The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,54

misery in life did not mean she actually liked it.

This present misery, however, took the prize. She loved two people and they were both gone, one by death, the other by her own effort.

Still, she did not weep. She had done plenty of that three days earlier in her flat, in a hackney cab, in his arms, then in his bed. And it seemed, after all, that she was not really the sort of person to weep from sorrow, only in joy.

He did not call on her, and for that she applauded her newfound talent for writing utter falsehoods: that she had given it quite a lot of thought and, while she liked him, she did not like him quite enough to continue with him; that she had decided to move to America where her grandparents had known Important People who could make her a success in the printing business; and finally that if he sought her out again she would write to the Admiralty and tell them what she knew. Vile to write, the lies had obviously satisfied her purpose. Now he must dislike her excessively, which suited her plan no matter how wretched she felt.

Returning from halfway across town after a third endless day waiting in the employment agency to be interviewed—without success—she dragged her aching feet and heart up to her flat. The roses were in full, magnificent bloom, the whole place awash in glorious perfume. She had already given away so many to her neighbors they were beginning to think her a florist. Perhaps that could be her next post. She would look for signs in shop windows that read: Broken-Hearted Flower Girls Apply Within.

She went into her kitchen to make tea, and there were Minnie, Adela, Esme and Charlie, all in the tiny room.

“Good heavens, how are you here?”

“We walked over, of course,” Adela said.

“Sprout told us where you hide the key,” Esme said.

“I must find another hiding spot,” Elle mumbled. But she needn’t. Nobody would be visiting her grandmother here again. She was alone. It was her well-trodden path and inevitable, after all.

She had these caring friends, it was true; and for them she was deeply grateful.

“Elle,” Minnie said disapprovingly. “You have made a terrible blunder.”

Perhaps not so grateful. They could not possibly know what she had done, though. No one could. Not even the captain.

It had been wrong to open the seal and read the letter from Jane Park that she found buried under documents on his desk—by far the worst thing she had ever done. But such was her giddy post-love glow that she had assumed she would eventually be reading her lover’s correspondence aloud to him anyway.

She could not regret it, nor taking the letter home to burn. He needn’t ever know the contents of it: that in her husband’s personal effects Jane had discovered the captain’s secret, and that, starving and desperate and fearing for her children, she had sunk into such despair that she must now offer him only two choices. She would either write to the Admiralty detailing how her husband had gone beyond his regular duties in serving the captain of the Victory, and demand that they pay her a second, larger pension to make it right. Or Captain Masinter could stand by his offer to marry her. In the letter Jane had apologized to him—again and again in sweetly pious prose—but she said she had no other choice. Elle felt for the poor widow and her tiny children, and she suspected that under the circumstances she herself might do the same. Of course, she might simply ask him for a loan until she recouped her losses.

Or not.

One thing she had learned from adoring Jo Junior for years was that people did not always do what was in their own best interests.

On the other hand, it was definitely in Jane Park’s interests to marry a wealthy aristocrat. Under the circumstances, blackmail was understandable. Even more important than the blackmail, however, was that Elle knew the captain’s sense of responsibility and honor would not allow him happiness if Mrs. Park and her children suffered. Elle could not have borne that. Above all she wanted his happiness.

“What mistake?” she said to Minnie.

Charlie stepped forward. “You should not have given up so easily.” He proffered a letter. It was the stationery upon which Lady Justice sent messages to Brittle & Sons, with the name Gabrielle Flood above the address. “It arrived this morning.”

“What—What is it?” she said weakly.

“Read it,” Esme