“She is the last,” the footman said.
“What?” Asa wiped his sweating face on his sleeve. “I thought there were three dancers.”
Jean-Marie nodded. “Vogel and some of the musicians were able to rescue the third dancer from the other side of the stage.”
“Is she—?”
“Shaken but unhurt—or so Vogel has told me.”
“Thank God,” Asa replied.
“Oui.” Jean-Marie was already climbing out of the wreckage.
Asa levered himself up and out, and then crouched down by Eve.
She sat, leaning against a wall, her eyes tightly closed. Asa frowned and then noticed MacLeish was there as well. He shot the architect a narrow-eyed glance.
“I’ve already sent for a doctor,” MacLeish said. He glanced up as Vogel joined them and his brows drew together. “Hans! You’re hurt.”
“Ja, ja,” Vogel muttered, wiping a smear of blood from his neck. “Your theater has nearly killed us.”
MacLeish flushed. “This wasn’t my fault. My design was perfectly safe.”
Vogel snorted as the scratch on his neck welled fresh blood. “Safe! Gott im Himmel! The stage fell in—”
Asa lifted his voice impatiently. “Where are Polly and the dancer you saved, Vogel?”
The composer turned to him. “Ve put both of them in one of the dressing rooms.”
“Good.” He’d have to consult with the doctor, send for supplies to rebuild the stage, and—
“What about the other girl?” Eve asked, interrupting his thoughts, her voice still weak.
Asa bent and picked her up, ignoring the way she immediately stiffened, and started striding toward his office.
“What are you doing?” Eve asked, pushing against his chest. “I can walk, and besides, I wanted to hear—”
“She’s dead.” He tried to make his voice gentle, but he wasn’t a gentle man.
“Oh,” Eve breathed. “Oh.”
He waited for her questions, but there weren’t any. Perhaps in her heart she’d known all along.
He tightened his arms as he strode through the corridors. He could feel the beat of her heart against his chest and he was fiercely unapologetically glad that she hadn’t been the one to die.
She inhaled, one delicate hand coming to rest on his waistcoat. “How did this happen, do you know?”
“Oh, I know all right,” Asa replied grimly. “Sabotage.”
EVE STARED AT Mr. Makepeace. He’d just crawled into a space hardly large enough for a toddler, to save her—save her and Polly. She’d never seen such strength and courage, matter-of-factly displayed.
But that didn’t mean she’d lost her senses. “Sabotage? You mean you think someone deliberately caused the stage to fall? But why?”
“To ruin me, of course.” He halted before the door to his office, his arms strong bands around her body. Eve stiffened instinctually at the reminder that he was holding her. Asa Makepeace had one arm beneath her legs and the other under her shoulders. The position forced her entire side against his chest.
He was close—much too close.
He didn’t seem to notice. He was already shouldering open the office door.
The moment they were inside, she pushed hard against his chest, wriggling until he let her down. Her feet touched the floor and she took a step back from him, leaning against a corner of his desk. Her legs were still wobbly and her head throbbed from being hit as she’d fallen through the stage, but she folded her arms and tried to compose herself. “Why do you think the stage fall wasn’t an accident? Doesn’t it make much more sense that it simply was badly constructed and fell?”
He scowled. “Because it didn’t just bloody fall. I saw cut boards under that wreckage. Someone sawed through them and made the stage collapse.”
She blinked at that. “Who?”
“What?”
“Who went to all the trouble of crawling under your stage and sawing through boards to make it fall?”
His head jerked back as he stared at her, incredulous. “You don’t believe me.”
“It’s not that,” she said, exasperated. “I’m just trying to understand.”
“What needs understanding?” His voice was growing louder. “The goddamned stage was sabotaged.”
“Fine. The stage was sabotaged.” She inhaled, keeping her temper. “Now tell me why would anyone deliberately destroy the stage?”
“Bloody Sherwood has a reason to sabotage me and my theater.”
