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Oh, she was a fool, the greatest fool there ever was! She could have lived in blissful ignorance. She could have supposed all men were the same and coupling was a relief for strong feeling as well as a great pleasure.
Now she knew that the simple act could be volcanic, and the world could begin and end in a few minutes, leaving everything upended, the universe destroyed and rebuilt, and nothing as it had been before.
But the day had offered one injury after another. What was one more catastrophe?
She’d made a fatal mistake, and it wouldn’t be the first time. She’d survived others. She’d survive this.
He held her still, so tightly, his powerful arms bracing her back. She needed to push him away. She should have done it long since, at least at the critical moment. She knew one couldn’t rely on a man to remember to withdraw at such a time. But she couldn’t be relied on, either. She’d wanted him inside her. She’d wanted him to be hers and hers alone, even if it was only for a moment, only for this once. And she hadn’t wanted to let go.
Even now.
She let herself wallow for one more moment in the strength and warmth enveloping her. She let herself inhale his scent, purely male and purely his. She let her cheek graze his—and somehow that seemed more intimate than anything they’d done, though he stood between her legs, though she felt his shaft slipping from her and the wetness of his seed . . . the seed he’d spilled inside her because she hadn’t the wit or will to prevent it. And that, too—their savage, desperate coupling, for she wouldn’t call it lovemaking, never, never—had seemed a greater intimacy than if they’d lain naked in bed, enjoying each other at their leisure.
But she was a fool, and there was the beginning and end of it.
“You must let go,” she said. Her voice was thick.
He tightened his hold, his arms like iron bands.
“You must let go,” she said.
“Wait,” he said. “Wait.”
“We haven’t time.” She kept her voice low. “They’ll want me for dinner, and someone will come. You can’t stay, in any case. You can’t stay,” she repeated. “And you must never come back.”
She felt him tense.
“We can’t leave it like this,” he said.
“We shouldn’t have begun it.”
“Too late for that.”
“It’s done,” she said, “and I’m done with you and you’re done with me.” She pushed, and this time he let go. She found her handkerchief and made quick work of cleaning herself, then pushed her petticoat and skirt down.
While she attended to herself, he put his clothing in order.
She started to get down from the table, but he must be a glutton for punishment—or, more likely, he truly was done, and touching her again meant nothing to him—because he caught her by the waist and lifted her down in the same easy way he’d lifted her up, as though she weighed nothing.
She remembered how easily and gently he’d lifted Lucie out of his lap and into her arms. She remembered the wistful smile he’d bent on her child. Her throat tightened and she had all she could do not to weep.
She’d heard, she wasn’t sure where or when, that he’d lost a sister at a young age . . .
But what did it matter?
She was starting toward the door, steeling herself to watch him walk out of her life forever, when she heard the thud.
Leonie would have finished locking up the shop long before now, and she would have made sure nobody surprised Marcelline with an interruption. No one ought to be downstairs at present. The family ought all to be upstairs, setting out dinner.
“Wait,” she said in an undertone.
She went to the door and pressed her ear to it. Nothing.
“I thought I heard something,” he said softly. “Erroll? Would she—”
“No. Not after we close up shop. She’s not allowed, but she wouldn’t come, in any case. She’s afraid of the dark.” That had started after she recovered from the cholera. That and other anxieties. “Be quiet, will you?”
Another thump. Someone was out there, stumbling about in the darkness.
He reached for the door handle. “I’ll deal with—”
“Don’t be stupid,” she whispered. “You can’t be here.”
Carefully she opened the door. She looked down the passage in the direction the sound had come from. She saw a faint light in the little office where Leonie kept her ledgers. There, lately, they’d been storing Marcelline’s designs, in a locked box. And there, today, they’d set out their bait.
Her heart began to race.
She slipped through the door into the gloomy passage. She heard his soft footstep behind her. She stopped and gestured at him to stay in the workroom.
“Don’t be—”
She put her hand over his mouth. “I have to deal with this,” she hissed. “It’s business. It’s our spy. We’ve been waiting for her.”
He was shattered, still.
That was the only excuse he had for heeding her, and as an excuse, it lasted but a moment.
He ought not to be here, certainly not at this hour, after the shop was closed.
But the shop . . . A spy? Had not Clara said something about—
Clara!
With the thought of her, cold shame washed over him. Betrayal. He’d betrayed his friend, his future wife.
My wife, my wife, he told himself. He smoothed his neckcloth as though he could smooth over what he’d done. He tried to imbed her image in his mind, to engrave the picture of his future, the one he’d always supposed was the right, the only possible one. He would wed the sweet, beautiful girl he’d loved since she was a child, the fair, blue-eyed child he’d met when he was still grieving for his sister. She had a sweet innocence
like Alice’s and she looked up to him the way Alice had looked up to her big brother. He’d always assumed he’d marry Clara and take care of her and protect her forever.
But at the first excuse, and with the slightest encouragement, he’d run away from her and stayed away; and after three years of indulging himself, he still wasn’t satisfied. No, he must betray her trust within a few days of returning to her.
But the shame wasn’t strong enough to wipe out the recollection of what had happened minutes ago or the sensation of the earth having shifted on its axis.
Never mind, never mind.
He’d had Noirot and he was done with her.
And here he was, standing like an idiot, while she— What the devil was she about?
“No!” someone shrieked.
He moved noiselessly into the passage. A faint glow a few steps down from the workroom showed an open doorway.
“I hope Mrs. Downes has paid you well for betraying my trust,” he heard Noirot say. “Because you’ll never work in this trade again. I’ll see to it.”
“You can’t hurt me,” the higher-pitched voice answered. “You’re finished. Everyone knows you’re the duke’s whore. Everyone knows you lift your skirts for him, practically under his bride’s nose.”
“Regardless what anybody knows or doesn’t know, I recommend you give me back those patterns, and not make matters worse for yourself. There’s only one way in and out, Pritchett. And you won’t get past me.”
“Won’t I?”
Another crash, as of furniture knocked over. A clatter of broken crockery. A screech of rage.
He didn’t care what Noirot had said about her dealing with this. He didn’t care that he oughtn’t to be discovered here. A business problem was none of his affair, but this was getting out of hand. In a minute, the others would hear the noise and come running downstairs. Erroll might well escape her nursemaid and run down with the others, and be hurt by a flying missile.
All this raced through his mind while he moved quietly toward the doorway. An object—a bowl or vase or pot or some such—sailed through the door and crashed against the wall inches from his head. He burst into the room in time to see a woman throw an inkstand at Noirot. As she dodged, Noirot tripped over a toppled chair and fell. He heard another crash. Looking that way, he saw an overturned lantern on the desk and the flames licking over the stacks of papers there. In the blink of an eye, the flames leapt to the window curtains and raced upward.
