by Baird Wells
“I hope so, too,” he hurried back, knowing and hating as he said it, that it wouldn’t happen.
Miss Harrowby stopped Elizabeth when they’d reached the door, and waved her fingers at the table. Elizabeth made an elegant curtsey. “Goodnight, Mama. Goodnight, Papa.”
No one answered, sitting stiff-backed and staring at the table, and her face grew long again. James shifted in his chair, to catch her eye, and gave her a wave with his hand concealed close to his body. Her dimpled grin was reignited, and James was treated to a curtsey of his own before she was ushered out.
James looked at his hosts, and their guests, and loathed each to varying degrees, save Tad and Hannah who radiated a weariness with what had transpired.
Things progressed from there as he’d predicted the day he’d accepted Simon’s invitation. No one offered a remark on Elizabeth or anything else, not even when it was convenient or pleasant to do so. Elbows, naturally kept clear of the tabletop, were pulled in to the diners’ bodies with the defensive posture of a boxer. A posture, he decided, of people who didn’t prefer and even disliked one another, but were too afraid to declare open war.
He took the opportunity of Hannah’s pointed study of her plate in order to study her, and to wonder at what a small world London could be. He had not seen her, heard from her, or even of her in more than a year, and here they were three seats apart. He thawed to the idea by degrees, until he fully recalled what and who she was, could dredge up feelings if not memories of their brief but consequential encounter at Meadowcroft. Then, he squinted and searched her for any hint of Emily.
He missed it, at first. There was nothing distinct in Hannah’s features to mark the two as sisters. Her hair was inky, not sable, and her eyes were frosty rather than rich maple. She was older, of course; she would be near thirty, or even past it. Where Emily had been small, petite, Hannah opposed her with long arms and a tall frame, a swan’s neck and bold features, like a painting he’d once seen by Raphael.
It was her expression when Sir Simon gave in and grudgingly asked for potatoes that betrayed Hannah’s likeness to Emily. First James caught a dimple, and then a pout to her full lower lip. Both marked her failed efforts in fighting a smirk at her meager victory. In that single, fleeting moment he glimpsed his wife. His gut clenched and he stared and willed it to stay, even as her expression changed and dashed his hopes.
Tad elbowed him, startling him from his contemplation, his head ducked low behind a centerpiece to muffle his words. “Trying to figure her out?”
“Mm.”
“Hester. Hannah Webster,” whispered Tad. “That’s what they all imagine it’s short for.”
“But it isn’t.”
“Hester Prynne. Wearing her scarlet letter.” Tad winked. “An inside joke between me and Lady Hannah.”
James opened his mouth to press Tad for hints, reasons. Mrs. Chalmers cut him off with the nosey point of a shrill question. “What are you saying, Theodore? Are you telling Doctor Grimshaw about your mad railroad venture?”
She knew damned well that Theodore was doing no such thing, the busy body. James heard it in the gossipy drawl he’d grown acquainted with in the English countryside, and filled his mouth to keep it silent.
Tad straightened and drained his glass. “You know how it is, always looking for my next investor, Mrs. Chalmers.” He cocked a look at James which promised they would finish their conversation another time. But ‘another time’ was not soon enough to satisfy him. He looked at Hannah, who was watching him with a sideways gaze, her expression as much a puzzle as the woman herself. When she arched her brow, he dropped his eyes to the table, and when he dared to look again she was once more focused on her plate.
“Do you have a private practice?” asked Mister Chalmers when quiet stretched off towards coffee it seemed was never coming, when the meal was finishing and napkins were tossed away.
His answer should have come easily on a breath of relief, but James was as surprised as he could manage to find bitter corners sticking in his throat. “Not anymore, no. My work in medicine is purely research these days.”
Mrs. Chalmers clucked her disappointment. “Such a shame. There is a real want of good physicians here in town.”
“My meager skills would hardly diminish it,” said James, not looking at her or offering more.
“Hannah, you will stay for coffee?” Irena’s words were more statement than question, hinting that she already knew the answer.
