by Karen Odden
A snort. “So he sent him back.” His eyes staring straight ahead, he shook his head in disgust.
“What about you? Was that when you were expelled?”
“Yah. Came to the Hawley School, here in London. But Boulter put in a word for Edwin, so he was allowed to stay,” Lewis replied.
And Edwin lost his one ally.
The thought of Edwin being alone against Sam and Will every day sent a shudder to my core. “It probably would’ve been better if he hadn’t.”
A short, horrid laugh. “A hundred times better. The fact that Edwin almost made it away only made Sam and Will come after him worse. Sam knew his father had stepped in for Edwin, and if he was jealous before, now it just ate him up. And with me gone, it was two against one.” His expression was grim. “Edwin began spending every minute in the studio when he wasn’t in class or at meals. Didn’t sleep in his room because they’d find him. Boulter was teaching him—and Edwin soaked it all up like a sponge. He was painting five, six hours a day.” His expression became bleak. “But that’s when Boulter started coming after him. I think Edwin . . . I don’t know. He didn’t want to displease him. I know Edwin felt he owed him, for keeping him from being expelled, and for teaching him.” His voice grew rough. “But he didn’t owe him that.”
My thoughts had halted several sentences before. “What do you mean, ‘coming after him’?”
He turned then, and I saw his eyes were wet with angry tears. Finally he said it, quietly. “Boulter liked his boys. Edwin was the next in the line after Alan.”
Perhaps I should have guessed, but I didn’t. My horror blazed like waves of fire over my entire body, spending its most scorching heat in the center of my chest. The world around me began to turn black as ash—
“Annabel!” Lewis’s hand reached out and grabbed my arm, shaking it hard enough to pull me back to sentience.
My vision cleared, and faintly I said, “Stop, please.” I rubbed at my forearm as he released it. Later there would be a bruise.
I was grateful Lewis know how to be silent, and to wait. When at last I looked up, he was turned toward me, his left arm along the bench, just watching. His expression was no longer even faintly sardonic, only very sad.
After a few moments, he sighed. “He knew Rawlings wouldn’t believe him, same as he didn’t believe Alan.”
“Did he tell anyone?” I asked finally.
“Yah. Mr. Wexford. He was the president of the board of directors for the school, and when he saw Edwin’s work, he asked Edwin to paint his wife’s portrait.” The breeze blew his hair over his brow, and he pushed it back. “He liked Edwin, took an interest.”
I nodded, remembering what Mr. Rawlings had said about the commission.
“It was the last day. Edwin was putting the finishing touches on it. I don’t think Mrs. Wexford was there. But Mr. Wexford was, and Edwin told him what Boulter had been doing.” Lewis shook his head almost wonderingly. “He was lucky. Wexford believed him.”
I felt my breath rake the back of my throat. “Did Wexford confront Mr. Boulter?”
“Nah.” He sniffed. “He had a better way. Wexford told the rest of the board and Boulter was thrown out the following week. They put out a notice about changing the curriculum or some such thing. But that’s what really happened.”
“I see,” I said slowly. “Yet Mr. Rawlings said that Edwin left after the Boulters did. Was that true? I mean, if they were gone, why—”
“Because Sam found out Edwin had talked to Wexford.” His breath caught, and he coughed before he continued, “The night after Sam and his father left, Sam sneaked back. He and Will dragged Edwin from his bed, and took him out to the woods.”
My heart sank, dreading what was to come.
“Edwin told me afterward it was different from the other times. They didn’t taunt him or even talk to him. They just wanted him dead. Somehow Edwin managed to get away, and he climbed a tree. He was lighter than they were, and the bottom branches weren’t strong enough, so they gave up. It was pouring rain, but Edwin stayed there all night. In the morning, Edwin left Tennersley for good. Made his way to London, found our house and stayed with us until he’d recovered. My mum took one look at him and . . .”
Edwin had gone there because he couldn’t come home.
A faint breeze set off a violent shudder through my entire body. “Thank God he had you.”
