The Paid Companion

by Amanda Quick

  He screamed once as the ray burned through his chest in the vicinity of his heart. The dreadful cry bounced off the walls.

  It ended with horrifying suddenness. Parker collapsed like a broken clockwork toy. The searing ray continued to shoot into the stones directly behind where he had been standing a second before.

  Elenora turned away, unable to look at the terrible scene. Her stomach lurched. She was afraid she was going to be violently ill.

  “Elenora.” Arthur was on his feet, moving swiftly toward her. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” She swallowed heavily. “Is he—? He must be.” She dared not turn around.

  Arthur stepped past her, careful to avoid the light beam, and knelt to check the body. He rose quickly.

  “Yes,” he said. “He is most certainly dead. Now we must find a way to switch off that device.”

  “The knob on top, I think. “

  A strange, low rumble interrupted her. At first she thought that the iron cage was once again in motion. Then she realized with horror that it was coming from Jove’s Thunderbolt.

  The rumble became a low roar.

  “Something has gone wrong,” Arthur said.

  “Turn the knob.”

  Arthur ran to the workbench and started to wrench the knob. He drew his fingers back instantly.

  “Damnation. It’s as hot as live coals.”

  The muted roaring gradually changed into a high-pitched whine that was unlike anything Elenora had ever heard. The red beam projecting from the device grew less steady. It started to pulse in a strange pattern.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Arthur came swiftly toward her.

  “We can’t use the cage,” she warned. “Parker said it could not be made to operate unless one knew the secret for unlocking it.”

  “Not the cage. The lost river.”

  He reached her side, gripped her shoulder and propelled her toward the crypt at the back of the laboratory.

  She did not understand what he was talking about, but she did not argue. On the workbench the machine was turning a dull red as though it was being heated in the intense flames of some monstrous forge. The strange, shrill sound emanating from it grew louder.

  It certainly did not require a genius of Newton’s caliber to conclude that the thing was about to explode, she thought.

  She fled with Arthur into the crypt. The dank smell hit her with great force. Arthur lit a lantern. They got into a tiny, shallow-bottomed boat.

  “I see now why you came alone,” she said, balancing cautiously.

  “This craft will only hold two people,” Arthur said. He grabbed a pole and used it to propel the boat away from the stone dock. “I realized I might need to use it to bring you out.”

  “This is a river,” she whispered, astonished. “Flowing beneath the heart of the city.”

  “Keep your head down,” Arthur advised. “There are bridges and other obstacles.”

  The muffled noise of an explosion came a few minutes later, echoing down the ancient tunnel walls. Elenora felt a tremor go through the little boat, but it continued forward, riding the current.

  There followed a horrific grinding, crashing, shattering sound of stone on stone. It seemed to go on forever.

  After a while an unnerving silence descended.

  “Dear heaven,” Elenora whispered. “It sounds as though the entire laboratory may have been destroyed.”

  “Yes.”

  She looked back into the darkness. “Do you think Parker really might have been England’s second Newton?”

  “As my great-uncle was fond of saying, there was only one Newton.”

  39

  Two days later, Elenora met with Margaret and Bennett in the library. She was feeling much more herself this afternoon, she thought. The shock of events was rapidly receding. She was pleased to note that her strong constitution had reasserted itself, and her nerves felt quite steady once again.

  It was time to move forward into her new life.

  She had seen very little of Arthur since they had made their way out of the lost river. The previous day had been spent dealing with the aftermath of the great explosion. Oddly enough, there was no visible evidence of the disaster aboveground. The abandoned abbey appeared entirely undisturbed.

  Working under Arthur’s direction, laborers had managed to locate the entrance to the secret chamber that housed the iron cage. But they had found the shaft sealed with rubble and broken stone.

  Arthur and Bennett had taken small boats back along the hidden river to see if the crypt entrance was still passable. But there they had been met with another impenetrable wall of tumbled rock. The destruction of the hidden chamber had been complete.

  The one thing she and Arthur had done together was call upon Lady Wilmington. Arthur had explained as gently as possible that it would be an extraordinarily expensive and quite possibly futile task to try to find Parker’s body.

  “Let the laboratory be his tomb,” Lady Wilmington had decreed, tears in her eyes.

  Today Arthur had left the house again very early, saying that he intended to talk to several people who were owed an explanation of events, including Mrs. Glentworth and Roland Burnley.

  The moment he was gone, Elenora had sent a message to Bennett, asking him to call upon her at his earliest convenience. He had arrived within the hour, but he did not appear at all enthusiastic about the favor she was asking of him.

  “Are you quite certain that you want me to do this, Miss Lodge?” he asked gravely.

  “Yes,” Elenora said. She had to go through with this, she thought. She must not turn aside. “My friends and I will be extremely grateful to you, sir, if you can arrange to place the wager for us.”

  Margaret’s brow wrinkled slightly in disapproval. “I cannot say I like this scheme of yours, Elenora. I really think that you should discuss the situation with Arthur first.”

  “I cannot do that. I know him very well. He will be concerned for my reputation. If he learns of my plan, he will likely put his foot down and refuse to allow it.”

