His At Night

by Sherry Thomas

  “I can only hope.”

  “I think she will,” said Freddie, his eyes once again shining with that clear earnestness Vere loved so well.

  Vere caught his brother in an embrace. “Thank you, Freddie.”

  He didn’t deserve Freddie’s forgiveness today, but one day he hoped to. One day he would make himself equal to it.

  * * *

  Mrs. Douglas sent Elissande telegrams. She dispatched one upon arriving at each new destination to assure Elissande of her well-being. An enthusiastic paragraph arrived after Vere took her to the Savoy Theatre to watch a comic opera called The Yeomen of the Guard, which she adored even though she was strong enough to sit through only half of the first act. And one very brief cable simply said, Mrs. Green allowed me a spoonful of ice cream. I had forgotten how divine it is.

  Her telegrams also brought news. The first significant piece of news came after she and Vere had met with Douglas’s solicitors. In a will that dated to the beginning of the decade, Douglas had left nothing to his wife and his niece and had instead bequeathed everything to the Church. Elissande had chuckled. Truly, he was nothing if not consistent in his spite.

  A companion cable came from Vere, explaining that not inheriting Douglas’s estate might be a blessing in disguise—Douglas had borrowed heavily against the worth of the diamond mine and could prove to have nothing but debts to bequeath. The Church’s lawyers would have a trying time with this particular gift horse.

  A cable the next day was much more jubilant: Vere had located the jewels that Charlotte Edgerton had bequeathed to Mrs. Douglas, but which Douglas had immediately confiscated. A thousand pounds’ worth of jewels.

  Elissande reread the cable several times. A thousand pounds.

  The morning after Exeter, when she woke up, both Douglas’s diary and the chest were gone from her room. Where the chest had been, there was an elegant ebony box, in which the mementos from Charlotte and Andrew Edgerton were neatly stowed. In her dressing gown, Elissande had stood before the box, her fingertip grazing its edges, and hoped that the gift of the box meant what she wanted it to mean. But her husband had left soon thereafter, with only a solemn word to her to look after herself.

  She had not been able to do much in the two days since his departure, except to try to come to terms with the fact that he had not changed his mind. The last time she had been furious; this time she only grieved. She did not want to lose the man who had held her hand when she most needed him.

  There were ways she could justify remaining longer at Pierce House: She herself first must recover; then the news must be broken very gently to her mother; after that they must take their time and choose where to go.

  But she had already begun to turn on those reasons. If she must leave—and she must—this was as good a time as any, with you are a diamond of the first water still echoing faintly in her ears, rather than tarrying until they wore out their welcome.

  Now, with a thousand pounds at her disposal, they could ponder their eventual destination from anywhere—an inn, a house for let, the Savoy Hotel itself, if they were so inclined. And there was no gentle way of breaking it to her mother, was there? No matter how long she beat about the bushes, the truth of the matter would not dismay Mrs. Douglas any less.

  She directed the maids to pack their belongings—it was less painful to delegate the task—while she tried to cheer herself. A new place, new people, and a brand-new life—those were the things that would have thrilled her during her captive days at Highgate Court. But one look out of the window to the fading but still beautiful garden and her heart would pinch with how much she loved this place, this life, and this man who had taken her mother to see The Yeomen of the Guard at the Savoy Theatre.

  Without quite thinking, she left the house and walked to the spot above the River Dart where she had come across her husband on his long hike. She supposed when they were long gone, he would still walk these acres of rolling countryside, still stop occasionally on a slope to gaze down at the river, his hat by his side, leather patches on the sleeves of his tweed coat.

  And she ached for his long miles of loneliness.

  * * *

  When she returned to the house, she went to her husband’s study.

  Within the first few days of her arrival in Devon, she had seen a book in the study entitled How Women May Earn a Living. Then it had seemed a bizarre tome to come across among the collection of a man who never needed to earn a living; now she’d become accustomed to the broad, deep, and eclectic compilation of knowledge he had at his fingertips.