“Yah.” A leaf dropped on the bench and he flicked it away. “Not that it did him much good in the end. They still wanted him dead.”
I understood what he meant. “You think he was killed by someone from Tennersley, don’t you?”
His shoulders twitched. “I’d say Will. He was at the funeral. Tall, curly hair, probably told you he was a friend of Edwin’s from school.”
“Something like that,” I managed. “But why? After all this time?”
Lewis’s hand clenched around the rail of the bench. “Damned if I know. His kind is just vicious. Does it because he can. And he’s the sort who’d come to the funeral to rub it in your face, show you he got away with it.”
That hadn’t been my impression of Will Giffen, but we’d only spoken for a moment. Indeed, I hardly remembered it. At the funeral, I hadn’t known to take any special notice of him.
“He lives here in London,” Lewis said. “Bowen Street. Number 49.”
“How do you know?”
“Followed him from the church, of course.” His eyes were hard. “Was all I could do not to set fire to the whole bloody place with him in it.” A pause. “He has two little ones, d’you know? One’s a boy. And I hope to God someone buggers him someday, so Will knows how it feels.”
I stared at him, the inside of my mouth dry as paper.
His entire face was twisted in an ugly rictus. “Don’t look at me like that! It’s the only way someone like him learns.” He pushed himself up from the bench.
Any fragile connection based on our mutual grief was gone.
He bent at the waist, his face close enough that I could see the spittle at the corners of his mouth. “You should hate him more than anything.” His hands were in fists. “What the devil is wrong with you? He was your brother!”
Then he spun and strode away, his dark coat flapping like the wings of an old crow.
Shaken, I sat on the bench through the tolling of several quarter hours from a church nearby. Dusk was falling before I began to take in the full meaning of Lewis’s words. More than his descriptions of what happened at Tennersley all those years ago, his vicious wish for Will’s son conveyed the depth of his wounds, and Edwin’s. Powerless and lonely, these young men had been caught up for years in fierce struggles for respect and safety and well-being. Was Lewis right? Should I feel the sort of rage he did?
With my misery like a heavy stone inside my chest, I rose and walked home through streets whose colors were fading with the dwindling of day.
COLD AND WEARY, I climbed the stairs, and as I reached my door, I spied a dark figure. But of course, I thought. I should have expected Felix would come to see what had happened with Lewis. I just hoped he was sober.
I sighed. “Felix? Are you all right?”
He stepped out of the shadow and by the dim light cast by the moon, coming through the window of the landing below, I saw it wasn’t Felix at all. A black scarf and a hat pulled low covered most of his face. My eyes met his—hard and glinting as obsidian—and before I could utter a sound he leapt toward me, his hand coming up swiftly to cover my mouth, the fingertips biting into my cheekbone. His voice in my ear was a low growl, and he seemed to want something, but I couldn’t make out his words through the ringing in my ears and my own rasping breaths.
The man’s hand shifted down to my throat, and his thumb dug into the soft spot under my chin, so I could barely squeak a sound. Pinpricks of light appeared in my sight, and the objects around me began to go dark.
“What were you doing there?” he hissed in my ear.
I had no idea how to answer. My m
ind had gone so full of fear I couldn’t comprehend his question.
He shook me—everything shifted left and right in a blur before my eyes—but I managed a strangled inhale.
“Tell me, damn you!”
Suddenly I heard the front door open below followed by footsteps coming fast and hard on the treads of the stairs.
The man’s viselike grip on my mouth loosened for a moment, and I let out a cry that was half relief and half warning, for by some miracle Matthew was on the landing just below, leaping up the stairs two at a time, his coat flying behind him. With a curse, the man flung me sideways, toward the stairs. The soles of my boots scrabbled across the wood floor. I cried out, my hand clawing for the banister but finding only air. I pitched over, my forehead smacking the wall of the stairwell. Everything before my eyes vanished into an ocean of black sparked with white. As I tumbled down the stairs toward the landing I had the fleeting impression of a man leaping over me, lunging down the stairs toward Matthew. I saw a gleam of silver—a knife in the man’s right hand—
I longed to warn Matthew, but it was as futile as trying to cry out in a nightmare. From where I lay in the corner, all I managed was a feeble croak.
