Mrs. Neill choked on her own rage. “Stupid girl, I’m trying to save you years of heartache! He will take advantage of you again and again. He will waste your inheritance on drink and whores. Disappear for nights on end, and you won’t know which opium den to dig him out of. Tell me, what will you do when he takes too much, and you find him face down on the bathroom floor, lying in a puddle of his own filth?”
Captain Neill made a pained sound, as if hearing his shame spoken aloud was too much for him to bear. Angelica reached for his hand, lacing her fingers with his. She might be a slut, and he might be a morphine addict, but they didn’t have to stand for this. So long as they were together, they were better off than here.
“Brody, I would be honored to be your wife.”
She smiled in his direction, and his lips met hers. Their kiss was deep, passionate. Angelica didn’t care that everyone was watching. She was simply happy to marry the man she loved.
He broke their kiss to address the room. “Well, Mother, Father, it looks like Angelica and I are going to be married.”
His father called out, “You have defied us for the last time, Broderick! You have been nothing but a disappointment since you returned home from France. We should have left you in hospital to rot.”
Captain Neill must have known this was coming all along. “Yes, you probably should have. But, while you gladly pay for the doctors, and the drugs, and the experimental treatments to make me better—better to manage, I say—you cut me off the moment I find someone who makes me want to change. You see, I’ve given up morphine. I plan to be a proper, sober husband. And all because Angelica did the one thing you couldn’t—she loved me, even at my very worst.”
His mother sobbed, “You think we don’t love you?”
“Get out!” Mr. Neill shouted at them. “I want you out of my house this instant!”
Angelica stepped back from the man’s wrath.
Captain Neill angled her toward the stairs. “We had better start packing…”
But his father stopped them. “No, leave the clothes. Leave the car. Leave anything I ever paid for. I don’t care where you go, or how you manage it, but you will never take another penny from me. Seven years too late, but I wash my hands of you.”
“You would send my pregnant fiancée out into the world without so much as a motorcar to carry her?”
Everyone gasped—including Angelica. “Brody, I’m not pregnant!”
“Oh, please. If you weren’t before, you certainly are now.” He actually had the nerve to laugh. “And I, for one, couldn’t be happier. We finally have the chance to start our lives, and what better way than with a tiny, new baby?”
Angelica let him walk her toward the door. There was no servant to open it for them. As they stepped into the warm sunshine, Captain Neill took her in his arms and kissed her. Then, without so much as a word of good-bye, they set off down the gravel drive, hand-in-hand. If he was frightened, he never showed it. He seemed only light-hearted, and strangely optimistic for a man walking away from everything he’d ever known.
“Once we reach the lane, it shouldn’t be difficult to catch a ride into the village,” he said, swinging their joined arms back and forth in rhythm with his steps. “We could make it as far as Shrewsbury. Someone there is bound to put us up for the night. Then, I suppose, we’re for your place in the morning.”
“I’m not sure I want to go back there, at least not yet.”
He must have glanced down at her. “No?”
“You said we could have a fresh start. Home, for me, is not a fresh start,” she explained. “But this is. You and me. Here. Now. We could go anywhere, become anyone. We’re free! For the first time in both our lives, we are finally free.”
“If we’re going to be free, I don’t think I want to be Captain Neill anymore. That shackle has started to chafe.”
She understood completely. “I don’t think I want to be Miss Grey anymore, either.”
He brought their intertwined fingers up to his lips, and kissed them. “We had better try something else on for size, then. What have you in mind?”
Angelica grinned like a fool. “How about ‘Mr. and Mrs. Neill?’ ”
Brody laughed. “I like the sound of that.”
EPILOGUE
Brody called to his brother, and then jogged across the busy street to meet him. It was good to see Marcus again. He hadn’t heard a word from him since the wedding—but, of course, that’s how Father would have it.
He watched as Marcus gave his grimy, oil-stained uniform a sharp glance. Since striking out on their own, Brody had done the best he could to provide for Angelica. He’d taken whatever work that came his way, until finally securing a position as an omnibus mechanic. It wasn’t much, but they were able to get by.
“And the garage beats a damned desk job any day,” Brody explained to Marcus as they walked home. “I like working with my hands, staying fit. Keeping busy. Life in an office would be—to me—stagnant and stifling.”