by Anne Mallory
“As you shouldn’t be,” the butler said. “You should have notified me immediately.”
Gabriel raised a brow. “It has been a long time since I’ve been under your control. I daresay I needn’t have had to notify you at all.”
Under his control? Marietta watched the byplay across the butler’s face. Acknowledgment and pain.
“Jeremy sent you a note, I presume,” Gabriel said.
“I didn’t need a note after reading the papers.”
Gabriel cocked his head in acknowledgment. “No, I don’t suppose you would have.”
“You knew I would show.”
“There was little I could do about it.”
“You could have told me.”
Definitely pain this time. He practically exuded noble pain.
“There was no need,” Gabriel said, negligently leaning against the doorway as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “What was there to say? I ruled you out as the person responsible a week ago.”
Ruled him out?
The man took a deep breath and drew himself up. “I see. I suppose I should thank you for your confidence, if not for your consideration.”
Gabriel inclined his head. His eyes met hers and she froze in her search for a blade. “A veritable meeting of the damned. Shall we sit and discuss this like proper citizens, or begin shooting?”
The butler’s pistol dropped. Jeremy shifted nervously before sitting. The butler took a seat as well. Gabriel still lounged in the door. “Well, Marietta, what will it be?”
“I hardly have a pistol with which to start shooting,” she said with rancor.
“No, no you do not. I can’t allow it, I’m afraid. Sit. There’s no reason to be afraid. No killers in this house.” His smile wasn’t very friendly, all teeth and sneer, betrayal and hurt there that had no reason to be.
She walked stiffly to the table and sat as far from the others as her position allowed. Gabriel dropped into the remaining seat.
“Well, isn’t this a happy scene.”
“Gabriel—”
“A happy reunion, is it not?” Gabriel said, cutting the butler off.
She looked sharply to the others. Jeremy was still abnormally pale. Gabriel looked like a dark demon come to prey on their souls. The butler was impassive. His brows creased just the tiniest bit, just like Gabriel did when he…
The moment froze.
“Figured it out, did you?”
“Gabriel, leave her be.”
She barely registered either remark.
“No,” he said harshly. “I saw and heard what was happening before I entered. Answer the question, Miss Winters.”
“He is your father,” she said numbly. “He is your tie to the Dentry estate. The reason you would have been around the estate so often. Why you would recognize Jacob Worley. You worked with him.”
“A mere servant. Did I detect that part of the answer in your voice?” His tone was silky, dark, dangerous.
Jeremy shifted across the table. The butler—she didn’t even know his name—remained impassive, though she detected a hint of disapproval as he too watched Gabriel.
“No, I didn’t say that.”
“Mmmm, sometimes there is no need to say so.”
A lick of anger climbed her spine. “Whatever your station in life, it doesn’t allow you to play with the lives of others.”
“I couldn’t agree less.” He leaned back, eyes hooded. “Your station in life directly impacts how much you can play with the lives of others and on what scale.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Spare me your horror. The higher you are in society, the more with which you can get away. Own those people…” His eyes twinkled darkly. “…and you own everything.”
The air grew thinner, harder to breathe. “No.”
Gabriel, beautiful, and terrible in that beauty, leaned forward. “Oh, yes, Marietta.”
“Gabriel,” the butler barked. “That’s enough.”
“You are a guest in my house, Father. As mentioned before, I hardly need to take direction from you anymore.” There was something black in his eyes. “Not that you ever showed much care for my direction, in any case.”
The butler straightened, but even she could see, not knowing him at all, that Gabriel had shot him clean through. “Your mother and I—”
“Do not mention her in this.” His voice was deadly. “If you had left us with—”
Jeremy’s face had turned from white to red. “Gabriel, you cannot blame father for—”
“Really? And why not?”
“It’s not fair.”
Gabriel lifted a brow. “Fair? How interesting.”
Marietta wondered if she had still been standing whether she might have been able to sneak out. Gabriel’s eyes connected with hers, as if he’d read her mind.
“Don’t even think it.”
“Just let me go.” Her voice was barely audible.
The skin around his eyes tightened. “No.”
“Please.”
Something flashed through his eyes and disappeared. “I think you have something to ask me.” His tone was almost pleasant.
“No.”
“Oh, yes. Ask me, Marietta. Ask me now.”
Gabriel tightened his grip on the pistol. Her pistol, which she had been ready to use. From the corner of his eyes he saw the ends of a cobweb dangling from a thread, missed while cleaning. Unraveling now, like everything else.
I won’t implicate him.
So he had come to this. Angrier at her than at his father, for no discernible reason. She had no reason to trust him. He had deliberately withheld the information from her. And yet, her response, without verifying anything with him first, without even asking if he had committed a crime, smacked of betrayal. He had known this girl barely a month. Had spent nearly every moment with her since, yes, but she was a speck on the carriage ride of his life. And yet…Yes, and yet.
Her lips pressed together more tightly. “No.”
