CHAPTER FOUR
London, 1861
The club cultivated the atmosphere of a tomb, hushed and stagnant. In this refined atmosphere, lent force by thick-pile Persian carpets and tasseled curtains that blocked out the sun, even whispers carried. His cousin’s shout, then, drew outright stares.
“Here you are!” Stephen drew up by his table, broadcasting what was no doubt intended to be a thoroughly intimidating glare.
Liam bent the newspaper to peruse the headline—which was the cause, no doubt, of Stephen’s foul temper—before sitting back and giving the man his full attention.
“Where else should I be?” he asked.
Stephen narrowed bloodshot blue eyes. “Indeed. Your seat in the Lords must be buried in dust by now. You leave it to your friends to carry out the real work in Parliament.”
Liam allowed himself a brief smile—far too brief to fully convey his enjoyment of his cousin’s trembling, red-faced fury.
Stephen had done a fine job in the first few months of pretending joy in Liam’s return. Then had come whey-faced stolidness. Now, having seen his empire begin to crumble, the man was verging on full-blown rage—which was exactly what Liam wanted.
Come at me, he willed his cousin. Come out from hiding, you cowardly bastard, and show me the knife in your hand.
“Parliament,” he said, then aped a shudder. “Hot and tedious business, to be sure! I did think to take my seat again, but those benches give such a backache, don’t you find? Oh, forgive me”—this added with a wince—“I expect you haven’t had cause to sit on them. One day, coz—one day, you’ll manage to win an election!”
Had he been standing, he would have added a manly slap of camaraderie. Instead, he slumped deeper into his wing chair and waved a hand toward the seat opposite—an invitation that Stephen pointedly ignored.
“Forgive me,” Stephen said icily. “I suppose you know nothing of the bill that just passed—is that what you mean to say?”
That bill promised to make Stephen’s life as a railway baron considerably harder. Until now, Parliament had adjudicated all matters of compulsory purchase for lands needed for new railroad routes. The new law dispersed that authority among more local forms of government, while also granting landowners the right to challenge any sale or leasing agreement, should information emerge that proved a railway company had undervalued the land.
Liam had already reached out to several landowners who had done business with Stephen’s railways. In all those cases, Liam’s own richer offer on the land would serve as proof that Stephen’s company had undervalued it.
“Goodness,” he murmured. “Is it really politics that has you so unkempt?”
“It will not fly,” Stephen growled. “The Commons would never have passed that bill without assurance that the Lords would put an end to it. Auburn thinks he has routed me—but he will learn otherwise. The Commons will not tolerate the suppression of—”
“A radical!” Liam lifted his finger to a passing server. “Two brandies,” he told the boy. “My cousin and I will toast the coming revolution.”
“You mock me,” Stephen bit out. “But I warn you, I know what you’re about.”
“Pardon?” Despite himself, Liam could not resist uncoiling from his seat. Was the moment on them at last? Was the rat coming out of his hidey-hole? “What on earth do you mean?”
Stephen stared, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “ ‘Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,’ ” he muttered. “ ‘For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ ”
Liam frowned. “Are you persecuted? Only name the villain, Stephen, and I will show him what comes of troubling an innocent man.”
Stephen drew a hissing breath, then looked away, visibly struggling for composure. His assurance had always relied on his fortune—he’d inherited a great deal, and worked hard through conspiracy, corruption, and glad-handing to increase it. But what of it? Corruption was the way of the world. His wife’s charity bazaars, his endowment of an orphanage here and there, his public professions of virtue, had distracted the world from his private practice.
Recently, though, he’d no doubt noticed a sea change. His friends were deserting him. His companies were facing a great challenge, dozens of local bureaucracies to placate. And starting tomorrow, his creditors—for he’d borrowed heavily for his newest railway—would come knocking at his door, their faith shaken by this development . . . and by Liam’s murmured concerns, in their earshot, about his cousin’s faltering fortunes.
The turmoil was beginning to tell. Stephen’s handsome thick hair was somewhat disarrayed, and his Savile Row suit, while still the height of fashion, no longer fit him as exquisitely as it had when he’d been measured for it. Anxiety whittled a man away, and Stephen’s shoulders were shrinking.
He still looked healthy enough, though. He still looked as though he could never imagine himself falling onto his knees to beg.
“You know,” he told Liam stonily, “what you have done.”
“Goodness—you mean to say I am working against you? But whyever should I do that? You know how little I care for politics these days. And how much I value family! Why—we were raised as brothers, you and I!”
