Chapter Ten

in which sam flees

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. —Jane Austen, Emma

The coachman at the door was a loud, chatty type, and I could only silently praise him for deflating Lewis’s ardor. From the hallway, we could hear him as he talked to the butler about the traffic he’d encountered bringing his lordship’s town coach up from the mews, the length of time he expected the journey to the Church of St. Dunstan-in-the-West to take, how he’d overheard from the groom’s assistant that the vicar was doing his lordship this special favor, squeezing in the marriage before a funeral at half ten, so he’d taken the liberty of coming to the house early to ensure his lordship arrived sharpish.

“This isn’t finished,” Lewis snarled in my face, before shoving himself away.

My right arm, still trapped under my body, jolted horribly. I finally cried out, unable to hold in the pain and terror.

“Is the lady in need of assistance?” the coachman called into the parlor.

Lewis rebuttoned his flies and fixed his hair in the reflection of a mirror above the sideboard.

“All is well,” the butler replied smoothly, from outside the door. I imagined him standing bodily in front of the entrance, keeping the outsider from witnessing the master’s terrible deeds.

Was it collusion?

Or was it fear for his own safety and position?

“She is overcome with excitement and nerves,” Lewis called back, hauling me to my feet and pushing me to the mirror to have my turn to fix my appearance. As if anything could tame frizzilla. “What young lady could dream of a more wonderful morning?”

I can think of a few more things I’d definitely like more , I thought viciously, fixing the lay of my dress under his oppressive watch, hands shaking.

Suddenly, running away didn’t seem like enough.

I wanted to find some way to hurt him back. To punish him.

Lewis helped himself to the cabinet below the breakfast spread, pulling out a liquor bottle and shoving it under his arm. The sight of the ignored breakfast gave me a brainwave.

See, I’d had something to eat. And he hadn’t.

“This is as good as it gets,” I said, as he straightened.

I followed him out to the street, eyes down demurely even as the coachman complimented me on my fine dress, while Susan wrapped me in a hooded velveteen cloak of darker blue for the occasion. As I predicted he would, Lewis had the cork out of the bottle and was making love to the neck before the horses had taken a dozen steps.

“My turn.” I held out a hand. When he didn’t immediately pass it over, I wiggled my fingers impatiently. “Couples share, don’t they? Gimmie.”

Lewis’s eyes narrowed in disbelief, yet sparked with intrigue.

“Couples?” he husked.

“Well, it’s inevitable, isn’t it?” I said with put-on petulance. “You’ve made your point, husband .”

“Have I?” he pushed.

“ Yes , now give me the bottle.”

He handed it over, probably worried that I intended to toss it out the window. Tempting, but no. Instead I made a point of meeting his gaze from under my lashes, putting my mouth exactly where his had been on the rim, and tossed back a swig of my own.

Woof, that burns!

Straight gin.

Classy.

I swallowed theatrically, and passed the bottle back.

He peered into its depths, as if worried that I’d dropped a poison pill in there. Spotting nothing, he swigged again. He handed the bottle back. Silently, doing my best to lull his suspicions with coy glances under my lashes, we continued until the bottle was empty. Of course, I only actually drank about one in every three passes. By the time we’d arrived at the church, his snub nose had turned bright red.

“We’re here, husband,” I said in a low, inviting tone. The flush made its way across his cheeks.

I wasn’t confident that my ruse was totally convincing; he seemed too paranoid for that. Didn’t matter, I just needed him to let down his guard enough to lose track of the time.

The coachman folded down the steps and opened the door, and I made a point of decanting myself onto the walkway as sweetly and as slowly as possible. A black and gold clock jutted out from the side of the church, floating above the sidewalk, and I maneuvered us so Lewis was facing away from it.

While Lewis stomped out on his own, I dawdled by shaking the wrinkles out of my skirts, fiddling with my buttons, and tidying my hair in the reflection of the coach windows while Lewis became increasingly impatient.

When I’d dragged out the performance as much as I thought was safe, I gasped theatrically and clutched my hands to my bosom.

