What Happened at Midnight(36)

“But—”

John folded his arms and looked at her. He simply looked—and she sighed, shaking her head, and stalked away.

That left the room at the public house empty except for the two of them. It was hardly private. They could hear the other guests in the main room, and the maids went past the door every few minutes. Still, for the moment, they were free from prying eyes. John walked up to Mary. He didn’t know what to say. She was here in Southampton…but then, she’d had business with Frost and Lawson. Perhaps she’d come only for that.

She was looking up at him, her eyes so clear and guileless that he didn’t know what to make of her.

And then, she stood on her tiptoes, set her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him so hard that he staggered back a pace and had to reach out a hand to steady himself against a wall. One breath to get his wits, the other to regain his balance, and a third to kiss her back as she deserved.

“Thank God,” he murmured against her lips. “I don’t know what I would have done without you. Promise you’ll let me make you into a respectable married lady.”

“No,” she said passionately, still kissing him. “Never.”

“Mary.” He pulled away from her, but she was smiling. She didn’t look as if she were refusing to marry him, and so he held out a hand to her.

She placed her fingers against his palm. “Not a lady,” she said. “A lady wouldn’t have gone to London and discovered the circumstances of the money. A lady doesn’t plot to help women get divorces. A lady doesn’t force her employer to pay wages by enlisting the help of a viscountess. I’ll never be a lady.” She smiled and squeezed his hand. “I think…I rather think I’m something better.”

He pulled on her hand. “And the rest of it?”

“I’m afraid I won’t help you with the respectable part, either. There was my precipitate departure from town. With Frost and Lawson going to trial, the details of my father’s embezzlement will come to light. And if that isn’t bad enough, before you arrived, I inquired at the public assembly hall. They’ve officially asked me to play the pianoforte. And”—This last came out quite defiantly—“They’re going to pay me two guineas a month.”

“I see.” But he didn’t. He was even more puzzled.

“I’m officially going to be paid for my labor. And I don’t intend to limit myself to playing at assemblies. That’s just a start. Respectable married ladies do not do such things, and so I refuse to be a respectable married lady.”

She hadn’t let go of him.

“I see,” he said again, with perhaps a little more understanding this time. “But that leaves married. What of that?”

“I will never be just your wife.”

“Why would you, when you have so much more you could be?”

He’d wanted her the moment he saw her. But the way he felt now, he was beyond want. She wouldn’t just be a beautiful possession to trot out to prove his luck to other fellows. Mary was more than a pretty picture to hang upon the wall and gaze at lovingly.

She was going to do amazing things. And he was going to help her do them.

“There’s only one way to be respectable.” She leaned her head against him. “But there are so, so many ways to be married. I think we’ll find a thousand variations on a theme of marriage, John. All of them magnificent. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

He kissed her, long and slow. And because that wasn’t enough, he kissed her a second time, and a third, and more, until he lost count of all their kisses, until a maid came into the room to clear away the dishes and gasped out loud at the sight.

And just to be sure that they’d caused a scandal, he kissed her again.

Epilogue

Forty years later, on the road to Doyle’s Grange

THE EXMOOR HILLS SHIMMERED on the horizon, indistinct in the morning haze.

It had not been so much of a struggle to climb the hill to Doyle’s Grange all those years ago. Now, Mary could feel the strain in her back, her hips. Nothing uncommon, just age taking its usual toll. But then, what age took, age returned. There was no need to hurry now. Doyle’s Grange wasn’t going anywhere, and they had all the time they wished to explore. She stopped at the rise just before the path dipped into the windbreak and turned to look around.

John squeezed her hand in his. “I’m not going too fast for you, am I?”

“No. Just my back again.”

They’d walked more than a mile from the railway station, but she hadn’t really felt the exercise until they’d reached the hill.

“That’s a shame.” He set his arm around her waist and pressed his fingers into the small of her back. After all these years, he didn’t need to ask where it hurt. He simply rubbed his thumb in a circle right where the tension had gathered, pushing lightly until the gathered pain began to dissipate.

“That’s nice,” she said. “It’s quiet here.”

In comparison, it was. There were no trolley cars, no sellers hawking oranges or flowers. There was only a farmer plowing a field off in the distance and a kestrel circling overhead. It was louder than it once had been—there’d been an actual stand of cabs waiting at West Aubry—but still quiet.

“Quiet is nice.” John smiled. “For now. It’ll be loud enough once we’re in Vienna.”