Above me, the silvery moonlight coming through the window shaped the landing into a shimmering box and transformed the men into something chimerical, halfway between silhouette and shadow.
The stranger’s shoulders were broad, and he crouched low, his quick hands making the blade flash like a live thing. Matthew spun, and I heard the high whirr of something slicing the air and then the smack of his truncheon against pliable flesh that gave way under the blow. The stranger let out a cry and sprang toward Matthew with his fist raised. Matthew jerked backward but not in time. The man’s fist met Matthew’s jaw, and then he flung an arm around Matthew’s neck. But Matthew’s hands were up, grasping, and he threw the man sideways into the wall, where his spine met the wooden panel with a sickening thud. Matthew’s hands came to the man’s collar, and for a moment they were face-to-face. It seemed the stranger was getting the worst of it, and he let out a howl that echoed in that close space—
And then he caught sight of me, and I felt him shift—change his tactic—
His foot came up to kick Matthew, and as Matthew dodged, the man scrambled sideways like a crab, and slashed his knife across my arm—
The pain was sharp as a burn from the stove, and even before the blood began to run, I let out a shriek that made the walls ring—
Matthew’s gaze broke toward me, and in that moment, the man rolled sideways, eluded Matthew’s grasp, and bolted down the stairs.
Matthew stood above me in the moonlight, his chest heaving, and for a single breath it seemed he was torn between racing after my assailant and tending to me. He turned and dropped to his knees, and my name came out raw and rough from between his lips. His hands ran over my legs and torso, a hasty search for broken bones, and then he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, tore it, and wrapped one half around my arm to stanch the flow, tying the makeshift tourniquet so fiercely that the pain he caused was worse than the cut itself.
Blood dripped from his temple to his cheek, and he looked terrifying.
“Matthew.”
Even as I whispered his name, his demeanor changed. He took a few deep, ragged breaths, and the fire faded from his eyes. Another moment, and he recovered enough to feel the blood dripping, for he wiped the side of his face against his sleeve.
I laid a hand on the tourniquet and winced.
“I know it’s tight,” he said. “But it’s just for a few minutes, and it’s the best thing. You’re going to be all right,” he said, and then again, as if reassuring both of us, “You’re going to be all right.”
My entire body was shaking, the tremors raking over me. My forehead was beginning to pulse sickeningly. I put a hand up to feel—but he grasped it and held it away. “No, Annabel. Leave it.” Rapidly he folded the other half of the handkerchief into a square and pressed it against my forehead. Only then did I feel the sticky hot wetness of blood.
“What’s happened? Who was that man?” Mrs. Trask’s timorous quaver came from the landing below. A wave of sickness came over me, and I closed my eyes.
“Who was it . . .” Mrs. Trask’s voice was fading.
I longed to speak, to say I hadn’t seen his face, that it might have been Sam Boulter, but I couldn’t be sure. But I felt as if I were dropping into a dark hole, and the words came out a mumble.
I heard Matthew say my name, but his face dissolved into darkness.
Through the wooden floor under my hands, I felt a door closing quietly, as if someone on one of the lower floors had heard the ruckus but wanted to pretend they hadn’t—
And then everything went black.
Chapter 19
When I came round, I was in my bed, and Matthew was beside me in a chair. My arm throbbed, and my head ached. Gingerly, I put my hand up to my forehead and felt a cloth, coarse and much bulkier than his bit of handkerchief.
“Matthew.”
It was no more than a murmur, but his eyes were open in a minute, and he bent over me, took my hand, and drew it away from my head. “It’s a bandage, Annabel. Let it alone. You had stitches, there and in your arm.”
I had no memory of any of it, but Matthew had a spot of plaster on his temple. “The doctor’s been here?” I slurred. My tongue didn’t seem to work properly.
He nodded. “I’m surprised you woke. He gave you a tonic to help you sleep till morning.”
