Chapter 5

Clara trod the long way back to the art school, her steps as heavy as the gray sky above. Rain had long since seeped past the stitching of her boots. Soggy stockings were a little bit of hell, weren't they? Still, she kept trudging despite her icy toes. Same as she had been for five days.

Five days of searching and not a single opportunity had presented itself. For servant positions, Clara had been considered too well spoken, too ladylike. She lacked the necessary skills to be a seamstress. She'd been propositioned by a drunken lad in Hyde Park, and while she did not wish to be any man's mistress, she would if it meant security outside of London. Yet she had Alfie, and men didn't like children, liked to think their women pristine. What would that foxed buck think if he'd seen the stretched skin across her belly, the marks on her inner thighs and breasts? Turn away disgusted, likely.

Fool. He'd probably done the same to his mother when he'd come into the world. Women earned such marks with their own power and strength. She'd always loved hers.

She also loved books, but that did not make her eligible to work in a bookshop. Nor had she been able to find a position as a barmaid. The trouble was, it took time to get to the edges of London where she looked for jobs, time to get back. When she'd finally decided to follow Lord Atlas's advice and ask Lord Andrew for help securing a position, he and his secretary had already left for Manchester. And she could not look for jobs in the country in the middle of town. What if she and Alfie jumped aboard a mail coach and traveled just… anywhere? A risk, certainly. A poor plan. But better a poor plan than none at all.

And she was not averse to taking risks.

Sleeping under the same roof as a man who'd admitted to wanting to bed her for instance. Three nights she'd lain awake, Alfie tucked beside her, waiting for the creak of the opening door. Men took what they wanted and discarded the rest.

But the creak never came, and she'd slept soundly since then, trusting him. He'd left her alone. He blushed when flustered. He stooped more often than stood straight, especially any time they happened to pass one another in the halls. He was no wolf. Not sure what he was, but she could trust him not to hurt her. She had, after all, felt safe in his arms during that short kiss.

Clara stopped at a corner, inhaling the soggy air. Just down the street, she'd find Lord Tefler's London townhouse. She passed it often, whenever she was out and about. A risk, yes. She could be recognized. But necessary as well. She needed to know if—when—he arrived in town. So she could toss Alfie over her shoulder and run.

She approached the house now, at an address just on the line between respectable and… not. Lord Tefler disliked the address. Reminded him he wasn't a duke but a baron. The dukes knew it. Tefler knew it. Even his address knew it. So he made up for it in other ways, cultivating an image of pristine breeding and manners, a production only brought low by the stain of her own existence. Good thing she'd loved his son, or she would not have been able to stomach all the rest.

She ducked her head and thanked heaven for the wide brim of her bonnet as she crossed the street and turned the corner. She was daring, but not enough so to pass the man's door without an entire street between her and it.

The door called to her, felt like a current sweeping her in its direction. Though she glanced at it sideways only, head down, it seemed like a chain about her. She knew exactly its position in regard to her own slowly moving form at all times.

And when that door swung open, her heart near exploded. Run! her legs cried, but she managed to keep their stride smooth and steady. With dread pooling in every muscle, she turned her head, just an inch. Who had opened the door? She had to know? A servant or…

Her brother-in-law, his wife hanging onto his winged arm. And behind him, Lord Tefler, his steel-gray hair hidden by his tall hat. The season had ended already. Why had they come with parliament no longer in session? The fashionable ton had already migrated back to the country, yet here they were. Only one thing could bring them here when the ton had already left—her.

It had finally happened. Not two months after they'd ran in the middle of a dark, starless night, carrying nothing but a single valise between them, an advertisement for a woodworking specialist to teach at a London art school pressed tight between her stays and shift.

She wanted to run. She couldn't, not at least until she rounded the corner and stepped out of their sight. She strolled forward as if the world were not crumbling around her. Where would they go? They could no longer stay here. London was large, but her father-in-law cunning. He knew by what means she could support herself, and that knowledge would soon bring him to the Waneborough Charitable School of Art's doorstep.

