Scandal - COMPLETED

Chapter Forty

I woke at sunrise the next morning. We'd pulled the curtains open after our escapades last night to watch the gibbous moon rise over the treetops and paint the city in broad strokes of black and white. A beam of liquid gold spilled through them now and fell across the floor. Dust motes twirled and eddied in the light. The muffled sounds of a city waking reached my ears.

I yawned and turned my head. Henry lay sprawled at my side, between me and John, heroically shielding me from John's nocturnal flailing – I'd learned the hard way our first night together that my husband could kick like a mule when he dreamt.

The sheets were tangled around Henry's waist, revealing a long expanse of torso. His chest rose and fell in a deep, even rhythm. Beside him, John lay on his stomach, arms curled around his pillow, head turned away. Whatever fevered nightmares caused his midnight histrionics had long since passed, and he lay still now in untroubled sleep. One of Henry's hands rested on his back, as though even unconscious Henry wanted to know where he was. His other hand warmed my upper thigh beneath the sheets, and though I longed to linger here, the shaft of sunlight was creeping closer and closer toward the bed, and I didn't want it to wake them.

I carefully extricated myself and went to draw the curtains together. An armchair sat just in front of the window. Instead of sliding back beneath the sheets, I slipped on John's heavy dressing gown, pausing to breathe deep the smell of his cologne, before I folded myself down into the chair to watch the men slumber.

It had only been a few days since I'd last been here, but with everything that had happened in that time, it felt more like weeks. I could barely fathom the fact that less than a fortnight had passed since John propositioned me.

I frowned at that thought. What if he hadn't? Would our unknown enemy – well, unknown to everyone but McNaught – have found some other way to harass us? Or would they have chosen another noble household to snare in their trap? Instead of John being coerced into pushing Addington from office, would it have been Glover? Or even Amesbury?

I sighed and cut that line of thought off. In the end, it didn't matter. John had propositioned me, I had said yes, and now here we were. Yet even after everything that had happened since that fateful night, I wouldn't change my answer. If given a second, or third, or fourth chance, I would always say yes to him. Nothing worth fighting for ever came easy in my experience. And if everyone who lived outside the norms set by society caved beneath the weight of adversity, humankind would never advance. We would be stuck, forever, in this limited, narrow-minded prison we had built for ourselves.

Henry shifted in his sleep, the hand that had rested on my thigh reaching out through the lingering warmth I had left in the bed, as though searching for me. My troubled mind found solace in the sight, in the beauty and the peace that radiated from his sleeping form. I would do whatever it took to keep him like this. Things I once thought monstrous I no longer discounted. Today I planned to ask John to have my father assassinated. Tomorrow we might begin searching for the right poison to rid the world of Addington. Who knew, in two days' time, I might help Haydar murder another poor soul.

What was that biblical passage quoted ad nauseum at weddings? I'd heard it so many times I should have committed it to memory by now. Ah, yes:

Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.