“Oh dear,” I simpered. “Georgie darling, we forgot my flowers! I can’t possibly be married without flowers!”

“Damn the flowers,” Lewis said, consonants slurring ever so slightly. The flush had traveled to his ears.

“Oh, would you be a dear and go back to the house to fetch my bouquet for me?” I asked the coachman, who was overjoyed at the thought of being tasked with so gallant an errand. I thought he would expire from overwrought chivalry on the spot. Of course, when he got to the house, there’d be no bouquet for him to retrieve, and he’d have to wait even longer as Susan whipped something up.

“Enough,” Lewis growled, even as the coachman was pulling himself back onto the box. “Stay where you are, man.”

“You can’t be that cruel to me, darling,” I gasped, loud enough that several passersby slowed to take in what they probably assumed was about to be a wonderful bit of street theater. “How mean you are to your new bride, George Lewis!”

My would-be husband crumbled at that, intimidated by the whispering swelling around us. “Dash it, here—” He fumbled a handful of coins out of his waistcoat pocket and practically threw them at the coachman. “Go up the street, you see that stall just there? Then get back here sharpish.”

“My favorite colors are pink, purple, and blue!” I called after the coachman as he marched to the flower shop on his errand, as determined as a knight in shining armor. Then I offered a sweet “Thank you, darling,” to Lewis.

“Yes, well,” he blustered. “Glad you’ve come to your senses.”

“Of course,” I lied. The gin buzz was starting to hit me now, too, and I took a few deep breaths of the manure-scented London air to stave it off. “You said you could make my life miserable, and I had a good think about that, you know? It’s not appealing.”

“Hmph,” he replied, but he sounded smug about it.

“Why fuss about it?”

“Why indeed,” he said, swaying toward me with a leer.

“Save it for the altar,” I teased, ducking away from his attempt at a kiss.

Aptly, considering I had given it away last night, I wished I still had my watch. I didn’t want to look up and draw attention to the clock above us.

The coachman was back faster than I’d hoped. “For you, miss,” he said, offering me a nosegay of dried lavender, pink and blue pansies, and fuzzy gray-green sage.

“How sweet,” I told him in thanks.

“Now may we proceed?” Lewis muttered, crooking his arm with wobbling gallantry.

“We may,” I allowed, and took my sweet time guiding his weaving feet up the steps.

We were met inside the door by a harried middle-aged man in the black frock and white collar of the clergy.

“My lord Lewis, there you are. This way, please.” He trotted us up the aisle to where he’d left a book and a sheaf of papers on a lectern at the front. “Chop, chop.”

“Our deepest apologies, Father,” Lewis crooned, leaning on the stone fount. “New bride’s nerves, you know. Nothing to be done to speed them along.”

The vicar turned a glance to me, clocking Lewis’s level of sobriety and questioning it with an eyebrow raise.

“Well, the nerves of one of us,” I said cloyingly.

He huffed a chuckle, leafing through the paperwork. “I’ve married nervous women before. Drunk women too.” His eyes twinkled mischievously, well-meaning teasing that would have been reassuring if I hadn’t been here against my will. “Do not worry, my dear, his lordship will be gentle with you. He’s had a wedding night before this.”

Lewis arched his eyebrows at me with lewd humor. I didn’t rise to the bait, and thankfully he didn’t call me a slut in front of the whole church.

“I’m afraid we’re rather short on time, so I’ll get right into it. Have you any attendants? Family to arrive?”

“None,” Lewis confirmed.

That felt pointed.

“Georgie is my family now,” I agreed.

The vicar snorted at the nickname, opened a worn copy of The Book of Common Prayer , and began to read.

“‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation—’” He side-eyed the coachman just behind us and the few sightseers with guide pamphlets loitering by the stained glass windows. The solemnization was wordy, and as the vicar got into the rhythm of things, he leaned into the drama of it all, taking long pauses and stopping in places where he’d marked in pencil to looke up affctly at cpl or pause to praise G-d .

Bless him for being a theater kid.

