Page 55 of The Proposition
“What did the old bat say that drove you out here?” His eyes searched her face, and she felt a guilty flush creep up herneck. Turner reached up and touched a single reddish-gold curl framing her face. Without meaning to, she flinched.
“Some…interesting talk of marriage.”
“And that upset you?” He frowned and inched yet closer. His breath stank of drink. “Should I be worried?”
“Not at all,” she replied, slapping on a smile. “But if I let her continue on we were at risk of Mary Wollstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges rising from their graves to throttle her, and that seemed like simply too much disruption for a Tuesday.”
Turner slid his hand lower, trying to cup her jaw. Shaking her head, Clemency pushed his hand away.
“The curtains are just so,” he whispered. He was drunk. Drunk on his seeming victory, no doubt, confident that Denning Ede and Mrs. Chilvers had solved all of his many, many problems. “They cannot see us. We are soon to be married, Clemency, so where is the harm in it?”
She was meant to be seducing him, drawing him in, but now it felt too burdensome. The thought of his sherry-laced kiss turned her stomach.
“You asked me to hold my feelings close,” Clemency reminded him. “My passion was silly and revolting, remember? Childish and smothering. You made the words hard to forget and I am attempting to do better.”
He drew up short, his expression suddenly puzzled. The trees rattled quietly, a sound like a city-wide whisper warning that the rain had returned. Boyle glanced upward and grinned crookedly. “Yes, Miss Fry, you have taken my words so to heart that it moves me. And it moves me to kiss you now. Will you not embrace your betrothed?”
Though he asked, he did not wait for her answer andleaned close, darting his head down toward her, crashing his lips against hers while she squirmed and shrieked, his mouth swallowing the sound. This was a theft, and she heard a strange sound ripple through her head, like a crack, a fracturing. He was taking something from her, this intimacy.
No,she thought.This isn’t a kiss, it’s a theft, and so it isn’t real. It cannot be real.
Clemency went rigid, then convulsed at the crack of a sudden pistol shot. It split the night, silencing all the music leaking from the surrounding windows and sending Boyle rearing back toward the railing. For a moment, she feared one of them had been shot, but no red stains appeared on his shirt. Turning toward the park, Clemency watched a puff of smoke dissipate into the rain, visible for only an instant in a pool of yellow light.
“What the devil!” Boyle huffed, searching the darkness.
“Was that a shot? It sounded like a pistol!” William appeared in the open balcony doorway, and Clemency saw her chance, rushing past both of them.
“I’ve had such an awful fright,” Clemency stammered truthfully but in a voice she didn’t recognize. She felt faint and wandered away from the sofa and the ladies, who had all leapt to their feet, cards scattered across the plush carpets. “Can one of your men take me home?”
“Of course, dear, but you must wait, surely your nerves are flustered. Sit down, now, sit and you will have a tonic and—”
“Thank you, Lady Veitch,” Clemency said, pretending only to hear the first bit. She found her way out, skirt held up out of the way, heart hammering as she sped by statues and busts, down the marble stairs to the grand foyer, through thetangle of nervous servants who had also heard the shot, and out into the frigid rainy night.
She approached the nearest valet, but she saw, down the drive and out beyond the black gate, the silhouette of a tall man. He leaned against the gate, and she managed a wobbly smile.
“Shall I have the coach brought ’round, miss?” the valet was asking, rain dripping from his hat.
“No…No, I think I’ll find my own way.”
“But, miss! The weather—Lady Veitch—”
“Thank you!”
Clemency hurried down the wide stone path, half-listening to the commotion from the windows above, determined to leave before Lady Veitch could put her foot down and send the footmen after her. At some point she simply stopped hearing the pandemonium, her eyes and heart and mind focused ahead on the man who turned and began walking away as she approached. As soon as she was free of the property and rounded the gate, she felt his warm hand close around hers and pull. Clemency followed and laughed as the rain slid off her nose, and Audric’s big heavy coat fell over her shoulders, guarding her from the downpour.
It smelled distinctly of spent gunpowder.
“You missed,” she whispered, and he squeezed her hand.
“Ha. My carriage is not far.”
“How did you know where to find me?” she asked, taking three steps to each of his.
“I will tell you all,” Audric told her. No, it was a firm reassurance. A promise. She sensed that it was about far more than just how he located her. The carriage shimmeredout of the mist and rain, sleek, shining, and black, the team of horses stamping, streamers of white smoke pouring from their nostrils in the cold. “I will tell you all.”
“No.” Clemency stopped short, skidding a little on the wet cobbles. “Wait.”
Momentary patience. She had possessed it, but now it was gone. The carriage intimidated her—she could only remember what had come before when they were last alone, his anger, his stubbornness, the arguing that had driven a wedge between them for days and days.
