AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Must have figured Wells would reveal his identity,” gasped Montgomery, rising to take a proper seat now they were a safe distance away. “He knew his employer was caught and that we were aware of his presence.”
Percy grunted agreement, but didn’t take his eyes off the woods behind.
“How did you guess what he was playing at in the first place?”
“I saw him look away in that direction as if he was waiting for something. The man’s always been a terrible liar. Could never bluff at cards, either.”
Montgomery burst into chuckles. “God, man. You really ought to feel at least some pity for the poor fool.”
The laughter that had threatened died on Percy’s tongue. “Men such as him deserve no pity.” As they rode into town, he filled Montgomery in on what he’d learned. “Someone must be sent straightaway before anyone can learn of his death and fetch her. I’ll want to speak with her and see if I can learn something of the person who sold her to that monster.”
“Number four Crown Court,” said Montgomery, tapping his temple. “I’ll see to it.”
“Quietly.”
His friend nodded. “I’ll have to give a statement concerning Wells and Ravenwood, of course, but I’m sure it can wait.”
…
From her vantage point by the window, Eden saw the carriage as it came around the bend. Heedless of her own dignity, she tore out of the salon and raced to the front door. The instant it opened to admit her husband, she flung her arms around him.
“You’re alive!” was all she could say as she clung to him. Feeling something sticky beneath her hand, she pulled it back to see a wet, red smear across her palm. It then registered on her that there was blood all over him. The floor dropped.
“It’s not mine,” he said, grasping her shoulders as she swayed. “Eden? Eden!”
The words registered only dimly through a sudden ringing in her ears.
“Get her to my chamber and send for a doctor at once,” she heard him order just before all went dark.
When next she opened her eyes, it was to see her husband’s bare back silhouetted against the bright sunlight streaming in from the windows of their chamber.
“What happened?”
Turning, he looked at her with infinite tenderness. “It’s over. Ravenwood is dead, as is Wells—I killed neither, by the bye.”
“Wells? I don’t…I don’t understand. Why is Wells dead?”
She listened in growing fury as he explained all that had transpired leading up to the men’s demise. How close they’d all come to disaster, and all because of one man’s bruised pride.
Then Percy began telling her other things. Tales of clandestine outings to the seamier parts of London, of former prostitutes sent quietly to the country to begin new lives, of lost children found, and of a school run by a young Frenc
hwoman.
He spoke of regrets for the many hearts he’d broken, the sins he’d committed, and mistakes he’d made in his youth, one of them being the daughter Lady Sotheby had borne him. Eden listened in stunned silence while he explained how he’d recently arranged to secure the child’s future.
It all began to coalesce into one dominant thought: she hardly knew the man she’d married.
At last he stopped and looked down to where her hands rested on the coverlet. “Eden, I need you to know these things. I’m not asking for forgiveness—I’m asking only for your acceptance. Some of what I’ve told you is part of a past I shall never revisit, but some of it remains part of my present. Because of the potential danger, I’m going to stop searching personally for London’s lost. I’ll leave that to Loxdon and reduce my involvement to purely that of a benefactor. But I cannot abandon those already in my care, nor can I detach myself from the school. I am responsible for them.”
Her throat was parched, and she had to swallow before it would produce any sound. “This school, the woman who runs it…was…is she…?”
“No, Eden. God, no,” he said with a strangled gasp of humorless laughter. “I doubt she’ll ever let a man touch her after what she suffered.”
The numbness that had begun to spread throughout Eden’s heart and mind eased as he told her of Miss Trouvère and of how and why her school had come to be.
“She’s a friend who trusts me with her life.” He bowed his head. “If people ever learned the true origin of our association, there would be no end of scandal over it. I would survive, of course, but it would ruin her, force the school to close, and she would have to leave England. Everything I’ve helped her build would come to an end.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, bewildered. “Would it not have been much easier to keep me ignorant?”