She no longer felt her feet. Didn't matter. Bells clanged in her brain, ringing out truths. Over and done with. She'd never see Alfie again. A suffocating sob tangled with silenced cries in her throat. When had the air gotten so thick? Impossible to breathe.

Were they always to run? If she'd been offered the position at Briarcliff, she would already be safe. Lord Atlas would leave tomorrow, taking Mr. Mathews with him. Why couldn't it be her? Why had she not said yes? She lived by one faultless truth—she'd do anything for her son.

But she'd proven that a lie. She'd not marry for him. A sound like a wild wail slipped through her teeth, and the world blurred around her.

She should give in. Lord Tefler had arrived, and one might call it a sign. Surely Alfie would not thrive in constant flight. Lord Tefler seemed to want to smother Alfie's soul, and certainly sought to separate him from Clara, but perhaps that was a reasonable exchange to make for stability and comfort.

Failed. Utterly. Failed in the one thing most important to her—protecting Alfie. She clutched her hands in her skirts, because she could do nothing useful with them, and swallowed a knot of tears.

Then walked right into a wall. She bounced off it, fell backward, and landed not on the hard ground but into the hard cradle of a muscled arm. A minty scent. Coffee and cheroots. Now the knot she swallowed was not sorrow but immediate, tingling desire. She looked up. Up. And still up, though she was a tall woman. Until she met Lord Atlas's concerned blue eyes.

"Steady, Mrs. Bronwen?" he asked, setting her outside of his embrace in front of, apparently, the art school. When had she arrived? If the wall of his body had not stopped her, she would have walked right past it. "Steady?"

She must have nodded for he continued. "I was looking for you. I wished to speak with you." One of his large hands swallowed her shoulder. He ducked down, peered into her face. "You're crying. What's happened?" That hand tightened, steadied her.

Her body buzzed. What had he asked? How should she answer? She must get to Alfie. They must flee. His arm crept around her shoulder, and he pulled her toward the door, and under the wing of his muscle, she felt so very safe. For the first time in months. Her muscles loosened, draped against him.

He led her down the hall, but she saw what she must do now.

Let him lead her down the church aisle.

"Does your offer remain, Lord Atlas?" He froze, blinked, then blinked again. She grabbed his wrist and hauled him into the nearby music room. Back here again, were they? Very well. Fitting. She shut the door and pressed her back against it, regarding him with what must be eyes as wide as the moon. "Does your offer of marriage still stand?"

He turned and wandered away from her, one hand cuffing the back of his neck. "I was looking for you to ask you to join me at Briarcliff, not as a bride, but as a cabinetmaker. I've seen your work, and it's excellent. I'd be a fool to leave you in London. I am gentleman enough to keep my hands from you. I swear it. You need fear nothing from me."

"I know."

He swung around, blinking. "You do?"

"If you really wanted me, you'd have found me in the last five days, taken advantage in the mews or anywhere else in this school. There have been opportunities. But I will find no opportunity like a marriage to you." She paced toward him. "You were correct. Marriage is the safer option, and marriage to a man like you, whom others trust, it will only be good for Alfie. No fucking, though."

"Hell." He ducked away from her, circling around the edge of the room, stumbling over a harp and knocking over a stand of music sheets until the pianoforte stood between them.

"I apologize for shocking you, Lord Atlas. I grew up over a pub in a part of town you've likely never visited, and though my late husband's family spent considerable time and money attempting to wipe the gutter from my tongue, I'm afraid they did not entirely succeed." She strolled toward him, stopping at the instrument across from him, leaning into it. "Besides, surely you remember… you used the word first." She felt wild now, unable to stop the words dropping from her mouth like nails into a coffin.

"I was attempting to scare you off. Mostly."

She straightened away from the pianoforte. "Then you should not have proposed marriage to me after that."

