by Georgie Lee
A new light flickered behind Conrad. Miss Linton stood at the top of the stairs at the end of the hall, her disapproving scowl deepened by the candle she held.
He lowered his head, his face so close to hers, Katie could see the faint outline of his beard along his chiselled jaw. ‘This isn’t how it’s going to end, Katie.’
Her chest caught at the nearness of him. If things were different, if he hadn’t left, she might have risen up on her feet and touched her lips to his, fallen into his arms and known the bliss they’d once experienced together on the Downs, away from everyone and everything except each other, but things weren’t different and the time for discussion had passed.
‘Goodnight, Conrad.’ Katie slipped into the room and closed the door behind her.
* * *
Conrad frowned as the lock clicked shut.
Matilda scurried up behind him, moving so quickly the candle flame danced and nearly went out before she raised her hand to protect it. ‘Conrad, we must speak.’
‘Whatever it is, it can wait until morning.’ He made for the stairs, rolling his stiff shoulders. He needed to eat and sleep in a real bed, not endure his cousin’s company. Hopefully the groaning of the ship’s timbers and the far-off thunder of breaking ice wouldn’t haunt his dreams. Too much was already cracking up around him for him to face tomorrow exhausted.
‘It can’t wait.’ Matilda dogged his heels as he descended, the light from her candle waving erratically over the plaster walls. ‘You can’t think to allow her to stay here.’
‘I’ll allow whomever I wish to reside here for any length of time.’ He stopped on the landing and levelled a pointed look at his cousin. ‘As I’ve allowed you to reside here and manage the estate in my absence.’
She pursed her lips in indignation. ‘Then I cannot continue to remain here, risking my reputation to lend some thin veneer of credibility to hers.’
Conrad glared at her as he would a sailor who dared to question his orders. ‘Careful, Matilda, how you speak of the woman who is to be my wife.’
‘Don’t think to cow me into withholding my opinion of your connection to a woman of no standing who can bring nothing to your family.’
‘She’s the granddaughter of a baronet.’
‘And the daughter of a disgraced woman who didn’t have the foresight to think of her family, her name, her ancestry before running off with some poor country doctor. No wonder Miss Vickers behaved the way she did after you left. You have no idea what they’re saying about her in London.’
‘You’re right, nor do I want to know,’ Conrad tossed over his shoulder as he made for the entrance hall.
‘But you must.’ Matilda followed him. ‘They say she and certain members of the Naturalist Society were more than professional acquaintances.’
Conrad paused in the centre of the room, tightening his fist at his side before releasing his fingers one by one. Matilda’s revelation added to the unease already created by the scene with Katie and Mr Prevett on the road. Whatever had happened while Conrad was gone, the gravity of it was beginning to settle over him like a storm in the North Atlantic. Only tonight he had no time for it, or his cousin. The woman wasn’t above exaggeration, she excelled in it. He brushed her and his suspicions aside as he made for his study. ‘No doubt the stories are in existence because of my uncle.’
‘There’s no reason for an august man like Lord Helton to dirty his hands with a woman like Miss Vickers,’ Matilda countered as she followed after him. She was the only one who’d ever venerated his uncle. Her slight connection to the marquis through Conrad gave her the single edge of superiority over her small group of friends and she cherished it. ‘She isn’t suitable to be a marchioness.’
Conrad stopped and whirled around to face her. ‘What are you talking about? I’m not Lord Helton’s heir.’
‘You mean you haven’t heard?’ Her dull-brown eyes sparkled with the delight of knowing something Conrad didn’t. ‘Your cousin Preston is dead. You are Lord Helton’s heir now.’
* * *
Conrad shoved open the study door and it banged against the plaster wall. The breeze of it disturbed the blue-and-gold flag from the ship of his first command hanging from the timbered rafters. The stench of stale air hit him as he made for the sideboard and the decanter of brandy sitting on top.
