Reckless in Red

by Rachael Miles

  She looked up into Clive’s kind face. “I’d rather know,” she whispered.

  “We should be thorough, Harner.” He placed his hand supportively on the small of her back.

  Harner grunted assent. “Give me a moment. These need a bit of arranging. The students never put their work back as they found it.” He pulled and tugged the bodies, laying them out shoulder to shoulder, then he carefully pulled back the linen, showing only their faces.

  Lena gasped.

  “Calder?” Clive stepped closer to her side, ready to console her.

  “Not Horatio.” She shook her head no. “But these three.” Through the linen, she touched the shoulder of the towheaded man with the long scar on his cheek and chin. “This is Maxim Cardolet, portrait painter, able to make the most ordinary face memorable.” She pointed at the long scar that ran across his face from temple to cheek. “He got that scar when he protected his employer’s artworks from an angry French mob.” Maxim’s face was bruised and cut, and she was grateful the sheet obscured whatever had killed him.

  She moved her hand to the next man’s shoulder, offering a eulogy of sorts. “Hugo Cardolet, Maxim’s cousin, who painted machinery, ships, rigging, all with an amazing detail. Hugo was deaf from a fever, but even so, he sang robustly as he worked, a lovely baritone.” Bruises lined Hugo’s neck.

  “This is Armaud Bonheur, who traveled with the Cardolets and painted birds—all kinds—so lifelike you expected them to fly.” She touched the third man’s shoulder as she had the others. “Once he discovered I could speak French, he refused to speak anything else.” Bonheur showed no indication of what might have taken his life.

  “Were they with you long?”

  “A month, perhaps a little less. The Rotunda is known for hiring émigrés. One day they simply didn’t return. I thought they had found more lucrative jobs. They were saving to open their own atelier. They had such plans. . . .” She stopped, uncertain she could trust her voice. Her throat thickened with unwept tears, but she held them back.

  “Someone had plans.” Clive’s voice was hard and cold, a tone she’d never heard before, but she understood it. He touched Maxim’s shoulder. “We will find that person.” She could almost hear him add “I promise.”

  He nodded to Harner, who covered the men’s faces. “I’ll be sending the magistrate, a man by the name of Thacker. He’ll need to see these three bodies.”

  “I’ve had enough death for a day.” Lena waited until his eyes met hers, then she walked with Clive toward the stairway. “I had steeled myself to find Horatio, but not the others. I’ll need some paper to draw Horatio for you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  At the street, Clive hailed a hackney. Lena’s face was drawn, whether from the cold or the shock, but in either case, it pulled at his heart. He wished he could tuck her somewhere safe until he’d uncovered the scheme that put her in danger, and he was more and more certain the Rotunda was the least safe place Lena could be. But how could he broach it in a way that his self-reliant, resilient Lena might listen?

  His. He liked the sound of it, and he wondered what Lena might think. Would she say she thought of him as hers as well? He hoped she would.

  He gave the driver the address of the duke’s residence and climbed into the carriage. “When you are satisfied with your drawing, I’ll send it to Thacker and ask him to search the other surgery schools.” He took the backward-facing seat. “You and I will take a different approach. Of your craftsmen, how many are émigrés?”

  “I don’t have a number. We hire the best craftsmen, regardless of nationality, and we advertise here and abroad. ‘Wanted: the best craftsmen for the most important painting in the last decade.’ Horatio used every opportunity to stimulate public interest. We had dozens of applications, but Horatio handled it all. He even fashioned some accommodations in the storehouse behind the Rotunda for those new to London.” She paused, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. He tried not to focus on the fullness of her lips, but he wanted to kiss her again.

  “I was in Paris during the years of the Musée Napoleon.” She seemed to change the subject.

  “The museum Napoleon made for the works of art he’d stolen from across the Continent,” he prompted.

