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“England must be very proud.”
Perhaps he should have been more tender with her. Talked to her or something. But he had been as gentle as he could, and talking was a trap. It led to intimacy, which led to affection, which led to attachments, which led to trouble, and he did not need more trouble. Other men’s wives made the best lovers, because they already knew what they wanted and they always went home to someone else. And she’d just given him carte blanche to do as he pleased. Which meant he could drop a note to Lady Yardley after all.
Except that it felt all wrong.
Curse Treyford and his wretched bigamy. Had his bigamy never been discovered, had his marriage to Joshua’s mother not been dissolved, had Joshua not been disinherited—well, Joshua would have become a fully-fledged aristocrat with all the morals of a dockside cat. As it was, by going off at fourteen to work in Birmingham, he had made middle-class friends and married a middle-class woman and developed inconvenient middle-class values. Like raising one’s own children and being proud of hard work and staying faithful to one’s spouse.
Mercifully, the hackney jerked to a stop, putting an end to this torture. The cabin swayed and men outside exchanged yells.
“Never mind,” he muttered. “I hardly even remember it.”
“You probably don’t even remember my name.”
“Of course I do. It’s Clarissa, isn’t it?”
“Oh, well done, Josiah.”
The door opened and she allowed herself to be assisted gracefully to the footpath. Joshua jumped down and scowled at her. Blasted woman had to stop saying things like that, or he would find himself liking her rather more than was wise.
“Mrs. DeWitt,” he said. “You will leave here tomorrow.”
“I am willing to do whatever you ask, Mr. DeWitt.”
“Good.”
“So long as you do not ask anything that I am not willing to do.”
With this astounding display of insubordination, she swept up the steps of his house and through the door without a backward glance.
* * *
Joshua paidoff the driver and bounded up the steps, through the door, and into his entrance hall, only to skid to a halt at the sight of Filby and Thomas, one holding the stupid bonnet and parasol, the other holding a green pelisse, both blinking at him with surprise. He went to fling his hat onto the hall table but—
He stopped short, staring at the table.
“What in blazes is that?”
The butler and footman exchanged a glance and did not answer. Joshua prowled around to study the alien object from a different angle. He sneezed and the two servants jumped.
Das appeared in the doorway. “Those colorful, fragrant things are known as ‘flowers’,” Das said. “The vessel that holds them is called a ‘vase’.”
“A vase? Why would I even own such a useless thing?”
He glared at the butler, who summed up the situation in two ominous words: “Mrs. DeWitt.”
Joshua flicked the head of a fat pink flower—devil knew what it was called—and it bobbed cheerfully. The whole exuberant arrangement stood a good two feet tall and was nearly as wide.
“This is a colonization, Das. That woman is colonizing my house. Do you know what that means?”
“Years of bloodshed, oppression, and exploitation, perhaps?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Joshua turned back to Filby, who had thankfully rid himself of the bonnet, and tossed the roll of paper at him. “Put that in the study. Is Newell here too?”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. DeWitt requested that he be treated like a guest.”
“Guest? Ha! If I see him, I’ll fire him. Tell him to make arrangements for that woman to go back home.”
“You mean your wife?”
