Monk touched my arm. “My lady, it is best if you go now. This is the most dangerous time. He has been quite calm as of yet, but I cannot promise you will be safe here.”
I nodded, my mouth too dry for speech. Nothing would induce me to turn my back on Brisbane in that moment. He sat, watching motionless as I slid one tentative foot behind me. Before I could even put my weight upon the foot, he was up and across the room, moving with a speed and ferocity I would never have imagined.
I gasped when his hand closed hard on my wrist. He jerked, pulling me into the room. With his free hand he slammed the door in Monk’s face and twisted the key in the lock.
It occurred to me then that it was extremely careless of Monk to leave a key in the lock at all, but I realized that this was not the time for such recriminations. I flattened myself against the door, brandishing my basket in front of me—a feeble defense, but the only one I had.
He released my arm and made no other move toward me. He seemed content to stand, staring at me, his eyes clearly bloodshot even in the darkened room.
I heard Monk pounding on the door, his voice muffled through the thick wood.
“I am fine, Monk,” I called with more conviction than I felt.
“Thank God for that,” I heard him say. “Do not move suddenly, my lady. You must not startle him. I do not believe he will harm you.”
I tried to take comfort in that, but I decided it was much easier for Monk to be confident with three inches of stout oak between him and an unpredictable man driven half mad by pain and narcotics. But it was true that Brisbane had had quite enough time to do me harm if that was his intention, and he seemed content to watch me instead, his eyes unfocused and confused.
“Why have you come?”
The sound of his voice startled me. I had not expected him to speak, at least not lucidly.
“I was worried for you. I thought you might like some fruit,” I said stupidly, indicating my basket.
He said nothing and I continued to hold it, feeling absurdly grateful that I had at least this flimsy bit of wicker between us. He was quite close, near enough for me to smell again that sharp metallic scent over the lush sweetness of the fruit. It was on his breath, and I realized it must be the absinthe.
“Would you like to sleep now?” I asked softly.
His eyes seemed heavy, like a child’s fighting sleep, and I knew he was resisting the effects of his drug. He shook his head irritably, and I saw then the pendant at his throat, gleaming brightly against his skin. It was a small round of silver, threaded onto a thin black silk cord and engraved with a portrait of some kind.
“What is your pendant?” I asked, desperate to make some sort of normal conversation. Perhaps if I kept him talking calmly, Monk would devise a rescue.
Brisbane blinked slowly, then brought a finger to his throat.
“Medusa.”
I nodded, trying to keep my eyes averted from it. It lay in the hollow of his throat, and in the normal course of events I would never have seen it, or his bared chest. I tried not to look at that, either, although I will admit to a few stolen glances in spite of my fear. Edward had been pale and golden and smooth, like a slim Greek statue worked in marble at sunrise. Brisbane was more deeply muscled, with a spread of black hair over his chest and stomach. The effect was startling and I told myself that it was not at all attractive. I forced myself to look away immediately.
“It is time to sleep now,” I said firmly.
He moved and I thought he was going to seize my suggestion. Instead, he seized my basket. It slipped from his fingers to the floor, spilling pears and berries and a rather fat melon across the carpet. He looked at it for a moment, watching the juices ooze into the carpet, then turned back to me. Slowly, he reached out and lifted my hand, curiously, as if it were not attached to my person, but was instead an object for study. He turned it over, looking blankly at the soft leather of the glove, tracing the tiny stitches of the seams as if trying to remember where he had seen such a thing before. He paused briefly at the silk-cord edging, and then moved beyond, slipping a finger under the glove leather at my wrist to rub the flutter of my pulse. He was murmuring in a low voice, something unintelligible but familiar, perhaps an old song or rhyme, I could not tell. I pulled gently at my arm, but he held it fast, his finger dipping down to my palm, stroking the hollow of my hand.
Swallowing hard, I raised my free hand and pushed at his shoulder.
“Time for sleep, Brisbane.”
