by Liz Carlyle
It had grown worse since Anisha and Luc arrived with the boys, for, inexplicably, he felt more alone than ever when his house was full of people he cared about. Perhaps it was because he felt compelled to hold them at a distance. It had become second nature to him now, that need to set an emotional pane of glass between himself and those he loved.
And now Mademoiselle Gauthier was living in his house. Beautiful, elegant Grace, who made him wish, foolishly, to shatter that glass. Grace, who elicited in him his every protective instinct yet gave up to him nothing of herself—in part because he had never really learned how to ask. And in part because he dared not.
It had been challenging at first, separating the raw lust from the fascination. Save for one of the Vateis, he had never met a woman he could not eventually read, though admittedly, some were less transparent than others. And there were a few—women like Angela Timmonds, or Melanie, his wife—whom he could shut out for a time by sheer force of will. Until a deep and genuine affection—or even love—began to set in.
In his youth, Ruthveyn had not understood this. He had not grasped until too late the awful truth that the more one cared, the wider Hades’ door would swing; that he and the object of his desire became like a pair of mirrors hung opposite one another across a corridor, allowing him to see deeper and deeper, and into infinity.
Oh, he certainly had not married Melanie for love; at twenty-three he had been too callow, too caught up in wrestling his own demons. But Melanie, with her soft, honey-colored curls and wide blue eyes, had been beautiful, and even then, something in her feminine frailty had stirred him. Worse, her father’s position as one of the most powerful men within the East India Company had tempted his father to strike a bargain almost before Ruthveyn had known he’d wanted a bargain.
At first, he had been relieved at the ease with which he could shut her out—until he realized, too late, that it was as much the other way round. Caught up in his career, it had been weeks before he’d realized Melanie emotionally shut herself off to him, choosing instead to quietly mourn the young army captain her father had denied her. She had not welcomed his touch; she had tolerated it.
But by then, they were married. And the army captain had not mourned Melanie at all. The social circle in Calcutta being a small one, he had managed to console himself with another well-dowered beauty.
He had married Ruthveyn’s sister.
But Ruthveyn had kept heaving away at his sinking rowboat of a marriage, seeing hope where there was none. Melanie with her pink, pouting mouth and shimmering eyes had drawn on his sympathy until—fool that he was—he’d begun to wish he could fall in love with her.
Before his marriage, Ruthveyn had been much in demand. The lonely wives of the Company men and the army officers had apparently found his dark eyes faintly exotic, and even when suppressed, the Gift sometimes gave an extraordinary, almost mesmerizing energy to his touch. With little effort, he could lull women into a strange sensual lethargy that even now he scarcely understood.
As to his own desire, Ruthveyn had learned early on that if he chose his partners carefully, cared little, and shut his mind tight, his body could find release before his brain exploded. Eventually, he learned that charas, and later opium, would inexplicably still his brain without damping down the raging sexual desire that seemed always to burn inside him.
But with Melanie, perversely, the more she distanced herself, the more he wanted to see her.
And then one night the veil lifted.
Atop her in bed on a near-moonless evening, the lamp doused just as she always insisted, Ruthveyn had gazed down at his wife with what felt like the nascent fluttering of love, and his mind had lit up like lightning in a night sky. In one horrific, glaring instant, he had seen. Seen not just her dashed dreams, but what was to come of them, too.
Too late, he tore his body from hers, spilling his accursed seed across the sheets.
Far, far too late.
“Ruthveyn?”
He was jerked to the present by a harsh rapping at the door.
Ruthveyn looked around to realize Geoff had gone, and von Althausen was staring at him from across the table. “Answer that, for pity’s sake,” he grumbled.
Ruthveyn strode to the door and threw it open. Belkadi stood in the passageway, his black suit and white linen as immaculate as if he’d just put in on. “There’s a lad upstairs with a rather terse message,” he said in a low voice, “from Scotland Yard.”
“Damn it all,” Ruthveyn cursed. “What now?”
“Assistant Commissioner Napier is on his way, and requests a moment of your time.” The majordomo hesitated a heartbeat. “I bribed the boy. He says it’s about the Frenchwoman who’s staying with you. Gauthier’s daughter.”
