by A. W. Exley
The decoration and furniture were all Cara had of her mother. Bella laboured and died in this room. She never paced the floor to walk her newborn daughter to sleep. Never brushed Cara’s hair while she sat at the dresser. She never curled up and watched her mother dress for an evening out.
“Were you happy here?” she whispered to her phantom mother. “Or did you seek happiness with another?” A vain hope perhaps, but Skittles set her mind in motion. Once she gave the idea life, she couldn’t let it go until she knew one way or the other. If her mother kept a diary surely it would be hidden in her room. Or had her father found it years ago?
She examined the dresser, pulled out all the drawers and checked for hidden compartments. Next, she gave the bed frame the same thorough going over. Nothing. In the walls? She ran her fingertips over the walls and skirting looking for joins or cracks. After an hour, she admitted defeat and returned downstairs.
“Any luck?” Brick asked, looking up from his book.
She shook her head. “It was silly really, I thought my mother might have left something hidden in her room.”
He slid his book back into a pocket. “Want to look for whatever else might not be here?”
She laughed. “Sounds stupid when you say it like that, but yes. I just want to wander around slow, see what tingles.”
They spent the next couple of hours walking from room to room. Two rooms made the hair on the back of Cara’s neck stand up. The basement and the library.
“Do you think something is hidden in the walls or floors?” Brick asked.
She chewed her lip. “No, I think the blood soaked into the floor is giving me the shivers.” Except the house toyed with her long before she spilled her blood in the library or her father hid Nefertiti’s Heart in the basement. What was she missing?
1816
or three days Gideon, Earl of Morton paced back and forth in the corridors, listening to his wife scream. With each passing hour the strength of her cries diminished, by the time dark closed on day three the shrieks turned to sobs for mercy.
Events unfolding behind the closed door tortured him far more than when a cannonball blew his lower arm off in battle. He used his belt as a tourniquet and severed the dangling tendons with his knife in between fighting off French soldiers trying to finish the job. Although he couldn’t put his arm back together, he could at least do something, here he could do nothing. Except wait, listen to the screaming, and pace.
Annette. He remembered that night she raised her eyes to his and dared him to dance with her. He knew a rare gem when he saw one, he married her that night. Every day since, his love grew deeper for the woman who invaded his life.
The midwife exited the bedroom and pulled the door closed. Her heavy gaze rested on him.
“Well?” His heart sunk, one look at her face told him the prospects were limited and mounting against his wife. A campaign with insurmountable odds and no hope of a cavalry charge or airship strike to save the day.
She shook her head. “We are having trouble getting the babe to turn, stubborn thing, it’s facing the wrong way.”
His heartbeat slowed and almost stopped. Time suspended as he struggled to say the words caught in his throat. He could make decisions in the heat of battle that would affect hundreds of men, but this choice could end him. “What are our options?”
She wiped a bloody hand across her forehead. “She is a fighter, but her strength is nearly exhausted. We can try one more time to turn the babe, and perhaps help it free. If not―”
The hanging question, asked far too many times of noble husbands, who to save―wife or child?
Within his wife’s slender frame lay his heir, the hope for the entire estate and the continuation of his name. A well-bred woman’s sole purpose in this world was to provide a male child. Preferably two, the requisite heir and a spare. Their baby struggled to enter the world and draw that first breath and live. But what would his world be without Annette? He would be the earth without the sun. The warmth of her caress forever denied him, a land in eternal dark never to see the light again.
He balled his hand into a fist. “Do what you have to. Save my wife.” He choked out the words and condemned his child. He knew the tools that lay within the room, waiting to be used in such a situation. Hooks and knifes to severe the tiny limbs in his wife’s womb and remove the babe piece by piece.
A phantom appeared before him. A head of dark hair like Annette but with his pale grey eyes. Lanky limbs showed the promise of height and athletic ability. He extended his stump and non-existent fingers ruffled the ghost’s hair and then he said goodbye to the imagery child. Forgive me, son.
The woman paused for only a moment, before nodding. “We will give her as much opium as we can. She won’t be able to fight but it will dull the pain, somewhat, for what lays ahead.” She opened the door and blood and sweat assaulted him.
The smell sent his mind back through time. He remembered the field hospital where he lay after his injury. Men screamed in pain as surgeons cut off their limbs with hand saws, no time or luxury of opium to free their minds from what they endured. Wounds cauterised with fire and bound with dirty cloth. If they survived that, they could still fall prey to the slower death of infection.
He turned and with a roar, slammed his fist into the wall. Plaster and chips of paint flaked to the polished floor. Whimpering, like a whipped dog, came from the room beyond. He ground his teeth; never had he felt so powerless. Each second of inactivity peeled a strip of flesh from his body. He led troops into battle where his men relied on him to guard their lives and see them home safely. He always had a strategy to see them through and the king recognised his bravery after the fall of Napoleon.
But how could a man fight nature in a woman’s solitary war? What weapon could he raise to protect his family?
“God save them both, please,” he whispered to the unforgiving night.