He groaned, his face flushed a deep red. "Mrs. Bronwen, I appreciate you feel your circumstances are dire, and perhaps they are, but?—"

"Are you in love with someone else?"

He laughed a true hearty sound as he threw his head back and littered the air with a dark sort of glee. The sound should not be shadowed, but it seemed to draw rain clouds. When he recovered, he said, "No, I'm not. Not at this very second, at least."

"If you hold out hope to marry for love, you should not have proposed to me at all."

He inhaled deeply, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. "I should not have proposed."

"But you did. Now will you honor that question?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "I have no money. I am one of five sons, and our father squandered the family fortune. We work—work, Mrs. Bronwen, when no one else of our station does—because we must rebuild what he demolished. I cannot afford to take a wife. I can't even afford a marriage license. I spoke to you the other day without thought to practicalities. I merely wished to"—he held his arms out, dropped them heavy to his sides—"save you."

"Then save me. What care I for fortunes or labor? I'm a cabinetmaker's daughter. Work is no sin to me. And if it is money that worries you, I may have a solution to that."

His thick, dark brows furrowed.

"My husband bought me jewelry for every occasion. A, frankly, obscenely elaborate parure when we wed, necklaces and earbobs for every birthday, when Alfie was born, when he felt guilty for not taking my side over his father's in some argument." As if jewels could make up for neglect and cruelty. "And when he knew he would die, he bought more still, though I asked him not to. He… he feared what his father might do, and he wished me to have something valuable, you see. To sell should I need to. I've not sold any yet, but I'm sure?—"

"Don't you wish to fall in love, Mrs. Bronwen? I do not plan to marry, but surely there's some corner of your heart that wants to…" He took several steady steps toward her, his gaze lingering on her face, her hair, her lips, each look as tender and touching as a kiss. "See a man and feel the sun heat up your heart, fill in all those lonely, shadowed places? Don't you want to find a man whose countenance is as familiar to you as your own, more beautiful than any springtime bloom?"

She snorted. "Pretty words. I've no need for poetry."

"I am poetry." Quiet words. "So you have no need of me."

She rounded the pianoforte with ginger steps, not wanting him to run again, and this time she stopped several feet away from him. "I have been in love. It withered and died, as all pretty things do. I need security. Alfie needs protection. You do not wish love and domesticity, either. You need money. You need someone to help you finish the dower house. I can give you that."

He growled, sinking onto the piano bench. "If you must marry me, you should know I am wounded."

A final attempt to run her off? She wanted to laugh, but the firm set of his chin moved her body differently. She sat beside him on the bench. He almost swallowed the space, and his thigh nudging up against hers was thick and muscled through the wool of his trousers. His gloved hands on the keys were big, fingers almost too large for them. They should have looked awkward on the elegant instrument, but they seemed agile instead, nimble and waiting for the right moment to send music soaring into the air. She followed the length of his arm up over his wrist to his shoulders, broad and bumping against her own. Snowy cravat, dimpled chin, eyes blue and shadowed. He did not look wounded, looked nothing like a dying man, and she knew well the look of one of those. Pale and skeletal not sun-bronzed and big. He used no cane, and he moved with grace.

But the deep hunch of his shoulders and tight set of his jaw gave truth to his words.

She sighed and hit a key, then another. "I suppose." Then another key and another. "We are all wounded in our own ways. Look." She held out her hand, pulled her glove off, revealed that little bit of herself she often tried to hide. Mostly to avoid questions, wide-eyed looks. "An accident with a saw. Hurt so badly I passed out. The doctor feared infection, but as you see, I survived."

His hands on the keys froze and then lifted. He took her hand between his own, turning slightly to face her, knocking their knees together on the narrow bench. He stroked the too-short length of her smallest finger with a heavy inhalation. Barely half of the finger remained. He did not seem disgusted by it, though she'd met many who were. Her father-in-law for one. He'd instructed her to sleep with gloves on.

