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“I tell myself it will all be fine. ” She tried to sound braver than she felt. “Of course it will be. I have you. ”
His face drew tight.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” she said, suddenly understanding his distress. She smoothed the hair from his brow. “That’s what has you so concerned. What if something happens to you?”
He nodded, closing his eyes and resting his brow against her hand.
“Will you tell me what happened before? With your mother, when she fell ill?”
She recalled his heartrending emotion when he spoke of being jailed and letting his mother die alone. Perhaps if he talked about it, he would feel more at ease. He would see how different matters were now, and how unlikely it was that something similar would happen with Lily.
“Please,” she urged. “I’m your wife, Julian. You can tell me. You should tell me. ”
“Yes,” he finally agreed. “You should know. ”
He helped her to a sitting position, and they separated, folding their legs and facing one another. Carefully, he undid each of his cuffs and rolled his shirtsleeves up to the forearm.
“You told me you were jailed,” she prompted. “You ran afoul of the wrong aristocrat. ”
“It starts before that. ”
She recognized him settling into his lengthy-discussion posture. Arms and hands at the ready; facial features relaxed, ready to lend nuance or emphasis to his words. He went slowly with his story, using both spoken words and signs, repeating himself or offering clarification at her slightest frown.
“The coffeehouse,” he began. “You already know it was entirely staffed by the deaf. That was the establishment’s draw. Gentlemen met there to feel charitable and noble, ostensibly. But other times, to discuss matters they didn’t want overheard, not even by a serving girl. The place offered private meeting rooms for that purpose. Since I worked there and signed with the others, the clientele just assumed I was deaf. I was careful to never contradict their assumption. ”
“So,” she said, “you heard things you weren’t meant to hear. ”
He nodded. “Honestly, most of the time I paid no attention. I was a boy. Their political intrigues and business affairs didn’t interest me. But one day, when I was fourteen, I brought a tray up to a private meeting room, and I heard a group of noblemen celebrating their scheme to fix a horse race. They were in collusion with the jockeys and several gaming lords. A certain horse was set to win over the favorite, at very long odds, and these men would rake in a fortune. ”
“That sounds terribly unethical, if not illegal. ”
“Probably both, but I didn’t care. I just wanted my cut. ” A wry smile touched his lips. “I knew my mother kept money stashed beneath a loose board in the garret. I went and pried up the board. I found two pounds, three shillings. I took it all, stuffed the coins in a purse, and hurried off to place a wager on the race. The odds were twelve to one. Can you imagine? That meant I’d win five-and-twenty pounds. More than my mother earned in a year. Poor as we lived, I saw this as our chance to taste luxury. For myself, I wanted shoes that fit. At that age, I was growing an inch a month, it seemed, and my shoes forever pinched my feet. So it was shoes for me, and a warmer cloak for my mother. Then something pretty. Perhaps some combs for her hair. ” Moisture gathered in the rims of his eyelids. “I planned to surprise her. ”
“And what happened?”
“Stupidity happened. Greed happened. There I was, on my way to place this bet. I had two pounds, three. And I thought to myself … why not try for two pounds, four? Before we found Anna’s coffeehouse, I used to beg pennies in the street. I have this ability to reproduce voices, you know?”
She nodded.
“It was how I learned to speak,” he explained. “Since my mother could not. I would listen carefully to well-spoken men and mimic what I heard. Once I hear a voice, I never forget it. As a boy, I would go down on the Strand with the West Indian minstrels, and imitate overblown, pompous men as they passed. People would laugh and toss me a coin or two. ” He paused, finding his place in the tale.
“But that day something went wrong?”
“Everything went right, for a while. I’d amassed a bit of a crowd and a smattering of coins in my hat. Then I became too cocksure, and I picked the wrong target for my mimicry. He was a lord, with a bloody enormous manservant who appeared out of nowhere. When he challenged me, I tried to joke my way out of it. He only took more offense. He told his man to take me in custody, said they’d show me down to the Fleet and bring charges of mendicancy. ”
“Charges of begging?”
He nodded. “It’s unlawful. But here is where my stupidity reached its pinnacle. I pulled out my purse, shook the coins into my hand. Said, ‘Look here, I have two pounds, three. Why the devil would I be begging?’”
Lily’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach. “Oh, no. You didn’t. ”
“Oh, yes. I was that foolish. I’ll never forget the smug jubilation on that man’s face when I proudly whipped out those coins. Of course his reply was that I must have stolen it, and unless I handed the purse over to him, he would bring me up on charges of thievery. ”
“But you didn’t steal it!”
“I know that. But what judge would believe a smart-mouthed guttersnipe over a lord? This whole world is arranged to value the word of a man like him over that of a man like me. Even with the truth on my side, I had no chance. ” A vein pulsed angrily on his temple. “I was a fool, but not ignorant. I knew stealing anything over a pound was a hanging offense. ”
“So what did you do?”
