by Lavinia Kent
She shuddered slightly at his words. She had never needed protection, but now as it wrapped around her she wanted nothing more. “I will not do anything without letting you know. Is that enough?”
He ran a finger over her palm. “Letting me know before you act—that would be enough.”
Tilting her face up at him, she smiled. “Go.” She said a single word and realized she imagined a future, dreamed a future. The dreamer lived after all.
Chapter 18
“Where is she? I know she must be here.” Masters burst into the room upsetting both a small table near the door and Violet’s calm. She placed the book she’d been distracting herself with on the shelf and turned to him, her back straight.
She watched as his chin jutted out and he glared at her. It was a gesture she knew from her own mirror. They were more alike than she would ever have credited. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” she replied.
“Isabella. I know she was coming here.” Masters yanked a piece of notepaper from his jacket pocket and waved it at her. His normal composure was as disturbed as his neckwear. Violet had never seen him in such dis-array. He continued, “She said she was coming here as soon as she finished with Foxworthy. There was no answer at his door so she must be here.”
“I truly don’t know what you are talking about,” she said quietly, resisting the urge to snap back at her brother.
He stalked over to her and glared down at her. He waved his papers in her face. “I know you are behind this. Every time I believe I have things running smoothly you interfere.”
Violet took three deep breaths—it had been an incredibly emotional day—and moved to her previous place on the window seat. “Why don’t you tell me what this is about? I do have plans for this evening.”
“It’s a note from your sister.” Masters waved the note in Violet’s face again.
“I am sure it is not the first note you have received from Isabella. What is so special about this one?” Had Peter already spoken to Isabella? Surely there hadn’t been time. It could not be twenty minutes since he left.
“As if you don’t know.”
Violet smiled up at her brother, pretending that her chest was not vibrating with emotion. “Actually, I don’t. Why don’t you take a seat and then you may explain to me calmly what this is all about. We have other things to talk of as well.” She gestured at the seat set a good eight feet away.
Masters stalked over to the chair and sat, still glowering at her from halfway across the room.
“You must know about this. She visits you and Foxworthy and runs off. It must have been you. There is no other reason she would do such a thing.” Masters waved his piece of paper in the air again.
“Why don’t you tell me what that is, brother, and then I can tell you if I know what you are talking about.” She reached out her hand toward Masters.
Masters stared at her outstretched fingers, but in the end he rose. “It’s a letter from your sister.”
“So you’ve said,” Violet answered, her hand still held out.
“It says that she isn’t going to marry St. Johns and that you know why. She says she’s not coming back. How could she not be coming back?” Masters handed the note to Violet. His voice wavered a little, and Violet wondered if his anger might be fueled by concern.
He returned to his chair.
Violet perused the note quickly, her heart speeding with each word she read until at last it felt ready to spring from her chest. Isabella was calling off the wedding, refusing to marry Peter. It seemed impossible. Isabella, for reasons of her own, found Peter unsuitable. Unsuitable! How could anybody not realize how perfect Peter was?
It was at that point that Violet’s heart slowed.
Isabella was calling it off! Peter was free.
Violet went back to the note. There was not much more. Isabella finished by saying that she was leaving London forever and that Masters should speak to Violet if he had any questions. It ended with a command not to follow her. Violet closed her eyes and could hear Isabella saying the words as forcefully as she had proclaimed that Violet could not stop her from leaving.
What was going on?
If Peter had spoken to Isabella this would all make sense, but he hadn’t. The timing was off.
Something was wrong, very wrong.
New worries formed in her chest. Isabella might sound strong, she might think she was strong, why, she might even be strong, but that didn’t mean she should be traipsing about alone. She was in no way prepared to face the world on her own.
What was going on?
“How could you let her leave?” She turned the problem back on Masters.
“Let her leave? Since when have I let that girl do anything? This marriage to Foxworthy is the only thing she’s even pretended to do that I want, and you know how that ended up. I hear in the clubs that the man is ready to have me strung up—even if he hasn’t yet told the world why. You talked to him. Do you really think he has the power and the evidence to do that?”
So Masters’s concern was not solely for Isabella. “I don’t really know. He only ever told me the basest details about your dealings. I don’t know how strong his evidence is, or how guilty you are. As for power—he doesn’t have much of it, but he knows how to use what he has.”
“You’re so reassuring, sister. And I asked Foxworthy not to discuss his evidence with you. It is something that it would not help you to know.”
“Shouldn’t I make that decision?”
“I know you always think you know what’s right, Violet, but it this case, no—there would be no purpose. It is my burden to bear.
“Only you don’t bear it, do you? You let me bear it first, and then Isabella.”
Masters ran a hand through his hair, mussing the smooth waves. “I know that’s what you think, and frankly I doubt I could change your mind. I don’t think you will ever believe I acted in your best interests.”
“No, I don’t suppose I will.”
“Then there really isn’t much to say now. I cannot change the past and I don’t know that I would if I could. I did what I thought was best and what was necessary. I am sorry that it didn’t meet your lofty standards.”