She stared, incredulous. “You think Mr. Sherwood crawled under your stage with a saw—”
“He would’ve used a paid lackey, obviously,” he interrupted.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she objected. “Why would Sherwood go to all that trouble when only last week he was offering to buy out Val’s share of Harte’s Folly?”
He brought his fist down with a bang on the table. “That’s exactly why he’d damn well do it—you didn’t sell the buggering share to him. He’s trying to ruin me—ruin my theater!”
She thought of the Mr. Sherwood she’d met only a few times: excitable, quick to smile, eager to make money, but not a violent man by any means. Whoever had sabotaged the stage must’ve known that someone might be hurt or killed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Oh, I’m ridiculous now, am I, luv?” His eyes narrowed ominously. “I’ve spent over a decade in the theater, in this garden, and I think I might know a man like bloody Sherwood better than a frightened little mouse who’s spent the better part of her life hiding from life.”
She caught her breath in outrage, her hands balling into fists at her side. “How dare you? You’re so obsessed with your garden it’s all you see, all you care about. You’re blind to anything else.”
He leaned down into her face, his hot breath washing across her mouth. “Fucking right I am.”
Tears of hurt pricked her eyes and she widened them to keep the drops from falling as she stared back at him. She didn’t even know why she felt hurt—it made no sense. She knew who he was—what he was. Nothing he’d said—no matter how foully—was anything new.
She lifted her chin. “Then I suppose our discussion is done.”
She turned to go, but he had a hard grip on her upper arm, pulling her back.
“Not yet it’s not,” he growled.
She fought down the old, nauseous fear. “Let go of me.”
“Why?” He cocked his head, an ugly sneer on his beautiful lips. “Can’t stand my touch?”
“Yes!” she tossed back, losing her patience, her self-control, and any upper hand she’d ever had in their argument.
Which was when he took her by the shoulders, pulled her roughly into his arms, and pressed his mouth to hers.
And Eve lost her sanity.
EVE DINWOODY’S LIPS were soft and sweet, entirely belying her sharp and tart personality. For all of a half second Asa reveled in that yielding sweetness. He’d shut her up in the most basic, the most primitive way a man could a woman.
And then he realized something was very wrong.
He pulled back, his lip curled cynically. She was an aristocrat. She probably thought him bestial, base, dirty, and not worthy of her mouth.
No doubt she was disgusted by him.
But disgust wasn’t what showed on her face.
It was fear.
White showed all around the blue irises of her eyes, and there were pale indents on the sides of her nostrils. Her expression reminded him of what she’d looked like when he’d found her with the dog, but this was worse—much worse. She wasn’t making a sound.
“Eve.”
Her brows creased and the most horrible sound came from her lips.
She whimpered.
Before he could react, he was yanked away from her.
Asa stumbled over a chair and nearly fell, catching himself at the last minute with a hand on the desk. “What the hell?”
Jean-Marie had his arm around Eve. The footman ignored him. “Ma ch
érie, it is safe. I am ’ere. You are safe.”
She didn’t respond, not even to whimper.
Asa straightened slowly, his eyes on her.
“What did you do to ’er?” Jean-Marie demanded, not looking away from his mistress.
He sounded entirely unlike any manservant Asa had ever met. If Jean-Marie was a footman Asa was a grand duchess.
“Nothing.” He stared at Eve, his chest constricting as if he were being squeezed in a great vise.
The other man shot him a black look. “Do not take me for a fool. You did something to put her into this state.”
“I kissed her,” Asa said, refusing to feel shame or embarrassment. He’d embraced her in a moment of anger, true, but he hadn’t hurt her.
Jean-Marie made a sound of disgust. “Come, ma petite. Come, Jean-Marie will take you ’ome now.”
Eve didn’t speak, didn’t move.
Asa felt a chill crawl up his spine. This was unnatural, as if her mind had left her body. “What’s wrong with her?”
Jean-Marie ignored him, ushering her to a chair and gently helping her sit. “Stay here. I shall send for the carriage. We shall go ’ome and you can ’ave a nice cup of tea, oui?”