Lord Atlas did not shy away from the imperfection, the long-healed wound. He folded her hand wholly between his and squeezed as gentle as a prayer.

"I should not show you." She spoke because the way he held her hand sent flutters through her chest. "You will think me a dunce with my tools and will not let me help with the dower house. I was fully trained, I'll have you know, when it happened. And always careful. Accidents happen, though, do they not?"

"They do." He set her naked palm on the outside of his far thigh just above his knee. "Here." He smoothed her hand up to his hip. "All the way up to here. A bayonet ripped me open good."

Beneath her hand, his thigh was hard. She'd never felt anything like it, hard as ice, warm as a roaring winter fire. Could she feel the puckering of the skin, the anger of the old wound? She ran her palm up and down from knee to hip. His muscle bunched beneath her touch.

"I've other wounds," he said. "I'm not pretty to look at."

"I doubt that." Oh. True as the sentiment may be, she'd not meant to say it. But it quirked the corner of his lip up, and that sent her heart scattering into a thousand fluttering wings.

She pulled her hand into her lap where it tingled with the feel of him. "Your wounds do not scare me. Separation from my son does. If you truly have decided against your proposal?—"

"It was terribly rash."

"Just so… and I will join you as a cabinetmaker instead if you… if you rescind the other offer." Anything would do. Anything would have to do to get them out of London.

He set his fingers atop the pianoforte keys. "Your son came to see me earlier this week. He threatened me."

"Oh no." She swung sharply toward him. "You haven't found unmentionable substances in your footwear, have you?"

A broad grin, a shake of his head. "Nor have I found myself pelted with rocks. He threatened me, as well, with a slingshot."

"I do apologize. You likely wish nothing to do with the both of us. I should box his ears for putting you off marrying me, but he was only trying to protect me."

"Yes. He's a good lad. And another reason you should not wish to marry me. I cannot be a good father."

That turned her to ice. "What do you mean?"

He rolled his shoulders, looked out the window, though his gaze seemed to travel much farther than that, across oceans. "I plan to leave. When the dower house is complete. And I cannot change my plans. I could not be a good father to your son because I will not be there." He finally turned to her, met her gaze. "Do you see?"

She did, and her body felt heavy as sodden skirts. "That does not signify. Not in a marriage of convenience as ours will be. Unless… Will your family wish us to leave with you?"

He laughed. "No. My mother will likely insist on keeping you always. And Alfie. She adores people like you."

"People like me? What do you mean?"

"Interesting people, talented people. She loves beauty. As I do."

The way he looked at her when he said that, as if she were the single focal point of all that beauty he loved. Made her catch her breath, made her feel as if the chair beneath her had dissolved entirely. She might fall. Was falling.

She shook the feeling off. "I see no impediment in this, then. I will not stop you from leaving."

"Very well, then. We have much to do before leaving London tomorrow."

The lathe in her chest started up again, spinning her heart faster than she could think. "You'll… you'll marry me?"

His hand covered hers, lifted it. He placed a kiss on her knuckles. "Yes. I will protect you. And your son."

She closed her eyes and, in the darkness, found her body falling once more, but it landed against the wide shoulder of the man sitting beside her.

"I will demand nothing of you," he said. "Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"If you wish to… I will not turn you away, but… I would never force… especially since I am leaving. There can be no children. I will not leave you like… that." His words drifted into a strangled end.

Despite his harsh words in the music room last week, the man clearly respected women. She found herself not at all surprised. "Thank you."

He shook his head, and a wavy lock of hair fell over his forehead. "You mustn't feel obligated."

"Careful." She attempted a tiny grin. "You might shake your head right off your neck." She peered at his cravat, picked at it with brave fingers. "Perhaps your cravat is the only thing holding it on." Relief felt giddy inside her, made a goose of her. After all this time, she had a plan, a means of saving Alfie for good, not just for a fortnight or so.