His head came up suddenly.
“Stupid,” he said, his voice thick now. “Should not have come, Julia.”
His hand still held mine. His free arm came quickly around my waist. He pulled me hard against him. His eyes were dilated, wide black pupil against black iris, giving him an unearthly look. His breath was coming quickly through parted lips. My spine felt rigid, as though he could crack it in two with his hands if he wished.
He dipped his head low, close enough for his mouth to touch mine if he turned ever so slightly. I wondered later what would have happened if I had given him the chance. Instead, I lifted my heel and brought it down viciously on the top of his instep. The pain brought him up sharply and he stared at me, never loosening his grasp. He opened his mouth to speak, hesitated with a shiver, and then closed it on a deep, resonant groan. His eyes rolled back and he collapsed, bearing me down to the floor as he fell.
We landed heavily, his body pinning mine to the carpet and knocking me nearly breathless. I took a few gasping gulps of air, then pushed at his shoulders to shift his weight. He was completely oblivious, and it was only when Monk burst through the door and hefted him off of me that I was free.
“How did you get in?” I rubbed at the back of my head. A lump was beginning to form, but it was not as bad as I expected. Thank goodness for the thick carpet and my own strong skull.
Monk struggled to the bed with Brisbane, a deadweight draped over his shoulders. He laid him down gently and tucked the coverlet around him. He turned back to me. His colour was high, but he seemed otherwise calm and unruffled by the events of the past few minutes. I realized now why Brisbane kept him. A servant with such a cool head was a definite asset in his situation.
Monk reached down to help me up. “A bit of stiff wire, my lady. I knocked the key out of the keyhole and used my own key to unlock the door.”
He motioned me toward the sitting room and I followed gratefully, noticing that he did not close the door to the bedchamber.
Monk must have noticed my nervous glance toward the bedchamber door. “In case he needs me,” he said simply. “Now, I think a bit of brandy for the shock.”
I agreed and took a deep, choking drink, thinking how much better it would have been if it had been a whiskey.
“That was most unpleasant for you, my lady. I can only offer my most abject apologies.”
I stared into the depths of my brandy glass, as if scrying for answers. It was a long moment before I answered him, a moment in which he tidied up stray newspapers and poked at the fire. Anyone peering through the windows might have thought it a pleasantly domestic scene. Unless they looked into Brisbane’s room.
“That is not necessary, Monk,” I said at length. “It was my own fault for coming. I was stupid. I was impatient to show him something,” I finished lamely, patting my pocket to make certain the Psalter was still there. “Tell me, Monk, does he show no improvement? Is there no help for him?”
Monk ran a hand through his thatch of silvering hair, his expression grieved. “I used to think he was getting better. There were months, several at a stretch sometimes, when he would be free of them. But since we came back to London…he is getting worse. And so are the cures. He used to take absinthe with an equal part of water. Now I count myself lucky if I can persuade him to put a pipette’s worth of water in the glass. He will kill himself with it.”
There was acceptance in his voice, but genuine regret as well.
“How long have you known him?”
; He gave me a wistful smile. “Since he was a boy. He was a student at the school where I was master. Wild as a moorland pony, he was. A wretched student. He never could abide the rules, the discipline. But a fine mind, the best I ever taught. When they finally threw him out, I went with him.”
“Did he have these headaches, even then?”
Monk hesitated, as if he feared to say too much. But I think he realized we shared a bond of sorts, a bond of knowing too much. “As long as ever I have known him. But they are more frequent now, more painful. His usual methods have begun to fail him. I do not know what will become of him.”
I set the glass down firmly. “Surely something can be done. There are doctors—”
“He has seen them all. He has been bled and purged like a medieval serf and dosed with things I do not like to think of. They have done things to him that frighten me still, and I am a grown man who has seen two wars. Nothing helps him except oblivion. He tried opium for a while—we had a nasty business getting him off of that. Then he tried morphia, cocaine—every narcotic known to man. We had high hopes for the absinthe, but I think it begins to fail him as well. They all do eventually.”
