The Sinner (4 page)

He amused her with stories of daring at the gaming tables and horse races, and of fortunes won and lost. He appeared contrite when he admitted the times he had turned to his brother when he had gotten in too deep.

She already knew the details that he did not add. She knew about the disastrous finances that his brother Vergil had inherited when their older brother, Milton, died. Only
déclassé
ventures in trade had saved the Duclairc family at all. Still, Dante’s allowance might have been adequate for a different sort of man. He could have devoted himself to some employment and not just pleasure.

All the same, she envied him. Here was a man who had truly lived for the moment. That doing so had led to ruin was one of those moral tales that one was supposed to nod at approvingly. Instead, she couldn’t help resenting it.

Her own story, of charity and good works, should shine in comparison. Instead, it embarrassed her to have so little real joy to describe. In certain essential ways, she was the one who had lived a wasted and barren life.

She might have told him about that. About the loneliness and emptiness. About her plans to find some fulfillment through her Grand Project. She came near to doing so. The ease with which they spoke encouraged confidences. But their few hours of friendship were too short. Sounds on the lane in mid-afternoon heralded their end.

Dante went to the window as commotion filled the clearing outside.

“This should be interesting,” he said as he slid on his frock coat. “It was a dead heat. Both Charl and Farthingstone have arrived together.”

Her peace disappeared in an instant. “I will come down. Please, help me up.”

“If you insist on coming, I will carry you.” He lifted her into his arms.

She began to object, but it felt very safe and secure to be nestled in his arms. She realized with a start that she had embraced no person since her mother’s death, and no man for over ten years.

He bore her down the steps. Their visitors had just entered the sitting room, arguing.

His younger sister, Charlotte, her dark hair a little disheveled and her pert face most distraught, fretted beside the darkly handsome Daniel St. John. Gregory’s aging, freckled face turned pink with consternation while he queried them on their sudden arrival.

Dante’s boot on the bottom step caught Gregory in mid-bluster and everyone turned in surprise. More horses were arriving outside.

“No need to put her down, Duclairc. You can just carry her out to my coach,” Farthingstone ordered.

Dante set Fleur’s sore rump carefully down in a chair.

“See here—” Farthingstone began.

“No,
you
see here. Charl, I thank you for coming. Miss Monley is injured, and in need of both care and sanctuary. Whatever else happens, St. John, I ask you to promise that you will not allow Farthingstone to take her away.”

St. John made a slight bow in Fleur’s direction. “We met many years ago, Miss Monley, here at Laclere Park.”

“I remember. Thank you for interrupting your visit to Brighton.”

Charlotte hurried over to her. “Fleur, what are you doing here? I thought that you were touring the Continent. You are injured? What has happened?”

“She was grazed by a bullet,” Dante said.

“Grazed . . . she was shot? Where?”

“Actually, in the rear nether region.”

Charlotte blinked. “In the rear nether . . . you mean that she was shot in the . . . oh, my.”

Gregory’s face had gone red beneath his white hair. “How she was wounded needs investigation, but one thing is clear. Duclairc kept her here so that he could compromise her.”

“Dante, you didn’t! Not Fleur
too
! Vergil will have apoplexy.”

“His plot is obvious,” Farthingstone sneered. His bulbous nose made the expression more comical than disdainful. “However, it will not work, sir. There’re men outside wanting to see you, and my stepdaughter is not in her right mind and cannot be held responsible for your dishonorable use of her. I will take care of her now.”

“My honor is my business and not Mr. Farthingstone’s,” Fleur said, ignoring Gregory and speaking to Charlotte and St. John, who were her only hopes. “Your brother has seen to my care and protected me. I beg you to hear him, and to refuse Mr. Farthingstone his demands. He has no legal rights to me. I will not go with him of my own will.”

The door stood open. Two large, rough-looking men darkened its threshold.

“Ah, our salon is complete,” Dante observed. “Would you be Mr. Thompson’s bailiffs?”

“Aye,” one mumbled. “You be coming with us nice and easy now, Mr. Duclairc. Don’t want no trouble.”

