For him to speak of love—the Devil might as well speak of salvation. “You don’t love her. You have never loved her. You have only shown her cruelties great and small.”
He drew back his hand and slapped her so hard that for a moment she feared her neck had snapped. “You know nothing of love,” he bellowed. “You know nothing of the lengths I’ve gone to—”
He stopped. She swallowed the blood in her mouth and stared at him. She had never, in her entire life, heard him raise his voice.
His outburst seemed to have surprised himself too. He took several deep breaths. When he spoke again, it was hardly more than a murmur. “Listen carefully, my dear: I will give you three days to bring her back. This is where she belongs; no court in the land will disagree with my prerogative as her husband.
“Bring her back, and you may enjoy your idiot for the rest of your days. Or you can look upon his blinded, maimed person for as long as you both shall live and know that you have been responsible for his mutilation. And remember—no matter what you decide, I will still have my wife back.”
To mark his point, he put both of his hands on her throat. She struggled weakly. She must breathe. She wanted desperately to breathe. To be in the middle of a cyclone, high and loose in the sky, surrounded by nothing but air, air, and more air.
Air came as her husband yanked her uncle off and threw him—literally lifted him and flung him down. A plant stand crashed loudly: Her uncle skidded across the floor and knocked it over. Her husband pulled her into his arms. “Are you all right?”
She could not answer. She could only hold on tight—any port in a storm.
“Shame on you, sir,” Lord Vere said. “This is your niece, who has given up her youth to take care of your wife. Is this how you repay her devotion after all these years?”
Her uncle laughed softly.
“We left our honeymoon to call on you. I see now it was a mistake: You are not worthy of either our time or our courtesy,” said her husband heatedly. “You may consider yourself cut from our acquaintance.”
He kissed her on her forehead. “I’m sorry, my love. We should not have come. And you need never return here again.”
* * *
Vere had trouble calming himself enough to think properly.
He had sent three cables from the telegraph office: one to Lady Kingsley, alerting her to keep track of Douglas’s movement at all times; one to Mrs. Dilwyn at the Savoy Hotel, for Mrs. Douglas’s removal to Vere’s town house; and one to Holbrook, requesting protection outside the house.
It would appear that he’d done all that was required of him at the moment. But something tugged at the back of his mind—something that just might yield an important connection if only he could clear his head for half an hour.
Which was exactly what he couldn’t do. He turned around to look outside the window of the telegraph office, where the victoria sat with its hood up and his wife huddled inside the enclosure.
When he’d come upon Douglas with his stranglehold on her, he’d known, rationally, that Douglas was not going to murder her then and there—it did not fit with the man’s style of careful planning and even more meticulous execution. But rage had nevertheless exploded in him, and he had needed all his restraint to not pummel Douglas to within an inch of his life.
A very old rage that had never found its proper outlet.
He left the telegraph office and climbed back into the hooded victoria. She had her veil down; her fingers, white-knuckled, twisted her gloves. He lifted her veil and quickly lowered it: Her face still bore the imprints of Douglas’s hand.
“I cabled my staff,” he said by way of explanation. Turning to the coachman, he instructed, “The train station, Gibbons.”
A few minutes later they were on the platform of the train station, out of hearing range of possibly curious servants.
“Does your uncle always do that?” he asked at last.
She shook her head; the pale gray veil fluttered. “He has never raised his hand to me before. I’m not so sure about my aunt.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He’d rather enjoyed dragging her back to Highgate Court against her wishes. He’d even enjoyed the panic that she’d done her best not to betray: She ought to suffer a little for what she’d done to him.
Now he felt awful. He had not forgiven her by any means, but his earlier glee had sharply evanesced. Even that night in the green parlor he had not understood quite so vividly the true extent of her fear and desperation.
Her hands, now gloved, twisted a handkerchief. “He wants me to return my aunt to him in three days.”
“And if you don’t?”
She was silent a long time.
“He didn’t promise to harm you or Mrs. Douglas, did he?” he prompted.
She began winding the twisted handkerchief along her index finger. “He promised to harm you.”
“Me?” He was a little surprised to be dragged into this. “Hmm, I’ve never had people threaten harm to me before. I mean, ladies do occasionally kick me in the shin when I spill my drinks on them—and I don’t blame them—”
“He said he would have you pay with a limb and your eyesight,” she said flatly.
He was taken aback. “Well, that’s not very nice of him, is it?”
“Are you afraid?” She certainly seemed to be. The way she was going, nothing would be left of the handkerchief but a few frayed threads by the time they reached London.
“Not afraid, precisely,” he answered honestly for once. “But it hardly makes me happy that he chokes you one instant and menaces me the next.”
She wrenched the handkerchief ever tighter—her finger must be blue inside her glove. “What should we do?”
He almost smiled—hard to believe the mightily clever Lady Vere sought her idiot husband’s advice. He reached for her hand and unwound the handkerchief. “I don’t know, but we’ll think of something. And you don’t really think I’m so easy to harm, do you?”
“I pray not,” she said. She was already twisting the handkerchief again. “But he is both cruel and subtle. He can harm you without leaving a trace of evidence—I’ve never been able to ascertain what it was he did to my aunt to make her so terrified of him.”
