“The object of the paragraph inTheTimeswas to hurt you for entertainment purposes,” he said slowly, laying the words down like bricks. “For the amusement of the masses. Do not think for onemomentI will allow that to stand.” His voice had escalated.
“Do not shoot anyone on my account, Lord Kirke. I’m certain the gossip columns will savor that, too, if you do. I will return home as soon as I can get the mail coach,” she said, the words cracked and trembling now. “I can’t... I can’t stay in London any longer.” Tears were gathering in the corners of her eyes.
Another of those pauses ensued while she could almost hear his formidable mind clearly working away. “I have a possible solution.”
She waited.
He pulled in a breath and released it slowly.
And then another.
Still, his voice shook a little. “I am willing to marry you.”
She stared at him. Her mind blanked in astonishment.
“What?”Her voice was cracked and threadbare, pitched flute-high with disbelief.
“It’s what is normally done, isn’t it?” His voice was still so very, very careful. “To salvage reputations in situations such as this. To provide a woman a modicum of freedom from judgment. To get the gossip to stop.”
A fresh wave of nauseating shock swept through her.
“You... are... willing... to... marry... me,” she repeated slowly. She moaned in near pain, and held her head in her hands. “I... it’s... howghastly. Do you hear it? Do you hear how that sounds? How martyred? As though I am some terrible problem that must be solved by throwing yourself on your sword? What kind of life would that be for you? What kind of life would that be forme? Everyone will believe I had been your mistress, and then no one will receive me, and we wouldn’t have any friends. You would forever resent me for cornering you into this solution. No.Never.Never. Not if you were the last man on earth.”
Her own torrent of furious words shocked her. Her capacity for blind rage and pain was a revelation. Her willingness to inflict it on him was another. She didn’t know whether she even meant them. She only wanted to administer a killing blow, and they were the weapon at hand and so she used them.
She had learned an astonishing number of things about herself in London.
Kirke was as pale as if blood had never pumped through his veins. She could detect no movement at all. Not his breathing. Not a flicker of an eyelash.
“Maybe it’s just you. Maybe you ruin everything you touch without trying,” she added bitterly.
She could see these words land. She witnessed the breath literally leaving him. The pinched skin about his eyes. Which suddenly looked like dark bruises on his face.
The very air in the room seemed to sting her skin. Everything hurt intolerably.
“I will leave The Grand Palace on the Thames at once.” His voice was uninflected.
She nodded shortly.
Then she turned her back so she wouldn’t have to see what she’d done to him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Not more than an hour after Delilah and Angelique had read the little item in the newspaper, Dot came to them bearing an urgent request from Lord Kirke, who wished to speak with them at once in the reception room.
They scrambled out of their aprons to meet him there.
They had a feeling they had reached the “see what happens next” they’d been anticipating.
He stopped pacing before the fireplace when he saw them swiftly progressing across the marble foyer toward him.
Delilah discreetly closed the door of the room behind them.
“Thank you for attending me, Mrs. Hardy, Mrs. Durand,” he said without preamble. “In light of the distress an item of gossip in the newspaper has caused Miss Keating, I feel it prudent that I take my leave of you at once, for the sake of appearances. I do not believe anyone knows that Miss Keating and I are currently living beneath your roof. I fear I am a veteran of the gossip sheets for many reasons, some perhaps warranted and some not, and can easily withstand the negative attention. She does not deserve it.” He faltered almost infinitesimally here. “I am infuriated, and I will take action. I can state definitively that she is wholly innocent of theinsinuation and I deeply regret that they feel they can somehow besmirch her name by associating it with mine.”
He’d said all of this politely. Very nearly crisply. As though it was just a matter of business.
But the word “regret” was cracked in the middle.