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Adventures more suited to her reputation: Sesily Talbot, walking scandal, buxom beauty, untethered heiress, and queen of recklessness, whom most of London called Sexily when they thought she wasn’t listening (as though it was a bad thing).
What an irony that was, as Queen Victoria sat upon her throne not a half mile from Mayfair, all while the aristocracy trembled in fear of women who refused to be packed up and sent away when they grew too old, refused to marry, or showed no interest in the rules and regulations of the titled world.
And Sesily had no interest in the proper, prescribed universe of the aristocracy. Not when there was so much of the rest of the world to live in. To change.
Imogen would not know poetry if Byron himself kidnapped her in the dead of night.
“Imogen, are you able to remember anything you read that close to bedtime?” Imogen looked absolutely delighted when she proclaimed, “Not a bit of it! Isn’t it wonderful?”
Society rarely saw the truth when it came to women.
“Haven’t you noticed, American? I am trouble.”
But the earl wasn’t dead. He was worse, destroyed by the truth—the truth that had only ever been acknowledged in knowing looks shared between men, and quick about-faces by young women who had had the benefit of privilege and warning.
They were places where women held power. And wherever women held power, be it a throne, a club, or a labyrinth, there were men wishing to seize it.
“Men are ridiculous.” “For wanting to keep you safe?” “For believing that you aren’t the thing from which we are most in danger.”
Sesily Talbot made a life by exceeding expectations.
He’d spent a lifetime priding himself on his understanding of other people—on being able to predict their actions. And somehow, he could never see Sesily Talbot coming.
“Word from who?” He looked to Fetu. The big man shrugged a heavy shoulder. “A woman I know.” “Biblically, no doubt.”
It was a crew if he’d ever seen one. A revolution, clad in rouge and silk.
“I’m not always watching her.” Lie. The woman was storm clouds at sea. Impossible not to watch.
“You didn’t trust me with her at the start of this conversation,” he pointed out. “In my experience, I have found it best to begin all conversations with men with severe mistrust.”
“Where is a proper location for me to escort you?” There wasn’t one, of course. There was no scenario where he courted Sesily Talbot. No ices at Gunter’s, no posies from a Covent Garden flower seller, no visits to her sister Sophie’s bookshop. Courting meant a future. And a future with Sesily was impossible. Even if she was the only woman who had ever tempted him with one.
It was big and bold and perfect—the kind of laugh that welcomed all comers, making you feel like you’d been offered a glimpse at the sun after a voyage through the darkness. If only you were willing to take it.
Silence fell, long and heavy, and Sesily added, “All we do is fight battles. I am tired of them. I’d be done with them if I could.” “Then let’s be done with them,” he said. “The battles are how I get a piece of you.”
“You’re right. I don’t go to the Sparrow anymore. Because I am tired of it. I am tired of the memory of you there. I’m tired of the way my heart races every time I think of you. Here is the truth. I stopped going to the Sparrow because I stopped begging for scraps from people who could not see me.”
“You think I don’t see you? You think you don’t shine like the fucking sun every time you’re in a room?”
But she was everything Caleb had always refused himself. She was bright where his world was dark, beautiful where it was ugly, welcome where he’d never found it. And that made her more tempting than anything he’d ever experienced. She was the treat in the shop window, the coin in the rich man’s purse. She was better. So he let himself laugh.
“No one has ever loved me out loud.”
Love is nonsense, and you are going to need your girls with you to survive whatever it brings next.”
“You idiot man, I don’t care what they call me. I don’t belong to them. They cannot touch me. Not when I am here. Not when I am with you.”
“You are not reckless, Sesily Talbot; you are regal. You’re a damn queen.”
“Let me be clear, you arrogant man. You know nothing of what I will do if you die. If you die, I will detonate. They will have to invent new words for the havoc I will wreak."
This is how we love. Out loud. With truth. This is how we fight. Together, or not at all.”
“If our marriage were like the others, I wouldn’t be married to you. You, who I’ve wanted from the first moment I saw you. You, who I’ve ached to make mine from the start. Marry me, love.”
