by Stacy Reid
The grass there was badly in need of cutting, the flowers lacked tending to, and the hedges untrimmed. The garden area was darkly shadowed by the thick tree limbs and hedges. “Why are your gardens so shabby?”
Before he could answer, Maryann saw a movement in the grass, a silver slither. With a squeak she jumped at him, clutching his shoulders.
“You are a woman of good senses,” he murmured exasperatingly but with some amusement.
She sniffed. “What of it?”
“Why are you on my back, and how did you even reach there?”
Her entire body flushed. “There is something in the grass.”
“A harmless grass snake perhaps. Come, down you go.”
The moan that came from Maryann was so pitiful, he encircled her ankle and rubbed his thumb soothingly along her silk-covered leg.
“I gather you are afraid of snakes?”
“They are spawn from the bowels of hell,” she said into his nape, scandalously hooking her legs around his hips.
“Ah, now I see why you involved your brother in your scheme to take down Lady Sophie. Then we shall take to the roof.”
“The roof?”
“Yes.”
She spun it around in her thoughts a little. “You mean for us to climb to the roof?”
“Afraid?”
“Of course not,” she muttered against the back of his neck, quite conscious she made no effort to get off him, and he seemed contented for her to be there. He walked with her around to the side of the house, comfortable with her weight and the basket in another hand. Maryann smiled.
“I can feel that.”
“I’ve not had this particular pleasure since I was a child with Papa. I was just thinking I should thank you for giving me the chance to ride you.”
He stumbled and muttered a curse that made her cheeks burn. He came to a complete stop and a fine tension shifted through his frame. Gently he nudged her, and she eased from his back and hopped down to the much shorter grass. She rushed around to face him and glanced up. Unexpectedly, nervousness rushed through her. “Was it something I said?”
His eyes gleamed with sudden enjoyment. “No, these were more along the lines of my rakish thoughts. Come, let’s climb.”
And to Maryann’s astonishment, there was a sort of ladder attached to the side of the house, covered with vines and trellises. He went before her and with a grin, she followed step by careful step, quite aware should they marry, this was a man who would never try to cage her.
Once he reached the top, he held out his hands and drew her up. Maryann glanced down and sucked in a sharp breath. They seemed precariously far from the ground. There was a flat surface leading to the chimney and he took her hand and led her over. At the ledge, he shrugged from his jacket and placed it there, and then assisted her to sit down. Then he lowered himself beside her.
They were positioned away from the road, and no passersby should be able to look up and see them. The view from the top was different and she looked about her, inhaling the crisp but smoky night air into her lungs.
Maryann reached for the basket, suddenly and unexpectedly nervous. “I do not know how you lost Arianna. You deeply mourn her, and I am sorry there is a pain that still lingers in your heart. If there is a heaven— Crispin says there is not, but I do not believe it to be so, why there are many philosophical arguments that—”
She broke off her rambling at the tender smile which appeared on his mouth.
“There is no need to be nervous,” he said.
She laughed shakily, opened the basket which had been tightly locked. “I collected these a few hours ago.”
Fireflies lifted gently into the air. At first it was just dozens of beetles flying away, grateful to be out of their captivity. Then one by one, their luminescent light began to glow.
“I read that they are really called Lampyris noctiluca,” she said, delighted with the dozens of lights which started to blink on one by one in the dark sky. The lack of stars in the cloud-fogged city illuminated the iridescent beauty of their glow even more. “And only the males are capable of flight since they have wings.”
“And the females don’t?”
“Not for this type of firefly, which is more common to Europe and the United Kingdom. Isn’t that interesting? I bought the book; you may read it if you wish,” she said a bit shyly, glad that he was not turned off by her eclectic reading choices.
“It is very interesting, and I shall enjoy listening to you read it to me.”
She turned to look at him, and the smile which had been forming died. His eyes held her in place with their unblinking intensity. Nicolas slowly lifted her veil and hat from her so he could assess every nuance of her expression. He drew her into his side, and she went, pressed intimately against him. Then he dipped his head and kissed the bridge of her nose. “Thank you for the beautiful gift of your company.”
A warm silence remained as they watched the dozens of fireflies disperse. “Look,” she said, pointing to the lights flickering below in the grass. “Those are the females, responding to the mating call of the males.”
They watched as some of the fireflies dipped, their light creating a dance of beauty as they sank into the grass.
She wondered how much he would trust her, and if she should encourage him to speak of her. Maryann decided to merely listen and allow him to determine how much he wanted to share with her. She lightly touched his jawline. “Nicolas, will you tell me what happened to Arianna?”
…
His Maryann leaned her head back and gazed into his eyes. Such trust glowed in her face, such sweet kindness. When she’d entered his library earlier, the hollowness which had lingered in his gut had filled instantly. The sense of peace and happiness had just blossomed through Nicolas.
