Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

She was hollow to the core of herself. She did not think or feel. Her body moved of its own accord—offering gratitude and farewells to Mr. Oswald, climbing into the carriage, approaching the town house door that had changed so little in all her life.

The hall embraced her like an old friend.

Nellie beamed and pranced around, flyaway curls framing her face, talking faster than usual in excitement. Mamma and Mr. Lutwidge surprised Georgina with a dinner of roast stubble goose and applesauce—her favorite.

All the curtains in her bedchamber had been washed.

The bed was wrinkleless.

Vibrant zinnia flowers decorated a vase by the window, which was open to allow in a warm and comforting breeze.

The first day passed without much disturbance from anyone. Georgina burrowed deep into her bed with the excuse her burns rendered too much pain for movement. She slept a little. Mostly, she begged herself to cry.

She needed tears.

She needed to feel.

The second day she went downstairs to the library. She sat where Papa's body had thudded to the floor when they cut the rope, and she ran her fingers over the rug, the coarseness reddening her tips.

Nothing made sense to her.

Not Papa.

Least of all Simon.

She wished she had done everything different. She wished she had married him. She wished she would have taken his name, and raised his children, and lived in his home because then…

Maybe, one day, it would have happened.

Maybe he would have glanced up at her absently some lazy afternoon, as she was fixing Mercy's braid or answering John's question—and the one thing she needed would have been in his gaze.

Likely, he would never say the words.

She knew that.

He belonged to the woman in the drawing.

But would it have been enough, perhaps, to have nothing more than looks and touches, scattered and scarce throughout the rest of her existence? A soft look. A tender squeeze to her hand as he helped her into a carriage. Things that said, without words, that he loved her.

Like the kiss.

Could she have been happy with such a fate? Would she have been satisfied the rest of her life with loving him and pretending he loved her back?

None of it mattered now.

He was doing what he had already done once.

Leaving.

On the afternoon of the third day, Nellie slipped open Georgina's bedchamber door without knocking. "Miss Whitmore?" Her eyes twitched in uneasiness. "Um, someone would like to see you. I told them you were…still resting."

From her chair, Georgina blinked hard, setting aside the embroidery. "Send them in." Simon was too weak to see her. No one else mattered.

But when the door opened a second time, a face she had not expected stared back at her.

"Agnes." Georgina swallowed.

Dressed in a soiled dark-blue dress, with a knitted shawl about her shoulders and a flowerless bonnet on her head, Agnes shuffled forward with one hand on her swollen belly. She was plainer than she had ever been. Her face whiter. Hair limper. Eyes sadder. "Do not get up," she said, even though Georgina stood. "I shall only bother you a moment."

"You did not write." Georgina was not certain why she felt the need to express such a thing, as if that was the greatest of Agnes' offenses.

"I did not have the funds to post a letter."

"I am certain the Gilchrists would have provided a penny."

"I am certain they would have, only"—Agnes licked her dry lip—"I told them the truth. About your Mr. Fancourt. About everything."

Your Mr. Fancourt. The words lashed at Georgina, and she gripped the chair in a death grip.

"I was on the streets for nearly a fortnight. I slept in alleyways and under the arched bridge on Everill Street. I even sheltered in the mew back of the town house once when it was raining."

"You should have come in."

"I could not face you."

"But the baby—"

"I cared as little for this baby as I cared for myself." Shame mottled her face. "Six days ago, I knocked on the door of a relief society for…unwed women in my condition. The gentleman in charge wrote a letter of reference to his friend. He is a farmer in Shropshire. He is widowed with four children, is known to be religious, and is willing to forgive an unscrupulous past for a hardworking mother to his little ones."

"Agnes." Faint memories tried to push their way into Georgina's head. Two young girls, giggling in the same bed, with dreams and imaginations of some glorious true love.

They would not have dreamed if they knew how all of it would end.

"I leave tomorrow. I wanted to say goodbye."

Strange, that you could know someone that long, love them that much, then part with one word.

Georgina sank back to the chair by the window. She took the embroidery in her hands. She ought to say something, echo the words back, but she had not the heart.

Then Agnes was next to her, kneeling by her chair in that same old way she always had before. "Dear, what is wrong?"

