“In as much peace as you can find, Mrs. Shaw,” he told her, and there was irony in his voice, in his words.
He did not bother to hide it.
Nor did he bother to see if she followed in his wake as he exited the cheerful salon, leaving the abandoned attempts at civility behind them.
Chapter 3
The hour was late. Charlotte and the servants had all gone to bed for the evening. An eerie quiet had descended upon the townhome Pippa had once been so pleased to keep with George.
George.
Her husband.
The man she had loved.
The father of her child.
A liar. A despicable, cold-hearted liar completely lacking in conscience or remorse.
How could it be?
Pippa’s hand shook as she brought the glass of brandy to her lips and took another long, slow drink. She sat in George’s study, behind the desk he had shipped from France for this room, with its carved legs in the shapes of gods and goddesses, trimmed with acanthus scroll and its astounding floral marquetry. The desk had belonged to Napoleon, he had said with great pride, running his hand over it, showing her the intricacies. Inlaid exotic wood, gilt, exquisite carving.
“Here is a compartment, quite cleverly hidden, where he would have kept his secret correspondence during the wars,” George had said, showing her a false bottom secreted beneath a drawer. “If he had been forced to leave it behind, his secrets would have remained safe. No one would have thought to look here.”
“A desk belonging to Napoleon himself,” she recalled saying, awed by the history of such a valuable piece of furniture. “How incredible that it has survived, given the nature of the emperor’s fractured reign.”
“It was a costly piece,” he had told her, skimming his fingers over the highly polished surface.
“How dear was it?” she had asked, worrying over their expenditures.
She had entered their union knowing George to be a third son. Her expectations had not been for grandeur but for love. Her dowry had been handsome. But after the townhome, her wardrobe, the jewels he had bestowed upon her, to say nothing of their chef, his own jewelry, his horseflesh, and now this desk, she had cause to fear they were spending beyond their means.
She had never required riches to make her happy. All she had ever wanted was love.
George, on the other hand, had delighted in spectacle and wealth. If it was expensive, he had wanted it. And flaunted it, too.
Much as he had flaunted her, though she had told herself it was his love and pride in her that caused him to lead her about and insist she wear only the most ostentatious jewels in her possession. The Morgan sapphires inherited from her mother. Other jewels he had purchased: emeralds which had once been in the possession of an empress, glittering diamonds in elaborate gold settings, gem-encrusted clips for her hair.
“Do not fret over the price, my sweet wife,” he had told her. “We can happily afford a dozen such desks. Besides, what man can say he sits at the Emperor Napoleon’s desk to read his correspondence?”
Now, she sat alone at that same desk several years later. She had not known it when the desk had arrived, but she had been newlyenceinte. That babe had been stillborn.
Her hand crept over her midriff now as she recalled the anguish. Her son had been so perfectly formed, yet too small for life, born too early. Still as a statue. An angel. She had named him Septimus, after her father, and she had never forgotten him. For hours, she had held that lost babe, swaddled in blankets, more precious to her than her own life. If she could have traded hers for his, she would have gladly bartered. She had felt him moving in her womb, had whispered to him at night, had imagined him as a lively, bright-eyed baby in her arms.
His loss had been devastating.
George had been distressed at the loss of their son, but not in the same way Pippa had been. Instead, he had thrown himself into work and inevitably the acquisition of more priceless antiquities, from paintings to vases. Mornings had found him at this desk, poring over accounts, correspondence. Always when she had entered in search of him, he had frowned and shuffled papers. At the time, Pippa had thought he had been so inundated with work that he had merely been attempting to keep his correspondence organized and tidy.
Now, she wondered at the movements of his hands, the books he had placed upon letters. The quick smile which had quirked up his lips, the way he had regarded her. Always eager to stand, to circle the desk and take her in his arms, to kiss her and praise her beauty, the cut of her gown, a piece of jewelry he had recently bestowed upon her.
Have I told you recently, Mrs. Shaw, that you are the loveliest woman I have ever beheld?
Had he been lying to her, even then? What had he been hiding? How many falsehoods had he fed her? And why?
The words she had read in the letters provided by—of all people—the Duke of Northwich returned to her as she sipped at the brandy, finishing it off. Hand still trembling, she poured herself another. Her body had begun to take on a warm, relaxing glow. She knew it to be temporary. Likely, she was disguised. She was not sure she ever had been before. Spirits had never appealed to her; she preferred to remain clear-headed at all times.
This feeling was a cloaking of the anxiety and worries brewing within.