  “Before the works were returned to their homes, the Musée Napoleon offered an unimaginable opportunity: all that art in one place to study and copy. It gathered a rich community of artists and craftsmen from across Europe. I had hoped to rebuild something of that community here, but the continental craftsmen move on too quickly, sometimes as soon as we hire them.”

  “Do they find other employment or simply disappear? Do they leave anything behind?”

  “Horatio would know better than I do.” She shrugged. “But a month or so ago, he was upset that two craftsmen—both Belgian—left after only a week to paint theatrical backgrounds in Brighton. They asked us to store their belongings until they returned.” She paused. “Horatio read the note they sent several times before he stuffed it in his pocket.”

  “Do you know where he might have put that letter or their belongings?”

  “If Horatio kept it, we might find the note in the hatbox. As for their belongings, Horatio boxed them up, and he may have left them in the storeroom.” She grew silent for a moment. “You think they didn’t leave.”

  “Would you recognize the missing craftsmen if you saw them again?”

  “Probably. Why?”

  “I’ve kept sketches of all the bodies suspected of having been murdered, and it would be useful to see if you recognize anyone else. I’ll bring them to the duke’s residence tonight.”

  Lena looked him over, and he felt her examination as a warm sun. He studied her eyes, her brows, her mouth, her full, inviting lips, but it was more than her physical charms. He thought of her hand, touching the three dead artists, and her impromptu eulogies. She was willful and stubborn, thoughtful and talented, and ingenious and independent, but under it all he saw glimpses of a vulnerability that she wouldn’t even admit to herself. She was an enigma, and if he wasn’t careful, he might risk losing his heart.

  He was about to touch her knee, when something out the window caught her eye. She looked past him, watching the passing buildings, then pulled her body away from his.

  “This isn’t the way to the Rotunda.” Her voice was hard and suspicious.

  Clive looked out the window and cursed inwardly. “A mistake of habit. Please forgive me. I must have given him the duke’s address. I’ll have him turn the carriage at the next opportunity.” Clive started to tap the ceiling, but paused. “At the same time, until we know why Calder is in hiding, you must consider staying away from the Rotunda. Judith and Ophelia can manage your crew during the day while you and I search for Calder, and at night you can advise them what to do next. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”

  The look on her face told him he had compounded one error with another equally grave.

  “You withhold information, parceling it out when you can’t gain my help otherwise.” Lena studied him intently, as if trying to read his character in the lines on his face. “You tell me the Rotunda is so dangerous that I must stay away, but your relatives—your female relatives—can safely remain there day in and day out. Whose interests are you protecting? Yours, the duke’s, or the surgery school’s?”

  “In solving a murder, I’m protecting the interests of the state. I’ve withheld information, yes. That’s how one conducts an investigation. As for the safety of my female relatives, they are protected by a raft of the duke’s servants.”

  Clive watched her face for any reaction, but saw none. He continued, “Earlier, you offered to help me. Now you must let me help you. Or if not me, have you no family, no community, to call upon?”

  The look on her face, somewhere between sorrow and anger, told him a great deal. “No.”

  “But you aren’t dead.”

  “What?” She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret, both surprised and defensive a
nd something else.

  “In this world, people without a community end up dead.” He wished she could trust him. “Who is your community?”

  “I told you already.” Her eyes were dark. “I was building a community of craftsmen here, refugees—like me—from the Continent.”

  “You describe yourself as a refugee but you are clearly British, and your English shows no hint of your years abroad,” Clive observed. “Do you feel that distanced from the land of your birth?”

  “Have you heard me speak French, monsieur?” At the word monsieur, she became French in accent, posture, and mannerisms. She offered a short tirade on London fashion. Clive pretended not to understand, knowing it was a test, but of what, he couldn’t be sure. He managed not to react—or smile—not even when she described an embroidered waistcoat one of his cousins had worn to Ophelia’s dinner as a “violation of all that Beau Brummell held holy.” Underneath her words was an anger he hadn’t seen before, a hurt that went years deep.

