Etiquette With The Devil

by Rebecca Paula

  He chucked the apple core over his shoulder and gazed out over the park of thinning tree leaves and decay, then tilted his head up to the sky. Light flicked through his closed eyes, and he dragged in a deep breath of air, the cold rushing in and shaking him awake. He was sore from his brawling yesterday. Hell, even his knuckles were split open. Nothing mattered now, not when he smiled to himself and pulled out his pocket watch, knowing full well Clara would be stealing away for a few minutes to the music room.

  He had no ring, but if he left Burton Hall to find one, he was afraid he would be swayed. He did not wish for a taste of freedom from the burdens of this place. He simply wished to ask the woman he had found himself suddenly in love with to marry him. He would worry about the rest after hearing her answer.

  The sound of a hammer being pulled back clicked behind him, and he froze.

  “I didn’t want to have to do this, Bly.”

  “Then put down the gun,” he answered coolly, keeping his back to Graham.

  Bly watched as Clara floated into the music room, wearing that white dress of hers with lace about the collar. She held Grace in her arms and peeked back out into the hallway before shutting the door behind them and taking a seat at the piano bench.

  Graham circled around him, holding a pistol aimed straight for his heart. “A lot of men have died at your hands, but if you think I won’t pull this trigger, you are gravely mistaken.” His mentor’s face was tinged red, as though he had waited out in the cold for some time. “And after yesterday’s brawl at the tavern, you are going to have the villagers storming the house to make you pay for the damage you did, never mind the man they claim you crippled.”

  “Then do us both a favor, and kill me.” Bly sidestepped, trying his best to shield himself behind a hedge so Clara would not notice him.

  Graham stepped closer, a sneer spreading across his thin lips. “That has always been your problem. I knew when I met you as a young solider you carried around an unfathomable amount of resentment. And because of that hatred, you became unstoppable. I will say this plainly and for the last time. You are going to pack and get on a fucking boat with me for Cairo. This isn’t a choice. It’s a mission and I’m telling you it must be done.”

  Bly ducked his head down, rubbing his hand through his hair and over his neck. “A mission or a theft? No, don’t answer. I’ve told you I am done with that work, with working for you, for that matter.” He pointed at his mentor, rage igniting a fire within himself. “I know you get a cut of everything I steal. I’m not—”

  He sprang for Graham, knocking the pistol out of his hand. The two men landed hard on the garden path. Bly fisted a handful of pebbles and dirt and threw them at Graham’s face. “I’m not leaving.” He shoved the other man’s face against the ground, then punched his side, close to his kidneys.

  Graham squirmed, curling into a ball. Bly rose to his knees, his arm in the air as he was ready to strike again, but Graham sent a boot into his knee, toppling Bly. His mentor, though years older and struggling for breath, gained the advantage over Bly and struck him across the face with the butt of the pistol.

  The world spun around Bly. Flesh split and ripped across his face, the taste of fresh blood seeping into his mouth as he spat and cursed at Graham.

  “You want to stay because of her?” Graham struck Bly across the face again.

  Bly’s head snapped to the side. For a moment, his vision blurred as he tried to keep the music room in focus.

  “You want to know her truth? She’s a murderess, Ravensdale!”

  He took another hit not because he needed to, but because in that instant, Bly wanted it to happen. Everyone had a past, even his Clara. “I don’t believe you.”

  They both struggled for air as they lay sprawled out in the walkway, bruised and bloody.

  “You are coming with me to Cairo. Today.”

  Bly lunged for Graham. The wrestled, both trying to rise to their feet to gain an advantage. Bly circled Graham’s throat, and squeezed. He would not believe the lies; he would not fall prey to Graham and his stories. His grip tightened around Graham’s throat until the man’s face purpled and his eyes bulged. Air wheezed through his open mouth.

  Bly shoved him forward. “I will not. Get off my property and don’t show your face again. I’m through with working for criminals. What I’m stealing belongs in museums—”

  “But you aren’t above marrying one, are you?” His voice croaked past each letter as though his voice box had been broken.

  Bly swung at Graham once more, but Graham stepped out from behind the hedge, then stepped closer to the door to the music room, holding his gun to his shoulder. “Killing you is impossible, Ravensdale.” Then he leveled the gun to the figure of Clara and Grace at the piano. “But killing them, I think, would be enough to bring you to your knees to do my bidding.”

  On instinct, Bly held his hands out. “No.” He bowed his head, his voice quiet. “Step back, hide behind the hedge so Clara will not see you. I will…I will do what you want, but uncock your damn gun first.”

  “Good.” Graham lowered his gun and stepped behind the hedge. “You have an hour to pack your things. We are catching the morning train out of here.”

  *

  Clara arrived at the schoolroom to find two sobbing children. Grace shrieked from down the hallway in the nursery in between the stern lectures of the nurses.

  “Whatever is the matter?” she asked Minnie and James. “I promise the lessons I planned for today are not so bad that you need to cry.”

  They rushed her, throwing their arms tight around her waist. “Uncle,” they both whimpered between sobs.

  “What did he do now?” She sank to her knees and gathered the children into her arms.