Lewis’s vows went first, because of course they did. Lucky for him there was nothing to repeat or space for him to make his own speech because by the time we got there, he was listing sideways, jaw hanging open and eyes fluttering. The holy reverend had to physically poke him to get Lewis to pay attention enough to answer “I will” to the charges of estate.

Just as the vicar turned to me, the main doors behind us opened and a dozen folks in threadbare black poured in. Four men carried a simple pine coffin on their shoulders, laid with a wilting funerary arrangement.

Finally .

“Oh, just a—sorry, just a few more moments, if you don’t—” the vicar called to the crowd of mourners, then caught the attention of a younger fellow who’d been resetting the candles on the altar. “Peters, can you please stall them, I haven’t—your forgiveness, please, my lord, let us finish—Miss, uh…” His eyes rounded when he realized he’d never asked my name. I didn’t offer it, so he plowed on: “‘Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?’”

I made a show of thinking about it as the back of the church continued to fill.

“You know what?” I said, loud enough that my voice rang across the high stone ceiling. “Nah.”

“Who giveth this woman—I’m sorry, did you say ‘no’?”

“Yeah, no,” I repeated at volume. Lewis swung around to glare at me and overbalanced into the side of the pew. “Changed my mind. Pretty insulting that he had to get shitfaced to marry me, you know? And that’s after giving me this.” I pointed at the bruising rug burn on my face. “Bye!”

With a quick, satisfying shove, I bowled Lewis into the coachman, sending them both into a heap on the floor. Lewis roared something derogatory but I was already making my way down the aisle toward the open door and freedom.

I had no idea if the gesture had any significance in 1806, but sauntering casually down the aisle with a sneer and an extended middle finger aimed at the pile of wasted flesh felt like it got the message across pretty clearly.

Fun fact, did you know that extending the middle finger was used as an insult as far back as the ancient Greeks? It’s meant to represent a cock and balls.

Dad, ew, don’t say cock !

Grief fisted around my heart, but I didn’t have time to stop and mourn.

“Sorry for your loss.” I ducked through the black-clad crowd and laid my bouquet on the coffin, not wanting to waste the fresh flowers.

“Samantha!” Lewis roared, and the echo of it slapped against my ears, urging my feet to move faster. “You come back here and sign the parish register this instant , I have bought you—”

The doors slammed shut behind me and I skidded to a stop and shouted, at the top of my lungs: “What a wretched beast that Judge Lewis is! I am now quite convinced that he is the last man upon whom I could ever be prevailed upon to marry!”

That sounded appropriately historical drama-y , I thought as I dashed through the now-scandalized and gossiping throng congregating at the bottom of the steps. Thanks for that, Dahlia, babe.

I had just made it up the block and around the corner when a hackney cab came to a rocking halt in front of me. I skidded to a stop to avoid slamming face-first into the horse.

“Samantha!” came a voice from inside. Daisy stuck her head out the window. “It is you. I was just coming to—please, make haste!”

She swung the door open and I scrambled aboard the two-person carriage and slammed the door behind me. I leaned into the corner and struggled to catch my breath, while Daisy gave the driver instructions. We were off in a lurching flash.

“Where? How? ” I asked.

In answer, Daisy unfolded the newspaper that was in her lap. It was opened to the Society pages, and my own name jumped out at me at once.

MARRIED: The Right Honorable Sir George Henry Lewis of Russell Square to Miss Samantha Franklin, lately of the Canadas, at St. Dunstan-in-the-West in an intimate celebration by Special License. The adventurous bride wore fine Indian muslin of pale gray-blue, and the happy couple breakfasted at their coaching inn in Blackfriars before setting off to enjoy their honeymoon at Sir Lewis’s country seat at Withern, Lincolnshire.

“This makes it sound like it already happened,” I said.

“The audacity of it,” Daisy scoffed, picking at her bonnet ribbons in impotent frustration. “To put it in the paper the morning of the event!”

“It’s arrogant as heck,” I agreed.

“It is coercion ,” Daisy corrected. “Whether you are his wife in truth, you are now his wife in the eyes of the whole of London society. You will never be able to openly marry another, for you will forever be seen to be attached to him.”

