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“He’s getting us our annulment.”
“You sound so excited.” He practically rolled his eyes.
Camilla shook her head.
“Ah. You don’t want an annulment.”
“‘Want’ is a complicated word, Captain Hunter.” Her voice was steady now. She folded the handkerchief and placed it on the side-table. “It’s not that simple. What I want is to have not been forced into marriage at gunpoint in the first place.”
“Oh.” He considered this. “Shit.” He winced. “Goddamnit, pardon my—I mean—”
“Don’t worry.” The very crassness of the word emboldened her. She looked over at him and met his eyes. “I am standing in excrement, and I want to not stand in excrement. We have an opportunity to clean the shit off our shoes. What we choose afterward…is complicated. And what I want…? I don’t truly know. But you don’t end up working with someone for a common goal for weeks on end without becoming friends. And when that person is Adrian…” She trailed off.
“Adrian is related to me,” Captain Hunter said matter-of-factly. “You don’t need to tell me how attractive he is. We are similar in countenance, and I have a mirror.”
Camilla glared at him. “I’m beginning to think you are a terrible person.”
That brought out a smile—the first one she had seen. “Oh, absolutely. I am. I gather that when Adrian returns, the two of you will have much to discuss.”
That was an understatement. Camilla’s hands wrung together. “Yes.”
“Well, then. I won’t complicate matters by waiting here with you. My questions are less urgent than the rest of your lives. I’ll leave a note. When he has a chance, tell him I want to speak with him, will you? Don’t tell him I said ‘I told you so.’ He already knows.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The papers were spread across Adrian’s uncle’s desk.
Bishop Denmore nodded as he looked through them. Occasionally, he asked for explanation. Sometimes, he shuffled back through them.
Denmore waved one of the affidavits. “And could you get this Mrs. Martin to testify in person?”
Adrian thought of the angry elderly lady. “I gather she would love nothing more.”
“Hmm.” Another pause as his uncle once again re-read the telegrams. “My God. This is extraordinary.” He looked up and smiled at Adrian. “This is truly extraordinary, Adrian. It’s complete, and taken as a whole, it is utterly damning. You’ve done an amazing job.”
Adrian could not help but feel a flutter of pride in his chest at that. He smiled shyly.
“I knew I was right to believe in you, to leave this in your hands,” his uncle continued. “Thank you, thank you so much. This is wonderful. Lassiter will have to step down now.”
“I’m glad to have helped.” Adrian was going to have to mention the annulment himself, he supposed.
“I don’t know how ever I will thank you for your assistance,” his uncle said.
“Well.” He could not have found a better entry to the subject. “As it turns out—you may recall—a very good way to thank me already exists. You promised to assist me in the matter of the annulment of the marriage that was forced upon me in this matter?”
His uncle looked down at the papers on his desk, not meeting Adrian’s eyes, and Adrian’s heart fell.
Denmore smoothed the papers over, once and then again, before he spoke. “We mustn’t rush into this.”
Adrian wasn’t sure who we was supposed to be.
But his uncle gave a nod, as if he had just convinced himself. “That’s precisely it; we mustn’t rush ourselves. We must consider it very carefully. Mustn’t we?”
“I was forced to join myself for life to a woman I barely knew,” Adrian said, “with a gun pointing at me. I personally feel that rushing is an appropriate response in such circumstances.”
“Quite, quite!” The bishop looked up. “My dear boy! That’s an excellent point. If we had wanted to take action on this front, we should have done so immediately. Now, weeks later…”
Adrian stared at him. “You’re joking. You were the one who counseled me to wait.”
“I would not call it ‘counsel,’” his uncle said thoughtfully. “Via telegram? More a suggestion. Think of what a mess this is. I couldn’t support your bringing a claim. There would be public scrutiny. I should have to admit that you were a relation of mine, and how would that appear? My own nephew, serving as valet to another bishop, to obtain information on his wrongdoing? That would make me seem underhanded.”
“That would be the truth,” Adrian said, even more disturbed than before. “You told me to do it, and I didn’t want to. If you knew it would be a barrier to your acknowledging me, why did—”
“I didn’t expect you to get caught!”
