He thanked God it was his house and not some other man’s, but he couldn’t help wondering whether Mary would have sold herself to someone else.
Grinding his teeth, he stared out the window. She would have had to. For protection. God, how he hated the injustices of this world.
He felt sick at the idea that Mary or any other woman in such circumstances should have to sell herself out of sheer necessity.
After all, Mary wasn’t with him for love or attraction. She needed him and had come to him as a mistress in exchange for help. He didn’t blame her. He never would. Life had used her ill. But when one danced the tangled dance of selling, one’s soul degraded in degrees.
Edward focused his gaze upon the figure that was at the center of his torment. In the shadowy night, her face was a pale oval as captivating as a crisp October moon. And just as hypnotizing. He couldn’t deny the call he felt in her presence. A part of him longed to seize her up and never let her go.
He’d never been so compelled by anyone in his life. No matter what the past told him, Mary was different from the other women he’d known. She had to be. Somehow, he’d make her want him for more than just the protection he could provide. She would want
him.
He needed that now, just as much as he needed justice.
“Edward?” She reached toward him and gently placed her hand on his. “Are you . . . are you well?”
He savored the touch, wishing for so much more, knowing he couldn’t have it. Not yet. Perhaps he shouldn’t even try. Not when she might give herself to him only out of a sense of obligation. He let out a ragged sigh. “Yes, Mary.”
“You seem most distracted.”
“We all have pasts that haunt us.” That was as much as he was willing to say. It had shaken him, discussing his mother, his childhood. He’d never once admitted to anyone that his lack of love might have affected him in some way. Yet Mary had managed to make him feel at ease enough to speak of it.
Now he was battling regret for having spoken out. That door needed to remain firmly shut. It had been closed for half his life and he was not willing to discover what would happen if it opened.
“How very true.” A hint of amusement played across her face. She stroked her small hand down the enveloping sapphire skirts of her new gown. “Thank you. Again. It is good to be in gowns again, and not in castoffs.”
“I’m glad.” This was much safer ground. “And it is part of our agreement.”
She nodded.
“It was wonderful to see you so confident, choosing your clothes.” And it was. The strange feeling at the center of his chest did not come from a pleasure taken at dressing a new doll but rather at seeing that doll come to life and make her own choices. Mary had chosen every last bit of fabric and detail of her new costumes. From those choices, it was clear a remarkable taste for individuality and style had been ingrained in her long before. Had it come from her mother, perhaps? A famous courtesan would have such artistry within her very soul.
The amusement upon her face teased into a smile. A smile without any motivation, but pleasure. The first of such he’d ever seen upon her beautiful face. It was enough to steal his reason and enflame his frigid heart.
He’d never noticed it before, but there was a mischievous turn to those lips, as if she were perpetually contemplating some bit of trouble. When had that returned to her countenance . . . and when had it been beaten out of her?
“I do love it, you know,” she said, her voice warm. “The gowns. They make me feel lovely.”
For a moment he could barely breathe. She had no idea how stunning she was. “You are lovely, gowns or no. But I am happy they bring you such pleasure.”
The coach rolled to a slow stop before his freestanding town home. Within a matter of moments, the footman jumped down from his perch, the well-sprung vehicle barely registering the movement, then unfolded the black steps.
The door opened and the servant’s waiting hand appeared. Mary didn’t even look at Edward for confirmation. She took the offered hand in her own, in new pearl-buttoned kid gloves, and swept down.
He could only imagine how glorious she would have been if her father had not so brutally cut her from the world and condemned her to isolation and pain. Even now, she was glorious in her slow-growing self-possession. Nobility had never entirely left her veins.
Grabbing hold of the doorframe, he followed her down, his boots crunching on the imported soft gray gravel.
Only a small glow of light circled them. Many lights were on within his home, but the gas lamp always glowing above his door was out. The entire portico was a thick, impenetrable shadow.
Mary took a step forward. He grabbed her arm quickly and she jerked at the touch, her head whipping back at him in distress. “Please don’t grab—”
“Wait—” Edward narrowed his eyes, letting his vision adjust to the darkness. There was something on the steps. “Mary, in the carriage. Now.”
