“Flint, I am grateful. It’s just her. Lady Margaret. You have no idea how much she hates me.”
“Isn’t that funny? She was soon guzzling out my hand.”
Of all the nasty, recalcitrant, self-seeking toads. She supposed she should just be grateful. Even Lady Margaret wasn’t immune to this man. But when Fury thought of all she had suffered at that woman’s hands, and Thomas too, because of her silly dictate…
“Of course, you like to imagine.”
It was just the thought of Flint encountering that lack of immunity with other women. Women far younger and more beautiful than Lady Margaret. He was going to now. There was no question of it. Despair engulfed her.
It wasn’t wrong he was so handsome, so beautiful. It wasn’t wrong she had succumbed to him as all other women did. It was terrible.
Sighing deeply, he turned his face to the side. “Look, I did it for you.”
“Me?” Oh, that was rich.
“Hell. It’s not exactly like it’s a lie, you stop and think about it for a moment. It’s probably quite smart. Smartest thing either of us could come up with in the circumstances. ’Specially if his body ever washes up.”
