I was staring at her, stupefied. It sounded like something out of a picaresque novel. She gave me her little enigmatic smile.
"I know, it sounds fantastic. But that is how it ended, between Nicky and me. He fled for his life and I owed his salvation to my husband. I was so grateful to Serge, he risked so much to save Nicholas, just to make me happy. Do not worry, I repaid him amply," she said, falling into a fit of warm, honeyed laughter. "So much has changed since then, but so much is still the same. Nicky is proud. No matter what he says about not caring, he does. Those little thorn pricks hurt—sometimes more than the sword."
I nodded, remembering his bitter words about the taunts of his cousins. "I think you are right. I know it was difficult for him as a child, and is still so with his family. He told me he is not angry that I discovered his birth. Perhaps he is growing more comfortable with it."
"Perhaps. He is more than thirty-five now. Men begin to change then, to grow more serious, more wise about the things that matter."
"You are right, I am sure. He said he does not care if the truth comes out and he is finished in society. He said he merely cultivates respectability because it brings him more lucrative business."
Again that sweet, warm laugh. "That sounds like Nicky. A bit of a pirate at heart, no?"
I grinned at her. "More than a bit, I should think." I felt my smile fade as I thought of something else I had long wanted to ask her. "Fleur, when Brisbane came here to you to convalesce—that is, I wondered if his health—I mean, his headaches…"
She gave me a pitying look, understanding, I think, what I was trying to ask and why I wanted to know.
"I only ask because he seems to suffer so, and his man, Monk, said he has been to doctors. His remedies are unorthodox, dangerous, I fear. I hoped something could be done for him. Please do not tell him I spoke to Monk. He does not know. I just thought that if I knew more about them, if we could discover the cause, perhaps I could help," I finished lamely.
"My poor child, you really do not know?" Her eyes were warm, pitying, the same expression I had seen in Father's eyes when I was nine years old and he had to tell me that my favorite cat had been struck by a cart. "There is no help for Nicky because he does not wish it. He knows perfectly well what causes them."
I put down my glass, careful not to shatter it although my hands were shaking. "He knows what causes them? Then why does he not take steps? Surely something can be done."
She was shaking her head, resigned. "No, for Nicky the cost is too high. To fight the headaches would mean embracing what he truly is, and this he cannot do."
"Fleur, you mystify me. Stop speaking in riddles!" I demanded, angry and a little frightened now.
Her eyes were fixed on my face, still pitying, but now I found it condescending rather than kind. I was growing tired of Fleur and her enigmatic conversation.
"It is very simple, my dear. Nicky has the second sight."
Out of kindness I did not laugh. But I did smile.
"Fleur, surely you are jesting."
Her face was composed and serious. "I am not. Nicholas has the sight. He comes from a long line of Roma with the same gift. Or curse, as he calls it."
I shook my head. "I cannot believe it. The second sight! That is a fairy story for children. Surely you do not believe it."
"But I do. I was as disbelieving as you at first," she assured me, "but there is no other explanation." She hesitated, weighing her words. "I will tell you the truth now, my dear, about why Nicky had to leave Buda-Pesth. It was not because he spoke Romany in front of someone he oughtn't. The truth is much worse. There was a child, a little boy, perhaps five years old. His father was a very important man, a count—very wealthy, very well connected. The boy disappeared one day when he was in the park with his nurse. She looked away for a few minutes, and poof—" she snapped her fingers "—he was gone. The father was in agonies, he drew upon all of his influential friends. The entire city was searched, but they did not find him. Two days went by and still he was not found. That night Nicky had a dream, a terrible dream. He woke screaming, bathed in sweat—he was wild-eyed, like a child waking from a nightmare. He did not even know what he was screaming."
My mouth had gone dry, but my palms were wet. "What was he screaming?"
It might have been a trick of the light, but for a moment her face fell and I could see every one of her sixty years. "He was screaming, 'No, Father, don't let him kill me.' He was screaming in a child's voice, you see."
"A nightmare," I said firmly. "It proves nothing. Anyone might have dreamed it."
Fleur went on, her voice flat now. She told the rest of the story plainly, without emotion. "Nicholas was getting by in Hungary with his excellent French and a bit of German. He never bothered to learn Hungarian," she said, watching me closely.
I swallowed hard. "And that night—"
"He spoke perfect Hungarian. In the voice of a child," she said softly. "When he woke, he was able to give a perfect description of where the boy had been taken—a place he had never been and did not know existed."
We were silent a moment. "That is extraordinary," I managed finally. She smiled thinly.
"That is not all. His description was a child's as well. He told of what a child would see, what a child would remember. It was as if he was that child. When they followed the directions he gave them, they found the boy. He had been murdered, savagely, at the hands of a madman. And the first person they suspected—"
"Nicholas," I breathed.
