Chapter 21

Cora's silence had begun to feel like a heavy buzzing in the air. All morning while they'd broken their fast, as they'd bundled up into the baron's roomy coach, as they'd trundled through London streets and toward Mayfair—Cora had said not a word. Prudence had long since given up encouraging the somber woman at her side into conversation.

Ben had proven a much more loquacious companion, but one whose every word burned heat into Prudence's cheeks. The ribbon he'd wound round her wrist last night remained hidden beneath her glove, but she felt it like the hot tracing of his fingertips across her sensitive skin.

The ribbon and Ben's words, the look in his eyes when he gazed on her, the way he sprawled on the other side of the coach—his mere posture an invitation to climb atop his lap—all colluded to make her mind and body a jumbled mass of longing. Better to remain silent entirely lest she do something mortifying. Like moan. Or proposition him.

And all with an audience.

Heavens. She'd agreed to marry this man. And nothing but joy shot through her at the prospect. She'd never have guessed she would know this, never have thought to feel so loved.

The streets outside the window grew wider, the trees larger, and the homes statelier.

"Almost home," Prudence said, catching Ben's eye.

Cora squeaked. Her mouth twitched. Then she opened it, and for the first time all day, Prudence heard her friend's voice. "I need to do a reading."

Prudence flashed another glance at Ben. Did he know about those? Or had Cora just spilled their remaining secret?

"Reading?" Ben asked. "Do you wish us to drop you at Hatchards?"

"A poetry reading." Cora turned to Prudence. "Will you organize it?"

"Of course. When?"

"Your sister's ball."

"But that's less than a fortnight away. We cannot—"

"We must." Cora's eyes should have been the glittery glass of a woman near tears, but they were clear, determined. "No matter how."

"There's always Hyde Park," Prudence said, "but—"

"You both lost me two turns ago." Ben sat up and leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees, stretching the buckskin across his muscled thigh. "Please do catch me up."

No noticing muscled thighs! Not right now. Prudence focused on her friend instead.

Cora considered Ben, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and tilted her head. "Since you know everything, you may as well know this. I write erotic poetry. And recite said poetry aloud. And the women of London come in droves to listen. In dark rooms at midnight above and below crowded ballrooms."

Ben's gaze floated lazily from Cora to Prudence, and he whistled. "What don't the two of you do? Are you sure that's all? Do you recite poetry, too, Lady P? Perhaps you perform nude dances, or—"

"That is quite enough, Benjamin Bailey." Prudence sniffed, giving her best Lady Templeton impression. "There are no such dances, and my mind is not of a poetic turn."

He held up his hands, palms flat toward her. "Very well. But how do you organize an event no one's ever heard of? And in such public places? It's… well, hell, Prudence, it's radical. A scandal."

"I'm aware. That's why I'm careful. We all are. Or… we try our best to be." She explained the system to him—the gossip and abandoned rooms, the ribbons as marks, the candles in skirts and tinder boxes in pockets.

He grunted. "That's overly complicated."

"And how would you do it?" Cora looked out the window as the coach slowed. "We're almost there. I see Norton's townhouse." A pause, nothing but the clatter of the wheels beneath them. "My townhouse."

Ben shifted, as if the seat had grown unaccountably uncomfortable in the last few moments. "I would have a regular schedule. The first ball of every month or some such."

"That is a fine idea, Ben." Prudence blinked at him, mouth slightly agape. "And that you, of all people, came up with it…" She shook her head, shook the surprise from her eyes. "But we cannot know if the locations will prove salubrious."

"Hm." He scratched his jaw. His beard had begun to fill in his cheeks, and the sensitive insides of her arms, her thighs, the curve of her belly all held the red marks of his stubble. He grinned at her as if he knew the direction of her thoughts, and she tried, unsuccessfully, to control her blush. "Since you rely on gossip so much, a newspaper man might be of some use. One of my papers, The Current, specializes in gossip, society news. I've certainly seen notes in its pages of who is redecorating what. I venture a guess I know before any of you do."

Debatable. He may have the papers right off the presses, but they had Isabella. Prudence's younger sister seemed to know everything about everyone in London and beyond.

His long, strong fingers, gloveless, continued scratching. "There has to be a safer way."

"The house party was about that," Prudence said. "An attempt to find a safer way. There have been too many close calls of late."

"We stop now."

Ben and Prudence turned toward Cora. She sat with her back to them, but her reflection told her secrets—a stone face and marble eyes.

