His eyes were sad when he looked back to her. ‘There was a time when I intended something other than the life I chose. I was the third son, and there was not very much money. I knew that there would be even less, once I was of age and my brothers had families to support. I would need to fend for myself.’
She felt a rush of sympathy. He had been lonely, even in a large family.
He continued. ‘What I wanted did not matter, in any case. My oldest brother was killed duelling, and the second took a bullet to the brain at Talavera. And suddenly, there was only me, two widows, two nephews and a niece. My brothers were older, but not necessarily wiser. Their estates were in shambles and they had made no provisions for their deaths. The whole family was bound for the poorhouse, unless I took drastic action.’ He shrugged. ‘There are many who have more than they need.’
‘But surely, an honest profession. You could have read for divinity.’ She looked at his politely incredulous expression and tried to imagine him a vicar. ‘Perhaps not.’
He sat down at her side. ‘It was my plan, once. And I went to interview for a living, hoping that I would be able to send some small monies home. But the lord met me at a public house to tell me that it had gone to another.
‘And when he got up to leave, he forgot his purse. I was halfway out the door to return it, when it occurred to me that he had money enough to fill many such purses, and my family had no food on the table and no prospects for the future. I put the purse in my pocket, and brought the money home to my family. And that was the end of that.’ He smiled, obviously happier thinking of theft than he had been thinking of life as a clergyman. ‘And what of you? Did you always plan on the life you got?’
She frowned. ‘Yes. I suppose I did. My mother raised me so that I might be an asset to any man that might offer for me. And she encouraged me, when offers were made, to choose carefully in return so that I might never want. Until Robert died, things had gone very much as I would have hoped. I would have liked children, of course.’
‘It is not too late,’ Smythe responded.
She resisted the urge to explain matters to him plainly. ‘I fear it is not on the cards for me. But beside that one small thing, my life was everything I might have hoped for. I made a most advantageous marriage.’
‘You were happy, then?’
She answered as if by rote, ‘I had money, social position and a husband who treated me well. I had no right to complain.’
‘That did not answer the question.’
‘Of course I was happy,’ she said in frustration.
‘And yet, when you say it thus, I wonder if you were.’
She sighed. ‘It is different for men than for women. If you have a talent for something, you can proceed in a way that will develop it and find a career that will make the best use of your abilities. There are options open. You might study law, or go into the military, or become a vicar.’
‘Or a thief,’ he reminded her.
She nodded. ‘But because I was born female, it was my fate to marry. It is not as if I could expect another future. Fortunately, I had no talent to speak of, or any other natural ability than to be beautiful, or I might have felt some disappointment about that fact.’
He looked at her in surprise. ‘No natural talent? I’ll grant you, you are a beauty, a nonpareil. But you are wrong to think you have no other virtues. You are intelligent, well read, and you have a sharp and agile wit.’
She laughed. ‘You base these fine compliments on an acquaintance of several days. My dear Mr Smythe, I would be a fool to be flattered by one with such a shallow understanding of me. There was nothing about my character, my wealth or my family that would have led Robert to want me, had I not been a beauty. I assure you, it was a great weight off my parents to know, before they died, that I was to be well taken care of.’
Tony shook his head. ‘That sounds as if you were a burden to your family. But your parents spoke often of your fine character, although your mother was most proud of her only child being so well placed.’
She glanced at him sharply. ‘You speak as if you knew her.’
‘We were acquainted,’ he replied. ‘I knew your father, as well. I sympathise with your loss of them.’
‘You knew them both?’ She started. ‘They never mentioned you.’
‘It was a long time ago. You had been gone from the house for several years when last I met them. And they never knew of this.’ He made a vague gesture, meant to encompass his life. ‘Believe me, I never visited them in my professional capacity.’
‘I never suspected that you would.’ And it was strange, but she trusted his word on the matter.
‘You are being unfair to yourself, if you think you are without talent, or suspect that you might have no value to a husband other than to beautify his home.’
But the one thing that Robert had most wanted from her, she had been unable to give him, and she held her tongue.
‘I know for a fact that you are much more intelligent than you appear, even if you pretend it is not so in the presence of the Endsteds of the world. I saw the books he was carrying for you, and the ones you keep in your room. Philosophy, Latin, French. Not the reading of a simple mind.’
‘It is a pity, then, that I could not have put all that learning to use, and saved myself from the financial predicament I find myself in.’
He gazed at her with surprising intensity. ‘You have managed most cleverly with little money or help, where a foolish woman could not have gone on at all. It is not your fault that you put your trust in people who should have protected you, only to have them fail you.’
She found his comments both flattering and embarrassing, and sought to turn the conversation back to familiar ground. She summoned her most flirtatious look, fixed him with it and said, ‘How strange you are to say so. Most men content themselves, when I am alone with them, to comment on the fineness of my skin or the softness of my hand.’
He was having none of it, and responded matter of factly, ‘You know as well as I do the quality of your complexion. But I will comment on it, if you insist. Your skin is almost luminous in its clarity. Chinese porcelain cannot compare. But I also know that the skin is nothing to the brightness of the spirit it contains. I know you, your Grace, although you do not believe it. I do.’
She smiled, overwhelmed by his obvious sincerity. ‘And I do not really know you at all.’
‘You know my greatest secret: that I am a thief. It was embarrassing to be caught. But I was glad, when it happened, to find myself in the hands of such a charming captor.’
She blushed at the notion that she had taken him prisoner, and not the other way around. ‘You really shouldn’t steal, you know. It is wrong.’
‘I am familiar with the commandments,’ he said with asperity. ‘And follow nine out of ten to the best of my ability. It is a better average, I think, than the people I steal from, who have no thought to any but themselves. They are greedy, indolent and licentious.’
‘Is that why you came to my rooms? To punish me for my sins? Because I am guilty.’ She hung her head. ‘Of pride, and of lust.’
‘Serious, of course, but the seven deadly sins are not in the Bible, per se,’ he remarked. ‘But what makes you think you are guilty of them?’
‘Barton has been able to manipulate me easily, because he knows how carefully I guard my reputation. If I were willing to admit that I am poor, and that he has gulled me…’
‘Then you might ruin any chance to marry well. You are not guilty of anything, other than being forced to place your trust in one who proved unworthy. Why should you suffer, while the Bartons of the world live in comfort? You