“Oh, but…” Her protest died when she saw his face. “Oh.”
After that she descended quietly.
He took her arm as soon as he made the street, not confident that she wouldn’t simply flee ahead. They walked to her door silently, and by the time they made it, he was in a rage, though he couldn’t pinpoint why. She turned as soon as they were abreast of the home, intending, it seemed, to enter without even bidding him good night.
Something snapped. He muttered a curse before hauling her around and slamming his mouth down on hers. This was what he wanted; this was what tamed the beast within him: her soft lips, the quiet sound of her moan as he licked across them. There was a desperate, animal need within him, one he couldn’t fully identify. One he couldn’t understand rationally. It was tearing him apart from within, this need. It wanted her—something from her—though he didn’t know quite what. He only knew that if this terrible need was not assuaged, he very much feared he might lose something within himself. It was a confusing thought, and as he raised his head, he saw that her face revealed her confusion as well. Perhaps she, too, was in the grip of something terrible that she could not define. She opened her mouth as if wanting to say something.
But in the end, she turned away without saying anything.
“Temperance,” he pleaded, for what he wasn’t sure.
She stopped, her back to him. “I… I can’t. Good night.”
And she rapped on the door to her home.
Christ’s bloody body! He turned away, kicking at the uneven paving stones. They couldn’t go on like this. One of them would break, and he wasn’t sure which would be worse: him or her.
The return carriage ride was long and wearisome. By the time he made his own town house, the clocks had already chimed the midnight hour. He gave his hat, cloak, and stick to the butler and was already walking toward the stairs when the man cleared his throat.
“My lord, you have a visitor.”
Lazarus turned and stared at his butler.
The butler bowed. “Lady Caire is in the library.”
Lazarus strode to the library, some nameless trepidation making his heart beat quickly. He opened the door and saw her at once. She lounged on a settee, her shimmering lake-blue skirts spread about her, her head slumped onto her shoulder. She’d fallen asleep waiting for him.
He approached the settee on the balls of his feet, oddly hesitant to wake her. When was the last time he’d examined her unobserved? Years, perhaps, or more likely decades. She was beautiful; she always had been and she always would be. The bones of her face were fine and aristocratic, but he noticed now a slight softening of her jawline, a tiny drooping of her upper eyelids. He bent closer to look for other changes and inhaled the scent of oranges. Her scent. She’d always worn it, and it brought back memories of the nursery. Of her coming to visit when he ate his tea when he was seven or eight. Of her kissing his cheek before she left.
She stirred and he hurriedly stepped back.
“Lazarus.” She opened those sharp blue eyes. “I’d ask you where you’ve been if I did not fear to hear the answer.”
“Madam.” He propped a shoulder on the mantel. “To what do I owe this visit?”
She smiled, arch and flirtatious, but he thought he saw her lips tremble. “Can’t a mother drop in on her son?”
“I’m tired. If you’ve only come to play, you’ll excuse me if I seek my bed instead.” He turned toward the door, but her voice stopped him.
“Lazarus. Please.”
He looked at her. The smile was gone now, and her lips did definitely tremble.
She inhaled as if bracing herself. “Have you any wine?”
He stared at her another moment and then sighed. Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour or his own weariness, but he could use a drink as well, though not of wine. He crossed to the decanter and poured them each a glass of brandy.
“I seem to remember you preferring this instead.” He handed her a glass.
“Do you?” She took the glass with both hands, looking startled. “How did you know?”
He shrugged, taking a seat across from her. “I think I saw you one night in Father’s study.”
She raised her eyebrows but did not comment. For a moment, they both sipped their brandy in silence.
Finally she cleared her throat. “You took that woman to Lady Stanwicke’s ball.”
He gazed at her over his glass. Her tone had been very neutral. “Her name is Temperance Dews. She runs a foundling home in St. Giles.”
“A foundling home?” She glanced up quickly. “For children?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” She was gazing at her glass now with pursed lips.
“What did you come for, Mother?” he asked softly.
He expected her usual dramatic outrage. Perhaps some cutting sarcasm. Instead she was silent for a time.
Then she said, “I loved her, you know.”
And he knew that she was talking about Annelise, dead a quarter of a century.
“I miscarried three times,” his mother said low. “Once before you were born and twice before Annelise was born.”
He eyed her sharply. “I didn’t know.”
She nodded. “Of course not. You were a child, and we were not a particularly close family.”
He didn’t bother replying to that.
She continued. “So when Annelise was born, she was very dear to my heart. Your father, of course, had no need of a girl child, but that was just as well.” She glanced up quickly at him and then down again at her glass. “He’d taken you away from me when you were but a baby, made you his own, as it were. His heir. So I made Annelise my own. Her wet nurse lived in the house, and I visited her every day. Several times a day if I could.”
She took a long sip of brandy, closing her eyes.
Lazarus didn’t say anything. He didn’t remember this, but then he’d been a child and only interested in matters that impacted his own small world.
“When she became ill…” She stopped and cleared her throat. “When Annelise became ill that last time, I begged your father to send for a doctor. When he refused, I should’ve sent for one myself. I know that. But he was adamant… and he was your father. You remember how he was.”
