Secret Admirer

by Michele Jaffe

  None of this was up for debate. What Lawrence and Tuesday fought over was whether or not she and CeCe were going to leave London immediately and not return until the Lion was caught. Lawrence’s position was that they were. Tuesday’s was that every horse, mule, and dog in England yoked together could not carry her away.

  “Tuesday, I don’t want to argue with you about this.”

  “Good, then it’s decided. We stay. In terms of—”

  “No. You are going.”

  “Look, Mr. Pickering. Unless I am mistaken we are talking about luring the killer here, to my house, and trying to ensnare him.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the reason you want me to leave is because it is dangerous.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which means that someone, you or I, might die.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And you think I would leave when there was the possibility of anything happening to you? I have already lost nearly all the men I have ever known, let alone cared about, to this monster.”

  “I’m not worth—”

  She put her fingers over his lips. “Lawrence, I love you very much and sometimes I even respect your judgment. But about this you are wrong and I am going to keep arguing with you until you either carry me to bed where I will make you forget about it or agree to let me stay.”

  In the interests of remembering what he was supposed to be doing, not to mention remembering what others were supposed to be doing, Lawrence admitted defeat.

  After giving orders to the men who would be stationed on the perimeter around Worthington Hall to keep the Lion from getting in, Lawrence summoned Grub and Tom. They, his most trusted men, were going to guard CeCe.

  “There are more men out there than they had watching us in Spain,” he told them.

  “We managed to escape them, didn’t we, sir?” Grub asked cheerfully.

  “Yes. That is why there are more of them. But there is still a chance he might get in. That is why I want you, Grub, on duty outside CeCe’s door. Tom, you’ll be at the head of the stairs.”

  “What about in her room?” Tom asked.

  “She doesn’t want anyone. She says she just wants to be alone. But I think she has Morse in there with her. I think this meeting with the Lion sort of broadened their relationship.”

  Grub nodded. “I thought I saw him going up the water pipe. And you, sir. Where will you be?”

  “Around.” He paused and looked serious. “This man is very dangerous. I don’t want you to deal with him yourself. If you have any sign of him, summon me.” Then he added, as an afterthought, “And don’t kill him if you can help it.”

  There were a lot of questions Lawrence wanted to ask.

  The man in green lowered himself cautiously into the cellar of Worthington Hall through the small window. It was dark and quiet. There was no one there, as he had expected.

  He paused to dust his suit off, then silently felt his way to the door that led to the staircase. Here there was a dim light and he was careful not to cast a shadow. It would not do to be noticed on his way to meet his Lady.

  He had begun to be concerned that she loved Lawrence Pickering, but he had received her message that day and knew it was him she really wanted.

  As he scaled the first set of stairs, he marveled at his good fortune. He was going to bed the woman of his dreams. Going to have her all for himself. For whatever wickedness he wanted.

  He had to smother a chuckle.

  He crept by the first guard station unnoticed in the darkness, and headed up the final flight of stairs. He was getting so close now, he thought he smelled her.

  The second guard was asleep in his chair. Fool. He walked by the man, completely undetected.

  Then, just as he had passed, there was a loud cry.

  “Who are you?” A voice shouted. A lantern appeared, illuminating the corridor, fighting the man in the green suit.

  “It’s him!” the voice hollered.

  “The Lion!” another added.

  “He’s armed!”

  “Look out!”

  “But—” was the man in the green suit’s last word. Footsteps pounded down the corridor toward him, guards arriving from all sides. Driven by instinct, he pressed forward, pulling himself out of the grasp of strong arms that held him. Punching like a maniac, he broke free and ran hard in the direction of his Lady, the lady he loved, ran to her for help, ran blindly, ran—

  Right onto Tom’s sword.

  The candles of a dozen lanterns saturated the hallway with shadowless light that gave everything precise, unnatural edges. For an instant the man in the suit and Tom stood face to face, Tom’s sword between them, staring at one another. Then Tom let out a low, horrified sob and dropped his weapon and the man in the green suit crumpled to the ground, the sword’s hilt sticking out of his stomach.

  “I got him,” Tom mouthed, watching the body twitch, his face colorless, his eyes unable to move. “I got him. I got him, sir. I got the Lion.”

  “It’s all right, Tom,” Lawrence told him.

  Tom twitched slightly and turned blank eyes on Lawrence. “I killed him. He ran to me and I killed him. I got him, sir. I’m sorry, sir, I know you wanted him taken alive, but I’m sorry, sir, I’ve killed him.”

  “Grub, can you take Tom downstairs?”

  “I’m fine, sir,” Tom insisted, his voice hollow. “I killed him. I killed the Lion.”

  Lawrence looked at the floor. Albert Marston lay in a pool of his own blood on the bare planks of the hallway. His face was a mask of surprise. He was wearing a green suit identical to the one CeCe described.

  Lawrence said, “Yes, Tom, you did.” He had to hold back his anger. He had wanted the man alive, wanted him to stand trial for what he had done. Wanted him to explain why he did it, why he used Tuesday, why—

  Later, my friend.

