If His Kiss Is Wicked

by Jo Goodman

  Restell had learned that silence was often the key to confession. When she did not respond immediately, he waited her out. He continued to study her as though he had long ago penetrated her veil and knew the nuances of her every expression, and when he had the urge to break the silence, he cautioned himself to wait that bit much longer.

  In the end, he was rewarded for his patience.

  She lifted the veil.

  Restell had seen men leave the boxing ring after three rounds of rough sparring with fewer bruises than this woman had. The evidence of her beating had faded, to be sure, but there was color enough remaining to determine where the blows had landed. Beneath both eyes she sported deep violet shadows, proof that her nose had been broken if not completely smashed. Her complexion was suffused with the yellow hue associated with jaundice. In her case it was further confirmation of the fists she had endured. Her left cheek looked to be more tender than her right one; faint swelling was still visible across the arch. A thin cut on her lower lip had not healed, most likely because when she spoke it was laid open again. He could make out the faint line of bruising along one side of her neck. The high collar of her walking gown obscured what had been done to her throat, but Restell imagined mottled thumbprints at the hollow between her collarbones as testament that she had been choked, probably within a single breath of her life.

  Restell took in the whole of her countenance in a single glance, then sought to see beneath it. The contusions obscured her features almost as well as the veil. Restell had to peel back every distended layer of bruising to find the true shape of her face.

  She had a fine bone structure: a pared nose that had been set straight by a firm and skillful hand, a high arch to her cheeks that was made more prominent by the hollow beneath, a slender jaw held firmly—perhaps painfully—in place. Her eyes had a vaguely exotic slant to them that Restell supposed she could use to great effect if she lowered her lashes even a fraction. What she did, however, was hold his stare directly and give no quarter. The consequence of such forthrightness was that Restell only noted the color of her eyes upon his second appraisal.

  “I had not imagined you would be so young,” he said, echoing her earlier observation. “I am generally a better judge.”

  “Ah, yes, but you can see for yourself that I have recently garnered considerable life experience.”

  “Yes,” he said, dipping his head in acknowledgment. “Yes, you have.” Restell sat forward in his chair. “This was not done by someone you know?”

  “No.”

  “Are you quite certain? Your father? Brother? Someone you do not want to reveal just yet. A lover, mayhap?”

  “Why do you persist in thinking it is someone I know? I would tell you if that were the case, else why would I come?”

  “Precisely. But many women do not tell it all, at least not at the outset. Fear, I suspect is the reason for it. Some are afraid of their tormentor; others are afraid to hope that anything can be done. Even when I explain that it is better that I know the whole of it at the first interview, the truth seems to reveal itself over time.”

  “A consequence of learning to trust you, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “You may well be right. Perhaps I expect too much.” He shrugged and leaned back again, crossing his legs at the ankle. “Why hasn’t anyone approached me on your behalf? You said you overheard Bettany discussing my talents with someone. Why hasn’t that person followed where the good doctor pointed?”

  “I can’t be sure. I didn’t ask.”

  “You must have wondered. What are your thoughts?”

  She pressed her lips together, frowning slightly, then released her reticule long enough to press the back of her fingers against her mouth. She examined her glove for evidence of blood. Before she could find her handkerchief, Restell was standing before her, offering his own.

  “Thank you.” She dabbed her lower lip with the linen. “It will never heal if I persist on worrying it. I cannot seem to break myself of the habit.” She withdrew the handkerchief, saw that she had stemmed the bleeding, and began folding the linen into a neat square.

  “You may keep it,” Restell said, returning to his chair. “I will not be put off my questioning and will give you cause to have need of it again. Now, tell me why you think no one save you has applied to me.” He watched her take a steadying breath while he held his own and waited to see what she would do.

  “I think it is because it’s believed the danger is past, or rather that the danger existed only because I presented opportunity for it.”

  “You will have to explain the last.”

  “I mean that if I had not been just where I was no ill would have befallen me. I have thought a great deal about that.”

  “I see. So you are at fault for what happened.”

  “At fault?” Her eyebrows lifted in tandem. “No, I do not accept that. I am responsible for being where I was and that is all.”

  “So the thinking of your family is that this assault was random, one of opportunity rather than deliberate design.”

  “I have supposed that is their thinking. As I mentioned, I didn’t ask.”

  “I do not recall reading an account of any assault such as you experienced in the Gazette. Did it happen here in London?”

  “It began here. It ended in Walthamstow. Are you familiar?”

  “I know where it is. Waltham Abbey is not far from there, I believe.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you telling me you were abducted in London and taken to Walthamstow?”

  “Walthamstow is where I was able to get away. I cannot say how long they meant to remain there.”

  “They?”

  “There were two men, though sometimes it seems to me there was a third.”

  Restell kept his gaze steady, taking in this information as if it did not twist his gut. If she was willing to tell him, the very least he could do was honor her courage. “Your bruises look more than a week old. How long ago did this happen?”

