“Should you like me to serve you?” Mrs. Reid asked.
His eyes met hers. Their connection—forged over dozens of walks in Hyde Park, tasting teas, and describing artwork—was intact. He wanted to say yes to her, but to also ask the question of her as well. If she obeyed him, he would obey her. They could bepartners, helpmeets, the way the Quakers claimed a man and a woman ought to be in the eyes of God. “Please,” he said, instead, and he meant it in all the ways he could not manage to say.
She did so, and they sat back during this dinner, not speaking to each other, nor anyone else. No one attempted to engage them, busy chattering loudly over the rain. Beckett relaxed into the company, and found he enjoyed the simple dishes. Ham with a mustard glaze, root vegetables roasted with salt and pepper, potatoes mashed finely with enough butter to form a pleasing cream, a fruit compote with tart cranberries and sweet apricots and apples. The wine was a perfectly average sweet Marsala imported from Spain, but it went well with the food, and Beckett couldn’t complain.
He found he enjoyed listening to the conversations around the table, held at a loud volume due to the weather. Had this been in a finer home, the torrents would not have been noticeable, in an upstairs dining room, protected from chill and noise of the outside world by buffering passageways or other chambers surrounding it.
The patter allowed him moments of meditation on his own inner tumult. How could he denigrate Mrs. Reid by asking her if she was a murderess? How could he question the integrity of this evening and her friends who stood by her by asking such a question? But he must. He had to do it, otherwise it would haunt him forever, and he could not marry a woman without knowing the circumstances of her fleeing her home, even if he did not want to think such a terrible thing of her.
He leaned over to her, not wanting to be overheard. “We need to speak.”
She stared at him. It was long enough to make him uncomfortable. “You forego our morning walks for days and then wait until we are at a dinner party to speak?”
He shifted in his chair. When she pointed it out, yes, it did seem absurd, but he had notwantedto talk to her in the last few days. “At your earliest convenience.”
She gestured to the room. “You may speak now.”
“It would be better to speak privately.”
Her face darkened, and he could only imagine what she thought he might say. All of which were possibilities. He might renege on his marriage proposal. He might expose her as a murderess. But could she not know he did notwantto do that? He did not want her to be that, and he wanted her to join him in his life and be his partner.
Lord, he even wanted to introduce her to Timothy, even if he exposed himself to eventual cuckoldry, because then she could see how neatly she and Beckett fit together. Forget that she was Cornelius Smalls, forget that she had concealed that truth from him. There were a million small things that he had concealed from her, not out of spite or secrecy, but because those things hadn’t come up in their conversations yet. “It is urgent,” he added.
She bit her lip, and the sight of her teeth worrying the plump lower half of her mouth did something to him that no other woman ever had. He wanted her. Oh, he’d had women before, yes, but this was the first time he wanted one so wholly. To climb inside her mind, to lick her neck, to twine his fingers with hers. To consume and be consumed.
Nell did notpay attention to the dinner party. Not when Jane’s father stood and gave a speech and they all raised their glasses and toasted the happy couple. Not when Fatima kicked her under the table to catch her eye and ask wordlessly if all was well.
Everything was too loud in her brain. The swirling voices of conversation, the heavy clamor of rain that passed over the house, making clean thought impossible. But the loudest of all was Beckett next to her. The heat of him, the dark presence, the clean, reddish-brown smell of his aftershave, the low murmurs of insistence his body made to hers.
They needed to speak, and if she had received such a request via note, she would have thought he was rescinding his proposal and dropping her like a stone. But the other language, the wordless one she misconstrued time and again with other people, yet seemed so clear with Beckett, said otherwise.
When the dinner party was over, and the fruit and cheese and nuts had all been picked over, as women retiring to the next room over for tea was observed, but not for long, as the house was not large enough to hold separate conversations. The church bells rang, alerting everyone to the time. Still, the rain pattered on the roof, and guests were dismayed by walking in the downpour.
Beckett slipped from the room, watched by all of them, for it was difficult not to note the tall man in the best clothes. But when he returned, he whispered to Mr. Smith what he had done—arranging hacks for the entire party, sending his own coachman out to gather them up and paying for them himself. Everyone admired him for his generosity, and several leaned over to her to whisper congratulations at hooking a wealthy man. More than one made vulgar jokes about if he didn’t want to marry her, it would be worth it to still be the man’s mistress.
It wouldn’t be worth it, Nell wanted to say back, but she knew enough to keep her mouth shut and plastered over with an embarrassed smile. The hackneys arrived, and two-by-two, guests were piloted away into the night. Fatima had rubbed Nell’s back and whispered, “Be careful. Send for me if you need someone,” all the while eyeing Beckett like a pickpocket.
“I’ll be fine,” Nell reassured her, and Fatima donned her bonnet and heavy coat and gloves and was escorted out in the rain with another couple, climbing into the hackney bound for a nearby dwelling. Finally, all that was left was Jane’s Rafe, Beckett, herself, and their hosts.
Jane took Nell’s hand and eyed Beckett like a dog whose rival scrutinized the same beloved bone.
“You can stay the night, if you wish,” she said, looking only at Nell. “The weather is horrendous.” Jane smiled, but Nell knew this expression, and knew it wasn’t genuine.
“Oh, my dear, it is such a fright out!” Jane’s mother said, supporting her daughter’s offer.
Nell knew the gesture was a way to rid the household of Beckett if Nell so desired. To give her an avenue of escape if she needed one.
In some ways, she did. If she did not allow Beckett to take her home, she could live a little longer in the realm of uncertainty, where she did not know for a fact that Beckett no longer wanted her. She could pretend that they were both still in the place where he kissed her, where he made her believe—for an afternoon anyway—that she was as capable as anyone of giving and receiving love.
But she was not a woman prone to falsehoods. Ignorance was never an excuse, in her mind. Beckett waited nearby, ready to act on whatever wish Nell expressed. He was handsome and dark in his finery, the picture of a novel’s savior, here to whisk her away. And so she should be whisked. The story needed its conclusion, for good or for ill.
“Thank you, Jane, that’s kind of you. But I shall allow Lord Beckett to escort me home, where I can sleep in my own bed. I’m sure my maid already has a bedwarmer prepared.”
Jane smiled and squeezed her hand. Then she turned to Beckett, gave a short curtsy and then speared him with herwords. “Take care of her, my lord. She is my dearest friend in all the world, and her pains are as acute to me as my own.”
Beckett stiffened, and indeed, even as Jane’s Rafe did. The fierceness of her tone could not be mistaken. It was a warning. From dear, powerless Jane. An ant cursing a lion. But done so for Nell’s benefit, and it warmed her, to know that she was that dear to Jane.
“Mrs. Reid is always safe in my company,” Beckett said, clearing his throat. Then he turned to Nell, each movement so pointed and so purposeful that he seemed almost threatening. “Shall we?”