Oh, yes, he remembered well how Father was. Hard. Mean. Completely assured of both his own invincibility and his own correctness. And cold, so very cold.
“Anyway,” she said softly, “I thought you should know.”
She looked at him as if waiting for something, and he stared back, mute, because he wasn’t sure if he was ready—if he’d ever be ready—to give it to her.
“Well.” His mother drained her glass and set it on a table before rising. She smiled brilliantly at him. “It’s very late and I must be getting home. Tomorrow I have a fitting for a new gown and then an afternoon tea to attend, and I must get some sleep if I’m to look my best.”
“Naturally,” he drawled.
“Good night, Lazarus.” She turned to the door, but then hesitated before looking at him over her shoulder. “Please remember that just because love isn’t expressed doesn’t mean it isn’t felt.”
She swept from the room before he could reply.
Lazarus reseated himself and watched as he swirled the last of the brandy in his glass, remembering a little girl’s brown eyes and the scent of oranges.
SHE COULDN’T GO on like this.
Silence pretended sleep as she watched her husband rise. They’d slept in the same bed last night, but it might as well have been separate houses. William had lain as still as a corpse on the far side of the bed, so near the edge she’d thought he might fall off in the night. When she’d carefully inched over to lie against him in the dark, his entire body had stiffened, and fearing he really would fall, she’d rolled back to her own side, hurt.
But it had taken her many hours to finally sleep.
Now she watched as he shaved and dressed without ever looking her way. Something shriveled and d
ied inside her. His ship’s cargo had reappeared just as suddenly as it had disappeared. The ship’s owner was overjoyed, William was no longer in peril of being sent to prison for theft, and he’d finally received his pay.
They should have been happy.
Instead, despair hovered over their little home like an insidious mist.
William buckled his shoes and left the bedroom, closing the door softly behind him. Silence waited a moment and then rose herself, hurriedly tiptoeing about the room to dress. Yesterday he’d left without saying good-bye. And, indeed, when she came out of the bedroom, he already had his hat on.
“Oh,” she said.
He walked to the door.
“I… I’d hoped to make you breakfast,” she said in a rush.
He shook his head without looking at her. “No need. I have business this morning anyway.”
He’d been at sea for over six months. Probably he did indeed have business, but at seven of the clock?
“He never touched me,” she said low. “I vow on my mother’s grave, he never touched me. I swear… I swear on…”
She looked wildly around the room and ran to pick up the Bible her father had given her as a little girl. “I swear, William, on—”
“Don’t.” In two strides he was beside her, finally. He gently took the Bible from her hands. “Don’t.”
She looked at him helplessly. She’d told him again and again, but each time he merely looked away from her.
“It’s the truth,” she said, her voice trembling. “He took me to his bedroom and told me that if I spent the night in his bed, then in the morning he would return the cargo. He promised he would not touch me, and he did not. He did not, William! He slept on a chair by the fire the entire night.”
She fell silent, mutely urging him to acknowledge her, to turn and kiss her and pat her on the cheek and say what a silly misunderstanding this all was. To be her William again.
Instead he turned his face away from her.
“Oh, why can’t you believe me?” she cried.
He shook his head, his weariness more chilling than anger would’ve been. “Mickey O’Connor is a notorious scoundrel without a scrap of decency or pity, Silence. I don’t blame you. I just wish you had let me handle this.” He looked at her finally, and to her horror, she saw that his eyes swam with tears. “I wish to God you’d never gone there.”
He strode to the door and jerked it open.
“He asked me if you loved me,” she cried.
He halted, still and silent.
“I told him you did,” she whispered.
He walked out without answering and shut the door behind him.
Silence stared at her hands and then around the small, old room. She’d thought it homey once. Now it merely seemed dreary. She sat abruptly on a straight-backed chair. When she’d told Charming Mickey that her husband did indeed love her, he’d simply smiled and replied, If he loves you, he will believe you.
What a fool she was.
What a fool.
HE’D NEVER REALLY allowed himself to examine why he sought Marie’s killer, Lazarus reflected as he paced through the darkening streets the next night. St. John had told him he was obsessed, and Temperance had accused him of believing he was in love with Marie when he had no idea what love was, but was either right? Perhaps he simply was on a quixotic quest for no discernible reason. Perhaps his life was so barren that the violent death of a mistress was a welcome excitement.
Depressing thought.
She’d been seeing other men while living at his expense. The knowledge should’ve shocked him, made him angry, but his only emotion was curiosity: Had she needed more money than his generous allowance? Or had she needed the sexual coupling?
He stepped around a near-skeletal man, passed out or perhaps dead in the street. He was nearing St. Giles. The street was becoming narrower, more filthy and wretched. The channel in the middle of the street was clogged with noxious debris, the stench a miasma that seemed to cling to the skin.
He’d already found one of the men Faulk had named, a thin weaselly fellow who’d never once met his eyes as they’d talked. He couldn’t help but think the man needed to tie up his women in order to get the courage to become aroused. The thought was repugnant. Was that what he was? A coward unable to look a woman in the eye as he bedded her?