What the hell happened while I was gone? It was as if he’d sailed away from one world and returned to find another, more contemptible one had taken its place.
He flipped back the silver stopper and raised the crystal to his lips, ready to drown himself and all his shattered plans in the liquor. Nothing had gone as he’d intended, not his expedition or his homecoming.
Over the top of the glittering decanter, he caught sight of his father’s portrait hanging over the mantel. Conrad lowered the decanter. This had once been his father’s domain and he’d filled the shelves with his collection of beetles, the research of which had garnered him the presidency of the Naturalist Society. Later, his study of the insects had provided a refuge from the nightmares of the hell his own brother, the Marquis of Helton, had consigned him to for daring to defy him, the one which had ruined his health and broken his spirit.
Conrad followed the stare of his father’s painted brown eyes across the room to where the spoils of Conrad’s expeditions now adorned his father’s precious bookcases—Inuit spears, beaverskin moccasins, wood totems and the fossil remains of animals both known and unknown. They were a silent catalogue of all his past successes and triumphs. Taking it in, his gut sank like it had the morning he’d watched Gorgon break apart and slip beneath the icy water, leaving them trapped. It was his blood trapping him now, the legacy his father and mother had spent years struggling to escape, the one ruled by the iron fist of Lord Helton.
Conrad took another long drink and silently cursed his uncle. Lord Helton cared for nothing except power and using it to make men in government and society bow and scrape before him. After Conrad’s father’s early death had put him beyond his brother’s reach, it’d been a struggle for Conrad and his mother to escape Lord Helton’s grasping control. If it hadn’t been for Heims Hall and his mother’s brother, Jack, they might never have known peace, or the security of a home and an income not encumbered by the Helton legacy.
Conrad smiled at the memory of his mother standing in the grand entrance hall at Helton Manor after his father’s funeral, breaking Lord Helton’s walking stick over her knee after he’d dared to strike Conrad with it for mourning his father. She’d pelted the man with the broken bits and a barrage of insults, stunning Lord Helton into silence for the first time in his life.
Conrad’s smile faded. Afterwards, Lord Helton’s methods had become more subtle and he’d resorted to lies and rumours to attack her instead of confrontation. When she’d passed, Lord Helton then turned his vengeance against Conrad, using his influence in government to make sure every ship Conrad received after becoming captain was more worm-eaten than the last. Yet Conrad had accepted each doomed command and made a stunning success of them all, securing his reputation as a first-rate officer and diluting Lord Helton’s influence. After Napoleon’s defeat left Conrad without a ship and on half-pay, he’d volunteered for the Discovery Service and built a name for himself as an explorer, one of Mr Barrow’s favourites, a man who always succeeded.
Except this time.
Conrad took another deep drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He should have turned Gorgon for home before the short Arctic summer had ended. Instead, he’d pushed north and others had paid the price for his mistake, sacrificing fingers, toes and even a life to Conrad’s desire to accomplish his mission.
He gripped the decanter tight against his chest, hanging on with both hands to keep it from slipping out of his grasp. At times, he’d barely been able to hold his pen on the voyage home, the weakness nearly crip
pling him as he’d reread his journal and relived the horrors of his experience to write his report. In the cold north he’d thought it would ease once he reached warmer climes, but as time passed it was becoming apparent the weakness was driven not by cold but by memories, especially those of Aaron’s hopeless eyes meeting his before he’d slipped out of the tent door and into oblivion.
Eyes as vacant as those of the skeleton of the tiger-like creature perched in front of the window.
Conrad rocked a little as he approached the animal, coming face-to-face with the long jaw and the two curving canine teeth protruding from the mouth. He slid his hand over the top of the skull, feeling the slight pits and crevices of the bones. It was an exquisite specimen, one he’d purchased from an Inuit trader in Greenland at the end of his first voyage to the Arctic three years ago. The same man had sold Conrad the skeleton that was even now in one of the many crates making their way to Heims Hall, the likes of which he’d never seen in any book or collection.