So close . . . He all but saw the haze that settled over Stephen’s vision. But at the last moment, his cousin remembered wisdom: to accuse Liam of menacing him, he must understand the cause for their enmity. And that he could not admit to knowing.
“That bill will not stand.” Spittle beaded at the corners of Stephen’s lips. “There is a precedent, and it will not be undone.”
“If I were in the railway business, I should be much relieved to know so,” Liam said. “Ah, here comes our brandy—won’t you join me?”
Stephen turned on his heel and stalked out, his vigorous exit collecting marveling looks from others in the reading room.
Liam watched him go. That spot between Stephen’s shoulder blades—that was where he would stick the knife. Stephen already felt the tip of it. But he did not yet know the pain of being gutted.
When the server arrived with the tray, Liam said, “Carry that to the Waterloo Room. I believe my guests should be arriving shortly.”
• • •
“The passing of that bill makes him toxic.” Crispin Burke spoke with amusement as he reached across the table for the sugar bowl. “If he catches fire on the steps of the Exchange, not a man will waste water to throw at him.” He dropped a cube of sugar into his brandy glass.
“Bravo,” Liam murmured from his position by the wall. He had booked this private room for its thick walls, locking doors, and the full bar in the corner, which spared them the need for servers who might eavesdrop.
But the absence of assistance had clearly left Burke deranged. In addition to sugar, he was now adding milk. “That’s a profanation,” Liam said. “Jules? Do you see this?”
Julian, seated opposite Burke, was shaking his head, horror apparent on his tanned, chiseled features. “Word of that gets out, you’ll never be PM.”
“What, this?” Burke leaned back in his chair, lifting his drink to dramatically relish the fumes. The public knew him as a ruthless and mercenary politician, whose aggressive championship of the railway bill had proved instrumental in its passage. In private, however, Burke showed a different face—genial, relaxed, ever ready to laugh at himself. “It’s brandy milk punch,” he said. “Perfectly respectable drink.”
“For grandmothers with toothaches,” Liam agreed. “And wretches who fermented their brandy in a bucket.”
Burke reached for another lump of sugar, no doubt to provoke them. But Julian snatched away the bowl. “Have some respect, man. That batch was bottled for Napoleon.”
Burke laughed. “Then I’ll make my toast to Wellington, shall I?”
“And to politics,” Liam said as he raised his glass.
The other men followed suit. Mention of Wellington felt fitting, for they had gathered today to celebrate the first victory in their own campaign: the public destruction of Stephen Devaliant.
“I had word that the creditors are already calling on Devaliant,” Julian said. The Duke of Auburn, one of society’s leading lights, he had taken up where Burke left off, seeing the bill through the Lords with a few well-placed murmurs. That was Jules’s way: he wielded his power with subtlety and charm.
Burke, on the other hand, had rammed the bill through the Commons with a fiery speech that had received four inches of space in the newspapers. “A dirty game,” he said now, his smile spreading, “but never a boring one.”
“And here I’ve been telling everyone that you’ve turned a new leaf,” Julian remarked.
“Oh, I have done. But my wife allowed me a brief relapse: when it comes to drowning pigs, she said, one must naturally dabble in mud.”
“And no pig has ever drowned more artfully. That line in your speech about caterwauling . . . !”
The two men fell into an amused exchange about the debates they had steered. Liam, watching, felt himself suddenly at a remove—as though a transparent wall of glass had risen between him and the other men.
He leaned hard against the wall, taking a deeper drink of the liquor. These fits came and went. They settled over him without warning, like a cold and numbing fog, and when he was alone, he would smash his fist into a wall in order to feel, but he could not do that in company. He forced himself to listen to the joking conversation, but it was difficult to grasp the humor, to turn his mouth into a smile at the appropriate moments. His heart was pounding. Why? It bore no relation to his emotions, which felt curiously inaccessible—as though, like a candle, he himself had snuffed out.
Once, this place of remove had been his greatest refuge. Alone in the hole, as night had passed into day, as the heat grew deadly and his stomach rebelled on bile, Liam had found this place and clung to it, desperate never to leave.
But then he had escaped. Why, then, had this place followed him? Why did it swallow him without warning, even in the company he liked best? These men were rare friends, who had gone out of their way to assist his efforts with Stephen. Burke had been the one to discover the plot behind Liam’s abduction; he was sharp, sly witted, an invaluable coconspirator. Jules had been Liam’s friend since boyhood. Surely, of all times and places, here he should most feel himself.
