When they walked to his phaeton, he set her atop and climbed beside her. “I know you are angry. Let me explain.”
“No, Take me home, Bex.”
“I am, Ester. At Cheapside we’ll discuss everything, even things I’ve never said.”
“No, Bex. Take me to Nineteen Fournier. It’s time to end the charade. We’ve failed.” She folded her arms. “No,youfailed because you couldn’t trust me enough to tell the truth of where you went tonight.”
Her words kicked him in the stomach, but he wouldn’t argue with her until they left Hyde Park and were as far from the Serpentine as possible.
Yet, he could not lose hope. Ester had started to clap for him. Surely, she felt the importance of his message, and if he told her why it was his fight, everything of his uncle’s scandal, maybe he could win another chance.
Yet, the sadness in her eyes, the line stealing her soft lips, foretold that her love for him was lost. No. That couldn’t be. He’d fight for her love. He’d make her understand.
Chapter Eighteen
The Fiery Inferno
A weave of ebony and smoky purple seemed to blot out the stars the farther they drove from Hyde Park. Ester was furious, her arms folded, and she wished Bex would take the streets faster. The sooner she was at the door to Nineteen Fournier and begging for forgiveness, the sooner her heart would be safe.
Being with Bex wasn’t safe, not at all.
He sat next to her with his tan frock coat stained with dust, and he smelled of gunpowder. Yet, he had the audacity to look sad, his mouth drawn in a line as ifhe’dbeen hurt or deceived.
“Do you know how scared and how angry I am, Bex?”
“I have some idea, Ester.”
Turning away, she clasped her elbows.
“But I’d like to tell you everything. I don’t want to lose you, Ester.”
His voice, deep, maybe steeped with regret, vibrated through her. The ache in her chest became greater with images of that bullet whipping by him. It repeated in her head. “I can’t live like this, not knowing when you’ll lie to me just to put yourself in harm’s way.
Bex slowed the carriage when they came close to the Thames and more stars disappeared, making the brightness of the gaslights more prominent. Something would guide her home, for love wasn’t enough.
“I was wrong to deceive you. I should’ve just told where I was going, but I didn’t want to disappoint you when I said I had to go to the rally. I had to, Ester. Forgive me.”
“No. Take me to Nineteen Fournier. You left me before. I’m leaving you now.”
“There’s nothing I can say that would make a difference? How much I care, how I wish to make amends. You don’t want to hear that?”
She stared at him and his fists clenched about the reins. How could he be angry when he was at fault? “I commend your ruthlessness, Bex, but how long did you think I was going to bathe? It’s well past ten. I think I’d be a prune waiting for you. Do you know what it felt like to go from feeling loved to being tricked? Why did you trick me?”
“I know. I know. I thought I was giving you a perfect moment, a bath fit for a queen. My queen. I know you, Ester. I know how baths make you happy.”
She wanted to cry and throw things at him. “That’s why it hurt so much. You used something I treasure as a ploy, just so you could sneak away.”
“Yes. It was wrong. So wrong. If it hadn’t been for the rally, the rally that I called for the day I met you, I would have stayed with you. And we would have consummated this marriage. For what it’s worth, I approve of the lengths that you will go to keep me home.”
Her breath went away. His jest ripped right through her. “How can you joke about this? Before you surprised me with the bath, just seeing you come back through the door had taken away all my doubts. I wanted to be everything for you, Bex. I thought you had chosen me above your rally. I wanted you so much in that moment.”
He rubbed at his face. “Don’t you know how I burn for you? It killed me to leave, but I had to do what was right. They needed my voice at the rally.”
“I needed you.” She dropped her face into her palm. “But you want me pacing, wondering if you’ll come home. I’ve done that for years, waiting to see if Papa would come home. Now you want to sentence me to the same purgatory, hoping some fool never shoots you at a rally. You, Bex, want me pleading on my knees, praying you aren’t trampled by a mob.”
“Ester, I need you, but the cause needs me, too.”
She wanted to stand up and leap off the gig to be away from his voice of lies. “You didn’t have to go. Mr. Wilberforce was there. He could’ve led the rally. You’re good, but he’s the man who championed the law banning slavery in England.”