He ran his fingers over the tiger’s long nose and down the back edge of one curved and serrated fang. He’d spent hours watching Katie and her father meticulously clean and piece this animal together. Katie would do the same with the creature in the crate, making sense of the jumble of bones in a way he could never understand. Her face would light up in excitement when she did, just as it had when she’d attached this skull to the vertebrae.
He flicked the pointed end of the fang with his fingernail. A dead animal would receive a warmer welcome than he had.
He backhanded the skull, knocking it free of its neck and sending it flying across the room. It thudded each time it bounced along the carpet before the leg of a wide, leather bench brought it to a sudden stop. He marched up to it, ignoring the sting to his hand as he focused on the hollow eyes watching him above the mercifully unbroken fangs. He raised his foot to stomp the poor thing into oblivion, to crush it and all memories of the frozen wasteland which had ruined everything, but he couldn’t.
He lowered his foot, staggering a bit before he righted himself. He was a man of discovery, not a destroyer, though this last expedition had nearly crushed him. He braced himself against a nearby desk, the wood beneath his fingers smooth and cool, unlike the rough timbers of the ship. The sounds of the house surrounded him—the whinny of a horse in the mews, the twitter of a night bird. They were as familiar now as they’d been when he was ten and in their echoes he found a faint comfort. Then the creak of the floorboard beneath his boot sent a shock racing up his back. In the straining wood he heard the echoes of Gorgon groaning beneath the pressure of the ice, struggling to keep it at bay until at last she’d given up the fight.
Conrad moved uneasily to the chair beside the cold fireplace, set the half-empty decanter on the table and dropped into the thick cushions. The house was much quieter than the ship. During the long Arctic months, the wind had always been blowing and the men had been talking, complaining or playing cards, anything to fill the hours of boredom with something other than worry. The weariness of the past eighteen months, of the last few hours, settled over him like the fog of drink. He should go upstairs. He needed to sleep in a proper bed, but he couldn’t move. He’d known true exhaustion and this wasn’t it. Even if he went upstairs, there was no guarantee of rest, only hours of sleep jerked from him by nightmares of the cold.
It didn’t matter. Years of exploration had taught him to catch sleep where and when he could, to do with as little of it as possible in order to make it through another day. Only this wasn’t the North Pole, or the hull of a ship. It was the study where he’d first wooed Katie, the woman whose soft voice and love he’d hoped would silence the doubts and memories torturing him.
As the darkness closed in around him, the crack of icebergs slamming together drowned out the quiet of the house. Each thud made Conrad wince until at last it faded and a dreamless sleep brought much needed silence.
* * *
Katie peered into the dark study. In the hallway, she thought she’d heard a noise, but everything in here was quiet. She must have imagined it the way she sometimes imagined hearing her father return from a dig. She’d look up from sketching a specimen, thinking she’d see him come through the door, only to remember he was never coming home again.
It shocked her how keenly she noticed his absence. Even when he’d been home, he’d never truly been there. There’d never been anyone who’d been willing to place her above their own selfish pursuits, not her mother, her father or even Conrad.
Bitterness stiffened her steps as she moved beneath the timbered ceiling and past the books, animals and artefacts filling the room. At one time the tattered flag, seal skins and the stories behind each item had impressed her. Tonight, they were a crushing reminder of Conrad’s true passion, like the tiger was a reminder of her father’s.
She stopped in front of the skeleton bleached an eerie white by the moonlight coming through the window. It stood just as she’d last seen it, wired together as her father had arranged it, except for the skull. It was missing.
She searched the floor beneath the table, looking for it, irritated to think it’d been ruined by someone’s carelessness. She and her father had spent hours hunched over the bones, studying, drawing and arranging them just as she had as a young girl when she’d sit beside him in their small house in Whitemans Green, cleaning away the hard dirt encasing her father’s latest find. Working with him had been the only way to garner his attention and she’d taken in everything he’d taught her about anatomy and biology. He’d even spent precious money on drawing lessons to increase her natural skill, though those had been more for his benefit than hers so that she could sketch his collections.