  As she searched the shelves for the book, her eyes landed on the corner of a postcard that had become wedged between two books. She pulled out the postcard and gasped. The sepia-toned image was all pounding ocean and high cliffs. Capri, her mind immediately decided, before she saw the words at the bottom left corner of the postcard: Exmoor Coast.

  She called in Mrs. Dilwyn to help her find Exmoor Coast on the detailed map of Britain that hung on the wall of the study. It wasn’t that far, a little more than fifty miles away on the north shore of Devon. She showed Mrs. Dilwyn the postcard. “Do you think I will be able to find this particular spot if I am on the Exmoor Coast?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Mrs. Dilwyn after one look. “I’ve been there. It’s the Hangman Cliffs. Lovely place, that.”

  “Do you know how to get there then?”

  “Indeed, ma’am. You take the train from Paignton to Barnstaple, then you take the local branch line and go to Ilfracombe. The cliffs are a few miles more to the east.”

  She thanked Mrs. Dilwyn and spent some more time gazing wistfully at the postcard. Such a place as the Hangman Cliffs was difficult to visit: Her mother would not be able to navigate the steep paths that led to the top.

  The idea came suddenly: She could go by herself. Her mother was not expected home until day after tomorrow. If she left first thing in the morning, she would be back by tomorrow evening, in plenty of time to greet her mother the next day, all the while having experienced what she had dreamed of for so many years: standing atop a precipice above a temperamental sea.

  If she must begin a new era in her life for which she was less than enthusiastic, she might as well end this one on an extraordinarily high note.

  * * *

  “Still thinking of Penny?” Angelica asked.

  “Yes—and no,” said Freddie.

  Freddie had been waiting outside her house when she returned from Derbyshire. And for the past hour and a half they’d talked of nothing but Penny’s revelations, recalling dozens of instances where some words or actions of Penny’s could be reinterpreted in the light of his service to the Crown.

  She had been outraged at first. She and Freddie had always been closer, but Penny had been the godlike elder-brother figure of her childhood. There had been times when she and Freddie had cried together, mourning the young man they both loved, not gone but lost all the same.

  But because Freddie already forgave him, she was, given some time, willing to forgive him too.

  She rang for a fresh pot of tea. All the talking had made her thirsty. “How can you be thinking about him and not be thinking about him at the same time?”

  Freddie looked at her a long moment. “I was glad Penny came clean. And we talked a good hour before he left to take Mrs. Douglas to see her husband’s solicitors. But I was still plenty unsettled after he left and I wanted to speak to you”—he stopped for a second—“and no one else but you. Those were some of the longest twenty-four hours of my life, waiting for you to come back.”

  It was most gratifying to hear. After all the time and effort she’d expended to take them from friends to lovers, now ironically she sometimes worried that their lovemaking—delicious as it was—had taken over everything. Silly of her—of course they were still best friends.

  She smiled at him. “I’d have returned sooner if I’d known.”

  He didn’t quite return her smile, but reached for the teapot instead.
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br />   “There’s no more tea in there,” she reminded him.

  He reddened slightly. “Well, of course not. You rang for a new pot just now, didn’t you?”

  Fresh tea arrived. She poured for both of them. He raised his teacup.

  “Don’t you want some milk and sugar?” He never drank his tea black.

  He reddened further, set down his teacup, and rubbed his fingers across his forehead. “I still haven’t answered your question, have I?”

  She’d already forgotten what question she’d asked. Somehow his sudden nerves made her tense too.

  But he seemed to have made up his mind, whatever it was. He gazed directly at her, his voice firm. “I’ve struggled for a while now to characterize what it is I feel for you, which is so much more potent than friendship, yet nothing like what I have experienced of love.”

  She had been reaching for a biscuit. Her hand stopped in the air. She had to force her fingers to close around the biscuit. They’d yet to bring up the word love in conversation—at least not with regard to the two of them.

