“There is . . . one other caveat.” He nodded to a passing guard.
Elsie worried her lip, waiting for him to explain. When he didn’t, she pressed. “What?”
They reached the exterior doors and waited for two guards to open them. They passed through, and an invisible weight lifted from her. Everything felt cleaner and greener and more open. But Bacchus still didn’t answer. He escorted her over the grounds, short bursts of clover and gravel passing under their feet. A carriage Elsie recognized as the Duke of Kent’s waited down at the road, four black horses tethered to it.
Dread filled Elsie like tar. What had Bacchus given up to free her? Money? Lands? His mastership? What could it be?
This was it. Surely his silence was out of anger, or maybe distaste. Perhaps the worst had happened, and Bacchus had discovered her flaw—the quality that made her so distasteful to others—or the system had found it for him. This could be goodbye. She’d be free, but Bacchus . . .
Tears stung her eyes, and she forced them back. Don’t think about it. Just smile and nod, understand. Hold it in until you get home. Then Ogden can erase all of it. You won’t have to feel a thing. Just last a little longer . . .
She bit the inside of her cheek.
Bacchus’s steps slowed, stopped. He dropped her arm. Turned toward her. Elsie tried her best to look cheery and reposed, but found her acting skills had severely waned during her captivity.
He sighed. Gripped her shoulders, his warmth seeping through her sleeves, then suddenly let her go. A feeling of loss seized her. Would that be the last time he ever touched her?
In a voice too weak for her liking, she said, “Bacchus, you’re scaring me.”
He barked a chuckle. “That is my main concern, yes.”
Confused, she waited.
He drew a hand down his face. “I convinced the magistrate that I was a personal witness to your spellbreaking discovery. Because we’ve spent a lot of time together.”
Elsie blinked. “Nothing wrong with that.” It was true.
“Obviously I couldn’t discuss our work arrangement,” he went on. “The witness documents I turned in attest to our . . . courtship. From both the Duke and the Duchess of Kent and Miss Emmeline Pratt.”
She felt the heat work its way up her neck and to her cheeks. She desperately wanted to press her cool fingers to her face, yet such an action would draw Bacchus’s attention to the color. She cleared her throat. “Not so far-fetched.”
He glanced toward the carriage. It wasn’t so far-fetched . . . was it? Or did the idea of a master aspector courting the employee of a stonemason upset him? Her heart gave a quick, unpleasant thud just before he met her eyes once more.
“Elsie.” He looked so uncertain. “I had to sell it, you understand. Convince him of my motivation to be around you. He believes us to be engaged.”
Elsie’s lips parted.
“And.” He hesitated. “Expects to be invited to the wedding.”
She stared at him, again struggling to internalize what he was saying. Engaged? But they weren’t . . . but there was to be a wedding?
She would not faint. Only dramatic damsels fainted.
Bacchus continued, “He led me to believe that his suspicions remain. We must go through with it, Elsie. That is the only way to assuage his doubts.”
Elsie knew she was gawking, but she couldn’t stop herself.
Engaged.
Engaged?
Engaged to Bacchus Kelsey. Master Bacchus Kelsey.
Her numb lips stuttered, “You didn’t . . .” and stopped. You didn’t have to do that, she wanted to say, but he did have to do that if she wanted to walk away from this awful place. And he already had done it. For her.
He was throwing his life away for her.
Oh God, he must hate her.
Her face must have been something to see, for Bacchus notably withdrew into himself. “It won’t be terrible. I’ve already considered . . . We can stay in England, of course.”
“I . . . no. What I mean is . . .” She wrung her hands, searching for words. “I-I’m just surprised, is all. I didn’t expect—”
“Neither did I.”
A laugh escaped her mouth, a nervous sound born of nerves and uncertainty. She tried to reel it back in, but such a thing was impossible. Her stomach growled, and she pressed both hands to it.
“You did it,” she tried, unable to meet his eyes. “You said you’d get me out and you did.” Her organs twisted inside her. “But, Bacchus—”
“Let’s discuss it in the carriage,” he said softly, offering his arm.
Finding her wits, Elsie accepted it and let him lead her to the road.
Despite Bacchus’s suggestion, the carriage ride to Brookley was rather silent.
CHAPTER 5
Elsie came home to an empty house, unsure if Ogden was still looking for stolen opuses or attending to other business. At first, she assumed Emmeline was simply running errands, but when the maid did not return by nightfall, it became clear she must have left to stay with family or friends. And so Elsie locked up the dark stonemasonry shop and put herself in bed, pretending to sleep and doing a very poor job of it.
She was engaged. To Bacchus Kelsey. Engaged to be married.
And he hadn’t even proposed.
We’ll sort it out, Elsie, he’d said as the carriage pulled down Brookley’s high street, his Bajan accent soft. I promise.
But he’d seemed tense, so wrapped in thoughts they were suffocating him. Elsie didn’t know what she’d wanted him to feel, to say. That he was relieved? That he was actually madly in love with her? That made her laugh.
How funny it was, to have a man who had once nearly thrown her into prison sacrifice his happiness to keep her out of it.
Tears stung her vision, and she blinked them away. His happiness. Oh, she wanted Bacchus to be happy. So desperately. She recalled the utter glee that had encompassed him after she pulled that siphoning spell from his chest. How it had buoyed her. Made her feel wanted and important. She wanted him to be like that always.
But this arrangement had practically put the spell back onto him, hadn’t it? Elsie would eat up his time, his energy, his money, as any unwanted spouse would.
Rolling over, Elsie pressed her face into her pillow and moaned. How blissful this engagement would have been if it had come about differently. If she’d never been arrested and he’d stayed in England for the want of her and they’d courted in the way a man and a woman were supposed to, without secrets and murderers looming in the background. Yes, Elsie was willing to admit that in that other, perfect scenario, it would be joy keeping her awake. Excitement.
“You’ll have to make the best of it,” she said into the pillow. “Make him regret it as little as possible. Be the best forced spouse you can be.”
And the magistrate might yet lose interest. For all they knew, Bacchus could be let off the hook.
It bothered her how much that thought seared, like she’d swallowed a hot poker.
God help her, she’d be miserable if he stayed, and miserable if he left. The most logical thing to do was to prepare for the pain now. The worst thing about tragedy was being surprised by it. She simply wouldn’t let it catch her unawares this time. Not like it had with her family, with Alfred, or with the mysterious American man she’d thought, however briefly, was her long-lost father.