A heavy wave of hair slipped forward over her eyes. She blew at it. “It is not my lofty standards that must concern us now, but whether Foxworthy has evidence of treason.”
“Yes.” It was only a solitary word, but it seemed that all the starch leaked out of him.
“You committed treason?” She could only state it as a question, not as a fact. It seemed unbelievable that the brother who had raised her could have done such a thing.
“He has evidence of treason and he will use it if he can, now that his desires have been thwarted. It is long past the time when money could contain him.”
Violet pushed back the curls that were slipping forward on her face. She drew in a deep breath, ready to order her brother to go. She should leave him to fend for himself just as he had always left her. He’d brought it all on himself, and despite everything, it did seem unlikely that Foxworthy could really bring him up on treason. Wimberley would see to that. It was much more likely that it would make the gossip rounds and ruin Masters’s social standing and position. That did not seem an unfair price for him to pay.
And Isabella—Isabella was gone.
Social standing and ruin seemed so trivial when she thought of her sister alone somewhere on the streets, taking a carriage by herself to God-knew-where.
Foxworthy would still need to be dealt with, but other concerns were much more pressing.
She took that deep breath and prepared to order Masters away.
“I’ve been to your brother’s house and nobody is there. I even tried his club. They haven’t seen him this day. I don’t know where else to look.” Peter walked into the room without knocking. He had a ready smile on his lips, but his eyes were troubled.
He stopped suddenly as his eyes lit on Masters. He turned to Violet with confu
sion in his eyes.
“Did you have questions about planning the wedding?” Masters’s question caught Violet by surprise. How quickly he’d gone from worry to trying to gloss over the entire situation.
“No, I was coming to—”
Violet cut Peter off. “She’s cried off. That is one worry we no longer have.”
“Cried off?” A flare of hope gleamed in Peter’s eyes.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find the girl and bring her back and all the nonsense can be cleared up. Everything can go back to the way it was.” Masters’s voice rang with desperation.
“I would never dream of pushing a girl who didn’t want me.” Peter was close to grinning like a schoolboy, although his eyes still sought answers from Violet.
“What Masters is not saying,” Violet interrupted, “is that Isabella has left a note saying she doesn’t want to marry you, and has run off. It does not say where she is going. We must find her.” She stretched out Isabella’s note to Peter. “Did you talk to her? Is that why she has done this thing?”
Peter reached out and took the missive. His knuckles were grazed. She brushed her fingers over them.
“I am afraid I punched the wall when Masters was not at home. He grinned sheepishly, then scanned the note. His face tensed with comprehension. “No, I have not seen her. As for why—I don’t know. Surely you don’t blame yourself for what is probably a whim. Perhaps she simply realized we would not suit.”
“Then why would she leave? I don’t believe she would leave just because she decided not to marry you.”
“You blame yourself. I hear it in your voice.” Peter caught her hand and held it tight.
“No. Yes. I started to, but then I realized that I cannot control her choices. That doesn’t mean I can’t try to stop her, however. She is too young to know what she is doing. We must go after her.”
“Do you know where she has gone? Does she have any contacts she might have prevailed upon?” Peter turned to Masters as he asked this last question.
“None that I know of. She has a friend, Annie Westers, but I’ve already inquired there, and I am convinced the girl knows nothing. It is why I came here. Her note clearly says you’ll know why she left, Violet.”
Violet turned to her brother. “I wish I did. I can’t even imagine a reason she’d leave.” As she spoke she turned and glanced at Peter for reassurance.
He smiled at her and came toward the window seat. She moved her skirts aside so that he could sit. He looked between her and Masters and then deliberately put an arm around her.
It was a moment of truth. Violet leaned into him.
She could see the muscles in Masters’s neck tense as he prepared to blame this whole mess on her. She turned her face toward Peter. Her nose rubbed against the fine linen of his shirt. It smelled like him. Safety and comfort were in that smell. Normally things smelled like things, leather, musk, horses, smoke, but he smelled like safety and comfort.
It was an odd thought. Her mind must be delaying the moment that she would raise her head and confront her brother.
Sensing her movement, Peter placed a finger under her chin and raised her face up to meet his. He planted a soft kiss on her nose. “Nothing he can say can hurt us. We are together in this.”
“I am not so confident.” She spoke to him softly, ignoring Masters, who hung back stoically, completely.
“It feels like my life is hung from a series of threads, and I don’t hold the end to any of them.”
“We will just have to wait and see. Life is about adventure as well as choices.” He laid the softest of kisses against her forehead. “What matters is that we are together. We will find your sister and somehow work out this mess with Foxworthy.”
Violet knew she shouldn’t believe him. He made it all sound so easy, but surrounded by the soft smell of his shirt all things seemed possible. Together they could do this. For the first time today it seemed really possible that they could do this. Together. The knots that had formed in her belly began to loosen.
She raised her face and stared at her brother, awaiting his comment. He met her glance and said nothing. He seemed to sink further into his seat. He turned and looked at Peter. “I don’t suppose your brother, Wimberley, will still help me with our problems?”