Something sharp and bulging lodged in Georgina's throat. The numbness thawed too fast. "Simon is leaving," she choked. "Again." Deep inside, a dam crumbled and the broken pieces flooded her. She turned away, tried to hide her face, silence the noises, because she did not want to need someone who had already betrayed her.

But Agnes reached out like before. She pulled Georgina into her arms, rubbed her hair, and cooed in that sisterly, motherly tone. "I think you knew he would leave again all along, dear."

Yes, she had known.

But for once in her life, she had hoped her fears would not come true.

"You are a difficult man to kill." Mr. Oswald flipped out his coattails and sat on a round, velvet-cushioned stool near the bed. "Dr. Morpeth expressed his astonishment at both your strength and willpower to heal."

"I have much to live for."

"I presume you speak of your children."

"Among other things."

"Including Miss Whitmore?"

Her name dampened the back of Simon's neck. He did not know how to answer, but the look on Mr. Oswald's face—the obvious infatuation—stirred protectiveness. "She is vulnerable right now."

"We are all vulnerable, more often than not, Mr. Fancourt. Love does not prey on vulnerability, but emboldens it."

"You will not hurt her."

"The only one who has done that is you."

Simon looked away, hands curling around the coverlet. "You said you had news of Mr. Wilkins."

"Yes." Mr. Oswald accepted the change of topic with no hitch in his voice. "He was apprehended, along with his brother and family, late last night by the Bow Street runners. You shall be happy to know the two imbeciles are now locked in Newgate."

"What of the wife and children?"

"Both sent to a workhouse."

"I want them out."

"You owe them nothing."

"My funds are in the trunk. Take it. Get them—"

"Very well." Mr. Oswald stood. He shoved the stool against the wall and spun the seat with his finger. "But as I had a greater hand in their capture, I shall assume the responsibility myself. They shall be released from the workhouse before morning. I believe the woman has a sister. Perhaps arrangements might be procured in that regard."

"Good." Simon nodded, the most thanks he could stomach.

Mr. Oswald grinned. "You are welcome."

"A few more days, I shall be out of here."

"Take as long as you like. I am in no hurry."

"I am."

"Truly, Mr. Fancourt, you never cease to amuse me." Mr. Oswald walked to the end of the bed, pulling a cigar from his coat. He lit it and puffed. "You accuse me of some nefarious scheme, I save your life and house you anyway, and you still persist in treating me as if I am some unfavorable scoundrel you wish to place a pox on."

"What of Brownlow?"

"Back to him, then."

"You deny your lies and—"

"No, I do not deny them." Cigar smoke clouded his face. "Though you must admit I warned you. My conscience has never borne any pains over avoiding the truth, if a falsehood would serve me better." Mr. Oswald shrugged. "But lies gain me little now, so if it is any consolation, you were right."

Simon stiffened. "You were involved with Brownlow."

"Yes. He blackmailed me, and I paid Captain Mingay to escort him to Halifax." Some of Mr. Oswald's indifference slipped. His eyes hardened behind the smoke puffs. "He has been entangled in an affair with my sister since before his wife's death. I did not wish the scandal to come to light, so I did the only thing I could do—shipped her abroad to Buenos Aires and paid him to forget her. Unfortunately, my attempts were not so successful. I gained little more than my sister's hatred and a continual loss of funds."

"You should have told me the truth."

"I doubt you would have believed me any more than you did Sir Walter."

The words punctured Simon. He ripped the coverlet from his legs. "If you are finished, I would like to rest."

"Not quite." Mr. Oswald threw the cigar into the hearth, and when he glanced back to Simon's bed, his cheeks were a rare shade of red. "I do not profess to being a saint. I do not even profess to being good, as many men count goodness. But I am candid, if nothing else, and wish you to know one thing."

Simon nodded him on.

"I have never wanted anything in my life more than Georgina Whitmore. If you do not marry her, I will."

Georgina crushed his second letter in her palm. None of the hearths were lit in the town house, not with the weather so warm, so she went to the kitchen and threw them into the crackling fire beneath Cook's cauldron.

Why she felt the need to burn them, she was not certain.

Perhaps because she knew herself. Her own weakness. If she read them once more, Simon's plea for her to visit, Georgina would cave.

"I am recovering quickly. The children ask about you." The first letter had come nearly a week ago. She had put on her bonnet, changed into her favorite gown, and gone downstairs to order a carriage.

She had never reached the bottom step.

