“It is only the amount of needless secrecy I’ve subjected you to which prevents my laughing in your lovely face. If shackles won’t do it, I’ve half a mind to try iron bars. Just here,” he added, pausing uncertainly before a neat, narrow row house. “I bought this when I first inherited so we should always have a place to keep our heads out of the rain in the city. Garima used to use it . . . well, before. Should you like to come in, and speak with me? If not, I’ll find a cab and take you to your lodging house.”
My answer was a rather breathless yes, I should very much like to come in, because anxiety and hope were wrapping thick vines about my throat. I found myself in a pleasant sitting room with yellow and green Sikh tapestries upon the walls and a profusion of richly tasselled cushions on the furniture which the neighbours would have found highly disreputable. After carelessly tossing his greatcoat over a chair, Mr. Thornfield poured spirits into crystal glasses for us as he always did—though now we both removed our gloves—and I placed Sahjara’s cloak on a tree in the hall.
When I chose the armchair nearest the fire, he endearingly pulled up a footstool directly before me and sat, our heads now near upon a level. Before I knew what I was about, I stroked my fingers over his temple and he smiled with the roguishness of a tomcat. He placed our glasses upon the carpet.
“You invest me with hope you shan’t be punishing me for my asinine refusals with your absence.” He caught my fingers and wove them with his own. “All other punishments you care to mete out will be met with better bravery. Now. Let’s have your secrets. This house was heated and aired this morning, but I ordered all the servants away.”
At times, the swiftest cut is the cleanest, so I announced, “The name I gave you is a false one. As a girl, I lived at Highgate House. I am the illegitimate daughter of your aunt Patience Barbary’s husband, Richard Barbary, and a French dancer who went mad and took her own life.”
Mr. Thornfield’s dark brows are dashing enough to perform great sardonic feats, but I had never before seen them execute such acrobatics. Then his eyes brightened nearly to sapphire and his lips parted. “You don’t mean to tell me that you’re really Jane Steele?” he exclaimed.
“I . . . I do, actually. How—”
He slapped his knee, barking a laugh. “Mum used to mention you from time to time, the French changeling whose mother wormed her into an English estate. Awfully thick situation for Aunt Patience to swallow, but Chastity and Patience Goodwill never got on, you understand—Mum thought it rather a ripe coup d’état. Why didn’t you say something?”
Flushing beet red, I replied, “Your inheritance was unexpected. I wanted to live there again, thought that it may have been . . . mine.”
“And so it is!” he crowed. “Every brick, every weapon, every bloody blade of grass is as much yours as I am, darling, supposing you’ll give me a pallet in the stables and a crust from time to time. Are you quite mad?”
“I don’t want you to live on a pallet.” My tears spilled, and he painted his fingertips over my jaw. “I want you to live in my bones, but how can you not be angry I lied?”
“I’m a scoundrel, Jane. Born of scoundrels, bred of ’em to boot. Not to mention a whoreson bastard, as you yourself once called me, and I remember the occasion with great fondness save for the part where you toppled off a horse.”
“Oh, but there’s more, there’s—”
“Breathe, darling.” Running his palms down my arms, he cupped my small hands in his large ones as we had once done in his office. “Please, I’m drowning just looking at you. Have a spot of pity and breathe for me. So you’re a scoundrel too, I take it—I’d suggest we make matching uniforms, but that quite sabotages knavery, you see, and should thwart our purposes. What else?”
“I’m a murderess, sir.”
“Does she suppose me deaf and blind?” he cried incredulously. “Does she suppose I simply forgot that she—”
“Five times over.”
Charles Thornfield began to say something. Then, brushing his thumb under my damp eyes once more, he began to say something else. Finally, after puffing a vexed sigh, he muttered something else entirely, by which time I was prepared to die on the spot. I think my heart must have only commenced beating once more when the wry creases around his brows smoothed into softer seams, as he looked when he spoke with Sahjara or picked up a delicate antique volume from his library—as he looked when he wanted to take especial care. He passed me his kerchief, counting on his left hand.
“The first?” he questioned, and his rough voice had gentled.
“When I was a girl, my half brother tried to rape me and I pushed him,” I whispered. “He died. I used to— I no longer think that was entirely my fault; but it was the most important, for it was the first, and made me who I am.”
Mr. Thornfield’s eyes frosted over entirely. “Oh, my darling Jane. Next?”
“My headmaster gave me the choice of watching my friend starve or being sent to a madhouse. I stabbed him with a letter opener.”
He whistled, continuing to count. “Much more impressive. The third?”
“My landlord beat his wife until she lost their unborn child, so I pushed him into the Thames.”
“It’s not many corpses as can foul the Thames, bless ’em. You accomplished a miracle. Go on?”