Nat rubbed a hand over his hair. “My God, I hope Miss Lister doesn’t ask you about your mistresses and expect an honest answer! Did you tell her that there are very good reasons-”
“Why a man does not tell the truth all the time? Of course I did.” Miles took another drink. “What can I do? If I break the terms of Lady Membury’s will I forfeit the right to marry Miss Lister, blackmail or no blackmail.”
Nat raised his glass in ironic toast. “Then there is no more to be said, old fellow, other than to wish you luck and to hope profoundly that you can, against all the odds, behave with honor for the next few months.” He shook his head. “All the same,” he added, “something is going to go awry. I feel it in my bones.”
“You’re turning as superstitious as my mother,” Miles said. He shifted in his chair. Suddenly he was conscious of a feeling of discomfort prickling between his shoulder blades. He dismissed it, draining his glass and reaching for the brandy bottle again. “What could possibly go wrong?” he said.
LYDIA COLE HAD RECEIVED a letter. It had been delivered by hand late the previous night and it had only been by the remotest chance that she had seen it poking from beneath the mat when she had crept downstairs to heat some milk in an attempt to soothe herself into sleep. She had taken it up to her room and opened it, her hands shaking as she unfolded the paper. When she saw the name at the bottom of the page she trembled so much that the letter fell to the floor.
After a sleepless night and hours of reflection the following day, Lydia had decided to respond to the plea in the letter. She knew she was a fool to do so. She was not even sure what prompted her to go-curiosity, anger or even love. She waited until Alice and Lizzie and Mrs. Lister had gone out to the ball, and the servants were enjoying a quiet evening tucked up in the warm, and then she slipped like a wraith from the garden door of the house and crept out to the stables. There was a light in the window of the little mews house where the coachman lived with his family, but the groom’s lodging was in darkness. Lydia suspected that he was probably spending his evening off-and his wages-at the Morris Clown Inn.
It was a cold, damp night, no evening for a young, pregnant girl to be loitering in the dark. Yet Lydia, who had spent so much of the previous few months indoors, turned her face up to the cold, sleety caress of the breeze and felt a spark of life rekindle inside her.
She had her hand on the latch of an empty storeroom at the end of the cobbled row when someone stepped from the darkness in front of her and put a gentle hand on her arm. Although she was expecting him, her nerves were stretched so tense she almost screamed. His hand tightened warningly on her elbow and then he had drawn her through the door of the storeroom and bolted it behind them, and in the dim lantern light within, Lydia turned to look at the man who had been her lover.
He looked different. Gone was the dark, devil-may-care Tom Fortune, the adventurer with a twinkle in his eyes and charm enough to burn. She barely recognized the man who stood before her now. His face was thinner. There were deep lines about his eyes. He looked older and harder. It made Lydia realize, with a sudden pang, just how little she knew him. She had been a naive girl who had tumbled into love with a man she had never known at all. Cocooned in the marvelous sensation of being in love, swept away by the discovery of physical passion, she had never questioned Tom’s love for her or his commitment to her, and she had paid the price of that misplaced trust in the child she bore now.
He made no move toward her, but stood still just within the door, looking at her with a kind of desperation in his eyes. “I was not sure if you would come,” he said. He sounded young and anxious. “I was afraid to contact you, but there was no one else who could help me.”
“I am not sure that I can do that,” Lydia said. Her voice was cold and hard.
“I only came here because I found that I wanted to see you again,” she added. “To see the sort of man you really are rather than the man I once imagined you to be.”
Tom flinched. “You’ve changed.” His voice fell. “Of course you have. How could you not, with what has happened to you? I am sorry-”
“For what?” Lydia said, still in the same cold voice. “For seducing me for nothing other than sport, like the rake you were, or for running off and leaving me alone and pregnant?” She turned away from him. “Or did you mean that you are sorry you are a murderer twice over and a wanted criminal-” Despite herself, her voice cracked with emotion and she stopped to draw a steadying breath. The pain felt as though it was locked into a tight little box inside her chest. She tried to breathe deeply and to make it melt away, but it was too powerful to be dismissed. The sharp edges of her grief stabbed her, stealing her breath. Suddenly she knew she had to get away from him. This was more difficult and heartbreaking than she had imagined.
“I won’t tell anyone that I have seen you,” she said, “but I cannot help you, Tom.” She shook her head. “That was all you wanted from me, wasn’t it?” she said. The tears clogged her throat. “I came here, pregnant with your child, to see if you had ever cared a rush for me, and I find that all you want is my help. You never think of anyone but yourself.”
She had turned to leave when he put a hand on her arm, and such was her need to believe that he cared, even a little, that she stopped.
“I do care,” he said. His voice was harsh. “Lyddy, I swear I care for you. I want you to marry me.”
Lydia almost laughed aloud. “It’s too late,” she began, but he hushed her, drawing her down to sit beside him on the rough stone floor of the storeroom. He had spread his ragged coat on the stone, but it could not ward off the chill, and even with her thick cloak wrapped about her, Lydia was frozen.
“Listen,” Tom said roughly. “Please.” When she remained silent he seemed surprised, almost as though he could not find the words, now that she had granted him the time he had begged for.
“It is true that I seduced you for sport last year,” Tom said, and Lydia could not quite prevent the tiny shudder that went through her at his words. Even now she had hoped in a corner of her mind that it had not been true. “I was bored and spoiled and a scoundrel,” Tom said, “and you were pretty and gentle and you loved me. It flattered me to realize that you cared for me. It made me feel good. I am sorry if it hurts you to hear me say this, but I have to tell you the truth now-all of it.” He paused and took her cold hands in his. “I am more sorry than I can say, now, that I was so careless and thoughtless and hurtful that I took your trust and I twisted and ruined it.”
Lydia said nothing. She felt cold through and through. She could not tell him that it did not matter because it did. It mattered dreadfully.
“It was the same boredom and immaturity that led me to work for Warren Sampson,” Tom continued. “I wanted excitement in my life, fool that I was. He paid for my gambling and in return I fed him information. Sometimes I rode out with his men when they were about his illegal business. But I never hurt anyone. I certainly never killed anyone! That magistrate whom I was supposed to have murdered on Sampson’s behalf…”
“Sir William Crosby,” Lydia said. “You had his ring. You gave it to me as a love token. A secondhand ring taken from a dead man!”
“That was shabby of me,” Tom said, “but I swear I did not know it was Crosby’s. Sampson gave it to me. He threw it to me carelessly one day and I thought it was pretty and that you might like it.”
“I did,” Lydia said, “because you had given it to me, and I thought it meant that you loved me.”
There was a silence. The wind was rising, catching the edges of the roof and whistling through the gaps in the bricks. Lydia shivered. “Are you staying here?” she asked.
“No,” Tom said. “I stay nowhere very long. It’s too dangerous.”
“You should go to the authorities,” Lydia said. “Tell the Guardians. I know they must be looking for you.”
“They are,” Tom said. “Anstruther and Waterhouse have been tracking down all Sampson’s associates, and Miles Vickery has been interviewing the servants at Fortune Hall to see if I have been back there. It will not be long before they pick up my trail. I’m certain of it.”
“Then go to them first!” Lydia argued. “Tell Dexter or Miles Vickery what you have told me-” She stopped. Tom was shaking his head.
“I can’t, Lyddy,” he said. “They would never believe me. I’m a wanted man and I have no proof of any of it. All the evidence is against me.” His hands tightened on hers. “But you believe me, don’t you, Lyddy? Please say you do.”
Lydia was silent for a very long time. She realized with a shock that she had strength now, strength enough to see Tom Fortune without illusion and to judge him objectively.