“Wh—” She froze under his grip, her own gaze locked ahead. “Oh, my god!” she exclaimed before bolting forward.
“Mary!” he shouted.
But she wasn’t listening. Her body propelled up the walk. Without thought to her own safety, she flung herself up the steps and then down beside the large bundle left like an unwanted piece of rubbish.
A strangled cry echoed through the air, followed by a low moan.
A woman’s moan, and it wasn’t Mary’s.
Edward turned to his footman. “Send for a doctor!”
The footman’s blue eyes flared and his wind-chapped face whitened. He nodded his bewigged head, then twisted on his heel and rushed off into the night.
Edward swallowed and strode up behind the figures before him. Even now, he had a growing feeling as to whom he was about to find. Carefully, he knelt down beside Mary, wishing he could tear her away from this brutal scene, protecting her from the cruelties of life in a way she never had been.
Instead of wailing, she slowly stripped her gloves from her hands and stroked a tendril of crimson hair away from the woman’s battered face.
That face was virtually unrecognizable. Swelling purple-green bruises marred its beauty.
He didn’t need to see the flowing red-gold hair streaked with blood to tell him who lay upon his steps or what it meant.
Someone was indeed looking for Mary. And now they had found her.
M
ary couldn’t look away from Yvonne’s face.
I did this. No one else.
The flesh was torn on both of Yvonne’s cheeks. Her lower lip was horribly split, like some overripe berry that had burst under the sun. Blood caked in blackish trails at her chin and temple. A piece of black linen had been wrapped around her slender body. One naked arm lay protruding from the shroud. In the bare light of gas lamps flickering from the diamond-pane windows at the front of the house, Mary could just make out the finger marks embedded in Yvonne’s upper arm.
Mary ground her teeth together, desperate not to give full feeling to this. She couldn’t. For if she did, she would never outlive the guilt.
“Yvonne?” Edward demanded with a heated urgency, though he did not touch her.
Yvonne didn’t respond, her body still, the only proof of life the slight rise and fall of her chest beneath the black linen.
Mary forced her shoulders to relax, easing the muscles bunching in her neck. This was her fault. She might as well have come to Yvonne, a cudgel in her hand, and beaten the woman half to death. For though it had not been her hand that delivered these blows, it had been done in her name.
Edward remained surprisingly distant, his body several inches from hers. “The doctor should be here in moments.”
Mary nodded absently. They couldn’t just sit here. She’d already experienced the demoralizing helplessness of doing nothing in the face of disaster. “Help me,” she ordered as she leaned forward and slid her hands under Yvonne’s shoulders.
Edward settled a staying palm upon Mary’s shoulder. “She will be well.”
Mary nodded, even as her voice shook. “How could I have let this happen?”
“Mary,” he said, his voice deep and full of a surety that she had not known since she was a child. “This is not your fault.”
How she longed to believe him, but now was not the time to debate her responsibility in what happened. There was a broken woman before them. “Yvonne?” Mary bent over the older woman’s prone body. The courtesan was the only person she’d been able to trust when all the world had abandoned her. Mary brushed her fingertips against Yvonne’s brow. “We’re going to move you.”
A slight groan slipped past Yvonne’s lips. “No.”
“Thank goodness.” Mary breathed. At least she hadn’t been beaten into a mental abyss.
Carefully, Mary rolled Yvonne into a sitting position, cradling her head. The red-gold curls rasped against her fingers, stiff with blood.
A cry of agony rumbled from Yvonne before she sobbed, “Just—just leave me.”
“Never,” Mary bit out fiercely. “I will never.”
“Nor will I,” Edward added. The dim light could not hide the grimness from his hard face.
Admiration for Edward lessened Mary’s despair. He was so full of goodness, even if he refused to accept it. There was utter truth in his declaration. He wouldn’t leave Yvonne to perish. Nor would he leave her. It was written upon his very soul.
Edward crawled forward, his black trousers sliding roughly along the granite steps. He gently bundled Yvonne in his arms, her body seeming as small as a child’s against his largeness. A final cry whimpered out of Yvonne before her body went slack in a merciful faint.
Edward kicked his boot against the tall double doors. “Grieves!”