The footman moved toward the door, but Asa blocked his way, feeling a sort of helpless rage washing over him. “Answer me. What is wrong with your mistress?”
“You touched ’er.” The blackamoor’s face was stony with his own anger.
Asa didn’t back down. “I told you, I never hurt her.”
“You didn’t ’ave to,” Jean-Marie replied coldly. “Your touch—the touch of a man—is enough to do this to ’er.”
“You’re a goddamned man,” Asa growled. “And you touch her.”
Jean-Marie’s lip curled. “I am ’er friend, I am married, and I ’ave spent years guarding ’er and winning ’er trust.”
Asa shook his head, glancing again at Eve. She was hunched now in the chair. At least she could move. But she wouldn’t look in their direction, though there was no way she could not hear their argument.
Asa turned back to the other man. “Why? What made her like this?”
“This is not my story to tell,” Jean-Marie said. He turned to the door, but hesitated, his hand on the knob, before saying in a near-whisper, “You need to ask ’er.”
Then he opened the door and leaned into the hallway. There must’ve been someone there, for Asa could hear him giving directions. Jean-Marie returned to Miss Dinwoody and helped her up. “Come. A carriage is being brought round.”
Asa fisted and un-fisted his hands, feeling powerless. “It’ll take you over an hour to get to the Thames, cross it, and then hire another carriage to take her to her town house.”
Jean-Marie lifted an eyebrow. “You ’ave a better idea, perhaps?”
Asa snorted. “Goddamn it, no.”
He watched moodily as the footman helped her to the door. Eve had her head lowered now as if embarrassed, which, oddly, made him feel a little better: if she was aware enough to be embarrassed, surely it was a positive sign?
Any emotion was better than that horrible, utter blankness.
“I will take care of ’er,” Jean-Marie said as they made the door.
Asa wanted to argue. Wanted to take her from the footman’s arms and help her home himself. Wanted to find out what was wrong with her.
But he had a theater that had just been sabotaged.
He watched Jean-Marie and Eve go, then gritted his teeth determinedly and turned to make his way to the stage. After. After he saw to his theater, his garden, and his people, then he would go to Eve.
And find out once and for all what was wrong with her.
Chapter Seven
The king gestured to the bread and wine. “Eat, girl.”
So Dove sat on a stool and broke off a piece of the bread and placed it in her mouth. She was very careful, though, to not look away from the man who had sired her.
The king seemed irritated, but he pointed to the wine. “Drink.”
Dove poured herself a glass of wine, her gaze always on her father, and now his face was enraged.…
—From The Lion and the Dove
Later that afternoon Bridget Crumb opened the door of Hermes House to find a very disheveled Malcolm MacLeish on the doorstep.
She raised an eyebrow and stepped back. The architect was a regular visitor to Hermes House, so she was used to seeing him, though not usually with sweat stains on his coat and dust and grime in his hair.
“I need to write a letter to His Grace,” Mr. MacLeish muttered, stumbling into the entryway. “The damned stage collapsed this afternoon. One of the dancers was killed.”
Since this was a simple statement—rather than an inquiry or order—Bridget stood back without answering, then turned to lead the young man to the Duke of Montgomery’s study.
She could hear the architect’s stumbling footsteps behind her as she mounted the stairs, and a flash of pity went through her. The poor man seemed exhausted.
She opened the door to the study and said, “I shall bring up a pot of tea and refreshments as you write, sir.”
She was rewarded with a quick smile. “God, thank you,” Mr. MacLeish replied as he entered the room. “I haven’t eaten since this morning.”
Bridget nodded and left him to his letter writing.
Hermes House, like most grand residences, had a servants’ staircase at the back of the house, cleverly disguised behind a door set into the wainscoting. She took this, descending rapidly to the kitchens.
Mrs. Bram was at the large kitchen table kneading some sort of pastry dough when she entered.
“I’d like a tray of food and tea for Mr. MacLeish, please,” Bridget ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.” Mrs. Bram was middle-aged, with wiry gray hair pulled into a tight knot at the back of her neck and covered by a white mobcap. She had quick small hands and thankfully seemed not at all bothered by being ordered about by a younger woman. “I’ll have Betsy bring it up.”
