Devon worked his jaw up and down, trying to massage the ideas into place. “You are not self-made, then?”
Mr. Clarke laughed. “Few men are. You apparently need to hear it. I don’t read much in the way of poetry, but there’s a fellow, forget his name, wrote a treatise or something of the sort that argues that no man is alone. Not truly. What was it he said…? Ah. We’re not islands.”
“Not… islands?” He snorted. Course people weren’t islands. People were people. How drunk did Mr. Clarke think he was?
“Listen good, young pup. My wife brought money to our marriage, and we used it so I could focus on my ideas without working my mind to mush at other jobs. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her. She shared my passion, my intellect—smartest woman I’ve ever met—but no one would take her seriously because she doesn’t have the right parts or some rot like that.Itake her seriously. Always have. Nothing I’ve done would be possible without her. She knew we needed land. And a house. Between her inheritance, my steam mule, and a few good investments, we gained all that and more. I amnothingwithout her. Do you understand?”
Devon wagged his finger at Mr. Clarke, then stopped when the man’s brow grew thunderous. He swallowed the belch rising in his throat and said, “‘A man isn’t made from another man’s hand.’ You said that. Told me to write it down.”
“Did you?”
“Yes!”
“Nitwit.”
“But—” Devon found himself sputtering. The belch found release on one of his affronted gapes. “Scuse me. You said—”
“Yes, I said, and I’m a blustering old fool, no matter how genius. I said what I thought you needed to hear. I certainly didn’t intend to send you dithering into further isolation.”
Oh, God. He was going to be sick. His father-in-law was nothing without his wife, and Devondidunderstand that because he was nothing without Lillian. He had Frederick’s. Just that morning, after waking from a fitful sleep and tending to the bruises blooming from the brawl the night before, he’d started the process of buying the place.
Who bloody cared anymore? What did any of it matter because after all his posturing, all his declaration that he wasn’t a reputation ruiner… he was. He’d ruined his wife, and now as he gained his dream, she lost her own. Because of him.
“I’ve not gone a single day of my life without giving back to her in some way,” Mr. Clarke continued. “The woman never asks for it, but everything I have, everything I am… it belongs to her. Every bit of help she gives me on every project, I give her credit. Every penny she spent on me, I poured back into her, and when she requested it, to Lillian’s dowry. When I demanded to know what she wanted most in the world, so I could hand it to her on a golden platter, she told me she wanted to keep working and using her brain, so that’s what she’s doing. I’d step outside this workshop, nail it shut, and never return if she asked it. If it was her dream. She helped me reach mine, and now it’s my turn to lift her up. Do you understand?”
He understood he felt like crying. His lip even maybe slightly—barely at all, really—trembled when he spoke. “She needed to impress the Earl of Needleham, and I ruined it.”
“Needleham? That prideful prig? He’s on the verge of ruin himself. He should be seeking to impress Lillian. Not the other way around.”
“I know my brain is not working right now. Nor my neck. So, could you explain? Go slow.”
“Needleham lost big in a game to that old as dirt duke… Smuggums or something like that. Can’t rightly remember. Creditors are starting to lurk about his place. Or so they say.”
“Sounds like gossip.”
“I like gossip as much as the next man. Nothing wrong with it. Often, it’s vapid lies. Other times it’s quite useful information.” Mr. Clarke leaned closer to Devon over the table and cupped his hand around his mouth. He lowered his voice as if others were all about and might be eavesdropping. “His mistress threw him over. She stormed right into his club and threw empty jewelry boxes at him.”
Devon flinched. “Ouch.”
Mr. Clarke leaned back again, his face lit with satisfaction. “Saw him yesterday in Hyde Park. Had a bruise right here.” He pointed to his cheekbone. “No one seemed to mind. His reputation is still starchy as ever. Everyone tipping their hats and saying how-de-do to him.”
Devon scowled. “He can get pelted with jewelry by a mistress at his club and still be accepted while Lillian does naught but be married to my sorry self, and she’s ostracized?” He rose to his feet, feeling like a thundercloud. No, a lightning bolt. No. He felt like Zeus himself, ready to commit an act of wrath.
“There it is, young pup,” Mr. Clarke said, standing. “Anger’s better than yipping and howling. Crying’s all well and good. But then, do something about it.” He marched toward the door. “You should write that one down.”
“Don’t have a—”
The door slammed shut, cleaving Devon’s sentence in two.
Anger sang through Devon’s veins.
Whisky whistled there, too. His head was a black fog, suffocating him with a storm of cries and yips and howls and lightning-dangerous rage.
The world still spun around him. He wanted to do something. But what? His whirling mind could not fathom. Drinking had been a bad, a very bad idea.
He dragged himself to the narrow cot in the back of the workshop and lay down. There were no windows in here to tell him when morning had come. Didn’t matter. Morning might never come, anyway.
* * *
