She had been eating a tangy, firm-fleshed peach, tossing pebbles into the river—hardly wider than a bathtub—and telling him he needed to mix more blue into his green if he wanted to capture the proper deep hue of summer foliage. She was never sure whether he heard her on that particular tip, because he did not say anything, but instead clamped the filbert brush he was using between his teeth and reached for an angled brush.
Then and there lightning struck. She stared at him as if she’d never seen him before, her oldest friend all grown-up, and wanted nothing more than to be that filbert brush, to feel his lips on her, and his tongue, and the firm pressure of his teeth.
But whereas she’d been a confidently commanding friend, always certain that their friendship would gracefully weather all the advice and criticism she fusilladed his way, she’d proved completely hopeless as a seductress.
He did not notice the new frocks and hats she bought for enchanting him. He did not grasp that her effort to teach him to dance better was to give him an easy opening to kiss her. And when she talked excessively of some other man, in the hope of arousing jealousy on Freddie’s part, he only looked at her quizzically and asked her was this not the same man whom she could not stand earlier.
The better approach would have been to confess her love and declare herself as a candidate for his hand. But the more her subtler efforts at winning his heart failed, the more cowardly she became. And just when she’d come to believe that perhaps he simply could not form a romantic attachment to an independent woman, he had to fall for the glamorous and audacious Lady Tremaine, who cared for no one’s opinion but her own.
When Lady Tremaine had left Freddie to go back to her husband, Angelica’s chance had finally come. He was distraught. He was vulnerable. He needed someone to take Lady Tremaine’s place in his life. But when she’d gone to him, she’d stupidly said, I told you so, and he had asked her, in no uncertain terms, to leave him alone.
She finished dressing. He was outside the studio, waiting for her. During the four years she’d been away, he’d lost the baby fat that had still clung to him when he’d been twenty-four. And while he would never be quite as chiseled as Penny, she found him incredibly lovely, his features as gentle as his nature.
Even when he’d been chubbier, she’d still found him incredibly lovely.
“Can I offer you a cup of tea?” he asked.
“You may,” she said. “But I’d like to return your favor first. Are the photographs you took of the painting ready?”
“They are still in the darkroom.”
“Let’s see them.”
His studio was on the top floor, to take advantage of the light. His darkroom was one floor below, about eight feet by six feet in dimension, not much bigger than a closet. In the amber-brown glow of a safelight, the apparatuses for development were neatly laid out, with the sink, the baths, and the negative lamp along one wall, a worktable along another. Bottles of clearly labeled chemicals lined shelves built into the walls.
“When did you assemble a darkroom here?” He had taken up photography after her departure—after Lady Tremaine’s departure, to be more precise. Once he’d sent Angelica a photograph of himself and she’d pasted it into her diary.
“I don’t remember the exact date, but it was around the time your husband passed away.”
“You sent a very kind condolence letter.”
“I hardly knew what to say. You almost never mentioned him in your letters.”
He applied a slight pressure on the small of her back to guide her deeper into the darkroom. She loved the warmth of his hand—he had large hands that could nevertheless paint the most extraordinarily delicate details. For years she’d gone to sleep thinking of caresses from those strong and skilled hands.
“It was a convenient marriage,” she said belatedly. “We were leading separate lives well before he died.”
“I worried about you,” he said quietly, with that innate dignity for which she loved him so. “You used to say, when we were much younger, that you’d rather be a sufficient-unto-herself spinster than an indifferently married wife.”
She’d sorely lacked the courage of her conviction, hadn’t she? When it seemed that she could never have him, she’d married a virtual stranger and left England behind as swiftly as she could.
“I was fine,” she said, more sharply than she’d intended. “I am fine.”
He didn’t say anything, as if he did not quite believe her reassurances but did not wish to say so outright.
She cleared her throat. “Well, Freddie, show me your photographs.”
* * *
The photographs, four inches by five inches in dimension, were affixed to a drying line.
“My goodness,” Angelica said, stopping before the image of the rats. “How was that possible?”
She’d pinned her hair up, but it was a very soft knot and seemed in danger of spilling free. Or was it just him wishing to pull it free? The odor of the pyrosoda developer and the stop bath lingered in the air, but Freddie stood close enough behind her to smell the neroli of her toilette water, sweet and spicy.
“You should have heard the screaming. Penny had to slap one young lady to stop her.”
“I can’t see Penny slapping anyone.”
“He was a very authoritative slapper,” Freddie said dryly. That had rather surprised him too. “Here are the photographs of the painting.”
He switched on another safelight. She squinted at the still-wet prints.
“I see what you mean,” she said. “I have come across a painting very similar in style and execution. It had a lady angel in white—huge white wings, a white robe, a white rose in her hand. And there was a man on the ground, gazing up at her.”
“My goodness, your memory is extraordinary.”
“Thank you.” She beamed at him. “When I go home, I shall consult my diary and see if I might have made a record of it. Sometimes I do, if an artwork strikes me in some way.”
He wondered if she consulted her diary the same way she consulted The Treasures of Art in Great Britain; unclothed, with one strand of her unbound hair caressing her nipple, and one of her toes absentmindedly tracing circles on the sheets.