“No trouble at all, I promise. Can I ask how you found me?”

“Word came up to London during the night. We rode hard and it will be a long ways back, so let’s be going.”

“Dante, now what is
this
?” Charlotte cried.

“Destiny, sweet sister.”

He turned to St. John. “I leave Miss Monley in your protection. She should not be traveling, and her complaints against Farthingstone are well founded. Promise me that you will at least hear her out.”

“She will be safe.” St. John glanced meaningfully to the waiting bailiffs. “Allow me to see to this other matter for you, Duclairc.”

“No. It is an amount I could never repay.”

Fleur knew a thing or two about the fate that Dante faced. “Mr. St. John, Dante has no horse. They will make him walk all the way to London.”

“Stop by the stables and get a horse for him,” St. John ordered the men. “I will settle it with Laclere.”

“Dante,” Fleur whispered frantically, reaching toward him.

He bent over her. “St. John will see to you now, Fleur. He is not nearly so strict as he appears. Tell him and Charlotte what you told me.”

“It is not that. Those men . . . How much, Dante? How much do you owe?”

He raised her hand to his lips. “An obscenely high amount. Do not even offer. I have never dunned friends, and I would never accept a penny from a woman.”

“But it is my fault.”

“No, Fleur, it is mine alone.”

Assuming the cool elegance for which he was famous, he walked out of the cottage.

chapter
4

F
leur stepped out of Daniel St. John’s carriage and accepted the footman’s escort to the gaol’s front door.

There was one great convenience to being a twenty-nine-year-old woman on the shelf who devoted herself to charity. When you told little lies, people believed you. Mr. St. John and his wife, Diane, thought that today she was attending a meeting to plan a new school for workers’ sons.

Fleur knew all about London’s gaols. She supported the reformers like Elizabeth Fry who sought to improve their condition. She noted with distaste that Mr. Thompson had arranged for Dante to be put in one of the worst of them. The narrow, crowded street smelled of rotting food and offal, and a din of voices poured out of the old buildings. The crumbling plaster of the gaol, black with age and damp, depressed her spirits.

It would hurt Dante’s pride for anyone he knew to see him in such a place. She rehearsed once more the plan that had brought her here.

The gaoler’s wife let her in with a display of bowing, indicating that the care Fleur had taken with her appearance had been successful. She had sent to her house for her only fashionable dress, a broad-skirted one in ice-blue muslin. Considering her mission today, she did not want to look too much the dowd.

The woman brought her into the sitting room of the fetid inn that housed debtors while their creditors tried to extract payment. The chamber’s few windows let in little light, but she could see the negligible attempts at providing comfort. Considering the squalid environment, the high spirits of the men playing cards and wagering with pieces of straw surprised her.

In the thick of it, joking and laughing, still playing the games that had brought him here, sat Dante Duclairc.

In contrast to the poor appearance of his comrades, Dante looked impeccable. His cravat showed several days’ wear and his frock coat needed pressing, but he had shaved and dressed for a day on the town even though he would never leave these walls.

“You’ve a visitor, Mr. Duclairc. A
lady
,” the woman called.

They all looked at her. Dante’s smile froze. He threw in his cards and came over.

“Miss Monley, this is surprising.” His tone conveyed disapproval. “I will take her out back, Meg.”

“For ten pence you can use my chamber if you want,” Meg offered with a bawdy grin.

“We will go out back, Meg.”

He led her out to a garden. Three pigs grunted in a pen at one end and chickens pecked around the almost-bare ground. A crude bench sat against the far wall.

“You should not be here.”

“Do not scold, Dante. I have seen such places before. I brought you something from Charlotte.”

“She already sent enough money to pay for meat. Tell her I do not need any more.”

“It is not exactly from Charlotte herself.” She sat on the bench and extracted a small purse from her reticule. “A lady came to visit your sister once we got back in town last week. She said that you had given her these jewels recently, as a parting gift. Having heard of your circumstances, she does not feel right keeping them.”

She opened the little purse and revealed two amethyst earrings.

He gazed at them. “No doubt you think it reckless of me to have used my last guineas in such a way.”