Voices murmured and the constant whimper cut through his soul. Moments stretched, the second hand tick on his pocket watch magnified to mortar fire raining upon him. He bit down on his fist to stop tears from forming in his eyes. A scream ripped through the heavy atmosphere and tore through his heart. The cry high pitched and full of suffering and outrage.
Then silence.
Straining his ears, he heard nothing. He held his breath, had he lost them both?
Then came the thin reedy cry of new wet lungs.
The door opened again, blood stained up the midwife’s arms and she mopped at her hands with a cloth. “We freed the child. You have a daughter.”
His heart stopped in his chest, from beyond the door came only hushed whispers and the exhausted cry of the newborn. Nan. “My wife?”
Tired eyes met his. “Time will tell. If she continues to fight, she will survive.”
“I must see her.” He made to brush past the midwife, but she laid a hand on his sleeve, leaving a bloody imprint.
“One more thing. This has been a long and difficult labour and her body is damaged. If she lives, there will be no more children from her.”
A single daughter. No more children. No boy to teach to ride, shoot, or fish.
No heir.
“So long as God lets me keep them both, then I do not care.” He entered the room, blood and sweat thick in the close atmosphere. Here at last was something he could control. A situation he could command and bend to his will. He would not lose the warmth of his sun. He would fight with all weapons at his disposal, fight to save his wife. The field hospital taught him one thing, men died more quickly when left to lay in their own filth.
“Open the windows and fetch fresh bed linen and hot water. Let us clean and air the room, so my wife and child can sleep more comfortable.” And pray infection does not find her.
Nessy sat in the bed, her arms supporting her lifelong friend, the other woman’s head slumped against her shoulder. “I tried,” she said on seeing him, tears pooling in her eyes. “I tried so hard to take her pain, to make it easier for
them.”
Gideon nodded, his heart swelled at the love the young woman bore for his wife. She had not slept for three days, refusing to leave Nan’s side. Knowing Gideon was banned from the birthing room, she declared she would be his proxy. “I know, Nessy. Would that I could have borne it for her.”
Nan’s head raised on hearing her husband’s voice. Black shadows haunted her eyes as she turned. Her long dark hair plastered to her face by sweat, an impossibly small bundle in her arms.
“All that trouble, for a girl.” She tried to smile, but her body couldn’t muster the energy to move her facial muscles. “I’m so sorry.” A large tear escaped the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. “I have failed you.”
“Hush.” He sat on the bed and captured the tear with a fingertip. “I love my women strong and opinionated, and I will adore our daughter even more for being exactly like her mother. Fighters, both of you.”
“I will deliver you an heir, I promise, next time.” Her eyelids dropped closed, her battered mind seeking the release of unconsciousness.
“Sleep and get better. We will worry about that another day.” He stroked her hair.
Nessy eased the tiny bundle from Nan’s grasp and slid the newborn into his arms. He stared at the little crinkled face. Swirls of dark hair clung to her head. With a fingertip, he reached out and dared to touch his daughter. Her mouth opened on reflex, searching.
For the first time in three days, he smiled. But he would worry. With no heir, his estate had no future. Should anything happen to him there were few options for his wife, daughter, and Nessy. They would be cast out with nothing, alone in the world apart from each other.
His family would never be secure until he had an heir.
London, Tuesday 21st January, 1862
f Cara ventured to Seven Dials it was normally to the pub the Prick and Rose, accompanied by an overprotective Nate and a few of his men. Tonight she sat on the bed in a brothel, a distinctly lower class one. She used her association with Skittles to track down this particular patron. John Burke struck her friend and then destroyed her reputation. Even though Nate assured her he would deal with the matter, Cara wanted to deliver a personal message to the reprobate.
She smoothed an edge of tape encasing her knuckles. Brick didn’t want any tell-tale bruising to alert Nate later. She closed her fingers over the roll of coins in her fist and then clenched and released to judge the weight in her grasp.
Her bodyguard stood in the corner, behind the door. Arms crossed over his chest and a scowl darkening his face. “You know the boss is not going to be happy when he learns about his little caper.”
“Let me worry about him after this little caper.”
Although the bodyguard had good reason to be worried; Nate walked a line, controlling his over-protective urge when it came to Cara and it mollified him that she always had a shadow. For her part, Cara learned to either lose them like she did with Jackson or talked them into being accomplices in her escapades, like with Brick.
A red shawl covered the only light and the glow washed the room in blood and disguised the stains on walls and floor. John Burke frequented the lower end of the spectrum of pleasure houses since being denied access to the bright lights and clean sheets of the demi-monde. Not just because of his proclivities, but simple economics. He didn’t spend freely enough to purchase his place in a better class of establishment.
Laughter sounded in the hallway and the doorknob turned. Brick froze and became a blur melding into the random pattern of the wallpaper.
The door pushed open and a figure filled the space and then lurched to one side. “Damn whore, where are you?” the shape asked.
She rose from the bed and stepped forward. The red glow played over her form, putting her in shadow with the light source behind her.