We were quiet a moment, each of us caught up in our thoughts—mine wholly unpleasant ones. There seemed to be nothing I could do, and the helplessness infuriated me.
“At least you could have some help with him,” I said finally, taking in Monk’s lined eyes and pale skin. Caring for Brisbane was taking a toll upon the portly former schoolmaster. “I think you have not slept in days.”
But if Monk was a retired schoolmaster, he was also a former soldier. He raised his chin and shook his head, his spine stiff. “No one sees him when he is like this. Besides, there have been episodes, violent ones. He has never harmed me, but I could not be absolutely certain…”
His cleared his throat, steeling himself, I thought.
“I do hope that he did not offer your ladyship any insult?”
“No. He—he embraced me. I think he was quite delirious. I am afraid that I acted rather stupidly. I stepped on his foot with my heel. That is when he collapsed.”
Monk seemed relieved. “It was not your doing, my lady. The oblivion comes on quickly. The last dose should have affected him by the time you arrived. It was coincidence that he should have collapsed at that moment. You do understand he was not himself?” he asked earnestly. “I have known him from boyhood. He would never force himself on an unwilling lady.”
I pressed my lips together. There seemed no possible comment to that.
I smoothed my skirts and my thoughts and rose, offering my hand to Monk. “I think you and I must rely upon each other’s discretion. If you will gather up the fruit, you may tell him that I sent it with a servant and my compliments. He will never hear from me that I saw him in this state.”
Monk’s face was suffused with gratitude as he took my hand.
“I will say nothing of your visit, I assure you, my lady. And I must apologize for speaking so freely. I am overtired, as you yourself observed. I would not usually confide, but as Mr. Brisbane has himself remarked, you are a most unusual lady.”
Monk pressed my hand. “And thank you for your discretion, my lady. I need not tell you how disastrous it would be if he ever learned you were here.”
“Then we shall not speak of it.”
He bowed me out of the room and closed the door firmly behind me. I heard the locks being turned and the bolt being shot and I wondered if he was locking the world out—or Brisbane in.
THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER
’Tis such fools as you
That makes the world full of ill-favour’d children.
—William Shakespeare
As You Like It
I left the rooms in Chapel Street in a vile mood—so vile that I elected to walk, hoping that the freshening air would blow some of the confusion from my mind and the heat from my cheeks. But exercise was no balm. Rather than being charmed by the bustle of the streets, I was annoyed at being jostled about. I found myself glaring at people and walking too quickly in my agitation. I arrived at Grey House out of breath and perspiring faintly in spite of the breeze. I was tired and cross, more at myself than anyone else. I should have mastered my impatience and my excitement at finding the Psalter and bided my time until Brisbane sent word he was prepared to see me.
Instead I had behaved like a schoolgirl. Brisbane was no performing monkey on display, but I had allowed my own curiosity and excitement to propel me into his sanctum, insulting his privacy. What was wrong with me that I had forced my way into the rooms of a sick man? Such impetuosity was not even part of my character. It was a March trait, one I deplored. And I had allowed myself to be seduced by the thrill of the investigation into acting like a member of my own family.
And worse by far, I had taken advantage of Brisbane’s indisposition and state of undress to assess his physique. It was shameful, really. Poor Brisbane, racked by pain and half mad with absinthe, and I had actually taken the opportunity to look at his bared chest.
My only consolation was that I had not enjoyed the experience. Brisbane was not at all the sort of man I admired. He was too dark, too tall, too thickly muscled, altogether too much. I preferred a slender, epicene form, with delicately sketched muscles and golden hair. Graceful, aristocratic, like a Renaissance statue. Like Edward.