Silence had fallen. With a start, Liam realized his reply was wanted. “Indeed,” he said, and bolted the contents of his glass before refilling it. He drank that down, too, then poured out two fingers more.
As he carried the glass to the table, he caught frowns on the other men’s faces. He drank a great deal these days, but no surprise that they hadn’t realized so until now. Liquor no longer seemed to affect him. It took stronger toxins to wrestle down his unruly brain.
“You look very alike when you scowl,” he told them.
This remark was received with polite but unpersuaded smiles. Both men were tall, dark haired, and celebrated for their looks. Julian’s skin held a golden cast, against which his green eyes looked startling. Burke, in turn, was black eyed as the devil, which seemed fitting. His wife might have reformed him, but most of England had yet to believe it.
“What’s soured your mood?” Julian asked. “I saw Devaliant leaving as I came in—did you have words with him?”
“I did.” The memory acted like a tonic, pulling him back into the moment and allowing him to smile with genuine pleasure. “Very cross words. But he caught himself before he lost his temper, more’s the pity.”
“Baiting makes a dangerous game,” Burke murmured. “Push him too far, and he’ll come after you.”
Liam shrugged. “What else is the point, Burke? Do you imagine I want a trial for him?”
Burke cast an uneasy look toward Julian. “I thought you wanted justice—for your men, as well as yourself. We still don’t know how he met Marlowe. If he came after you now—”
“Then I would put a bullet in his brain,” Liam said. “But yes, it would not help us to discover the rest.”
For Stephen had arranged for Liam’s abduction by using the services of Harold Marlowe, a mad inventor who had owned and operated the prison camp from his home here in England. Marlowe had accepted bribes from rich men to dispatch their enemies abroad. But how had he known Stephen? In eight months, neither Liam nor his friends had uncovered a connection between the two men.
Increasingly, it seemed that Marlowe had employed some intermediary in soliciting his clients. That man, too, deserved a bloody justice.
“We need to expand our search,” Julian muttered. “The middleman might be anyone in high circles.”
A needle in a haystack might be easier to locate.
Restlessness drove Liam to his feet. He paced the length of the carpet, finishing his own drink and then appropriating Burke’s as he passed.
“Christ.” Grimacing, he returned the drink to Burke. “You should be flogged for that.”
“Acquired taste,” Burke said. “Sophisticated palates appreciate it.”
“Perhaps the key lies in those who died,” Julian said. He drummed his fingers in thought. “Lord Sadler and Sir George Davin—both of them were political at one time, were they not?”
Burke set his glass down heavily. “Sadler?”
“I thought you knew,” Julian said.
“No. I thought—he was lost at sea, when the Pacific sank.”
“No,” Liam said. “He was baked to death, in a very deep hole.”
A shocked silence filled the room. That detail Julian had not known, either.
Murder was not amusing. But the stricken faces of men who rightly considered themselves jaded—that could be considered a mild diversion.
Christ. No, there was nothing humorous about it—not to anyone with a normal brain. Liam took a long breath. He felt very few emotions nowadays, and none of them worth trusting: irritation, anger, twisted amusement . . .
And lust. As of this morning, he would add lust to the list. His flesh was not dead, after all: his wife had proved so. He had sat across from her and felt the rise of a desire so powerful and dark that it felt devouring, dangerous to her.
Fortunate, then, that he could not have her. He would not impose his body on her. She had not agreed to marry that. And he had no interest anyway in seeing her reaction to it—the horror, or worse, the pity.
Burke spoke of justice. But justice was not reparation. Reparation was impossible.
“Perhaps there’s a clue in who survived,” Burke suggested. “All commoners—barring you, Lockwood. If it was intended to be a death camp only for a few, it might tell us—”
“No.” A bright blot of sunlight illuminated the pastel carpet, worn threadbare by generations of boots. Men accustomed to such carpeting, men who thought this finery their birthright, rarely had experiences of true hardship. If they encountered it, it was always only by mistake. “It tells you that the upper classes are soft,” Liam said. “Nothing more. We were all intended to die eventually.”
Another beat of silence. No doubt his friends were wondering to what depths Liam had sunk in order to survive where his peers had not managed.
But when he lifted his gaze, he saw no evidence to substantiate his imaginings. Burke was scribbling something, and Julian looked merely weary.
“I’ll ask around about Davin,” said Julian. “See if I can figure out who might have wanted him gone.”
