Marcus felt a drop of sweat trickle down his temple. He had reached a crossroads where there were only two directions: trust or hate. Coldness or the distant hope of warmth. A reason to live or perhaps, just perhaps, even more than one. Was he becoming weak? Had Annabelle fogged his mind with her beguiling blend of intelligence and kindness?
There was only one way to find out. He had to talk to her. Now.
Should she be, contrary to his expectations, in cahoots with his enemies, then fate had served him a trump card on a silver platter after the events that had unfolded tonight.
He swallowed dryly and raised his hand to knock on Annabelle’s door. Did the good cause that he stood for justify the use of unfair practices?
Or was he not a whit better than the man whose identity he was trying to discover?
Chapter 11
The first thing Annabelle saw when she opened her eyes, was his face.
She screamed.
It was not so much that St. John was in her bedchamber and she was only wearing a thin nightgown, but much more the fact that he had blood on his hands. In the figurative sense, of course, for when he held up his hands to calm her, she could see that his fingers and palms were immaculately clean.
“Don’t be scared,” he soothed her and sat down on the farthest corner of her bed. It reassured her somewhat that St. John made himself comfortable, because if he had wanted to kill her – as well, a panicky voice whispered in her head – then he could have done that while she was still asleep. “We need to talk.”
Oh really, Annabelle thought sarcastically and pondered whether to stay in bed or get up. Undoubtedly, the bed had some merit, since she could pull her sheets up to her chin and stay warm. Nevertheless, she got up, shoving the shame of her own husband seeing her in this nightgown, and quickly slipped her feet into her slippers and pulled on her dressing gown. As she was tying her hair back, so that it would not tickle her face, she noticed that St. John was watching her with a peculiar expression, one which did not really match his normal coldness.
“What time is it?” she asked and added another question, whether he, too, fancied a cup of tea.
“I would actually prefer something stronger,” he replied. “Let’s go downstairs into the parlour. I will ask Wickham to bring you tea.”
“Do not worry,” Annabelle said with a wave of her hand. “You do not have to wake him up for me.” She did not want to give St. John the opportunity to postpone the debate again. If she waited for the butler to get dressed, set up the kettle in the kitchen, and make tea, most likely something else would happen that demanded his immediate and undivided attention. Out of the question. She followed him into the parlour and sat down in the least uncomfortable chair. St. John sat down across from her and looked at the wall coverings with an intensity as if he were seeing the flocking herons on the blue background for the first time.
Annabelle cleared her throat, all at once as lost for words as he. How best to tell the man one had married that one would like to know what body he had brought into the house? Cynical laughter started to rise in her chest as she remembered the marriage counsel booklet that her governess, Miss Squintock, had so fondly cited from. “Should the husband stow an undesired dead man in the basement of your home, a good wife shall abide the incident with a smile and serve tea.”
“Is everything all right?” St. John’s voice tore Annabelle from her imaginary dialogue with Miss Squintock.
“Nothing is all right,” she replied, leaning forward. To her dismay, she noticed tears welling in her eyes. “You… I…” The lump in her throat grew thicker and thicker. Without a word, St. John stood up, poured a fingerful of sherry into a glass and handed it to her. Annabelle rolled the glass in her hands as St. John seated himself again. Oh well, who cares, she thought, downing the drink, regardless of the early hour. This was not the first time that she drank alcohol, but what she had thought, in her naivety, to be sherry, turned out to be something significantly stronger – whiskey perhaps? Now the tears really did start running down her cheeks, but after half a minute she felt how a pleasant warmth spread from her stomach to the rest of her body. St. John had indulged in a more generous portion of the drink, and just as she was about to say something, he spoke first.
“What did Greywood have on you?”
Several things happened at once. Annabelle noticed that he was using the past tense, and she knew immediately who the dead man in the basement was. Relief flooded her body, closely followed by utter shock. Did her sister know that the viscount was dead? Only then did she realise what St. John’s words actually meant. She raised her hand and saw, as if from far away, that she was shaking.
“One moment,” she asked him and tried to force the thoughts whirling around in her head into some kind of order.
St. John leaned back.
He did not avert his gaze even for a second. Like a hawk focussing on its prey, he watched her every reaction, probably reading every single emotion washing over her face. He did not even blink once! The deep blue of his eyes corresponded to the colour of the wall covering in a way that disturbed her. Nobody, let alone a man, should possess such a tantalising, breath-taking eye colour!
“I am waiting,” he said in his deep voice, which only intensified her goose bumps. “He did not have anything on me,” she began, because she had to start somewhere, and it was the truth, nothing but the truth.
St. John did not believe her. His expressionless face, unwilling to match his warm voice, did not change, yet, it seemed to her that his features were suddenly covered in ice. She quickly continued, driven by the need to at long last settle things between them. “I…” she closed her eyes. “I think he has done something to my sister. I believe that he wanted to kidnap her, or, at the very least, take her to Scotland, and seduce her, I am not sure.”
