She had always known that the only way she could tell him would be when he was at his worst, like now, even if on those occasions he was also at his most dangerous.
‘I am going to see a solicitor tomorrow,’ she heard herself saying. ‘I am going to divorce you.’
He stared at her for a moment, amazement etched on his mottled face. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Ridiculous or not, that is what I’m going to do.’
‘Over my dead body.’ His spring towards her took her by surprise, as did the punch between her eyes which knocked her clean off her feet and caused her to fall backwards on to an ebonised wood cabinet containing a collection of small figurines.
She couldn’t have said if she screamed or not; afterwards it was a blur, but something brought Sadie running into the room. Before Sophy lost consciousness, she heard him say, ‘You won’t make a fool of me like that, do you hear me? I won’t be made a laughingstock, I’d kill you first.’
And then there was nothing but a consuming darkness.
When Sophy became dimly aware of sound and feeling again, she felt herself being rocked, in the same manner one would use with a child. Fighting the nausea which had accompanied the
consciousness, she struggled to open her eyes through the blinding pain in her head.
‘Oh, ma’am, ma’am.’ She was in Sadie’s arms on the floor and tears were running down the woman’s face. ‘I thought he’d done for you.’
Sophy tried to sit up but as the room swam and she felt herself slipping away again, she lay back. She felt ill, so terribly ill. What had happened? And then she remembered. Feebly, she murmured, ‘Toby?’
‘He’s gone, ma’am. Oh, ma’am, your poor face.’
‘Help me sit up, Sadie.’
It took several attempts, because each time she raised her head the blackness took over, but somehow, with Sadie taking her weight, Sophy managed to reach a chaise longue. She knew she was going to be sick and Sadie just had time to grab an ornate bowl holding pot-pourri, emptying the mixture of dried petals and spices unceremoniously over the floor, before Sophy gave in to the nausea. She was aware of Sadie wiping her mouth afterwards and of her saying, ‘Lie back, ma’am, that’s right, and shut your eyes. You’ll be all right in a minute,’ and then she must have lost consciousness once more.
When she next became aware of anything, she could hear a voice saying, ‘I’ll have him hung, drawn and quartered for this, the swine. You did absolutely right to send for me, Sadie, and Ralph’ll be here soon with the doctor.’ She sensed Kane was kneeling at her side and his hand felt cool on her hot forehead, but she couldn’t find it within herself to move or talk. She knew she was drifting back into that deep sleep again and she welcomed it.
On the perimeter of that other world she heard Sadie say, ‘I know Mrs Shawe needs a doctor, sir, but she wouldn’t want you to send for the Constable like you said. She’s a very private person, sir.’
‘Private or not, this needs to be documented.’
She had never heard that note in Kane’s voice before. He must be very angry.
‘There is no way Mr Shawe is coming back into this house, you understand that, Sadie?’ the same grim voice continued.
‘But the police won’t be able to stop him, sir, and—’
‘The police will have nothing to do with it.’
Kane couldn’t do that, he mustn’t do it. Toby was capable of anything when he was thwarted. Now she tried to surface from the fog but it made the blinding pain that was threatening to break her head apart worse, and this time when she went under she knew nothing for a long, long time.
The concussion Sophy had sustained was serious. It was a full two weeks before the doctor would allow visitors, and a further week after that before she was able to leave her bedroom and venture downstairs. She hadn’t argued with the doctor’s orders, mainly because she felt too exhausted and ill to object, but also because she didn’t want to see anyone until the bruising to her face had gone down. Kane had been the only exception to the doctor’s rule simply because he would not have it otherwise. He had visited each day for a short period, treating her with the same friendliness he’d always shown and often just sitting by the side of her bed while she slept. This embarrassed her once she thought about it when she was getting better, but at the time it had seemed perfectly natural for him to be there when she awoke.
Sadie had told her that Toby had returned home the morning after the attack. Kane and Ralph had been waiting for him. They had taken him into the drawing room and closed the door in Sadie’s face. Sadie didn’t know what had been said but when the three men had emerged, Toby was clearly shaken. He’d quickly packed a case and left the house, and that afternoon Kane had told Sadie he wouldn’t be back in the forseeable future. They’d since been informed he was staying at his club, but nothing more.
