“No,” she said, quickly. “No.”
“But he tried?”
Her hands twisted together and then apart. “This serves no purpose but pain.”
“I want to know.”
“He made it a condition of my continued employment, yes. And I refused.” She ducked her head and then looked up again. Thomas caught the tension in the curve of her neck. “Not because I care so greatly for what is left of my honour, or my body, but because I would not trust your brother to have power over me. The man cannot govern himself.”
George had always been headstrong. But that was no longer a truth that mattered. “There is some darkness in him. And I cannot always reach him. Not since our brother died.”
“If he were my brother,” said Mrs. Clark softly, “I would fear for him.”
Thomas was suffocating on secrets. Edward. George. Himself. It was almost too much to bear. He wanted Micha. To be held. To know, if not comfort, pleasure as deep as oblivion, sins sweeter than paradise. Micha was not an analgesic, but Thomas was almost sure that if someone didn’t touch him, he would shatter like glass.
The worst of it was, the deepest betrayal, the most unspeakable thing, the wrong beyond all others, was that nothing Mrs. Clark was telling him was a revelation. Nor even a shock. In some fashion, with his heart, if not his mind, Thomas had always known. But he had done as he was bidden: kept his peace, kept his silence, and turned away from truth in the name of duty. He had sensed something of his own nature. Just as he had realised the George who returned to England in 1855 was not the same man who had left it two years before. If he were only a little braver, if only he dared look a little deeper, he would surely understand why Edward had shot himself the day after his honeymoon. The answer, long denied, was waiting for him too. And still, always, just out of reach.
Mrs. Clark’s hand came down on top of his, cool and ghost-light. “I’m sorry to bring this to you. I did not know where else to go.”
“No, I should be the one who’s sorry. I am. For my brother.”And for myself.He took a breath. His lungs hurt as though he had been drowning. “And of course you were right to come here. I will think of something.”
“I’m not your responsibility, Mr. Mandeville,” she said, tightly.
“No.” He spoke to the hand upon his own. “You’re my friend.”
At last, something in her seemed to give way, and she nodded. “Very well. And thank you.”
It was, frankly, something of a relief for Thomas to be able to think only of practical matters. Things that could be done. It was an illusion, of course, but it was enough to temporarily quell his inner tumult. “One thing at a time. I must find you somewhere to stay for tonight, and we can consider the future tomorrow.”
Micha spoke sharply from the edges of the room. “You’re protecting the reputation of a whore?”
“Micha,” Thomas gasped. “That is unnecessary.”
Mrs. Clark, however, did not react. “I am a whore. The word does not frighten me.”
Thomas made a convulsive, awkward “There’s a child present” gesture, and Hope glared at him. “I am not afraid of words either.” She jerked up her chin. “A whore means a person who does something for money. A bastard is a child without a father.”
And I,thought Thomas with a deep and terrible clarity that brought with it a strange sort of freedom,am a sodomite.What a party they made.
“What you were, or how you have lived, is not important,” said Thomas. “Do you both feel ready to brave the storm? Let me get an umbrella.”
He would take them to Esther. For all the sharpness of her tongue, he could not imagine her turning them away. He even half-hoped she might welcome them, unorthodox though the whole situation was. Despite the gravity of Mrs. Clark’s circumstances, Thomas could almost have smiled at his own. For a man who lived the quietest of lives, he seemed to have discovered a talent for finding the unlikely and extraordinary.
“They’ll think she’s your mistress.” Micha came after him, sullen as the rain-sodden earth. “They’ll say the girl’s yours.”
“I would hope they know me better than that.”
“How can you be so fucking naive? You can’t just show up with some strange woman and a fatherless brat and expect people to accept it.”
“Why?” asked Thomas.
“What do you mean ‘why’?”
“These are kind people, Micha. Do you have no faith in simple goodness?”
“No.” Micha curled his lip. “And neither would you if you had any sense.”
Thomas reached out to him, but Micha knocked his hand away and went back to the window, where he stood, staring out at the night. “You’ll never choose me, will you?”
