Free Angelmonster by Veronica Bennett Page A

forget? You told me I was giving you a beautiful present.” I touched his cheek. “You are a very good seducer.”
    “Better than you know!” he said mischievously.
    “What do you mean?”
    He began to laugh. “My real birthday fell some weeks after that day, when we were in Switzerland!”
    I stared at him. “And you never told me?”
    “It was hardly prudent to do so, was it?” I could hardly make out his words through his laughter. “After you had already given me such a beautiful present for my imaginary birthday! How do you like that for a seducer’s trick?”
    I did not like it. I pushed him away. “It was not a trick, it was a lie! What other lies did you tell me, in order to dishonour me?”
    “Dishonour you!” he repeated mockingly. “You did not consider it dishonourable at the time!”
    “How do you know what I considered it?”
    He stopped laughing. “Mary…” he began, but I would not let him go on.
    “You are the father of Harriet’s child, are you not?” I asked. “ You , not her imaginary lover!”
    Shelley bowed his head to avoid my gaze. My anger rose. I pushed him again, harder this time. “You see, I have grown up since those days in the churchyard! You are exactly as Papa said!”
    His head came up quickly. “What did he say?”
    “That you are not an honourable man. I defended you, but I wish I had not.”
    “Your father can go to the devil.”
    “The devil you don’t believe—”
    “Mary, do not persist in taunting me with my beliefs!”
    I was bewildered. Why was he so sensitive about beliefs for which he had been prepared to give up his university career and risk his inheritance? Did he not, after all, have the courage of his convictions? Was my lover, like my father, unprepared to put his principles to the test?
    “I will not do so again,” I agreed. “But I must insist that you do not curse my father. He is not our enemy.”
    My voice broke on this last word. I could not bear to think of my father as an enemy. And the thought of the pain my elopement had caused him, so invisible to me three months ago, now caused me equal pain.
    Shelley’s countenance filled instantly with compassion. He tugged me towards him. The ease with which his feelings rushed to his face was one of the things I loved best about him. All resentment, lies and worldweariness dissolved, and we entered our lovers’ world again.
    “You are my trophy,” he murmured. “You are a prize, awarded to the one man worthy of it. And I am that man.”
    These words delighted me, but I now knew better than to believe Shelley unquestioningly. “A prize!” I said playfully. “Surely you prize me not for myself, but for my father and mother, whose work you profess to admire so much.”
    “Oh, shocking!” he protested.
    “You chose me over Fanny and Jane, did you not, because I am the only daughter whose veins actually contain their mingled blood?”
    “Shocking, shocking!”
    “Do you deny it?”
    “Not at all, you too-intelligent female.” He held me very tightly. “I confess, I began with high expectations of the product of this illustrious parentage, but…” He paused, uncertain what to say next.
    “But?” I prompted.
    “But … before I had spent five minutes in your company I fell in love with you regardless. You could have been anybody – a streetwalker or a princess. You would still have been my prize.”

CLAIRE
    J ane, for all her accusations on the Channel crossing, could recognize the lesser of two evils. Later that day she returned to our lodgings near the Thames.
    “Before you ask,” she said, throwing herself into the very chair in which I had found Shelley writing that morning, “I am not going back to live with Mama and Papa.”
    “And Fanny,” I added.
    Jane gave me a relieved look. “You see, even you understand how impossible it is!”
    In those cramped rooms, as autumn darkened into winter and the candles had to be lit earlier each day, we three formed an uneasy