An Unseen Attraction

by KJ Charles

  “The parlour’s empty—”

  “Your study,” Edmund repeated through his teeth.

  “Uh.” Clem couldn’t find a way to say Mr. Green is currently in my bed that didn’t seem to advertise criminal relations. He should have announced it airily—he was attacked, the stairs were too much, I’m staying up—but he didn’t, and having failed to say it at once, the admission seemed as though it would be even more incriminating.

  Edmund threw the study door open and strode in. Wincing, Clem followed, with Cat weaving around his ankles in an ingratiating way, and hung up the hat Edmund thrust at him. After all, Edmund would not intrude into his bedroom. Surely Rowley would stay quiet. Please God he wouldn’t snore.

  “Very well,” he said, trying to get a grip on the situation as Edmund hung up his own greatcoat. “Why are you here?”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Edmund said. “Are you not intending to offer me a cup of tea? Where are your manners? Where are your servants?”

  “My housekeeper went home. The fog.” Elsie had gone to bed, since she started her duties at five, and Clem had no intention of getting her up for this. “I’ll make tea. Why don’t you sit down by the fire?”

  “What about your lodgers? I don’t want to be interrupted.”

  He looked rather odd, Clem thought, tense and set-faced. “We won’t be,” he said reassuringly. “They’re all upstairs, nobody will disturb us.”

  “Well. Get on with the tea, then.”

  “You could say please.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Clem hadn’t meant to say it. He wasn’t sure if it was the argument with Rowley, which had brought so many things to the fore, or the day’s terrors; the thought of Emmeline Godfrey’s wedding night, which had nagged him at intervals since he’d spoken to Mark; or simply the knowledge that Rowley was lying in his bed listening to his brother talk to him like this. Perhaps it was all of them, but he had, he realised, had his fill.

  “I said, you could say please. You’re in my house—”

  “My house. My money, off which you have lived—”

  “I’ve worked,” Clem said. “Have I ever been late with the rent, or the accounts? I’m your brother, I’m Father’s son as much as you are, I’m tired of being grateful for crumbs from your table, and I d-don’t see why you can’t simply ask for a cup of tea instead of turning it into an insult.”

  The lines of tension around Edmund’s eyes and mouth were more prominent than usual, unless that was the low gaslight. “I see you have decided no longer even to pretend respect to the head of the family.”

  “I don’t f-feel a great deal of respect for you at the moment,” Clem said. “I’ve thought about this. I think you owe me quite a lot, Edmund.” An explanation for his deceit, an effort to rid them of the monster he’d brought down on them, a modicum of courtesy, for once. An apology. “Do you want this tea or not?”

  “Yes,” Edmund growled. “Make it.”

  Clem went to fill the kettle from the kitchen pump, his nerves fizzing and twitching. His hands were trembling like Rowley’s had, and for far less reason, he scolded himself.

  Except that was probably the first time in his life he’d challenged his brother. The first rule of his entire life had always been unquestioning obedience to the earl. Any attempts at defiance had been punished by his father with beatings, his brother with rage or threats to his livelihood.

  Well, he’d broken that rule, and he didn’t care, either. He’d do very well without Edmund’s support if he had to, and he wasn’t going to see Rowley suffer again.

  He took a moment to calm himself in the peace of the kitchen. When he returned to the study, Edmund was standing irritably by the fire. Clem hung the kettle on its hook and went to get the tea things from their shelf, rehearsing the order in his head because no matter what he’d said, he didn’t want to fumble now. Cups, tea canister, milk jug—blast, he’d forgotten the milk. Edmund gave an ostentatious sigh as he went to fetch some from the scullery but offered no comment. Teapot, spoons— “Sugar,” he said aloud.

  “For God’s sake! I have never known anyone make such a parade of a simple task.”

  “Why don’t you just let me finish,” Clem said, as evenly as he could. “Since you’re the one who wants it.”

  “What sort of bloody fool can’t make a simple cup of tea without this back-and-forth?” Edmund snarled.

