“Some don’t take kindly to the Croome’s advancing wealth. Mama, all of us, were gleeful when Papa hired solicitors to do his negotiations. And someone must not have liked my uncle’s advancing. Nothing save a bloody coat came home.”
“Miss Croome. I can imagine…the pain—”
“Say no more of it.” She remembered her uncle’s quick laugh—his never-to-be-heard-again-on-this-side-of-glory laugh. Her fears for Papa returned. Ester almost wished she could walk past her parent’s bedchamber and hear Papa’s snores. “Look at the bruises on your hands, Bex. We live in dangerous times.”
“We do. I remember the first rally I attended. I don’t know what I feared more at St. Peter’s Field, being shot or trampled.”
“Last year. You were at the St. Peterloo Massacre.” Her heart thumped hard, remembering the horrible reports of those killed. She jerked to stare at him and rocked the cart. “Fifteen people were killed, hundreds injured. How many bloodied coats were sent home? Bex, you can’t be so reckless.”
“The road, madam.” He grabbed her hand and steadied the reins. “What you call reckless, I call finding my purpose. I saw Henry Hunt speak. The great orator of the people used his voice to try to create change. I can’t live just to be in a costume on the stage. I can’t be quiet to appease my wife’s fears.”
“Hunt was arrested. They say he may serve time in prison. Maybe he should’ve listened to his wife.”
Dousing the seat lantern again, he leaned back and put his head near her side of the phaeton. “You won’t come visit me in Newgate?”
She dared herself not to look at him and risk her heart melting at moonbeams dancing on his grin. “I won’t be a couch woman, Bex. I won’t sit around and not have my opinion heard.”
“Not sure what acouch womanis, but I hear you just fine.” His voice was a yawn again. Soon his nostril made another heavy noise, a sawing sound like workers raising a new section of the warehouse. His sleep-warm face pressed into her shoulder. His lips moved again against the skin exposed by her cap sleeves.
A breath caught in her throat when he moved away. Why was her skin so aware of him? Why did she feel foolish and scared for Bex? How would she protect him from the dangers she knew to be real?
Bex’s hand joined hers, tugging to the right. “You’re drifting, Miss Croome. Are you tiring?”
“No, getting tangled in my thoughts.”
“Regrets? So soon? If I were arrested, you wouldn’t have to come to Newgate every day.”
She cast him a frowning look, but it was probably too dark for him to see. “My hope is that you never put yourself at such risk. Is that why you broke from your countess—your rallying?”
He sat up and steadied the reins, his naked hand atop her wrist. “She’s not my countess. It was an affair many months ago. Your mother’s papers should have made you aware of that.”
“My mother’s not aware of everything. She didn’t discover my father’s affair until last Yuletide.”
Bex straightened. “You could tell me about it. I’m up now.”
Opening up to Bex or keeping quiet warred in her head until she felt the warmth of Bex’s hand. This man was to be her husband. She needed to be open to him. “I love the Yuletide. The smell of cinnamon, ribbons on wreaths. My father still gave us presents to make up for when we were poor. He’d always hide the tiny parcels. I thought I was so clever finding one in his study. It didn’t have a tag, but I thought I could guess if it was for me.”
“So, you opened it?”
“Yes.”
“And could you tell, Ester?”
“Yes. They weren’t for my or Mama’s consumption. They were letters to my father’s mistress.”
“Oh.”
Was that all Bex could say? She could still see the brokenness in her mother’s face, still feel the twist in her gut when Mama took the box of letters Ester showed her. “That was the worst holiday ever. No morning songs, no lighting of candles—just pain. And no explanation, if there could be a reason to be an adulterer.”
“Did your mother forgive the transgression? She must have. She hosted a party with him last night? Right?”
She jarred the horses, making them run faster. “There was a party for the New Year, just six days after the discovery of the letters. Fake smiles and a strand of watercolor pearls seemed to be the price of making it all better.”
“I’m sorry, Ester.” He clasped his hand about hers and the reins for a moment before refolding his arms and getting comfortable again. “Maybe he repented, and your mother found a way to forgive him.”
“I’m not my mother, Bex. I’m not an easy spirit who will do or think as you want me to. I am no couch woman.”
“You said as much when we discussed my going to prison. Ester, I haven’t said I want a couch woman. And what I’ve come to know about you, I highly doubt your mother to be that easy with a betrayal.”
