Page 52 of The Proposition
Before she could even finish descending the stoop, a strong hand took her by the wrist and tugged. She fell easily into Audric’s arms, gasping as her forehead bumped hisshoulder. Away he took her, toward a bewilderingly rugged garden. Her slippers crunched over broken glass, then she felt solid stone at her back and gratefully leaned against it. Cool, galvanizing air rushed into her as she stared blearily up at Audric. His face was the flushed counterpart to her paleness.
“We have him, Clemency!” he said in an excited whisper. “His schemes are diabolical, indeed, but we have him. Oh, but the man is a scoundrel of the highest order, a cannon, and the radius from the blast…”
“Then, you know about the papers,” Clemency replied, gradually returning to herself. She withdrew the documents hidden in her dress and offered them to Audric. It was only then that she remembered the sealed letter held tightly in her left hand.
“Boyle has been trying to patch up the scandal of his family,” Audric explained, perusing what she had given him. His cheeks turned a bolder shade of red. “He should have been the Boyle heir, and a true baron, but Ede is his father. I always wondered how he could evade ton scrutiny, but Ede was cleaning up all of his messes, establishing him as the true issue of Lord Boyle, resurrecting an extinct line.”
“And making poor Delphine’s little boy his ward. He must be afraid of your retribution.” Clemency shook her head, exhausted and disgusted. “With Denning Ede involved this all feels so sinisterly beyond my scope. It is hard even to fathom it.”
Audric folded the documents and tucked them swiftly into his interior coat pocket. “You must not waver now, Clemency, not when we have Boyle in our sights. Ede too must be dealt with somehow. From his political pulpit thehypocrite preaches tradition while legitimizing his own bastard to continue another family’s line. Despicable.”
“Is this not all very sad?” she asked, slumping. “It will not just be Boyle ruined, but Ede and Chilvers too.”
“They are complicit!”
“They are likely blackmailed!”
Audric’s elation evaporated, his mouth firming up into a grim line. He took the letter from her left hand, holding it up to read the inscription.
“What are you doing?” she asked, pushing away from the statue. “That is for my sister.”
“It is evidence.”
“It is private correspondence!” Clemency did not ask again, snatching the letter for Honora out of his grasp. “Mrs. Chilvers was forthcoming once caught. Her husband had an unnatural end, meeting with misadventure due to his forgeries. The threats against his life and his considerable debts were passed to her, she had no choice but to survive. Honora had written of my closeness with Boyle, giving her reason to think he was an honorable man.”
“She is not innocent, whatever your sympathies for her,” Audric replied, crowding her against the statue. “Think, Miss Fry. Think what she would have done to my sister!”
“And now we have stopped it, and I have her word that she will stand with us against Boyle, corroborate whatever evidence we present against him.” Clemency hugged the letter protectively to her chest. “And I do have sympathy for her. Once more, marriage bringing down nothing but woe and calamity.”
Audric fell silent for a moment, studying her with an intensity she disliked. “This is not about marriage.”
“It most certainly is. You talk of cannons and all that gets caught in the blast—that is what women are in this world. The forgotten damage. The debris left on the field. Your sister, mine, Mrs. Chilvers, me, all dependent on the changing whims of men!”
Audric took a step back, studying the tops of his boots. “This is my error. It was folly to involve you, Clemency. But you must have known that this was always our destination. Did you think destroying a man would be clean? Easy?”
Clemency shook her head, sensing his rising irritation with her. But she could not sustain his same rage. Publicly destroying Boyle might bring Audric satisfaction, but at what cost? She would not set aside her misgivings, for she knew them to be reasonable. Clemency reached for his hand, but he did not return the gesture. “I do not wish to quarrel—”
Her gloved hand hovered there, a white dove ignored. He made no move toward her, and an icy shiver speared through her. Perhaps a need for revenge occupied all the space in his heart where she might be instead.
“Then do not stand in my way.”
“No one ever does, do they?” Clemency dropped her hand and wished with all her might that he would relent, and bend, and take her in his arms. There was a loving man inside there, walled off behind what pain had built.
“Except you,” he said softly and glanced away.
“Yes, me.” Clemency stepped around him carefully, mindful never to let their bodies or garments touch. When she sought out his gaze, he avoided her. She pleaded silently for him to fight for her, for this, for them, for what she suspected could be if he set aside his obsession and she overcame herfears.Fight for me, love me, love me in the way of stories, of legends and fairy tales, be mine in the way I need.Miss Bethany Taylor would shriek at such weakness, but then, it was only honest to admit that shedidfeel weak. And Clemency felt a sudden frisson of fear that they might never see each other again. It passed, but the terror lingered. Well. If he insisted on stubbornness, then so did she. “Mr. Ferrand, I will continue our partnership until the night of the assembly, and then our business and acquaintance is concluded. Good night, sir.”
19
Clemency tossed another balled-up attempt at a letter into the fire, watching the parchment flare and snarl as the flames overtook it. And good riddance. She had exhausted that sheet of parchment, scratching out so many thwarted feelings and frustrations that the attempt simply couldn’t be salvaged.
Mr. Ferrand,one draft read.Perhaps my final words to you in the garden were hasty; they were said in anger.
That felt too conciliatory. Clemency would not be apologizing. She was not infatuated with him, she insisted, she was not in love, and she was seeking only civility, not full reconciliation. Reading Miss Taylor’s pamphlet again had soothed her, reminded her of her principles, and helped her realize the madness he had planted in her. In the next draft, she opened more forcefully, demanding his contrition. But that too wasn’t quite right. Over and over again she tried to express herself without coming across as either too simpering or too haughty, and to no avail.Well, she thought,maybe I am both simpering and haughty. Then:No, no, no, Honora would have a conniption if she heard me speak to myself that way. Where is the grace? Where is the kindness?
She sighed at the little desk in the room with the pinkcurtains and old quilts and let down her forehead to rest on her arms. When she was little she often argued endlessly with William, chasing him up and down the stairs, refusing to let him have the last word. When, inevitably, William finally lost his temper with her and locked her in a linen closet, her father would appear to drag her out, wipe the tears from her cheeks, and remind her gently: “You are both too stubborn! Two hard heads, impossible! Heads like stones. You can crash those stones together all day long, but eventually you will only make powder of each other.”
Clemency perhaps learned the wrong lesson from this scolding. Instead of finding a way to communicate more effectively with her brother, she simply learned to avoid him. If he picked a fight, she gave him the silent treatment, a different sort of victory. Now that failure to ever really swallow her tongue and take her lumps had resulted in this cold, terrible rift with Audric. They had been going along nicely too, but days had passed with no sign of either of them putting an end to the stalemate.