Ruthveyn cursed again, more vehemently. Napier was about the last thing he needed in his present mood. And, of course, he’d not said a word to anyone within the Society about Grace’s having moved into his house. But a man with Belkadi’s skills did not need the Gift to know two-thirds of what went on in London. After all, there was a reason—other than sheer affection—why Lazonby brought him into the Fraternitas. Belkadi was Machiavelli reincarnated.
Ruthveyn felt his hand tighten on the doorknob, his mind racing, his every instinct to protect Grace surging. “Where was Napier this past week?”
“A deathbed vigil,” said Belkadi. “A wealthy uncle up in Birmingham.”
“Ah, those always bring the relatives out of the woodwork.” Ruthveyn jerked his head toward the stone staircase and drew the door shut behind them. “Have someone escort him to the private study. I’ll await him there.”
Upstairs, much of the club lay in silence. Ruthveyn strode past the genealogical library to see Mr. Sutherland, one of the Preosts, poring over what looked like a massive Bible, no doubt borrowed from some unsuspecting family, and under what pretext, heaven only knew. Sutherland believed God would forgive him his little fibs.
Outside the smoking room, he hesitated. Within, Lieutenant Lord Curran Alexander was sitting by the windows, his cane hooked over his chair arm. One of Ruthveyn’s father’s protégés, Alexander was another casualty of war; in this case, the disastrous retreat of the British from Kabul.
Ruthveyn had been there, too, carrying diplomatic dispatches, and trying to sense which way the wind blew with Akbar Khan. It had not taken long. Within a day of his arrival, the Afghan prince—or his minions—had driven a knife, quite literally, through the heart of the Army of the Indus. Even a fool could have seen what was to come. Ruthveyn had seen it in stark, horrific detail.
But alas, such visions never came with a calendar attached. Having made no headway with the paralyzed British leadership, and sick with despair, Ruthveyn had reprovisioned and headed east into the worsening Afghan winter for Jalalabad to make one last plea for help, with no one save Alexander and a small contingent of his men for support. But they had known, the both of them, it was likely futile.
In the end, it had been Ruthveyn’s greatest failure in what felt like a string of failures. They had been but five days ahead of the general retreat through Jagdalak Pass. There had been no hope.
But he and Alexander had lived through their journey, which was more than could have been said of those who came after. Sixteen thousand British—most of them women, children, and camp followers—had frozen to death or been cut down.
He wondered why he thought of it now. It had something to do with Grace, but he couldn’t quite grasp what. He let his hand slip from the doorframe and strode on. He had an uneasy feeling about Royden Napier. It was unlike him to call here at the St. James Society.
It had been a rare, clear day, and inside the library, both windows still stood open despite the growing chill. Ruthveyn toyed with shutting them, then thought better of it. There was no need to make Napier comfortable; the sooner he was gone, the better.
Instead, he poured himself another brandy and went to the open window to stare down at the entrance to Quartermaine’s pernicious h
ell. Pinkie Ringgold stood lounging to one side, laughing with Maggie Sloane, one of London’s high-flyers, and Ned Quartermaine’s occasional bedmate.
But nothing beyond the window could long hold his attention. Instead, he hitched one hip onto the sill and let his gaze run across the study. Although the intimate chamber was his favorite at the St. James Society—and one of six given over to study or reading—Ruthveyn had not returned here since meeting Grace Gauthier.
Perhaps that had been intentional. In his mind, this place would ever be associated with her. Even now, if he shut his eyes, he could smell her scent in the room. He remembered precisely how she had looked that day, sitting on the sofa opposite the windows, her hands folded elegantly in her lap. This, despite the panic in her eyes and the flashes of grief he saw sketched across her face.
He had not known quite what to make of her. Whether to believe her or—when she’d collapsed into his arms—whether he ought simply to kiss her and have done with it.
But he did know one thing. He knew she had not loved Holding. He knew this because he’d asked her, and rather heartlessly. Even then, he had been fascinated by Grace.
