“So you gave them the choice of entertaining us or facing financial ruin?”
“I wasn't quite that blunt.”
“Oh, Zachary, what a pirate you are!”
He grinned at her disapproving expression. “Thank you.”
“That was not intended as praise! I suspect if someone were drowning in quicksand, you would extort all manner of promises before throwing him a rope.”
He shrugged philosophically. “My sweet, that's the entire point of having the rope.”
As it happened, they did attend the weekend party, and were received by the ton with a sort of grim courtesy that made one thing clear: They were not exactly welcome, but neither were they going to be excluded. Zachary's prediction had been correct. He had countless financial affiliations with ambitious peers who owed him favors—they would not dare to risk his wrath. A man could have fine heritage and a great deal of land, but if he had no money to maintain his estate and his lifestyle, he was eventually bound to lose everything. As the economy lurched slowly away from its agrarian roots, too many impoverished aristocrats had been forced to sell their property and ancient holdings for want of cash, and no associate of Zachary Bronson's cared to find himself in such a position.
There was a time when Holly might have been distressed by the cool reception her former friends gave her, but she was surprised to find that now it did not matter to her at all. She knew the things that were being said about her: that she had been Zachary Bronson's paramour before their marriage, that the wedding had taken place as a result of pregnancy, that she had married him for mercenary reasons, that she had been brought low by association with a family of bad blood. But gossip and social disapproval and the taint of scandal affected her no more than harmless darts flung against a suit of armor. She had never felt so secure, so cherished and loved, and it seemed that her happiness only grew each day.
To her relief, Zachary had slowed the reckless pace of his life, and although he was still constantly busy, his relentless energy did not exhaust her as she had once feared. Even Paula had remarked on the change in him, pleased that he now usually slept eight hours instead of five, and that he spent his evenings home instead of carousing in town. For years he had gone through life as if it were a battle, and now he had begun to regard the world around him with a new sense of comfortable ease.
Zachary drank less and spent fewer hours indoors poring over contracts and figures, choosing instead to spend afternoons accompanying Holly and Rose on picnics or open carriage rides. He purchased a handsome yacht for them to enjoy at water parties, escorted them to pantomimes at Drury Lane and bought a seaside “cottage” with a dozen bedrooms at Brighton for summertime trips to the shore. When friends joked about what a family man he had become, Zachary only smiled and replied that he found no greater enjoyment than spending time in the presence of his wife and daughter. Upper society was clearly puzzled by his behavior. It was generally considered unmanly to dote so openly on one's wife, not to mention a child, and yet no one dared make a critical comment in Zachary's presence. His attitude was written off as yet another of his many idiosyncracies. Holly herself was surprised by the extent of his devotion, but she couldn't help feeling a twinge of pleasure at the obvious jealousy of other women, who teasingly asked what magic potion she had employed to keep her husband so enthralled.
Often Zachary brought friends home for supper, and their table was filled with politicians, lawyers and wealthy merchants who were very different from the company Holly was accustomed to. They talked freely about money, trade, political issues, all the things that would never have been mentioned at aristocratic tables. These people were foreign to her, often rootless and rough-edged, and yet she found them fascinating.
“What a crowd of scoundrels,” she exclaimed to Zachary late one evening, after the last dinner guest had departed. She walked upstairs to their bedroom, while Zachary kept one arm loosely around her waist. “That Mr. Cromby and Mr. Whitton are barely fit for decent society.”
“I know.” Zachary lowered his head repentantly, but she caught his sudden grin. “Seeing them makes me realize how much I've changed since I met you.”
She let out a skeptical snort. “You, sir, are the biggest scoundrel of them all.”
“It's your job to reform me,” he replied lazily, stopping just one step beneath her so that their faces were level.
Holly linked her arms around his neck and kissed the end of his nose. “But I don't want to. I love you just as you are, wicked scoundrelly husband.”
He caught her mouth with his, kissing her deeply. “Just for that, I'm going to be especially wicked.” His lips roamed across her soft cheek and down to the edge of her jaw. “You'll have no gentleman in your bed tonight, milady.”
“In other words, a typical evening,” she mused, and gave a shriek of laughter as he suddenly tossed her over his shoulder and carried her up the stairs. “Zachary, put me down this very…oh, you barbarian, someone will see!” He carried her past a gaping housemaid, disregarding Holly's mortified pleas, and headed into his bedroom, where he proceeded to provoke and tease her for hours. He made her laugh, made her play and struggle and groan with pleasure. Afterward, when she was exhausted and sated, he made love to her with gentle tenderness, whispering to her in the darkness that he would love her for eternity. It humbled her to be loved so greatly, and she could not fathom why he thought her so special when she was so very ordinary. “There are very many women like me, you know,” she murmured as the morning approached, while she lay with her hair streaming across his neck and chest. “Women with my kind of upbringing, ones with older titles and nicer faces and figures.”
She felt him smile against her cheek. “What are you trying to say? That you'd rather I'd married someone else?”
“Of course not.” She tugged at a curl of his chest hair reprovingly. “It's just that I'm not the great prize you make me out to be. You could have gotten any woman that you had set your heart on.”