  “A bit less than three weeks. I am told I made my escape only days after I was assaulted behind Madame Chabrier’s establishment. I cannot account for the time myself as it seemed to take no longer than the blink of an eye, yet was simultaneously only a few moments shy of forever. Because of the kindness of the village’s innkeeper and his wife, I was able to send word to my family and was reunited soon after.”

  It was clearer to Restell why he’d heard no account of the abduction or her maltreatment. A family of some means and reputation would go to great lengths to keep such a matter quiet. Whether or not she bore any responsibility for events, whether or not she was sorely abused, it would be society’s judgment that she was ruined. Restell thought that perhaps it was a judgment shared by her family.

  “You were alone at the time of the abduction?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I had not even my maid with me. It seems foolish now, but I cannot regret it as I think she might have been killed if she’d accompanied me.”

  Restell considered her attire again. “You are not in mourning.”

  She was silent for a moment, her expression grave. “Only as it applies to me,” she said with quiet dignity. “I mourn the loss of self, of that part of me that enjoyed freedom of movement and freedom from fear. I might have been here days earlier if I could have left my home. I had opportunity but could not will myself to step outside. Twice I dressed and approached the door. Twice I retreated to my room. Today I took two spoonfuls of laudanum and depended upon their soporific consequences to help me find a balm for my terror. Do not suppose that I am muddleheaded because of my actions. The long wait in your drawing room did much to remove that effect.”

  “And are you fearful now?”

  “Sick with it.”

  “Yet you sit so composed.”

  “I cannot move.” She smiled slightly, sipping air as though through a straw. “I can barely breathe.”

  Her courage left him humbled. Some day he would tell her so, but not just now,
not when a kind word might very well sabotage her resolve. “What do you suppose I can do for you?”

  She did not answer this directly. That didn’t entirely surprise him as she seemed more comfortable coming at a thing sideways.

  “I am Emmalyn Hathaway,” she said after a long moment. “Miss Emmalyn Hathaway.”

  As he’d suspected, her name meant nothing to him. “It is a very real honor to meet you, Miss Hathaway.” She gave no indication that she reciprocated the sentiment or even that she believed him.

  “My parents were Elliot and Teresa Hathaway, late of Peterborough.”

  Restell realized he hadn’t been wrong about her accent. Peterborough was in Northhamptonshire.

  “And later still,” she continued, “of the fair ship Emily Pepper that was lost with all hands and passengers somewhere south of Ceylon.”

  “I know of the Emily Pepper,” he said. In addition to apparently carrying Miss Hathaway’s parents, the ship had been carrying a king’s ransom worth of silks and teas. He had contemplated investing in the ship, but as he researched its prospects and, more importantly, its master, he had advised himself and others against it. The demise of the Emily Pepper and the loss of her crew, passengers, and cargo had spelled something of a reversal in his own fortunes.

  People began to take him seriously.

  Restell did not share this with Miss Hathaway. It would be difficult for anyone to reconcile the death of one’s parents with the pivotal juncture it had been in his life, even more so because he was so ambivalent about the change it had wrought.

  He realized the anniversary of the Emily Pepper’s sinking was almost upon them. “Three years next week,” he said, and didn’t realize he had spoken aloud until she stared at him. Her eyes were more green than blue, the color of water rushing toward the sea, not coming up from it, the color he had always imagined aquamarine should be and wasn’t. “Three years,” he said again, softly. “But then you know that.”

  She nodded. “Indeed.”

  “You are not alone, though. I believe you mentioned family. Brothers? Sisters?”

  “Neither. I live with my uncle and cousin. Uncle Arthur is my mother’s brother. My aunt died many years ago and he never remarried. Marisol is also their only child.”

  “She is of an age with you?”

  “There are four years between us. She is eighteen.”

  Restell realized that Miss Hathaway was even younger than his second estimation of her age, and he was not successful in keeping this revelation to himself. The tiniest lift of his left eyebrow gave him away.

  “You are surprised,” she said. “When you remarked that I was so young, where did you place my age?”

  Recovering his misstep, Restell said, “I do not think it would be politic to answer that.”

  Her slight smile communicated an appreciation for his response and that no offense had been taken. “You thought I was still older than you, I’d wager.”

  “You won’t wheedle it out of me.”

  “It is a common enough error. I am judged by most people to be an ape-leader, a term generally assigned to a woman some seven to ten years my senior with no prospects for marriage. I mention it lest you think that it is my recent experience that has aged me. I assure you, that is not the case. I have always been accounted to be older than my years.” She shrugged lightly. “A consequence of a serious temperament, I suppose, and an application of one’s mind to study.”

  “No ape-leader, then, but a bluestocking.”

  “If I were a man, you would call me a scholar.”

  For all that her rebuke was softly spoken, Restell felt its sting sharply. “You are quite right. It was a fatuous comment and wholly undeserved. I beg your pardon.”

  “You needn’t fall on your sword, Mr. Gardner. You have not scarred me.”

  Restell felt the tug of an appreciative smile and gave into it. “You are a singular piece of work, Miss Hathaway.”

  “Am I to take that as a compliment?”

  “I certainly meant it as one; how you take it is entirely up to you.” When she offered no rejoinder or gave an indication of the bent of her mind, Restell continued his questioning. “Your Uncle Arthur is well set up?”

