Mistress of Scandal (Greentree Sisters 3)

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I nearly died. It has made me cautious for what I wish for.”

Later, when he was sleeping, Aphrodite rose, wrapped a silk robe about herself, and took her diary from a drawer. Earlier on, she had been writing in it, and now she wanted to read over her thoughts. Sitting down in a comfortable chair, her legs tucked up under her, she opened the red leather-bound book and found her place.

I have not been to Dudley Street for many years. My father died and my mother does not want to see me, but one day I decide I will go again.

I wear my oldest clothing and I walk the streets I used to know so well, but still I feel their stares of resentment and distrust. I do not belong here anymore, and the people know it.

I think of Jemmy. I cannot help it. I wonder if he is happy with his wife and whether he has children. He has made the life for himself that he wanted for us, at a time when I was too foolish to realize what a treasure he was offering.

My mother sits in her chair, her flesh loose upon her bones. She has dark hair and eyes like me, and she used to say we were of Gypsy stock. She does not say much, while I am making awkward conversation with my brother’s wife, who takes care of her now.

It is strange. To sit in the parlor, to look upon people who were once so familiar but now are strangers. My mother is so small.

“Do you remember Jemmy?” my brother’s wife says. “He was here asking after you not more than a month past.”

I don’t know what to say. I cannot imagine what he wants.

“Someone told him you were dead,” she laughs. “He only just heard you were alive.”

I look at my mother then, and see her eyes. And I remember she and my da telling me that Jemmy was wed. Was that a lie, too?

“Why?” I ask her, my voice breaking with the pain. “I loved him.”

But she smiles. “You didn’t deserve him after what you did. You stepped outside the place you were born into. You turned up your nose at the life you were given.”

Such bitterness, and for what? Because I dared to be different and follow my heart. I tell myself I would do it again no differently. But would I?

Jemmy is looking for me!

That gives me the sort of hope I have not felt for years and years, and as I leave my past—I swear I will never visit there again—I begin to think that perhaps I will find happiness in my future. But I do not want to get my hopes up, in case it is not so. I have had my hopes raised before, and it has ended once more in misery.

The club is still closed, and I am thinking of the night to come and all the tasks I have before me. I do not see the man sitting on the steps beneath the front portico, waiting. I do not see him until he calls out my name.

Not Aphrodite. My real name. My old name.

He is standing now, watching me, his hands hanging at his sides as if he doesn’t know what to do with them. His face is lined, and his nose has been broken, and his hair is graying. But it is Jemmy, my Jemmy.

We look at each other for a long time, and then I say, “Will you come inside for a while?”

“Aye, I will,” he says, “for a while.” And he follows me through the door.

He does not go home that night, or the next. From that moment until this, we live together. And we are happy, at last.

Aphrodite smiled, and closed the book. It was a good ending, a happy ending. There was still the other matter, of course. The other man. But despite what she had told Jemmy, she was hopeful that it too would be resolved. She had engaged Lord Worthorne, and she had great trust in him.

It was simply a matter of waiting, and she knew she was good at that.

Someone else was waiting. He was good at it, too, but he knew he couldn’t afford to wait much longer. Francesca Greentree would have to be gagged before the truth came out. If the letter came to light…

Mrs. Slater and her cohorts had led him to believe that there was only one way to do that, but now they were gone, he had time to consider the matter more rationally. Murder was all very well, but there was always the fear of being caught. Look what had happened to Maeve! He knew he would have to help them all, Mrs. Slater and Maeve and Jed, bribe the authorities to soften their sentences. They would expect it. It was part of the bargain for their silence—apart from the fact that they were frightened of him.

He could cast them off entirely, knowing that his word would always be believed over theirs, but why take the chance that some of their mud might stick? He had a reputation to maintain.

No, he decided, there would be no more murders. He knew there was a different way, a better way. After all, Francesca was no longer a child. She was a well-brought-up and well-mannered young woman, with all the skills that would be required of a London society wife.

She was also beautiful and desirable.

And he was a man.