  Margaret stiffened. “Arthur may blame Bennett for placing the wager for you and your friends.”

  Elenora frowned. She had not thought about that possibility. “I would not want to create a rift between you and St. Merryn, sir, since you are soon to marry into the family.”

  “Do not bother yourself on that account, Miss Lodge,” Bennett said gallantly. “It is not St. Merryn’s temper I fear. It is that you may have misjudged his feelings toward you.”

  “Bennett is right,” Margaret said quickly. “Arthur is very fond of you, Elenora. I am certain of it. I realize that he may not have let you know his feelings, but that is because he is not accustomed to revealing his emotions.”

  “I do not doubt but that he feels some affection for me,” Elenora said, choosing her words carefully. “But our relationship is, in truth, that of employer and employee, not that of an engaged couple.”

  “Your association may have started out that way, but I feel that it has changed,” Margaret insisted.

  It certainly had altered, Elenora thought, but she did not intend to confide all of the details to Margaret or anyone else.

  “The nature of my personal connection to Arthur has not changed in any significant way,” she said carefully.

  “I’m not so sure about that.” Margaret was starting to look stubborn. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Arthur is considering an offer of marriage.”

  It required every ounce of self control Elenora possessed not to burst into tears. Somehow she managed to keep her voice steady. “I do not want Arthur to feel that he has an obligation to propose marriage to me merely because of recent events. Is that quite clear?”

  Margaret and Bennett exchanged glances.

  “I understand,” Margaret said, “but—”

  “It would be extremely unfair if he were made to feel that he was honor-bound to offer marriage,” Elenora said evenly. “You know how he is when it comes to his sense o
f responsibility.”

  Margaret exchanged another look with Bennett, who grimaced in response.

  “Everyone knows that Arthur’s sense of duty tends to be somewhat excessive on occasion,” Margaret admitted.

  “Precisely,” Elenora said.

  “You may be right about St. Merryn’s attitude toward his responsibilities, Miss Lodge,” Bennett said. “But in this case, I fear there is good reason why he will consider that an offer of marriage is the only honorable thing he can do.”

  Elenora lifted her chin. She tried not to clench her hands. “I will not have it.”

  Bennett sighed. “No offense, but after having posed as St. Merryn’s fiancée and having been perceived to be on rather intimate terms with him, you will never be able to show your face in Polite Circles again unless you and he are wed.”

  “Bennett is correct,” Margaret assured her.

  “My future in Society is not a problem,” Elenora said. “I have none. That was understood from the start of this affair. Indeed, Arthur and I discussed the matter thoroughly before we agreed to the arrangement.”

  “But Elenora, you were very nearly killed because of this post,” Margaret said. “Arthur never intended that you be put into danger.”

  “Of course he didn’t.” Elenora straightened her shoulders. “And it is precisely because of the fact that I was placed in danger that I fear he may feel obliged to go beyond the original terms of our agreement and offer marriage. I refuse to allow him to be placed under such a ridiculous sense of obligation.”

  “I comprehend your meaning, Miss Lodge,” Bennett said gently. “Nevertheless, don’t you think it would be best if you talked to him about your scheme first?”

  “No,” Elenora said firmly. “Can I depend upon you to handle this matter for me, sir?”

  Bennett heaved another sigh. “I will do my best to assist you, Miss Lodge.”

  At four o’clock that afternoon, Arthur came down the steps in front of his club, walked past the long line of waiting carriages, and stopped in front of the door of a handsome maroon equipage.

  “I got your message, Fleming,” he said through the open window. “What the devil is this all about?” Then he noticed Margaret sitting next to Bennett. “Are you two on your way to the park?”

  “No,” Margaret said. Her expression was one of grim resolve. “We came here to discuss a matter of the utmost importance with you.”

  “Quite right.” Bennett thrust open the door. “Will you join us, sir?”

  Something was certainly amiss, Arthur thought, resigned. He’d had plans for the afternoon; plans that included Elenora. But Bennett and Margaret were obviously extremely agitated. Best to find out what was wrong now rather than later. In his experience, problems were usually easiest to manage in the early stages.

  Resigned to the delay, he vaulted up into the carriage and sat down on the empty seat. “Very well, what seems to be the trouble here?”

  “It is Elenora,” Margaret said bluntly. “She is packing as we speak. I fear she plans to be gone by the time you arrive home this afternoon.”

  Arthur felt his innards turn to ice. Elenora leaving? He had a sudden bleak vision of the big house in Rain Street devoid of her vital presence. All the gloomy shadows that had magically disappeared in the past few days would return the moment she walked out the door.

  “Elenora and I have a business arrangement,” he said in what he hoped was a calm and controlled tone. “She will not leave until certain matters are settled.”

  “She mentioned that the business of her wages and a certain bonus could be handled through your man-of-affairs,” Margaret said.

  Damnation, he thought, going colder. Elenora wasn’t just terminating their business arrangement, she was running away from him.

  Elenora put the last gown and a pair of slippers into the trunk and slowly lowered the top. She felt as though she was closing the lid of a coffin.