“I would,” drawled Hannah as though she would do anything but, “however, my headache has flared in earnest. I should start home before it peaks.”
“Good night, then,” muttered Simon, standing and canting his body away from her in dismissal. “Gentleman, let us retire and give the ladies a respite. Doctor Grimshaw, if you will.”
James stared at Hannah, who slid back her chair and managed up from the table without looking at anybody, silently willing her to stay. He wanted a moment alone to quiz her, but her stiff-backed retreat from the dining room made it impossible. He nodded slowly to Simon and watched her go.
* * *
After, they sat in close quarters, and there was no opportunity for Tad to share anything more about Hannah. They pressed together in the gilt and crimson withdrawing room, and passed brandy while James resisted the urge to fan away swirling cigar smoke. He was excluded from the conversation, though more by default than design. He didn’t invest or visit the Exchange, and he didn’t attend Ascot or the opera. Scant debris was left for constructing polite repartee.
As far as he was concerned, exclusion was a blessing, affording him long minutes to contemplate Hannah while he stared and nodded. She had saved him at his darkest moment, even if he hadn’t deserved it, and had done nothing profound or selfless to deserve it since. Even though he’d hated her for it in those first hours, he admitted with a good measure of shame that he had stopped thinking about her almost immediately, too consumed by putting himself back together to care about anyone else. Now, he began to obsess. When he looked at Hannah he looked for Emily, and wanted to know about the former without having to discuss the latter.
Eventually conversation wound down against Mister Chalmer’s best efforts, and, when the hall clock chimed, Simon stood up and shook their hands. “Gentlemen, it was a pleasure seeing you this evening. Hamilton, I will see you again this week, I’m sure.”
Tad kept quiet, his nod promising nothing, and they moved for the door.
“Not you, Doctor Grimshaw.” Simon’s voice stopped him. “A word, if you would oblige me.”
If he must. Somewhere in Whitechapel a lumpy mattress and moth eaten quilts beckoned him to drunken sleep. He’d much prefer to leave with Tad and press him about Hannah.
Instead, he settled back into his chair’s plush velvet cushion. Simon joined him and leaned in, bracing elbows on his knees. “Tonight you met my sister-in-law, Hannah.”
James nodded, not certain he should reveal his connection to her, when she had chosen not to.
“What did you think?”
“It’s hard to say,” he admitted truthfully. “She doesn’t much make herself known.”
“There is a motive to it,” said Simon, low and grave. “Hannah conceals a wickedness by her silence.”
After Simon’s treatment of Elizabeth, James was skeptical about the man’s opinions. He laughed, but Simon did not. “Forgive me, sir. I have great sympathy for family discord. But wickedness?” James shook his head. “That is a surprisingly strong term.”
“Not too strong, where she is concerned,” spat Simon. “My brother was susceptible to her witchcraft, and eventually fell victim to it entirely.”
This piqued his interest. “Dead?”
Simon nodded. “By her hand. I have a witness to the act.”
He snapped up in his seat. Each quick revelation tossed him fore and aft. “Have you told the authorities?”
Simon’s narrow eyes turned down. “A witness to the act, but not the means. That deta
il remains a mystery.”
And aft once more. James felt that Hannah fell a notch from her mythical status under Simon’s admission, human after all. “Testimony, but no evidence?”
Simon shook his head. “And that is where you and I have business.”
No. James wished again that he had taken the hundred pounds in place of dinner. His only business with the living was to deflect them until he could be away from them. At least, that had been his course; now, something stayed his refusal.
“You’re a man of intelligence, and medicine. And you’ve shown yourself to be a man of character.”
Simon couldn’t know that, not from one encounter on the street and an awkward dinner. Simon, like so many in his place, had more money than judgment.
“That’s kind of you, but I fail to see how it’s helpful.” James wished they could get to the matter, so he could decline and start home.
“Hannah suffers headaches, rather severe ones. I used to think they were part of her theatrics, but over the years I’ve become convinced that the pain is genuine. Perhaps a manifestation of her guilt.” Simon shrugged. “She’s grown dissatisfied with her physician and has put about for a new one. I would like you to fill the post.”
