Everything has changed now.
It begins to sink in that we have been well and truly caught.
That I have been or I am about to be ruined.
“Alfred,” Annabelle says, her voice urgent. “Mr. Thompson is going to expose you. He will tell everyone of our—relationship.”
“Am I dismissed? Do you dismiss me?”
I can see no use that I serve her now. I can only be an inconvenience. I imagine crawling back to London without Annabelle, and my whole body hurts.
“No, you are not dismissed. Did you not hear what I said to Mr. Thompson?” she sounds hurried, annoyed. “You will stay in your post. We will continue our liaison.”
“You aren’t going back to London?”
She shakes her head. “Not now. I am not going to allow you or myself to be bullied by that sanctimonious little man.”
“I should resign the living,” I say slowly. “It isn’t right. If I am to be disgraced.”
“Alfred, it does not matter. I have fifty times the money and power of that man. No one will harm you. I will see to it. They can hang.”
“But everyone will know. It will be a scandal,” I say, feeling completely detached from reality. I cannot believe what has come to pass. I knew I was taking a risk—and yet.
“Yes, people will know. Or they will know what Mr. Thompson says. But nothing will change,” she says. “You will keep your living. And we will carry on as we have been. I will not have you shamed.”
“My father,” I say, realizing that he will, of course, learn of this “rumor.”
“Yes, he will hear of it,” Annabelle says. “I can’t stop that. If you would prefer to end our liaison now and weather the storm alone, I will respect your decision.”
There is something in her tone. A softness that I have never heard before. But rather than make me feel closer to her, it causes a bell of faint alarm to ring in my brain.
“Did you think we would be exposed?”
“No,” she says. “You know I have taken pains to keep it undiscovered.”
“You threatened it once. That you would expose me. What I did in the carriage. When I—when you?—”
Her eyes flash. “That was long ago. It has been long since I entertained such notions. I even?—”
She breaks off.
“You even what, Annabelle?”
She grimaces. She has said too much. It is unlike her. I feel as if I am peeling back the skin of a fruit and exposing its secret flesh. But it doesn’t make me excited or desirous. It makes me sick.
“I had planned to dismiss you.”
“When?”
“After we—parted.”’
“After you were through with me, you mean.”
“Yes,” she says. “I told you not to trust me. But my plan has since changed.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “In what way?”
“You were my father’s choice,” she says quickly, and she reaches for my hand. I pull it away. I am not in the mood to be soothed by her. “I saw it as a kind of revenge upon him. Another one anyway. But you pleased me more than I expected. And I am fond of you.”
