The Solemn Bell(27)

Even if he could find a way to forgive her, Brody couldn’t watch Angelica’s body swell with another man’s child. Someone would have to keep the brat in nappies and formula, and eventually, short trousers and school tuitions. Someone would have to see it settled in the world. Who, when the mother did not even know the father’s name?

Brody knew who. If he—fool that he was—took Angelica back, he would be responsible for her baby. He did not want to be a father, but knew Angelica, with her fear of the asylum, would never willingly give her child to an institution. Truly, the idea of sending it to an orphanage did not sit right with him, either.

He had the rough outline of a plan, but hadn’t given it much thought beyond seeing Angelica safe, clothed, and fed. When he showed up with her tomorrow, his parents would have questions. Brody would not have answers. At least not any truthful ones. But he could pretend for the next few days that she was his sweetheart, and, when the two of them parted ways afterward, he’d simply tell his family that he’d called it off.

It would be a sad, yet tidy end for a relationship that had began with so much promise. He’d loved her. Put her on a pedestal and worshipped her. When the withdrawal symptoms had wracked his body, Brody called for her—the way other men in his ward cried for their mothers. Through the electric shocks, ice baths, and experimental treatments, he conjured her face for comfort. For one hundred and twenty days, she had been everything to him. How would he ever find the strength to make her nothing to him now?





CHAPTER TWENTY





Angelica Grey was no longer the innocent shadow-angel he’d come to love. Dressed in a straight, black coat with a band of grey fur at the collar, she stepped out of the salon a new woman.

Her hair, cut shoulder length, had bounce and a slight curl. It framed her face, accentuating her high brow and impossibly blue eyes. She looked somehow younger, and yet, more mature. As if she’d blossomed from child to woman in a matter of hours.

Save those eyes, Brody would not have recognized her.

He walked at her elbow, stealing glances at her as they strolled toward their hotel. She was so damned beautiful that he was the one bumping into pedestrians on the pavement. He could not tear his gaze away.

“I…er…bought you a toothbrush and shampoo at the chemist’s,” he said, clumsily trying to string words into a sentence. “You can use my toothpowder, if you like.”

She stared straight ahead. “Thank you.”

He’d also bought a tin of condoms, though he kept that to himself. Angelica would find out soon enough—he was going to leave her at the hotel tonight, and engage the first street-corner girl he found. When he used one up, he would fill another, and another, until he didn’t care about Angelica Grey anymore.

Afterward, he’d tumble into their room, reeking of gin and strange women, and tell her every filthy thing he’d done. She’d be shocked. Hopefully, she’d be a little bit jealous. Angelica deserved a taste of her own medicine. It was the only way to proceed.

Staring at her now, Brody was glad he’d bought the sheaths. If he had sketched a woman from his dreams, he could not have created a more perfect mate. She was unique, wondrous. Monstrous. Her beauty was a weapon, aimed at his chest. Her touch was a needle, poised over his vein. One smile from her would wreck him. A kiss would surely kill him.

This new Angelica Grey could bring an entire army of men to their knees—knowing her, she’d like to try.

“I want you,” Brody sputtered.

She nearly stumbled. “What?”

“I want you to wait here,” he corrected himself, “while I get us some dinner. Do you like fidget pie?”

She shook her head, confused. “What’s that?”

“Ham, apples, cheese, onion—it’s good. I can get us a bottle of cider and take it back to the room.” He steered Angelica away from the pavements, pressing her back against the timbered wall of a pie shop that, thankfully, existed on nearly every street in Britain. Otherwise, he would have looked like an ass. “Do not move from this spot. Do not speak to anyone. I will be right back.”

He pushed into the pie shop, anxiously queued, and ordered two slices of fidget pie and a bottle of Bulmer’s to take away. Only when he finally reached the pavement where Angelica stood, was Brody able to breathe easy. She seemed all right, though, and only moderately terrified to be left alone.

“You’re getting frightfully good at that,” he said, frowning.

She turned her blank gaze in his direction. “At what?”

“Independence.”

Angelica quirked up a smile, but said nothing.

Together, they walked to their hotel. Brody carried their dinner, while she hung close to his side. In another life, he would have held her hand, but every time she bumped his shoulder scorched him. He couldn’t touch her. The more distance they put between their bodies, the better off they’d be in the end.

Brody held the door open for her, and helped her inside. He had spent many fevered nights wondering what it would be like to take Angelica out in public. To be seen with her on the street or in the shops. To meet friends, and introduce them all to the woman he loved.

Part of him expected to see pity in their eyes when her blindness registered—it was natural to feel sorry for her—yet Brody never expected to find derision on the faces of the men in the lobby, or to catch the sneer on a woman’s lips as he passed her on the landing.