The subject of her husband was not mentioned between Sophy and Kane until the first afternoon she came downstairs. She was still feeling shaky and some vestige of the severe bruising to her face had yet to fade completely, but now the terrible headaches and nausea had all but gone she felt much more like herself. Sophy was lying on a chaise longue close to the window where she could see a little of the comings and goings in the square when Sadie showed Kane into the drawing room. It was a beautiful day and the May blossom was drifting in the air like summer snow, but the bright sunshine and blue sky merely emphasised the darkness in her life, and once Kane was seated and Sadie bustled away to prepare a tea tray, she said, ‘I need to know exactly what you said to Toby, Kane, but first, is there any news about Cat’s murderer?’
The vivid blue eyes narrowed for a moment. ‘We can discuss all this when you’re feeling better.’
‘I am feeling better.’
This was said impatiently and the tone convinced Kane more than a thousand words that he couldn’t prevaricate. He looked at Sophy. He had been dreading this moment. ‘Ralph’s enquiries have borne fruit,’ he admitted softly.
‘Ralph’s? Not the police’s?’
‘Ralph can go places and ask questions the police can’t,’ Kane said shortly. And money was a great persuader. He’d spent a small fortune buying information, and Ralph had put himself in peril and to what end? He’d given the police enough reason to apprehend the man in question and the same day he’d skedaddled abroad. It stank of friends in high places. The aristocracy looked after its own, there was no doubt about that, and closed ranks when scandal threatened.
Aware Sophy was waiting, he cleared his throat. ‘I think the man who hurt Cat knew we were on to him and has gone abroad.’
Sophy stared at him. ‘Are you sure? That he was the man, I mean? Who is he? What’s his name? Did Cat know him?’
‘Yes, I’m sure it’s him. His name’s Chide-Mulhearne. And no, I have no reason to think Cat was acquainted with him before she was taken captive, although he may have been the individual who
wrote certain obscene letters to her in the weeks before her murder,’ said Kane, answering her questions in order. ‘He’s rich enough to buy loyalty, but one of his servants made the mistake of talking a little too freely to a woman he later got with child and then abandoned. Her terror of the workhouse was greater than her fear of the man in question, and on being assured she’d be provided with enough money to make a new start far from London with her baby, she was very helpful. But Chide-Mulhearne was too clever, I’m afraid. He’s left and no doubt covered his tracks in the process so nothing can be proved. I’m sorry, Sophy.’
‘But that’s so wrong, so unfair! Can’t anything be done?’
Kane shook his head. ‘The only satisfaction gained out of this is that he probably won’t risk returning to England again if he’s as wily as I think he is, but I admit that’s not much comfort.’
Sophy shook her head in bewilderment. What sort of world was this? It seemed as though, if you were a man and you were rich enough, you could do anything you liked with impunity. Marriage, society, even the law was weighted on the side of men; she had never seen it so clearly before or resented it so bitterly.
‘This is a horrible world,’ she said slowly. ‘Where is the protection for the innocent? I always thought the law was supposed to help in the fight against wrongdoing, but half the time it doesn’t seem like that to me, not if the transgressor is rich or influential. Children can be imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread to keep their family from starving, and someone like this man can do the things he did and get off scot-free.’
‘Most of the time the law works.’
‘No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t, Kane. Not for one half of society, the female part.’ All the talking in the world wouldn’t bring Cat back, but she couldn’t bear to think this man was somewhere – eating, drinking, laughing, enjoying life – and her friend was dead.
She stared at Kane. ‘So he’s got away with it, this man? He could do unspeakable things to Cat and probably other women too, and then just leave the country?’
Kane’s discomfort showed as he strained his neck upwards, adjusting the collar of his shirt. ‘Like I said, he’s clever. And very
wealthy. When the police went to the address we’d been given, they found the cellar room the female informer had described, but it held nothing incriminating and had been newly whitewashed.’
Sophy drew in a sharp breath. ‘A cellar room? Cat was held in a cellar? Was she killed there?’
‘Possibly.’