Suddenly, the not-quite-thoughts in the back of Vere’s head coalesced into a concrete theory. Edmund Douglas’s ruthless finesse. The death of Stephen Delaney, so like Mrs. Watts’s yet so removed from the current case. The decline of Douglas’s diamond mine and his need for income, given both his insatiable appetite to prove himself in other avenues of investment and his dismal record.
He rubbed his hands together. “You know what we should do?”
“Yes?” she asked with both surprise and hope in her voice.
He almost hated to disappoint her. “We should not be hungry, that’s what. I don’t know about you but I’m a smarter and braver man when my stomach is full. You stay here. I’m paying a visit to the bakery. Anything I can bring back for you?”
Her shoulders slumped. “No, thank you, I’m not hungry. But be careful if you do go.”
He went back to the telegraph office and sent out a fourth cable, this one to Lord Yardley, whom Holbrook half jokingly referred to as his overlord—the Delaney case had been before Holbrook’s time and Holbrook had always been more interested in the new than the old.
He asked only one question of Lord Yardley: Did Delaney’s scientific inquiries have anything to do with the synthesis of artificial diamonds?
* * *
Lord Vere slept.
He seemed to have a special affinity for sleeping in trains, since he’d slumbered heavily on the way to Shropshire as well. But it mystified Elissande how anyone who had been threatened with such grievous harm could be so unconcerned about it—the way he’d reacted, as if she’d told him he stood to lose a cravat, instead of crucial body parts.
At least he hadn’t blurted out that Mrs. Douglas was at the Savoy Hotel instead of Brown’s. Perhaps he’d forg
otten already at which hotel they’d spent the night, just as he seemed to have forgotten his earlier unhappiness about marrying her.
She rubbed her temple. Her uncle, ever insidiously clever, had chosen the perfect target for his threat. Elissande and Aunt Rachel knew the danger they faced in him; they were prepared to do everything to save themselves.
But how did she protect Lord Vere, who did not understand his imperilment? And yet protect him she must—it was only because of her action that he was embroiled in her troubles.
He’d returned with a box from the bakery just before they boarded the train and offered her the box’s contents. And she’d shaken her head vigorously in refusal. But now she moved beside him and opened the bakery box. He’d left her two currant buns and a small Vienna cake.
Without quite intending to, she ate both the currant buns and half the Vienna cake. Perhaps he’d been right: She did feel less panicky with something in her stomach. And perhaps he had good cause not to be afraid of her uncle: Never in her life had she seen anyone put Edmund Douglas in his place the way her husband had.
He was so strong. She wished very much to be like him now, stalwart and unworried.
She sighed and laid her hand on his elbow.
* * *
He did not expect her touch. He expected even less that it should feel as it did: infinitely familiar.
After a while, she removed her hat and rested her head along his upper arm. He opened his eyes to remind himself that it was only Lady Vere, who had become his wife by engaging in deceit and assault. But as he looked down upon her shining hair and listened to her soft, steady breaths, nothing, it seemed, could diminish the sweetness of her near-embrace.
There was what he thought of her. There was what he felt regardless. And there was very little middle ground.
To his surprise, the next thing he knew, the train was decelerating into London and she was gently calling for him to wake up from a deep sleep.
They detrained, met the brougham that had been sent to fetch them, and drove to his town house, left to him by his late maternal grandfather, one of Britain’s richest men while he lived.
Mr. Woodbridge had acquired the house with the intention to demolish it and build a bigger, taller mansion on the lot, but he had died before his architect completed the new plans. Vere, who saw no need for anything bigger or taller, had the plumbing modernized, electricity wired, and telephone service installed, but otherwise left the structure of the house unaltered.
The town house was situated exactly halfway between Grosvenor Square and Berkeley Square, an imposing classical edifice with soaring Ionic columns and a pediment that depicted a trident-wielding Poseidon on a hippocampus-drawn chariot. Lady Vere lifted her veil and swept her gaze over his impressive home—he was glad to see that the swelling on her face had already gone down.
“This is not the Savoy Hotel,” she said.
“Well, no, this is my house.”
“But my aunt, she is still at the hotel. We must retrieve her too if we are to stay here.”
“She’s already here. Don’t you remember, in the morning I told you that when she’d had rest enough, Mrs. Dilwyn would bring her home?”
“You never told me any such thing.”
Of course he never did. He hadn’t even wanted to put Mrs. Dilwyn at her aunt’s disposal. Had, in fact, meant to keep his wife and her aunt well away from his house and separate from all the other spheres of his life. But now he had no choice but to take them into his home.
He patted her on the hand. “That’s quite understandable, my dear. You were hardly yourself this morning—all that Sauternes. Come now, the staff will be waiting to meet you.”
As soon as the servants had been presented to her, she asked to see her aunt. Mrs. Dilwyn accompanied her, giving a report of Mrs. Douglas’s day as they started up the steps.
Vere remained behind and read the post that had come for him during his absence before he too took the stairs. By mutual agreement, he and Holbrook rarely met in public or called upon each other’s residences. But they did belong to the same club. Tonight it would be quicker for Vere to find Holbrook at the club—and for that he needed to change into his evening clothes.
