But now, seeing Weston cower before him, he realized one last thing. After he’d beaten those boys, they’d never set on anyone else again. He’d been ashamed for no reason. There was a place for righteous anger. And sometimes the only way to balance the worst kinds of wrongs was to meet them head-on. He didn’t stuff the tide of his anger behind a glass wall. Instead, he stalked forward.
“You misunderstand,” he said, his voice low. “I know what you did to Jessica Farleigh.”
“What I did? Hired her to seduce you. That bitch—she took my money, and—”
Mark grabbed the man by his hair and twisted. Weston hissed in pain. “I’m talking about the tea,” Mark said.
“Ouch!” Weston tried to pull away and winced instead. “Good Christ almighty, is she still going on about that? I saved her the pain of having to make the decision herself.”
“You stole the decision from her. You nearly killed her.”
“It was an accident.”
Mark let his anger take hold of him. He gripped Weston’s hair, then slammed the back of the man’s head against the tree trunk.
“Ow!” Weston groaned. “You can be commissioner. Just…just don’t hurt me anymore.”
There was a time for mercy. This wasn’t it.
“You’re pathetic,” Mark informed the man and slammed his head against the tree one last time. Weston’s knees crumpled underneath him. Around them, the crowd gasped. Mark let go of his hair, and Weston fell the rest of the way to the ground. For a long moment, Mark stared at the still body at his feet. He couldn’t hear anything except the rushing in his ears, could barely feel the cool breeze of afternoon insinuating itself around them. Finally, he knelt and found the man’s pulse. It was strong and steady.
He wasn’t going mad. He’d not lost control of his temper. He’d used it, and he was glad.
“Someone fetch a physician,” he said over his shoulder. “He’ll do very well, but he’s going to have a monstrous headache when he awakes.”
He pushed to his feet and walked away. Behind him, he heard the murmurs of the crowd.
“That was Sir Mark,” someone was saying.
“Weston must have truly deserved it,” another responded, “for Sir Mark to hit him that way. He’s a gentle, kind-spoken soul, Sir Mark is.”
“What did he do, then?”
“Something awful,” a third person responded. “Besides, I saw him. He attacked Sir Mark for no reason—he can’t be a steady character, can he?”
So easily was a reputation ruined. There was a peculiar sense of justice in that. Mark shook out his hand, which was just now beginning to sting, and headed for his next destination.
“GUESS WHAT I have?”
Mark stood in Jessica’s doorway that evening. He’d donned a wide, worn hat—one that shielded his face from view. Still, this close, even in the gathering shadows, she could see the bruise forming on his cheekbone.
She stepped aside, and he came in, shutting the door behind him.
“You forget,” she said grimly. “It’s already in the paper.” She held up the offending item, letting the headline show.
Sir Mark: Fights Weston, Obtains Special License.
“Be thankful,” Jessica said. “Parret made no untoward speculation about the object of your license, and he could have.”
Mark took off his hat and gave Jessica an unapologetic grin. “Well. So much for the surprise, then.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little premature to be purchasing a special license?”
“I’m never premature,” he told her. “I’m always precisely on time.” He pulled his greatcoat from his shoulders and set it on a hook.
She’d once dreamed of a little country cottage, of a life spent in solitude with only Amalie to keep her company. Perhaps…perhaps she’d been afraid to wish for anything else. Hope was painful, after all. But now, she couldn’t beat it back, couldn’t shove it away. She could almost make herself believe in a future that contained Mark. And not only Mark—a family.
Because when she’d seen the headline across the square, her thoughts had flown for the first time to her sisters. Surely, married to Sir Mark, she might see them again? Perhaps, with the news of her death, they’d have to meet in secret. But she wouldn’t have to be dead to them entirely, would she?
She squelched those thoughts viciously. Best not to want; that way, she’d feel no disappointment. Hope hurt.
So, she imagined, did that dark bruise on his face.
“Come here,” she said severely, taking his hand and leading him to a chair that she’d set near a basin. He sat, looking at her in bemusement. Jessica concentrated on the task before her. She steeped a cloth in the cool water of the basin and then laid it on his face.
“Ah,” he said. “That feels good.”
She’d scented the water with herbs. They released their sweet aroma into the air. It made the atmosphere take on the aspect of a dream—as if this were some wooded glen, taken from her imagination and not a room in dirty London. Her hands moved to his shoulders, and she rubbed them.
“Did Weston scream?” she asked. “Did he grovel?”
“Indeed.”
“How gratifying.”
He snorted under the damp cloth. “It was, actually. I wish you could have been there.”
“Oh, the account in the paper was lovely.” She sighed again. “I wish…I wish…”
“What do you want?”
Her hands were cool and moist from the compress. His fingers reached up and intertwined themselves with hers, warm and dry.
“It’s lovely what you did, Mark.” She shook her head. “I…I never thought he’d pay for what he’d done.”
But. She left the word unspoken. But it didn’t make it any better. Mark couldn’t make the man give back what he’d stolen—not with any number of beatings. She still felt sick when she thought of Weston, like some creature cowering in the underbrush. It hadn’t made her feel any better. It had just made Weston feel worse.
A cause for celebration, to be sure. Still…
“Dearest,” Mark said, taking the cloth from his eye. “You will marry me, won’t you?”
She could choke on the hope he made her feel. Her hands shook. “I— Even if Weston stays silent and hidden, someone might recognize me. And the paper—it says you’re likely to be appointed Commissioner of the Poor Laws, with Weston in disgrace. You’ll constantly find yourself in the public’s eye. Perhaps even more than you are now, hard as that is to believe. Someone will speak out about me. We would be disgraced.”
“You haven’t met my elder brother.” Mark smiled. “The Duke of Parford. He’ll make sure nothing goes wrong.”
“Even a duke can’t stop gossip.”
“Stop worrying.” He said the words lightly, but she could see the tic in his cheek, the tension in his hand as it balled lightly into a fist.
“And you’re going to be Commissioner now. You didn’t even want to be Commissioner.”
“Well.” He didn’t deny this. “But I did want you.”
Jessica had suffered the waning of a man’s interest often enough to know the course of want. At first, a man was willing to give up almost anything. But soon enough, want settled into familiarity. Soon, those little deprivations would start to sting and then fester.
She could barely accept Mark’s regard. She couldn’t manage his resentment.
She held out her hand to him. There was no hope to be had, not in this. There was only tonight.
“Will you come to my bed?” she asked. It wasn’t an answer to his question. It was, instead, a different sort of offer. He looked at her hand. Slowly, he raised his own to touch her fingertips. His fingers curled about hers again, so warm, so confident.
“Yes,” Mark said, his voice low and throaty. “Yes, I will.”