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He flinched. His green gaze skewered her.
“But . . .” she continued, a trifle unsteadily. She couldn’t leave before she assured herself he would keep the promise that mattered most. “You must have talked to Mr. Yardley when you saw the lawyers. Did you ask him about the investigation? Into the evictions?”
His eyes didn’t leave hers.
“The investigation has concluded,” he said, with a slight shake of his head that told her everything.
The dizziness transformed into trembling.
“You will proceed,” she said. “Independently, with Mabeldon.”
Her knees shook. She wanted to cry, but not here, not while he looked at her, with bright, drunk eyes, hollowed cheeks. Beautiful. Absolutely undependable.
“Lucy,” he said, “if I marry Lavinia . . .”
That if again.
He took her hand, thumb pressing her wrist.
“I can buy the leases. I can buy the whole bloody street.”
Denial sprang to the tip of her tongue. I don’t need your help. She wanted to say it to him. But it wasn’t true. She needed his help desperately. Or . . . not his help precisely. Not Anthony’s.
“My thanks to the Duke of Weston,” she said. “Your money, at least, is worth something.”
His face crumpled, then smoothed so quickly she doubted her perception. He reached behind him. She didn’t want to watch him lift the bottle again. She turned, gathering up her brushes, the scattered sketches. She began to walk to the door, the scent of budding lilac from the garden and sweet hay from the mews drifting toward her. She heard the voice again.
That’s my brave, good girl.
It would be the last time, light spilling down on the two of them in this crystal hideaway. She spoke over her shoulder.
“You’ll send the canvas to Charlotte Road?”
He jogged around her, blocked the way, a frantic gleam in his eye.
“Of course,” he said. “But this space is . . .”
She shook her head. Better to make a clean break. He opened his mouth, shut it, leaned closer.
“If there wasn’t a will,” he said urgently, a throb in his voice. “If there weren’t these rules . . .”
She knew what he was asking. The lump in her throat kept her from speaking.
“You and I,” he said. “We’d . . .”
“No.” The answer emerged, surprisingly mellow. No snap to it. There wasn’t a we. She would not hold her heart hostage for something that might never arrive.
Good girl, brave girl. Walk away now. Go on.
Her mother’s voice, goading her. And so she walked around him, out into the garden, and away.
Chapter Seventeen
Lucy was sobbing facedown on her bed when she heard a creak on the stairs.
“You can’t help, Mr. Malkin!” she muttered. “You loved him too, you jingle-brain.”
“Loved who?” Aunt Marian’s voice was reedy with exertion.