“I think that you decided those guineas would not make much difference, and it was important to maintain standards.”

“Very open-minded of you, Fleur.” He took the purse. “And very good-hearted of the lady. Now you must go. This is no place for you.”

She refused to budge. A night of debate and panic had driven her here, and she would see it through. “I also came to visit with you, Dante. It is rude to throw me out.”

“My apologies. Of course Saint Fleur would want to bring comfort to the imprisoned. I have not even asked after your health. You are better now? If Charl brought you to town from Laclere Park, I assume that you are healing properly. You look lovely today. That blue brings out the color of your eyes.”

The courtesies tripped off his tongue in a slightly sarcastic voice. The dark ridge had bared itself. Yes, his pride was hurt to be seen here. He clearly wanted her gone.

“I am well healed, thank you. I have been staying with the St. Johns while I recover.”

“And Farthingstone?”

“St. John held him off. For now.”

His hard expression broke. The man she remembered, the Dante who had been her friend for a day in that cottage, looked down with concern. “What is he up to?”

“He is going to Chancery to ask that all my finances be put under his control, due to my erratic emotional state and my inability to make sound judgments. St. John’s solicitor thinks he may succeed. The way that I ran away, and the discovery that I was with you in that cottage will not help my case. Along with control of my finances, he also will request guardianship over me.”

He sat beside her. “Damn the man. If it comes to it, maybe you should request someone else get the authority. My brother should be back in a month. He will agree to do it.”

“While I would trust Laclere with my life, I do not like the idea of putting those responsibilities on his shoulders, or of being answerable to him. I have been thinking of a different solution.”

“If I can help in any way, I am at your command.” He rose with solicitous grace. “Now, this is an unhealthy place, and if it is learned that you came, Farthingstone will only have more odd behavior to describe. It was good of you to visit, Fleur. I confess that I have worried about you a bit during my days here. However, you really must leave.”

“Please sit, Dante. I want to tell you my solution and hear what you think of it.”

He complied with a sigh. She angled away from him so she could watch the chickens and pigs and not his reactions. She was very sure that she would not want to see them.

“Dante, did Laclere ever tell you why he and I never married?”

Stillness instantly occupied the space where he sat.

“Of course not,” he finally said. “I assumed it was because of Bianca.”

She had known Laclere would never speak of it to Dante, but she had rather hoped he had anyway. It would make this easier.

“It was not because of Bianca. There was never a true courtship between Laclere and me. It was all a pretense. I did not want to marry, and acting as if we were going to wed each other spared me for a year.”

“That explains quite a lot. I always thought that Verg treated you badly. Love excuses much, but you and he were all but engaged before Bianca came to England.”

“It was a feint from the beginning. I planned never to marry. Ever since I was a girl, I have been very sure of that.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and plunged forward. “Except, as our friendship grew, it occurred to me that there might be an alternative. A very special kind of marriage. I offered it to him and he refused.”

“What are you saying, Fleur?”

How did one say it outright? She never had to with Laclere. Somehow, he had just known what she meant.

“Fleur, did you offer my brother a white marriage? One without physical intimacy?”

She felt her face burning. “I was not surprised that he refused. I think that my fortune made it tempting, but as viscount he would want a son.”

“Why are you telling me this? Are you thinking of marrying?”

“Last night, after meeting with Gregory, I began to contemplate it. A husband would have authority that Gregory could not violate. I am thinking about a marriage such as I offered your brother. Such an understanding would end all of this. I am right, aren’t I? Don’t you think so?”

Stillness again. Total silence for a long pause.

“What I think is that you had better be very, very careful about the man whom you choose, Fleur.”

A resonance in his tone made her face him. He regarded her with a thoughtful, speculative gaze.

“Yes, very careful,” she said. “It would have to be someone I trusted. Someone who accepts that I cannot be a true wife to any man. The understanding on that would have to be very firm.”

He just watched. She almost lost her courage, but the memory of Gregory’s florid face demanding her return from St. John and of the unctuous, patronizing way he had spoken to her, as if she were a stupid child, kept her resolve together.

