Page 33 of Unseen

I AM NOT A GOOD MAN

“ W hat a sight this is.” Azriel paused in the doorway, leaning against the wooden frame, his hands tucked in the pockets of his black trousers. “My wife, at a table set for two, waiting to meet me after a hard day’s work.”

I gave him a tight smile, and rose to my feet. “I was wondering where you’d gone. I woke to an empty bed.”

“I could not bear to wake you.” He crossed the room to my side, and took my face gently in his hands. “You looked so beautiful as you slept. And you were no doubt exhausted after our wedding night.”

“I was.”

He brought his lips down to mine, kissing me softly, and that same flutter wafted through me, the ache for his tenderness. He released me, giving me a wide smile, and took his place at the head of the table.

“I’m very sorry to attend business so soon after our wedding, beloved, but I’m sure you understand there is much to be done.” He reached over and took my hand, planting a soft kiss upon my knuckles. “You shall have my full attention on our honeymoon.”

“You mentioned that.” I poured him a glass of red wine. “You truly intend to take me to Spain?”

“Indeed. You’ll love it.” He took a swig of his wine, and leaned back in his chair. “Away from dreary London at last. We leave on Monday. A ship will take us to Calais, and from there we go south on the rail.”

“I shall have Mary begin to pack my things then.”

“And what did you do with yourself on this lovely day?”

I took a swig of wine to delay answering, placing the glass back on the table and clearing my throat. “I, uh, well. I received a letter from my aunt.”

Azriel raised an eyebrow and grinned at me. “Aunt Adelaide, how lovely. No doubt wishing to send us her salutations, and well wishes for our marital bliss?”

“She intends to come and see us. On Friday. I think it best that you not be here when she arrives.” I met his gaze, just as the door opened and the maids hurried in with dinner. “So I may explain to her.”

“You think she will object to my presence?” Azriel’s eyes flickered to the maids as they set about serving food onto our plates. “Surely as the man of this house I should be there to receive her.”

“I disagree.”

The maids paused for a split second, quickly resuming their duties and scurrying from the room.

Azriel’s eyes stayed on me, narrowing as he took up his glass of wine again. “You mean to hide me from your aunt?”

“I am not hiding anything, I am simply trying to navigate an exceedingly difficult situation.”

“An exceedingly difficult situation. What a loving description for our marriage.” Azriel laughed and loosened the tie at his collar. “Though I suppose it is rather apt.”

“We have to be careful. ”

“Of what?” His self-assured smile met me over the edge of his glass. “Your family?”

I lowered my voice, my eyes flickering to the door for a moment, certain the maids were still there with their ears pressed to the wood, desperate for a scrap of gossip to take below stairs with them.

“They may yet contest the marriage, Azriel.” I found myself reaching across the table to take his hand, squeezing it, hoping he would understand just how serious the situation was. “They have grounds. This union is illicit. They may seek to have it dissolved.”

Azriel looked down at our joined hands, lifting his thumb to clasp my fingers. “You have such beautiful hands, Evie. So delicate. So unassuming.” He lifted his eyes back to mine. “I had always wondered, did you drug my father that night?”

My eyes widened and I tore my hand away from him. “Hush!” I hissed, glancing over my shoulder at the door. “If you want to lose any leverage you might have, then please continue. But know it will end with me dangling from a rope in Newgate.”

“You know very well that is not an outcome I desire.” He leaned closer to me.

“But then I suppose you must do all you can to convince your aunt that a dissolution of our marriage would break your heart, would leave you and your family destitute, and that you all have no choice but to accept me back into the bosom of the family, or be left penniless.”

“Yes thank you, I have the script well rehearsed in my head,” I spat back, snatching up my wine and downing the whole glass.

“My god, you’re a monster. You know I actually had someone sing your praises to me today?

Telling me that you’re really a good man underneath it all?

” I scoffed, wishing I could smash the glass into his stupid face, which now broke into an amused smile .

“Did you now? I cannot imagine who would be singing such high praises of me, vagabond that I am.”

“And the worst part of it is, I almost believed it. I think I wanted to believe it.” I scowled at him.