“The only thing I could. ” He shrugged with defeat and obvious frustration. “I gave up the purse and let him charge me with mendicancy. My sentence was a month in Bridewell. I couldn’t even send word. And during that month, my mother took ill again. Perhaps a doctor could have helped her, but I’d left her with no money …”
He broke off. Lily impatiently dabbed her tears with her sleeve. Julian’s eyes were moist and rimmed with red, but he refused to wipe them or even blink. As if ignoring the tears might make them go away. After a prolonged, stoic struggle on the brink of his lashes, one drop shook loose and plummeted to the counterpane.
Lily longed to embrace him, but she could tell he wasn’t finished speaking.
“I will never know,” he said at length, “what my mother thought of me when she died. I’d argued with her earlier that week. Over everything and nothing, much as we’d argued many times before. Just as any young man argues with his mother when he chafes against the leading strings. I was sorry for it. It was one reason I hoped to surprise her with a gift. But then I vanished, by all appearances having made off with her savings. I tried to get word to her, by sending a message with a boy released from jail the week after I arrived. But who knows if he relayed it, or even if he did, whether she was able to understand. ”
He inhaled deeply. When he continued, his manner was listless, resigned. “I have to live with it now. Knowing she may have gone to her grave believing I’d left her alone. That I didn’t care. ”
There was no stopping the tears now. Not his, not hers.
“Perhaps …” He stopped to swipe angrily at his eyes. When he continued, his signs were rich with pathos, tugging at her heart. “Perhaps the money could have saved her. Perhaps she would have battled harder against her illness, if she’d known the truth. What if she succumbed because she felt I’d abandoned her?”
“No,” Lily said firmly, not even bothering to sign. “I cannot believe that. ” Her beginner’s finger-spelling was too slow and clumsy for this. Besides, she needed to touch him.
She raised her hands to his face, wiping his tears with her thumbs. He wouldn’t look at her. “Your mother was so brave and strong. She sacrificed so much for you. A woman like that would never just … succumb. She would never lose faith in herself, or in you. ”
“Lily. ” His
features twisted with emotion. “Lily, no matter what happens, you must never doubt that I love you. ”
“I won’t. ” She kissed his brow. “Oh, darling. I could never. ”
“If something should happen to me—”
She clapped her hands over his, stopping him mid-sentence. His fear was palpable. She wasn’t sure she could vanquish it completely, and yet she had to try.
“If something should happen to you,” she began, “I would be inconsolable. Devastated. I would not want to go on. ” Her fingers tightened reflexively over his. She hated even talking this way, but she knew it was what he needed to hear. “I would not want to go on, but I would. After my illness, I learned to live without hearing. When Leo died, it was as if my right arm had been cleaved from my body. And yet I adapted, found a way to make do. ”
She leaned close and pressed her forehead to his. “If you were taken from me, I would feel as though I’d been cracked apart and a piece of my very soul removed. I would never be the same. But I would go on. For you, for our child. For myself. I am stronger than you know, Julian. Stronger than even I know. Life has proved this to me, time and again. ”
She spoke the words with certainty, determined to convince him. And as an unexpected benefit, Lily managed to convince herself.
They sat there together, legs crossed on the bed. Both leaning forward, her brow pressed to his. From the side, they must have resembled a gothic arch. But the space between their bodies was hardly empty. It seethed with passion and anguish and love and heated breath. As they slowly leaned in, the space grew smaller, compressing all that emotion into a tense, volatile coil, ready to spring.
They were breathing so hard. Almost in unison. Lily was sure she’d never been so fully aware of another person, another body, another soul in her life. And as one half of twins, that was saying something.
Want, he signed.
Or was it need? They were almost the same gesture, he’d taught her. A flick of the wrist, drawing the hand down the chest and then slightly away. The difference between “want” and “need” was subtle, and mostly in the intensity of expression.
He repeated the sign. Her breath caught.
Need. This was definitely need. I need.
And she knew exactly what it was he needed, because she needed it too.
Buttons. The next minute was all about buttons. The carved horn buttons on his waistcoat, the silk-covered buttons chasing down the back of her dress. The closures of his fall. True nakedness was an unattainable goal—for he still wore his boots, which meant his pantaloons were going nowhere below the knees. They had no patience for the knotted tapes of her stays, and so her corset and chemise remained on, as well.
But they were bared enough. Enough to kiss. Enough to taste. Enough to press skin to skin and feel each other’s heat, each other’s need.
He rolled atop her, hiked her shift, spread her thighs—and thrust home with no further preliminary. She was tight and not quite ready for him, but she didn’t complain. She knew how badly he needed this, to join with her. To feel surrounded and safe. To get inside.
She wrapped her legs over his hips, and he stroked harder, deeper, as though he would lose himself in her embrace. Or dig a trench for them both in the mattress ticking, whichever came first. Moisture dripped from his brow, splashing her chest. Tears, sweat, or some mixture of both. His movements were desperate, tortured. Pained, and a bit painful, too.
She took it all, ignoring the sharp pinch of pain, wondering if he meant to test her resiliency by doing his devil’s best to break her apart.
Take this, he challenged with brutal digs of his hips. And this. And then more.
She would hold together. She could take whatever he gave. But she also had needs of her own, and truth be told, Lily was growing a bit weary of being the object of concern. If it was proof of her strength he desired …