  “He has come to make his goodbyes,” an icy voice announced from the doorway. “Children, stop clinging to your governess like weeping babes.”

  It’s time for me to leave, I’m afraid.

  Clara stood, but did not remove her hold on Minnie and James’s heaving shoulders.

  “He’s leaving?” she asked, meeting Lady Margaret’s icy stare with one of her own.

  “Presently.”

  “Go with Nurse,” she whispered to the children. She brushed past Lady Margaret, strode down the hallway, and brazenly opened the door to his bedroom. His room was empty.

  Clara from went room to room, opening and closing doors with no regard to the judgment of the others in the house. She would hunt him down and wring his neck. She finally flung the door of his study open and found him standing behind his desk.

  “You have left quite a wake with your news. The children are beside themselves.”

  Bly looked up from shuffling through a stack of papers for a moment, then glanced back down.

  “Did I not warrant a goodbye?”

  “You had two, I believe.” His voice was low, full of disinterest.

  She slammed the door shut, stormed across the office, and slapped him. She refused to be spoken to like a whore. Clara pulled herself back from the desk and balled her fists. At least now she had his attention.

  “The children need a father. You cannot abandon them.”

  “As their guardian, not their father, I can,” he said. “I have seen to their care. When they are of age, they’ll be sent to the best boarding schools in England. Their lives, Dawson, won’t suffer from my absence.”

  Dawson? So, he was going to be cruel again.

  “If you believe that, then you are a foolish man. They need you. You are all they have.”

  I need you.

  “I have done what was required of me. They’re looked after and the house is to be restored. I’m not needed here. I have my own life to continue.”

  “Burton Hall is your life now.”

  “Don’t interfere.”

  “Funny that when it suits, you insist on propriety. I implore you to reconsider, sir,” she bit out. “They need you. You are what they have for family, not that ghastly woman upstairs who’s
chastising them for being upset to see you go.”

  He looked up for a moment, burning her with that strange empty stare that possessed him from time to time. It left her rather empty, as well.

  “You’ll do fine,” he said, looking back down at the stack of papers. His hands shuffled things madly, searching for something that was not there.

  “I am not their family.”

  “No, but that can be remedied if you need to see to their care.”

  She looked to the empty whiskey bottle sitting on the desk, her heart sinking. “What are you suggesting?”

  “If you feel the need to be their mother, I’ll have the papers drawn up so they’re placed under your care. You can adopt the brats if you wish.”

  She did not flinch at his ugly words, but a stabbing pain started at the back of her throat. He was truly leaving. There was no persuading the devil. How foolish of her to think otherwise.

  “You would cast them off to a stranger?”

  “Not a stranger, a friend.”

  Clara reached over the desk and shoved the stack of papers flying to the floor. “You will break their hearts,” she said, crowding closer. She kept her eyes fixed him.

  You will break mine.

  “I’ve a train to catch, and then a boat, and possibly several more, until I’m as far away from Burton Hall as bloody fucking possible.”

  She pulled back. “You’re acting like a frightened child.”

  “Leave.”

  She had never held on to any lofty expectations of meaning anything significant to a man such as Bly. She certainly had little time to think about the events of last evening. And here he was, ordering her out of his life as if she was truly nothing more than a governess—as if the friendship that recently developed between them, even the fleeting glimmer of love, meant nothing. Clara would never forgive herself.

  He stood before her, cold and distant, so determined to leave, but she did not believe him. He acted as if by leaving, that his trip to England never had happened, as if he had never experienced the death of his brother, as if he had never kissed—

  He was lying to himself, but she refused to believe the same.

  When she did not move, Bly continued, “Leave, Dawson. I won’t argue with a stubborn chit who doesn’t know her place. Be grateful that my aunt has agreed to let you stay.”

  The words were not his own. They felt foreign to her ears, abrasive. Clara reached to strike Bly’s face at the insult, but he was quicker this time, grabbing her small wrist, unyielding in his restraint. She pulled back, trying to free herself, but he held strong.

  “I may be mule-minded, even haughty at times,” she snapped, “but I will not stand by and watch you destroy yourself. Whether you want to listen or not, you are better than this…this cold man who does not feel.

  “There is a man within you that has feeling and passion for life. You do not have to face everything as if you are conquering a nation. You—” she paused, dropping her voice from hysteria to something bordering on steel. “You are making a serious mistake and I hope you realize it soon because it will be the very mistake that sees you buried. You will not survive this battle much longer.”

  His eyes remained locked on hers, lifeless and cold, his hand abiding as she wrestled to pull free. She waited for a response, and when she did not receive one, Clara pulled once more, this time his fingers uncurling as disgust washed over his face. She turned on her heel and strode out to the door, slamming it behind her.

  The bloody idiot!

  She pressed her back against the wall and jumped as something crashed to the office floor. She ran when a frustrating howl rang out, followed by the smattering of smashing glass and objects reverberated through the hallways. She tumbled into the empty morning room and collapsed against the wall, sinking to the floor in a fit of tears.

  What a fool she had been to believe in something as fickle as love.