“It would have to be someone who has a full life already, and interests that the marriage would permit him to pursue freely,” she continued. “A man who would accept half of my income and live within its means, and who would agree to permit me to use the rest as I choose. We would both have separate lives in reality. You might say that we would not really be married at all.”

“You are describing a man of undisputed honor, like my brother. A paragon among men. There are few like him.”

“I am describing an honorable man, but not a paragon. Maybe I am describing a man who would never accept a penny from a female friend but who might accept an extremely high amount from a wife. A man whose vast experiences mean that the candle does not burn unless he lights it. A man who need not seek pleasure with a wife because he can find it anywhere for a smile. A man like you.”

There. It was said.

His expression grew more intensely contemplative. He studied her as if he tried to decide if she was serious.

It seemed an eternity that they sat there with their silence broken by the sounds of city life and yard animals. She prayed that his enigmatic reaction did not hide abhorrence.

She had to look away. “I never thought to make this suggestion to another man, Dante. I know that you must think me unnatural, in ways that make Gregory’s accusations pale.”

“Not so unnatural, Fleur. However, are you sure that you have not outgrown your girlhood fear?”

“It is not a girlhood fear. My blood turns to ice at the thought of . . . When I heard that man bargaining for me . . . I could not breathe.” Her voice sounded frantic to her own ears. Her chest and mind filled with panic as it had that night.

He reached over and lightly stroked her hair. “Calm yourself, pretty flower. If you say it is so, I believe you.”

The silence stretched again. She closed her eyes and prayed he would not reject her outright.

“You have mentioned two agreements, regarding intimacy and money, that are out of the ordinary, Fleur. Are there any other unusual terms or specifics that I should hear?”

His willingness to listen gave her hope that the life she knew, the plans she had laid, would not be stolen from her. “The income derives from the trust my father left. I have lands and other funds, however, mostly inherited from my aunt. I want a promise that I can use or dispose of that property and income as I choose, if I want to. I want an agreement that you will not interfere and will sign any documents as become necessary.”

His reaction indicated he found these particular terms most unusual, as indeed they were. By law, husbands were supposed to get everything and control any lands. Reserving property to her own discretionary use was almost unheard of, but she desperately needed him to agree to this. She had lived independently too long, and had gone too far on her Grand Project, to be subject to any man on her decisions, especially to a husband who really wouldn’t be a husband.

“Even without that independent fortune, my inheritance is significant, Dante. Half the income from the trust is a handsome amount.”

“How handsome?”

“Your share would be three thousand, to use as you please. I would continue to maintain my household with my own part.”

He laughed. “That is certainly handsome, Fleur. However, look where we are. Where I am. Forgive me, but it is not very sensible for you to make this proposal, with all of these private financial understandings, to a man in gaol for debt. Don’t you worry that someday I will be in too deep again and will take all of it?”

“All of our arrangement will be grounded on your honor, Dante. That is sufficient guarantee for me. I do not doubt that you will keep any promises that you make. Even if someday you want all of it, I do not believe that you will take it. I also think that you will never incur debts that would jeopardize what is not yours.”

His expression turned enigmatic again. She could not decide if he was flattered or if he tried to hide his opinion that she was a fool.

“You must be thinking it odd that I do not jump at this offer. It is very generous, and solves my present problem very neatly.”

“As it solves mine. The mutually beneficial aspect of the solution is the best part of it, I think.”

“It is far too optimistic of you after our brief friendship. You do not know me, Fleur.”

“I trust you. I know you are honorable. I also enjoy your company, and that is a rare thing for me with a man.”

“You can do better.”

“I do not think so.”

He rose abruptly and paced away, his arms crossed over his chest and a thoughtful scowl on his handsome face. A burst of laughter from inside the gaol reminded her of how peculiar a place this had been for a proposal. But then, the proposal itself was so odd that no place would have really been appropriate.

He returned to stand in front of her. Propping one booted foot beside her on the bench, he bent over his knee and lifted her chin with his dry, warm fingers, forcing her to look into his luminous eyes.