chapter 40
James was in a black mood when he arrived in London, and nothing in the days afterward lightened it. It was a new and thoroughly unwelcome state. He had never considered himself a jolly sort, but—aside from the painful weeks of his poisoning—he had spent most of his life feeling comfortable. Content.
He hadn’t awakened in the morning wishing he had not, as he did now. Nor had he required two or three brandies in the evening before he could face his bed. If he had few friends, that was by choice. If he felt the stirrings of desire, he would seek out his mistress. It had been a good life, in its way.
At least he had not been lonely, hadn’t felt as if he were rattling around in this house like a marble in a box. At least he hadn’t had this constant annoying heat, this unsatisfied, indeed unsatisfiable, lust deep inside him. At least he hadn’t spent every day missing something, as if he had left a vital piece of himself somewhere.
He got through the first day in the city well enough, doing the things he’d intended. He located the pans of mercury in the small room where he stored his illuminated manuscripts. It was a perfect spot. He had spent hours in that small space, windowless to protect the fragile documents. He hired a detective to follow Claude whenever he left the house. He visited his shadier business acquaintances, making inquiries about men who could be hired to carry out his threat.
Claude’s dark, resentful presence was unavoidable, of course, but at least he avoided conversation with James. And James gleaned some bit of pleasure in knowing that Claude was as miserable as he himself was.
It took another night in his solitary bed to realize that nothing, not Claude’s anger nor even the knowledge that he had nullified the danger to Laura, lessened James’s own unhappiness. Within another day, he was beginning to suspect that he would never be happy again.
Why had he ever thought he liked sleeping alone? His bed was cold and empty, and for the first time he realized how much waking up beside Laura had set his day on a good course. He missed sitting in the music room in the afternoons as she played the piano. Hearing the sound of her laughter in another room.
He tried to fill his days with activity. He pored over his account books and harassed his business agent until he suspected the man took to ducking out a back door when he saw James coming. He went to his club, where he spent most of the time glowering at anyone who approached him. It would have been kinder to everyone concerned if he had just stayed at home. But it was unbearable to sit there, the house huge and empty as a mausoleum around him, his only company a brother who hated him.
He even called upon the dowager Countess of Montclair, who looked at him as if he were quite mad when he asked her for news from Lydcombe and Grace Hill.
“Weren’t you just there?” Lady Eugenia asked. “Why would I have any word from Grace Hill? Mirabelle’s letters are filled with the most useless and minute of details, but I doubt Tessa ever picks up a pen. If you want to know about home, I’d suggest you ask your wife.”
Of course, that was the one thing James could not do. The silence from Laura was deafening. Much as he might wish that Laura would smooth everything over in her usual way, he knew that wouldn’t happen this time. He had shown her the worst of himself.
Once his fury had died down, he realized with an appalled clarity just how badly he had mucked it all up. Laura had almost been killed. No doubt she had been shaken and scared—God knows, he had been. But instead of comforting her, he had lashed out at her. He had lost all his vaunted control and stormed about like a child in a tantrum. Worse than that, he had coldly, cruelly denied that he loved her.
It was the truth, of course. He didn’t love her. He wasn’t capable of the emotion and never had been. He was the son who held himself stiffly in his mother’s arms, unable to return a hug. The one who stood dry-eyed and hollow at his father’s funeral while all around him cried. The one who knew you didn’t marry some winsome girl if it meant financial ruin.
He admired Laura and enjoyed her company. She was amusing and clever and lovely to look at. He desired her—good God, how he desired her. He wanted to protect her, to cherish her, to fight her battles and right her wrongs. But none of that was love.
Love was weak. Love was messy. Love was irrational. He wasn’t about to fall into that trap. He would not be a man like Sir Laurence, a slave to love, torn by jealousy and vulnerable to every hurt.
No, he did not love Laura. But why had he been such an idiot as to tell her that? Not only that, he had done so publicly. The door had been open and people were bound to have heard them. She must have been humiliated. He thought of the look in her eyes as he turned away, and his insides roiled.
He had ruined everything. He had made himself miserable and earned Laura’s animosity. He was . . . oh, hell, he was ashamed of himself. Guilty and wrong and sorry. More than that, he felt hopeless. He had the awful, icy feeling deep in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t make things right with her again. He wasn’t even sure how to start.
One gave gifts as apologies, he knew. His mother’s hurt feelings were always soothed by a new piece of jewelry, and a bauble softened whatever anger or resentment popped up in a mistress. It seemed wrong to do the same with Laura, who was on an altogether different level from other women, but he didn’t know what else to try.
So James stopped by a jeweler’s. He’d never enjoyed shopping; he found it a waste of time and energy. But now he discovered that it was strangely addicting. He spent almost an entire afternoon in the store and wound up buying two bracelets, a set of earrings, and a variety of gemmed hair ornaments, which he had them send to Laura. And the next day he visited another shop.
It was difficult to find the perfect piece for Laura. It must be elegant, of course, and beautiful, one of a kind. But it could not be ornate or flashy, the sort of thing that drew attention. That wouldn’t suit her. Diamonds were too glittering, too obvious. Even rubies seemed wrong. Pearls fit her—lustrous, warm, subtle. Deep blue sapphires to match her eyes.
They were all inappropriate, of course, for she was still in mourning, but he bought them anyway. She could wear them later. Right now she would wear jet or onyx, so he bought those, as well. Brooches, earrings, bracelets, rings.
He soon realized, however, that there was only so much jewelry one could buy. And, really, jewelry was so . . . expected. Ordinary. The sort of thing anyone might buy for any woman. The problem was that there was nothing large enough, expensive enough, to atone for his failings or indicate the depth of his regret for wounding her.