She gave a Gallic, offhand little shrug. "Of course. It was only logical. Who else could have known where the child would be found but the man who put him there? It was all I could do to get him out of the city before they came for him. It was another fortnight before the true murderer was discovered in the act of attempting to take another child. It was proved beyond doubt that he killed the first boy. He even confessed to it before his execution."
"They might have hanged him," I commented softly.
Fleur shook her head, her expression profoundly sad. "It was not that which nearly destroyed him. It was the dream itself. It was real to him, as real as if he had lived it. He did live it. He was as terrified, as tormented as that boy had been. He told me that he had had such dreams, sometimes while sleeping, sometimes awake, for many years. He had tried to control them, to push them away. He took things—sometimes to make him sleep too deeply for the dreams, sometimes to keep him wakeful for days at a time. He always felt them coming on, often days in advance, he told me, like storm clouds gathering in his brain. Sometimes he was successful in keeping them at bay. But there were other times…the dreams were simply too strong. And when he was fighting them, pushing them down, the headaches would come. Solomon's choice, no? The vicious headaches, or the horrible dreams. He hates those dreams. They are a legacy of his Gypsy blood. His mother's people are famous for them. Perhaps that reason, more than any other, is why he has turned his back on his own kind."
I sat, feeling limp and exhausted by her story. I could not imagine what it must be like to live such a life, seizing any means of escaping from one's own mind…like a wounded animal gnawing at a trapped leg.
"That was what was wrong with him, when he came to you. He was recovering from one of those dreams."
She nodded. "It was. He had tried desperately to keep one of those visions at bay."
"Was he successful?"
"Not entirely. He saw enough to frighten him deeply." Her eyes were guarded. Much as she appeared to enjoy my company, her loyalty was with Brisbane. I do not think she would have told me the full truth, not even then, had I not already known. She must have seen the fear in my face, for I knew I could not mask it. I did not want to ask her, but I did.
"What did he dream of?" I asked in a thin, bloodless voice.
"My dear…" She stretched out her hand and touched mine. "He dreamed of you."
THE THIRTY-FOURTH CHAPTER
Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.
&nb
sp; —William Shakespeare
Hamlet
She could tell me nothing more. When she had asked him about the dream, Nicholas had murmured my name. That was all. Whether I was in peril or simply a bystander in his vision, she could not say.I was not comforted. The details she had given me about his time in Hungary left me chilled and nervous. In spite of myself, I cast glances over my shoulder as I returned to Grey House. No one lurked there, but I felt better when the door was shut and I was safely locked behind my own door once more.
Fleur had apologized of course. She had not meant to alarm me. She pointed to Brisbane's absence and insisted that he would never have left London if he believed I was in any true danger.
This did not ease my mind. I thought of what he had told me when we began our investigation. He had warned me of the danger, but I had not heeded him. I had thought it all a marvelous game, a parlor trick to winkle out a murderer before he guessed I was on his trail.
I had been very, very stupid. I could see it now. I had confided in a few trusted souls. But should I? Were they worthy of my trust? Or were they simply waiting for that perfect moment when my attention faltered to give me a gentle nudge down a steep staircase? An innocent glove, laced with poison…a box of chocolates, envenomed with a pin…I sat in my study, torturing myself for the better part of an hour before I came to my senses. Honestly. I was no better than that stupid girl in Northanger Abbey, seeing danger behind every bush, villains behind every door. The only thing to do, in spite of Brisbane's warning, was to proceed with the investigation. The sooner the murderer was unmasked, the sooner the danger would be past.
Resolute, I pulled out a little notebook, wrote down everything, laying out all of the clues we had discovered, noting each of the developments that had led us to this point, and the blind alleys that had led us nowhere. I wrote tirelessly, knowing that if I just put it all down, somehow, something would leap off the page at me.
And there it was. So simple I could not believe it had not occurred to me or to Brisbane before. The Psalter. We knew the text of the message I had found because it was still in our possession. But what of the others? They, too, had been scissored from the holy book. Was there a reason those particular passages had been chosen? The scripture we had seen referred to wickedness. Were the others more specific? Did they point to a particular wrong that Edward had committed against the sender?
Fired with new enthusiasm, I fetched the ruined Psalter and an old Bible from the bookshelves. Comparing them carefully, I noted down the exact verses that had been fashioned into threats for Edward. There were eight of them altogether, including the last, the one I had found hidden away in Edward's desk. I wrote them out onto a single sheet of paper and studied them.
The first was a warning, it seemed.
The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
The second was much in the same vein.
For lo, they that are far from thee shall perish; thou hast destroyed all them that go whoring from thee.
Three and four were grimmer.
God shall likewise destroy thee forever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living.
Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell; for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.
Five and six continued, more vicious than the ones before.
But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction; bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days, but I will trust in thee.
As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish in the presence of God.
I hardly had the stomach to read the last two.
But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume; into the smoke shall they consume away.