“I wanted to believe there was more to you than… than… this.” I gestured at him with a sharp wave.

“This arrogant, self-assured, cynical prig of a man. I wanted to believe that maybe somewhere under there, you were good.”

“I am not a good man, Evie.” He shrugged.

“I have never pretended to be a good man. I have never aspired to be one. My father was a good man.” He practically growled the last words of that sentence, his face darkening.

“Oh yes, such a good man, an admirable man. A man of high esteem with nothing but a useless son and a string of dead wives for comfort.”

“Your father wasn’t a good man either.”

“I suppose that depends entirely on your definition of what a good man is.” He leaned on the table on his elbows, gazing at me intently. “Tell me, what praises were sung in my name today? What good deeds have I been accused of?”

“Amina Osman.”

Azriel’s face betrayed only the slightest hint of surprise at the name, and the corners of his mouth twitched ever so slightly. “And who is that?”

“You know very well who that is.”

“Rather strange sounding foreign name, should I know it?”

I hurled the serviette that had lain in my lap at his face. “God damn you, Azriel Caine, do not play games with me!”

He laughed, a deep and rumbling laugh, flashing his impossibly bright teeth at me. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Amina Osman. The little Turkish girl. The one whose medical bills you paid, who is only alive because of you. ”

“Oh, that Amina Osman, I see.” He shrugged again, and I swore to God at that moment that if he jerked his shoulders in that fashion one more time, I would stab him in the eye with my fork. “What of her?”

“You helped that family. You didn’t have to do that.” I threw my hands up, slumping in my chair. “Why will you not let me believe even in the tiniest fraction of good within you?”

“Because you will find none.” His tone had shifted completely. The smile was gone, and his face was thunderous. “You should not seek that which does not exist, Evie, it will only leave you disappointed.”

“But you helped-”

“ I am not a good man. ” His voice boomed across the expanse of the wood ceiling, echoing off the walls.

“Good men are the ones who congratulate themselves when they open those hospitals, and think nothing of it that children die on the streets every day because their families cannot afford the care therein. Good men left that family destitute with barely a shilling to feed them. Good men like my father, who handed that street off to me because he hoped that my cruelty would extend to those beneath me.”

His eyes were blazing, and it was as though a door was being thrown open, a view into the soul of this man who sat before me with fists balled on the table.

“That is the only reason I was given those businesses, Evie,” he went on.

“I was tasked with making the lives of the residents of White Horse Road as miserable as possible, and I refused to capitulate. Yet another failing in my father’s eyes.

Yes, I paid for Amina Osman to get well again, because there are levels of depravity not even I will sink to, and watching an innocent child waste away due to disease is far, far beyond that. ”

“You cared for that family.” I stared at him, my hands clutched to my chest, unsure of what to say or do in the face of this outpouring of passion.

Azriel shook his head and scoffed, pouring himself more wine. “I saw someone in a wretched position and felt compelled to assist them. That is all.”

“You did not have to, though.”

He gave me a side glance. “Be careful, Evie. You’ll fall in love with me if you keep down this path.

Besides.” He took up his glass, and the grin was back.

“Who told you of these wonderful tales of mine? For I am sure there are only a few people in Stepney who know of it, and none move in your circle.”

“It does not matter.” I brushed my hands over my skirt, taking a deep breath. “And you need not fear me falling in love with you, for it shall not happen.”

“As you say, beloved.” His brows pinched together for the briefest of moments, and he almost looked forlorn. But as quickly as the expression came, it passed, and he took a long drink of wine. “As long as you love our children, I do not care what you feel for me.”

Our children.

The thought made the floor fall out from under me.

I had no intention of becoming pregnant, dutifully using the syringe every time we had been together.

But panic began to creep in as I realised that next week we would be in close quarters as we travelled, and I worried that perhaps he would find out.

And perhaps he would even make good on his threat.

The rest of our meal passed in silence. Once he had finished his meal, he rose to his feet, giving me a chaste kiss on my forehead, before leaving me alone in the room.

What a strange man I had married.