Chapter 109

Splendor dragged on her shoes, ruined after last night's storm. Unwearable in fact. She'd have to buy a new pair now with what pitiful money she'd left and not look on it as an extravagance either.Well, she'd pawn his bloody watch. Good for Topaz for stealing it. If only she'd stolen more. That check. The contents of his wallet. Imagine ruining these shoes. What utter folly.Over him.She should just have paid Mrs. Hanney to say she'd left London instead of running like a chicken with legs but no head, brain, anything of worth. What was there in Oxford for her, or Topaz exactly?
"Oh don't look so terror-stricken." He stopped pacing. "It will be in name only, the marriage, the divorce, and you living with me. Don't expect anything from me."
"I don't."
"Certainly not by way of any settlement. Once bled dry in life is quite enough."
"Oh, don't pretend, Your Grace. You must be rich as Croesus to fork out ten thousand pounds for one night."
A better haul for a night's work than ever Amber or Topaz had managed, although given the check was in shreds on the floor, how the hell could she congratulate herself? Thanks to him she'd lost the lot.She banged her foot on the floor to push the shoe on properly. At least as properly as it was going to go in order to enable her to at least hobble to the next coach that stopped here. "In fact it's quite disgusting the amount of money you have. You know I-"
Don't know how to thank you were the last words on the tip of her tongue when her heart pounded and rage flamed like a fire in her breast. Just because she had already opened her mouth once in so rash and stupid a fashion did not mean she should do it twice.
"I hope it was value for you."
But Christ, she was done with this. All of it. Ten thousand pounds. She wanted to punch something. Preferably him. She wanted to scream her boiling rage to the heavens.
Ten thousand pounds.
How could she be so stupid? Just because he'd called her a cretin? So now here she was, not just a cretin but a penniless cretin.
"Look, I think we should forget about last night, concentrate on what I've just said to you which is of far greater importance than any money," he said.
"What particular bit would Your Grace like me to concentrate on? Hmm?That I am a cretin-?"
"You know the bit."
"Well, here's the thing, I-"
"Don't think you can? I know that. It is up to you. Either way, I shall look like a swine. That's as much reputation as I have ever cared about."
"Aren't you the clever one? As for telling me what I'm going to say? Before I've said it? Did I say clever? You know, I think I meant genius."
She ran her hands through her tangled hair to straighten it. Despite everything running through her like a torrid river, one thing she was not doing, was stepping out there with straw in her hair. The shoes were bad enough. One buckle falling off, the other with a soggy sole.
"So, you weren't going to say you can't?"
Damn him to whatever hell would hold him. How the blazes had she left this barn with ten thousand pounds in her pocket and breakfast on the table and come back in with nothing? How could she have been thrown so far off her habitual orbit that she had failed to smooth this over and was now forced to listen to this hogwash?
She wasn't going to do this. She'd take the next coach north as plain Dora-do-it-all and Topaz in tow. A dreadfully drab existence it would be. Worse than at Starkadder's. But perhaps the time had come to be dreadfully drab though. Find a little job housekeeping, or teaching, or something.
But she'd be the one to decide that. Not him. How dare the dog make the offer and then take it back? Just like he'd taken back the ten thousand. He needn't bother.
Just think about flaunting this under Gabe's nose when she went to visit his soup kitchens or whatever, though. Think about her star being bright. All sparkling tips and radiuses and her beneath it, bathed in its light. Of course, it might not look quite so grand in three months time when she landed in the divorce courts unable to get a solitary sou to her name. Should she care about that though when it could be the best three months of her life? And maybe, just maybe, if she managed things, she wouldn't walk away empty-handed. Something might come her way courtesy of Lady Kertouche.
She'd find somewhere to put Topaz. Why not? Topaz was trouble. Big trouble.Trouble at every turn with her hands she couldn't keep to herself. Splendor had a few guineas left and could pawn the watch. Why trouble herself trying to give it back to him now?It wasn't as if it was important to him. Look at what he'd called his father when she had such abiding love for hers.Of course, she'd be a pawn herself, but a pawn who could demand certain things. A lot better than a pawn who couldn't.
There was no argument here.
"Let's get one thing straight, Your Grace-"
"Oh, spare me the interminably boring lecture and give me your answer so I can get the hell on with the day. Is it yes or no?"
She rolled the crashing fury around on her tongue. Her bright star may have dimmed, there was still one way it could rise. That was to swallow her ire and say yes.
"Three months, with you, Your Grace? How very kind. But I'm not going to do it. I'd sooner die in a ditch. Now, if you will excuse me?"