It had required every inch of his restraint to stay away from her these past few days, to simply trust that his well-trained staff was keeping her safe. Instead, he had limited himself to sending her one or two notes, merely to tell her what little he had learned, and had otherwise continued to live his monastic existence in his upstairs suite. Not that anyone had ever accused him of being a monk, precisely.
Just then the door opened, and one of the footmen came in, Royden Napier behind him. The servant bowed wordlessly to Ruthveyn and went out again, leaving the assistant commissioner alone on the Turkish carpet.
Ruthveyn lifted his glass. “Afternoon, Napier,” he said evenly. “Will you join me?”
Napier’s head swiveled toward the windows. “Ruthveyn,” he gritted, “you interfering blackguard. Don’t you dare pretend this is a social call.”
“With all respect, Napier, I can imagine no circumstance in which you and I might socialize,” he replied, coming away from the window. “Still, you’re welcome to a drink.”
It was a subtle dig, and both men knew it. Ruthveyn couldn’t have cared less for the concept of nobility, but he’d learned early on that the combination of his lofty title and mixed ancestry stuck in the craw of many Englishmen. He did not hesitate to use it.
“Go to hell, Ruthveyn,” Napier spat, stalking across the carpet. “You have gone too far this time.”
“Have I?” Ruthveyn smiled. “Whatever I’ve done, old chap, I should rather take my scold sitting down. Feel free to join me. Or not.”
With that he brushed past Napier, just close enough to make his point. And although he could barely read the assistant commissioner, Ruthveyn felt the heat in the room ratchet up a notch.
Napier followed him to a pair of nearby chairs, fists clenched. “You, sir, are no gentleman,” he choked. “You are a manipulative bastard who has used Scotland Yard, who has lied to my face, and who means to try and cheat the hangman one more—”
Ruthveyn held up a forestalling hand. “The bastard part I’ll give you,” he said, sitting. “But I take exception to the lying part. What, precisely, did I lie about?”
“You have been scheming on behalf of that Frenchwoman from the very first—I knew it the moment I heard about that damned prayer book—thick as thieves, the whole bloody lot of you, and now you have—”
“But what did I lie about?” Ruthveyn again interposed. “And what prayer book?”
This brought Napier up short for a moment. “You claimed—you came to my office, and you said—”
“That one of the household staff had approached me,” Ruthveyn interjected.
“You implied it was a servant!” Napier bellowed. “Not the dead man’s bloody fiancée!”
“A governess is, technically, a servant,” said Ruthveyn calmly. “She was in Holding’s employ for months.”
“A technicality, Ruthveyn, and you know it!” shouted Napier, whose right eye was starting to twitch ominously. “And now you are harboring a fugitive.”
Ruthveyn lifted both eyebrows. “A fugitive?” he said lightly. “That’s a dangerous charge, old chap. I take it you’ve obtained an arrest warrant for Mademoiselle Gauthier.”
Napier’s choleric expression flushed a brighter shade of red. “No, but I can bloody well get one.”
Ruthveyn sipped pensively at his brandy. “Do you imagine so?” he finally murmured. “Well, why don’t you just go give that a try.”
“By God, I should give my right arm to know what it is you hold over the Crown’s head,” Napier gritted.
But the truth was, he held very little. Ruthveyn enjoyed the thanks of a grateful Queen—one who never knew just when she might need him. And when her ministers called, he would likely go, and do what he could for whom he could, so long as none of his vows as a Guardian were broken. For the reality was—however bad he might feel about it—not all his “diplomatic missions” had been the utter failure Jagdalak had been. Occasionally—more than occasionally, perhaps—he had done something right. He had helped save lives—both British and Indian—and averted disasters. It was his cold comfort during the long, dark nights.
Ruthveyn flashed a faint smile. “If you can prove Mademoiselle Gauthier a murderess, Napier, you won’t need to know,” he said, opening one hand, palm up. “I shall serve her up to you on a silver platter.”
“Then I hope you have a large platter,” Napier snarled, reaching inside his jacket. He jerked out a fold of paper, the red wax seal broken, and thrust it at Ruthveyn.