Their gazes locked. Hers was bright and expectant.
“Were you really fine?” he heard himself ask.
The light faded from her eyes. “It was not actively painful. But it was not worthwhile either—having a husband merely for the sake of having a husband. I was already inquiring into an annulment when Giancarlo died. Never would I make that same mistake again.”
“Good,” he said, though he ached for the nearly two years she’d lost in her not-worthwhile marriage. He squeezed her hand briefly. “I’m glad you told me at last; you need never spare me any truthful answers.”
“All right, then, I won’t.” She smiled a little. “Have you any other questions that you need answered honestly?”
He flushed. If she only knew. But how did one ask one’s oldest friend whether she wanted to lie with him? He could already see her bursting out laughing. Freddie, you silly, silly man. Where did you get that idea?
“Well, yes,” he said. “Would you care for some tea now?”
She cast her gaze down for a moment. When she looked back at him, her expression was very even. He wondered if he’d imagined the fleeting shadow in her eyes.
“Do you have coffee instead?” she asked.
Chapter Twelve
Vere had hoped to arrive at Highgate Court before Edmund Douglas: far easier that way to return the coded dossier to the safe and to take an impression of the key therein. Unfortunately, as he helped his wife out of the victoria Lady Kingsley had dispatched to fetch them from the train station, Edmund Douglas came striding out of the house.
Lines furrowed the corners of his eyes and mouth, and much of his dark hair had turned gray. But otherwise Douglas’s appearance had changed little since the day of his wedding. He was still slender, still well dressed, still fine-featured
and handsome.
He saw the Veres and stopped, his eyes as unreadable as those of a viper.
Vere glanced at his wife of less than twenty-four hours. For the first time in at least a decade, he’d been unable to sleep on a train. Instead, he’d observed her from underneath his lashes.
She’d kept the veil on her hat lowered, so he could not see her expression. But for most of their journey, she’d sat with one hand at her throat, her other hand opening and clenching, opening and clenching. From time to time she shook her head slowly, as if trying to loosen her collar with that motion. And very, very infrequently, she let out an audibly uneven breath.
She’d been scared witless.
The moment Douglas appeared, however, it was as if the curtains had lifted, and her stage fright was now but a dim thought next to the all-consuming importance of her role.
“Oh, hullo, Uncle.” She lifted her skirts, bounced up the steps, and kissed him on both cheeks. “Welcome home. When did you return? And did you have a good trip?”
Douglas stared at her coldly, a look that would have made grown men quail. “My trip was fine. However, instead of the joyful reunion I had anticipated, I came home ten minutes ago to find the house empty and my family disappeared, with Mrs. Ramsay recounting an Arabian Nights tale of revelry and destruction that concluded with your sudden departure.”
She laughed as bubbly as a barrel of champagne. “Oh, Uncle. Mrs. Ramsay is such a stuffy old dear. There were no revelries: Lady Kingsley and her friends were delightfully civilized guests. Although I must admit that when Lord Vere proposed, in my burst of excitement I did knock over a ship in a bottle.”
Lifting her left hand with its very modest wedding band toward him, she preened. “You are looking at the new Marchioness of Vere, sir. Allow me to present my husband.”
She beckoned Vere. “Don’t just stand there, my lord. Come meet my uncle.”
She still believed him an inmitigated idiot. Had she been less distracted, less afraid, and less drunk, she might have noticed quite differently: He had been completely out of character for most of the previous day—and night. But he was lucky: She had been distracted, afraid, and much, much too drunk.
Vere took the steps two at a time and pumped Douglas’s hand with the enthusiasm of a basset hound tearing into an old sock. “A pleasure, sir.”
Douglas pulled his hand away. “You are married?”
The question was addressed more to his niece but Vere jumped in. “Oh, yes, church and flowers, and—well, everything,” he replied, giggling a little.
She batted him on his arm. “Behave, sir.”
Turning toward Douglas, she said more earnestly, “I do apologize. We are so much in love we could not bear to wait.”
“But we rushed back to tell you the good news in person,” Vere added. “Frankly, Lady Vere was a bit worried how you would receive me. But I told her I could not possibly fail to win your approval with my looks, address, and connections.”
He bumped her lightly. “See, was I not right?”
She lobbed at him a smile brilliant enough to turn a field of sunflowers. “Of course you were, darling. I should not have doubted you. Never again.”
“Where is your aunt, Elissande?”
Douglas’s face had been impassive in the face of the Veres’ smug bantering. His tone, however, was anything but. Something seethed beneath his words: a monstrous anger.
“She’s at your favorite place in London, Uncle: Brown’s Hotel, waited on hand and foot.”
Vere could barely imagine the state of her nerves. She had no way of knowing that he would corroborate her lie. Yet nothing in her demeanor suggested the least nervousness or uncertainty.
“Indeed,” he said. “I was the one who suggested that Mrs. Douglas should remain at the hotel and not tax her health too much by traveling again so soon. Lady Vere but acknowledged the wisdom of my recommendation.”
