Scars of Betrayal

by Sophia James

  Survival was marked on his skin, in the scars of bullet and knife. On the upper side of his fighting arm she saw the blue mark of indigo. A serpent curled about a stake.

  A man who had lived a hundred hard lives and come through each one. She needed this certainty and this prowess because for the first time in years hope inside began to beat again.

  Not all ruined. Not all lost.

  A small refrain of promise.

  When she smiled at him he smiled back and Cassie felt, quite suddenly, reborn. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-three.’ He added the word ancient in a whisper.

  ‘Yet you haven’t married?’

  ‘I’ve been busy.’

  The stillness in him magnified. He never fussed, she thought, or used up energy in movements that were surplus. For a big man there was a sense of grace about him that made one look again and wonder. The danger of a panther about to strike, the liquid stretch of muscle honed with a precision that was undeniable, jeopardy tethered to a strict and unrelenting accuracy.

  She had seen it in Nay in the way he fought and again at the barn by the river. Someone had trained him well. The government or an army? No amateur could have forged such expertise, but a political mercenary might have managed it. Once a man similar to Colbert had come to Baudoin’s compound in the company of a French General, and had been accorded much respect and esteem.

  This was Nathanael Colbert’s legacy, too. No one could look at him and fail to see the menace, even when he was sick almost to death and the fever burned. Glancing away, she felt her stomach clench. To have someone like this on her side...

  She shook the thought gone. One day if she was lucky she would remember back at this moment and know that just for a small time he had been hers, her husband, a ring on her finger and the simmering potential of more. She wished her body had had the curves of Celeste and that she might have met him in Paris as a woman of an impeccable reputation and virtue. They could have danced then to a waltz perhaps, her dress of spun gold matching her hair and at her throat her mother’s diamonds. She could have flirted with him, held her fan in that particular way of a coquette and watched him through smoky eyes, the promise of all that might happen between them so very possible.

  And instead? Her ruined hand on the counterpane caught her attention, the missing part of her forefinger and the long red scar easy to see in the moonlight.

  ‘Could you kiss me?’

  Her words were out, an entreaty in them that she had tried so hard to hide. But the emotion of the day was thrumming underneath everything they said and if she parted company with him, as she knew she would, she did not want to be left forever wondering. Or wishing.

  For a moment she thought he had not heard or had not wanted to hear and her fists clenched by her side. But then he moved, balancing on his arm and leaning across her, his eyes the grey of the sea at dawn just after the sunrise.

  Nathanael’s lips were as she had imagined they might be, soft at first and then harder, searching for things that held a promise. Gentle and strong, harnessed by both power and care, his free hand caressing the line of her neck and bringing her closer.

  Only them in the world, only this, she thought, as she rose up to him, her tongue meeting his and tasting. She allowed him to force her back against the pillow, the darkness behind her closed eyes calling for more. She felt him turn and come across her body, the outline of his chest meeting her breasts, though his elbows kept the bulk of his body away. The shiver of passion, the heat of want, the memory of this day quickening as he covered her mouth and kept her breath as his own.

  A wife and her husband.

  Then he broke away. ‘When I am not so sick, Sandrine, I promise to take the kiss much, much further.’

  Under the cover of darkness Cassie smiled because his heart was racing every bit as much as hers and when he turned away as if to quell all the thoughts his body was consumed by, she simply curled up into his warmth.

  But it was a long, long while until she finally went to sleep.

  * * *

  They woke to the crow of a rooster outside, and inside Cassie could hear the movements of the Dortignacs preparing for a new day, the dawn only a little while off.

  ‘We will leave with the first light,’ he said as if he had been listening too. ‘If Baudoin’s henchmen following us find these people have been sheltering us...’ There was no need for him to finish.

  To the south, the mountains of the Pyrenees seemed to hold their breath, dark with the presage of rain. Another cold day. A further freezing trek towards Perpignan, many long and difficult miles to the east.

  When Nathanael sat up on the side of the bed she saw the bandage across his wound was sagging. She should change it, she knew, but she did not think he would allow it and so she did not say. When he put on his clothes she understood he was in a hurry to leave and that the quiet moments of honesty between them had come to an end.

  He looked healthier today. She could see it in the way he stood, no longer favouring his right side in the way he was yesterday. She also saw in his expression a hint of the promise he had made after kissing her.

  In the new day, Cassie suddenly understood the danger of a relationship. She needed to go on alone from here because she was certain Lebansart and his men could not be far behind, and if Nathanael died for her...

  She shook her head.

  If she struck out early across the hills, she could find a pathway and other travellers and make her way to any larger town in the vicinity.

  Monsieur and Madam Colbert.

  For one night of marriage only.

  He had saved her so many times it was only right that she must now protect him.

  Chapter Four

  Cassandra came across the rooftops in darkness and down into the interior of the brothel on Brown Street without being seen by anybody. An easy climb given the footholds and the balconies, but on gaining the room the note had instructed her to come to she could tell that something was wrong. Very wrong.