“So, to prevent his spreading your sister’s disgrace in society, you have consented to marry me and spy on me?”
She stared at him, for a few seconds incapable of understanding what he was saying. Annabelle heard the words, but they did not make sense… until they sank in.
“No,” she finally repudiated his claim. “I married you because you asked for my hand in marriage, and I did not want to expose Felicity. That very evening,” she blinked to dispel the unbearable blue of his gaze – at least for a short moment, “I sensed that the two had been… planning something. They were constantly whispering to each other. She was–” Annabelle bit her tongue, but it was already too late, St. John would neither accept half-truths nor vague paraphrases. “She was like a dog, willing to follow him anywhere, for just one kind word. I noticed due to the way she looked at him, her eyes always turned in his direction, the manner in which she kept touching her lips as if to make sure that her mouth would not betray her by telling a secret when she talked to me.”
It hurt Annabelle to speak of her own sister in this frank and semi-objective manner, and before she could change her mind, or St. John interrupted her, she continued, “and he was like a cat playing with a mouse. He kept luring her towards him, only to then ignore her or to act coldly towards her. Then, sometime during the third dance, Viscount Greywood got my sister ready to follow him out. I wanted to stop Felicity from doing anything stupid, so I ran after her and then… you were there.”
The kiss still burned on her lips, even though it had been four months since that night.
“So, you are saying that you were not in on his scheme?”
“I do not even know what scheme you are talking about.” She shook her head. “He has not approached me to, as you call it, spy on you. You are talking about blackmail, or am I getting this wrong?”
A curt nod was the only answer Annabelle got.
“I will admit, I was wondering why the viscount arrived with my father, of all people, and Warrington as additional eyewitness, at exactly the same moment we… kissed each other.” St. John blinked again, whereas Annabelle would have preferably closed her eyes. She felt as if she was in h
er first dance lesson when the dance master tried to teach her what he thought was a simple sequence of steps that had proved unmanageable to Annabelle. At least St. John was listening to what I have to say, she thought. “For me, it was nothing but an unfortunate coincidence.”
“But why did you not try to explain to your father that we had not been acquainted before our encounter in the garden?” Did she imagine it or had his gaze warmed slightly? The hard line that formed his mouth remained.
“I did not want my sister to forgo any chance at happiness because of her plan to run away. Can you imagine the scandal that her disappearance with Viscount Greywood would have caused? Even if he had taken her as his wife, the shame would have followed her regardless, while he continued to strut about high society with his head held high!” Her voice had become agitated, and Annabelle realised that she had rolled her hands into tight fists. It took tremendous willpower to loosen her fingers and relax her hands on her lap. “What ties you to Greywood?”
Annabelle saw him flinch.
“Ties me to him? What makes you say that?”
“Are you, again, trying to avoid the question, or do you really want to know what makes me say that?” She had to think for a moment why she had chosen that word.
“I am not avoiding,” St. John said quietly. The blue curtains did not allow any sunlight into the room, but Annabelle saw the red of the rising sun seep through the gap between two panels of fabric. She looked at her husband, who was sitting across from her, his face pale and his posture unmistakably tense. She sensed how the artificially raised wall around her heart began to crumble more and more. “I want to know.” His words sounded weighty, as if he attached importance to her answer that she could not, not yet, grasp.
She carefully considered her next words. Annabelle did not want to hurt him unnecessarily, but she owed him the truth. One of them had to start trusting the other – a drop, at least.
“You and Greywood are somehow connected. I don’t know why, but I can see how much you hate the man. To me, it looks as if you are carrying an invisible weight with you.” She lowered her gaze so as to not rattle him with her inquisitive eyes. What she said had hurt him, she could sense it, even if he tried to hide it. “Everything that is happening around you, whatever I say or do, you tie it to him. He is,” she frowned and searched for the right words, “like a sun around which you circle. And whatever he has done to you,” she continued, noticing that her hands reached out to him, “he is not worth it. He was not worth it,” she added and looked up.
A muscle on his temple twitched. “You know that he is dead.” It was a meagre statement, but even in those few words, Annabelle sensed… what? Pity? Regret? She wondered why St. John showed her commiseration for Greywood’s death, given what she had just told him.
“Yes,” she replied. “You spoke of him in the past. But I also watched what you and Finch did. Also, your posture has changed when you spoke about him now. He no longer poses a threat to you. It was not hard to draw the right conclusion.” It had been a good decision to confess everything, including her secret midnight observation.
It had been a long, long time since Annabelle’s heart felt a little lighter.
“You are a vigilant observer,” St. John noted. At first, Annabelle thought it was a rebuke, but as he continued, there was a curious deference in his words. “You read people as if they were books. Have you always been able to?” He leaned forward.
“I,” stammered Annabelle, suddenly embarrassed. “I do not know. It is just a skill that grew with time. I am not particularly well-versed in the use of words, and I find it easier to interpret gestures rather than sentences, which essentially mean nothing anyway.”