  Her manner changed back to English. “Or perhaps you would prefer Italian, signore, as the Romans speak it?” She performed the trick again, her voice, body, and gestures becoming Italian. This time he didn’t have to pretend. He only caught her meaning in bits and snatches, enough to know that she was complaining about the quality of wine available in London.

  “My German changes with the country. In Austria, I speak like the Viennese; in Switzerland, like those from Bern. Anywhere I have lived, I have listened for the smallest distinctions and practiced until no one could tell I was from anywhere else. The British are notorious for speaking every language in their own dialect: they make Cádiz rhyme with ladies, as Lord Byron points out. But not me. If I were to meet you on the street in Naples, or Villach, or Montpellier, you might not know which country I was from, but you wouldn’t pick England. The Continent took me in when England failed me, so, though I was born here, I am also a refugee.”

  He wanted to draw her into his arms; her wounds clearly still ran deep. But he knew a show of sympathy would be unwelcome. Instead, he spoke without thinking, “You are quite good at that. You’d be an excellent spy.” He wished he could call back the words as soon as they left his lips.

  She stared at him, disbelieving. “Are you always so . . . accommodating? I lie to you at the Rotunda office. I challenge and bait you. I disagree and refuse your suggestions. I show you that I can pretend to be from any number of countries, and every time, you respond as if I’m being perfectly reasonable.”

  “Perhaps I find you fascinating, Miss Frost, utterly and completely fascinating.” She stared at him with a look he couldn’t interpret, and he breathed in before continuing. “Besides, you have had several very trying days. It seems only fair . . .”

  She put her hand on his lips, stopping his words. “Stop acting as if I’m some piece of Dresden porcelain, liable to break at the most inconvenient moment. I do not break.”

  He took her hand in his. Never letting his eyes leave hers, he kissed her gloved palm, reveling in the electricity that arced as if they were touching flesh to flesh. “I’ve never thought you were liable to break.”

  With one hand, he held hers, while the other pulled on the tips of her glove. She watched his hand, as if the motion of his fingers mesmerized her. With each tug, he named her attributes. “You are strong. Resilient. Brave. Inventive. Daring.” He began again with her forefinger. “Clever. Charming. Devious. Headstrong.”

  “I preferred the first set.” She tried to pull her hand away, but he held it tight and continued, one finger at a time, releasing each from the fabric inch by inch, then beginning again as he drew the material slowly off her hand. With “honest,” the glove released completely. He laid it on his knee, never letting her hand go. Raising her palm to his lips, he watched her eyes widen, but rather than kiss her again, he instead breathed warmth onto her cold fingers and palm.

  With his index finger, he traced the slender length of her forefinger lightly, barely touching her skin. He moved from forefinger to second to third, his touch a whisper. She shuddered, but she never pulled her hand from his. All her attention—and his—was focused on that singular meeting of their flesh.

  It was a long seduction, a single hand, five fingers, a wrist. By the time he finally pressed his lips to her palm, the air between them shimmered with energy. She stretched out her other hand and cradled his cheek. Her eyes never left his.

  She leaned forward. He lowered her hand from his lips, clasping it to his heart. Their lips met, as they had the night before, but with more conviction. His free hand curled behind her neck, supporting her head. His fingers, slipping beneath the soft fabric of her cap, felt the silky twist of her hair.

  The kiss ended, only to be followed by another, and another. The world existed only in their kisses, and each parting brought a new apocalypse.

  With one elegant movement, he changed his seat, drawing her closer. His hand slid down her spine, settling against the small of her back, holding her close to him.

  She shifted, pulling away so that she could meet his eyes with hers.

  “We haven’t time.” Her voice was husky with desire. “We are nearing the Rotunda.”

  “If you wish, I’ll tell him to drive us somewhere else.” He brushed a stray curl back with his forefinger.

  “Somewhere else.” She repeated the words as if she’d never heard them before. She gave him one last long kiss, but her face indicated the moment was gone. “Actually, there is somewhere else we should go.” She looked through the window at the passing streets. “It will take less time to walk than to turn the carriage. But it’s not the best of neighborhoods, so I must caution you to be brave.” Her words were serious, but a smile played at the corner of her mouth.

