But instead of discovering her in the corner, Monsieur Cobb grabbed her sister’s arm and pulled her into a hard embrace. Evangeline fought against him, and he pushed her down onto the crates of French brandy her father had just imported. How Evangeline cried out and kicked and fought, despite the Monsieur Cobb’s paint-stained fingers rucking up the hem of her home-spun dress.
How, with her head full of bees and fear, she picked up the mucking shovel next to the horse stall, a heavy thing she could barely lift, and let it crash down on the painting master’s head. How Evangeline screamed. How Nell screamed. How blood, darker than the vermilion Nell would have thought it would have been, coated the soft, dirty boards of the barn floor. How it seeped below the crates of French brandy and coated the stray pieces of straw.
Evangeline pushed out from underneath the limp body, blood streaking on her dress, spattered on her cheek that she had turned toward him. Nell had shaken, standing there, frozen, still grasping the handle of the heavy shovel. It was their mother who followed the sound of the screams, a mother’s intuition that these were not the sounds of a play fight or a surprise discovery of a spider.
The painting master was not dead. Not yet. They wrapped his head and carried him to his unpaid room at the inn. They toldthe village that he’d fallen on the steps, though no one would have mistaken the wound for anything other than a caving in with a shovel.
Nell continued her story, clear and careful in her detail, how, as the body gave up over the course of days, the blood never fully clotting, the color draining from his skin, their mother wrote letters and scavenged supplies. It was their clever mother who sent Nell to Mrs. Dove-Lyon, and Evangeline north to distant family. How she apologized to both of them over and over, telling them they must cut all ties “for our own safety.” That she would not have a child of hers swing for a crime that did the world a favor.
Beckett’s lips twitched as he listened and thought. “Your mother is a wise woman.”
“Indeed she is. Was. I have no idea if she still lives.” It was a sadness that she’d put aside long ago. A fact of her life that was inevitable and inescapable.
“She does,” Beckett said. “I had your background investigated. I—I was so struck by the pathos of your paintings. I wanted to be sure of you. To know that you were who you purported to be.”
“But I am not,” Nell said, confused once more. “I have lied to you. Not on purpose, of course, not because you are you, but to protect myself.”
Beckett’s brows lifted in acknowledgment. “But you seem to be the least capable of true deceit. From all our time together, I know you to be honest to a fault, not even to spare your pride and reputation.”
She chewed her lip. “I do not like to lie.”
They held one another’s gaze until the soft knock on the door preceded the entrance of Sabine and her promised tray of hot goods. The woman’s entrance broke their bubble, and they both looked away.
Sabine left the tray wordlessly, and while she tried to catch Nell’s eye, Nell couldn’t bring herself to return the woman’s gaze. She felt too raw, too exposed. She was all soft underbelly and possessed none of the protective shell she wore during the day. The door closed behind Sabine, and they were alone once again.
“May I?” Nell asked, gesturing to the tea tray.
He nodded, and his face was as open and soft as she felt. In a way, it warmed her more than even the fire did. She poured a cup for him and one for herself, ignoring the short decanter of sherry and the two small glasses.
She cradled her cup, letting the heat seep through the porcelain. He did the same. “Are we of an accord?” Her voice was small and meek, which was not how she wanted to sound to him. Not now, not ever.
His head tilted, his hair drying and falling out of its pomaded styling. A hank of black curl fell across his forehead, which made him seem far more approachable. Her Beckett, the personal one only she got to see. Just as Jane’s fiancé washer Rafe. This was Nell’s Beckett.
He reached out a hand, palm up, requesting hers. She met his eye as she removed her hand from the cup and scooted forward in her chair to place it in his. His thumb ran over the back of her hand. “I wish there was some other word for the partnership we should forge. Marriage, but more than what others have. Deeper. Bigger.”
“Better?” she suggested, following the line of his thinking.
He smiled. “Indeed. Better.”
“This is not the wild romance of novels, is it?” It was her turn to smile.
“It is better. Deeper. Quieter. More equitable. But if you should desire me to lease a boat and pretend to be a pirate and rip some perfectly good stays off of your body—”
Nell laughed. “Quite unnecessary. I always found that to be rather stressful reading. What if his sword slips? Or the boat lurches, and he accidentally nicks her as he is cutting her clothes off?” She shivered.
“Noted. No swords.” Beckett lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “But now that we have secured my proposal for the second time, may I call you by your given name?”
“My friends call me Nell.”
“Not Cornelius?” he asked, kissing her knuckles again.
She laughed. “No, not Cornelius, though I am a Cornelia. It is asmallmatter to change my name from a feminine form to a masculine one.”
His eyes sparkled. “Ah, I get to see the nom de plume’s inspiration firsthand.”
“Riveting, is it not?” she teased.
“Everything about you is, Nell. Since the moment you first upbraided me, I have been able to think of little else but you. You forced me to drop my guards and be introspective. You’ve surprised me, inspired me, and I hope that I can make your life better.”