“Are you sure? Or do you just want to believe whatever your mind has conjured? Anything to get your brother released, correct? Why go after Worley, when you can present the watch—or even better, Dresden—with someone else? Someone Dresden hates? Someone society would love to see brought to his knees to make up for his galling success. A lowly son of a butler and governess. It would rectify the stain on society that I am. Another upstart removed.”
“You are mad.”
“A bit, I presume. Mad surely for believing anything of you.” Bitterness. Fury.
Her lips pressed together and her eyes went watery. “Then we are mad together, aren’t we? For I feel the same.”
Jeremy and his father closed the door to the kitchen, their footsteps retreating through the house. Neither presence missed nor wanted at the moment.
“You were the one who came to me.”
“And I thought I could trust you.”
“No you didn’t. You were brittle and edgy. You trusted no one. Don’t rewrite our relationship.”
“Our relationship? Is there such a thing? It seems you have been leading me around by the nose. Lying to me whenever it suits you.”
“There is little point doing anything other than what suits me.”
He watched the rage come over her face. The red and white mottled together, giving her color and depth and transforming the features he had long since abandoned thinking as plain into a face that was active and alive.
“You even lie to yourself.”
“If it suits.”
“You think that a dozen good deeds, a hundred, will make up for your sins?”
“It depends on the sin.”
“Does it? Is that the justification you use?”
“That is the justification that everyone uses. Have you committed no sins to get your brother released, Marietta?”
“Yes, but I committed each knowingly. I didn’t delude myself into thinking myself blameless. I didn’t withhold information from you that was
vital.”
“You didn’t have information that was vital.”
“But you did.”
“Nothing pertinent to you.”
“It would have been pertinent to know you were raped! By five now very dead women!”
Silence split the air.
His fingers hurt from their grip. “And your question? Are you going to ask it now?”
Her heavy breathing filled the room. Strange, as he wondered if he would ever draw breath again.
“Those women. You knew them. You had every reason to want them dead.”
“That isn’t much of a question.”
Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell. She wasn’t going to ask. A strange sense of unreality gripped him. A feeling that he had been in this situation before, but standing on the other side. Unable to ask Jeremy. Unable to bear the answer. Unable to do anything except run away.
“They raped you.”
He hated that word. The harsh sound of the long a. The way the p formed between puckered lips.
“Debatable, as I said before.” He tried to keep his voice light, desperately fought against the emptiness in his head, in his gut.
“Not debatable. Not from Abigail Winstead’s own hand.”
“A madwoman’s rambles?”
“Mad? Quite possibly. Rambles? I think not.”
“You put too much stock in that book. Obsessed by it.”
“Little wonder, when the object of it was with me all the time. Sleeping at my side.”
“I seem to recall my bed being the one we shared.”
Her color rose, angry and embarrassed. “I knew there was something about the book that called to me. Something in it I should read.”
He buried his horror, his anger, beneath shallow disinterest. “I didn’t realize you were into the perverse.”
The pain and self-hatred not quite hidden as intended.
She reached out a hand to him and withdrew it just as quickly. Comfort automatically given, then consciously taken away.
He smiled bitterly. “Believe me, I don’t need your comfort.”
He watched her try to physically calm herself and it made him even angrier. She took a deep breath. “What they did was wrong.”
“Spare me your pity. I hardly need it, any more than I need anything else from you.” The tragedy of spite.
She looked down, pulled shaky hands together, then straightened her shoulders. “Very well.”
“Your question, Miss Winters?” he bit out.
Her eyes connected with his. “Did you murder those women?”
He waited a few beats. “If not me, then who else?”
Her lips disappeared in a thin straight line. “That is not an answer.”
“But if I give you an answer in the negative, that leaves you without a scapegrace. If I give you an answer in the positive, what will you do about it?”
“You were the one pushing for me to ask the question. Now answer it.”
“Tell me, when would I have been able to murder the last two?”
She looked at the scattered papers. “You could have sneaked out to murder Anastasia Rasen while I was asleep.”
“So stealthy, am I?”
“Yes, you are incredibly stealthy. Your upbringing explains that completely.”
“The lowly servant that I am.”
She gripped the table. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I see. You may want to rethink that in the future, Marietta. I think it is exactly what was meant.”
“By my words, I meant that you have the stealth of someone who is used to getting around with no sound. Not bothering others.”
“We can never bother our betters.”
Frustration bent her brows. He felt little sympathy at the moment. The bile was there, choking him so that all he could do was spew it forth.
“Is that how you see me? As someone who thinks herself better?”
“Do you not? You think yourself better than Mark. Better than hapless Kenny. Better than your parents. Better than the others of your acquaintance who make mistakes. Tarred by your own tongue as judgmental and harsh.”
The scathing words came so easily. The look on her face making him feel something other than his own pain. He ruthlessly shoved away everything that said he was hurting her. She was of the upper class. She had hurt him. She had pretended to care.
Why he had believed it was the question. Why had he bought into the thinking that she might have cared for him? He didn’t deserve it. He was tainted.
“Nothing to say, Marietta?”