  *

  The fine chain of her necklace was missing as Clara’s hand moved over her neck that evening. Only bare skin. The possibility of it being lost was something she could not handle, not tonight. If it was truly gone, then so was the only piece of she had of her mother. She sighed and sank to her knees to search the floor of her bedroom.

  There was a scuffle at her door, but she chose to ignore it. She pressed her face sideways against the filthy floors and searched for the glitter of gold, her eyes scanning underneath the small bed. She stopped as she saw boots in the doorway.

  “I was searching for my necklace.” Clara sat up, hastily wiping away tears as she placed her hands onto the bed.

  “The children will not go to sleep,” the nurse said, wringing her apron in her hands. “Nothing is settling them. I was sent to fetch you to help.”

  Clara pushed to her feet and grabbed her shawl from the back of the chair by the fireplace. “I will see what I can do,” she said, hurrying down the stairs to a nursery of sobbing children.

  “Miss Dawson,” sneered Lady Margaret as Clara approached, “see that they stop this noise at once. I will not tolerate it any longer. Since the nurse is not capable of silencing their tantrums, I trust that you can and will do so immediately.”

  “They only wish to be comforted. Their uncle left rather suddenly today, and this after losing their parents and moving to a foreign country, all within such a short time. They cannot be as strong as you.” Clara remained composed, even under the withering glare of the arctic woman.

  “The nurse has been dismissed. Do you wish for the same? My nephew has left. You have no hero now.”

  Ah, but he was never one to begin with.

  “I will see to the children. Good evening,” Clara said, bowing her head to the new queen. She pushed past Lady Margaret and into the noisy room with a deep breath and a prayer for patience.

  James was throwing whatever he could get his hands onto in a fit of anger, Minnie stood in the corner of the room lost in a fit of hiccupping sobs, as Grace bounced in her crib shrieking and red-faced.

  “Come here, James,” Clara ordered. Her voice was firm, but she thought it best not to show that she was just as upset. She wished to cry along with them.

  He ignored her and threw a tin soldier against the wall.

  “I was not asking, James. Come here.”

  He turned to the drapes and started to pull with all the might of his small body, yelling and kicking when they did not budge. Clara walked calmly to his side, even as he continued to flail and grunt. She leaned down and wrapped her arms around him. He squirmed and fussed until finally he threw his arms around her, and cried. She dropped a kiss onto his cheek and brushed back his matted hair.

  “I know,” she said.

  She stood and gathered Grace from her crib, then knelt before Minnie and James, looking them both in in the eye, her heart breaking to see them so frightened and alone. How could he abandon them?

  “I know you are upset, but it is time for bed. In the morning we will right the nursery.”

  Clara circled her hand over Grace’s back until the girl switched from shrieking to soft whimpering.

  “It is one thing to cry because you are upset, it is another to be destructive,” she continued. “We are all sad your uncle has left, but we must remember to behave.”

  “You miss him too?” Minnie threw her arms around Clara as well.

  She could lie, but they had guessed the truth. “Of course, sweet.”

  “Everyone leaves us,” Minnie cried anew. “Are you leaving us too, Miss Clara?”

  Clara sunk to the floor lost amidst a sea of arms and hot tears.

  “We don’t want you to leave us,” James whispered in her ear.

  Her lap was not big enough for two children and a squirming toddler, but she reached a hand to Minnie and James and kissed away Grace’s tears. “I am afraid you are stuck with me, my loves,” she tried to say with a smile. “Of course I cannot leave you—not when we have so many adventures waiting for us here at Burton Hall.”

  With
three pairs of arms clinging around her, Clara vowed to fight for the Ravensdale children and see that they never knew the loneliness she had battled with her entire life. They had no family any longer, and she understood how horribly frightening that was because she was frightened herself. She would be their family. She would do whatever necessary to see them loved and safe.

  She ushered them to bed, tucked them in soundly, and wiped away their tears.

  “Who will tell us a story now? Uncle left—”

  Clara cut James’s question with a determined answer. “We shall start our own story.”

  With Grace swaddled and asleep in her arms, she smiled and leaned toward James and Minnie and began, “One day, far away from rainy England, a boy happened upon a tiger, deep in the jungles of India…”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Lucy was dying.

  In the weeks following Lady Margaret’s arrival, the woman all but forced the staff to neglect the poor beast. The animal deserved to be looked after properly, not forgotten about and ignored. The conservatory was warm enough and there was sufficient room in the iron cage, but Clara understood that an animal such as Lucy needed more. It was easy to see that Lucy would wither away in the gloom of English rain.

  Clara felt much the same.

  She asked the steward if the tiger could be moved quickly to another home, hoping he would be discreet and not tell Lady Margaret of her interference into the situation. He kept his word, but he could not find a home for Lucy. So, Clara took it upon herself to send one last plea.

  It was a surprise then when she received word that an offer of assistance would be no trouble and to await further instruction. In a few short weeks, word about Lucy’s new home was delivered in person by none other than the Duke of Ashbornham himself.

  Barnes arrived with a caravan to convey Lucy to her new home at the London Zoo. The children fussed a bit, but he handled them as he always did, and soon they stopped their protests. He promised that once he saw Lucy settled, he would return to take them all to visit.