  The wretched sense of loss that had been threatening to overwhelm her all afternoon grew stronger. She had to get out of here before she dissolved into a puddle of tears, she thought.

  She heard the muffled clatter of a carriage stopping down in the street. The hackney that she had instructed Ned to summon had arrived. She heard the muted sound of the front hall door being opened. It closed again very quickly. Ned had no doubt gone outside to inform the driver that she would be down in a few minutes.

  She turned slowly on her heel to take one last look around her bedchamber, telling herself that she did not want to forget any of her possessions. But her gaze went to the neatly made bed and lingered there.

  All she could think about was the last night of passion with Arthur. She knew that she would carry those memories in her heart for the rest of her life.

  She was vaguely aware of a man’s footsteps in the corridor outside the bedchamber. That would be Ned coming to collect her trunk and take it downstairs to the waiting hackney, she surmised.

  Moisture shimmered in her eyes. She seized a handkerchief. She must not cry. Not yet, at any rate. The sight of her leaving in tears would greatly alarm Ned and Sally and the rest of the staff.

  There was a single knock on the door.

  “Come in,” she called, frantically dabbing at the incipient tears.

  The door opened. She finished blotting her eyes and turned to face whoever stood there.

  “Going somewhere?” Arthur asked quietly.

  She could not seem to move. He loomed large in the opening, his hard face set in grim, unyielding lines, his eyes as dangerous as she had ever seen them. Her mouth went dry.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  “I live here, remember?”

  She flushed. “You’re home early.”

  “I was obliged to alter my schedule of appointments for today when I received word that you were planning to run away.”

  She sighed. “Margaret and Bennett told you?”

  “They informed me that you were packing your bags and preparing to depart with no notice.” He folded his arms. “And here I thought we had some matters to discuss.”

  “I felt it might be best if we concluded our business through your man-of-affairs,” she said softly.

  “My man-of-affairs is very competent in most respects, but I doubt that he has had a great deal of experience conveying an offer of marriage.”

  Her mouth fell open. She got it closed again only with great effort. “Oh, dear.” She could no longer hold back the tears. Frantically she blotted her eyes. “Oh, dear, I was afraid of this.”

  “It is clear that I am doing something very wrong when it comes to my personal affairs,” Arthur said in a world-weary tone. “My fiancées all seem to want to run away from me.”

  “I beg your pardon?” She lowered her handkerchief and glared at him. “How dare you imply that I am running away from you? I am not a frightened rabbit like Juliana, and well you know it.”

  “I am very much aware that you are not Juliana.” He walked deliberately into the bedchamber and closed the door behind him. He angled a glance at the closed trunk. “But you do appear to be about to run away from me.”

  She sniffed, wadded up the handkerchief in one hand, folded her arms beneath her breasts and hugged herself. “You know that this is an entirely different situation.”

  “Oddly enough, from my perspective it does not appear to be that much different.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, that is a perfectly ridiculous thing to say.”

  “Is it?” He came to a halt a short distance away. “You once told me that you thought I would make a very good husband. Did you mean it?”

  “Of course I meant it.” She unfolded her arm and waved the crumpled handkerchief about. “But for some other woman, one whom you truly loved.”

  “You are the woman I love. Will you marry me?”

  All of the oxygen seemed to have evaporated from the room. The world and time itself stopped.

  “You love me?” she repeated. �
��Arthur, do you mean it?”

  “Have you ever known me to say anything I did not mean?”

  “Well, no, it is just that . . .” She narrowed her eyes. “Arthur, are you certain that you are not offering marriage because you feel you must?”

  “If you will recall my history in such matters, my dear, you may remember that the last time I found myself trapped in an engagement that I wished to escape, I showed myself quite capable of getting out of the entanglement.”

  “Oh. Yes. Yes, you did.” She frowned. “But this is not the same sort of thing at all. I do not want you to feel that you must marry me just because of what happened between us here.” She paused. “And downstairs in the library.”

  “I shall let you in on a little secret.” He closed the remaining distance between them. “I made love to you on both occasions because I had already decided that I wanted to marry you.”

  She was too stunned to summon up anything resembling a coherent response.

  She swallowed. “Really?”

  “I wanted you from that first moment when you came crashing through the doorway of the offices of Goodhew and Willis. I knew then that you were the woman I had been waiting for all of my life.”

  “You did?”

  “My love, let me remind you that I am famous for my intuition when it comes to making investments. I took one look at you and I knew that you would be the best investment I could ever possibly make.”

  She smiled tremulously. “Oh, Arthur, that is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “Thank you. I was rather pleased with it, myself. I practiced it during the carriage ride here today.”

  “But you know that a gentleman of your rank and wealth is expected to marry a young lady right out of the schoolroom. One with excellent social connections and a plump inheritance.”

  “Allow me to remind you that I am considered to be something of an eccentric. Society will be dreadfully disappointed unless I wed a lady who is equally unusual.”

  “I do not know what to say.”

  He tipped up her chin with one hand. “You could tell me whether or not you think it might be possible for you to love me enough to want to marry me.”