He cleared his throat. "I'm not teasing." He screwed a corner of his mouth up. "I do need to know one thing first."

"Will it cause you to rescind your request?"

"Perhaps. But… is your father-in-law your son's legal guardian? Are you?—"

"Kidnapping my own son? No. I am not. I am merely relocating the both of us, something Lord Tefler objects to. Fiercely. Alfie is my son, and Lord Tefler has no rights to him. It is merely… he has more power than me." In every way. A titled man with money. She could never hope to defeat him. Unless, perhaps, she acquired a titled man with money of her own. Well, this one didn't have money, but no one was perfect.

"Very well then." He pushed a hand through his hair to smooth the rogue strand back into a silky, chocolate wave, then he stood and rounded the pianoforte to stand at her side. He knelt on one knee. "Mrs. Clara Bronwen, will you marry me?"

Not even Everette had proposed with such drama. He'd merely stomped into her small London tenement after her father's death and told her to come along with him. No matter her belongings—leave them. He'd buy her all new. And he had. Only, she'd been forced into a new personality to go with the gowns, the jewels, the diction and learning.

This man had no money to buy her a thing. He gave her what he had, though—his protection, his name, and on a knee before her, his respect. They would marry for convenience, but still he knelt, bowed his head before her as if he were a true suitor, scared and trembling.

She wrapped a hand around his arm, tugged him to his feet, then released his arm. "Yes. I'll marry you."

"Excellent." He rocked from his heels to his toes and back again. "Well, then, we must plan."

"Indeed."

He began pacing, his long legs needing only five strides to get from one side of the music room to the other before he had to bounce back in the other direction. His steps hitched a bit, and he absently rubbed his thigh as he continued pacing. The wound? He'd not said if it still pained him, only warned her it was not pretty, as if its inconvenience to himself hardly signified.

"It sounds as if your situation is urgent," he said. "I do not think we have the time to wait for bans to be read."

She began pacing alongside him. "And we cannot hie off to Scotland."

"Of course not. Such a journey would be difficult with Alfred, and we cannot leave him here alone."

She stopped pacing, a startling clarity ripping through her. Lord Atlas thought of Alfie as he planned their wedding. He thought of Alfie, of what would be best for him. Marrying him was not as mad as it seemed. Lord Atlas would protect her son well, make him a consideration in every decision. As she did.

"Alfie," she said, reaching out to clasp his wrist and stop his pacing. His brow wrinkled. "You must call him Alfie. Since he's to be your son as well. To the world, I mean. The world will think him your son."

Lord Atlas's lips suffered through a series of odd contortions, as if not quite sure what to do—stretch into a grin or turn down into a scowl. The grin won, and it was the shyest thing, like a flower unfolding on a foggy morning with the first sunbeam. "I'll take care of him. And you." He started pacing again. "Not Gretna Green. And a special license is too dear, but even a common license costs?—"

"I can pay for it. The jewels I told you about. Only… I don't know how to safely sell them."

"Are you sure?" He stopped in front of her, almost reached for her, but before his gloves could touch her bare forearm, he snapped his arms to his sides. "It feels wrong. I can pay for it."

"Yes, I'm quite sure. I fear I receive most of the benefits in this arrangement. Let me do this one thing. Except… I'm worried. I've not sold them yet because what if the pawnbroker sells them, and when the buyer wears them, my father-in-law sees them, then finds out where they were bought, then somehow uses that to find me?" She inhaled big enough to make up for all the breaths she'd not taken while speaking.

He stared out the window, a single boot tapping. Then he turned, as sharp as a blade, and held out his arm. "Come along. I know just where to go."

Hesitation stopped her fingers mere inches from the wool of his jacket. Tall and straight and wide, he looked every bit the military man he used to be. Another man to order her about, tell her what to do and where to go. The voices from her past begged her to run. But the patience in his sky-blue eyes, cloudless and sunny, looped her arm up with his.