Across the small square, candlelights flickered in the neighbors’ imposing windows. Mary glared up at the curious onlookers, wishing she could curse them for having done nothing to help Yvonne. Yet the blame could not be placed at their feet. They likely had not noticed anything amiss when a carriage had rolled up earlier in the black London night and deposited a bundle upon His Grace’s steps. Mary’s lip curled in aggravation. Even if they had known, she doubted they would have stooped to help a whore.
Footsteps clattered on the marble on the other side of the door, bringing Mary’s attention back to the matter at hand. Yvonne rested limply in Edward’s arms, the bruises at her eyes beginning to swell the lids shut.
“Open up, Grieves!” Edward bellowed.
Almost upon Edward’s command, the doors swung open and amber light poured out onto the steps. Grieves stood, his silver hair white in the evening light. His mouth opened and closed. “Y-Your Grace?”
“Don’t just stand there, man. Let me pass.”
Grieves backed up so fast his boots scuffed against the marble, sending up a screeching sound. “Can I—can I assist, Your Grace?”
“Let the doctor in as soon as he has come. Send him up to the red room.”
Mary observed this all in a flurry of amazement. This must have seemed to the old butler like some bizarre reflection of her own brush with death. No doubt he’d never experienced such hideous experiences with women of ill repute, and in such quick succession.
“Of course, Your Grace,” Grieves said distractedly as he stared at Yvonne’s beaten face. “Will she be well?”
Mary stepped forward, wishing she could place her hand on the old man’s arm. “Yes,” she said firmly. “She will.”
Grieves’s eyes widened and then he nodded as if to assure himself. “Good. Good.”
Mary turned back to Edward, but he was halfway up the wide, sprawling staircase. She couldn’t help the sudden pride she felt that this man had chosen her. Edward Barrons was more than a duke. He was strong, capable, and he cared about the fate of women.
He would not leave them to twist in the wind till their lives were but a silent cry of despair. No. Not Edward. He was the champion of the damned.
And she was his lady.
Mary stood, a mess of emotions as she glared into Edward’s fireplace. She should be with Yvonne right now, but there was too much to discuss. Too much to plan . . . And so, instead of holding Yvonne’s hand, she was in Edward’s private sitting room, attempting to organize her rioting thoughts and decide where and how she should run, lest her father destroy anyone else within her small circle.
The hunger for laudanum again coiled within her like a caged beast. For the last days, she’d held on, ignoring the continuous ache of her body as she decreased her consumption. But now, the pain of it throttled forward and she longed to lash out.
She closed her eyes, squeezing the lids shut till she saw red stars.
Oh, how she hated her powerful papa. In truth, “hate” didn’t begin to describe her violent feelings toward him. “Hate” was too small a word, given the evils he had perpetrated upon herself, her mother, and anyone close to them.
“He will be coming soon.”
Mary clenched her fingers into twin fists upon her silk skirts. If only Edward were referring to the physician . . . But the doctor had long since arrived, treating Yvonne and giving her enough laudanum to keep her safe from the horrors of the past hours.
It was her papa who was coming. One day, somehow, he would reclaim her and send her back.
She said nothing. It was unnecessary to acknowledge what they both already knew. The Duke of Duncliffe had sent her this message. And in the cruelest way possible, using her mother’s dearest friend as the courier.
No one was safe. Any friend of hers was in jeopardy by mere association. It was only a matter of time before he caught her, and, when he did, she was as marked for death as a horse thief bound for the hangman’s noose.
Mary bit back a strangled scream of brutal frustration. Would she never escape her father?
There had to be some way she could stop him. She refused to spend the remainder of her life waiting for death or imprisonment in hell.
Perhaps . . . perhaps she could kill him. She’d spilled blood before. Her mind rioted at the recollection of the keeper and the rough piece of iron that she had shoved into his fleshy body. What was more blood if it meant the Duke of Duncliffe would be cut from this world?
“Mary?”
Mary lifted a hand to her throbbing neck and rubbed it against the tense cords of muscle, not quite prepared to face whatever Edward wished to discuss. She opened her eyes wide and stared unseeing into the molten gold flames of the fire. They licked at the coal, sending sparks up into the cavernous chimney. “What is to be done?”