James snorted. “Perhaps you did not hear me at dinner. I don’t see patients anymore. Nor do I intend to. Research only.” Despite his protest, he was intrigued.
“Precisely! She would be a kind of research.” Simon pounded a fist into the arm of his chair. “You would know what to ask, what to look for.”
“As a cause for headaches?”
“No!” Simon deflated and rubbed his eyes, lowering his voice. “Forgive me; I was not at all clear. I don’t give a damn if you treat her headaches or not. My desire is for you to gain Hannah’s confidence and discover how she murdered my brother.”
“No.” James was up from his chair before that single word had passed his lips. “Absolutely not. I am not the man for poking about and spying. I am a man of medicine, not espionage.”
Simon grabbed his sleeve, gripped it with both hands. “Please, Doctor Grimshaw. Please! We have suffered for two years, certain of her guilt and forced to tolerate her, to keep her close for our own safety when I want nothing but to consign her to hellfire!” Panting, he let go. “You possess a talent which I do not, a skill which would benefit my entire family. I would pay for it, Doctor Grimshaw. Handsomely.”
It must be quite the life, stacking up coins until you got your way. James resented Simon Webster’s trying to buy him, but what he resented more was his temptation to submit. He would be paid an outrageous sum to do nothing more than to put his medical knowledge to work, and to indulge his curiosity about Hannah. It couldn’t be so easy; James had the distinct sense that he was selling his soul. Then he remembered the house, the desperate pressure that crushed his heart the closer it came to being sold, and was lost. He pulled free of Simon’s hand and fell back into his chair. “Tell me what it is I am looking for.”
.
CHAPTER FIVE
Hannah reached out, took her groom’s hand, and climbed down from her carriage, shading her eyes against a blazing autumn sun. It had warmed her in the park for a while, but somewhere near midday had tipped the scales and the light waned a little, chilling her into starting home. She managed some delight at the coziness of her address, wide facade set between newer and rather narrow gray ones. Its cinnamon bricks and white plaster were glazed with frost where the houses across the street caught the sun and left hers in shadow, giving it an iced gingerbread appearance. Warm light beckoned from the high windows, and Hannah wished she could stay outside and not go in, where things were less welcoming.
“Lady Hannah.”
She was just stepping through the low iron gate out front when a familiar voice turned her back. She had missed him, standing in a shadow cast by the horses. “Doctor Grimshaw.” She smiled and held open the gate to let him pass by, using the opportunity to take him in. His coming at all was a surprise. She certainly wouldn’t have expected it to be so soon, even if she’d believed it a possibility.
He’d punctuated her thoughts every day since, sowing a frustration that she couldn’t ask about him or openly seek him out. She was glad her efforts to spare him at Meadowcroft had been successful and longed to know what he’d done in the year since. Thoughts and questions welled inside her, prompted by the letters she’d found in the house, but she couldn’t bring herself to mention them or admit to having them. Instead she examined the toll that a year of suffering had taken, and said nothing.
He accepted her unspoken invitation of an open gate, and she followed him up the steps into the house.
Margaret, her lady’s companion, hovered at the foot of the stairs in the hall. She was cold and glittering as the mansion around her, but deceptive in a soft blue organza gown with her riot of auburn curls. Hannah could just remember a time when Margaret had been a little cowed by her and would never have waited by the door. Hannah hadn’t known to appreciate her place in those days, and longed for it now. She steeled herself to engage Margaret, a conflict that never grew easier, no matter how many skirmishes they put behind them.
“Doctor Grimshaw and I have business, Miss Maddox,” said Hannah without looking at her.
“Doctor Grimshaw,” repeated Margaret as though she’d been expecting him, shoulders relaxing. She turned and sauntered back up the staircase without another word.