  Tuesday had joined them by then. She stared at the man, the man who had been tormenting her so long and felt nothing. Curiosity, perhaps. Not horror. He looked so harmless. So little like a fiend. What had made him into a monster?

  She bent and rolled up his sleeve, just to be sure. There was the scar, the mark of the Lion. She ran her finger over it and the edge peeled off, then the whole thing. She stood up, frowning, and said, “It’s fake. The scar. It’s just wax.”

  Lawrence looked at it in the palm of her hand. “We should have guessed that even that would be part of his disguise.”

  Tuesday could not take her eyes off of it. “I suppose.”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “It’s just odd. Why would he wear it here? Why not conceal himself?”

  “He probably needed the entire disguise to feel powerful, to feel like himself.”

  “Probably.” Her eyes moved to the dead figure and she stared at him searchingly. “I guess we will never really understand why he did that. Why he did anything.”

  Well done, the Lion wanted to tell her. Excellent performance. He was extremely pleased that she had noticed the scar. He had put it there, on purpose, for her. So that even while the others believed he was gone, believed they were safe, she would know that he wasn’t really dead. That he was still coming for her.

  It had been so easy to lure Albert Marston there. All he’d had to do was say that his Lady loved him and the fool came running. As if she would have anything to do with a Worm like him. As if she would Want him.

  The Lion looked around at all of them and wanted to laugh at how solemn they were. None of them knew the good part was still to come. They thought they had killed him, gotten rid of their nemesis. They thought they had vanquished the Lion forever.

  They had no idea that was just part of a plan, a Wondrous plan only now about to come to fruition. Just like the knights in the stories, he would reappear at the Great Tournament and slay the knight of knights. Then, as everyone in the land Watched and Worshiped him, he would be crowned the Winner.

 
; No, the Lion knew exactly what his Lady Wanted. He Wanted the same thing.

  She wanted him to kill Lawrence Pickering.

  Chapter 33

  The silence that had fallen over the corridor was broken by the banging of a walking stick on the staircase.

  “Father, what are you doing up here?” Tuesday asked, swinging around to face the man as he batted his way through the clutch of guards.

  “My house, ain’t it? Man’s allowed to go about his house.”

  “Yes, but—” Tuesday was so amazed to see a man who had claimed not to have the use of his legs for three years walking, that she for a moment forgot about the corpse lying on the floor.

  “Out of my way,” Sir Dennis boomed and the crowds slid apart in front of him. “This is my house and I—”

  Tuesday had moved in front of him, to block his view of Albert Marston, but it was too late. His eyes took on a strange, glassy sheen and he staggered forward toward the body.

  “What is he doing here?” he asked, looking around, suddenly wild-eyed. “How did he get—” He gripped his chest and his eyes rolled into his head and he fell backwards onto CeCe. She staggered under his weight and began to shriek, but it was nothing compared to the horrible gurgling noises that came from Sir Dennis’s throat.

  “Father!” Tuesday flew to him, as the gurgling noises went silent. “Father!” she shouted, shaking him by the shoulders.

  Lawrence came behind her and pulled her away as Grub leaned over the man. “He’s unconscious, sir, but I think he’s breathing.”

  “Someone go for Bianca Foscari,” Lawrence called to the group of men standing, dumbfounded now, along the wall. For a moment the room was entirely silent, the sound of the guard’s footsteps sprinting down the stairs the only noise in the house. And then CeCe began to rock back and forth with a low keening wail. Everyone stared at her, silent, but in that mournful sound she seemed to be speaking for all of them.

  Lawrence did not hear Bianca as she came in. Hours had passed, hours during which CeCe, Tom, and Sir Dennis had all been sedated and put to bed, during which Albert Marston’s body had been removed.

  He should be relieved, he knew. The Lion was dead. Even if they could not interrogate him, he would no longer pose a threat to anyone. But there were so many questions left without answers. Questions that he knew would plague Tuesday even more than they bothered him.

  “Lawrence, Tuesday asked me to check on you,” Bianca said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m fine.” He tried a smile but couldn’t make it work.

  “That was what Tuesday said you would say.”

  “How is she?”

  “She also suggested you might change the subject.”

  “Bianca—”

  “She is fine. She is with her father.”

  “How is he?”

  Bianca looked out the window that Lawrence had been standing in front of all day. “He has suffered some sort of attack. He seems a bit confused, delusional. Sometimes it is hard to make out what he is saying, and at others he seems to be mistaking Tuesday for her mother.”

  Lawrence nodded. “Can I go to her?”

  “I am not sure that is a good idea. I want to keep the number of people in the room to a minimum to diminish his confusion.”

  “What am I supposed to do then?” Lawrence demanded harshly, and was immediately sorry. “I shouldn’t have spoken that way, Bianca. My apologies. I just feel so damn powerless.”

  “I understand,” Bianca said with a laugh. Her own husband reacted identically when confronted with circumstances outside his control. “The best thing would just be to—”

  Bianca stopped speaking because she had lost her audience. Her back had been to the door so she had not seen Tuesday come in, but Lawrence had, and had crossed the room in three strides to pull her into his arms.

  “Tuesday, sweetheart, how are you feeling?” he asked, nuzzling into her hair.