“This might be the very first year I feel an easing of the hatred in my heart…and guilt,” he murmured. And it is because of you. Not only because he saw a future in her, but also because Nicolas felt as if he had accomplished justice for Arianna. The waiting was coming to an end.
“Five men attacked Arianna, and she…she was not able to bear it,” he murmured. “She flung herself into a river.”
Shock and horror blasted onto Maryann’s face, and she pressed a hand over her heart. In her eyes, he saw an awful alarm and a question: was this the heinous act he believed her brother to be a party to?
“How did you discover what had happened?”
His chest lifted on a deep, silent sigh. “She left a letter behind.”
“Do you want to share its contents?” she asked hesitantly.
“The eagle soars indifferently while the wolf betrays the dove,” he began, glancing into the starless sky.
“You memorized it.”
“It is seared behind my eyes so should I close them, it is there to remind me I deserve no rest until it is done.”
“I want to weep at the guilt I hear in your voice,” she said softly. “You were not the cause of it.”
A harsh hiss escaped him and a burning lump formed in his throat. If his Maryann knew the heaviness of the guilt he had carried so long, she would fling herself into his arms and cry. She would try to give him even more comfort than she was doing now.
“The black Dahlia is the cruelest,” he said, starting the letter. “He offered hope then silently watched as they shred my soul.”
Her eyes widened and the gloved hand over her chest curled, gripping the material of her dress.
“The stag with the lily in its mouth was the most brutal, for it was that one who taught me that fear and pain lie in a touch. A soothing caress on my forehead transforms to a savage squeeze of the jaw. The duality of tenderness and savagery will be impossible to erase from my heart, for I never dreamed they could belong to one.”
The tone of the letter was dark, laced with anguish, and suddenly
his Maryann seemed to realize just how they had hurt her. A cry of denial slipped from her.
“Nicolas,” she said tremulously, her long lashes damp with tears. “If what you are saying is what I believe…Crispin…my brother would never use anyone so cruelly or treat anyone so shabbily. I know it with my entire heart.”
He drew her closer to him and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I am beginning to believe it is not him, either.”
They stayed silent for a few minutes.
“Tell me the rest of it, please.”
“Blond hair and blue eyes with a scar splitting his lower lip. He laughed through my screams, ’tis a sound I shall remember on my way to hell, for I am no longer worthy of heaven. It was a sound that demeaned and ridiculed…it was a sound that found humor in my torment.”
She gripped his forearm. “Blond hair and blue eyes with a scar. Oh God. That perfectly describes Viscount Weychell.”
“Yes.”
Her chest lifted harshly with her ragged breaths. “He…years ago, at my debut, I danced with him. How charming and good-natured he had seemed.”
“He escaped my schemes, but perhaps working on a cotton plantation in Virginia is a fit punishment. The Wolf and the black Dahlia remain.”
She visibly started.
“Maryann—”
“You have borne this sorrow for years. I can bear the memory and knowing of it with you tonight.”
Her strength filled him with a rush of fierce pride.
“The dragon wings spread wide, a rose of coronet upon its head…how merciless this dragon was, tempting me with chances of escape only to catch me again when I tasted freedom. The wolf…he was all of them, cruel, brutal, unholy, and savage, yet he was more, for in him once I found love.”
Maryann faltered into piercing stillness. “Someone she loved…someone she loved was there?”
The wolf…their best friend.
“My tears are like endless rainfall. How can I live with everything they stole from me? What is done is done. I have no hope, no virtue, and no will to live. May my soul find mercy and grace with thy heavenly father,” Nicolas said, repeating the last of the letter.
Maryann dropped his hand as if she had been burned.
Ah, my sweet Maryann, do not cry.
Tears coursed down her cheeks, and in her eyes he spied a raw pain that echoed deep inside him. And words he had never spoken came spilling from him. “Arianna was my friend…a girl I loved with all the passion of youth,” he murmured.
Nicolas realized he was trusting Maryann with every part of him, even the past which haunted him. Would she also see him guilty, as how he had seen himself? “I was eighteen to her sixteen and our stations were different. Though I had such affections for Arianna, I did not offer for her. The day she kissed me and professed her love, I told her I could not accept it.”
The daughter of servants and a future marquess.
“You were young,” Maryann said, swiping her cheeks. “And scared. That is understandable.”
“I told her I needed time to speak with my father. He had plans for me to marry a friend’s daughter, and I knew my duty. Arianna was hurt, and she left for London the very next day to pursue her dream of being on the stage. She would not sit around and wait for me to decide if she was worth more than duty.”
A soft rumble of thunder echoed in the distance, and the air chilled. Rain felt imminent, but neither moved.
He lifted his eyes to the sky, staring at the stars for long moments, before he said, “Only a couple days after she left, I got her letter. A boy from an inn had been paid to deliver it. Terror tore through my soul when I read it. I prepared a carriage and extra horses and raced to her. But I was too late.”