His wife and Mrs. Dilwyn were in the passage outside the mistress’s room.
“Would you like me to bring back one of Mrs. Douglas’s nightdresses for you to use tonight, ma’am?” asked Mrs. Dilwyn.
His wife frowned, an unusual expression for her.
“What seems to be the problem?” he asked. “Is everything all right with Mrs. Douglas?”
“She is very well, thank you. And there’s not a problem at all,” she said. “I forgot to pack nightdresses for myself—and I just had the maids take away all the rest of Mrs. Douglas’s for laundering.”
“What’s the matter with Mrs. Douglas’s nightdresses?”
“They smell of cloves. She doesn’t like cloves and neither do I.”
“You are right: That’s not a problem,” he said. “I’ll lend you a nightshirt for tonight. My nightshirts absolutely do not smell of cloves.”
It took two seconds before she beamed at him and said, “Thank you. But I don’t wish to trouble you, sir.”
Two whole seconds. When her smile was otherwise always instantaneous.
She was afraid he would touch her.
When she needed a little reassurance on the train, she’d felt quite free to touch him. And when she’d fallen asleep with her head against his person, her fragrance soft and sweet in his nostrils, he had thought—
He’d thought that he no longer quite repelled her.
And the irony was, he was not going to touch her. His offer of a solution had not been in any way a ploy to take advantage of her. He would have sent Mrs. Dilwyn to fetch a nightshirt from his dressing room.
But her disproportionate reaction had his imaginary self reaching for one more chunk of rock.
“No, no, it would be no trouble at all,” he said. “Come along.”
He walked on into his bedchamber; she had no choice but to follow him. He stripped off his day coat and continued to his dressing room.
“How do you like your new house, by the way?” he asked as he discarded his waistcoat, looking back at her.
“Very well,” she said, smiling. “It’s a very fine house.”
They managed quite a passable imitation of an ordinary marriage, he must concede.
“And Mrs. Dilwyn, has she been helpful?”
“Most helpful.” Her smile persevered but she stopped well short of the door of the dressing room.
“Come in so you can choose one.”
“Oh, I’m sure the one you choose will be perfectly fine.”
“Nonsense, come inside.”
She still maintained her smile, but needed a deep breath before she entered the dressing room.
He pulled his shirt over his head. Her smile deserted her.
He didn’t always have this musculature throughout the year. But it was at the end of summer: Since the middle of April he had been based in London, which meant three miles every morning at his swimming club. He was in the best form he could possibly be in. And when he was in his best form he was, physically, a very intimidating man.
The dressing room was large. But it was also thickly populated with shelves, cabinets, and armoires, which made it secluded and isolated. She stood with her back against a chest of drawers. He walked up to her, braced his arm next to her shoulder, and did nothing else for a moment—he truly was not above tormenting her—before pulling off his signet ring and tossing it in a tray of accessories atop the chest of drawers.
“Come,” he said softly.
She swallowed.
“You said you wanted to pick out the nightshirt you like best. So come.”
He could see it in her eyes, the desire to correct him, to argue that she’d never wanted anything of the sort, that he was the one to impose the choosing on her. But she only said, “Certainly.”
&nbs
p; He had stacks of nightshirts, all white, in linen, flannel, silk, and merino wool. She snatched the uppermost nightshirt from the nearest stack.
“I’ll take this one.”
“But you haven’t felt the others yet. Feel them.”
He pressed the nightshirts into her hands, one after another, and offered accompanying treatises on fabrics and textures. Soon they stood in a knee-deep pile of discarded nightshirts. And he handed her yet another one to examine.
It was silk, lustrous, smooth, lavish, something that two thousand years ago would have been quite worth the walk from Chang’an to Damascus.
“So soft,” he said. “Like your skin.”
Her grip tightened on the nightshirt. “May I have this one then?”
“Indeed, have it. Took you long enough to find one you liked.”
But she would not escape him so easily yet. He insisted she unclench her fingers, to avoid wrinkling the silk, and then he took hold of her hand and rubbed his thumb over her palm. Giving her his most thick-witted smile, he sighed. “Ah, yes, just as lovely as I remember it.”
And remembered it. And remembered it.
It dawned on him that he tormented no one but himself with this little game of his.
He dropped her hand and stepped back. “Well, then, off you go.”
She looked at him uncertainly. He began to undo the fastening of his trousers. She needed no more urging after that, her departure swift and resounding.
Chapter Thirteen
Holbrook sported a black eye.
Vere had to smile at the sight. “So Lady Kingsley did not forget to pay you a visit when she was in London.”
Holbrook gingerly touched the bruises around his eye. “She should have delegated the task to you. You would have punished me more tenderly.”
“Quite so.” Vere pushed the cigarette case–size casting mold he’d used at Highgate Court across the table to Holbrook. “I need a key made from this.”
They were seated at White’s, as far away from the bow window as possible. It was more than permissible for mere acquaintances belonging to the same club to dine together, but there was no point advertising their contact to passersby on St. James.
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