"We must stop everything," Cora said, "the library especially, until we know what Norton intends to do or say about it all. He does not know about the poetry, though. And I've a new poem. My best yet. Composed entirely last evening." She swayed, listless as the coach stopped before the row of townhouses. "I will stop after this." Finally, she turned, but not to Prudence. "Mr. Bailey, if you discover a safer, more practical way of delivering the location of my reading to those who need to know, I'll be forever in your debt."

"No need for that, my lady." His voice fell with the soft gruffness of a kind heart, and if Prudence had not already loved the man, she would surely have fallen all the way off the cliff now.

"Yes." Cora opened the door, stepped onto the street, and looked up at them. "You would not want Prudence harmed in any way. Thank you for that. Perhaps you will prove a better husband than my own."

"But how did you know?" Prudence asked, half rising then falling back to the seat. "About Ben. And me?"

"Because it's rather like the stories I write. When the hero will do anything for the woman who holds his heart."

"I hope it does not end as poorly as your stories do," Prudence mumbled.

Cora managed a chuckle. "I am happy for you." But she dropped her gaze to the ground and closed the door. Through the window they saw her motion for the driver to continue on.

"Will she be well? Staying alone?" Ben moved across the coach to sit next to Prudence as it lurched into motion.

"I cannot say. I'll certainly check on her tomorrow. Perhaps I can convince her to stay at Clearford House for a time."

"Do you think Norton will return home? And more importantly, do you think she'll shove him down the stairs when he does?"

Prudence picked at her skirts. "Perhaps I should visit her sooner than tomorrow. Or stay with her tonight."

"Decide later, Lady P." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his shoulder. "For now, close your eyes and rest until I return you safely home."

She did, the world fluttering into nothing behind her eyelids. His jacket, where she burrowed her nose, inhaling deeply, smelled faintly of cigars and much more strongly of Ben, that mix of paper and ink and male that made her feel safe, loved.

Perhaps she needed no reminder, no slim black ribbon around her wrist.

Nuzzling his chest, she said with a yawn, "Will you ask Samuel for my hand?"

"I will speak to him, yes."

"Do not let him bully you."

He squeezed her. "Perhaps I shall bully him."

She chuckled and let the sway of the coach relax her, let the so-close beating of his heart comfort her, and all too soon, they stopped. They exited together and entered the house, and Mr. Jacobs greeted them.

"Lady Prudence! We did not know you were to return today." His gaze focused on her arm. Where it entwined with Ben's arm. And her shoulder, where it braced against Ben's shoulder. The butler sniffed. "Mr. Bailey."

"Still object to my presence in this house?" Ben asked.

"Mr. Jacobs, you don't!" Prudence pulled away from Ben. "What could you object to?"

"Less now than before," the butler grumbled. "He looks less like a ruffian now. But still…"

"Lady Prudence approves of me now. And she approved of me then." He flashed a ruffian's grin, though he no longer possessed a ruffian's figure. "Right, Lady P?"

She narrowed her eyes. "I'll rescind my approval if I please."

"You won't." He took her hand and brought it to his lips, kissed her knuckles. "You won't let Mr. Jacobs color your opinion of me?"

"I think Mr. Jacob's opinion of you will change," she hissed, voice low, "once he knows you're heir to—"

He snapped his palm over her lips. "Ah, ah, ah, Lady P." He leaned close and whispered, "I'd like the old crank to learn to like me for myself."

"You do like making things difficult for yourself."

He nudged her toward the stairs. "I'll go speak with your brother. If he's home. Jacobs, is Clearford home?"

"Not for you," Jacobs said, slicing a hand between Prudence's body and Ben's.

Ben winked at Prudence, then ambled off down the hall toward Samuel's study.

Prudence found her bedchamber empty, and she pulled the bell to call for a bath. As she waited, she dared to pass by the looking glass, a surface she never quite allowed into her periphery. No use looking when she knew what she would see, knew there was a means of improving the reflection there.

But she boldly stood before it now, wearing a rumpled gown, lumpy because of the man's shirt serving as a shift beneath it. Her hair a mess, and her stockings sagging. But also… glowing and happy? A bit impish about the eyes and nose. Hair changing color in the light from honey to gold, the shadows that fell across a yellow gown.

She smiled.