“Then I guess I better get out of London, eh?”

“And are you?” Daisy asked, locking me in her sights with a laser-focused gaze. “His bride in truth?”

“Hell, no.” I handed back the paper.

Daisy was too refined to do something quite so obvious as sigh in relief, but she did relax back into her seat. “I find myself relieved,” she confessed.

“Same,” I agreed.

“His reputation—”

“I’ve been made aware.” I pointed to my cheek.

“Oh! Your poor face,” Daisy said softly, reaching one gloved hand toward the burn before hastily dropping it again, distress clear in every line of her body. “It was meant to be me.”

“I know,” I soothed. “This dress is too long. Damn near tripped down the stairs this morning. Is that why you were on your way to the church? To interrupt us?”

Daisy shifted, clearly uncomfortable about her own motivations. “Finch had a bad night of it,” she finally said. “After Marigold and Mother went to bed, I got the whole of the story. He was terribly ashamed of his cowardice in leaving you there. I do not know what the judge holds over him—”

Gambling debts. I’d bet my britches Lewis cheated him into them in order to get power over him in the first place.

“—but he has sworn to free you both of it. He did not sleep, and as soon as the hour was reasonable he took himself off to the archbishop to have Lewis’s special license revoked. He had not yet returned when the papers were delivered. I do not know what I meant to do, truly. Only that I felt a powerful kinship toward you already, and my anger at Finch was so strong, that I knew I must stop the wedding. My sister would say that this is due to my having read more than my share of terribly gothic novels, for they are always halting weddings midvows with dramatic protestations, are they not? I thought perhaps to do the same.”

“I mean, that’s crazy . But it’s also very brave of you,” I said. “I’m sure it would have worked if I hadn’t just gotten him superdrunk and left him lying on the ground when I was supposed to be saying ‘I do.’”

“No!” Daisy gasped, the tight worry on her face cracking into schadenfreude-fueled delight. Oh no. She had the same cute dimples as Fenton. Damn it. “You must furnish me with the details, immediately.”

I did, and with theatrical gusto. Daisy drank it in with keen enthrallment. What conclusions she was coming to about me as I recounted the morning, softening some of the more violent moments, I couldn’t guess. But the shrewd intelligence that shone in her eyes was magnetic.

“You’re not . . . regretting it, are you?” I asked, as I wound down.

Daisy startled out of whatever deep contemplation my tale had inspired. “Whatever for?”

“He’s rich, he’s got a title and a fancy job. You were supposed to be his wife.”

“My dear, I was grateful when Finch told me the engagement was off. I want no husband, no matter how wealthy.”

No husband, eh?

Sammie, you’re being ridiculous, I scolded myself. And a complete stereotype. It doesn’t matter that Daisy is a thousand percent your type—all long legs, with a sense of humor like the edge of a sword, and—stop it! What next, you’re gonna get a crush on every Goodenough in London? Marigold too? Maybe Margaret the authoress, if you ever run into her? Cut it out.

It didn’t matter. As tasteless as rebounding with my ex’s sister was, in 1806 it was dangerous . And that was even assuming Daisy was sapphic, and understood, or acted on those desires.

Dahlia had been afraid to come out to her mother because she’d feared being disowned. What would happen to Daisy if she was outed in a time when queer sexuality was literally illegal?

I knew from my Queer History in Western Society classes that lesbianism had never explicitly been against the law in the British Empire, in the most literal sense. Homosexuality laws were about where those with a penis were allowed to put it. But that didn’t mean two women in love was accepted either.

“Miss Franklin? Are you—you’ve gone quite pale.”

“Yeah, sorry, I’m—” I swallowed hard. “It just hit me, you know, what I’ve done. I don’t know what to do next.”

“There is no great rush to decide the entirety of your fate in this exact moment,” she said warmly. “Your nerves must be trembling.”

“I’m a bit shook, yeah,” I confessed. “But I’m glad that you’re here. I feel a powerful kinship between us too.”

And that’s all I’ll let it be , I promised myself. For both her safety, and mine.