Despite her father’s selfish reason for tutoring her, those days with him were the only times she’d ever felt wanted and loved, until she’d met Conrad.
Pain squeezed her chest. If she’d known, less than a year later, Conrad would be aboard Gorgon and off to embrace his true passion, she would have been more cautious with her heart.
‘Come to see the animal?’ Conrad slurred from behind her.
She jerked up straight and focused through the darkness to where Conrad pushed himself up out of a chair by the fireplace, swaying as he stood.
She laid a shaking hand over her chest, as startled by his drunkenness as his unexpected presence. She’d never seen him drink to excess before. ‘Conrad, I didn’t know you were in here.’
‘You’d have avoided the room if you’d known?’
Yes. ‘No, I wanted to see the tiger.’
‘Of course you did.’ The edge in his voice disturbed her as much as the incomplete skeleton.
‘Where’s the head?’
‘Over there.’ He pointed to where the skull glowed white against the dark carpet.
She walked over and scooped it up, then turned it over in her hands to examine it. ‘I don’t think any permanent damage has been done.’
‘Can’t say the same about much else, now can we?’
Katie ignored the sarcasm as she reattached the skull to the neck.
‘I suppose you’ve heard my status in the world has been quite elevated since I’ve been gone?’ Conrad slurred as he staggered over to stand beside her.
‘As the heir, will you resign your commission?’ There was a little too much hope in her question.
‘No,’ Conrad answered without hesitation. ‘It’s what Helton expects me to do and I’m not about to do his bidding.’
‘I see.’ There was nothing in the world which would persuade him to cease exploring, not a title, or even love.
‘Aren’t you going to congratulate me?’ Conrad prodded.
‘I don’t envy you enough to congratulate you.’ There were few but the most sycophantic of people desirous of a place in government who envied a connection to the Marquis of Helton.
‘You’re right, you
shouldn’t. No one should.’ The same desperation Katie had experienced during the past year, when the long days of spring had turned into summer and then autumn with no sign of Conrad or his ship, coloured his voice. He peered past her into the night beyond the window, the lines of his face hardening with a pain she felt deep inside her heart. ‘I had to leave him.’
‘Who?’ Katie whispered, troubled by the mournful tone of his voice.
‘Aaron.’ He choked out the name as if it cut his tongue.
Katie swallowed hard. She remembered the red-headed Scotsman with a laugh as thick as his brogue. Of all the men who’d assembled on Gorgon’s deck to meet her, the barrel-chested man with the quick smile and lively eyes had seemed the least likely to perish. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I.’ He staggered back to the side table and took up a heavy, square decanter, gripping it tightly in one hand as he raised it to his lips. The liquid inside sloshed as he struggled to hold it, then he lost his grip and the heavy crystal tumbled to the floor, its fall broken by the head of the lion skin lying prone beneath the chairs.
‘Damn it.’ Conrad stared at his fingers as though they’d betrayed him.
Katie rushed to him, laying a comforting hand on his arm, wanting to draw out his pain like a splinter and help ease both of their suffering. ‘What happened, Conrad?’
* * *
The contrast between Katie’s white hand on his dark, sea spray-stiffened coat was as startling as this second show of tenderness after so much reserve. It gave him hope, but not enough to make him speak. At one time he could have described to her the heart-wrenching moment he’d discovered his friend lying frozen in the snow and the agony of having to leave him where he lay. He could have described to her the pain and fears he’d experienced during the winter and the damage they’d wrecked on his confidence, body and soul. He could have told her of his concerns about his reputation once Mr Barrow received his report. The Katie from over a year ago would have listened and comforted, but not this one. ‘You aren’t the woman I left.’