“In my entire life, there's only been you. You're every dream and wish and want I've ever had.” His hand played gently in her hair. “Mind you, I don't always like feeling this damn happy…It's a bit like king of the mountain.”
“Now that you've reached the top of the pile, you're afraid to be knocked off?” she asked perceptively.
“Something like that.”
Holly understood exactly how he felt. It was the very reason she had once refused to marry him, fearing the risk of losing something so precious, until the fear had stood squarely in the way of what she had most wanted. “Well, we won't like that way,” Holly murmured, kissing his bare shoulder. “We'll enjoy each moment to the fullest, and let the morrow take care of itself.”
Having taken an interest in one of the reform societies Zachary had donated to, Holly attended a meeting of the gentlewomen who had founded the group. As she learned more about the group, which was a children's aid society, she became enthusiastic about helping in ways other than merely donating money. The women in the society were busy organizing charity bazaars, lobbying for social legislation and founding new institutions to help care for the multitude of children who had been orphaned from recent epidemics of typhus and consumption. When it was decided to write a pamphlet describing the conditions of child labor in factories, Holly volunteered for a position on the committee. The next day, she and a half-dozen women went to visit a broom-making factory that had been deemed one of the worst offenders. Suspecting that Zachary would not approve of the factory visit, Holly decided not to mention it to him.
Although she had braced herself for an unpleasant sight, Holly found herself unprepared for the misery of the conditions at the factory. The place was filthy and poorly ventilated, with many children working who were clearly younger than the age of nine. Holly was moved to quiet anguish at the sight of the thin, wretched creatures with blank faces, their small hands moving in ceaseless tedious work, some of them missing fingers from accidents while using sharp knives to cut b
undles of straw. They were orphans, one of the adult workers explained, gathered from orphanages and moved to a narrow, dark dormitory next to the factory. They worked fourteen hours a day, sometimes longer, and in return for their relentless labor, they were given a minimum of food and clothing, and a few pence a day.
Gravely the women of the children's aid committee remained at the factory and asked questions until their presence was discovered by a manager. They were quickly ushered from the premises, but at that point they had already learned what they needed to know. Saddened by what she had seen, but filled with resolution, Holly returned home and wrote the committee's report to be presented to the society at the next meeting.
“Tired from the meeting?” Zachary asked at supper that night, his perceptive gaze noting the signs of strain on her face.
Holly nodded, feeling more than a little guilt about not telling him where she had been that day. However, she was fairly certain of his displeasure should he find out, and she reasoned privately that there was no need to confess.
Unfortunately, Zachary did find out about the factory visit the following day, not from Holly but from one of his friends whose wife had also gone. Unfortunately, the friend had also related that the factory was in a particularly unsavory part of town, surrounded by streets with names like “Bitch Alley,” “Dead Man's Yard” and “Maidenhead Lane.”
Zachary's reaction astonished Holly. He cornered her the very moment he arrived home, and she realized with a sinking heart that he was not merely displeased. He was irate. He strove to keep his voice controlled, but it actually shook with fury as he forced words through his clenched teeth. “Dammit, Holly, I'd never have believed you'd do something so harebrained. Do you understand that the building could have collapsed around you and those henwits? I know what condition those places are in, and I wouldn't let a dog of mine venture past the threshold, much less my wife. And the men—good God, when I think of the low-living bastards who were in your vicinity, it makes my blood curdle! Sailors and drunkards on every corner—do you know what would happen if one of them took it into his head to snap up a little treat like you?” As the thought seemed to temporarily render him incapable of speech, Holly took the opportunity to defend herself.
“I was with companions, and—”
“Ladies,” he said savagely. “Armed with umbrellas, no doubt. Just what do you think they would have been able to do, had you met with bad company?”
“The few men we encountered in the neighborhood were harmless,” Holly argued. “In fact, it was the very same place you lived in during your childhood, and those men were no different from you—”
“In those days, I'd have played merry hell with you, if I'd managed to get my hands on you,” he said harshly. “Have no illusions, milady…you'd have ended face-to-the wall in Maidenhead Lane with your skirts around your waist. The only wonder is that you didn't meet that fate with some randy sailor yesterday.”
“You're exaggerating,” Holly said defensively, but that only roused his temper to a higher pitch.
He continued to blister her ears with a lecture that was furious and insulting by turns, naming the various diseases she could have contracted and the vermin she had likely encountered, until Holly couldn't bear another word.
“I've heard enough,” she cried hotly. “It's clear to me that I'm not to make a single decision without asking your permission first—I'm to be treated as a child, and you will act as a dictator.” The accusation was unfair, and she knew it, but she was too incensed to care.
Suddenly his fury seemed to evaporate, and he stared at her with an inscrutable gaze. A long moment passed before he spoke again. “You wouldn't have taken Rose to such a place, would you?”
“Of course not! But she is a little girl, and I'm—”
“My life,” he interrupted quietly. “You're my entire life. If anything ever happens to you, Holly, there is nothing left for me.”