Burke glanced up. “And I’ll speak with Sadler’s family—I know them well.” He gathered his notes and rose. “I would not blame you,” he told Liam, “nor turn a hair, should Devaliant end up dead in a gutter. But from what I see, you have a care for these men who came back with you. So I hope you’ll continue to have patience until we can nail the bastard who assisted him.”
They shook hands, and Burke let himself out. Julian, however, loitered behind, eyeing Liam closely. “Is all well? You seem . . .”
“What?”
Julian shrugged. “A bit ragged, forgive me for saying it.”
Liam felt the possibility open between them of an honest discussion. Had he felt inclined to bare his soul, no one else would have served but Jules. They had been close from boyhood—had sported and fought together from their first day at Eton, when they had thrashed some callow gang who’d imagined Julian’s Indian ancestry made him an easy mark.
But what would he say, if he decided to confide? Half the time, Jules, my brain is like a child’s, inventing causes for panic in the cheers of a crowd, a sudden noise, a breaking glass, a sound in the dark.
And asleep—in his own bed—memories slipped into dreams, dreams twisting into nightmares, so that he woke up midbattle, trying to claw his way out of the hole, and discovering the room ablaze, once or twice, from a lamp he’d knocked over.
If he confessed all this, how would Julian be able to help him?
Julian did not speak of what he had survived during the Indian Uprising. Liam knew that during that bloody conflagration, Julian had saved the life of Emma Martin—a woman better known to society as the artist ‘Aurora Ashdown.’ At a recent ball where Liam had showcased her paintings, Julian had looked stricken, like a man encountering a ghost—but he’d shared no explanation for his dark mood or odd behavior afterward.
There were some kinds of grief that did not profit from being spoken, and that never were cured. Julian knew that as well as he.
And so Liam said only, “I slept poorly.”
“Ah.”
“Also”—no use in concealing what was soon to be public—“the countess is in London.”
Julian stepped back a pace. “The—your wife?”
“Quite.” Liam crossed to the door, pulling it open to forestall the inevitable questioning.
“But—by God, Liam. When did she—”
“A few days ago. I expect you’ll see her shortly.”
“I should hope so,” Julian murmured. “Have you plans this evening?”
“None,” Liam said. “Perhaps dinner? You can tell me how Miss Martin fares.”
At the mention of her name, Julian’s curiosity vanished beneath a bland smile. “Alas, I have another engagement. But soon, yes, certainly.” And without further remark, he stepped out the door, ignoring Liam’s mocking laughter as he led the way down the hall.
• • •
“I still can’t believe you’re here. In London!”
“Yes, well, if you pinch me again to prove it, you’ll get a bop in reply, directly on your nose.” Anna spoke impatiently as she leaned around her cousin to consider the gathering.
A dozen women had crammed into the airless little salon, most of them very familiar to Anna. Lady Dunleavy’s house was the center of Scottish society in London. For years, Anna’s friends had returned from their southern seasons with tales of parties here: the luxury, the conversation, the latest French styles!
Nobody had mentioned the backaches, though. Lady Dunleavy’s furniture was overstuffed horsehair, designed to force the sitter to her feet after a scarce five minutes of discomfort. The baroness also kept the drapes closed against sunny afternoons, and Anna found herself squinting through the gloom. The walls loomed, full of dark, gloomy paintings of biblical trials.
All in all, the effect was Calvinist, and therefore supremely Scottish. Anna felt at home.
“You’re staring,” Moira whispered into her ear. “Who at?”
“Barbara Devaliant.” Her husband’s cousin’s wife was a handsome matron in a pinstriped afternoon dress trimmed with silver lace. The footman had announced her minutes ago. “I called on her recently, but had no reply.”
“The cheek!” Moira sat forward, blue eyes wide. “You rank well above her—she should have been honored. Who else have you called on?”
“Everybody.” Two days ago, after her husband had fled breakfast, she’d found herself alone and miserable and furious about it. But she was far from friendless, even in England. Having commandeered Lockwood’s finest coach—a predictably ornate and hedonistic vehicle, upholstered in mauve velvet with silver trimmings—she’d spent four hours circling Mayfair and Belgravia, sending Lockwood’s least raffish footman scrambling up and down steps from Belgrave Square to Park Lane.
Her efforts had been rewarded yesterday afternoon. Starting at four o’clock, every well-born Scot in the capital had returned her call. Nobody could resist a chance to tour the house of the famous Lord Lockwood, patron extraordinaire of the arts.