The pain rose, gnawing at him. “The day before, a young lady had jumped into the river abutting the inn. The young lad who had delivered her note whispered that the gentlemen who had dragged her to one of their rooms had left early that morning. They had laughed and caroused after their foul deed, secure in the knowledge they were young powerful lords and she…she had been nothing. A mere speck in their eyes.”
A fat drop of rain landed on his forehead. “For months I was lost in rage and guilt. I was enraged at myself and Arianna. If I’d placed my love for her above duty and expectations, and if she had waited to see if I could convince my family, she’d still be alive. Then I realized the men who are to blame were still living their finest life. The idea was intolerable.”
“Did you not report it?” Maryann asked hoarsely.
He nodded. “To my father and the local magistrate and eventually Bow Street.”
“What happened?”
“There is no justice in the law. Their fathers were powerful men; the magistrate was afraid to make an arrest. They were rich and certain of their immunity from being punished. How can an ant by itself cut down a willow tree? Her father…who is he? A butler at a neighboring estate. Her mother, a maidservant in mine. Who are they in the face of future earls…a duke, and a viscount? They were nothing.”
Her hand gripped his. “But you did something.”
An overwhelming ache throbbed behind Nicolas’s eyes. “‘If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge?’”
Looking away from the stars, he leveled his gaze on her, and the amount of pride in her expression had his damn heart near to bursting from his chest.
His Maryann admired him still.
“How did you eventually find them?” she asked tremulously.
“If a man possesses a guilty conscience, he will be startled by any sound in the night.”
“So you threw rocks, and someone squealed?”
“A particular lord did, Viscount Barton. A few well-placed rumors and a letter placed strategically had him scrambling to find out what was happening. I followed the crumbs he left behind.”
“How long did you follow these crumbs?”
“It has been five years. And I am not done yet. It took a significant time to gather the information I needed. I could not take my purpose lightly. These were men who had families and tenants relying on them. I had to be sure they were the men mentioned in her letters. I used private runners to go back to their school days and the inn where everything happened before I had some of the pieces of the whole. I took the time to understand their bond and who might have traveled together those years ago to Wiltshire and that inn. Finally, I had enough to ruin Barton financially.”
“You played a very long game.”
I am still playing. “When dealing with powerful and connected people, it is critical to be strategic.”
Her fingers toyed with the edges of her gown. “Is…is the Duke of Farringdon one of the men?”
“Yes.” Nicolas’s tone was flat, brutal, and unapologetic.
And still no fear showed in her. Her face was full of strength and beauty, shining with a steadfast trust and belief in his honor.
“The papers…the papers said he was shot while fighting with you.”
“It was a mere flesh wound. He will live.”
Her lips trembled, and her gaze was dark with emotions.
“How stricken you look,” Nicolas murmured, touching her cheek. “Those I ruin do not deserve your sorrow. Those I ruin are not righteous men of conscience; these are men who believed that because Arianna was poor and unconnected, her life had little worth.”
Maryann reached out and brushed her hand against his knuckles. Even with the gloves separating them, he could tell she was cold. He needed to take her home.
“You mistake the matter. All my sorrow is for Arianna…and for what you’ve had to do. Your restraint is admirable. If something…if something so painful had happened to me, my father would have challenged them to an outright duel and killed them.”
Nic
olas took back her hands in his. “My father was the second to have failed Arianna.”
“And you believe you were the first to fail her. Do you think I would not understand your guilt?” she asked when he glanced away briefly. “Your father…what…” Her voice sounded so thick with tears she had to take a few moments and breathe. “The bleakness I see on your face stabs into my heart and catches like a hook.”
She rose, and shuffled so she sat in his lap, and Nicolas hugged her to him. Bloody hell, what would he have done without this woman?
“Father had not cared about what happened to her, not when those committing the crimes were future peers. The law serves only those powerful and connected.”
His Maryann held herself still under the weight of the awful truth. A young girl was driven to her death, and no one cared because she was poor. Her connections unimportant. Her worth miniscule.
“I’ve been swaddled in privilege and wealth since birth, I cannot imagine anything so terrible happening to me, and the cry for justice would not resound in the realm. I am glad you have not allowed them to escape justice.” She cupped his face between her hands and lifted his head from her bosom. “I feel no disgust with your actions. What I feel is admiration. At a time when other young gentlemen were either attending university or touring Europe for a jolly good time, you sought retribution for the girl you loved, by any means necessary.”
And Nicolas had dedicated years of his life to that endeavor—and by his own admission would give a lifetime more. Except what he wanted more than anything in the world was Maryann beside him, in his home and bed, today, tomorrow, and years from now.
How much longer can I wait? Can you wait?
“Why do you still cry?” he asked gruffly, chasing a tear on her cheek with his thumb.
“I cannot help thinking that this time, years ago, someone died, tragically. I do not have the heart to imagine how terrified and how utterly hopeless Arianna must have been. And the only person who cared about her demise was a boy of eighteen who loved her. There is honor in your vengeance,” Maryann said softly, pressing the softest of kisses to his lips.