They drove in silence another few seconds. “Her mistakes are not yours, Elsie.”
The words warmed her, or at least the sentiment did. “So you’ve said.”
“You were ignorant.”
“I was a pawn,” she corrected. “A very well-played one. But that doesn’t undo what I did.”
“Elsie—”
“It doesn’t matter now.” She tried to smile and kept her eyes ahead. “What’s done is done, and we must do our best to fix what we can. I doubt Duchess Morris will know where Merton is hiding, but perhaps she can help us understand her. Ogden is still searching, but he’s found nothing useful yet.”
Bacchus nodded. “He informed me about what happened at Juniper Down.”
Her stomach pinched, and the edge of the opus spell tucked in her bodice poked her as the victoria went over a bump.
“With the American?”
“Yes. He showed me his sketch, even.”
The charcoal drawing of the stranger who’d pointed a gun at her head. For a brief moment, she’d searched the man’s features, looking for anything familiar. Anything that might mark him as her father, and then the truth had become clear.
She hadn’t really spoken with anyone about that. Hadn’t written about it in a journal, hadn’t screamed it to the sky. Everything with the Cowls, with Ogden and Merton, with Nash, had unfurled so quickly. Her life had been jerked in a different direction, and she’d barely had a chance to mourn. “I thought he was my father. I mentioned that, didn’t I? And why I went . . . or did Ogden tell you? I got a notice from a family in Juniper Down that someone was looking for me. I thought it was my father, come back for me after all these years. It wasn’t.”
Bacchus’s hold on the reins slackened. “Elsie, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine—”
She shrugged and managed a strangled laugh. “Well, that’s life for you, isn’t it? It would make a very good novel, I think.”
The silence that fell between them was awkward. The overcast sky loosed a few drops onto the carriage roof, but perhaps saw that Elsie was miserable enough and held off the rest of its impending torrent.
Elsie took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
At the same time Bacchus said, “The duchess is beside herself—”
They both paused. The steady sound of the horses’ hooves cushioned them.
Bacchus recovered first. “What I mean is, I told the duke and duchess about the . . . engagement, of course. Their testimonies helped . . . with the magistrate.”
Elsie nodded. “Kind of them.”
“The duchess is beside herself with excitement.” He sighed. “She turned into a schoolmarm on me today as I was leaving.”
Elsie tried to imagine the refined Duchess of Kent in a black dress, a ruler tight in her hand. It made her smile. “Oh?”
“It’s only that”—he paused—“Elsie, I don’t want to sound insensitive—”
“I know you mean well, Bacchus. You always do.” She was tempted to touch his knee, perhaps his hand, but didn’t, and her lack of courage made her heart ache.
“She reminded me that an engagement dinner is traditionally thrown by the bride’s family.” Now Bacchus kept his eyes ahead, though the road was straight for a ways. “I had to inform her that that was not possible, in our case.”
Elsie said nothing.
“And so she insists on throwing it herself.”
“That’s . . . very kind of her. Although I don’t find it necessary.”
Bacchus leaned back against the bench. “Perhaps not, but it is tradition. That, and I would not be surprised if the magistrate were scrutinizing us.” He stopped talking abruptly and winced, but Elsie wasn’t sure if it was a reaction to what he’d said or the swaying of the victoria.
But it was a reminder. Their story wasn’t watertight, and the law was watching to ensure they carried through on the engagement. Bacchus either had to marry her or send her off to the gallows.
“If you don’t object,” Bacchus said after a moment, “I would like to post it in the paper as well.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
And then she laughed.
It was a strained, stupid laugh, and she snapped her mouth shut over it. Some of the pressure between her ribs alleviated, at least, even if she sounded a fool.
Bacchus glanced at her, the overcast sky making his eyes look like the sea. “You’ll have to explain the joke to me.”
She shook her head. Wished for a fan, but she hadn’t brought one. “I don’t know. I just . . . an announcement in the paper. It’s so official, isn’t it? Not at all like I’d thought.”
He was ruminating on that, Elsie could tell. She’d learned Bacchus got a certain stoic look to his eyes when he was thinking. “And how did you expect it would be?”
Elsie bit the inside of her cheek. Grabbed the bench on either side of her legs. “I don’t know. I didn’t think I’d ever marry . . . Well, except I almost did, once.”
“Almost?”
She shrunk, embarrassed. “That is . . . I thought I was going to be married before. To another fellow.”
He perked. “Oh? Who?”
“No one.” Alfred’s face popped into her head, grinning, but the grin melted into a sneer. She laughed again, but this time, it hurt. “Funny. The day I thought he was going to propose, he left me. Found a nice, wealthy widow to occupy his time. They’re married now. I saw them in town the other day.”
“Elsie . . .”
“I’m just a carousel of pity, aren’t I?” She straightened, smoothed her dress, adjusted her hat. “You’ll have to forgive me, Bacchus. Three days in a stone cell leaves a woman with too much time to think, and I haven’t quite recovered yet.” She cleared her throat. “I know your parents are deceased, but your mother’s family . . . will they be attending?” Bacchus had told her his parents weren’t married, that he was a bastard, but she wasn’t sure of his relationship with his mother.
“No. I hardly knew my mother. In truth, I’m not sure what Algarve relatives I even have.”
“Oh.” She rolled her lips together. “I really am making a mess of things, aren’t I?”
“No, Elsie.” He reached over and ran a thumb over her knee. “You’re not.”
She didn’t believe him, but she managed a tight smile, glad the carriage was dim enough not to reveal the heat that raced across her skin from his touch. He only meant to comfort, she knew, but he pulled away, and the vehicle felt colder for it. Then the rain started in earnest, and she was content with listening to its uneven patterns until they reached Duchess Matilda Morris’s estate.
CHAPTER 6
“It’s rather unexpected,” Duchess Morris said as her maid handed her a cup of tea, “but I am formally trained, of course. I know the atheneums do a poor job at upholding the bounds of propriety.”
Duchess Morris’s parlor was large and bright, full windows letting in gray, rain-choked light. On one wall hung an enormous portrait of the duchess herself, and on the opposite wall hung a markedly smaller portrait of an older man Elsie assumed to be her husband. The floor and fireplace were marble, the drapes and carpets navy, the ceiling painted with fleur-de-lis. Duchess Morris sat in an elaborate armchair, while Elsie and Bacchus occupied a stiff velvet sofa. Elsie had worn her best dress today, but it didn’t feel fancy enough in this posh house.