Etiquette With The Devil (26 page)

“There is no need,” she rushed. She would say anything to pass to another topic. “I have no desire to see him again.”

“You miss him.”

Clara did not answer. She was never one for hatred, but her heart beat with it at the mere idea of him. She hated him, truly. There were nights that deprived her of the ability to breathe, until the pain of his leaving tightened around her heart and she thought she would die.

“Yes,” she said in a small voice, surprised by her own confirmation.

“He is an idiot.”

Her hand tightened over the edge of the seat cushion. “Among other colorful names.”

“Was there any understanding between you and Bly?”

She winced at hearing his name. It had been weeks now since it had last filled her ears. “There is no need for this conversation. I appreciate your concern but—”

“But it isn’t proper,” he added with a laugh. “Good God, can you ever relax when you are in the company of friends?”

Clara turned back to the window, feeling as if she was being thrown into an icy pond, left to drown as the weight of her skirts pulled her under. She could kick and claw to the surface for air, but eventually she would tire and sink.

“I should chase him down and give him a pummeling.”

“There is no need for heroics, Barnes, but thank you nonetheless.”

“I have the perfect solution,” he added after a lengthy slip of time passed between them once more. “You should marry me, Clara.”

She laughed. Clara could not help it. She had never heard of a more ridiculous and impractical idea.

“You certainly know how to wound a man’s pride,” he said with a dry laugh. “I am serious. We would make a good match.”

“I am on to you, Isaac Barnes. You are not as devilish as you let others believe. But we could never marry. You are a duke, even if you like to forget that fact. And I…I am no one.”

“You should marry him, Miss Clara,” Minnie yawned from her side.

The girl’s voice startled her. “Why is that?”

“Because I like Isaac.” She motioned for Clara to lean closer. “And he is dashingly handsome,” she whispered.

Barnes laughed, obviously overhearing Minnie’s confession. “And Miss Clara is very beautiful. We would make a handsome couple, don’t you agree, Minnie?”

“And you could have lovely parties,” Minnie said beaming, forging forward with a future that could never happen. “And wear fine dresses,” she yawned.

“It is a very kind offer,” Clara said meeting his gaze, falling a little bit in love with him in that moment. “But I would miss you dearly, Minnie. I think I shall remain your governess for a while longer.”

“I would like that,” she agreed, settling back against Clara, as her eyelids grew heavy with sleep again. “I would miss you too.”

“The offer remains.” He settled his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

They all fell asleep to the lulling clicks of the train rumbling over the tracks. When they reached the station, Isaac helped usher the sleeping children into the carriage, then turned to Clara, pulling her aside for a moment.

“I meant what I said. You wounded my pride, rejecting me so.”

“Ah, but not your heart.” She smiled, drawing in a deep breath of frigid air. “Thank you for everything, Isaac. You have been a great help.” She pressed her hand over his arm for a brief moment. “I was flattered by your offer, but I can’t leave the children. You know that I must remain for them.”

“And what of you?” He held her hands, seriousness masking his face once more. “Then promise you will write if you need anything further, Clara.”

“Miss Dawson,” Lady Margaret chided from the step of the carriage. “I will freeze if you do not hurry.”

Clara nodded and turned back to Isaac with a knowing smile. “You have my word.”

“Very good,” he said, kissing both of her hands and issuing Clara a wink.

Isaac disappeared down the platform, leaving for London without further delay. Clara waited a moment, her hands resting protectively over her increasing middle, her secret still hidden beneath the fullness of her skirts.

“Miss Dawson,” Lady Margaret called again. Clara hurried to the carriage, listening to the train whistle cry out behind her. She settled into the carriage and met Lady Margaret’s disapproving glare, turning to look out into the winter’s darkness once more as she gathered a sleeping Grace into her lap.

*

Bly resigned himself to the fact that he was in danger of losing his front teeth.

He kicked up a cloud of earth as he shuffled his feet and circled around the half-naked giant. At the time, the bet of battling the ogre of a man seemed like a brilliant idea. It was a challenge he welcomed. Then again, Bly was never skilled at assessing the difference between a brilliant idea and trouble until it was too late. And this, he thought as the man snarled at him from across the ring, was trouble.

He was still unsteady on his feet, but given that he spent the day escaping the ungodly heat of Cairo with a group of officers drinking to what equated to a small brewery, he was not surprised.

“Knock the bugger out, Ravensdale!” Bly heard shouted from behind. He was growing dizzy in the stifling heat of the club, its stagnant air filled with the smell of blood, sex, and cheap whiskey.

“Do you think I’m only in the ring to find a dancing partner?” he called out over his shoulder. The crowd laughed and cheered him until the noise grew into a boisterous collective roar.

The bronze titan stormed across the ring and swung at empty air as Bly swiftly ducked and spun off to the side. He shot up from the ground and landed a fist into the man’s side.

The man did not flinch as flesh hit flesh but the sickening sound of crushing bone echoed throughout the ring. The pain in Bly’s fist indicated that he had just broken his hand, not the ribs of his opponent as intended.

“Bloody hell,” Bly muttered, falling back to give him a little distance before the man struck relentlessly again. “Were you all trying to kill me?” he yelled out for the enjoyment of the group of British soldiers. The cheers only grew louder.

Bly staggered backward to the far side of the ring and waited, wiping away the blood dripping down his face. He was playing everything up for the enjoyment of his peers. They pushed him to agree to fight, but there was only one reason why Bly entered that ring—he wanted to be knocked out. He hadn’t slept in weeks after leaving Burton Hall, not by natural means anyway.

