Twenty-Six

Cora had never been to a demonstration before. The excitement in the air was palpable, as was the underlying sense of danger. Gaslight lamps lit the space, insulating the group of fifty or so protesters, but it also made the night beyond seem much darker. No one mentioned it, but the danger was there nonetheless in the forbidding faces of the men garbed in black who stood guard at the edge of the green space. The men were there to keep them safe in case someone decided to attack again. Thank God no one had . . . yet.

Several men, and a few women, in the crowd of passersby called out rude comments, but no one assaulted them as they carried their signs printed in red and blue around Parliament Square. There were two dodgy-looking characters who watched from the corner of a building. She’d look up and see them, a tall, thin man and a shorter, rounder one, both with dark hair and endlessly smoking cigarettes, and they would be staring back. She ignored them and instead focused on the importance of the evening.

The Palace of Westminster loomed in the distance where the men of both houses, including her husband, were debating the rights of women to retain control of the assets they brought into marriage. It seemed like such a simple idea, but the bill had come before Parliament in the past and been roundly defeated. Too many were afraid that giving way to this one thing would open the floodgates to more rights and eventually women’s suffrage. They were right. Everyone believed it was one small step in correcting a long line of wrongs.

Near the end—the big vote would take place tomorrow when they would find out how much further they needed to go to reach their ultimate goal—Mrs. Burgess pulled her aside. “Lady Devonworth, I wanted to personally thank you for joining us tonight.”

Her husband’s influence was at work again and he wasn’t even here. Cora smiled. “It is I who should thank you, Mrs. Burgess. The work you do is important to women and children all across Britain.”

The woman nodded gratefully, but she was preoccupied. With a gentle hand on Cora’s arm, she led her farther from the green, where everyone was beginning to load the signs and themselves into wagons and carriages. “I would never presume to come between a husband and wife, but I wondered . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she glanced over Cora’s shoulder to the palace in the background, its windows alight with orange. “Forgive me, but Lord Devonworth has some influence, and I wondered if . . . if he . . .”

“He’s very sympathetic to women’s rights,” she announced proudly.

They hadn’t explicitly discussed it since the night of their marriage negotiation, but he was a good and fair man. It was that as much as his good looks that had won her over. Okay, maybe the good looks had a head start, but she was half in love with him because of the strength of his character.

Mrs. Burgess’s face relaxed somewhat, though it was difficult to say, because she always carried herself very sternly. “Yes, yes, I assumed so, my lady. Perhaps you might convince him to join our cause, officially, in the coming months. Even in the event the bill passes tomorrow, it is but one stop on our journey. There will be several more before we reach our destination, and his support could go a long way.”

Cora had never thought of asking him to join LSS. It had never even occurred to her. Would he? He was busy with his work, but it couldn’t hurt to ask him. She agreed and then hurried off to find August, who would be dropping her off at the mews behind her home. Devonworth hadn’t wanted her coming to this, and hoping to avoid a confrontation about it, she had decided not to take the carriage out. She would use the servants’ entrance, and he would be none the wiser unless he asked her about it later. She wouldn’t lie to him, but there would be nothing he could do about it at that point.

Twenty minutes later, she knocked on the kitchen door. Mrs. Anderson had been expecting her and let her in right away. “There you are. Welcome home, milady.” Her face showed her relief as she quickly ushered Cora through the maze of corridors downstairs. She had been complicit in Cora’s minor subterfuge.

“Is his lordship home yet?”

“Not yet, but he is expected any moment.” Mrs. Anderson followed behind her up the stairs to the main floor. “I would suggest you get to your bedroom as quickly as possible, milady. It wouldn’t do for him to suspect a thing.”

Cora agreed. Things had been going well for them lately. His rejection still smarted, but they managed not to discuss that. She appreciated the way he had tried to intervene with Mr. Hathaway. Also, her letter to the editor had been printed yesterday, a fact she had not mentioned to him. She didn’t think the pseudonym would ever come to light, but if it did, she wanted to keep things good between them.

“I understand,” she said when they reached the main floor. “Take my things and I’ll hurry up the back stairs.” She shrugged out of her cape and handed off her gloves.

“Yes, milady. I’ll send Miss Monroe up soon. She’s finishing her supper.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Anderson.”

Cora hurried into the corridor, intending to turn up the servants’ stairs, but muffled male voices caught her ear. Damn! It sounded like her husband talking to Edgecomb. He must have just walked in the front door. She waited in the small alcove near the stairs wondering what to do. The stairs shared a hallway. Even if she missed him downstairs, she ran the risk of running into him in the hallway upstairs. Even though she had relinquished her outerwear to Mrs. Anderson, the dress she wore was not one she would wear for an evening at home. She still wore her boots, the high, serviceable ones she reserved for rainy days. He would know what she had been up to the moment he saw her.

The voices faded. She hoped that meant he had gone to the drawing room. He sometimes did that when he came home, to get a drink. She peeked out of the little alcove and had the extraordinarily bad luck of locking eyes with him. He stood just past the foot of the front stairs as if he were walking down the corridor toward her.