Douglas narrowed his eyes, his silence ominous. Vere glanced at his wife. She gazed upon Douglas with enormous fondness, as if he’d just promised to take her to the House of Worth’s showroom in Paris.
Vere had thought for a few days now that she was the best actress he had ever met. But as good as she had been during their brief acquaintance, before her uncle she was spectacular. Everything Vere had seen up to this moment had been but dress rehearsals; now she was the great thespian upon her stage, flooded in limelight, her audience at the edges of their seats.
“Well, let’s not stand here,” Douglas murmured at last. “We will sit down for a cup of tea.”
* * *
No sooner had they taken their seats in the drawing room than Lord Vere started to squirm, obviously and embarrassingly. A minute later, he clamped his lips together, as if the integrity of his digestive system depended upon it. Finally, he wiped his brow and croaked, “If you will excuse me for a moment, I must—I fear—I must—”
He ran out.
Elissande’s uncle said not a word, as if her husband were but a fly that had had the good sense to leave. Elissande, however, felt his absence keenly—a sign of just how utterly petrified she was that even his mindless presence buttressed her courage.
When she’d succumbed to the mad idea of marriage as a route of escape, a useless husband had not been what she’d anticipated, nor an encounter with her uncle bereft of protection. But now she was all alone before an anger that had hitherto been largely channeled toward her aunt.
“How do you like London, Elissande?” said her uncle silkily.
She’d scarcely paid any attention to London in the whirlwind of the past thirty-some hours. “Oh, big, dirty, crowded, but quite exciting, I must admit.”
“You were at Brown’s Hotel, you said, my favorite in London. Did you make it known to management that you are my close relation?”
Her heart beat as fast as a hummingbird’s wings; her fear turned dizzying. Before her aunt became a complete invalid, when they, as a family, had taken afternoon tea together, he’d spoken to Aunt Rachel in precisely this same smooth, interested tone, asking her similarly mundane, harmless questions. And Aunt Rachel’s responses would become shorter and slower with every question, as if each answer required her to knife herself in the flesh, until she fell silent altogether and the tears came again.
At which point he would escort her back to her room and Elissande would run to the remotest corner of the property, leap the fences, and run farther, pretending that she was not going back, that she was never going back.
“Oh, now I feel such a bumpkin,” she moaned. And don’t wring your hands. Leave them still and relaxed on your lap. “It never occurred to me that I would be treated differently by mentioning your name. How imbecilic of me.”
“You are young; you will learn,” said her uncle. “And your new husband, is he a good man?”
“The best,” she avowed fervidly. “So very kind and considerate.”
Her uncle rose from his seat and walked to a window. “I hardly know what to make of all this. My little girl, all grown-up and married,” he said thoughtfully.
She clenched her toes in her kidskin boots. Her uncle sounding thoughtful always chilled her. This was the tone in which he said things such as I do believe there are too many useless books in my library or Your aunt would not say it, bless her gentle soul, but she was most terribly in need of your company this afternoon, when you were away from the house. You should think more of her, and not always so much of your own pleasure. The former pronouncement had preceded the purging of the library that had made her cry in her bed, under the covers, every night for a week, and the latter had turned Elissande almost as housebound as her aunt.
Tea was brought in. Elissande poured, breathing carefully so that her hand would not shake. The footman left, closing the door quietly behind him.
Her uncle approached the table. Elissande offered him his tea. The surface of the tea barely rippled: Her years under his tutelage were standing her in good stead.
She saw the t
eacup flying from her hand before she understood the burning pain on her cheek. Another slap came, even harder this time, and sent her careening from her chair. She lay where she’d fallen, stunned. She’d always suspected that he did unspeakable things to her aunt, but he’d never before raised his hand against her.
Her mouth tasted of blood. One of her molars moved. She could barely see for the liquid swimming in her eyes.
“Get up,” he said.
She blinked back the tears and raised herself to her knees. Before she could get to her feet, he grabbed her by her collar, dragged her across the room, and slammed her into the wall.
Suddenly she understood that her skeleton was quite fragile. It was made of bones. And bones cracked under sufficient duress.
“You think you are so very clever. You think you can walk out of here with my wife—my wife.”
His hand clutched her throat, shutting down her windpipe.
“Think again, Elissande!”
She would not. She was gladder than ever that she had finally taken Aunt Rachel away from him.
“You will return Mrs. Douglas to me and you will return her soon. If not—”
He smiled. She shuddered—she could not control it this time. He loosened his hold on her neck slightly. She gulped down air. He tightened his grip again.
“If not,” he continued, “I fear something terrible might befall the handsome idiot you claim to love so much.”
Her heart froze. She ground her teeth together so they would not chatter.
“Think of the poor overgrown dolt. You have already exploited him shamelessly, inveigling him into giving you his hand and his name. Does he truly need to lose an arm—and perhaps his eyesight—for you?”
She wanted to be haughty. She wanted to show him that she’d spit on his threats. But it was awfully difficult to appear strong and powerful when she could scarcely breathe. “You wouldn’t dare,” she managed to choke out.
“Wrong, my dear Elissande. For love, there is nothing I do not dare. Nothing.”
His At Night Page 15
