Mary shook her head at her friend’s audacity. Not many would have gone to such lengths, especially when Eva’s own safety hadn’t been guaranteed. “You are very clever.”
“Did you ever doubt it?”
“No.”
Eva’s brow furrowed. “I visited. The grave.”
“Everyone seems to.”
Though Mary’s comment had meant to lighten the moment, Eva didn’t respond in mirth. Rather she said, “I left flowers for your mother.”
Mary’s heart squeezed with pain, choking her with a sudden desire to cry. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Now you must tell me. You are leaving, are you not? This is why you asked for this meeting?”
Mary slid her hands away from Eva’s and turned to face the fire. “I—I don’t know.”
“You must.” Eva stepped closer, her skirts swishing against Mary’s. “If your father finds you—”
Mary stared into the flames, the bright fire burning her gaze. “I go to see him this night.”
“What?”
Drawing in a fortifying breath, she prayed her friend would understand. “He has invited Edward to his ball—”
“The Duke of Fairleigh?”
“Yes, and I am going to confront my father there.”
Eva stood in silence. Then she said flatly, “And Edward . . . he condones this?”
Mary shrugged, not daring to voice that Edward thought she should take a different path. “It is what I must do.”
Tentatively, Eva reached out and placed a light hand on Eva’s shoulder. “I long to see you happy.”
Slowly, Eva looked from the fire and held her friend’s eyes. “This will make me happy.”
Shadows danced over Eva’s face. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. Your father, he is—”
“Mad?”
Eva reached forward and stroked an errant lock from Mary’s face, the gesture reminiscent of one she would have made in the asylum. That of an older sister protecting her younger. “Madder than you or I ever were.”
Mary said nothing. Not needing to. The truth hovered around them, an ill, portentous specter.
“Do you trust the Duke of Fairleigh?”
“I do.”
Eva’s tone gentled. “Do you love him?”
It was so tempting to lie. To pretend. But she never had been untruthful with Eva, nor would she begin now. Not when they’d both been given the chance to live outside asylum walls. “Yes.”
“And he loves you?”
Mary winced. “No.”
A frown pulled at Eva’s soft mouth. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.” The confession struck at her heart, bleeding it anew with the importance of accepting her position.
“When he came to find me . . . Mary, he cares for you greatly. It is the only reason I came. The only reason I believed he truly knew your whereabouts was because he spoke of you with a reverence that couldn’t be denied.”
“I—”
“He stands outside that door now, does he not? Ready to come to your aid if I should prove unworthy to be your friend?”
“Yes, but—”
“All the buts in the world cannot change how we feel,” Eva said, her voice a melodious beat of truth. “The obstacles may stop us, but he loves you.”
She wished she could believe Eva, but she couldn’t dare to hope again. To be mistaken would send her down the broken road she’d turned her back on. “I needed to see you because . . . I do not know how this night shall end.”
“And if you must leave, you wouldn’t leave me without word?”
Mary nodded.
Eva swept her up in her embrace, holding her close, her arms wrapping about her like fierce wings. “Thank you. I have thought on you every day since the asylum. My heart not whole without knowledge of your safety.”
Mary dared to rest her head on her friend’s shoulder. Surrendering to the safety of the woman who understood what she’d been through. Not as Powers understood, or Yvonne, or even Edward, who had held her heart in his hands, but as one who had lived it, been through it, and survived.
Eva rocked them, slowly, a side-to-side motion as if they were children. “Your father is a dangerous man.”
Despite herself, Mary’s fingers tightened along Eva’s back, fear sliding over her skin.
“You must be brave and you mustn’t let him be victorious over you.”
“I know,” Mary whispered. “But I—What if I fail?”
“You cannot fail, my darling, because you are already free.”
C
lare tossed the laudanum back into her mouth and swallowed in one quick commitment. She grimaced. It was bitter and she hated the feeling of being utterly lost after she’d drunk it. The stuff had been prescribed by her doctor at her husband’s request. For her nerves.
At first, she’d attempted to dilute the tinctures, unwilling to give herself over to it. She’d tried adding water. But he was far too cunning, or perhaps she was simply not cunning enough. He’d immediately noticed the anemic color through the brown glass. Anthony also measured the bottle and was aware when she didn’t take her dose.
