Page 30 of The Marriage Method

For that was one thing that marriage could never change. Whatever her new name, she was still an Academy girl. Miss Corvus’s belief in her may have begun to waver, but Nell was determined that her own purpose never would. She would be passing through the East End within the hour. It was the ideal opportunity to pursue her mission.

She waited only as long as it took to board the next train to broach the subject.

“I have some business I must attend to in Whitechapel,” she said as she entered their first-class compartment. “I’d rather it were done in daylight. If you wouldn’t mind us parting at Shoreditch?”

Miles followed behind her. He had been unusually quiet since they’d left the church, saying hardly anything at all on the cab ride to the depot and during their short respite at the railway’s refreshment room. Doubtless he was thinking of Mr. Cowgill, or some other pressing matter related to the Courant. He’d stopped in at the telegraph office before they’d departed the station in order to send a wire to one of his staff. She could only guess at what it might say.

“What business?” he asked.

Nell sat down in one of the cloth-upholstered seats, smoothing the skirts of her plain, dark brown traveling dress. She’d never ridden in a first-class railway carriage before. It was bordering on luxurious, with its wood-paneled walls, shuttered window, and gleaming brass parcel racks. Up to now, she’d always been content with second class. It was Miles who had booked the more expensive fare. She hadn’t questioned him as to why.

“For the Academy,” she answered.

Miles muttered something as he took a seat across from her. It sounded very much like “And here it begins.”

Nell paused in the act of tucking a loose strand of hair back into the confines of her fanchon bonnet. “Do you object?”

“I wouldn’t know what I was objecting to.”

“Does it matter?”

“It matters.” Frowning, he removed his hat, placing it on the seat beside him. “I’m sorry I didn’t have a ring for you.”

Nell blinked. “Oh,” she faltered. “Well, that wasn’t…That is, I didn’t expect…”

“I hadn’t time to go to the jewelers before this morning,” he said. “Trust that I will at the first opportunity.”

The conductor’s whistle sounded. It was followed by a lurching jolt and a great grinding of metal as the train heaved into motion.

Nell hardly noticed. She was staring at the man she’d just married, oddly flustered. A quiet, closed-off Miles she could handle, but not one promising to purchase her something from a jeweler’s shop. Not even if that something was a wedding ring.

Thus far, she’d survived the day by setting emotion aside. She hadn’t concentrated on the restrained goodbyes she’d said to Miss Corvus and the other teachers, or the desolate feeling she’d had as she’d walked out the gates of the Academy for what might be the final time. To look backward was to risk losing her hard-won composure.

To look forward was equally perilous. To think of where she was going to live now, and with whom.

“Er, how did you know the vicar?” she asked for lack of any better response.

Miles ran a hand over his rumpled black hair. “A story I wrote last year on a series of thefts in Enfield. His church was robbed.”

“How dreadful.”

“The goods were found during the course of my story. I had some small part in their recovery—a lead of mine into a gang operating in North London. The vicar was grateful. He invited me to attend services when next I was in the vicinity.”

“I’ll wager he didn’t mean a marriage service,” Nell said with a fleeting wry smile.

Miles’s mouth hitched briefly in return. “Probably not.”

“In any case—”

“Yes.”

“We are married now.”

“That we are,” Miles said gravely.

“And you did promise that I might dictate my own terms,” she reminded him.

His brows sank in another frown, but he didn’t dispute the fact. “What business does the Academy have in Whitechapel?” he asked.