The Spinster's Secret (19 page)

When Mattie looked at him, he forgot that he had scars blazoned across his face, forgot that his ear was missing, but Mattie would never be able to forget those things. They’d confront her every time she looked at him.

Edward stared at himself in the mirror for a long time, seeing the scars, the stump of his ear.
Could you live with this face forever, Mattie?

“Sir?” his bâtman asked. “Is there anything more you need?”

Edward turned away from the mirror. “No, thank you, Tigh. You may go.”

The bâtman picked up his discarded clothes and left, whistling under his breath.

Edward climbed into bed and blew out the candle. His bed seemed very empty. Emptier than it had ever been. But it wasn’t just Mattie’s body he wanted, it was her companionship, her laughter, her love. She was open and honest and frank. She was intelligent. She was funny.

He remembered her words.
I think that Toby would be glad you survived
.

He remembered how Mattie had traced the scars on his face with a light fingertip. There had been tenderness in her touch, and tenderness was close to love, wasn’t it?

If I say the right words, maybe she’ll marry me.

He just had to figure out what the right words were.

Chapter Fourteen

Edward strode along Piccadilly on his way to confront Chérie’s publisher, but instead of hailing a hackney, he allowed himself to be diverted by Hatchard’s. Inside was the scent of leather and paper and ink. The shelves were crammed with volumes of history and philosophy, poetry and travel . . . and novels.

Edward selected
Sense and Sensibility
, and three recently-released novels.

“Deliver these to my rooms.” He handed the salesman his card.

“Of course, sir.” The salesman’s polite smile froze as he took in the scars. He hastily averted his gaze and cleared his throat. “Uh…delivery. Yes, sir.”

Back out on Piccadilly, Edward hailed a hackney. “Holywell Street.” But as he climbed into the carriage, he changed his mind. “But first, take me past Grafton House.”

He’d never set foot in the Grafton House emporium before and was rather daunted by the number of items for sale. He recoiled from the displays of muslin and sarsnet and other fabrics, the furs, the frothy lace, the handkerchiefs and fans and gloves, the silk stockings. It was unquestionably a female bastion. He stood out like a Visigoth who’d accidently blundered into the House of the Vestal Virgins—large, uncouth, and most definitely out of place.

Edward’s first instinct was to slink back out the door. He lifted his chin and strode to the nearest counter.

“Ribbons,” he told the shop assistant firmly. “Cherry red ones.”

He emerged from that establishment some considerable time later, possessor of not only cherry red ribbons but a handsome Norwich shawl, a Kashmir shawl, and an ermine muff, all of which would be delivered to his rooms in Ryder Street.

Edward found it hard to sit still as the hackney headed for Holywell Street. He shifted on the squab seat, fiddled with his hat, adjusted his gloves. The nervousness coiling in his belly wasn’t because of his imminent meeting with Chérie’s publisher. It was because he was unsure what Mattie’s reaction to his gifts would be. Would she think he was trying to buy her affections? Pay her off like a whore? Assuage his guilt at bedding her?

He’d propose first,
then
give her the gifts. That way, she could have no doubt as to his reasons for giving them.

Of course, that presupposed that she’d accept him.

He spent the rest of the hackney ride cudgeling his brain for the perfect words of proposal. He still hadn’t found them when the carriage drew up outside his destination.

Edward shoved the problem of Mattie out of his mind. If he succeeded here, then he could redeem his word from Arthur Strickland and put an end to this ridiculous search for Chérie.

He looked up at the building. It was narrow and tall, the stone facade pitted and stained from London’s filthy air. A familiar alert anticipation tingled over his skin, as if a battle was about to be engaged.

…

Chérie’s publisher, Mr. Samuel Brunton Esq., was a rabbity little man with an overbite and a faintly receding chin.

His eyes, though, were shrewd. “Mr. Kane? Please take a seat. How may I help you?”

“I wish to discuss one of your authors.” Edward smiled and tried not to intimidate the man.

He didn’t want Mr. Brunton defensive. He wanted him expansive.

Unfortunately, expansive didn’t appear to be Mr. Brunton’s nature. “Which author?”

“Chérie.”

Mr. Brunton lost his smile. “What about her?”

“I wish to locate her,” Edward said. “To, er…”

Too late, he realized that he should have spent the hackney ride thinking of how to phrase this request. “Er, to speak to her.”

Mr. Brunton’s expression became contemptuous. His upper lip lifted, showing more of his teeth. “You wish to become her client, Mr. Kane? I can tell you now that she won’t . . .”

Edward flushed. “No! You misunderstand me. That isn’t my purpose in finding her!”

