Approaching Marriages in High Life.—A marriage is on the tapis between Mr Vaughan and Lady Mary Anne Gage, sister of Lord Kenmare. Viscount Palmerston, it is said, will shortly be united to the rich Mrs Thwaites.

      The Court Journal, Saturday 25 April 1835

      Marcelline stormed through the passage, past the stairs toward the back of the building, and through the open door into the workroom.

      She met chaos.

      Worktable covered with scraps of fabric, thimbles, thread, pincushions. Floor littered with debris. Chairs left where they’d been pushed out. It looked as though seamstresses had fled or been chased out.

      She didn’t have time or mind to wonder at it. She didn’t have time or mind to put two and two together. The state of the room was one more trial in a long, wearying day of biting her tongue and maintaining an even temper in the face of stupidity, rudeness, and ill-usage. A long day of crushing her own wants and giving all her energy to winning and pleasing.

      She’d deal with this latest aggravation later.

      Clevedon first.

      She turned to face him, bracing her hands against the edge of the disgracefully cluttered worktable.

      She took pride in the neatness and order of her shop, a stunning contrast to life in her parents’ household, or what had passed for a household. But it didn’t matter what he thought of the disarray, she told herself. How would he know the difference between how a workroom ought and ought not to be maintained? And what did he care?

      “You’re not to come here again,” she said. “Ever.”

      “That suits me,” he said. “This is the last place on earth I’d wish to be.”

      “You’re not to buy my daughter any more gifts,” she said.

      “Why did you think I would?”

      “Because she’s a conniving little minx who knows how to wrap men about her finger,” she said.

      “So like her mother,” he said.

      “Yes, I connived, and I wrapped you about my finger. But now I’m done with that. What did I ever want of you but your betrothed?”

      Liar, liar.

      “We’re not betrothed,” he said, “thanks to you.”

      “Thanks to me?” she said with a mocking laugh. Mocking him. Mocking herself. “You’re not betrothed because of you. Why didn’t you make your so-carefully-rehearsed speech to that beautiful girl? The speech to which you devoted a mere half hour for the most important question of your life—”

      “Clara doesn’t need—”

      “But why should you take any trouble, when you take for granted everything you have? You’re used to getting whatever you want and losing interest as soon as you get it.”

      “I love her,” he said. “I’ve loved her since we were children. But you—”

      “It’s my fault, is it?” she said. “I’m the demon destroying your happiness? Only look at yourself and listen to yourself. Like every other man, you want what you can’t have. Like every other man, you’ll stay interested—even obsessed—until you get it. You came here this evening because you can’t think straight—because it drives you mad not to have something you want.”

      His color darkened, and she saw his hands clench. “If you think that something is you, think again,” he said. “I don’t want you. But you want me, and I feel so sorry for you.”

      Inwardly, it was as though she’d walked into a wall. Her head pounded and pain shot deep, deep inside.

      She wanted him. She wanted to be the heartbreakingly beautiful girl he loved. She wanted to be someone else: a woman who mattered to him and to all those who mattered, instead of a nobody to be used and discarded. She wanted everything her family had taken away: every opportunity they’d squandered and all the damage done to her future long, long ago, generations before she was born.

      Outwardly, she didn’t blink. “Then send me more customers,” she said. “I find money a great comfort in any calamity.”

      She heard his sharp inhale. “By gad,” he said. “By gad, you’re a devil.”

      “And you’re an angel?” She laughed.

      He crossed the room, and in that instant she knew what would happen. But she was a devil and so was he, and she only stood there, gripping the table, daring him, daring her own destruction.

      He stood over her, looking down into her dark, brilliant eyes. They mocked and taunted, as her voice had mocked and taunted him with the ways he lied to himself and everyone else.

      The truth was, he was no angel. Three years ago, he’d abandoned his responsibilities, gone abroad, and found himself. He’d settled in Paris because he could be free there as he could never be in England. In Paris, his hunger for excitement and pleasure could do no damage to those he loved.

      She promised nothing but damage, everywhere.

      She was wrong for him in every possible way, and especially wrong at this time. Why couldn’t he have met her a year ago, three years ago?

      But when he looked down into her eyes, right and wrong meant nothing. He and she were two of a kind, and like called to like, and he wanted her. And she, who read him so easily and so well, had spoken one needle-sharp truth after another.

      Yes, he’d go on wanting her until he had her.

      Then it would be done, and he could be free of her.

      He cupped her face and tilted it upward and brought his mouth to hers and kissed her. She turned her head away, breaking the kiss. He trailed his mouth along her cheek, to her ear and down. Her scent rose from her neck, and all the air he breathed then was her and all he knew then was her.

      “Fool,” she said. “Fool.”

      “Yes,” he said. He wrapped his arms about her and pulled her away from the table and dragged her up against him.

      That was right, no matter how desperately wrong it was. It was right, the warmth of her back against his forearm, and the way her supple body fit to his, as though