And then she hopped, gasped, because an argument shook the ceiling and rumbled the walls. And she knew the voices shouting, too—her brother, her betrothed. She ran, flinging open the door, terrifying the maid just outside, and flying down the hall. She stumbled down the stairs and twisted her ankle. But still she continued, the voices roaring loader. When she reached the door of Samuel's study and wrapped her fingers around the handle, she could finally hear them clearly.

"Marry her?" Samuel roared. "You've been lying to her!"

Lying… to who? The words sizzling in the air hardly made sense. Prudence released the door handle as if it had become a burning coal, her body falling backward through thick, sludgy space until her back hit a wall.

"I thought you were willing to sacrifice your bachelor friends, Clearford. Desperate times, I believe you said." Ben's voice like she'd never heard it before, a low drawl devoid of the boredom she'd become acquainted with first and the teasing she'd come to know at last.

"It is merely that lies are not, perhaps, the best foundation for a happy marriage. Happy, Bailey. That's what I want for her, for them all. Happiness and safety."

Lies. That word again. Lying, too. Horrid in all its permutations. It seemed to pin her to the wall, sit like a boulder, heavy on her chest.

"And I'll give her that," Ben said, "You have no problem with a bastard for a brother-in-law. And Noble's an arse, but you welcomed him into your family quick enough. Why not me?"

Prudence pushed past the agony blooming in her chest and left the wall, found her hand once more on the door handle.

"It's not about you," Samuel said.

"Damn right, Clearford. Nor is it about you. Your rules and your demands. Your holding what I want to get what you want. It's about—"

She pulled the door open and stepped into the room in one fluid movement. "Who is it about, then, if it's not about you, Samuel?"

Both men faced her with slack jaws and panicked eyes. They seemed a study in opposites. Her brother polished but frayed at the edges, a hair or two twisting out of place above his ears, his shirtsleeves rolled up haphazardly past his elbows. Yet no one would notice the tiny tatters if they did not know to look. Ben looked, however, much as he had when she'd first met him—rumpled and scruffy and not at all refined. Yet the core of him remained steady, the emotion in his eyes unwavering. Neither man's appearance reflected the truth about him.

Neither had her reflection from just moments ago reflected the truth. Back to that shrapnel of a word again—lies.

"Prudence," Ben stepped toward her.

She held out a hand, palm flat, to stop him. And it did, more effectively than a bullet. "What did you mean? When you said my brother holds something you want and is using it to get what he wants?"

Samuel exhaled a strangled sigh and fell into a chair, his body going limp. "'Tis nothing of any import, Prudence."

Ben paced a step away from her, then paced back, his jaw ticking. A moment of looking into her eyes, and he said, "Very well. No hiding it now. Your brother owns shares in a printshop I want. And he won't sell them to me."

"What must you do to earn them?" She didn't want the answer. She didn't. Why had she asked that horrid question? Because it had floated to her lips on a familiar wave of self-doubt.

Ben swallowed but held her gaze. "Court you. He wanted me to discover what keeps you from marrying."

Ah. Yes, now everything made sense. Those anomalies she'd puzzled over so long finally clicked into clarity. Why had he followed her to the country? Why had he changed his appearance? Why had he kissed her, pursued her?

Because of Samuel. For a printshop.

She'd known it could not be for herself.

She'd been right.

And like the fortune teller who correctly predicts the end of the world, she wished she'd been wrong. All thought and feeling drained out of her with a held inhalation. Her mind, her chest, entirely empty, she turned and left the room.

A hand on her shoulder, warm and strong, stopped her. "Prudence, I'm sorry."

She rolled her shoulder, trying to dislodge Ben's hand. It would not move, so she let it lie there like a haircloth, a penance and reminder of her foolishness. "You told him about—"

"No. I told him nothing. Well… I told him you were friendly with a group of society matrons who spent their free hours teaching you about womanly things, being a wife and mother."

Must she thank him for that? Must she gift him her gratitude for hiding that which he'd sought to uncover through dubious means?

She ripped her shoulder from his grasp and finally turned to face him. With trembling fingers, she pushed the cuff of her gown up, ripped the glove off her hand. There, stark black against her skin—Ben's ribbon. She yanked one, loose end of it, and it fell free of her wrist.

"Prudence, stop." His voice gravelly, his hands lifting toward her, then dropping hard.

She held the ribbon out to him. "I would sincerely like to never see you again."

His jaw twitched. "No."

She dropped the ribbon on the floor. It fluttered in a wayward spiral to the marble below and lay like a discarded snakeskin, dark and limp.