Mr. Brunton drew his lips closed over his protruding teeth. “Then you must wish to request that she stop writing her confessions. Mr. Kane, you’re not the first person to make such a petition to me, and I shall give you the same answer that I have in the past. Chérie may write as many confessions as she wishes—and I shall gladly publish them!”

“You misunderstand me.” Edward repeated. “I merely wish to speak with her.”

“Mr. Kane, I have no intention of disclosing Chérie’s identity.”

“Her address, then,” Edward said, beginning to lose his temper. “Please, if I could just write to her.”

“I can’t help you.” Mr. Brunton smiled triumphantly. “I don’t know my client’s address. All our correspondence goes through a solicitor.”

Edward gritted his teeth together. He took a slow breath. Losing his temper wouldn’t help him.

“Which solicitor?”

“That is my business, Mr. Kane. Not yours.”

Edward indulged in a brief moment of fantasy. He imagined himself holding Mr. Brunton up by his scrawny neck and shaking him until he divulged Chérie’s name.

“We are about to publish Chérie’s memoir. Perhaps you’ll find clues to her identity in its pages.”

“Memoir?” Regretfully, he let the fantasy go. “When?”

“Two months hence.” Mr. Brunton stood. “Now, if you will excuse me, Mr. Kane, I am rather busy . . .”

A knock on the door and the entrance of a young man in an ink-stained printer’s apron interrupted them. “The first few pages, sir.”

He glanced at Edward, blinked and recoiled, before fixing his attention back on his employer. “You wanted to see them in both fonts.”

Mr. Brunton took the sheaf of paper and flicked through the pages. “Excellent.”

He smirked at Edward. “Do you wish to see it, Mr. Kane?”

“Is it Chérie’s memoir?” Edward pushed to his feet. “Yes, please.”

Mr. Brunton handed him half a dozen pages. His expression was one of derision.

Edward read swiftly, blocking out Mr. Brunton’s discussion with his employee about print size and font and margins.

Dear reader, I begin my tale with that momentous event in a woman’s life, the plucking of her virgin flower. This occurred on my wedding night, when I was a shy and blushing maiden, not yet eighteen years of age. The mixture of anticipation and apprehension within my bosom, you can well imagine, for I was quite innocent and had no idea what to expect.

Edward skimmed down the page.

My beloved husband Joseph stripped off his clothes. I gazed upon him with a mixture of trepidation and awe and shrank back as he approached me.

Joseph sought to assuage my fear, taking my hand in his and encouraging me to touch his organ. At his urging I shyly acquainted myself with that strange and most alarming part of him. The touch of my fingers on his skin inflamed us both.

Edward turned the page and read further.

Joseph bade me lie down and joined me upon the bed. He soothed my fears with soft kisses upon my bosom, while at the same time he skillfully moved his hand upon that most private and womanly part of me. The sensations that his kisses and the rhythmic movement of his hand instilled within me were astonishing. Dear reader, until then, I had not realized that such pleasure was possible!

Edward grunted, remembering Mattie’s expression when he’d first brought her to climax, the dazed astonishment on her face. He skimmed further.

“It may hurt,” Joseph said, his voice hoarse with passion, and he was most correct. I knew a moment of panic as he breached my body and, try as I might, I could not help uttering a cry of pain.

I had no time to mourn the loss of my virginity, however, for my body swiftly accustomed itself to Joseph’s invasion. An unfamiliar emotion quickened my pulse. Innocent though I was, I became possessed by a spirit of wantonness. There was a wildness in my veins, a feverish heat. I reveled in Joseph’s weight upon me, in his most intimate possession of my body.

Edward skipped to the bottom of the page.

Joseph kissed me afterwards, as we lay in each other’s arms.

“You were designed for lovemaking,” he told me, little supposing that his words were prophetic. “with wide hips to cradle a man, breasts to rival Aphrodite, a mouth as sweet as ambrosia . . .”

Edward’s attention was arrested. He re-read the sentence.

. . . wide hips to cradle a man
.

His skin prickled. He’d said those words to Mattie, hadn’t he?

He reread the scene from the beginning, slowly, frowning, taking note of each word that Chérie’s husband said, each action. It was disturbingly familiar, the way Joseph soothed her fears by inviting her to touch him, the way he drew pleasure from her body with his hand before finally mounting her. But most familiar and disturbing were those fateful words he uttered.
Wide hips to cradle a man
.

A knot began to tie itself in Edward’s belly.
No
.
It can’t be.

“Well?” Mr. Brunton asked, a smirk audible in his voice. “Is it helpful?”