Then yesterday morning, a letter carrier had delivered the second. The writing was more hurried, more distressed, and the words echoed with urgency: "You left before I could speak with you."

"Come down 'ere to sneak a sugar biscuit, did you?" Cook shooed a scullery maid away from her platter of freshly baked desserts, though Cook glanced more than once to the burning letters.

"They are as good as they ever were."

"And you as impatient. Here." Cook motioned to the table. "Go on and take one for the missus too. Dinner is not for another two hours yet, and she'll be loving a treat, methinks."

Georgina smiled, wrapped two crumbly sugar biscuits in an embroidered napkin, and took them upstairs to Mamma's chamber. She knocked twice. "It is Georgina. Come with a surprise." Mamma had complained of a headache three hours ago, had retired for a nap, and had requested Nellie to awaken her at least two hours before dinner.

"So I have ample time to prepare my hair," Mamma had insisted, with a dramatic clutch to her head.

But when the door whined open, it was not Mamma who stood in the threshold, but Mr. Lutwidge. His black hair was askew, his coat unbuttoned, a dribble of red wine at the corner of his lip. "Your mother left nearly an hour ago."

"Where?"

"Some puppet show down the street. She thought the…excitement might distract her headache."

"I see." Georgina backed away.

"Wait." He snatched her wrist. His grip was cold, bony, damp, and his eyes were as crazed as they'd been in the graveyard—but more.

"Let me go." Georgina dropped the napkin. Her knees weakened. "Now."

"The flowers were for you."

"You are drunk."

"No."

"Unhand me, Mr. Lutwidge, or Mother shall know everything."

"You must not. You cannot tell. I shall—"

"Kill me?" The words hushed. Her chin raised. "Like you did my father?"

As if she'd burned him, Mr. Lutwidge released her arm. He stepped back, staring at her, vacant and horrified, like the shriveled flowers he used to lay at Papa's grave.

Georgina shook her head and ran for the stairs. She barreled down them and raced for the library. She slammed herself inside. She flattened against the door. She sank to the rug, breathing hard, too engulfed in wrath to be afraid.

Seconds later, heavy footsteps thudded outside the door. The wood creaked, as if a body slumped against it. "Miss Whitmore?"

She did not want to answer. She knew she would never get the truth if she didn't. "Yes?"

"I wish to confess."

He did not sleep.

Simon stood next to the window, pulling a loose shirt over his head for the first time. His back screamed as the cotton brushed his blisters. I am losing her.

Already, Mr. Oswald had spoken to a captain about securing their passage on the next ship to America. Mother was on her way to say goodbye. The children spoke of nothing else.

Eight days. He had slept none of them, and if he did, she infested his dreams.

She should have come.

Or he should have dragged himself out of this room and found her. He could have. If he had wanted to enough.

But he'd stayed, and he'd pushed it away, and he'd talked to the children about home as if the mountains and cabin and new land would make it easier. As if he could climb on another ship like before and not look back. As if he could forget.

Stuffing the shirt in his trousers, he eased to his knees next to the trunk. He pried open the lid. He took out the drawing book for the hundredth time in the last eight days.

He did not mean to draw her.

He didn't want to.

But Georgina's face stared back at him, young and pensive, with glints of compassion and understanding warming her gaze. She was beautiful in her curls. He missed the touch of them. He missed her lips, that one frantic kiss, and the way an earthquake had rattled his core yet still seemed to steady him.

What is wrong with me?

He wasn't certain what held him back. If it was Mr. Oswald's profession of love, or anxiety that Georgina would not be strong enough for the mountains, or fear she would not come, or dread he might have to stay.

Or this.

He flipped back the pages, and Ruth stared up at him, faraway Ruth. Old love rang, and familiar guilt clamored, as he caressed the pencil strokes with his thumbs and smeared the lines.

Ruth is what kept him in this room.

Ruth is what kept him from finding Georgina, what prisoned all the words his heart needed to unleash. Not love for her. That was old and deep, like something that had simmered to the bottom of him and hardened. Another layer of himself.

No, it was something else.

Guilt maybe.

Perhaps fear as well.

He slammed the drawing book shut and tossed it back into the trunk. He did not understand himself enough to figure it out. He only knew one thing.

He could not get on that ship without asking her to come with him.

The rest was in the hands of God.

