Etiquette With The Devil (30 page)

Carefully, she lathered the soap and washed. It was liberating to be doing something for herself again without the help of others.

It was a certainly a little victory, but it felt glorious.

*

“May I come in?” he asked from the darkness of the doorway. Splashing water was his sole response.

She had spoken little, smiled even less, and laughed hardly at all since his arrival.

And there was the small matter of their son that she had yet to confess. Bly wondered if she would finally tell him the truth each time she looked at him, but he had received only silence so far. He wished to repair what he had broken between them and yet she continued to hate him.

“You may,” she said at last. A coughing fit gripped her, cutting off what she had for air.

He brought in a chair and set it beside the bath, then held out a cup of water for her to sip as she regained her breath. His heart thudded to a loud stop when he gazed down and saw her clutching a towel to her chest, her long legs stretched up to her chin. She looked at him as if he was about to murder her. When had she grown so frightened of him?

He cleared his throat and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “You missed a spot,” he said, his voice suddenly scratchy.

“I did not.” Disgust filled her quiet answer.

“Your hair, I mean.” He swallowed. “I made a promise to you and I mean to keep it, Clara. Wet your hair and I will wash it for you.”

She dipped into the water, her honey hair fanning out around her as her eyes shut tight. With a slow rise, she sat back up in the tub.

Silence still as she waited for him to proceed.

“Hold still,” he managed while he lathered lemon soap into her hair. He stopped as he discovered the scabs covering her scalp and eased his touch. “Does that hurt?”

Her eyes were large pools of crystalline. The candlelight flickered, casting a beautiful peach glow over her pale body. She froze, her knees tucked tight to her chest, her head leaning into his hands as his fingers laced through her hair.

Bly never washed anyone’s hair before, except his own. This was something far more intimate than any of the more wicked delights he experienced during his life. It was a tender act, which was surprising because he was only ever good at breaking things.

Clara reached up and traced the scar running through his right eyebrow and across the bridge of his nose. It was the result of a sword fight in Iran six months ago. He was lucky he kept his eye. Hell, he was lucky to still be alive, if he were being honest. Graham had sent him on a string of impossible missions since his departure from England.

“Tell me what happened,” she said, curling her long fingers over the edge of the tub in a bracing grip.

What a big question to ask, and what an unending answer waited on his lips. Instead, he told her of Minnie’s continued recovery, mindful of her pocked skin and open sores as he washed her hair. She was beautiful to him even then. So very beautiful.

He helped her from the tub and lifted her to the chair. He handed her a fresh towel and brought in a new nightgown. He allowed her a few moments to dress before he returned to pick her up once more, placing her in a chair by the fireplace. With steady hands, Bly brushed her hair, all the while telling her every manner of story, anything to take her mind away from her discomfort. In time, she fell asleep, so he carried her to bed and tucked her into the fresh sheets. He stopped himself from crawling in beside her and pulling her into his arms. He no longer deserved to hold her, though he still cherished her. It was a hellish truth to stomach.

“I
f you step over that threshold, you better not have known, or you won’t make it back out of this room alive,” Bly warned the man approaching from the hallway. He remained at his desk, his head resting in his hand as his went over the estate’s ledgers. Bly fired the steward just earlier that morning. Seems his aunt appreciated his bottomless purse.

“I could ask why it took you three years and an urgent telegram to return to England,” Barnes replied. “I hate Shanghai. I doubly hate opium dens. And I detest having to pull a friend out of one who was determined on killing himself. Two years since, and not a word but through Graham.”

Bly dropped his pen but did not look up. “Did you know, Barnes?” his voice edged with steel. He was not against sending a fist into that ducal face. If anything, a brawl was just what Bly needed to pull himself together.

“I have no idea what you are on about, so no. But I am starting to reconsider the length of my visit if this is how you treat the man who saved your life—”

“—My son,” Bly pointed to the small boy seated on the carpet by his desk. “Did you know about my son?”

“S-son?”

“Yes, you knew about Minnie’s illness. That’s why you sent the telegram, isn’t? I’m assuming you spoke with Clara. So did you know, Barnes?”

“She sent me a telegram asking to pass word about Minnie, but—” He walked in, even as Bly straightened in his chair, ready for a tussle. Barnes approached Rhys like some mysterious relic, something that piqued one’s curiosity, but could hold a horrible end if touched. Rhys did not look up from stacking blocks, even as Barnes sank to his haunches in front of the babe, “—nothing of this little man.”

“He doesn’t speak,” Bly confessed. Rhys was a lot like his mother in that regard.

“Well, can he…” Barnes’s voice trailed off.

Bly snapped his fingers and the boy’s head turned immediately to the sound.

“Hmm,” Barnes said. “Well, there’s no denying it, he’s yours. God save us all. There are two of you now.”

Bly did not find any humor in the situation. Mostly, he was angry. And when he waded through the anger, he was disgusted with himself and even, much to his own shame, scared.

Barnes stood up and walked over to the dusty brandy bottles on the sideboard in a few long strides. “You left and you knew there could—”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Bly shot back. He did not mean to frighten Rhys, but the boy dropped his blocks and looked as if he were about to have a tantrum. Barnes had been a close friend, but his relationship with Graham made the truth about the real reason why left hard to confess.