“No need,” Bridget replied. “I can do it myself.”
Mrs. Bram was also wonderful in that she never questioned what Bridget did. Indeed, she seemed to be entirely without curiosity, which, on the whole, Bridget was very grateful for.
The cook motioned to one of the scullery maids, who was elbow-deep in hot water. The girl dried off her hands and ran over to pull down a teapot and a caddy of tea. Mrs. Bram soon had a tray ready, and Bridget took it with a nod of thanks.
She mounted the stairs, glancing as she always did at one of the many gilt mirrors lining the walls. She noticed to her irritation that her cap was ever so slightly askew.
Mr. MacLeish was still furiously writing when she entered the study again.
She set the tray beside him and glanced at the letter, making out the words possible deliberate damage before glancing away.
“Bless you,” Mr. MacLeish gasped, pouring himself a cup of tea. “I spent all afternoon helping to clear the damage.”
“That sounds quite a chore,” Bridget murmured sympathetically. “Do you know what caused the collapse, sir?”
Mr. MacLeish was busy buttering a scone. “No, but some of the boards holding the stage up seemed to be partially sawn through, Mr. Harte told me. He suspects sabotage.”
Bridget lifted her eyebrows. It appeared that someone did not want Harte’s Folly to reopen, which begged the question: were they after Mr. Harte?
Or the garden’s investor—the Duke of Montgomery?
Mr. MacLeish bit into the scone and, chewing, scrawled his signature on the letter. He folded and sealed the letter and then handed it to Bridget, a small frown of irritation appearing between his brows. “I don’t know why His Grace doesn’t use the postal system.”
“I couldn’t say, sir,” Bridget replied, taking the letter.
“Thank you, Mrs. Crumb. You are, as always, all that is efficient. Comes from being a Scot, I expect,” he said with a wink.
She felt her face freeze. “
I’m afraid you have it wrong, sir. I’m not from Scotland.”
“No? I’m usually quite good at detecting my countrymen’s accent.” Mr. MacLeish stood and stretched, yawning widely. “I’d best get back to Harte’s Folly. When I left we still hadn’t finished clearing the room under the stage. It might take all night.”
“Good luck, sir,” Bridget said. She turned and led the way back to the stairs and then to the first floor.
Bridget saw Mr. MacLeish out, then bolted the door. Moving at an unhurried but swift pace, she walked to the back of the house, through the kitchen, and to her own little room off the pantry.
There she closed and locked the door and turned to the round mirror hanging over a sturdy chest of drawers. The mirror wasn’t much bigger than her face, but it was adequate to reflect her motions as she untied her mobcap and took it off. Underneath, her hair was jet-black—all but one wide strand of pure white just over her left eye. The white snaked through the locks and disappeared into a tight knot at the back of her head.
Bridget made sure all the pins in her hair were still firmly in place before settling the mobcap back on her head, entirely covering the white streak in her hair.
Then she retied the strings, nodded at her reflection once, and returned to work.
IT WAS NEARLY evening by the time Asa made it to Miss Dinwoody’s town house. He eyed the neatly swept front steps before mounting them and knocking.
Jean-Marie answered and raised his eyebrows silently.
“How is she?” Asa asked.
The footman hesitated, then said, “Unhurt, but tired. She is resting.”
He started to close the door but Asa stuck his foot in the jamb, preventing him.
Asa suppressed a sigh. This was the third? fourth? time he’d confronted the man in the last several days. Jean-Marie was obviously more some sort of bodyguard than footman, and he appeared to take his duties to his mistress very, very seriously.
Jean-Marie looked at him stonily. “She will not see you.”
“Of course not.” Asa leaned wearily against the doorjamb. “But as it happens, I’ve come to see you instead.”
The bodyguard tilted his head as if Asa’s statement had caught him by surprise. “Is this so? And why would you want to see me, Mr. Harte?”
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