Mrs. Delford appeared from the next room, casting a relieved glance up at Margaret as she disappeared onto the landing. On her first glimpse of James, she poked at her hairpins, doing more harm than good to silver curls, and Hannah caught the surreptitious dart of creased blue eyes over his figure. When Mrs. Delford brushed her apron and petite body with the fuss of a girl half her age, pink in the cheeks, Hannah nearly laughed.
James handed off his hat to her and followed Margaret’s path with his eyes. “Part of your staff?”
“Part of my captivity,” she muttered, snapping the ties of her black velvet bonnet and dropping it into Mrs. Delford’s waiting hands, craning to be certain that Margaret hadn’t stopped to eavesdrop. “Come into the parlor. Mrs. Delford will find us some refreshment and we may speak freely.” She led him past the stairs and into the yellow parlor, her favorite room of the house. It was the only one decorated to her taste, with no bric-a-brac, no cluttered table tops, and no doilies or table runners. A pair of teakwood chairs and a matching sofa were upholstered in white satin embroidered with tiny pink and mint roses. Beyond that, everything was yellow, from the long silk drapes to the pattern on the thick Aubusson carpet. In the spring, Mrs. Delford put vases of pink and blush roses along the mantle, and in winter, candles when the light was low in the afternoons. Year round, the small room was cozy.
James passed inside, and she closed the door and turned its small silver key, just to be certain. When he turned back and arched a brow, she shrugged. “I am not the true mistress of this house.” She didn’t bother explaining Margaret’s hawking her, acting as Simon’s paid agent, and would rather not contemplate it at all in that moment. Instead, she brought their chairs an arm’s-length apart and sat, contemplating him instead.
James folded his long frame into his seat and returned her appraisal with something like annoyance.
Amused by his moodiness, she settled back onto her cushion, draped her arms along the arm rests like a queen, and made an open show of looking him over head to toe. “So, you’ve come.”
“So I have,” he grumbled, “since it’s clear you were not going to come to me.”
She laughed, genuine laughter that had eluded her for longer than she cared to recall. “The brothel where you have your mail sent refused to give me your direction.”
She expected more fuss and was delighted when one side of his mouth cocked up. “Touché. Though, you might have asked your brother-in-law where to find me.”
Hannah sighed, picking at a thread on her sleeve, and ground her teeth at the idea of asking
Simon for anything. “I would rather immolate myself.” She met James's eyes and smiled. “But no matter. Here you are, and I am glad of it.”
There were so many questions, curiosities that had plagued her for the better part of year, but the rigid line to his shoulders said he wouldn’t welcome them. “I meant what I said at dinner,” she offered instead. “My niece Elizabeth is a sweet girl, more precious than ever to Simon, with his older girl passed on. You did him and Irena a tremendous service.”
He shrugged. “I did what anyone else could have done.”
“But didn’t,” she corrected.
“Perhaps I welcomed the danger.”
“Are you always so disagreeable?” she chided, fighting a smile.
“I am.”
Hannah was certain he wished he was, he might even believe it, but James wasn’t convincing her. She nodded. “Good. Me too.”
Mrs. Delford’s knock rattled through the room, cutting their banter and stealing whatever James had been about to say, to Hannah’s disappointment. She cracked the door just enough to claim the tray, and then braced it against the door to lock them in again.
“Intruders are a problem in this part of London?” he asked while she settled her cargo on a table beside them.
“Only those of my own making.” She put a single lump of sugar into each blue and white porcelain cup and added just a splash of the steaming tea. When she looked up, James was watching her, unblinking.
“Emily made tea just so.”
His words stung, and she fussed with the pot to avoid his eyes. “I rubbed off on her a bit, then.”
When her friends would come up to Braburn, Emily would hide behind the sofa with her doll, or stand between the furniture and talk incessantly to her older sister’s guests. Shooing her off had succeeded in sending her only as far as the doorway, and eventually she came on again full force. Seventeen and with aspirations of being the greatest society hostess, Hannah had been driven mad by her sister’s antics. While she’d been swatting and snapping, Emily had been watching her every move. Hannah regretted mightily that she hadn’t taken the same care when she’d had the chance.