  The chamber door was wide open and the man Cassandra had been looking for was already dead on the floor by the window. Crossing to the glass, she tested the locks, but rust inside the catches told her nobody had come this way. With care, she dropped to her knees and checked beneath the bed, knife in hand and ready to strike. Only the empty space of blackness.

  She was glad for the silence in the room for it gave her a moment to think. He had not taken off any of his clothes. There had been no struggle at all and he was unmarked save for the wound at his neck. Money still lay in his pockets when she checked and an expensive leather briefcase languished in full view beside the doorway.

  His right arm was bandaged, the thickness of the casing beneath his jacket belying the injury. His other arm was positioned above his head, the gold ring on his finger seen in the light.

  Not a robbery then. Not a targeted wealthy man who had come to the wrong place at the wrong time and run into one of the shady characters off Whitechapel Road. Someone he knew had done this, a strike from behind without a notion that it was about to happen.

  Walking to the bed, she took the bag and flicked open the buckles. Surprise made her eyes widen. Nothing lay inside, every pocket emptied and all the compartments clean. The perpetrator had been after this then, the contents of the satchel, and for such information had been willing to kill. Loud shouting made her stiffen, the sound of boots coming up the steep stairwell and voices in the night.

  With only a whisper of noise she crossed from the room to the doorway and let herself out. She couldn’t be found like this—in the garb of a street boy with a weapon in her belt—and she did not have the time in hand to make it up the next flight of stairs to safety without being noticed. With care she picked the lock of the room opposite and eased herself through the door. No one was in the bed and
for that she was more than thankful. Dulling the noise of the closing door with the cloth in her jacket, she jimmied her foot up against the wood and flipped the latch.

  * * *

  Nat did not move a muscle from the alcove he stood in by the window, his breath shallow. Outside the noises were getting louder and inside the intruder stayed immobile. Was the newcomer a child? A youth of the house, perhaps, trying to escape the nefarious pursuits as best he could? The glint of a knife told him otherwise and he was across the room before the other knew it, his hand hitting out at the arm that was raised and knocking the weapon away.

  He knew it was Cassandra Northrup even before she turned, the scent and the feel of her, the knowledge of each other burning bright. Bringing her against him, he felt the lines of her body even as she fought him, the fuller contours unfamiliar.

  ‘Stop, Sandrine.’ Whispered. Danger was everywhere and the discovery of a lady within the confines of such iniquity would be scandalous. Her breath was ragged, the warmth of it against his hand where he held it flat across her mouth.

  She stilled, as much to listen to the noises outside the door as to obey him, her head tipped to the wood, jumping as a heavy knock sounded against it.

  ‘Don’t open it. A man is dead and I cannot be found like this.’ Whispered and frightened behind his fingers, the quicksilver change into a woman startling.

  ‘Hell.’ He let her go. She filled out the boy’s clothes much more generously these days, though the thinness was still there, too.

  ‘Take everything off and get under the covers.’ Already he was peeling away his own clothes, throwing each piece against a chair. Randomly. Trying to give the impression of haste and passion mixed in a room that was conducive to neither.

  ‘Sex,’ he said as he saw she was not moving. ‘This place expects it.’

  He pulled one dusty quilt off the bed and hung it over the other chair, hopeful in hiding the fact that female attire was missing. On a quick glance an observant onlooker would imagine them beneath.

  ‘Open up.’ A voice of authority. Probably the law.

  It was enough to make her decide as her fingers flew to the buttons of her jacket and shirt, the lawn chemise beneath left on as she added her boots to the pile of clothes.

  He brought those beneath the sheets with them, her body underneath his, concealed. He heard her gasp as the door opened, the correct key finally fitting the lock and giving way.

  ‘What the hell...?’ He barely needed to feign the anger as he looked around, two men in the uniform of the constabulary and the woman he had seen downstairs accompanying them. ‘Get out, immediately.’ He made himself sound breathless, the full blush of ardour in the words, a client in the middle of a ‘paid for’ assignation and surprised by the interruption. He also used his most aristocratic tones, the persona of a simple fellow disappearing into expediency. And carefully he shielded her from view.

  He knew he had them as they faltered, a rush of apology. ‘I am sorry, sir, but there has been a murder just reported in the house. If you could get dressed and come downstairs, we need to ask you some questions.’

  Releasing a long rush of air, Nat nodded. ‘Give me a few minutes and I shall be down.’ No entreaty in it. Just authority.

  The door closed behind them.

  Silence.

  Warmth.

  Her skin against his own.

  And then a curse. In French.

  He pulled away and stood, making no attempt at hiding his body. ‘Did you kill him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you know who did?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘God.’

  ‘Why did you help me?’

  ‘Misguided instinct, though I am certain I shall now pay for such kindness. Is there a way out of here that does not involve going downstairs?’ He reached for his clothes and began to dress.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I would advise you to take it.’