Violet could feel Peter pull a deep breath into his chest before answering. “I’ll make no promises, but I wouldn’t want to see Violet or Isabella pulled into your mess. I will see what can be done. The St. Johnses protect their own. Foxworthy will be disarmed.”
Masters seemed to deflate like a balloon at his words, the tension leaving his body. “I never meant it to turn out this way. You may not want to believe me, but I always wanted decent lives for my sisters—thought I was doing the best thing.”
Violet’s eyes met Peter’s. She wanted to say something to Masters, to ask how he could ever have believed that marrying Milber and Dratton was best. Instead she continued to stare at Peter. If she had not lived the life she had, she might not have ended up where she was, and that would have been a shame.
She said nothing, and the three of them sat in silence for a moment. Then Violet turned to Masters. “What matters now is finding Isabella. Are you sure she didn’t say anything when she gave you the note?”
“She didn’t actually give it to me. She raced out of the house a few minutes after the two of you,” Masters said. “She refused her maid, saying she needed a brisk walk in the park to clear her head. Getting engaged was apparently heady stuff. I tried to insist, but she was gone before I had a chance.”
“She must have come back to write the note,” Violet challenged.
“No, a boy brought it by about half an hour ago. He scampered off before I could question him. Evidently my reply was not required,” Masters answered.
“Is the stationery her own?” Violet inquired.
“No, she uses some pink nonsense with a floral cutout edge. Quite atrocious.”
Violet bowed her head to consider. Where would Isabella have gone? Did she know anybody in the country who might take her in? It seemed unlikely from what she knew of her sister’s life.
“Foxworthy—you said something about her visiting Foxworthy before coming here.” Her stomach tightened again. Did it always come back to Foxworthy?
Masters waved her comment off. “Yes, but that doesn’t matter—there was no answer at his home. Not even a servant.”
“That’s strange,” Peter said.
Violet glanced at him. “Yes, it is very strange.” She turned back to her brother. “And how did you know that Isabella was going to visit Foxworthy?”
“It must say in the note.”
“It doesn’t.”
Masters raked his finger through his hair. “I don’t know then—perhaps the boy said something. I just know that’s what she was doing.”
Violet’s eyes met Peter’s. They clearly had the same thought.
Peter spoke first. “Go back to your house and wait for Isabella.” He addressed Masters. “I find it hard to believe Isabella won’t return to fetch a bonnet or some such.”
“But—”
Violet turned on her brother. “Just go. She might be there now. Peter and I will take care of the rest.”
Masters looked up at her in confusion. “The rest?”
“Foxworthy.” Violet and Peter spoke in unison.
The house was dark. It was the middle of the afternoon and Foxworthy’s house stood still and empty. Peter glanced from house to house along the street, trying to decide what made this one different. It was too early for lights to show even if lit, and the sun reflected off the windows the same as any other home on the street.
Still, something was different.
“Won’t he think it odd that we are here together?” Violet laid a hand on his sleeve. “Should I just go up to the door alone?”
“And having you call, alone, in the middle of the day would be less odd?” He turned and looked at her squarely, spoke firmly so there could be n
o doubt. “No, we go together.”
Did she look relieved? She’d tilted up her chin defiantly, but deep in her eyes he saw something else. He placed a hand over hers.
Side by side they walked up the path to the stairs. Violet stepped aside as he knocked. There was no answer—not even the bustling sounds of servants.
He knocked again, harder. The door shivered. He glanced at Violet and then instead of knocking he pushed. The door swung open.
Still, there was no sound from inside.
Violet clutched his sleeve more tightly. She nodded toward the interior.
He stepped forward. The fall of his step echoed through the empty hall. The rustle of Violet’s skirts followed behind.
“His study is this way. It seemed the most lived-in room of the house.” Violet pulled him toward the back of the hall.
The door was halfway open. He pushed it the rest of the way.
Isabella stood there, not moving, a statue.
She didn’t seem to even see them as they stepped through the door. Her gaze was fastened on the floor to their left.
Peter glanced over. Foxworthy.
The body lay sprawled across the rug, the head turned at an impossible angle. Even without the thin line of blood that marked the brow, it would have been impossible to miss what had occurred.
“He’s dead.” Isabella spoke without even a glance in their direction.
Violet stopped short next to him. She appeared almost as still as her sister, but he could feel the rapid beating of her heart.
Peter moved toward Isabella. She was right. Foxworthy was dead and needed no aid. Isabella, however, looked like she might topple at any moment.
Violet pulled a chair from behind the desk, and he maneuvered Isabella into it.
“Did you—” Violet started to speak.
Isabella cut her off. “I saw you in the garden.”
“I don’t understand,” Violet tried again.
“You should have told me.” Isabella’s voice held no emotion.
“Told you what?”
Isabella didn’t speak, but started to pick at her skirts. Her hands were smeared with blood. Each touch left a smudge on her skirt. She appeared not to notice.