“Where is he?” I murmured.
“The doctor? He’s gone,” he said patiently.
“No. The man. Was it Sam Boulter?”
His jaw tightened. “Yes,” he admitted. “He’s gone, too. Don’t worry.”
I let out a soft groan. “You should have gone after him.”
He gave me a look that told me what he thought of that idea. “You were unconscious—and bleeding.”
“What time is it?”
“Just past midnight.”
I tried to roll over and winced at the pain in my side. “Oh! That hurts.”
“Your ribs are bruised. But the doctor says nothing’s broken.”
I reached a hand out, and he took it. “How did you even know I’d come home?” I asked.
“This afternoon, I started to worry about you seeing Lewis. I went to Felix’s, and he gave me the address of the gallery. I traced you to the park.”
“I can’t believe you found us.”
“Well, someone in the tea shop thought he looked peculiar. Often when we trail someone, it just requires asking enough people in the vicinity. It’s surprising what the public will notice.”
“I didn’t see you at all,” I murmured.
“I kept my distance. But I followed you home, and when I didn’t see your light go on, I had a feeling . . .” His voice faded.
“What?”
He drew the chair closer, so he could hold my hand between both of his. “I waited too long to go after Crewe,” he explained. “Now, I don’t wait.” He added under his breath: “I just wish I’d been quicker.”
The fire in the stove sent a flickering light that cast Matthew’s face half in shadow. Even so, I could see how deeply he meant it.
“Matthew, don’t,” I said quietly and squeezed his hand. “I’m fine.”
He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it, and in that moment my every nerve was on fire and nothing hurt. Then he laid my hand on the bedclothes and stepped to the stove. He knelt before it and added another small log, waiting until it caught before adding another.
At last he sat back on his heels, staring into the flames. “Did he say anything?” he asked.
I searched my memory. “I think he asked me something, or told me something, but I don’t remember what it was.” I shivered, remembering the viciousness in his voice, the way he’d shaken me so hard the whole world seemed to tilt—
Matthew rose and bent over me. “Well, I’m not leaving you here
alone. Not until this business is finished. Not with him knowing where you live.”
“Where should I go?”
“To my house. My housekeeper, Peggy, is there. She lives in. She’ll get you settled.” He paused. “But for now, just sleep.”
I closed my eyes. “You’ll stay here?” My words came out slurred, as if I’d been drinking like Felix.
“Yes.”
“I need to tell you what Lewis said,” I managed.
I felt his fingertips move gently against my temple, the part where the bandage wasn’t, his palm warm against my cheek. “Tomorrow. It’ll keep till then.”
THE NEXT MORNING, my ribs still felt bruised, and my arm was sore, but the throbbing in my head had subsided, and after I had gathered a few things in a case, Matthew opened the door, let me pass through it, and locked the door behind us. He found a cab, asking the driver to jostle us as little as possible, which meant that our journey was slow, and I had plenty of time to tell him what Lewis had said.
Matthew’s face was strained, but he didn’t say a word, even after I finished.
Finally I ventured, “You were guessing this, weren’t you, once you heard about Alan?”
“I’m sorry, Annabel.” He winced. “Usually in the cases with men of this sort—and there are a bloody awful lot of them—it isn’t ever just the one.”
MATTHEW TURNED THE key and held the door so I could enter his house ahead of him. In the foyer stood a woman of middle age, her gray hair pulled severely back from her face and with plump, capable-looking hands. At the moment they rested on her hips, and her eyebrows were as high as I imagined they could go.
“This is Peggy Greaves, our housekeeper,” Matthew said. “Peggy, this is Annabel Rowe. She’s going to stay with us for a few days. I thought you might put her in the room downstairs. She’s been hurt, and it might be best for her not to have to climb stairs, at least for a day or two.”
She lowered her chin toward Matthew and pursed her lips so hard that dimples formed. But all her censure rested upon him. She turned to greet me with the air of a practical and sympathetic woman who had taken in my injuries and saw no use in wasting time with foolish questions.