Let me not be ashamed, O Lord; for I have called upon thee; let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.
I sat back, the words running like mad squirrels through my mind. So much talk of wickedness and destruction. Clearly the sender was accusing Edward of some evil, but what? There was talk of shame and deceit and destruction by fire, all vague enough. But there was one word that caught my eye. Whoring. Was it significant that the sender had chosen this verse, perhaps the only one in the entire Psalter to contain that particular word? If so, it pointed very clearly in one direction. The brothel.
The one place that I could not investigate while Brisbane was out of town. I cursed him inwardly, as well as my own inability to get the information I required for myself. I could again assume a disguise and attempt to go myself, but I had taken Brisbane's warning to heart. I felt, with some appalling certainty, that Brisbane would have had far more experience with such places than I. If he said there were thugs outside whose sole purpose was to inflict torture on the curious and the unruly, I had little doubt there were. I did not need to see them for myself. What I needed was a man. And I knew precisely where to find one.
THE THIRTY-FIFTH CHAPTER
Many will swoon when they do look on blood.
—William Shakespeare
As You Like It
"Absolutely not," Valerius said when I presented my plan to him. "You must be barking mad.""I am not. I simply want you to go to Pandora's Box and ask a few questions for me. Surely that is not too much to ask."
"But it is! Putting aside for just a moment the wild impropriety of what you are asking, it is dangerous."
I sighed and pushed away my dessert plate. I had not expected him to be so difficult. I had presented him with a definite plan, beautifully conceived and completely financed by me. All that was required of Val was a little pretense. He had only to present himself at the brothel and request the company of a young lady. Once in private, he could ply her with a handsome gift of money to answer a few questions I would provide. It all seemed quite uncomplicated to me. He need not even scruple to undress the poor girl. She would earn her fee for nothing more strenuous than a little conversation, and the proprietress need never know. I pointed all of this out to Valerius. He said nothing, but sat, contemplating his pudding.
"I cannot," he said finally. His eyes did not meet mine. "I wish I could oblige you, but I cannot, Julia. Please do not ask me."
"No, no, of course," I said, my voice chill with anger. "I have asked too much of you. A few questions of a poor prostitute, that was all. But there are other questions, you know, Valerius. Questions that I could ask you. Questions about the night you came home with a bloody shirt and a feeble explanation. Oh, I believed it the first time. But not the second."
He had gone very white, his lips bloodless where they pressed tightly together. He said nothing, and I went on, keeping my voice low and smooth.
"I did not ask, Valerius, even though I realized then that there were many such nights, many such shirts. And I did not ask about Magda, even when I found arsenic in her room and she admitted that she wanted to poison you—even then I did not ask."
He started, his complexion draining to white. "What? What do you mean about Magda?"
I took a sip of my wine. "She kept arsenic in her room. She meant to kill you with it because of what you had done to Carolina."
"Carolina! You cannot think I had anything to do with that awful business!"
I did not listen to his words. I had expected a denial. Instead I watched his skin, observing the warm flush of colour into his pale cheeks, the wildness of those lovely eyes. I had always known when Valerius was lying as a child. His neck would grow spotted red, even to the tips of his ears. But now, as his natural colour came flooding back, it did not deepen. His neck and ears were pale and unblemished.
"She said that you…" I paused. Had she ever named him? I thought back on our conversation. Had either of us?
Val leaned forward, earnest but not pleading. "I promise you, Julia, I had nothing to do with Caro
lina's exhumation. What I have done is terrible enough, but never that."
I looked at him sharply. "Valerius, we must have truth between us. Tell me. All of it."
He nodded, and I saw a gravity in his face I had not seen before. For the first time, I saw the man and not the child.
"I cannot go to Pandora's Box for you, because I am too familiar there. They know me."
I took another sip of wine, rough against my dry throat. "Go on."
"You know that Father will not permit me to open my own practice. You cannot imagine what that means, to be denied the chance to do the only thing that I can do well. And I can do it. I could be a very fine physician, Julia."
He spoke quietly, without pleading. I gave him credit for that much. There was no petulance in his tone, only the sober dignity of a grown man.
"Are you saying that you do not patronize this place as a client? That you are their physician?" I tried to mask the incredulity in my voice, but I heard it, and so did he.
He smiled faintly. "Julia, if you could but see them, you would understand why I am not tempted. They are pitiful creatures, most of them. Pretty enough, for a few years, when they are young, before disease and rough trade coarsen them. That life ages them quickly. And there are so few people like Aunt Hermia who care to help them. She gives aid to those who have already left the trade. I do what I can for those still in it. I spend a few days each week at Pandora's Box, administering treatment to their prostitutes and to those from the other brothels run by the same owner. Sometimes I am called in the evenings, if there is an emergency. The proprietress pays for their medical care, but I give the money to Aunt Hermia for her mission. It is all I can do."
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