Page 80 of Atone, Adonis

And only when she was good and ready, fully saturated as it were, did Hughes say, “Do you know, Miss Clarke, what the sentence is for larceny? Given the on-going nature of the crimes under discussion, three to seven years hard labor in a penal colony. Do you think you would like Australia?”

She dropped her chopping knife and stared at him. “Now you wait a minute here. I gave over a pack of letters once. Once! And I put them back so no one can say I stole them! That’s ridiculous.”

Fred stepped forward. He couldn’t take another word from the woman. “That will do, Miss Clarke.” To Hughes he said, “That is enough, I take it, for charges to be brought?”

“It is,” Hughes agreed. “It was enough before, frankly, but her corroboration will come in handy should it be needed. Next time, Miss Clarke, it would be best to inquire which crimes an inspector is referring to before immediately denying them. Or confirming your participation, for all that.”

She held their gazes for a long while before she said, “It got out of hand.”

“Unquestionably,” Hughes agreed. “Always seems to. Although, all is not lost. Tell us everything, starting with the identity of the editor of The Poisoned Quill, and I believe we can see our way to leniency. Is that correct, Lord Chester?”

Fred only nodded, bile rising up in his throat at the thought of what she’d done. What she’d ruined. His own culpability in all of it.

“Then start at the beginning, Miss Clarke, and leave nothing out.”

The chef looked back and forth between the men. But in the end, there was no other decision for her to make but to start talking. “The Baroness Van Austerleigh is my cousin. She married well. And then when her first husband died, she married even better. And when Lord Chester arrived at Chester House, I wrote to tell her about him and she put two and two together and knew it was the young man that she’d been so in love with before.”

Fred had to suppress the horrible noise that tried to make its way out of his throat. The Baroness may have felt many things toward him but love was not one of them. He could say that with certainty now that he’d experienced love himself. He unquestionably loved his wife—and the experience bore no similarity at all to his time with the Baroness.

But he kept quiet while she continued.

“And he was just like she said.” Clara looked at him with so much hatred in her eyes Fred was taken aback.

“Should I leave?” he asked Hughes quietly but the man only shook his head and motioned for Fred to stay.

“And how was that?” Hughes asked. “You may speak freely, Miss Clarke. The damage has already been done.”

“He was awful. Even worse than the other Chester. Cold, self-serving, demanding. Kicked Miss Catherine and her mother out of Chester House even!”

He wanted to protest that he’d done no such thing, but he had done that. Chester House had been entailed and went to him when the first Chester had died. So he’d alerted his cousin Catherine and her mother, the Dowager Countess, that he would be moving in. He didn’t tell them they had to vacate the premises exactly, but nor had he explicitly invited them to stay. It had not been one of his better moments.

He had, however, made it up to them. Generous dowries and allowances and helping his cousin escape from her own wedding and the like. For Christ’s sake. Not that any of that was the chef’s business.

“And so you humiliated my wife in public?” he interrupted. “For these alleged crimes against my cousin, who is now a Duchess, should anyone be concerned for her welfare.”

“I didn’t know,” Clara said, “that was what she was going to do with the letters. I truly didn’t. I wouldn’t hurt the Countess for no reason. She seemed a decent sort.”

Unlike you went without saying, but Fred heard the insinuation clearly enough.

“The Baroness took a great interest in your marriage and asked for any information I could find. She was paying well, so I sent her copies of the letters. And then I put them back. That was all. I don’t know how The Quill got a hold of them or who the editor is. I swear it.”

Fred stood in the kitchen long after Inspector Hughes led Clara away. The room was still warm and orderly and beautiful. And he still wanted to set the damned place on fire. The chef had betrayed him. But no more than he’d betrayed himself and Julianna, and that knowledge was burning a hole in his chest. He didn’t know what to do about it—didn’t know how to assuage the pain he caused them both. He didn’t know how to be the better man he damn well knew he had to be.

He considered writing a letter but he no longer wanted to hide behind an ink and quill. That had caused enough trouble.

He thought about donning the armor of Chester, and going to find the Baroness. Setting her afire, perhaps. He couldn’t, of course. He would have words with the harridan, but not before he’d done what he could to fix this mess with Julianna. And not as anyone other than himself.

Jules had said Chester could go hang and she was right. He could. He had to. Because every time he used Chester to get himself through a difficult conversation, every time he took whatever dark thought he was feeling and stuffed it down inside himself instead of examining it, he lost a little more of the man he wanted to become. The one his wife deserved. The one—and here the realization struck him—he deserved to be.

He stared out the window, fighting the urge to douse himself in self-recrimination after self-recrimination. Self-loathing would do him no good now. Nor would self-pity or self-disgust. He needed to act, not stand here dumbly and list all the things he would not do.

But he still didn’t know what he should—

—And then he did know it, the action he ought to take crystallizing in his mind. He could do what Julianna had asked of him. The one thing she’d requested that he rejected out of hand because he hadn’t been ready to have that conversation. The squeezing in his chest told him he still might not be ready. But he had to try.

He’d go to Torquay and speak with Thomas, tell him the truth about the accident and the Baroness and the morass of guilt that had been eating at him ever since. It was the last secret he had and he never wanted to keep another one.

And then he would go to Farrow Cottage after and beg her forgiveness. If she didn’t want to see him, he would wait until she did. He would stand outside her cottage gate like a moon-eyed pup until she asked him to leave. He would—by Christ—he would get down on his knees in the dirt while dressed in his very best suit to help her plant seeds all day if that’s what she wanted.