A Lady's Code of Misconduct (Rules for the Reckless #5)(2)

“Awake again!” With a dazzling smile, Charlotte drew the other girl forward. “I promised you, didn’t I? Look, Jane! I promised you.”

Charlotte was beaming, oblivious to her own lunacy in showing off her invalid brother like an animal at the zoo.

At least the other girl looked properly mortified. She stared at Crispin mutely, her great brown eyes seeming to plead with him, perhaps to save her from his family’s madness.

Crispin cast an amazed glance at his parents, waiting for them to scold Charlotte, to escort this stranger out.

But they said nothing. They looked grim, resigned. Indeed, his father’s expression was all too familiar—the tense, dour face of a man disappointed too often to be surprised by it. “We should give them a moment of privacy,” he muttered to Crispin’s mother, and then pushed and prodded the others toward the door.

Surely they were not serious! “Wait,” he said—but the door closed, leaving him alone with the stranger, who looked as miserable as he felt.

A strange fragment of laughter fell out of him. It made the girl flinch, for which he felt a flicker of regret, but really, what else was there to do but laugh? He had woken into a nightmare. The room changed, his parents changed. Only the main themes remained constant: their disapproval and disappointment. His inability to please them.

At least his brother hadn’t appeared to condemn him. “Madam,” he began awkwardly, but she interrupted him.

“Listen,” she said. “I know you must be confused. But I promise you, I can explain.”

He stared at her. She spoke as though they knew each other. He had never seen her before in his life. She did not look like the kind of fashionable, flashy beauty that Charlotte usually befriended. Her prettiness was quiet, easily overlooked. Her dark eyes held mossy hints of green and gold. The muted lilac and jet of her walking dress, the modest neckline and minimal trimming, could have passed for half mourning.

Yet she had offered to explain, and he would gladly take that offer. Besides, the resolute set of her square jaw, the levelness of her gaze, and her cool voice seemed . . . steadying. An air of authority surrounded her.

“Go ahead, then,” he said.

“Everyone thought you would die.”

Shock lashed through him. “How charming,” he said—aiming for dryness, failing with a cough.

“Your injuries were grave.” She sounded insistent, as though he had argued with her. “And you were . . . asleep . . . for five days. Nobody could help you. The doctors told your family not to hope.”

Her pause seemed to suggest that he would find this sufficient. “And? Go on.”

She opened her mouth, then seemed to falter. Her gaze broke from his to wander the room, a certain desperate haste to her survey, as though she were looking for something better to discuss.

But when she met his eyes again, she took a deep breath and said in a resigned tone, “And so I thought it a perfect solution. Besides, the archbishop had heard the rumors—he knew you weren’t expected to live.”

The archbishop? She was babbling. He felt exhausted again and leaned back into the pillows to close his eyes. This is a dream, he told himself. A nightmare, that’s all.

“Mr. Burke.” Her voice came from very close now. It shook. “Please. We can undo it. You mustn’t believe I meant to cross you!”

He opened his eyes and she flinched.

Why, this girl was afraid of him.

He struggled to hide how disturbed he was. He knew his family often believed the worst of him, but until now, he had not imagined the world did so as well. “Who are you?”

“Who am I? I’m . . . Are you joking?”

“My sense of humor is not so poor as that,” he said. “Who are you? How do you know me?”

The color drained from her face. “I . . .” Her lips opened and closed. “I’m Jane,” she said unsteadily. “And you . . .” Her indrawn breath sounded ragged. “You, Crispin, are my husband.”





CHAPTER TWO





Three months earlier

Bullies like her cousin had an animal instinct, a gift for sensing rebellion. Archibald had stolen Jane’s needlepoint six days ago. She had woken to find her embroidery frame empty, all the threads neatly sliced. Ten months of work, gone.

Jane could guess what had happened. Archie had got some new toy from the inventor, a marching monkey with bladed claws. After Archie set the monkey loose in the drawing room and left scratch marks on the furniture, Aunt Mary had furiously told him to put the machine to work on his own things.

Instead, he’d picked Jane’s.

Archie had the hobbies of a child raised by wolves—dangerous toys, mean pranks. But he was twenty-two years old, only ten months younger than Jane, and he wasn’t stupid. He would have paused to look at the embroidery after his monkey tore it free. He would have recognized the chance for a new lark.

For six days, then, Jane had waited for Archie’s ambush. But he bided his time until tonight, when company gathered at Marylebigh.

It was a frosty November evening, and a fire leapt in the great Jacobean hearth of the drawing room. Jane’s aunt sat nearby it with the Countess of Elborough and Archibald, while Uncle Philip gathered at a short remove with his political cronies—Lord Elborough and Crispin Burke, a Member of Parliament like her uncle.