Edward looked up blindly, not seeing him. With a twitch, the pages were removed from his hand.

“I didn’t think so,” Mr. Brunton said. “But Chérie’s next confession will be out next week. A hayloft scene. Perhaps you may find a clue in it.”

Hayloft.

Memory flooded through him. He smelled hay and horses, heard the sound of kittens purring, tasted gingerbread on his tongue. And Mattie. Mattie kissing him. Mattie holding his hand while they lay in the fragrant, cozy, dimness.

Edward’s vision cleared. He saw Mr. Brunton, with his rabbit face and his smirk, holding the first few pages of Chérie’s memoir.

“The solicitor.” His voice sounded like it came from far away. “Is the address. . . ?”

Mr. Brunton lost his smirk. “I told you, I won’t . . .”

“Brocklesby. Lombard Street.”

Mr. Brunton’s face stiffened in shock and then became blank. “Mr. Kane, I must ask you to leave.”

Edward bowed. “Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.”

Mr. Brunton’s eyes narrowed in alarm. “Mr. Kane, what. . . ”

Edward turned his back on him. He pushed past the young printer. Anger blossomed in his chest as he strode down the corridor, as he took the stairs down to the ground floor two at a time. She’d used him. Mattie had
used
him.

The porter scurried from his office too late. Edward jerked the door open, almost pulling it from its hinges. The hackney carriage was waiting, as he’d asked.

“Lombard Street,” he told the jarvey.

He sat tensely on the stained squab seat, while his anger built. He could be wrong. It could be Mrs. Dunn who was Chérie. Perhaps Mattie had confided in her—everyone knew how women gossiped! But deep inside himself, there was no uncertainty. No one but Mattie could have written that virginity scene.

At Lombard Street, he climbed down from the carriage. Mrs. Brocklesby inhabited a handsome, modern house built of Portland stone. The door was answered by a butler.

“I should like to see Mrs. Brocklesby, if she’s at home,” Edward said, handing the man his card. “Tell her that I’m acquainted with Miss Chapple.”

Within less than a minute the butler returned and ushered him into a warm, cheerful parlor.

“Mr. Kane?” Mrs. Brocklesby rose and held out her hand politely. “You know Miss Chapple?”

“Yes.” Edward shook her hand.

Mrs. Brocklesby’s hair was an extremely pale shade of red, and her eyebrows and eyelashes were so fair that it almost seemed that she hadn’t any. She was saved from plainness by a pair of vivid blue eyes and a shapely, smiling mouth.

“Please sit.” She gestured at a sofa upholstered in straw-colored silk. “How may I help you?”

“I…er…”

Where to start? Not with an accusation.

Edward sat, and tried to look relaxed. “I understand that you and Miss Chapple are close friends?”

“Yes. We were at school together in Bath.”

Edward nodded, not really listening to the words. All his attention was focused on one thing.

“Your husband is a solicitor, Mrs. Brocklesby?”

“Yes.” Mrs. Brocklesby smiled politely, clearly waiting for the point of his visit.

“He is Miss Chapple’s solicitor, I understand?”

Mrs. Brocklesby blinked. “Yes, but if it’s business you wish to discuss, you’ll need to speak with my husband.”

She reached for the bell pull.

“No,” Edward said. “It’s not business. It’s about the letters that Mattie—Miss Chapple—sends to you.”

Mrs. Brocklesby paused with her arm outstretched. “I beg your pardon?”

“The letters between her and Mr. Brunton.”

Mrs. Brocklesby lowered her hand. “What about them?”

The question was an answer in itself.

“You’re a receiving office for correspondence between her and your husband and Mr. Brunton.” Rage leaked into Edward’s voice. “If Mattie were to receive letters from a
man
, her uncle would want to know why. But letters from a woman, a friend. . .” He made a sharp, throwaway gesture with his hand. “No one thinks twice about it.”

“Mr. Kane, I think you’d better leave.” Mrs. Brocklesby rang the bell decisively.

Edward stood. “She’s Chérie, isn’t she?”

Mrs. Brocklesby’s lips pinched together. She said nothing.

Edward’s rage was close to erupting. He bowed stiffly and strode from the room. His footsteps echoed flatly in the entrance hall. He didn’t wait for the butler but wrenched the door open himself.

A messenger boy—from Mr. Brunton’s printing house judging by the ink stains on his clothes—ran up the steps.

“You’re too late,” Edward snarled at him.

…

Edward walked back to his rooms. It took the best part of an hour. He was limping by the time he reached Ryder Street. He climbed the stairs to his rooms slowly. Rage still simmered in his chest, but he wasn’t about to erupt any more.