"I hope you are happy with your printshop, Mr. Bailey." She looked toward the study doorway where her brother stood, shoulders stooped. "Because if happiness was your goal for me, Brother, you have failed. Spectacularly." She gave another laugh and made for the stairs. She still wore Ben's shirt beneath her gown. It burned her skin, acid and fire, and if she did not rip it off and cast it into the flames of the bedchamber grate soon, she'd melt, become a puddle of bone and blood in the hallway.

Heavy bootsteps behind her, and she didn't dare look back, no matter how fast and hard they came. "Prudence, wait up. Talk with me. I love—"

She whirled at the foot of the stairs, coming face-to-face with him. "Do not lie to me anymore."

"I'm not." Hard finality in those words. "I may have begun for your brother—"

"For yourself. Be honest."

"For myself. But I knew from the moment in the portrait gallery behind those damn dog arses that something had changed. I went to Norton Hall for your brother, for myself, but I stayed for you, Prudence. And I will hit my knees before you right here before Clearford, before damn Jacobs hovering in the doorway—don't slink away like you're not eavesdropping, Jacobs—to prove to you I love you."

Proof of love. Because she found it so hard to love herself, she'd needed that from him. Now she had proof of the opposite, and her heart could not see past its tears. They gathered in her eyes, too, and she pressed the heels of her hands into the sockets to keep them back. She should not need proof. Something in her was still broken because she did.

"Not even if you dropped to your knees before all London, Benjamin Bailey. Not even then." Because she loved him, and he'd not even wanted her. She'd been a means to an end, a task to tick off on a to-do list before tossing it into the fire.

She fled, her name on his tongue trailing after her, but not the slam of his boots. By the time she reached her chamber, the tears had come, and she made a puddle of herself beside the bed, leaning into the mattress, hiding her face in the blankets. Better darkness than facing the looking glass across the room.

A knock on her door. "Prudence?"

"Go away, Samuel! You… you horrid man!"

Silence into which Prudence poured her sobs.

Then, "Luv, I'm coming in."

"You stay out there, Samuel!" The words didn't come out right, too strangled and stark.

The door creaked open and snicked closed.

"Go away!" she demanded.

"I'm sorry."

She stormed to her feet, hands fists at her side. "And I have heard those words enough today! How can you even understand, you bone-headed nodcock?"

"Prudence!"

"Am I not polite enough for you, as Annie always is?"

"No, I—"

"And I certainly do not have Lottie's looks or the interest inherent in the twins."

"Prudence—"

"No. You will remain silent while I speak." Few steps took her to his side, and she poked his chest. A light poke, really, but he fell into the door behind him as if she'd dealt him a great blow. "You are supposed to be my brother. Not my… my madame!"

"What do you know about—"

"More than you can even guess, Brother dear. You want my secrets? You do not deserve them, you arse-end of a… a… hedgehog!"

He flinched.

"You say you want me happily married? But how can that ever be when the only men interested in me are more interested in you?"

"That's not true."

"I can't even attract a suitor on my own! They must be curated entirely of my brother's cronies." She inhaled, a deep, ragged sound like a sob. "Even you know how hopeless I am."

"What?" He shook his head. "Prudence, no—"

"You've made it quite clear you think me incapable of producing any emotion in a man. And… and I suppose you are only right. I am too pale and uninteresting, too plain, and too practical to catch a man's eye."

His hands curved around her shoulders, and he pushed her backward until her legs hit the bed. And because she could no longer hold herself up, she fell to the mattress, sitting slumped like a beech bent beneath a hard wind.

Samuel squatted before her and tried to catch her gaze. "I do not think you incapable of attracting a man. I merely think you are unwilling. And what has ever prompted me to think otherwise? It is why I set Bailey after you, to find out why you would accept no man's attentions."

"Those men do not want me. Why would they?" She picked at the gathered material of her skirts in her lap, pinching them into a wrinkled mess. Those last three words, a collection of syllables she'd felt deep inside her for so long as an unbreakable truth, no longer felt so comfortable on her tongue. Could the woman she'd seen in the looking glass so recently really been the lie, and these sour words the truth?

Samuel spun on his toes and sank to his rear as he leaned against the bed beside Prudence's legs. He let his head fall back, and his eyes closed. "Is this truly how you feel about yourself? And I have made you feel that way? Hell, Pru." He hid his face into his hands, groaned. "God, I'm sorry. So sorry. I never meant." He dropped his hands and caught her gaze, his eyes blazing with determination. "It's not true."

