Angelica did not understand the descriptive details, but, if Magda and the other girls said he was nice to look at, then she believed them.
“And, if his sister really is Mary Rose Neill, then your handsome beau is a rich man,” Magda explained. “Only the best for Miss Neill. She came in just the other day looking for a wrap to match her birthday frock. It was Callot Seours—special ordered, straight from Paris.”
Angelica didn’t know why he insisted on bringing her to meet his family. To meet his sister, who deserved only the very best. What sort of shaky explanation was he going to give them for showing up to a birthday party with a blind nobody on his arm?
She and Magda went over everything they had tried on, making the final decisions. She needed a week’s worth of outfits—two skirts, three afternoon frocks, four silk blouses, dinner dresses, a woolen cardigan for chilly mornings, and a fur-trimmed coat, plus hats and shoes to match.
Also, she needed underclothes, stockings, and nightdresses for bed. Secretly, Angelica loved selecting the silky, gauzy, frivolous lingerie. She’d never had any reason in her life to wear such scandalous drawers. Of course, the sales girls thought it all for Captain Neill’s eyes, but Angelica relished the way the lace edging fluttered against her inner thigh, and how the delicate silk-chiffon kissed the curve of her breasts. It was her own naughty little secret hidden beneath her clothes.
“We’ll have this all boxed up for you, Miss Grey,” one of the sales girls said, her voice muffled behind the pile of garments in her arms.
“Thank you,” Angelica replied, smiling in her direction.
Magda led her back to where Captain Neill sat. He’d been so patient, not to mention generous—an entirely new wardrobe could not have been cheap.
Before handing her over, the woman said, “You know, you really ought to get your hair cut. It’s such a lovely dark color, but the weight of it does nothing for your face. Besides, it would be so much easier to manage. I can’t imagine how long that much hair takes to dry. What do you think, Captain Neill?”
“If Miss Grey wants to chop off all her hair…”
Angelica turned to him. Everyone else wore their hair short, and she did not want to stick out any more than she already did. Plus, drab, lifeless locks would spoil all the lovely, stylish things she and Magda had taken such care in selecting.
He sighed. “Very well.”
***
While Angelica got her hair cut, Brody popped next door, to the chemist’s. He’d packed a satchel and a suitcase before leaving town, but he’d brought only the essentials. He needed a few extra items, but, really, he wanted something to do. Dress shops and hair salons ranked just below hospitals and nursing homes on his list of places he hated.
He couldn’t go far—what if she needed him?—yet he couldn’t sit among those chattering, gossiping women a moment longer. The chemist’s was his refuge. Brody browsed the shelves of soaps, powders, tablet bottles, tonic waters, and all manner of things he couldn’t even identify.
Seeing the medicated cough syrup behind the counter reminded him of the morphine his body craved. The morphine he had given up for Angelica Grey, who’d given him up for a stranger whose spawn she likely carried in her belly.
She’d been utterly ruined.
Now, his life had been ruined—by her.
Even if he could find a way to forgive her, Brody couldn’t watch Angelica’s body swell with another man’s child. Someone would have to keep the brat in nappies and formula, and eventually, short trousers and school tuitions. Someone would have to see it settled in the world. Who, when the mother did not even know the father’s name?
Brody knew who. If he—fool that he was—took Angelica back, he would be responsible for her baby. He did not want to be a father, but knew Angelica, with her fear of the asylum, would never willingly give her child to an institution. Truly, the idea of sending it to an orphanage did not sit right with him, either.
He had the rough outline of a plan, but hadn’t given it much thought beyond seeing Angelica safe, clothed, and fed. When he showed up with her tomorrow, his parents would have questions. Brody would not have answers. At least not any truthful ones. But he could pretend for the next few days that she was his sweetheart, and, when the two of them parted ways afterward, he’d simply tell his family that he’d called it off.
It would be a sad, yet tidy end for a relationship that had began with so much promise. He’d loved her. Put her on a pedestal and worshipped her. When the withdrawal symptoms had wracked his body, Brody called for her—the way other men in his ward cried for their mothers. Through the electric shocks, ice baths, and experimental treatments, he conjured her face for comfort. For one hundred and twenty days, she had been everything to him. How would he ever find the strength to make her nothing to him now?
CHAPTER TWENTY