It was then he hit upon the idea of books, and the next day found him in bookstores, searching, discussing, pondering what she might like to read. Of course, it was all utterly ridiculous. Did he think Laura would forgive him if he showered her with presents? He had the uneasy suspicion she might be shoving everything he sent her into some empty drawer.
But he could not seem to stop buying things for her. He could not stop thinking about her. He felt as if he were in exile. The worst thing was, he had only himself to blame.
James sat at his desk, studying the name in front of him. He’d gotten it two days ago from a tavern owner he knew in Southwark, who had assured him the man’s skills at all manner of death were well worth the price. Now all he had to do was hire the fellow, and he would have the means to keep Claude in line.
It was stupid to delay it. Foolhardy. It would not happen unless Claude hurt Laura, but still . . . the idea of hiring a man to kill his brother chilled him. He kept remembering things he’d rather not think of, like teaching Claude how to climb a tree, and the day a few weeks after that when Claude had fallen out of one, the breath knocked from him, and James had been swept with panic, certain he’d killed him.
Maybe James’s threat of retribution would be enough to keep Claude in check. “Contemplating how to get rid of me?”
James glanced up, startled, to see Claude standing in the doorway. “Actually, I was remembering the first time I saw you.”
Claude’s brows rose. “I suppose you recognized me as a devil straight off.”
“No. But I did think you were a distinct disappointment, doing nothing but lying there and crying all the time. I would have preferred a new pony.”
“No surprise there.” Claude stood for a moment, arms crossed, leaning against the doorjamb. “I’m tired of this. I have someone looking for a house for Adelaide and Robbie and me. We’ll move out of . . . your home soon.”
It felt strange to hear Grace Hill called that, as if it had not always been Claude’s home, as well. James stood up abruptly. “I’m not asking that. I don’t care where you live. All I want is Laura’s safety.”
“That’s not up to me.” Claude held up his hands, forestalling James’s reply. “No, I know you don’t intend to listen to reason. You’ve got your hard head set; no one can change it.” He straightened and moved a little farther into the room. “Have you hired your assassin yet?”
“Naturally.” James was not about to tell Claude that he hadn’t even talked to one yet.
“What made you think I tried to kill you? I know what you hold as proof for your wife, the accidents you think were not. But how did someone poison you? How did they make it seem an illness?”
James gazed at him levelly. “You really mean to play this out? Do you think I’ll believe you innocent if you pretend you don’t know the method?”
“No.” Claude glared at him. “I know I’ve no hope of that with you. You’re bound and determined I’m the villain of the piece. I just want to know how it was done.”
“Why?”
“Because how else can I prove who really did it? You’re bloody certain it was me. I presume everyone else will fall in with your thinking because that’s what they’re accustomed to. And you’re going to wind up dead because of it.”
“As if you’d care.”
“It’s my head if you do,” Claude retorted. “Don’t you think I have a vested interest in the matter?”
James sighed. “Mercury.”
“What?” Claude looked at him blankly.
“Mercury,” James repeated, uneasiness beginning to coil in his stomach. “Quicksilver.”
“Someone put quicksilver in what, your food? How?”
“My medicine. And beneath my bed.”
“Under your bed!” Claude gaped at him. “I don’t understand. You don’t have to swallow it?”
James was growing tighter every moment. Could Claude possibly be this good an actor? “You breathe it in.”
“That’s it? You just breathe it and it makes you have . . .” He waved his hand toward James in a vague, encompassing gesture.
“Coughing. Tremors. Nightmares. Headaches. Insomnia. Weakness. Hallucinations.”
“Hallucinations!”
“Yes. Visions.” James leaned forward, bracing his hands on the desk, his voice harsh. “I saw your father. I saw Mother’s dead cat, of all things. You lose your memory and your mind and eventually your life. It’s a long, lingering, bloody awful way to go. It would have been kinder to have shot me.”
Claude swallowed, looking ill. “James . . .” He shook his head. “James, I didn’t . . . Good God, you honestly think that I could do such a thing? That I’m that low? That . . . that desperate and cruel?”
“I didn’t want to think it.” James heard the pain in his own voice and forced the emotion back down. “But you were in London at the right time to place it here. And you were at Grace Hill at the right time.”
“So were a number of others.”
“But who among them had the wits to do it?” James said with finality. “Archie? Patsy?”
Claude’s snort was answer enough to those possibilities. “Well, I didn’t have the wits to do it, either. I know nothing about mercury. How should I know you get ill just from breathing it? How would I even get it?”
“You play cards with the apothecary. He would know. He could get it.”
“I barely know the man; we play cards every once in a while. That’s scarcely reason enough for him to help me murder someone.” He ran his hands back through his hair, his eyes a little wild. “James, I swear to you. On anything you like. I’ll swear it on the life of my son. I did not do this.”
“Then who?” James’s voice was raw with desperation.
“I don’t know. Why does it have to be one of us? Why not someone who—well, I don’t know, but someone else. A number of people are in and out of this house during the Season, visiting Mother.”
“But not at Grace Hill, as well.”
“Why not? There are visitors there, too.”
“You think one of her beaus did it?” James asked sarcastically. “The poet, perhaps?”
“Netherly,” Claude said in disgust. “No, someone else, someone with reason to want you dead. I’m sure there must—” He stopped. “Wait. Netherly . . . his family. Netherly’s grandfather was in trade.”
“So?” James shrugged. “How could he benefit from—”
“No, no, listen to me. I haven’t the slightest notion why he would do it. But his family owns a factory. It makes gauges and things like that. Thermometers. They make thermometers.”
The room was suddenly as silent and still as the grave.
“Good God.” James’s voice was hushed. “I left her there. He’s with Laura.”