But if Edward was Donatello’s David, in fairness, I must concede that Brisbane was more Michelangelo’s. It was the difference between Hermes and Hades, really. The slim, glowing youth versus the dark, brooding lord. Grace versus power, although, if I were entirely truthful, Brisbane had his own sort of grace, nothing so effete as Edward’s, but graceful just the same. Brisbane put one in mind of wolves and lithe jungle cats, while Edward conjured images of seraphim and slim young saints. It required an entirely different aesthetic altogether to appreciate Brisbane, one that I lacked. Entirely.
Even so, it was wrong of me even to look at him, especially at so fraught a time. I had acted with a complete lack of decorum and good breeding, and I was thoroughly ashamed of myself.
In fact, I was so preoccupied with my little bout of self-loathing that I did not see the caller lounging at the front steps of Grey House until I had nearly passed him by. I paused and peered closely.
“Reddy? Reddy Phillips, is that you?”
The young man swept off his hat and made me a very pretty bow. “Good afternoon, my lady. I hope that you are keeping quite well.”
I surveyed him from his extremely fashionable hat (surely not yet paid for) to the empty watch chain at his waist (certainly the watch was pawned to pay a debt). He had always been a handsome creature, but I looked at his too-carefully brushed hair and meticulously shot cuffs and found myself growing impatient, my lips thinning in disapproval. Not my most attractive expression, but I could not help it.
“What brings you to Grey House, Reddy? I am not in the habit of receiving callers in the street.”
He had the grace to blush a little, but it was not as charming as I had once thought.
“I have come about a matter of honour,” he said, leaning toward me with a conspiratorial little smile. He glanced up and down the street, as if to make certain we were not overheard. He needn’t have bothered. The only passersby were on the other side of the street and Curzon is wide enough that low voices and clandestine glances are more for effect than necessity.
“What matter of honour? Are you referring to that ridiculous bird in Val’s rooms?”
He blanched, either at my forthright conversation or the audibility of my tone.
“Well, Reddy?”
He smiled again, licking his lips. I noticed that they were peeling. I glanced down at his hands and saw that the nails were bitten to the quick, one thumb bleeding discreetly around the nail. Surely he had not pawned his gloves, as well.
“My lady, I am certain that you will appreciate the need for discretion in this very delicate situation. Perhaps we could go inside….”
; He moved toward the door, but I stepped neatly in front of him, squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin. Really, this was too much. I had complained to Val that the Phillipses were all jumped-up tradesmen and it was only too true. Two generations of money cannot compensate for the complete neglect of a gentleman’s social education. No other person of my acquaintance would have presumed to invite himself into my home, particularly when I was still observing my period of mourning. But I was rather relieved at Reddy’s pushing rudeness. It absolved me of being nice to him.
“No, we cannot go inside, Reddy, because it is nearly teatime, as you would know if you still owned a watch, and I have no intention of inviting you to stay.”
Stunned, he opened his mouth, but I put up my hand.
“Silence, please. Clearly you have come because you think that you can prevail upon me to intercede with Val on your behalf. I can assure you that such efforts on your part would be entirely futile. Do you deny that you put up the bird as a wager?”
“N-no.” I raised an eyebrow at him. He had very nearly insulted me by leaving off my honorific. I was beginning to get annoyed.
“No, my lady,” he amended swiftly.
“Do you deny that Valerius won the wager fairly?”
“No, my lady, but the Honourable Mr. March—”
“There is no but, Reddy. Either Valerius won the bird fairly, in which case you have no business trying to get it back as you well know, or he cheated you of it. Which is it? Is my brother a cheat and a liar or are you just a particularly poor loser?”
If I had thought him pale before, it was nothing to the colour he faded to now.
“I had no intention of calling his honour into question,” he managed to say, his voice tight with panic. I think he had some dim idea that aristocrats still dueled with swords at dawn. Of course, Marches did still do that sort of thing from time to time, though none within my memory. And for all I knew, Valerius would indeed call him out over the matter if pressed. He was an odd, unpredictable child, even for a March.
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