She lifted her chin. “You are right, of course. I am judgmental. And at times harsh. But I’m not a liar.”
“Never?”
“I prefer frankness, even in my tactless, harsh manner.”
“How refreshing,” he deadpanned.
“How did you get me here? How did you convince Rockwood to send me your way?”
The unsettling sensation of something just beyond his reach fell over him.
“I didn’t,” he said succinctly. “You chose to come to me of your own free will. Unless that too you will lay at my feet. Have I overcome your will?” He leaned forward, lowering his eyes and cocking his head. “Made you do anything you didn’t want to do?”
Her eyes hardened. “You use your sexuality well, Gabriel. I noticed it right away. It is hard to escape. Hard to avoid. You are good. Too good. Your teachers taught you well.”
Anger, fear, something worse, coiled in his gut. It looked like he wasn’t the only one willing to get dirty in this game.
“Didn’t you know?” she asked. “You look surprised. Sick, even.” Her eyes were narrowed, something like grim satisfaction in the short smile. “You didn’t honestly think that you weren’t using all the tactics they taught you? Using them and hating yourself even more for it.”
He was frozen to the spot.
“You didn’t.” Her voice held surprise. “Did you just expect that your self-loathing, your obvious hatred of the responses you get, was motivated by—what?” The grim satisfaction in her voice turned to pity and then hardened once more. “Well, Gabriel?”
“You have no idea of what you speak.”
“Don’t I?” She laughed, no humor in the sound. “Everything was as clear as the peal of a spring bell when I realized who you were. Who the man in the journal was. Abigail Winstead knew you well.”
Gabriel snatched the book from the table. “She knew me well? She knew nothing.” He threw the book so hard against the wall he heard the spine break. “She knew how to terrify little boys. She knew nothing about me.”
Marietta swallowed and looked down. Gabriel heard an odd sound, then realized it was his own harsh breathing.
“Did you murder those women, Gabriel?”
“Right now I wish I had! But why would I give them that power over me? I ruined them. I made them live with it.”
He had shocked her, it was written all over her face. Right now he didn’t care. He stood abruptly and tossed her pistol on the table, crushing a nut beneath. “Leave, if that is what you wish. Little rich girl gone poor and tattered. I’ll get your brother out of prison and then nothing.”
He didn’t know how he got from the room.
Marietta wiped an angry tear as he slammed the door. The door hit so hard it clicked from its lock. She gripped the butt of the pistol tightly, dragging it across the exposed wood and spoiled papers. The heart of the crushed shell trailed beneath it.
The journal lay in the corner, crooked and awkward. Helpless. Malicious. Waiting like a predator feigning injury. The hapless prey sniffing near it only to be captured between crushing jaws.
Cruel. Terrible.
She pushed back from the table and stumbled to it, staring at it for a moment before picking it up between her thumb and forefinger. She dropped it into her bag.
The kitchen was silent. Eerie. She stood still. For once she had no plan. No course of action. Nothing to drive toward.
A noise, a
muted voice, cut through the silence, and another joined it. The voices were far off, arguing, muffled by the nearly closed door.
Marietta found herself in front of the door. The one that led to the rest of the house, not the one that led away. She stared at the knotty wood. Her hand touched the oak—strange, as if the hand didn’t belong to her. The hand pushed.
The voices led her through the hall and around the stairs to the small holding room to the west of the door. Four voices. Alcroft had joined the dysfunctional group, while she and Gabriel had been in the kitchen.
“…Worley is still out there,” Alcroft was saying.
“It’s not Worley,” the butler said. She still didn’t know his name.
“But Father—” Jeremy pleaded.
“He’s right.” Gabriel’s voice was dark, eerily calm after his angry exit. “Worley worshipped those women.”
“All the more reason to bring him to the magistrate,” Alcroft said. “Something is off there.”
“I agree with John,” Jeremy was quick to add.
Silence.
“It’s true, then.” Jeremy’s voice was tight, anguished. “You think I did it.”
“Of course not.” But Gabriel’s voice was too dismissive.
Marietta felt something choke her. Like what she would have felt had a hot air balloon lifted from within her stomach.
“You’re lying.”
“Jeremy—”
“You are angry with Marietta for believing it was you, but how do you explain that you thought it was me, Gabriel? I am your flesh and blood. Your brother. And you think I am the killer, don’t you?”
“I don’t—”
“I didn’t kill them, Gabriel.” He sounded remarkably calm all of a sudden, just like his brother. “I would have happily dispatched them all to erase the past. You didn’t think I knew. Didn’t think I saw. I know who saved me from them. I know more than you think. Father—”
“He had no right.” Fury laced every word.
“—didn’t have to say a word. I know more than he ever did. She approached me once, did you know?”
“Who?” Gabriel’s voice was deadly.
“Lady Dentry.”
Lady Dentry. L.D. Shivers ran through Marietta. L.D.’s husband returns tonight, and with him his personal servants and guard. L.D. said we need to reinstill the need for total silence into our little avenger.
