The Problem with Seduction

Chapter Twenty-Three

ELIZABETH HAD SCANT HOURS until Constantine was to be moved from the Old Bailey back to Newgate, where he would be held until he could be taken to the hulks. She pushed her way through the crowded corridors until she found the bail dock. An armed warden hovered at the entrance. She paused before he could realize she was headed for him. She had to collect herself, or Constantine would never hear her apology.

Three months. It could easily have been longer. She ought to feel fortunate. But the thought of him imprisoned, held away from her in a horrible, cramped cargo that bobbed incessantly against the shore and stank of filth and human misery—she wiped the tears from her eyes and drew herself up as best she could. It was better than seven years’ transportation. Had he not been the brother of a marquis, she didn’t doubt he’d have received the harshest possible sentence.

She approached the warden. “I need to see my husband.”

The man grunted and looked her over. “Ten minutes,” he said, turning the key in the lock. “Keep your skirt down.”

She had no time to for a scathing reproof. Too, insulting as he’d meant it, she would gladly make love to Constantine if he asked. She didn’t imagine him asking. Even with his back to her when he’d stood at the bar, she’d recognized his anger and disappointment. Not just his—all of the Alexanders had hated her.

She would never forgive herself for subjecting them to public humiliation. Or for keeping a piece of vital information from them.

As for Con… If she were in his place, forgiveness would not be easy. Or, perhaps, possible.

A sob caught in her throat.

No. She couldn’t crumble, as she’d done so many times before. She’d let her father bar her from her family. She’d let Captain Moore leave her. She’d let Nicholas cast her out. She couldn’t keep giving up. Con was her husband.

She’d never give up.

She entered the bail dock. Three men besides Con awaited their fate here. They regarded her with glazed, fearful expressions. The same look she’d seen on Con’s face when he’d entered the courtroom.

He sat on a bench with his elbows braced on the table, his hands clasped and pressed to his forehead. Her heart went out to him. She’d done this. She took a step in his direction.

He looked up, and the venom in his eyes made her recoil.

“Guilt doesn’t become you, Elizabeth.” He rested his hands on the tabletop. He didn’t move to rise. As if he preferred having the table between them. She was almost afraid of him, and the hateful way he looked at her. “How long did you know?”

She didn’t want to admit how long she’d deceived him, yet he deserved to have the truth even if she couldn’t go back and do things differently. She hugged herself. “A week.” She hated the fact that she was guilty. She had no defense for her decision, aside from her terror he’d leave her. A conviction that now felt ridiculous in light of everything he’d done for her.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice broke as she choked back a sob. If only she’d known how it would all turn out, she would never have kept the letter from him.

The crease between his brows deepened. His blue eyes looked at her with incredulity. “I do hope you have more to say than that.”

She went to the table and seated herself across from him. The wooden slats smelled of mold and a rent sounded at her hem, but she hardly noticed. She reached and placed her hands over her husband’s. He yanked his hands back, then folded his arms across his chest. “Well?” he demanded. “What have you to say?”

She swallowed. How to explain when she had no excuse? None that withstood the test of time. “I meant to tell you,” she said feebly. “I planned to tell you, after you proposed. I wasn’t keeping it from you on purpose—” She pressed her lips together lest she lie to him again. “I did keep it from you. I felt I had to. I didn’t know you were going to propose. You’d just been arrested on my account. I thought you’d surely leave, and we’d never see you again, and I’d lose my baby and you both, all at the same time…” She bent her face into her hands because she couldn’t stand the stony expression on his face. “I couldn’t lose either of you. Not again.”

She took several deep breaths. Then she wiped her eyes and looked up. Con gave no appearance of softening toward her. He said nothing, silently seething, and watching her with those hard blue eyes. “You didn’t trust me.”

“How could I?” Her voice broke at the hurt that flashed across his face. “I should have. I should have. I didn’t know you would propose. How could I think you would? I’ve given you no reason to believe I’d bring you anything but trouble.”

He offered her no comfort. She didn’t deserve any. She was the worst possible wife, one who deceived her husband. Not at all the partner she wanted to be. Her shame caused her to ramble, as if the reasons tumbling from her could ever explain how frightened she’d been, or how wrong she felt now. “I didn’t think you’d want to marry me. I didn’t think you’d stay. But when you did, I wanted to tell you. So that—this—wouldn’t happen. Then you were set upon, and Lord Bart told me not to upset you—”

“He knew?” The words ripped from Con. Anguish darkened his eyes.

“No! No, he just warned me to be good to you.” Even that sounded foolish to her ears. She tried again, realizing too late what Lord Bart had meant for her to do. “It was my own perverseness that confused what he meant. I thought he wanted me to keep you from any notion of my perfidious nature, but in retrospect it was a warning. He and Montborne…” She looked at Con. “They have a sense of who I was. If I’d done anything to wrong you, he wanted me to tell you so we could start anew, with no deceit between us. I should have. I’m not that person anymore, Constantine. I love you. I would never want to hurt you.”

He looked away.

She glanced around the holding area and saw nothing but gray stone and the despondent faces of the other prisoners. She turned back to Con, redoubling her efforts to convince him of her earnestness. “Even if Montborne had come into a fortune a week ago, he wouldn’t have wanted to give Lord Darius a shilling. You would still have been set upon. We would still be facing this trial, because my father has been ruthless in proving to me just how little he cares for me. If I’d have told you about the letter, it wouldn’t have changed anything.”

He slammed his fist on the table. His eyes were cold steel. “It would have changed me.”

The guard entered the bail dock. “Time.”

She looked back to her husband. Her empty fingers scrabbled at the rotted boards. She wouldn’t see him again for months. They couldn’t end things like this. She wasn’t even sure what this was. “I regret what I did. Constantine, look at me. I wanted to trust you, but I was scared. I would give anything to make it right. But I don’t regret our marriage. I can’t.” She reached toward him. Her fingers curled around air. “I love you. You are the only man I know who would have done what you just did.”

“Stupidity,” he ground out. His gaze stayed on her. He watched her hungrily, even as his body and his words kept her at arm’s length.

“Bravery. Kindness. You,” she stretched her hand toward him again, “you have become everything to me. Without you, I have nothing.”

He glared at her. “I wish you would have thought of that before you decided to turn my life into your own personal drama. We’re through, Elizabeth. I cannot be married to a woman who would so thoroughly use me for her own gain.”

Her stomach fell to the floor. She leaned forward, doubled over both by her belly cramping and by reaching for him at the same time. He couldn’t be serious. He was just angry—

“Our marriage is a lie.” He looked with disgust at her hand straining toward him. “It’s built on a lie. Any feelings you claim to have for me are a lie.”

She couldn’t help but cling to a thread of hope. He didn’t say his feelings for her were a lie.

“Time,” the guard said again, more forcefully. He tapped the glass face of his pocket watch for emphasis.

“Go home,” Constantine said. “There is nothing more you can do for me here.”

Elizabeth stared at him tearfully. Go home? Without her husband, or her son? To what end?

Con rose. Without a backward glance, he crossed the bail dock and sat down at a different table, his back to her. There was truly nothing more she could do here without distancing him even further.

How would she live with herself now?