Suddenly his words made her feel small and petty and, as he had accused, irresponsible. And yet her intentions had truly been good. On the other hand, she had known that visiting the factory had not been the wisest thing to do, or she wouldn't have tried to keep it secret from him. Swallowing back further arguments, she stared at a fixed point on the wall with an unhappy frown.
She heard Zachary swear beneath his breath, the ugliness of the word causing her to wince. “I won't say another word if you'll make me a promise.”
“Yes?” she said warily.
“From now on, don't go anywhere that you wouldn't feel perfectly safe taking Rose. Unless I'm with you.”
“I suppose that's not unreasonable,” she said grudgingly. “Very well, I promise.”
Zachary nodded shortly, his mouth set in a grim line. It occurred to Holly that this was the first time he had ever exerted his marital authority. Moreover, he had handled the situation far differently than George would have. George had set far greater limits for her, albeit in a gentler fashion. In the same circumstances, George would undoubtedly have asked her to leave the committee altogether. True ladies, he would have pointed out, did little more than carry baskets of jellies and soups to the poor, or perhaps contribute a bit of needlework to a bazaar. Zachary, for all his fire and thunder, actually asked very little of her in the way of wifely obedience. “I am sorry,” she brought herself to say stiffly. “I didn't mean to worry you.”
He accepted the apology with a single nod. “You didn't worry me,” he muttered. “When I realized what you'd done, it scared the living hell out of me.”
Although their quarrel was made up and the atmosphere became easier, Holly was aware of a certain constraint between them that lasted through dinner and afterward. For the first time in their marriage, Zachary did not come to her bed at night. She had a restless sleep, tossing and turning, waking frequently to realize that she was alone. In the morning she was frustrated and bleary-eyed, and to compound her discontent, she discovered that Zachary had already left the house for his offices in town. It was difficult to summon her usual vitality during the day, and the thought of food was singularly unappealing. After consulting a looking glass to view her own fatigued appearance, Holly groaned and wondered if Zachary had been right, that she might indeed have caught some sort of illness during her factory visit.
She napped late in the day, pulling the curtains closed in her room to block out all trace of light. After sinking into an exhausted slumber, she awoke to find Zachary's outline near her as he occupied a bedside chair.
“Wh-what time is it?” she asked groggily, struggling to rise to her elbows.
“Half-past seven.”
Realizing she had slept longer than she had intended, Holly made an apologetic sound. “Did I make everyone late for supper?…Oh, I must have—”
Zachary hushed her softly, moving over her, pressing her back to the pillows. “Megrims?” he murmured quietly.
She shook her head. “No, I was only tired. I didn't sleep well last night. I wanted you…that is…wanted your company…”
He laughed softly at her awkward admission. Straightening, he unbuttoned his waistcoat and dropped it to the floor, then tugged at his necktie. The low, vibrant sound of his voice in the darkness seemed to gather and tickle at the top of her spine. “We'll have supper sent up for you.” The white banner of his shirt fluttered from view as it, too, was cast to the floor. “In a little while,” he added, and shed the rest of his clothes to join her in bed.
Over the course of the next fortnight, Holly was aware of not quite being herself, the fatigue having settled deep in her marrow and refusing to leave no matter how much she slept. Retaining her usual good humor took a great deal of effort, and late in the day she often felt irritable or melancholy. Her weight began to drop, which she rather liked at first, but unfortunately her eyes had begun to take on a sunken aspect that was not at all pleasing. A family doctor was sent for, but he was unable to find anything wrong with her.
Zachary treated her with extreme gentleness and pa
tience, bringing her gifts of sweets and novels and amusing engravings. When it became clear that she no longer had the stamina for lovemaking, despite her willingness, he settled for other intimacies, spending the evenings bathing her, rubbing scented cream into her dry skin, cuddling and kissing her as if she were a treasured child. Another doctor was sent for, and then another, but neither had been able to come up with a diagnosis other than “decline,” the word all physicians used when they were unable to identify an illness.
“I don't know why I'm so weary,” Holly exclaimed fretfully one evening, while Zachary brushed her long hair as they sat before the fire. The air was warm—stifling, almost—but she felt chilled in all her limbs. “There's no reason for this decline—I've always been perfectly healthy, and nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”
The motion of the brush paused, then resumed its gentle stroke. “I think you're over the worst of it now,” came his soft voice. “You seem a little better today.” While he brushed her hair, he made a hundred promises of all the things they would do when she was well again: the places they would travel, the exotic pleasures he would show her. She fell asleep in his lap with a smile curving her lips, her head resting heavily in the crook of his arm.
The next morning, however, she was much worse, her body quivering and light and burning hot, as if every part of her had been transmuted from flesh to flame. She was only vaguely aware of voices, of Zachary's gentle hand on her head and Paula's light cool fingers moving a cool rag over her scorching skin. It seemed that if that gentle cooling stroke ever ceased, she would not be able to bear the heat that would surely overtake her. She heard herself whispering words that made no sense, then some moments everything was clear enough that she could speak. “Help me, Mother…don't stop, please…”