Sophy repeated the word but only in her mind. She felt sick and furiously angry, and this showed in her voice when she said, ‘I shall go and see the police myself and demand that more is done. I shall shout it from the rooftops if necessary.’
‘It will do no good, Sophy. Believe me. Everything that could be done has been done. Cat is gone and nothing can bring her back, and if you continue to torture yourself like this, you’ll only delay your recovery.’
She glared at him, incensed by the male logic, incensed by everything male, including Kane. For the moment he wasn’t Kane, her friend, but a member of the sex responsible for the outrage on her dear friend.
Sadie knocked on the door and entered immediately with the tea tray. She fussed about, pouring the tea and plying Kane with cake before bustling off again, a little put out by the atmosphere she sensed.
As soon as they were alone again, Sophy said stiffly, ‘And Toby? I understand you and Ralph spoke to him the morning he returned. Can I know what was said?’
‘Of course.’ Kane was well aware of how she was feeling and not altogether surprised by her reaction to the news about Chide-Mulhearne. He had said to Ralph it might well be a case of shoot the messenger when he broke it to her, but that couldn’t be helped. He’d done his damnedest to see to it that the man was brought to justice, and he hoped Sophy would eventually come to see that. ‘I told him what would happen to him if he laid a finger on you again and suggested he removed himself from this house until such time as you saw fit to invite him back.’ He had also told Toby that certain acquaintances of Ralph would pay him a visit if he so much as came within a hundred yards of Sophy without her summoning
him, but he had no intention of admitting this, or that one of these acquaintances had been to see Toby a few days later to remind him to behave himself.
Sophy nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said tightly. She wanted to tell Kane that she had already made arrangements for her solicitor to call in a few days with a view to starting divorce proceedings, but somehow she couldn’t voice it. She also knew she was being uncharacteristically antagonistic and unfair, and she didn’t understand why, except that an echo of the woman’s voice she’d heard that morning in Kane’s house frequently came to mind when she was in his company. Kane wasn’t who she’d thought he was. No man seemed to be. And she didn’t know if she was on foot or horseback.
A week later, against the advice of her doctor, Sophy returned to work, much to the disappointment of her understudy. Her solicitor had personally gone to see Toby at his club but had reported back that Mr Shawe had been sullen and non-committal. Indeed, Mr Brownlow of Brownlow & Son had added, he was doubtful if the gentleman in question had understood what was happening, so withdrawn had he seemed, and when he had given him the necessary papers he had stared at them with the strangest expression on his face before tucking them into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
Sophy had half-anticipated a visit from Toby, but one had not been forthcoming. Nevertheless, Sadie made sure the doors and windows to the house were always locked and bolted, and checked at least three times at night that everything was secure before going to bed.
Despite feeling so exhausted she could barely put one foot in front of the other at the end of each evening, Sophy was glad to be playing at the theatre again. When acting her part, for a brief time she was someone else, and the long speeches and complicated interaction with the male lead meant she had to put everything else out of her mind. She rose late every morning and after an early lunch of something light arrived at the theatre in good time
for the afternoon performance, not leaving until the evening performance was over. This meant Kane’s daily visits had come to an abrupt end, for which she was thankful. As she had got better she had found he unsettled and disturbed her in a way she couldn’t describe, even to herself.
And so May gently led into June, with just one or two events registering from the world outside Sophy’s tiring routine. She attended the meeting presided over by Lord Lytton calling for a UK national theatre to be built by 1916 so as to commemorate the three-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, rubbing shoulders with Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and other influential celebrities, some of whom were remarkably self-effacing and others less so. And when France introduced a new law whereby automatic divorce was granted after three years’ legal separation, she took note, due to her own situation. On the whole, though, her life consisted of sleeping, eating and working at the theatre, an insular existence, and something she could never have imagined on the day she had got married. She had thought her life was set on a course of togetherness, encompassing children and family life, and now she found it had taken the opposite direction. But there was nothing she could do about it. It would be years before she was free of Toby. And the last decade had taken its toll. She had no wish to marry again, to come under the headship of a man, any man, after the misery she had suffered. It would be enough to be unrestricted by the bonds of matrimony, to be independent and footloose. With that she would be content.