  “What sort of fool keeps doing the same thing when it doesn’t work?” Clem snapped back. “You’ve been barracking me since I was a child and you’ve never once noticed that it only makes me worse. Be quiet and let me make this—this sodding tea, or say what it is you came to say, or go away. I don’t care.”

  Edmund’s mouth and fists tightened but he didn’t respond. He really must be desperate, Clem thought in a detached sort of way, and almost wanted to laugh.

  He put the things out with a shaking hand, taking his time. “Right,” he said at last. “Will you sit down?”

  Edmund took Rowley’s chair, which creaked under his weight. He looked wrong in it. Clem took his own seat opposite. The kettle was still heating, but he had no desire to wait for it to boil. “Well, go on. I dare say your coachman or groom or whoever drove you would like to go home.” There was a thought; the poor man must be miserable out there. “Shouldn’t he come in?”

  “Stop wandering from the point. I want to speak of your note.”

  “The one I wrote on Wednesday?”

  “Wednesday? I only received it this morning.”

  Edmund’s tone was as accusatory as though the post were Clem’s fault. “I expect that’s the fog. I’m amazed they’re delivering anything.”

  “That is scarcely my concern. You said you would send me that page, Clement. You gave me your word, and you have broken it, you treacherous— This is your last chance. You will give me that page, now, and I shall burn it this very minute, on this very fire that I pay for, in this house that I pay for, do you hear me?”

  “I can’t do that—” Clem began, and recoiled as, with a sudden leap from nowhere, Cat landed in his brother’s lap.

  Edmund let out a hoarse yell of shock. “Christ! Get this thing off me!” He shoved at Cat, which anyone could have told him was the wrong thing to do, because Cat swiped viciously at the flailing hand. Edmund gave a shout of real pain as a line of blood sprang up on his skin. Clem grabbed Cat round his midriff and pulled; Cat anchored his claws in Edmund’s thighs and stretched like india-rubber to about twice his usual length rather than let go.

  By the time Cat had been detached from what had obviously been expensive trousers and evicted from the house in disgrace—not that Clem could really blame him for resenting another man in Rowley’s chair—the kettle had boiled. Edmund was seething with rage as he inspected his damaged hand and clothing, but he nevertheless insisted, “Tea.”

  Clem gave him an incredulous look, but it didn’t seem worth the argument with all the other things to argue about, so he filled the teapot to let the leaves steep.

  “I will ask you once more,” Edmund said, voice shaking with anger. “Will you give me that page now?”

  “Just a minute.” Clem didn’t want to tell him it was in the post without at least trying for some of the concessions he’d meant to demand. “I’d like to know what you’re going to do for me first, because you really do owe me something.” Edmund’s jaw went rigid, nostrils flaring with anger, but Clem was blasted well going to say this. “I don’t think you’ve ever counted the cost of this business, have you? All the damage to Mr. Green’s shop. Fire, and threats, and attacks and a murder on my doorstep, and all you’ve given me is an—an airy assurance that this murderer will somehow go away once you’ve burned the paper. It’s not good enough. I want more than empty promises, Edmund.”

  Edmund’s lips curled in that contemptuous look of his. “Of course you do. Who could doubt it? After all your fine words—but this was only to be expected. Pour the tea.”

  Rowley said th
at Clem was patient and tolerant, and certainly he felt that other people were a great deal too angry, but he was within a whisker of emptying the teapot over his brother’s lap now. “Why don’t we finish this conversation?”

  “Pour the damned tea!”

  Clem poured two cups, handed Edmund one. He didn’t think his hand was particularly unsteady, but he must have fumbled the saucer, or Edmund’s hand banged against it, because it upended in a spray of brown liquid. Clem leapt back; Edmund made a noise of rage. “You clumsy oaf! My trousers! Get me a cloth at once, a wet one. They will be ruined.”

  Clem couldn’t see much damp on Edmund’s legs, and Cat’s damage could hardly be wiped away, but he went to the kitchen anyway, rehearsing a number of Rowley’s expletives under his breath. He’d do this, he told himself, give his brother the damned tea if it meant so much to him. All that mattered was to make him understand that Spim had to be stopped, and that Clem would see his brother brought as low as any earl had ever been before he’d see Rowley hurt.