Ruthveyn took it carefully, without looking directly into Napier’s eyes, or so much as brushing his hand. And still, his stomach sank.
This was bad. He knew it before his eyes alit on the stiff, meticulous copperplate. He knew it the way Lazonby knew things; on a visceral level, without comprehending how or why, no visions required.
Ruthveyn read it through once, then jerked to his feet. He went to the window, turned it to the light, and read it a second time. He did not look at Napier until he had regained himself.
Napier, of course, had followed on his heels. Ruthveyn turned his gaze to him, focusing his eyes somewhere near Napier’s left ear. “When was this written?”
“It’s dated, for God’s sake!” Napier stabbed a finger at it. “Holding wrote the bloody thing a week before his death. Obviously, the man had come to his senses.”
“And you found it where?”
“When I returned, I was told one of my men found it tucked under a false panel in the bottom of her letter box,” said Napier. “It had been hidden, and quite deliberately. That’s why we overlooked it the first six times.”
“She never saw this.” Ruthveyn snapped it back into its folds and flicked it toward Napier.
“What do you mean, she never saw it?” Napier looked incredulous. “It was in her things.”
“Then someone else put it there.”
“Are you daft, man?” Napier’s eyes rounded.
“Holding was away.” Ruthveyn inhaled slowly, forcing down the swell of panic. “He was in Liverpool the fortnight before his death. You have nothing but a letter with no envelope, no address, and no stamp, Napier. It is worse than worthless. It smacks of entrapment.”
“You think the police utter fools?” Napier glowered at him. “Besides, we asked the business partner, Crane, about it. He said Holding wrote the woman every bloody day he was gone. Always sent his personal letters inside the business ones, to save money. Everyone does it.”
“And does Crane attest to having seen this particular letter?”
“No, for he—”
“Ah, I thought not.”
“—for he dropped the sealed letters on the foyer table each morning and moved on,” Napier snapped. “He hadn’t time or inclination to read a load of female drivel. That woman is dangerous, Ruthveyn, and clearly she is vindictive. My only indecis
ion is whether to leave her in your house in the faint hope that, left long enough, she’ll eventually run you through with a kitchen knife.”
Numbly, Ruthveyn glared at Napier. “You will not arrest her,” he said flatly. “If you try, I will have your job. If I fail in that, I will have your head—”
“You—why—you cannot threaten an officer of the Crown!”
“I just did,” said Ruthveyn. “You will not arrest her. You will leave this to me to be dealt with. Or you will rue the day you were born. Do you understand me, Napier?”
“Go bugger yourself!” Napier stalked toward the door, then threw it open.
Ruthveyn followed him out. “Find St. Giles,” he snapped at a passing footman. “And fetch my carriage.”
Oblivious to the craning heads that peered from the clubrooms, they argued all the way down the sweeping staircase. “You need to reexamine this case, Napier,” he said grimly. “There’s something we’ve missed.”
“‘We’?” Napier bellowed. “Oh, and by the way, Ruthveyn, are you aware your paragon of virtue is toting around a brace of pistols?”
That did surprise him. “Still, that’s hardly against the law, is it?”
“Neither is arsenic, but innocent women don’t keep a tin of it tucked beneath their underdrawers.” The assistant commissioner paused long enough to snatch his greatcoat from the first-floor attendant and went out into the bracing air.
“Napier, don’t be a fool,” Ruthveyn continued. “By your own admission, the man wrote her every day for a fortnight. Does that sound like a man who had come to his senses?”
The wind caught the door, slamming it shut behind them.
“Oh, you think you see this one clear, eh?” Napier glanced back, his lip curled with disdain. “What with your special gifts and your superior attitude? Do you think I haven’t heard the rumors about this place, Ruthveyn? By God, give me half a chance, and when I finish with this case, I’ll put a period to you and your so-called St. James Society.”
People had been trying to do that for over fourteen hundred years, thought Ruthveyn. The Fraternitas Aureae Crucis might be bloodied, but it was not broken, and Napier would have no more luck than the others.