"Your mother was gone that night." Mr. Lutwidge had motioned Georgina into the library chair, then locked the door—whether to keep her in or everyone else out, she did not know. "I knew because I watched this town house for two days straight."

She tamped down the impulse to stand. Perhaps even run. Calm. She focused on his face, the way he angled it toward her without meeting her gaze. Remain calm.

"There were fourteen letters in total. Your mother had written them to me before—years ago, when the three of us were friends…when she loved me more than she loved your father." He loosened his neckcloth. "I was seventeen. She was fifteen. She liked yellow roses, so I brought them to her every time there was a ball she was too young to attend." He smiled. "She was beautiful in those days. She used to watch for me out her bedchamber window. I climbed the lattice, and she would leave letters on the sill."

"And Papa?"

"Cecil was more my friend than hers. Ever since boarding school, we had been inseparable. We even discussed partnering to open our own private bank. Likely would have, if both of our fathers had not so strongly opposed the action." Mr. Lutwidge wiped perspiration from his forehead. "After her coming out, everything changed. She saw more of Cecil than me. Once I caught them unchaperoned in a dark carriage outside Almack's. Her hair was down, and I think she was in his arms." Mr. Lutwidge paced to the window. "She ceased leaving letters on the windowsill. Within four months, they were wed."

"Mamma never told me." Georgina gripped her hands in her lap. "About you…and her."

"I do not think she realized. I do not think either of them did." He shrugged. "To her, I think the yellow flowers and the letters were merely child's play. We had made no commitments. Indeed, I do not think Cecil ever suspected I fancied her over any other girl in our circle of acquaintances." His words wobbled. "But I died when she married him. For years, I indulged myself in other pleasures. I avoided London during the season because I knew she would be there. I never answered Cecil's letters. I pretended indifference, and when I could no longer pretend, I drank myself into oblivion."

Georgina's heart skipped faster.

"And then I began to hate him. At night the most, when I nursed a bottle alone in my chamber. I hated Cecil Whitmore so much it gave me something to live for again." Mr. Lutwidge strode closer to her chair. Veins bulged at his temples. "When I was drunk, when I was brave, I concocted a plan to injure him with the same vengeance he had injured me. I took the letters she had once written me. They were not dated, so I added in my own dates and took a coach here to London." He blinked faster. "After two days of nearly losing courage, I knocked on their town house door. Cecil brought me in here. He hugged me. We poured drinks and talked about opening a bank again, and it was old times all over."

Cowardice itched beneath Georgina's skin. Like a child yanking bed linens over her head, she wanted to clamp her ears shut against the reality of what had happened.

But Mr. Lutwidge took another step closer, breath heavy. "Then I showed him the letters. I lied. I told him your mother had been meeting me at night, that it was me she loved and not him—that the two of us desired to run away together."

"And Papa?" Her words squeaked. "He…believed you?"

"He said very little. He actually thanked me for telling him the truth." Tears gathered at the corners of Mr. Lutwidge's eyes. "I left then and never felt more satisfied in my life. I was certain he would leave your mother, and perhaps I would have the chance he once robbed me of." Mr. Lutwidge shook his head. "The next morning, I heard of his death."

"He hung himself."

"They said it was his heart, but I knew the truth. My lies had murdered him." Mr. Lutwidge smeared the moisture with the back of his wrists. "I saw him everywhere after that. I was mad. Perhaps I am still mad, because even in this house, I see his face in every room—the way he looked at me that night." Intensity swam in his gaze. "I even see him in you."

Georgina pushed herself from the chair. Strange, how little she felt. After so many years of questions, the truth had an odd, cold touch of apathy. What was she to do with this? How much different would her grief have been, all this time, if she had known his demise had nothing at all to do with her or her own inadequacies?

"I brought you the flowers because I wanted to make up for the pain I had caused. I wanted you to know my sins."

"You married Mamma instead."

"Love is a wicked power."

She walked past him, toward the door, but he stopped her at the center of the room. They stood together where Papa's body had sprawled.

"I will be gone by the time your mother returns from her puppet show. You may tell her anything you wish. If there is any form of punishment you would like to inflict, I shall oblige."

She glanced him up and down. He no longer wore the loose, drenched clothes, and his hair no longer whipped long and stringy in the breeze. But the demons still plagued his eyes. Grief and guilt and torture scarred his face. "You have already been punished, sir."