  When he returned with the cloth Edmund had righted the cups and poured himself more. He took the cloth from Clem and gave himself a perfunctory dab. “Very well. Sit.” He picked up his cup and saucer. “I shall take leave, first, to make a few observations on your demands and what you may expect of me.”

  It sounded as though he was settling in for a speech. Clem resigned himself and took up his own cup—

  “Don’t drink it, Clem,” Rowley said.

  Clem jumped so much his tea slopped into the saucer. Edmund’s head whipped round. Rowley was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, which was in the wall behind Edmund’s chair. He was dressed in his muddy trousers and jacket, but barefoot, and his eyes were fixed on Edmund even as he said, “Clem? Put the cup down. Do it now.”

  “What the devil—” Edmund began.

  “I saw you put it in, your lordship,” Rowley said, voice very level. “What was the idea, a household accident? ‘He was so disorganised, he always made foolish mistakes,’ something like that?”

  The blood drained visibly from Edmund’s face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The powder that you tipped into Clem’s cup once you’d got him out of the room,” Rowley said. “I’m talking about that. Was it a soluble form?”

  Clem, very slowly, took up a spoon and stirred his tea. He felt the spoon scrape against something gritty at the bottom, like undissolved sugar, but he never took sugar. He put the cup on the table, and was distantly amazed at how little his hand shook.

  “I see your game.” Edmund’s voice sounded thin. “It is a plot, to blacken my name, more extortion—”

  “Clem,” Rowley said, steady and remote. “Tell your brother, specifically, what you were asking of him. All your demands.”

  “I wanted him to deal with this murderer before he hurt anyone else,” Clem said. “As he promised. Why—”

  “You thought he was asking for money, didn’t you, your lordship?” Rowley said. “You thought he was going to blackmail you, because you’ve never in thirty years taken the ten minutes to get acquainted with your own brother that would have told you how wrong you were. Clem would have been loyal to the end if you’d given him one damned thing worth being loyal to, and you didn’t know it. You came here to kill him, and you never even asked him what he meant.”

  “He was blackmailing me!” Edmund said. There was an unfamiliar tremor in his voice, cutting through the bluster. “All along, working against me—”

  “I was not,” Clem said. It was baffling, too baffling to be hurtful or frightening yet. “How could you think that?”

  “I had your note, I was given your demands. You forced me to this. It’s your fault.”

  “I sent you the page back this evening,” Clem said. “It’s in the postbox now. I don’t understand why you’re saying this. I just wanted you to do something about Spim.”

  “No. No. You are confused again, Clement—”

  Clem picked up Edmund’s teacup and threw it. It hit the wall with a satisfying smash and a shower of tea, making both the others duck. “You tried to kill me, Edmund! You put something in my tea! How dare you try to bamboozle me and blame me when the murderer you brought down on us attacked Rowley this very afternoon!”

  “No, he didn’t,” Edmund said.

  “Shut up!” Clem shouted. “Stop lying to me!”

  “Who didn’t do what?” Rowley sounded impossibly calm. “Your lordship? Who didn’t attack me?”

  “My man, of course.” Edmund was staring at Clem. His face was corpselike. “He came to Clement today, he received his extortionate demands—”

  “Nobody came to me,” Clem said. “I’ve been in all day and we’ve had no visitors. There’s a fog.”

  “He came to me,” Rowley said. “He came to demand the page from me because his lordship sent him, because he’s been working for you all along, hasn’t he? Lugtrout was blackmailing you and the price was rising. He was drinking too much, indiscreet, so you hired a man to get the page back, or get rid of it—you didn’t mind which, of course. He was working for you all along.”

  Edmund’s mouth moved. He didn’t speak.

  “Did you intend to have Lugtrout killed?” Rowley asked. “Or, no, I bet you said ‘dealt with’ or ‘silenced’ or ‘removed,’ didn’t you? I know about words like that; I use them myself. It doesn’t really matter if you say ‘disjecta’ or ‘guts’ in the end, though, it’s the same stuff. You wanted Lugtrout gone, and he’s gone. And as for me and Clem, well, we were just in your way.”

