“I’m sorry,” Miss Jones murmured.
I’m sorry, Keats’s soul whispered.
“That no one cares for me? Don’t be. It allowed me the opportunity to escape. If they truly cared, I would be better watched. They would search for me mercilessly. But they do not, so they will not. And it is for the best.”
Miss Jones nodded.
And Keats clapped a hand over his mouth, glued his feet to the dirt because every bit of him demanded to run out of his hiding spot and tell Alex she was wrong. And he was sorry. And… bloody hell. This place was not full of villains.
“I’m the villain,” he whispered, words like ash on his tongue.
“Last night Mrs. Beckett said that I must begin thinking.” Alex’s voice rang not with the fragile discards of a fire, but with the new flames of life itself. “Now that I am no longer to be a lady, I must do something useful with my life.”
Miss Jones nodded again, offered more silence.
“I do not know yet what that will be,” Alex said so softly Keats almost did not hear her. “I do not know if I’m good at anything.”
“Oh, but you are!” Miss Jones leaned into the space between them, her arm stretching out to grasp Alex’s arm. “You will soon find out exactly what. There’s a bright intelligence in your eyes. They…” She tilted her head to the side. “They look quite familiar, a most unique shade of blue. I swear I’ve seen them before.” She shook her head.
Keats did not know whether to be relieved or offended. He rather wanted the lovely Lucy to remember the face where she’d seen blue eyes like that before—his.
“Everyone on my father’s side possesses eyes the same shade. They are unique, but I think they have been a curse too. My betrothed is rather… obsessed with my eyes, watches them always, accuses me of looking with them where I shouldn’t. I suppose it’s not an idle accusation. The first kind, handsome man to pay me attention, I rather… collapsed into his arms. Grateful. He praised my eyes as well. I hate them.” Alex dropped her gaze to her lap. “I wish I could change their color. Or pluck them out entirely.”
And Keats wished the bullet from last night’s abandoned duel had found his heart. A more humane death, that, than the silent desperation in his sister’s voice.
Miss Jones bolted to her feet, hauling Alex up with her and wrapping her in a tight hug. “Oh, no, no, no! Your eyes will see sights much kinder from this day forward. I promise!”
Keats could take no more. Let the angel care for Alex. His sister had found much better hands than his own to keep hersafe in spirit as well as body. He walked back to the stables on numb legs.
None of this could be true. Itcouldn’t. He wasn’t cruel. Neither was his father. Women were meant to marry whomever they were told to marry, and surely Keats’s father would not have chosen someone who…
The bruises on Alex’s arms told truth. And he’d heard truth from her own lips. Anger pulsed his steps forward more quickly. Men who hurt women deserved to meet bullets in Green Park at dawn.
Alex’s betrothed had hurt her, and she’d sought protection in the arms of strangers.
Alex did not need Keats’s help. He hadn’t even known she’d needed saving in London. Too stuck in his own whisky bottle, in his own fornications, to care about anyone but himself and his cock. Let her eyes remain and see kinder sights.
Let his be plucked out instead.
“New boy!” the stable master called as Keats neared the stables. “If you’re going to remain here, you have to actuallywork. You may be Mr. Sacks’s nephew, but you’ll abide by the same rules as all the rest.”
Why not? He’d done so little for Alex, he had to make up for it. He’d stay, watch over her. He’d wasted his life thus far; he could do a little good with it now.
The stable master threw a shovel at him, and Keats caught it. Barely. Apparently doing good meant shoveling shit. He deserved it.
He worked for hours, until the smell of dung and dirt and hay had soaked into his skin as much as the smell of whisky, almost chasing that other sour scent away. Not an improvement. But somehow, also, yes an improvement. Because by the time the sun began to sink in the sky, his muscles ached, and he’dsweated out an entire river of alcohol. He’d imagined each sweat droplet taking away his negligence, his thoughtlessness.
“Mr. Geddings?” he called out, wiping sweat from his brow. “I need to procure…” Perhaps less formal. “I need somethin’ from the village.”
“I suppose you can shove off, then. You’ve worked hard today. Wouldn’t think a young, pampered lad from London would have it in him. You’ve surprised me. Got more of Mr. Sacks in ya than I thought you did.” He took a huge sniff in Keats’s direction, then wrinkled his nose. “There’s a lake down the hill. Use it before you visit the village. No one wants to smell you.”
No one had ever told Keats he smelled, but he’d also never shoveled shit before. The two were bound to happen at the same time. He propped the shovel against a wall and took off toward the lake. Easy enough to find, and he stripped down to his smalls after a quick look around. Alone entirely, he slipped into the cool water with a groan, diving into deeper depths after a few slogging steps forward.
He’d sell his left ball for a bar of soap. He’d acquire one in the village and… oh. No, he would not. He had no money to acquire soap or otherwise. Hell. He must consider his current poverty the penance he had to pay for being so blind to Alex’s plight.
When he surfaced, he scrubbed his hair hard, then his cheeks and jaw. In a few days, he’d have the beginnings of a beard. No money for a razor, either. All he had to his name—which everyone here got wrong—was a set of dueling pistols and a fine suit of clothes he could not wear. Keaton Godwin, Earl of Ennis wore silk and fine wool. Mr. Keats, stable boy did not.
He ducked under the water once more and screamed. Muffled pain and frantic bubbles, murky darkness, and Keats sinking down, down, down until his lungs burned and he began to kick. He popped up above the water with a gasp of air. Whenhad he last cried? He couldn’t remember ever once doing it. He felt like he should now, like he must.