Her heart jumped into her throat. His eyebrows rose in surprise, then the skin between them creased, which was followed by a full-blown mask of fury that crept over his entire face. He knew. He knew and he was angry. She didn’t give herself time to think about it. She flew out of the alcove and turned the corner to the servants’ stairwell. Holding her skirt up off the floor, she took the steps two at a time. He must have started running, too. She could hear his heavy footfalls echoing through the house.

She burst out of the stairwell on the first floor only to see he had been faster than her. He had taken the front stairs and was already halfway down the upstairs corridor coming toward her. She squeaked in surprise.

“Cora!” His voice was full of the authority she imagined him using on the floor of Lords. It sent a shiver of fear and something equally pleasant and disturbing in a completely different way coursing through her.

Instead of waiting, it only spurred her forward across the hall and into her bedroom where she slammed the door behind her. She let out a breath of relief when she turned the key in the lock. Safe at last. Only she wasn’t, and she realized a moment later that the door to the bathing chamber stood open. She cursed and hurried to it, but it was too late. His footfalls echoed on the tile floor, and he reached the door at the same time she did. Only the door opened into her room, so he had the advantage. She turned to run back to the door that led to the corridor, and he slammed the bathing chamber door, trapping himself in here with her.

“Do not open that door.” He didn’t yell, but his voice was commanding nonetheless. She glanced at him over her shoulder as she fiddled with the key, her fingers too clumsy and wired with energy to turn it properly. “I have never taken you for a coward,” he added, the insult settling around her as he no doubt knew that it would.

She whirled to face him, her shoulders pressed to the door. “I am no coward,” she spit out.

“Then answer for what you’ve done instead of running.” His breaths were heavy as if he’d run a race.

“What have I done?” She put her chin up. She wasn’t a complete idiot. There was no use in answering for anything if he didn’t know.

“You went to that demonstration after I told you not to.”

“Yes, I went. I went because I am a member of the Society. We were letting our voices be heard to bring personhood to married women.”

He stared at her, his jaw rigid with anger. “But I forbade you to go.”

“You forbade me?” She drew herself up and took a few steps toward him. “Why on earth did you think such a thing would work? I am not yours to forbid or to grant permission to.”

He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, leaving it mussed and quite attractive for it. She liked it when he was ruffled, his polish gone. Only now she was too angry to properly appreciate the effect.

“You are my wife. It is for me to keep you safe.”

“That’s right. I am your wife, not your property. It isn’t up to you to keep me safe. You can provide me with protection, but ultimately, I am my own person. You cannot keep me locked away.”

“I don’t want to keep you locked away. I merely asked you not to go. People were injured at the last one. I did not want to be concerned about your safety.”

“Well, you weren’t concerned about my safety because you didn’t even know I was there.”

He literally growled at her and turned away, stalking to the far corner of the room. “That’s not helpful,” he said.

He turned to face her, and the fury in his eyes had changed subtly. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but it was simmering there below the surface. She understood then that he wasn’t simply angry that she had disobeyed him. He was frustrated that he couldn’t have helped her had she needed him. He cared about her.

“Leo.” He jerked his head to the left to look out the window. Her indignation slipped away from her as she approached him. “I know that you were only concerned for me. You didn’t mean to sound like a dictator.”

She came to a stop next to him, but he didn’t seem inclined to acknowledge her. Instead, his brows lowered over his eyes and he kept his gaze fixed on something outside her window. She touched his arm to bring him back to her. He immediately looked at her hand before meeting her gaze. “If anything happens to you on my watch . . . I don’t know what I would do . . .”

She smiled to break the sudden tension. Butterflies swirled in her stomach, but she kept her voice light as she said, “You’d be able to keep all the money.”

His expression shattered. “I don’t want your money.” His whispered voice was raw and filled with an ache that twisted her inside. “I want you, Cora. To be safe, to be happy . . . to be loved.”

The liquid emerald of his eyes shimmered down at her and she was lost. Before she could even understand her intention, she leaned into him and pressed up onto her toes. He met her halfway, his lips crushing hers, and she was lost in his kiss. She wanted to be loved. By him. His tongue pushed into her mouth, stroking against her own and sending a delicious shiver down her spine. Her body lit up, just like it had on the weekend when he had touched her in her room.

Her hands moved up his arms to his shoulders, but he grabbed her upper arms and pushed her away. It was only an inch, but it might have been a mile for all the space between them.

“No, Cora.”

She hated how he kept doing this. “I’m not your plaything, Leo. You can’t take your fill and then push me away when you’ve had enough.”

“My plaything? You think I’ve had enough?” He brought his face down to hers so they were nose to nose. “I haven’t had nearly enough of you.”

She knew she was playing with fire, and for once she wanted to get burned. If he had his way, they would keep playing this game. She would walk through the flames of hell before she would go through her whole life not knowing what it meant to be with him. What if no one else could ever make her feel like he did? What if they were missing something really special because she had entered this marriage already looking for a way out, and he was too stubborn to ask for what he wanted?

“No? Then maybe you’re the coward.”