  “Better now.” Nothing had ever seemed as precious to her as he did in that moment. She felt as though everything in her life was being systematically taken from her, as if slowly, some malevolent force were gathering the rug from under her feet and drawing her toward itself. She could think of only one way to stop it. “I love you Lawrence,” she said, invoking the power of those words like some sort of spell against anyone trying to harm her.

  “I love you, too.”

  “I should go back to Father. In case—” she bit her lip and Lawrence held her tighter. “But I had to see you. Just for a moment.”

  They held each other close, sharing strength and compassion and understanding from the embrace. They were still clinging together when Bianca showed herself out. They held each other as if somehow they knew that the sun pouring into the windows of the studio marked the dawn of a day that would change everything.

  “It was like they sensed what was about to happen and were saying good-bye,” Bianca told her husband, Ian, later.

  And then Tuesday went back to her father’s side, and the guards wrote up their last reports, and Christopher arrived with an urgent message for His Lordship, and Lawrence decided to follow it up in person.

  It was the beginning of their last twenty-four hours together.

  Chapter 34

  “Tuesday!” the scream is hollow, beseeching. “Tuesday come out here.”

  The dream is different this time. This time she is watching the woman run, watching the killer get closer to her. This time the voice is not in her head.

  This time, she knows, he is going to catch her. This time she knows who the killer is.

  And who the victim is.

  She follows them, the man dragging the woman. She is outside it, an observer, panting behind them, watching from the bushes.

  “Stop it,” her mother pleads. “Let me go.”

  “I told you what would happen if I caught you, Tuesday,” the killer tells her mother. “I warned you.” His tone is eerily bantering but he is dragging her behind him fast. “I killed him. I had to. It was the only way to get rid of him. The only way to get you to behave.”

  He pulls her into the corridor that runs from the yard into the kitchen and Tuesday follows, hiding now behind a barrel of molasses, now next to a sack of flour. Her mother fights against the killer, trying to regain her feet.

  “I’ll shout,” she threatens the man. “I’ll bring the entire household down on you.”

  The killer stops dragging. He turns around and pulls her mother to him, lifts her off the floor, and gets his face so close, their noses are touching in profile. “Don’t even think of screaming for help. I killed your filthy lover and now I am going to do the same to you. And then I’ll do the same to your filthy bastard children. Do you understand bitch? Answer me?”

  “I understand.”

  Her mother’s voice has changed now. It is calm, not pleading. It is terrifying. Tuesday follows them as they go into the kitchen, through the entry hall, up the stairs. She stands at the bottom of the staircase and sees them fighting on the first landing. Her mother is struggling but the knife is pinned against her throat.

  “No!” Tuesday yells from the bottom of the stairs.

  The killer turns to look at her and Tuesday sees his face. The face she had blocked from all her dreams. Her father’s face.

  She understands this is not just a dream, it’s a memory.

  The killer, her father, turns to look at her and in that instant, from the surprise of seeing her there, his arms go slightly slack.

  Her mother smiles. Pulls away from him. Runs forward two steps—

  NO!!

  —and leaps.

  In her memory, her mother comes flying toward her, flying down the stairs, flying like one of her beloved dragonflies, her body now rolling and tumbling, feet then face then feet, ha ha ha the noise her head makes as it bangs down the stairs, ha ha ha, the sound of Tuesday’s sobs.

  “Mother!” Tuesday shouted
, jolting herself awake. It was all so horribly clear. Now she remembered everything she had kept locked away, everything about the day she had watched her father kill her mother.

  She jumped when her father’s fingers closed on her wrist. “Tuesday, my dearest,” he said, his glassy eyes fixed horribly on her. “You are as beautiful as I remember.”

  Tuesday could not find words, could barely stand to have him touching her.

  “You are so kind to visit me today. I knew you would come one day. I’ve waited for you. I’ve missed you so much over the years.”

  Tuesday swallowed.

  “Our last meeting has weighed so heavily on my mind, Tuesday,” her father said and his voice changed, became clouded with tears. “I did not mean for everything to happen that way, you know. I loved you so much. And then when I saw you with him. John Eliot, the gardener. Why did you love him?” A tear slid down his cheek. “You were going to run away with him. I knew it. And I could not let you. What would people say if you left me? For a gardener? No, I could not let you.”

  “So you killed him?” Tuesday asked.

  “Yes. It was the only thing to do. But you didn’t understand. I just wanted you to see how much I loved you. I had to make you see.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “Have you seen our daughter? She takes after you in every way. I can’t tell you how painful it has been for me to look at her all these years. I have loved you, have missed you, so much.”

  Tuesday bit her lip and felt a tear roll down her cheek.

  “I am sorry for what happened, Tuesday. I am so sorry. But you are an angel now. I can see that. I can see from how beautiful you are.” Sir Dennis sat up slightly, clawing his way up Tuesday’s arm, and something in his eyes changed. “Take me with you, Tuesday. Please. I am frightened. No, don’t leave.” His grip got more insistent. “Forgive me, Tuesday. I have missed you so much. Please, please take me with—” The last word was just a whisper, no more than a soft breath.