  “With Lady Tremaine, I was always the humble worshiper. Every time I walked into her drawing room, I felt as if I were an acolyte approaching the altar of a goddess. It was electrifying and unnerving at the same time. But your drawing room has been more like an extension of my own home. And I didn’t know how to interpret that.”

  Their eyes met. She had no idea, she realized, not a single one, what he would say next. Her heart struggled to contain her dread—and a rising anticipation.

  “And then this wait for you to come back. As I walked up and down the street outside, I realized at some point that I never went to Lady Tremaine unless I felt I had something to offer. When I called on her just because I wanted to see her, I always feared that I’d wasted her time.

  “But you I want to see in all my moods. When I’m particularly pleased, when I’m simply going about my day, when I’m utterly overwhelmed, as I was yesterday and today. And it honors me that when I bring myself, I seem to have brought enough for you.”

  Her hand unclenched from the biscuit, which she’d crushed into several pieces in her palm. She let the pieces drop onto the tablecloth and breathed again.

  “In doing what he did, Penny took me for granted. But he wasn’t alone in it: I took him for granted also, before his ‘accident.’” He smiled slightly, his eyes deep and warm. “Like Penny, you too have been a pillar of my life, which would have been far less meaningful without you. And yet I’ve taken you for granted too.”

  He came out of his seat. It seemed only natural that she should rise also—clasp his hands in hers.

  “I don’t want to take you for granted ever again, Angelica. Will you marry me?”

  She drew back one hand and covered her mouth. “You have become full of surprises, Freddie!”

  “Whereas you have been the best surprise of my life.”

  A surge of pure happiness nearly knocked her over. And of course he meant every word—he never said anything he didn’t wholeheartedly mean.

  “I can’t imagine a better way to go through life than with you beside me,” he continued.

  “Constantly reminding you not to take me for granted?” she jested. She might start blubbering otherwise.

  He chuckled. “Well, maybe not constantly. Quarter days should be fine.” Placing his hands on her arms, he gazed into her eyes. “Does this mean you have said yes?”

  “Yes,” she said simply.

  He kissed her, and then held her tight a long time. “I love you.”

  The words were sweeter than she’d thought possible—and she had exorbitant expectations, having wanted to hear them for so many years.

  “I love you, too,” she said. She pulled back a few inches and winked at him. “A second nude portrait to commemorate our engagement?”

  He laughed and crushed her to him for another kiss.

  * * *

  Ilfracombe was a severe disappointment. A fog as thick as old porridge had come to make chill, damp love to the coast. Visibility was so reduced street lamps had to remain lit during the day, faint rings of mustard-colored light amidst gray vapors that hid everything farther than five feet from Elissande’s person.

  She did derive some pleasure from being on the coast: the smell of the sea, bracing and salty; the surf crashing wild and harsh upon unseen cliffs, nothing like the gentle tides of Torbay; the deep tenor of foghorns from passing ships in the Bristol Channel, forlornly romantic.

  She decided to stay the night. Should the fog clear, there would be enough time in the morning to see the cliffs and return to Pierce House—she was schooling herself to stop thinking of it as home—ahead of her mother and her husband.

  And then she must break the news to her mother and bid adieu to her marriage.

  * * *

  At the sight of the suitcases in his wife’s room, a fist closed around Vere’s heart.

  He and Mrs. Douglas had arrived in London in mid-afternoon. There was no question of further travel the rest of the day for the exhausted older woman. Vere put her and Mrs. Green up at the Savoy Hotel, then rushed home by himself. Now that he’d spoken to Freddie, there was so much he needed to tell his wife: how stupid he’d been, how badly he missed her, and how eager he was for their marriage to begin anew.

  He pulled open her drawers—empty. He yanked open the doors of her armoire—empty. He glanced at her vanity table, empty except for one single comb. And then a sight that made his stomach lurch: a book on her nightstand entitled How Women May Earn a Living.

  She was leaving.

  He sprinted downstairs and grabbed Mrs. Dilwyn. “Where’s Lady Vere?”

  He could not disguise his distress, his voice loud and brusque.