When she didn't look up at him, didn't respond, he elbowed her leg. "It's not true, Prudence. You're lovely. And clever. And you're funny, and when you were a little girl, you used to run around behind Mrs. Blalock, pretending to be the housekeeper, and no one organized my cravats like you did." He laughed. "And you were reading by the time you were five. Long books I had trouble with still. And you went off to the country with an unhappy husband and wife to support your friend. Most people would run from being put in such an awkward position, but not you. Prudence, you are worthy. So very worthy. Why do you think I give advice to the gentlemen on courtship and not to you? Because you and your sisters—you are perfect. And men are fools. And it's why I've fought so hard to see you all wed."

She snorted. "You just want us out of your hair." She brushed the tears off her cheek.

"Yes. No." He sighed. "I want you happy. I want you loved. And I'm terrified that with only me to care for you, to oversee your courtships and your marriages, I'll fail. I'll launch you into muddles like Norton and his wife find themselves in. I'd never forgive myself for that. Ben told me a bit about it. It's not good." He scratched at his hair. "I sent Ben after you because I trusted him to watch over you, to find out why you were not accepting any of your suitors without hurting you. He may look a beast, but he's surprisingly good-hearted. I would not have trusted you with anyone else. I see I was wrong. Nothing new about that, I'm afraid."

"You blackmailed him into courting me." What had Ben said? He'd gone to the country for Samuel but stayed for her? Yes… she'd felt that shift. He'd even tried to leave, hadn't he, the day of the storm. But what had happened in the boathouse—like the new clean world after a deluge. Had it truly been a new clean world for them, too?

"It is not my finest moment," Samuel admitted. "I was wrong to do so."

She snorted.

"You won't say, ‘oh, no Samuel, you were not entirely wrong'?"

She snorted again.

"I deserve that. You're worthy of every good thing, Prudence, including love. And… if Ben says he loves you… he wouldn't lie. You must believe me on this. He may have begun courting you because of me, but he would not have said everything he said minutes ago if it weren't true. That's not the man he is. For what it's worth, out of all the men who've fallen in love with my sisters, I approve of Ben the most. Noble is a git. And Kingston comes with complications. But Lottie and Annie are happy with them. If you love Bailey as he says he loves you… I have high hopes for your happiness as well. At least this time, I can take partial credit for it."

She swung her leg sideways, hitting his arm. "You're insufferable. You told him to lie to me."

"I know." He inhaled deeply. "I'll apologize every day if I need to. I love you more than I can say. All of you. So much it's like a fear in my gut sometimes. I'm getting everything wrong. I know."

"You are. Most of it." She slid off the bed and held out a hand to him. "But you must leave us be to find our own way. You can't… you cannot continue to interfere."

He took her hand and let her pull him to his feet. "I begin to suspect you're right. But… it is my duty, as it would have been our parents' duties had they lived, to see you well-off." He did not release her hand as they faced each other, and she did not shake his grasp away, though irritation lanced through her. "But I promise to take what you say into consideration. I'll take what your sisters have to say into consideration. I'll… I hardly know, but I'll figure it out."

She squeezed his hand and swung him toward the door.

He paused just before exiting, his hands wrapped around the frame. "Will you forgive Bailey?"

"I don't want to talk about that right now. I need to be alone."

"Of course. I'll"—he looked about the room, lifted his arms, and dropped them to his sides—"go be a nodcock elsewhere."

Any other day she might have laughed at that. Today she could not, so she simply closed the door behind him and tried, in the buzzing loneliness of the room, to discover her next move, her next list of actions to itemize on a bit of clean paper.

But the large oval of a looking glass seemed to taunt her, draw her nearer, and when she peeked inside it, almost against her will, every fear boiling inside her sizzled into nothing.

The same woman stood there as before. Her eyes puffier, yes, and her cheeks mottled. But the same woman who'd let a man into her bed and loved it. The same woman who'd told that man her truth when he'd disappointed her. She'd told Samuel what he could do with his suitors as well, and perhaps influenced her sisters' futures for the better. Not even Lottie or Annie had thrown Samuel's faults in his face. But it had needed doing.

And if Prudence excelled in one way, it was getting things that needed doing done. She glowed with her own power. She'd been lied to, manipulated, but still she stood, strong and ready to do what needed doing.

Cora wanted a poetry reading, needed one to pour her grief out of her body and into the air. Prudence would provide one.

Because whether Ben loved her or not, Prudence was determined to love herself.