  Clem pushed himself to his feet and edged round Edmund’s chair, leaving a wide berth, so he could stand by Rowley without taking his gaze from his brother’s face. It did not look healthy. Edmund had the eyes of a man who saw his demons closing in.

  “And then Clem found the page,” Rowley went on, voice still very level. “He promised to give it to you, and he would have, only he wanted you to make good on your promise to deal with the murderer first. And you sent the man who tortured and killed Lugtrout to your own brother to tell him to hand it over. Didn’t you? Only he didn’t even try. He put a knife to my back instead and I told him we’d sent the damn page to you, and then what? He went back and told you Clem was asking for money?”

  “Five thousand.” Edmund’s voice was barely audible.

  Rowley nodded. “He’s double-crossed you. You were paying him, but the money was going to run out when you got the page back, so he was trying for an extra handful. What was the idea, that you’d give it to him to pay Clem?”

  “Tomorrow. We agreed— Tomorrow.”

  “But you didn’t want to pay blackmail money to your brother, so you tipped some powder into a paper and came here to kill him instead. Because you trusted your killer before your brother.” Something ignited in Rowley’s face that Clem didn’t recognise, a blaze of anger, and something hard and remote along with it. “You stupid murdering sod.”

  “I had to,” Edmund said. “You don’t understand.”

  “We’re going to the police,” Clem said. “Right now. You can come with us and tell them where to find your murderer. Or don’t come and I’ll tell them about what you put in my cup. Your choice.”

  Edmund’s face convulsed. “No. No, you can’t. They’ll prosecute me. He’ll kill me. And—and— What was this man doing in your bedroom?”

  That was an unexpected punch in the gut. Clem had quite forgotten their precarious situation and he couldn’t find a fluent answer now. Rowley answered for him. “Sleeping off being attacked by your mate. Did I tell you to go fuck yourself yet?”

  “You may deny it all you wish.” Edmund stood, voice stronger, seizing his advantage. “William Lugtrout made certain implications of the most sordid nature, which I rejected out of brotherly—”

  “Out of what?”

  “If I lodge a complaint with the police—”

  “You can lodge one right up your arse,” Rowley said, his South London rasp very strong. “Go
on, tell the peelers what your pisspot accomplice thought, in between explaining the powder in that cup of tea and your name on that page. I’m sure they’ll be fascinated. Had any good weddings recently, Mr. Much-Married Man?”

  Edmund lunged sideways, pushing Clem violently out of the way, toward Rowley, so they collided. He half tripped over Rowley’s feet, and as they disentangled themselves, Edmund tugged at his greatcoat, drew something from the pocket, and turned. There was a gun in his hand.

  “Shit,” Rowley said.

  “Get against the wall. Get back. Don’t think I will not shoot. You have made me a desperate man and you may take the consequences if you provoke me.”

  They both backed up to the wall. Edmund’s eyes were wild. Fifty years old, the stout and stately Earl of Moreton, with teeth on show and a pistol in his grip. He tipped the contents of Clem’s cup onto the fire, then threw the cup itself onto the coals. The flames around it hissed and leapt blue. “Very well,” he said again. “That never happened. Now, where is the page?”

  “In the post,” Clem said. “I told you. I posted it to you today.”

  Edmund looked at him, then he moved the gun, its barrel shaking badly in his unsteady hand, and aimed it between Rowley’s eyes. “You will get me the paper or I will shoot him.”

  Clem looked at him, at Rowley, and stepped between them.

  He heard Rowley’s gasp, and had just time to think, He tried to kill you already, he won’t care, that was stupid, but it didn’t matter. He knew precisely where he had to be in this room, and it was between Rowley and the gun.

  “Get out of the way,” Edmund said. “Clement, get out of the way.”

  “No.” Clem couldn’t tear his gaze from the round black mouth of the gun. “I won’t.”

  “Don’t make me shoot you!”

  “I’m not. You’re holding the gun.”

  “There’s people in the house.” Rowley’s voice was utterly flat and unemotional behind him. “If you fire that thing, they’ll all come running. It’ll be over for you there and then.”