  Mrs. Dilwyn was taken aback by his abruptness. “Lady Vere has gone to the Hangman Cliffs, sir.”

  He tried to digest this information and failed. “Why?”

  “She saw a postcard in your study yesterday and thought the view marvelous. And since you and Mrs. Douglas weren’t expected until tomorrow, she decided to go first thing today.”

  It was almost dinnertime. “Shouldn’t she have returned already?”

  “She cabled an hour ago, sir. She has decided to stay the night. It was foggy on the coast today and she wasn’t able to see anything. She hopes for better weather in the morning.”

  “The Hangman Cliffs—so she would have gone to Ilfracombe,” he said, as much to himself as to Mrs. Dilwyn.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He was out of the house before she’d finished speaking.

  * * *

  The sun seared her eyes, the sky so harshly bright it was nearly white. An arid mountain gale blasted. She was desiccated, her skin as fragile as paper, her throat sandy with thirst.

  She tried to move. But her wrists were already bloody from her struggles against her chains, chains sunk deep into the bones of the Caucasus.

  The piercing cry of an eagle made her renew her struggle, a frenzy of pain and futility. The eagle glided closer on dark wings, casting a shadow over her. As it plunged into her, knife-sharp beak gleaming, she twisted her head back and thrashed in agony.

  “Wake up, Elissande,” whispered a man, something at once authoritative and soothing about his voice. “Wake up.”

  She did. She sat up, panting. A hand settled on her shoulder. She wrapped her own fingers around it, reassured by its warmth and strength.

  “Do you want some water?” asked her husband.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  A glass of water found its way into her hand. And when she had quenched her thirst, he took the glass away.

  Suddenly she remembered where she was: not in her room at home—Pierce House—but at a hotel in Ilfracombe—a hotel that looked out to the harbor, but from the windows of which she had barely been able to see even the street outside.

  “How did you find me?” she asked, amazed and baffled, while an excitement, so hot it singed, began pulsing through her veins.

&n
bsp; “Rather easily—there are only eight hotels in Ilfracombe listed in the travel handbook I bought on my way. Of course, no reputable hotel would give out a lady’s room number—I had to use slightly underhanded means to gain that information once I found out where you were staying. And then it was just a matter of picking your lock and dealing with the dead bolt.”

  She shook her head. “You could have just knocked.”

  “I have a bad habit: After midnight I don’t knock.”

  She heard the smile in his voice. Her heart thudded. She dropped her hand, which had been clasped about his. “What are you doing here?”

  He did not answer her, but only spread his fingers on her shoulder. “Was it the same nightmare you told me about—the one in which you are chained like Prometheus?”

  She nodded. He would have felt her motion, for his hand had moved to just below her ear.

  “Would you like me to tell you about Capri, to help you forget it?”

  He must have stepped closer to her; she became aware of the scent of the fog that still clung to his coat. She nodded again.

  “‘Looking seaward from Naples, the island of Capri lies across the throat of the bay like a vast natural breakwater, grand in all its proportions, and marvelously picturesque in outline,’” he spoke softly, his voice clear and beguiling.

  She started. She recognized those lines: They were from her favorite book on Capri, which she had lost when her uncle purged his library.

  “‘Long ago, an English traveler compared it to a couchant lion,’” he continued. “‘Jean Paul, on the strength of some picture he had seen, pronounced it to be a sphinx; while Gregorovius, most imaginative of all, finds that it is an antique sarcophagus, with bas-reliefs of snaky-haired Eumenides, and the figure of Tiberius lying upon it.’”

  He eased her back down on the bed. “Do you want to hear more?”

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  He undressed, tossing down one garment after another, the clothes landing with the softest of plops that made her throat hot and her heart wild.

  “‘Capri is not strictly a byway of travel.’” He removed her nightdress and skimmed his fingers down her side. “‘Most of the tourists take the little baysteamer from Naples, visit the Blue Grotto, touch an hour at the marina, and return the same evening via Sorrento.’”