Except he could look Temperance in the eyes. He didn’t need the ropes and hood with her. She was a kind of freedom for him. A pleasant sort of normalcy.
Perhaps that was why his feet guided him to her even now.
Night had fallen fully, black and ominous, by the time he entered St. Giles proper. Lazarus grasped his stick more firmly, aware that he’d been attacked three times now in this area. He’d been intent on the hunt, on following the trail of blood, but perhaps he should look more closely at where and when he’d been attacked.
On why he’d been attacked.
Up ahead, a gang of men emerged around the corner. Lazarus faded back into a side alley and watched their approach warily. They were arguing over a gold watch and a curled wig—they’d obviously already preyed on at least one unlucky gentleman tonight.
Lazarus waited a moment after their voices had died into the night and then continued.
Ten minutes more and he stood outside Temperance’s kitchen door. The hour was late. He hesitated a moment, straining to listen for any sounds from within. When he could make out none, he twisted apart his stick, drawing out his short sword. He inserted the blade in the crack between the door and the frame. A moment of careful maneuvering and he’d lifted the bar.
Easing the door open, he glided inside and rebarred it. The kitchen fire was banked for the night. Perhaps she’d already gone to bed. He could sneak up the stairs, but he had no idea which room was hers. The risk of alarming the house was too big. Besides, a teapot sat on the table, a small, pitiful tin of tea beside it. Perhaps she meant to return for her midnight cup of tea.
He entered her little sitting room as he had on that first night he’d met her. The grate was cold, and he knelt to lay a fire, returning briefly to the kitchen for a spill. Then he sat and waited like a lovelorn swain. Lazarus laughed lightly under his breath. Wasn’t that what he was? A suitor waiting in bitter hope that his lady would grace him with her presence? It wasn’t even about the sex. He simply wanted to be with her. To watch the expressions flit across those extraordinary golden eyes. To listen to her voice.
Oh, he was pitiful.
He heard rustlings from the kitchen and he tilted his head, closing his eyes to listen. Was it her out there? He imagined so, seeing in his mind’s eye her pulling the kettle from the hearth and pouring the water over the tea leaves. He sat inert and called to her silently, his whole body longing for her.
The door creaked and he opened his eyes to see her staring at him. He smiled like a fool; he couldn’t help it.
“Oh,” she said, quite obviously nonplussed. “What are you doing here?”
“Calling on you,” he replied. “I fear I need to go into St. Giles tonight, and I need you with me.”
She stared at him a moment and then turned back into the kitchen. He followed to find her already putting on a cloak. “Why do you need me?”
“Because I plan to go back to Mother Heart’s-Ease.”
“Why?” She frowned at him over the ties to her cloak. “We’ve been there twice; surely we’ve learned all we can there?”
“It would seem so.” He ran a finger along the worn wooden kitchen table. “Except that I went to see one of Marie’s lovers. He says he met Marie at Mother Heart’s-Ease’s gin house.”
“What?” She stared at him. “But Mother Heart’s-Ease acted as if she’d never met Marie.”
“And perhaps she hadn’t.” He shrugged. “Still, I find it very odd that Marie would have patronized her gin shop. Marie catered to gentlemen. Had you asked me before she died, I would’ve said she wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like Mother Heart’s-Ease’s shop.”
A thump and then the patter of feet came from above.
“And then there’s Martha Swan,” he said.
She looked a question at him.
He smiled whimsically. “I know it sounds daft, but think: Why were we attacked at Martha Swan’s place?”
She shrugged. “To keep us from talking to her.”
“But she was already dead.”
Her brows knit together, but Mary Whitsun appeared at that moment in her night rail. “Ma’am?” The girl looked uncertainly between him and Temperance.
“Bar the door behind me, please,” Temperance said. “And then go back to bed.”
The girl nodded and in another moment they were in the alley.
The wind caught the edge of Temperance’s cloak and sent it billowing about her. “If not to keep us from talking to Martha Swan, then why the attack?”
“I don’t know.” He set a quick pace, making sure to keep her close to his side. “Perhaps someone at Mother Heart’s-Ease’s saw us there. Someone who didn’t want us to investigate. Perhaps Marie met whoever this person is at Mother Heart’s-Ease’s shop.”
She shot him a doubtful look. “Or perhaps this is all just coincidence.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence. Lazarus was damnably aware of Temperance’s heat next to him, of her vulnerability. Perhaps he shouldn’t have brought her along, but the more he thought about it, the more sure he was: The answer somehow lay at Mother Heart’s-Ease’s gin shop. And Temperance was his key to getting people to talk there.
Fifteen minutes later, they entered the dingy room, and at first the shop seemed the same as the first two times they’d been there. The gin shop was crowded and hot, the fire wasn’t drawing well, and smoke hung about the blackened rafters. Lazarus began pushing his way to the back, toward Mother Heart’s-Ease’s rooms.
Temperance caught his arm, halting him. He bent down so she could murmur close, “Something’s not right. The room is too quiet.”
He lifted his head to see that she was right. There was no drunken singing from the table of sailors in the corner, no arguments or loud discussions from the rest of the company. In fact, the customers huddled together. No one met his eyes.