Jacobs looked at her without answering. Quite right, that was out of the purview of his duties.
She looked down at her hands, even more ink-splattered than usual. And she didn’t even have any lemon juice nearby to help wash it off. “You may tell him I will be down shortly.”
Jacobs turned away, and Nell looked down at her hands. She felt small. Embarrassed, really. It was shameful to have a past such as hers. It was shameful to lie and dissemble, and doubly so for a woman, it seemed, as women were already accused of being deceitful for every reason under the sun. Eve’s original sin and other such nonsense.
She sanded her unfinished correspondence and stood, washing her hands in her basin with the scrap of soap she had left. It stained the lump with ink, but there was nothing to be done about it. Then she checked her hairpins and straightened her gown, unpinning the apron she put on before she sat down for her serious writing. Her clean gowns were dear to her, and she couldn’t go staining them with ink.
Readied, she descended and found Beckett pacing in the parlor. In his hand, he gripped the note she’d written. Her heart pounded and her mouth went dry. She was not good at reading people, but even she could see he was angry with his snorting breaths and wide-legged strides.
“Ah!” he exclaimed when he caught sight of her. His eyes were bright and distracting. “So you are alive.”
“My lord?” she asked.
He shook her note. “What is the meaning of this?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but his shouting had rendered her mute. Anger was an emotion in others that she didn’t know how to deal with. Some people lashed out with fists. Others in words. Others cried, and others still abandoned you. She did not know which way Beckett expressed his anger, and thus she did not know what to say.
“You don’t show up for our walks. You send an absolute travesty of a note such as this! I thought you dead, Mrs. Reid! Do you know what that felt like? Dead, I tell you! Murdered!”
She closed her mouth. That was a response she hadn’t anticipated. “I—”
“To have your manservant at my door, demanding those paintings and claiming your health to be unimpeachable—then! Oh, then, I open this note to see the most gut-wrenching pleading, not like you at all. Gone was the scathing populist tongue that I have grown fond of, gone was the sense of justice and rightness that pervades every word you utter. Dear Lord God, Istolefrom you and you abase yourself thus?”
He had stopped his pacing for his speech, rattling the letter at her for punctuation, and then resumed when he’d run out of things to say.
“I had not considered you might think me murdered,” she said, finding her voice. Perhaps Jane had been wrong about how to speak to noblemen. Or this one, at least. She’d always spoken her mind with him, and that seemed to be what bothered him so about her note.
Beckett continued his chastisement, and while she listened attentively, the rest of her mind sorted through his behavior and statements, and the paintings, and found a pattern she thought might be the reason he spoke of murder: He knew.
Or at least, thought that he knew. Oh dear. Her stomach dropped. She hoped he didn’t. Hoped he hadn’t found Billig and the inn, hadn’t found her aged parents, hadn’t found the person she had long since abandoned.
“Would you care for a cup of tea?” she asked while he stomped about.
“What?” He raised his head and looked at her, as if he were coming out of a daze. “Tea? Now?”
Nell nodded. This was an appropriate thing to offer when someone called upon a person. The hostess would provide refreshment; it was an understood back and forth that was predictable. Everyone knew this.
“Mrs. Reid,” he said, his tone impressive and big, as if he were addressing the House of Lords instead of just her. “What is going on?”
Nell chewed her lip. There were many answers to that question, and she didn’t want to start guessing his perspective, lest she give away information she still hoped he didn’t have. “You are upset.”
“You’re goddamn right I’m upset. What have you pulled me into? I’m a member of the House of Lords! I have responsibilities! A reputation!”
Again, not what Nell would have thought he would rant about. His side of the conversation didn’t follow any sense or structure, or at least not to her mind. It did help her retreat into herself, however, and keep calm as she examined all of her available information. But one thing she did know for a certainty: She had done nothing wrong. There was no cause for a man to push his way into her parlor and demand an apology for something she had no control over. If there was one thing Nell knew better than any other subject, it was the feeling of powerlessness. She wouldn’t be made to apologize for being so, for it wasn’t her choice.
When she chose to speak, even she could hear the frost in her voice. “I would apologize, my lord, but I have done nothing wrong. I have minded my own business, gone about my days as I always have. You have insisted on my company. You stole my paintings. And now you rant about me pulling you into something nefarious. I know not of what you speak, but I can tell you, I did notinviteyou into anything.”
Beckett gripped the back of the loveseat, as if to steady himself. He wiped his hands across his face. “No, I suppose you haven’t invited any of it.”
He stared into the middle distance, and Nell let him. She knew the value of a good think. She waited.
“Mrs. Reid. I find that I—” He cut himself off, as if he were about to choke.
Nell waited, having nothing to add or to say herself. She had no predictions as to what he might say next, lending the moment an exhilarating and terrifying tint.
Beckett cleared his throat and then broadened his gaze to meet hers. His eyes were wild like an unbroken horse’s. What emotion could those be holding in? “Mrs. Reid. I enjoy our morning walks together. Perhaps too much. I have—” Beckett seemed to swallow a lump in his throat and looked away.
She took in his words. Listening, but unable to fully comprehend what he was saying. Their morning walks were a triumphant success, in her opinion. His presence brought her so much peace and companionship, even if they didn’t speak.
