“Three nights now.” Eliza closed her eyes and let her breath out through tight lips. “I’m considering going home. To New Orleans.”
Charles turned, gazing at her with concern. “Surely you can’t mean to seek a legal separation. You’d need grounds for such a thing. They’re rarely granted to a woman. What has he done?”
“Plenty, my lord.” Malcolm’s tear-streaked face briefly flashed into her consciousness. She was at the edge of a precipice. Here she sat, with her estranged husband’s rival. Anything she said now could be used to Eastleigh’s advantage. She clipped her words, biting the inside of her cheek. Still protecting him. Why?
“Is it about his mistress?”
Eliza felt the color drain from her face. “What?”
Charles’s eyebrows gathered. “Oh. I take it you didn’t know about Annie?”
Eliza barked a laugh. “I should have known there was more, shouldn’t I? I might have guessed when he didn’t write from London or send a forwarding address.”
“She’s very ill, Annie. Quite mortally so.” Charles took out a tin of cigarettes and offered them to Eliza. The new Pall Malls. “Would you like one?”
“I’d better,” she said, her fingers shaking as she gingerly placed the cigarette between her lips. Charles lit it for her, and she drew the strong, acrid smoke into her lungs. “How long?”
“Many, many years. She was his first, I believe.”
“Is she a prostitute?”
“Courtesanwould be a better word,” Charles said with a grin. “She had a reputation for training up the young gentlemen of society. At least ... until she fell ill.”
“No wonder he’s so bloody talented,” Eliza spat, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
“Yes. Well. I’d be mindful about yourself. Have you ever noticed any sores?”
Eliza took a draw off the Pall Mall. “What? No, never.”
“Perhaps a rash? On his hands, or across his shoulders?”
“No. Not that I’ve seen.”
“Very good. That’s good news, indeed. It’s likely you’re not infected, then.”
The chairman stood before the stage, the footlights flaring for the pre-show. “Ladies and gentlemen! Direct from Paris, I present La Troupe Sauvoir!”
A trio of acrobats went tumbling across the demilune stage, dressed in red-and-gold motley. Everything before her began to blur. A mistress! After all his protestations otherwise. “Was that what you meant at the train station, then? When you said he became another person entirely?”
“I’m afraid so,” Charles said, his surly frown contrasting with the laughter rocketing through the theatre. “He has a tendency to becomequite the vulgar swell at a party. And if he’s been with Annie lately, you’d do well not to share his bed again. She’s got the French disease. There’s no cure.”
The acrobats were climbing on top of one another’s shoulders now, creating a tower. When the smallest reached the top, he pulled off his cap. A circlet of false flames ignited on top of his head, and he went tumbling off to the side, howling in distress. The audience roared. Eliza’s head spun and her stomach dropped.
“Syphilis?”
Hours later, after the interminably long opera was over, Charles walked Eliza across the plaza to her hotel. They stood beneath the beam of a streetlamp, the snow gusting in billowing, feathery flakes around them. The muffled clip-clop of hooves on the slushy pavement and the whisk of carriage wheels were the only sounds. If her mood had been happier, Eliza would have felt as if she were in a scene from a romance. Instead, she felt like a toy dancer in a music box, wound too tightly and left to spin recklessly out of control.
“If you need a place to stay until you’ve made a decision, you could come to London with me tonight. I’m leaving on the last train,” Charles said, winking. “I’d be happy to put you up in my new townhouse.”
Eliza regarded Charles coolly. “And what would be the expectation, my lord?”
“Only to lock the doors when you leave and turn down the lights at night to save on my electricity bill. I’ve even installed a telephone and tiled floors, like a Roman bath. It’s all rather decadent.” Charles’s full lips curved into a smile. “Look, Eliza—regardless of the things your husband may have told you, I’d never force myself upon you, in any way. I’m a married man, and people may very well talk after seeing us together tonight, at any rate. I cannot deny my attraction to you.Setting you up in a household would help you gain your independence. I’d expect no more. Unless you’d decide otherwise.” His eyes narrowed. “And it would be most advantageous if you would.”
Ah, there it was. The proposition she’d been expecting.
Eliza laughed. “I hardly think becoming your mistress would solve any of my problems.”
“Even with a generous allowance? Until you’re granted a separation, you may become destitute in the meantime. Havenwood does have a petty streak.”