He leveled his stare, and then charged at the human blockade at the opposite side of the ring. With a swift blow, Bly landed his boot just below the man’s knee. He took advantage of the giant’s temporary unsteadiness and jumped, landing a bent elbow into the man’s thick neck. An angered cry shook the air, the giant collapsed to the ground in a heap as the crowd roared.

Bly heard his name chanted and suddenly he felt energized, forgetting he had a broken hand. He spun the fallen man over and landed several blows, blood spraying into the crowd. He grinned as the pain radiated up his arm, feeding his broken heart like a drug, landing hit after hit until a solider entered the ring and grabbed Bly’s hand, lifting it high in the air.

“We have a winner!” the solider cried. Bly looked onto the cheering crowd through swollen eyes, not truly knowing any of those who cheered at his victory.

“Get the man a drink,” someone ordered. Bly found himself hauled to a bar amidst a flurry of yells of who owed who what on the bet. One motion in a long list of late that had not been of his own governing.

“Ya poor dear,” cooed a luscious blonde-haired woman with bright red lips. “Let me sit in your lap and I’ll lick ya wounds for ya,” she purred, pinching his bloodstained cheeks between her fingers. He reached for her skirts, noting the spreading smile on her face, before he lifted the fabric and wiped the blood off his face. Bly continued, even as she squawked in protest and hit him over the head with a gloved fist.

“I bet you will,” he said bitterly, letting go. He turned away, pushing back the image of Clara tenderly kissing his bruised knuckles by the fire.

“Your shirt, Ravensdale,” another solider said, tossing the white linen at his face, wiping away the memory of her haunting eyes.

Bly winced as he shrugged it on, stopping short as a group of women flocked around him. They were a group of Cockney prostitutes who serviced the soldiers stationed in town. He wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole. He wanted for no one except Clara.

“I think you aimed at finally killing me tonight, Graham,” Bly said, turning his back to the adoring crowd of onlookers.

Bly could not remember if he had agreed or not to the boxing match, but there he was, standing in the British barricades, bloodied and bruised. The spy returned. A man brokenhearted.

“You’re the only one who could have taken down that giant,” Graham said with a robust laugh. “Besides, we all know you’re immortal, Ravensdale. Nothing can kill you.”

“You’ve certainly tried to test that point,” Bly said. He moved his jaw from side to side. At least it hadn’t been dislocated. “I’ve made a fair lot of you wealthy tonight. I didn’t earn much by putting myself in that ring.”

“Ha,” Graham laughed, hitting the top of the bar with a resounding smack. “You need more money like another hole in the head.”

Bly nodded, laughing to himself. He had gone mad. Why was he in Cairo? He did not want to be here. Especially with a man who was needling him to take on a slew of new assignments. If Bly agreed, there would be no returning to Burton Hall. He would disappear again, moving from country to country, danger always nipping at his heels, waiting to kill or be killed.

Bly struck a match against the bar and lit the cigar dangling from his split lips. “It was a bloody bit of fun, wasn’t it?” He puffed out a long stream of smoke before pulling the cigar from his lips and downing a glass of whiskey in a hungry gulp. “When are we leaving for India?” he asked Graham, his deadly glare lessened by the swelling flesh around his eyes.

Graham slowly looked up from behind the counter as he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, and slid it across the counter, tapping it once. “This first,” was all he said with a surreptitious glance.

Bly squinted at the crumpled paper in his hands, forcing the words into focus as the world around him spun. “Holy hell,” he whispered, pushing back from the counter. He felt the blood drain from his body and his heart beat against his bruised rib cage. He swiped the bottle of whiskey off the bar with his good hand and strode out to find his lodgings without saying another word to Graham.

He staggered, the ground wavering under his feet from the whiskey and having his brains bashed about for most of the evening as he made his way to his lodgings. Bly took another drink, coughing as the burning liquid sliced its way to his stomach, watching as fresh blood stained his hand as he wiped his mouth clean. He was killing himself. As if he needed help on that front, the mission Graham so idly passed over the bar was a death sentence.

Bly could not do it.

He clutched Clara’s gold necklace in his bloody hand. His place was not in the world anymore—he had been damned daft to leave Clara and the children. Six weeks was too long of an absence already. He would return and face what scared him—a life with Clara and the children. He could make himself an honest man, void of the sins that ate away at him. He would go home and—

“Ravensdale?” a voice asked from the shadows, just beyond by the door of his lodgings.

Bly did not answer, though he stopped, dropping the whiskey bottle at his feet so he could reach for the knife in his boot.

A slicing hot pain cut through the back of his head before he collapsed to his knees. There were whispers floating around him, Arabic maybe, as he tried to turn and see his assailants. There was another blow, one that knocked away his vision, and then the rough scrape of fabric as a hood was forced over his head. He tried to move his arms but not quickly enough as the cutting bite of rope wrapped around his hands and feet.

“Who the hell are you?” he growled, spitting out the dust in his mouth.

He never got an answer, just a large brick to the back of the head before everything went black.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me;

I will not, cannot go.

—
Emily Bronte

Yorkshire, England

1885

C
lara smiled as she read her weekly letter from James. He still inquired after his sisters, but his declarations of returning to Burton Hall had finally ended. He prattled on with a child’s penmanship of the things he learned over the last week, and continued the tales of the schoolboy drama at Eton. She missed the boy from three years ago. He was growing up too quickly. But for that matter, they all were.

With a glance at the clock above the schoolroom’s fireplace, she realized it was almost time for the day’s lessons to begin. Her tea was cold, but so was the room. It was too expensive to keep such a large house heated on the small allowance Lady Margaret sent monthly from Italy.