“If he wasn’t in the room, I think I’d find myself wanting to throw a few punches in your direction. There are rules about that sort of thing that even gentlemen like yourself know well,” Barnes said, opening the bottle with a violent pull. “Drink?”

Bly sank further into his chair, turning back to his silent son, disgusted that his friend felt the need to test him so cruelly. “No.”

The pair said nothing for a time, the quiet ripening like a summer thunderhead, brewing and waiting to burst into violence.

“You said you were here for a visit,” Bly finally said. It quelled the threat of rain, but he expected the lightning soon enough.

“I had a feeling you were back and I thought—” but Barnes stopped himself from whatever he was about to say. “I offered to marry her,” he confessed instead. “And I didn’t even know about her circumstances. She turned me down.” Barnes placed the brandy bottle down with a thud onto the sideboard. “Clara would have been a duchess now and your son an heir.”

There it was—the first flash of lightning. Bly gripped the edge of the desk in an effort to dull the thunder.

“I’ve met with Graham in London,” Barnes said, stirring the conversation away from the personal.

Graham hadn’t pulled a gun on Bly since his leaving, but he swore it had been there every day. He wasn’t surprised to learn Graham had already arrived in England. “I want nothing to do with him.”

“He told me you were taken captive in Cairo.”

“I don’t wish to speak of it.”

“Well, you might want to reconsider. It seems there’s a group set on hunting you down, and Graham heard they’ve reached the green shores of England.”

Bly gnawed at his thumb like an animal caught in a trap. He remembered his time well in that prison, being tortured about some jewel he did not possess. Well, not then, anyhow. That jewel had been sold at auction on the black market for a fair deal. But that had been the plan, hadn’t it? Graham arranged for him to take that brick to the back of his head by a group of thugs if he refused the mission.

Barnes’s fist settled firmly on the desk, drawing Bly’s attention back, but only just.

“Word is out in London about your heroics last year in Afghanistan. It won’t take them any time to find you here since the papers are calling you a hero. Somehow, you left the devil and have arrived a savior.” Barnes tapped the edge of the letter opener with his finger, sending it into the air. He deftly moved it between his fingers in a fast wave. “Even if you wish to stay and right your mistakes, you aren’t safe.” He pointed to Rhys. “
They
aren’t safe here with you.”

“And what am I supposed to do? Not that you’ve asked, but Clara is upstairs, having just narrowly escaped dying. She can barely walk. I’m not leaving her.”

Barnes sank into the chair on the opposite side of the desk and studied his glass. It was only then that Bly noticed the glass was nearly empty. Barnes never drank unless he was truly troubled.

“Is that how you found her?”

“I returned to find her all but dying alone in her room in the attic after she nursed Minnie back to health. The other servants refused to help her.” Bly passed another glance over to Rhys, who continued to play with his blocks, caught up in a world Bly could not reach. Why wouldn’t he speak? He remembered a young Grace being nothing more than a fountain of unintelligible words.

“I have to stay and make right what I’ve damaged. I’ve fired the household, so only Tilly and the Nashes are here with me now. Renovations were never completed. The village and tenants were neglected. The children were never given the things they should have been. My aunt made beggars of them all when I left.”

“Where is that lovely woman?”

“In Italy. Apparently she felt she needed to rent a lavish villa a year after staying in Yorkshire. A few servants stayed behind, but from what I can tell, they did nothing for the house or the children.”

“So,” Barnes hedged, taking a last gulp from his brandy glass.

“I’m marrying Clara.”

“Bly Ravensdale, a married man,” Barnes said with a wide, easy smile. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

Bly looked over to his son, unsure why he found himself smiling. “Even the devil gets burned given enough time, Isaac.”

*

Her stomach somersaulted from hunger. She must have overslept and missed dinner. It was all a blur of days and impossibly long hours now. She could open her eyes and try to find her grasp on what remained of the day, or she could drift back to the restless slumber that constantly gnawed away at her.

She stirred a bit, moving her aching legs. Sometimes, as much as she found comfort in the lumbering abyss of her sickbed, Clara yearned to feel the sun on her skin and Rhys’s wet kisses. She had walked the hallway that afternoon with Tilly’s help until she could no longer breathe and felt faint. Clara wanted her son back, but Molly and Tilly kept him from her, afraid she would pass her infection along. If she ever told Bly, he would keep her away from Rhys too. She was sure of it.

She could smell the approaching spring through the window and knew that if she opened her eyes, Bly would be with her. She resented his attentions on nights like these. Clara wanted peace and to be left by herself. If she was destined to be alone, she did not need the added discomfort of sharing the company of a man who never loved her.

“Clara.”

His whisper had never fallen soft upon her ears. It always crashed over her as if he were shaking her from sleep. He spoke, and she became alive again.

She took in a deep breath until her damaged lungs swelled with pain. She opened her eyes, focusing on the fireplace, and running her fingers over the rough stitching of the quilt, fighting the urge to look at him as he beckoned silently by her bedside. She did not wish to do his bidding without thinking first. She hated that her heart still broke whenever she did look at him. She despised that she still found him handsome, in spite of his faults. She loathed the way he made her smile, if only briefly, even as she fought against it.