Chapter 118

How long had it been since she'd stood outside on the pavement here, just beyond the dazzling canopy of these glittering chandeliers? How long since she felt their light falling like sparkling rain on her cheeks, her closed eyelids, parted lips? Wanting to spin, spin, right here on the pavement in her silver pointed shoes, the ones Madame Renare had not had to show her twice? Too long.
Should she be relieved? No. It was written in her stars she would manage this somehow. The silver dress with its dusting of pearl droplets on the hem was perfect. Her hair? She'd done herself. Obviously. Let old Ma Ferret near it, and she'd resemble an ostrich's nest. The gloves and bag were also perfect, if she said so herself. Even His Grace, the Miser Count, had let his gaze linger as if he was counting more than his pennies when she'd swept from her room earlier with said items adorning her arms. The tiny pearl droplets in her ears were the icing on the cake, matching the studs on her gloves and the pearls beading her hem. All she had to do was get Stillmore in a good mood. Not difficult, as he'd been nice since they'd left the house.
"Splen..."
She steadied herself on the curb. Gabe. Oh for God's sake not here. She jerked her gaze around. Not just Gabe, but Gabe looking slightly less dapper than before. In fact, looking as if he lived in the gutter. Clothes she could have put in a pot and stirred with a spoon. His face a mass of pimples. Or were these sores?
"What is going on here?"
Stillmore. Before she could move, speak, sink on the ground, anything, that voice, that voice that always disarranged her spine did just that.
"I ...For God's sake, Gabriel ... "
Stillmore strode the short distance around the coach toward where she stood rooted to the curbstone. He stopped dead, somewhere in front of the horses, and huffed out a breath.
"This horse needs new shoes," he said to the coachman. "You don't mean to tell me you've driven us here, and the damned creature in this distress?"
She darted her gaze back. Gabe spoke, his voice an agony of dark urgency. "Splen ... I just need a moment for old time's sake."
The memory of these days in Lanthorne Street rose like specters at tables at which the food had long since rotted. Had he been following her? He must have to be here, to know she'd be. To approach her like this.
"Gabriel."
"I'm desperate, Splen."
Whatever he was, she could not allow him to compromise her now. He'd left her.
This, all of it, was his fault. Surely? Stillmore need only to stick his head past the horses to see her. She could not afford a scene on Lady Kertouche's doorstep. Not when she needed to sit Stillmore down later and speak to him about the baby.
"For God's sake Gabriel, you can't ... "
"I'm hopin' for a word, nothin' more."
It was as much as he was going to get after what he'd done. And just look at him dressed like a beggar. She lowered her gaze. Even the hand he placed on her wrist looked like he washed it in the gutter. She must get rid of him. Stillmore would step onto the curb at any second. Even he was only capable of berating someone for so long.
"Please, Splen. For old time's sake."
"Gabriel, you were not thinking of old time's sake when you-"
He grabbed her wrist, tugged her around the back of the coach. Her lovely new shoes, the ones she'd bought yesterday from Madame Renare, and the sparkling hem of her gown would be ruined by the mud. She smothered the protest, the alarm and indignation that flooded through her. Please tell her he wasn't planning on taking her away from here when it was imperative she speak to Stillmore.
"I know that," he said. "And I was wrong, so wrong. I shouldn't have let you go when you were my girl. I was just... just ..."
And she was pregnant. How inconvenient. To want her back now? And to do what? Beg in the streets?
"Gabriel, I honestly don't care what you are-"
"Good, because you was always mine-"
"Is there something wrong?"
She froze. Stillmore. It would be it all if he strode around the coach and caught her standing here with Gabe. Her stomach churned. She inhaled sharply. Her gaze fell on what dangled around her gloved wrist. A simple silver bracelet. Something she'd hoped would keep her in coal and candles for years to come. It was far more important to secure Stillmore though.
"Here. Take it." She peeled it off.
"But that ain't-"
"Oh please don't tell me you think I meant something else there just now about you and what you are? Here."
She could say something else, that this marriage was a lie. But why should she now? If he had come before, when she was lonely, when she was torn ... But he hadn't, and she was beyond that now. Besides, look at him. So badly off it hardly seemed fair to make him jealous. In fact, she'd dreamed of this moment, and it was being ruined by him and Stillmore. She pressed the bracelet into his palm, folded his fingers over it.
"Whatever you say, or think, I'm his wife now. Do you understand?" She raised her voice in case Gabe was bent on dragging her away. "Coming, Your Grace!"
He bent his head, his eyes hungrier than she'd ever seen them. But she couldn't afford to think about that now. She grasped her skirts, sailed on a wave of panic onto the curb, set her lips in a smile. A smile she imagined was puce at the edges when so much was at stake.
"Here I am, Your Grace."
"What were you doing?"
"Nothing."
She wasn't foolish enough to think Stillmore hadn't seen her passing her valuables, which he had paid for, to a man who had supposedly cast her off. Her throat dried, dried so that she thought she'd choke when she most needed to manage this.
"Well, then ... " Stillmore said. Surprise rippled through her as he held out his arm. "If it's not too much trouble?"
She gathered herself together. How good she must seem to Gabe. How happy. How carefree. Taking the earl's arm, while there he was, in the gutter. "Why ... why should it be, Your Grace?"
"Because I never quite know with you. Who you are and what you are really thinking."
She swallowed the burning knot in her throat, placed her hand on his arm. She very much didn't want to, but if anyone had seen her there with Gabe, there should be no doubt to whom she belonged. As for who she was? Why had Stillmore said that? Because he wanted to know? In order to ... what? Hand her to the bailiffs? Hadn't she once told him she was no-one?
Despite the panic heat stole through her, a slow flame that licked through the fabric of her gloves and along her veins, reaching the very fabric of her heart, although she was unsure whether this was a good thing. Tonight was about being in control of circumstances, not letting them control her. Any moment now she was going to be announced as the Countess of Stillmore. Imagine? It didn't matter that in another few weeks she would be the ex-countess. For now, for a debtor's daughter to be called countess was rather something. A moment of glory to hold to her heart forever. In fact, it was all she could do not to bound to the top of the plushly carpeted steps so she could have that moment now. The walk seemed to take forever. Or maybe it was just that she held his arm when she'd sooner not touch it with fire tongs?
That he hadn't made a fuss just now was astonishing, but then he probably hadn't seen. Any thought that he had and was being reasonable about it wasn't worth a damn. After all, the things the man had done, had said, to her were ridiculous. Were it not that she needed to secure her position, she'd say so. But tonight nothing would undermine her. Not him. Not Gabe. Tonight would be her absolute triumph.