Anna was not a natural hostess. But her tirades in the kitchen had paid off nicely: the cook, Beauregard, a hairy behemoth who reeked of cigar smoke, had produced passable cakes and cucumber sandwiches. The tea had arrived, if not hot, then at least lukewarm. And Anna had dodged all the questions about her husband with sufficient grace to quell curiosity.
Of course she’d always intended to join him for the season; alas that business had prevented her from coming earlier! Yes, everybody was invited to his next soiree; their invitations to the last one must have been lost in the post. Yes, he’d been traveling extensively for years now. Why, he was the most prized member of the Travellers Club, where his obligations kept him busy for days on end.
In truth, Anna had no idea where her husband had gone after bolting out of the dining room. She tried very much not to care or wonder. She had extensive practice, after all, in being deserted by him. He should be the least of her concerns at present.
“I want to speak with Mrs. Devaliant,” Anna told her cousin. “Come, make an approach with me. Look casual, or else she might flee.”
“Flee!” Moira looked positively delighted by the hint of scandal. She made a quick survey by fingertips of the state of her dark curls, then nodded and clutched on to Anna’s arm. As they progressed across the room, smiling right and left, she conducted a whispered interrogation. “Why flee? What have you done? Did you insult her somehow? Anna, you must guard your tongue here; we aren’t in Scotland any longer.”
“I haven’t done a thing.” Not to Mrs. Devaliant, at least. She had written to Mrs. Devaliant’s husband, but her request had been very simple—and quite mundane, between cousins-in-law. Stephen Devaliant was a railway baron. Anna had a question about a railway company—a company that seemed not to exist, save in its control of a piece of land very dear to her.
Of course, this was not the first letter she had ever written to Stephen. Three years ago, after Stephen had gotten wind of Lockwood’s traipse abroad, he had graciously offered to assume the management of Lockwood’s properties. Equally graciously, Anna had declined his offer. In turn, Stephen had insisted on it. He had also dispatched lawyers to Scotland to investigate her property deeds—thinking, mistakenly, that they had become Lockwood’s on marriage.
On hearing the gossip from the general register’s office—that English lawyers had come poking about, wanting to see the sasines—Anna had cabled her solicitors. Sir Charles Kent had proceeded to correct Stephen’s misunderstanding, and to ungently instruct that he find a new hobby for himself.
Scots knew how to overlook small family tiffs. Alas, Englishmen’s familial loyalties seemed more brittle. Stephen had ignored her most recent letter. His wife, perhaps, could help smooth over matters.
“Lady Dunleavy!” she exclaimed as she stepped boldly into the ongoing conversation between the baroness and her guest. “Had I known what delights awaited me in London, I would never have hesitated so long to enjoy them.”
The baroness, a stout old bat with a gimlet eye and an iron hand welded to the social pulse, nodded smugly. But Mrs. Devaliant began to melt away, which Anna arrested by turning to her and saying, “Cousin! What a lovely surprise to see you here. I hope you received my invitation to dinner.”
Barbara Devaliant was a pale blonde with thin colorless brows, which she arched now as she looked down her long, sharp nose. “Yes, it was very kind. Did you not receive my reply? I felt certain I’d given it over to post. Alas, we have a prior engagement.”
“Then the night afterward, perhaps?”
Lady Dunleavy harrumphed. It was very rude, of course, to put a prospective guest on the spot in this manner.
But Mrs. Devaliant was Anna’s family by marriage, so such courtesies could be overlooked—although the lady herself looked utterly indifferent to the prospect of a dinner en famille. “Alas. The season keeps us very busy.”
As Anna opened her mouth again, she felt Moira squeeze her arm—a warning she ignored. “If there were some date when you would be available, I would be glad to rearrange my schedule.”
Mrs. Devaliant made a moment’s study of her. Then, with a deliberate smile, she said, “No, Countess. Pray don’t trouble yourself.”
Lady Dunleavy’s jaw dropped.
“Oh dear,” Moira said quickly. “I forgot the milliner. My appointment, Anna—we must rush. Lady Dunleavy, if you’ll forgive us . . .”
Once outside on the curb, Anna felt her blush begin to cool. “What charming family my husband has.”
“She was dreadfully rude,” Moira burst out. “But why does she dislike you so?”
“I’ve no idea.” But Anna now felt certain she was not the cause. Lockwood had given offense somehow, and she would know the whole story. A woman of science did not do well with mysteries.