“I did not tell you because I did not want it to mean anything between us,” Christina said, a small edge of apology in her voice. “My father’s last instruction to me was that a suitor should be drawn to my person, not my portion. I have guarded the knowledge of it in silence ever since.”
“You owe me no explanation for a silence that protected you.” He turned back to her, his expression softened. “I am only sorry that the silence was wiser than either of us knew. If Pennington has been calculating toward your inheritance since before we were ever engaged — ”
“Then he has been patient for two years.” Sophie’s voice was small. “Writing to us in the country with his solicitous questions, courting Bedford in town with his contrived errands, waiting for Christina to turn to him in her sorrow as a bereaved girl is supposed to turn to a helpful cousin. And when she did not — when she arrived in London this Season and looked past him toward you — ”
“He found his patience running out against his debts,” Isaac finished.
“He has grown desperate enough to write this.” Isaac laid the letter down on the table between them, as if the paper itself had become distasteful to touch. “The question is no longer who. The question is what he intends now, and how we answer it without giving him the scandal he has threatened.”
Christina felt her pulse quicken. For weeks, they had been groping through fog, piecing together fragments and hoping the picture would resolve. Now the picture was plain before them, and she found, to her surprise, that plain terror was easier to bear than uncertainty. She knew her enemy. She knew his reasons. What remained was to meet him.
“We must force his hand,” she said.
Isaac looked at her.
“He has made his threat in private,” she continued, her thoughts moving faster now than her speech, “because private is where he can still control the outcome. A letter delivered by a street child, no seal, no witnesses — if I were to tell the ton of it, there would be nothing to prove his hand in it. He has designed his cruelty to leave no trace.” Her chin lifted. “But if we appeartogether in public — openly, visibly, without shame or hesitation — then he must either come forward and speak, or step back and let us be. Either way, he is drawn from the shadow.”
“And George’s testimony?” Sophie asked.
“Held in reserve.” Isaac’s eyes were fixed on Christina with a growing steadiness, the look of a man watching his partner think. “The testimony is our proof, but it is a weapon we can only use once. If we wield it the moment Pennington makes his move, we can end him without the public spectacle he is counting on to ruin Christina.”
Sophie looked between them, and a slow, fierce smile touched her mouth. “Then you are to be seen. Tomorrow?”
“Gunters,” Isaac said. “An ice. The most public hour. Every eye upon us, every tongue wagging by evening. He will hear of it within the hour, I expect.”
Christina swallowed. The plan had the clean logic of inevitability, but it also meant setting herself deliberately in Pennington’s path — daring him, provoking him. A week ago the thought would have frightened her into silence. She felt that fear now, but beneath it, a steadier thing: the certainty that hiding had not protected her. It had only given Pennington time to prepare.
“Then let us give him something he did not anticipate,” she said. “Two years ago, he expected me to turn to him in my sorrow. He shall find, instead, that I have turned fully to Lord Coventry, and that the ton shall see it before sunset tomorrow.”
Isaac took her hand. His thumb traced the arc across her knuckles —I am here— and she pressed his palm in answer.
16
The letter weighed heavily on Isaac’s mind as he strode through town, the shops on either side of him calling out with their wares and delights, but he heeded none of it. There was no interest in what they sold, no consideration of what they could offer him. There was only one thing sitting heavily upon his mind.
The note.
It was so very cold and cruel that, when he had first read it, his whole body had turned to ice for a brief moment. He had seen the fear in Christina’s eyes, had seen how frightened she had been of what would happen next should she dare to continue with their connection. He had wanted to cry out to her, to hold tightly onto her and beg her not to give in to the dread that clearly captured her with such strength — but there had been no need. When she had kissed him, it had been both a promise and a cry of defiance. Finally, they were one together in all of this, determined now to stand as one as they faced this foe.
A foe no longer invisible.
The conversation the previous afternoon had not been one of discovery but of reckoning. George’s testimony, signed and nowlocked safely in Christina’s own writing desk, had named Lord Pennington plainly. The threatening letter had only completed the portrait. What had remained to be found was not the culprit but the motive, and Christina’s inheritance had supplied that with the grim precision of a key fitted to its lock. Twelve thousand pounds — the dowry of a woman Pennington had once danced a quadrille with and imagined, perhaps even then, that he might possess. He had watched her through two years of silent waiting, patient as a trap.
And now, his patience exhausted, he had written threats in plain language.
Isaac’s stride quickened. It had been Christina’s thought, in the end, not his — to force Pennington’s hand by appearing unshakably together in public. His own instinct had been to ride to Pennington’s lodgings that very hour and demand an accounting. But Christina’s plan had a clarity his did not. If they acted quietly, with the testimony held in reserve, they could end this without the public spectacle Pennington had designed his cruelty to provoke. A confrontation shaped on their terms. Not his.
Trying to settle such thoughts out of his mind, Isaac swallowed hard and set his steps in the direction of Gunters. That was where he was to meet Christina, where the ton would see him sitting with her and would note his clear interest. That would be all through society by the evening, he had no doubt, would reach the ears of Lord Pennington also. Let him hear of it. Let him feel, for once, that he was the one outmaneuvered.
Blowing out a slow breath to quieten his nerves, he kept his head high and walked with purpose, letting his gaze dart here and there but without settling on anyone.
“Brother?”
A familiar voice pulled his attention away from his thoughts. “Ah, Emily.” He paused briefly, his hands curling into fists ashe battled to keep his expression steady and composed. “Good afternoon. If you will excuse me, I – ”
“Where are you going on such a fine afternoon?” Lord Kinsley beamed in obvious pleasure at seeing him, beckoning for him to join their small, gathered group. Reluctantly, Isaac did so, telling himself that he would only linger for a few moments.
“I am to go to Gunters.” Isaac forced a smile, looking around the small group of gentlemen and ladies. “I cannot stay long, I am afraid.” His heart kicked with a sudden, sharp awareness as he took in Lord Pennington’s face, having not expected that the fellow would be in town. “I shall have to excuse myself in a few minutes.”