  Clive tapped for the coachman to stop, then he kissed her once more. “With you at my side, how could I be afraid?”

  She rolled her eyes in response. She straightened her clothes and bonnet. “We will hurry. I don’t wish to take advantage of your family’s goodwill in helping a perfect stranger.”

  “No one is a stranger who has been to a family dinner. And you garnered extra goodwill for entertaining Ophelia’s chemistry lesson.” He gently straightened her bonnet, tucking in the escaped hairs.

  She ran her hand down his chest, then readjusted his cravat. The gesture was intimate, as if their kisses had shifted the landscape between them. “Are we suitable?”

  He curved his palm around her cheek, and she covered his hand with hers. “Quite.”

  The carriage stopped, and Clive stepped down, then lifted Lena out. “Where are we going?” The address, several blocks away, lay in the direction from which they had come. Clive paid the driver, then returned to her side.

  “My studio. It’s the sort of place Horatio would hide if he knew about it.”

  Clive followed. “But he doesn’t?”

  “I inherited it before I met him. But I have a box there that I was keeping safe for one of the craftsmen. It might hold nothing interesting.”

  “Or it might give us a clue we need.”

  She led him down a short block, then through an alley. When they came out again, they stood on a street lined with buildings to either side and a large cemetery before them. “We are going to that row of buildings on the other side of the cemetery.”

  Clive sniffed the air. “Is that the smell you mentioned to Ophelia?”

  “Yes. It’s so pungent in summer that it’s driven away most of the trade and many of the residents. Even thieves stay away.” She pointed at the churchyard gate. “It’s quicker to cut through, and if Ophelia is right, we should be safe enough during the day.”

  “I see why you were so interested in Ophelia’s chemistry lesson.”

  “One can learn a great deal from another person’s passion.”

  Clive held the churchyard gate open, gallantly. “After you, my dear ghoul.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The interior of the cemetery was desolate. To their left, long expan
ses of exposed dirt alternated with strips of barely rooted grass. To their right rose hills of displaced earth, and before them stood several trenches, twenty feet wide and equally deep. Clive studied the trenches as they passed, the dirt held back by walls made of wooden slats. They walked in near silence, trying not to breathe in too much of the noxious air.

  “Lena. Stop,” he whispered, pulling her back into the shadow of the mounded earth. In the distance, a group of men lifted a body from the ground, then stripped it of its clothes. Grave robbers. “We need to leave and quickly.”

  “But we are almost there. It’s just to that gate.” Having not seen the robbers, she pointed toward the gate. One of the men caught sight of her movement. Yelling to one another, two men ran across the yard toward them, and the other two to the gate.

  “They’re cutting us off.” Clive examined their surroundings, and picking up a nearby tarp, he threw it in the closest trench. He took her elbow. “Sit down.”

  “On the edge of the pit?” She sat, but unhappily. He flung himself flat on the ground beside her. “We haven’t much time. I’ll lower you as far as I can, but when you hit the bottom, try to roll with the impact. Give me your hands.”

  The men, yelling to each other, were drawing closer. She grabbed his wrists, and he hers, closed her eyes, and slid off the edge. When she was hanging the length of his arms into the pit, she let go. She fell, rolling naturally. She landed next to a skull sticking up from the earth, and she recoiled away from it, pushing back into the wall of the pit.

  Clive lowered himself from the edge, then let go. Covered in mire, he picked up the tarp and pressed it into the mud at the base of the trench wall. “Sit there, on the tarp, as close as you can to the wall.”

  “I’m going to hate this, aren’t I?” she whispered, sitting.

  He sat beside her, pulling the tarp over them like a blanket. “You can bury your face in my chest, but we’re going to have to lie down—if they can see anything in the pit, we want them to think we are just another pair of bodies.”