“Interesting,” St. John determined, narrowing his eyes somewhat. Suddenly she felt like an insect being examined by a curious researcher under the magnifying glass before skewering it with a needle and adding it to his collection. But the moment passed rapidly, and the calculating look in St. John’s face was gone.
“Most of the time, you are a sealed book to me,” she conceded, wondering if she had perhaps made a mistake, after all. She scooted back in her seat, out of reach of his strong hands.
“You are afraid of me?” He pulled his chair back and spread his fingers, then rested them casually on his knees, in short… St. John did everything to not seem threatening.
“You really have to ask?” Annabelle had no idea where her courage came from, but something inside of her just gave way. For too long, she had been waiting for answers. She shook her head and realised that her hair was coming loose from her ribbon, but she did not care. “You shroud yourself in silence, which, to a certain point, I can understand – as you said so aptly, this is not a love marriage, and I cannot force you to trust me. However,” the words escaped her briskly so that she would not lose her courage until she had said everything, “I have seen with my own eyes how you brought a corpse into the house. You have killed someone, St. John. Of course, I am afraid of you. I would be utterly foolish not to.” Her heart was racing, and she struggled to get enough air.
“Would it be enough for you if I gave you my word that I did not kill Greywood?”
Annabelle searched for a sign that he was telling the truth. Then, just as always when it mattered, he withdrew himself. “It does not matter what I want or not,” she whispered. This time, she was unable to hold back the tears. “You will just stave me off, like all the other times.” She stood up. “I believed that we would come to some kind of agreement. But I see I was mistaken.” She turned her back to him and headed for the door.
He said only one word, but it was enough to fill her with a wild hope. “Wait.”
St. John was torn. In his chest raged a storm with a whole array of different emotions whose unaccustomed intensity nagged at him. This was no time to lose one’s head! It was true, he would have liked to put Annabelle off one more time to win time and make a decision in peace, but her gaze, her attitude, her words did not permit another delay. She had been honest with him, as far as he could tell, and deserved his candour. However, the truth about who had sentenced Greywood to death would make her blood run cold. The whole truth surrounding Greywood’s death posed a risk for her safety. The more she knew, the greater the danger she would be in.
He had once failed to protect the woman he loved. He would not tolerate a second time.
Not that I am fond of Annabelle, he reminded himself hastily as she stopped and turned. But as her husband, regardless of whether he had sought the role or not, it was his duty to protect her. Once the affair was settled, there would be plenty of time left to tell her the whole truth about the unfortunate entanglements that had held him prisoner. How her words about the fetters and her analysis of his character had hurt him! He had already known that she was smart, but her skills were, to say the least, astonishing. Her knowledge of the human character, which had taken him years of hard work to obtain and perfect, was innate.
“It is–” he began, but she raised her hand.
“Complicated. You have said that already.” Her green eyes glimmered from unshed tears and suddenly, he could not stand it any longer. The feeling of stifling in the dark, overcrowded room became overpowering. He made his way briskly towards the window, tore open the curtains, and shoved the shutters aside. Air, he needed air to breathe!
He felt, more than heard, his wife stepping beside him. Together, they silently looked out into the street, which was slowly coming to life. He felt the warmth radiating from her body, awaking tantalising thoughts in him. From the corner of his eye, he perceived the mass of her reddish-brown hair that had come loose from the provisory hairstyle and now fell on her shoulders like a river of fire. Her cream-coloured skin smelled seductively of soap, faintly mixed in with her own unmistakeable scent. The soft pink on her cheeks and her chest, rising and falling swiftly beneath the fabric of the gown, betrayed her inner stir. Marcus turned his body towards her. He forgot what he meant to say, because in that moment, Annabe
lle turned away from the sight of the street below and looked up into his face.
And suddenly, his lips were on hers again. He felt how she caught her breath as if startled. His hands, which just had been casually hanging by his side, developed a mind of their own as they found her waist. She followed the unspoken request, and the barely noticeable squeeze, and snuggled closer to him.
While his mouth carefully explored her lips, a soft sigh escaped her. It was a sound that he would never forget for the rest of his life. It signalled her trust, her devotion of him and her belief that perhaps they had a future. The thoughts of the decision he had wanted to make dissipated, giving way to a desire he barely recognised as his own. Her soft forms, the mixture of innocence and surrender, were so delicious that he could barely control himself. Without letting go of her sweet lips for a second, he felt her hands on his shoulders, light as birds.
He opened his eyes at the same moment she did. What he saw in them was a reflection of the emotions he was feeling, a tumble of physical sensations and something else, much more complicated, which he refused to understand. He released her lips but still held Annabelle close. He opened his mouth to say something, but it was too late.
A loud bang exploded almost immediately in front of the window. Marcus had just enough time to wonder who was firing a pistol at this time in the middle of the city when a burning pain spread frantically from his shoulder to all over his chest. His knees buckled beneath him, and he could not help but fall to the ground. Marcus tried to order Annabelle to duck, but for that too, it was too late. Her hands were still resting against his shoulders when he fell to the floor, and she with him.
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