And how would she even begin to tell him that he’d proposed marriage to the tarnished cook who’d slept with Bertie and had been deemed not nearly good enough to be Bertie’s wife?
He would not want to marry her if he knew. He would not even want to look at her. Worse, he would be livid that she’d strung him along this far, knowing full well who she was, who he was, and all the bad blood between the brothers.
But he loves you, said the plaintive voice of her romantic idealism, from the frowzy cell that she had dragged it into after Bertie had beaten it comatose.
Would love pacify his anger when he learned her identity—the only identity she had left, now that she could never breathe a word of Lady Vera to anyone again? Would love save him from bitterness and disappointment when he became all England’s laughingstock, and his promising young political career foundered on her notoriety as surely as if he’d chosen to ruin himself over London’s premiere courtesan?
She wanted to believe, believe that his love—their love—was a wonder for the ages, as patient as the humble currents that sculpted deep canyons, as enduring as the pattern of seasons.
Perhaps it was not completely outside the realm of possibility for them to find a measure of happiness together. Perhaps he could practice law in some quiet provincial town. And they could have a small, neat house, with a garden and a sunny nursery for the children they would have—
Her tears spilled again. She wanted the life he promised her—wanted, wanted, and wanted, with the frenzy of a lost caravanist crawling toward a distant mirage.
But she could not deceive herself. Beyond this room, beyond this night, were norms and unspoken rules enough to crush any rebellion in the heart of a sensible man.
He’d fought for respect and respectability all his life. She’d done nothing but destroy her own. She could not in good conscience destroy his, even if he allowed it, even if he encouraged it.
In the morning, when his common sense returned, he’d be grateful to find her gone, to know that he would not be held to words of folly spoken in moments of high passion. That he still had all his future ahead of him.
And she, she would have the memories, and the consolation that he still had all his future ahead of him, because she’d walked away, taking with her only her valise and the last of the cake.
Chapter Ten
November 1892
Mr. Somerset’s house was in the middle of a terrace of identical stucco town houses. A portico, set on Roman Doric columns and supporting a balustraded balcony above, shielded the entrance. Number 26 Cambury Lane.
Verity yanked her gaze away from the front door. Before the house, to the left of the portico, a space had been created between street and house to provide for a service entrance to the basement. The space was surrounded by a shoulder-high wrought-iron railing for the protection of pedestrians. A gate in the railing opened to a set of steps leading down.
The plain, sturdy service door was opened by an equally plain, sturdy housekeeper, who introduced herself as Mrs. Abercromby. Verity gave her own name and the names of the subordinates she’d brought, Becky Porter and Marjorie Flotty, a slow-witted but dedicated scullery maid.
The basement contained the kitchen, the pantry, a water closet, something Mrs. Abercromby called the boiler room, and the servants’ hall. The servants’ hall was a tidy room, with wallpaper that might once have been the color of freshly kilned bricks but had since darkened to the reddish brown of roasted barley malt.
They’d arrived at teatime, and the other servants of the house were all present in the servants’ hall, seated on benches to either side of a long table. There were two maids, Ellen and Mavis, as well as Mr. Durbin, Mr. Somerset’s valet, and Wallace, who lived upstairs in the mews and took care of Mr. Somerset’s brougham and two black Friesians.
Ellen and Mavis shared cooking duties, and both looked relieved, rather than peeved, that a professed cook with her own kitchen crew was now among them. They were intrigued by Verity’s apparent Frenchness—and seemed not to know much about her past with Bertie, for their interest was mild and benign.
Verity accepted the offer of tea and Mrs. Abercromby’s hard biscuits and tried not to remind herself that the last time she was in this house, she hadn’t needed to come in through the service entrance.
Why had she come at all?