  “You are referring to his finances.”

  “Yes.”

  “He lives quite comfortably. Is it important? You are concerned about your fee, no doubt.”

  “We will discuss the matter of my fee if I decide to accept you as my client. It has no bearing on my question. I was wondering if your abductors could have had reasonable expectation of a ransom.”

  “A ransom? For me?”

  “Your uncle would not have paid for your safe return?”

  “Yes…yes, of course he would…it’s just that…”

  “Yes?”

  “There is much I don’t remember about what happened.”

  Restell watched her suck in her lower lip and worry it until she bit the tender spot. He almost winced on her behalf. She made a moue of apology and pressed his handkerchief against her lip. “Is there some question in your mind that there might have been a demand of ransom?” he asked.

  “There’s never been any hint of it, at least to me. Neither my uncle nor Marisol have indicated that they knew of such.”

  Restell marked the hesitation in her speech as signifying she was mulling over some aspect of her answer even as she gave it. “There is something more,” he said, “something you are perhaps only now considering. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  Pulled abruptly to the present, she blinked widely as her chin came up. “It is just that I should have wondered about a demand for money myself. It fits with what has occupied my thinking of late, so I am disappointed that it didn’t occur to me.”

  Sighing, Restell picked up the letter opener again and beat an absent tattoo against the edge of his desk. He felt rather like his childhood tutor who marked time with a ruler while he waited for a proper answer to his question. Glancing sideways at the letter opener, he wondered if it was as threatening as the ruler had been. He supposed that depended on whether Miss Hathaway thought he could be moved to rap it sharply across her knuckles.

  “That is rather less information than I expect from a scholarly mind, Miss Hathaway. The whole of it, please.”

  “I am coming to that, Mr. Gardner, only you must stop banging the desk. The sound is like a timpani inside my head.”

  Restell hit it once more before stopping. He kept the letter opener in his hand, suggestive of a warning, then used it as a conductor might use a baton to encourage her to begin again. Her perfectly splendid eyes narrowed slightly, and Restell counted it as a good thing that she was not easily managed.

  “I have had the suspicion for some time that the attack against me was not one of impulse and opportunity. I believe that Marisol may have been the intended victim.”

  “Your cousin?”

  “Yes. Miss Marisol Vega.”

  “Your uncle is Arthur Vega? Pardon me, I believe he is now Sir Arthur.”

  “Yes. He is greatly honored by the crown’s recognition. Have you met?”

  “I have been privileged to view several of his paintings, but we are not acquainted. If I am not mistaken, my mother recently purchased one of his recent works.” It reminded him that he must needs pay more attention to Lady Gardner when she rattled on about her views concerning art, fashion, and the theatre. It was too depressing for words.

  “You’re frowning,” she said. “You don’t find my uncle’s work to your taste?”

  “What I have seen I like well enough. I have not called upon Lady Gardner this past fortnight, so I cannot render an opinion about her latest acquisition. Although I generally take the time to form a well-reasoned position regarding matters of style, color, and brushstrokes, it is of no account to anyone but me. The sad fact of it is that I am a philistine, Miss Hathaway.”

  “You are kind to warn me.”

  Restell slid the letter opener aside. “Your uncle is c
omfortably set then.”

  “I believe I have already said so. His paintings command a goodly sum.”

  He waited to see if she would say that her uncle was also an inveterate gamer. Restell had had occasion to see his distinctive signature in the gaming books—and recently. One did not necessarily have to meet a man to know something about him, especially in the circle of the ton where gossip was the currency of exchange.

  “Do you have any doubt that he would have met a ransom demand for his daughter?”

  “Not one. Marisol is everything to him.”

  “Even if the demand was more than he could properly afford?”

  “There is no such amount. He would have found the means to do so. She is beloved.”

  “Do you believe there would have been a demand for money if she had been taken?”

  “It seems possible, though that supposes she was indeed marked for the abduction.”

  “It’s your contention that she was,” he reminded her. “Tell me why.”

  “I went to Madame Chabrier’s in her place. I borrowed her bonnet and her favorite pelisse. Marisol and I are not so dissimilar in height or frame or coloring, and I have heard it said that there is a passing resemblance between us.”

  “You don’t believe that?”

  “I would be flattering myself too much to agree that an abiding likeness exists. Marisol is acknowledged to be a beauty. At a glance, however, especially if one did not know us well or had only a description to identify us, a mistake might be made.”

  “I see.”

  “And I was wearing her outerwear. I should not have, of course, but Marisol can be insistent and I saw nothing to be gained by arguing.”

  “Frequently nothing is, but in this instance one does wonder.”

  “It was all in aid of meeting Mr. Kincaid.”

  “I thought you were going to Madame Chabrier’s. She’s a milliner, is she not?” Restell watched her eyebrows climb. “I have four sisters, Miss Hathaway. I may be a philistine about the style of a woman’s bonnet, but I know all too well who is judged to make the finest. Who is Mr. Kincaid and what purpose did he have at the milliner’s?”