The man moved closer. He pulled free his cravat and tossed it to the floor. “You can start on your knees.” He gestured to a point in front of his shoes then reached down to pull out the tail of his shirt before undoing the buttons on his trousers.
Cara took another step forward. Close enough for him to see her in the gloom.
A frown crossed his face. “I know you.” He squinted, memory trying to force its way to the surface through the alcohol sloshing around in his brain.
“Yes, we have met.” She kept her hands behind her back.
“You,” he muttered. “I suspected you spent a lot of time on your back. I could have protected Amy from your filth, but she chose to embrace your contagion instead.”
“Contagion? Is that how you see free will or women thinking for themselves? Or were you talking about reading and scrapbooking?” She moved to one side, so his back remained to Brick, indistinguishable from the long shadows in the room.
He clenched his fists at his sides. “I can give you a much needed lesson in submission. Obviously Lyons doesn’t know how to rein a woman in.”
She snorted. “He has more power in the caress of one fingertip than you will ever understand.”
He gave a short bark of laughter. “There’s only one way to discipline a slattern like you.” He cracked his knuckles and closed the distance between them.
“I’m not the one who needs to learn a lesson, John.” Cara smiled. “You see, there’s one big difference between Amy and me. I hit back.” She swung fast and connected with his jaw. Pain shot up her hand and she bit her lip. Before he could regain his balance, she struck out with her foot and introduced her new dock work boots to his face.
John Burke keeled over backwards and into the outstretched arms of Brick.
Wednesday 22nd January 1862
With Brick in tow they wandered to an ancient part of London where roads narrowed and carriages could not travel. Once they stepped off the main street they entered another world.
Goslett Yard lay deserted, as though long forgotten by pedestrians and abandoned after the Great Fire. Tall Tudor buildings crowded the rough brick path and held off the worst of the weather raging elsewhere. The little shop wore her battle scars with the great tragedy, blackened timbers scarred but not defeated. Thick glass windows with a smoky swirl obscured and distorted the interior.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Brick asked.
“I’m perfectly safe.” She patted the shoulder holster holding her custom Smith and Wesson. “But come in and browse, it will be far warmer inside than out.” Light snow fell on the city and added to the sludge under foot.
Cara knew what she would find behind the thick door. She had stood in this spot before, on the trail of an artifact and needing an ancient book to aid her search. She pushed open the door and the little bell above gave a faint chime. Stopping inside, she drew a deep breath. Whenever she doubted her new role as a scholar, she remembered this moment. Surrounded by the smell of books, beeswax, and lavender. Candlelight cast a warm glow over the quiet volumes.
There was something in the silence, aroma, and presence of the books that soothed an ache deep in her soul. A part of her she tried to satisfy with fighting and action but only settled with the opposite, the written word and quiet reflection. Like her mind rebelled at the idea of being dominated and yet her body found release under Nate’s control. At the thought of her husband, a pulse came through their bond and warmed her toes.
She headed down the narrow aisle to the high counter at the end, past the soaring towers of thousands of tomes. Brick slipped in behind her and headed down a row, lost in his own exploration.
A range of ornate pots were lined up on one edge of the desk. An electric lamp cast a sharp light on the workspace, chasing away the shadows thrown by the candles. A stack of hand cut pages lay ready to receive illuminated words from the idle peacock feather quill.
The ancient proprietor looked up from his work as Cara approached. The cataracts turned his eyes milky and ethereal, as though he saw not just her physical presence but her thoughts and emotions swirling around.
“You’re back.” He smiled. “Did you find Magyck o
f the Gods?” He continued their conversation of seven months ago as though only a few days had passed.
“Yes I did, and it was most helpful. But now I am perplexed by Suetonius’ Secrets.”
“Ah.” The smile deepened. “Very secretive man, Suetonius, he saw much but wrote little. Unless he was drunk, in which case I am led to believe his tongue ran away with him and he penned some very saucy tales.”
“Well, I am after information he wrote, but someone saw fit to remove.” She opened the satchel at her side and withdrew the valuable book. She lay it on the desk and revealed the fiery scene. In the changing light of the shop the flames flickered and shone and Cara swore she saw them wrap closer around the central figure and lick higher up his body.
“Someone has removed the pages about this particular artifact.” A moment of doubt crossed her mind; with his degraded eyesight would he see the sliver of paper where the knife had sliced off the pages?
He let out a long sigh and shook his head. “Such desecration of an old friend.”
“I was told you once copied this book.”
“Oh yes, over ten years ago now. An overseas collector wanted this volume but the countess would not budge. She does not willingly part with a book for just anyone. She did however kindly allow me to duplicate the text.” He ran his fingers along the outside edges, reassuring the object that he meant no harm. “We have an understanding, she knew the book would not leave my hands.”
Cara’s hopes fell and slunk into a corner in her gut. Ten years ago, he’ll never remember what is missing.
“Nero’s Fiddle,” he muttered, stroking a long nail down the cut-off paper peeking up from the spine.
“Is that what it’s called?” Vague history lessons tumbled through her mind, one line standing out: Nero fiddled while Rome burned. “You remember what the picture is about?”