The Last Killiney

by J. Jay Kamp

  * * *

  Five days later they arrived at Wolvesfield. Home, Ravenna thought to herself. This is where I truly belong, where we all do, but for how much longer?

  For after abandoning their jobs and rallying behind the duchess, how would Ravenna tell Christian’s servants they’d made a mistake? That they’d be again at Christian’s mercy when he filed the papers of contestation and became the new and rightful marquess? Because certainly Christian would do just that. He’d prove that the old Marquess's marriage had been a sham, and he'd expose James’s illegitimacy. He’d take over everything, the rent role, the house, and even her pin money couldn’t save them.

  Yet only she knew these things when the carriage rolled up before Wolvesfield’s doors. Her doomed servants jumped down from the coachbox. Mr. Davis, Christian’s valet, helped her with the baby and she’d never seen the man look so cheerful. Christian will destroy you, she thought glumly. He’ll ruin you all to get back at me.

  When James came out of the house to greet her, he made as if to swoop down and give her a huge, boisterous hug. But as he neared, he glanced at the faces of those around them, the footmen and the cook, the coachman he’d sent. His gaze traveled to the carriage, painted in the duchess’s colors. The smile faded from James’s lips. He put his arm around her and, drawing the baby and her up close, his frolicsome eyes sharpened. “What has he done now?”

  When Sarah approached, the expression on Ravenna’s face must have been pitiful because the maid appraised it correctly in an instant. “Oh, no, he’s gone an’ done it, then. The lousy knave’s beaten you, hasn’t he?”

  Before she could answer, James took the baby with the utmost care, then raised his voice above the chatter. “I’m afraid there’s no time to rest,” he said, turning sympathetically from servant to servant. “Sir Joseph Banks is expecting a feast, so Mr. Smythson, Cook requires you in the kitchen, and Skelly, Peter, if you’d help with the serving?”

  “Banks is here?”

  “Upstairs,” James said, but he wasn’t thinking about the Royal Society when his eyes met Ravenna’s; worry burned obviously in James’s dark gaze. “Come up to your room and tell me what’s happened,” he said, tipping his head toward the house. “If Christian’s beaten you, I swear I’ll personally see that he’s—”

  Ravenna stopped. “Promise me you won’t hurt him, James.”

  Prodding her to keep walking, he took her arm. “Let’s first see how badly he’s hurt you.”

  Once in her bedroom, she went to the window and looked out at the sea, thoughtlessly twisting Christian’s ring around her finger. She should have been happy to be away from him. She should have taken James’s obvious love and fed on it ravenously, but instead she felt hopeless. Christian’s distraction was gone. In its place, she found only fear, and fear in everything.

  How was she going to tell James what had happened? To explain it all, about Nootka, the forced marriage, the threats of disinheritance, would mean telling him everything was about to crumble. Christian would take Wolvesfield and the peerage with it, reducing James to what he’d always been—the son of a commoner, and how could she say that with Sir Joseph Banks sitting in the next room, waiting to be wined and dined? James needed his wits about him. He couldn’t go running off after Christian now.

  Because there was a chance, no matter how small, that Christian might not do anything at all. Threatening, insulting, even hitting her was one thing, but Christian might not have the guts to confront James.

  Standing at the window, she felt the weight of James’s eyes as she considered her choices. If Christian doesn’t contest the succession, James doesn’t need to know anything, does he? At least not tonight.

  “Ravenna.”

  Just tell him what happened in London, and when Banks is gone, then tell him the rest. Christian can’t file the papers that fast. You’ll have a few days before the lawyers take action, and what could James do tonight but worry?

  “Ravenna, what has he done?” James asked. “If he’s struck you, I don’t see any sign of it.”

  At least until tomorrow, the truth can wait until then.

  She turned to face James’s question. “You can’t see the bruise,” she said, pointing to her side. “It’s here, under my dress.”

  As James stepped closer, she took off her jacket. She knew he wanted to see exactly what she’d suffered, so she tugged her blouse out of her skirt, held it up an inch or two to show the mark Christian’s fist had left.

  Staring at the bruise, James betrayed nothing. He didn’t swear. He didn’t threaten to break every bone in Christian’s body, but she understood how furious he was. He turned away too quickly. He didn’t let her see the squint to his eyes, and when he paced the room with long, ambling steps, fell into the chair nearest the hearth, she sensed it. He blamed himself.

  For a long moment he did nothing. He held the baby against his chest, gazed out the window behind her. “Forgive me,” he said finally. “I should never have let you go to London.”

  “But he wouldn’t have hit me unless I’d gone.”

  His black brows furrowed.

  “What I mean is, if he hadn’t hit me, I’d still be with him, wouldn’t I?” Crouching down beside his chair, she made sure he saw the love in her face when she touched his arm. “There was nothing you could’ve done, all right? If he hadn’t hit me, it would’ve taken me a lot longer to figure out how he wasn’t going to change. He’d still be yelling at me, and I’d still be thinking there’s a chance I’d eventually fall in love with him.”

  “And there isn’t that chance?”

  Paul again, always there and waiting at the mention of love. Ravenna’s heart fluttered and convulsed with pain as the memories re-surfaced, nights at the piano with her arms around his stocky waist, dreaming at his shoulder, reveling in Mozart.

  “I’ll never love anyone again,” she said.

  Between them the baby began to fuss, and knowing he hadn’t been fed in hours, she took him from James’s arms and settled down to feed him in the opposite chair.

  When the room had quieted, she told James about the opera and all that had happened in its wake. When she described the stranger’s face, his reddish-brown hair and the tranquility she’d seen in his sky-blue eyes, James looked uncomfortable. He understood. If he’d been introduced to that Salzburg man, he might have wept as well, he said.

  Feeling the pain all over again, Ravenna explained the reason behind Christian’s behavior at the opera, how the rain-ruined letter had driven him to drink. She could still hear his pathetic voice when she told James about it, Christian’s bone-shattering slams against the front door and the terror, hellfire and retribution shining in his desperate eyes. Death himself, he’d said. He’s coming for me and I’ll burn in hell.

  James considered these words carefully. “Just so I understand, how does this Don Giovanni end? Does the libertine suffer for his crimes?”

  “He does.” She remembered the rain running down Christian’s face, the terrible conviction in his leaden gaze. “The statue comes to dinner and takes Giovanni to hell.”

  “The statue?”

  Guilt-ridden, frightened…at the opera he’d closed those eyes so tight, as if he might keep out the devil, if only he didn’t look. “The statue from the Commendatore’s grave,” she said, shaking the image from her mind. “Anna’s father comes back from the dead.”