  Already she was up, her shirt and jacket quickly donned, the boots following.

  ‘I will expect you tomorrow.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘At eleven p.m. Through the window of my town house to explain all this to me. Properly.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘Then I will come to see you instead.’

  ‘I will be there.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘Will you be able to manage...everything?’

  ‘Easily.’

  She smiled. ‘I always liked your certainty, Monsieur Nathanael Colbert.’

  The music inherent in the way she said his name made him stiffen, and then she was gone.

  * * *

  His indiscretion was all over the town by midday, a lord of the first water visiting a brothel in the back streets of one of the worst areas of London and being caught out in doing so.

  ‘You should have sent for me to come with you, Nat,’ Stephen said as they sat in his library drinking brandy. ‘Why the hell did you think to go there in the first place?’

  ‘A man whom the prostitutes thought was acting strangely had been seen in the vicinity for each of the last two nights. They said he had slept at the brothel and was tall and well to do.’

  ‘Was the dead man our murderer at the river, then?’

  ‘No. He was short and stocky with ginger hair.’

  ‘Memorable.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Hawk suddenly smiled and leaned forward. ‘There is something else I am missing here, Nat. It’s the youngest Northrup daughter, isn’t it? She was there at Whitechapel with you?’

  Nathaniel ignored the query.

  ‘The man killed at Brown Street last night was in the room opposite to mine and I heard nothing.’

  ‘You paid for a room?’

  ‘With a wide view of the street below. If the same man the girls spoke of was there, I would have seen him, Hawk, but I didn’t.’

  ‘Do you think the murder was related to our case?’

  ‘Perhaps. The contents of the dead man’s satchel was missing, though I found this in the corridor on my way down the stairs.’ He dug into his pocket and brought out a single page of writing. ‘Do you recognise the hand?’

  Stephen looked carefully and then shook his head. ‘Do you? It’s a list for things from a chemist by the looks of it.’

  ‘If I did, this case would already be half-solved. Will you do something for me, Hawk? Can you ask around to see if anyone saw anything? I do not want to seem interested because...’

  ‘Because implication is only one step away from imprisonment and Cassandra Northrup’s presence at Whitechapel will make everything that much harder again. Society does not seem exactly enamoured by her pursuit of the nefarious and a woman like that will only bring the old Earl’s wrath down upon your head with even more than the usual vigour.’

  ‘Remember that puppy we had at school, Hawk, the one we hid for a term in the woodcutter’s shed, the one you found off the roadside on the way to Eton?’

  ‘Springer. My God, he was the best dog I ever owned.’

  ‘Sixteen weeks of sneaking out twice a day with the food we had saved from the dining hall and then another jaunt for exercise. One hundred and twelve days before you could bundle him up and take him back to Atherton.’

  ‘An unfortunate start to life, but he had the heart of a warrior till the day he died. But what is your point, Nat?’

  ‘Cassandra Northrup is a fighter just like that dog and for some damned reason I feel compelled to help her.’

  ‘You said she had betrayed you in France.’

  ‘So did Springer. He bit you, remember, that time at the cliff....’

  ‘Whilst trying to save me from falling.’

  Nat drew
his hand through his hair and wiped back the length of his fringe. ‘What if Cassandra Northrup once did the same for me, Hawk? What if what she said she did and what she really did were two different things?’

  ‘You are saying she might have betrayed you to save you?’

  ‘I am.’

  * * *

  Cassandra had dressed carefully in a dark jacket and loose trousers, the cap she wore covering her face and her hair knotted in a bun at the back of her nape.

  A caricature of Nathaniel Lindsay had appeared in the evening edition of a popular London broadsheet, one hand clinging on to the family crest and the other around the shapely ankle of a woman of the night. A poxed and toothless woman, her cheeks sunken with the mercury cure and rats scurrying from beneath the hem of her ragged skirt.

  Lord Lindsay could not have been pleased; she knew this without listening to any gossip. He had also remained quiet about her involvement in this whole chaotic and sordid affair which, given the history between them, was a lot more than she might have expected.

  Why he had been there in the first place she had no notion of, but he had been alone in the room waiting and completely dressed and when he had first pressed her against the door she had felt the outline of both knife and pistol.

  Another thought also came. She had imagined she had been followed when she came to the boarding house in the backstreets of Whitechapel. Could it have been Lindsay watching?

  The web of lies that bound them to each another was closing in, sticky with deceit, and yet here she was again, moving through his garden for a further encounter in his library. If she had any sense at all, she should be turning for home and ignoring his threats or packing her things and moving north for a while until the shock of seeing him again eased down into reason.

  But she could not. Every fibre of her being could not.

  He was exactly where he had been last time as she climbed through the window, his long legs out in front of the wing chair by the fire.

  The only difference this time was that he had catered for her arrival, two glasses filled beside him.