“You told me to act as his valet. You obtained references. You told me to obtain information on his wrongdoing. All of this happened because you wanted it. You say you didn’t expect me to get caught, but what did you think would happen when the entire world discovered that the man that Bishop Lassiter thought of as his one-time valet was actually your nephew?”
Denmore stared unblinking in front of him for a few moments. “Oh. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
He hadn’t, Adrian realized, thought of it at all. He hadn’t imagined how any of this would take place. Maybe he might have vaguely intended to acknowledge Adrian if he could figure out how to do so without consequence. But he had not given it any real consideration.
Adrian just shook his head. “Of course it makes you look underhanded. That’s because your behavior in this entire affair has been underhanded.”
“That’s…technically the truth. But…”
“It’s actually the truth. Not technically so.”
“Well, perhaps, but how was I to know that you were going to insert yourself in the story in this manner? If you’d only—”
“No,” Adrian said, standing up. “You will not pin the blame for this on me. You asked me to act in this manner; I had doubts. You directed me to continue the investigation after it had gone awry. Against my misgivings, because I believed you actually cared for my future, I went along with it. I did everything you asked. All I want is one thing and you owe it to me.”
His uncle looked at him. “Is she so terrible, then? The woman you’ve been married to?”
“That’s not the point.” Adrian glared at him.
“Who is it?”
“Her name is Camilla Worth. She’s a lovely woman, and she doesn’t deserve to be forced into marriage either.”
“Well!” His uncle brightened. “To my mind, it sounds like you’ve managed to find a better woman than someone like you could expect. What are you complaining about again?”
Someone like you.
Someone like you.
Adrian hadn’t wanted to believe it.
Oh, that was stupidity. He had known it all his life. He had known it from the moment his uncle refused to acknowledge his own sister. He had known it from the moment he had been introduced as his uncle’s page instead of his nephew. He had lied to himself, telling himself that if he was kind enough, if he was understanding enough, he would show his uncle the truth—that he and his mother deserved love, deserved recognition, deserved everything that Adrian had wanted to believe him capable of.
All that time. All that effort. All that putting his heart into it, for this moment.
Someone like you.
He tried anyway, one last time. “Please,” he said. “For the love you bear for me. For the love you bear for your sister. Help me.”
“Oh, Adrian.” His uncle just smiled. “Now that I hear what you’ve said, I really do believe this is all for the best. This can’t come out in public. Lassiter will step down, once I let him know what I know. We’ll keep it all silent, as it should be. And one day—when this has all blown over—one day, then, I’ll acknowledge you.”
There was no one day. There was only a string of todays, a string of empty prom
ises.
“I have quite a lot to do with everything you’ve done for me,” Denmore said. “Do you think you could show yourself out?”
* * *
The wait for Adrian to return seemed almost interminable to Camilla. She didn’t know what to do; she had a family, and they…wanted her? If that were true, might it not be possible that Adrian could want her, too?
He’d implied as much. He’d looked at her as if she were precious. He’d told her that she deserved a choice of her own—that she deserved to be chosen, not just accepted.
Was it so wrong that she was beginning to believe him?
She had never known that joy felt almost the same as despair. Her heart was so full that it strained its boundaries, overflowing to the point that it might burst.
Good that she was used to heartbreak; she suspected if he wanted her upon his return, she would break into pieces. Every sound that filtered into the room from the street below brought her to a height of dizzying fear, mixed with hope.
Hope. Hope, the thing that had always ripped her heart in two. Hope, the thing she had held onto despite—perhaps because of—the pain.
Hope that he would come back. Hope that Adrian would return and look at her and say, I wanted a choice. Now I have one. I choose you.
It was growing dark when she heard footsteps outside—determined footsteps, slowing before the door.
It might not be him.
Camilla’s pulse picked up nonetheless. She made herself breathe—slowly, surely, as if she were awaiting news no more dire than what she would have for breakfast or whether Parliament had decided to change some law on foreign importation that would no doubt one day affect the price of whiskey.
She could not fool her body; her heart raced faster and faster.
The footsteps outside stopped; the door opened. She could imagine him in the hall below. The lamps were lit. In that golden splendor, his skin would glow.