He nodded, his hand grasping hers again, as if he needed a touch of forgiveness. "You will never see me again."

She wanted to watch him leave. He did not deserve Mamma any more than he deserved her pardon. If anything, she should have demanded the letters returned, taken them to the constable, and insisted Mr. Lutwidge be arrested for invading this town house.

But her blood simmered, and the weight in her chest lessened, and all she could think of was how happy Mamma had been these past weeks. "You love her." Georgina tugged her hand free. "I think Mamma needs that more than the truth."

She left the library, eased the door shut behind her, and held her shoulders back as she climbed the stairs with shaking legs. His confession did not make Papa's death easier. If anything, it made her long for him more—for his goodness, his trueness, his earnest love for his wife.

But Georgina was lighter. Far more than she'd been in years.

She did not think she would ever have need to pry open the library door again.

"I would like to speak with Miss Whitmore."

"She is indisposed." The gray-haired butler glanced to his left, as if following instructions from someone behind the door.

Simon clutched Mercy's hand tighter. "We will wait."

"Perhaps another time."

"Now."

"I am afraid that is imposs—"

"I will see Miss Whitmore, sir, and if I have to rip this door off its hinges to do so, I will." Simon pressed a hand to the door. "You had better stand back."

"Err." The butler glanced back to whoever was beside him. He finally nodded. "That will not be necessary. If you will follow me, sir." He stepped aside, gesturing them inside, and a maid inside the hall greeted them with a threatening look.

Simon guided his children in front of him. When they reached the parlor, John sat beside him on the cream-velvet settee, and Mercy took to studying the globe with lip-biting concentration.

"Papa, me found Marwicktow."

John peered over the back of the settee. "That's France, silly."

"Here?"

"Naples."

"Here?"

Simon's knees bounced, as John joined his sister and the drone of their quiet conversation dimmed. He had been able to eat little of his breakfast this morning. The toast he'd managed to down rumbled in his stomach, tossed like flotsam bobbing in a turbulent sea. Why?

He had never been nervous to see her before.

But then again, he had never asked her to marry him before.

Not like this.

The clock hand on the wall ticked away fifteen minutes before the parlor door finally opened. Miss Whitmore entered, wearing a pink morning dress with wisps of loose curls framing a rosy face.

His chest pounded as he stood. He meant to say something, but John and Mercy raced around the settee and tackled her legs.

She laughed, all their words falling on top of each other. Mercy blurted nonsense about home, and John showed her how tall he was growing, on account of the chops and liver he'd been eating.

Simon was lost to everything. All he saw was the way her hand easily rubbed John's back, or the way her lips pursed in awe at some amusing thing Mercy exclaimed.

When Georgina's eyes finally lifted to him, he knew she had asked him something, but he didn't know what. He hesitated for too long. The room quieted.

"Would you like Nellie to take you to the kitchen?" She turned back to the children. "Cook has made chocolate cream, and you may each have your own bowl, if you like."

"Me love chocolate!" Mercy jumped and clapped. "Me can have some, Papa?"

He nodded them on, stock-still as Georgina ushered them into the hall with instructions to the maid. When she returned, the flush had settled to a pallor. The door thudded with uncertainty behind her.

"I did not realize you were so much recovered."

"You did not answer my letters."

"I was busy."

He nodded, annoyed that his voice rasped lower and less steadily than normal. He tried not to look at her lips. "There is a lot I wish to say to you."

"Mr. Oswald took dinner with us yesterday. He related much of what has happened, along with the details of the Wilkinses' capture. I am glad."

"You should not have endured my troubles."

"It is over now."

"I wish I could have protected you."

"You did."

"Not enough." He wished she would come closer, or that he would close the distance himself. But the room stretched before them, too vast to cross, and the wall clock tick-tocked in rhythm to his frenzied heart. "Georgina—"

"He also related the news of your return to America." Her eyes fell. "Mr. Oswald, I mean." She cleared her throat. "Over dinner."

"The children have grown very fond of you." The words rushed out. "They need a mother."

She stared at her feet.

"It is different in America. The ways are less genteel, and the land is like a friend you have to earn. But the people are good." He tripped over the last sentence. "Life there is good. I want to go back and paint everything and"—he hesitated—"and I want you to come with me."