Discovery was not worth the risk of defiance.
He’d threatened to have her examined, for duplicitous women were surely weak of reason.
In only a few short weeks’ time, Clare had come to understand hate. At least her husband no longer waited in the room to make sure she was dressed properly. He had beaten such fear into her through word and deed that he was utterly certain of her compliance in dress. In truth, she complied with all his wishes now. With each new compromise, she felt her soul slipping away little by little. Soon, she would not recognize herself.
The laudanum left her soaring in a strange sort of bodiless way. She almost didn’t care that they were to host a ball this evening and that she would have to pretend her life was ideal. As it was, she barely felt the weight of her silver and lavender gown, a gown he had chosen, one that did not suit her at all.
She had seen a similar gown in the portrait of his first wife downstairs and could not fathom why he would dress her thusly. In it she looked nothing like that exotic beauty whose eyes peered out from the oil painting with soul-stirring allure.
Though almost a decade’s difference in style, the guests would no doubt observe the similarities in the frocks. Would they think it was she who was attempting to match the beauty of the first Duchess of Duncliffe?
Minding her step, she swayed from the room, aware she might need to reach out and touch the wall if she should stumble. But she didn’t mind. Once the laudanum took its hold, her entire body drifted in a beautiful daze. Truly, she would not resist the substance any longer. Life with her husband was so much more pleasant when she’d drunk her medicine. Everything was more pleasant . . . even the feel of her skin as it tingled with a strange dullness that also manifested a simultaneous awareness. She smiled to herself at the incredibly odd but magnificent sensations.
Just as she entered the hall, she spotted her husband, a man she now knew to be nothing more than a tiger in a human body. What with his fierce white teeth, teeth that could tear one’s flesh, he was a rippling predator that stood vibrant at his own door. His suit was so perfectly formed to his strong frame one might have questioned his actual reality in the world of mere mortals.
Hmm. She swayed slightly and blinked, catching herself before he might notice her stumble. Yes. Perhaps he was not a tiger but a forbidding, bloodthirsty deity come down to torture females and any who might attempt to defy his commandments.
Such swirling, vivid thoughts came only in flashing moments under her laudanum doses, but they still seemed so vitally true.
“Are you ready?”
She nodded, extending her wrist dripping with the diamonds and opals he’d given her yesterday. With deceiving gentleness, he folded it into his grasp and led her down the hall. Staring straight ahead, Clare focused on the swish of her skirts and the hoops beneath them.
This evening, the height of London society would pause before her as they entered the ballroom. A laugh teased the back of her throat, but she quickly suppressed the mad little sound. How terribly amusing. They would all be entering her prison, happy little inmates, and yet . . . they would have no idea she was jailed. Not one of them.
The red silk gown clung to Mary’s bodice like tendrils of shimmering blood. ’Twas an apt color. Tonight she would reveal her father for the inhuman, bloody monster he was. She fingered the knife resting within the discreet slit made into the folds of her skirts. Powers had taught her to use a blade, and Edward would protect her at any cost. But if she found herself alone and in danger, now she could defend herself.
“You will stay by me,” Edward intimated as he gripped her white-calfskin-gloved elbow with surprising firmness, drawing her from her thoughts. The large, buzzing mass of the
ton
separated for him, allowing the young duke and his lady to pass across the wide black and white marble floor of the foyer without even slowing their regal gait. Edward was a prince among men tonight. There was no questioning that he had been born to power.
Self-assurance and entitlement emanated from his entire being. Every woman in the large entry leading to the central staircase coveted him with the fawning desire of a troop of alley cats in heat.
The men also stared. Envy laced their intense gazes as each and every one of them knew they would never be able to compete with Edward’s title, finances, or physique. Her spine straightened, her stance proud knowing that
she
was on his arm this night.
Edward took the first stair, pulling her slightly. “Mary? Are you listening?”
The red silk and gold-fringed turban wrapped about her head, which hid her shockingly short hair, brushed her neck as she nodded. “I promise.”
And she meant it. Edward would be at her side when she finally brought the culmination of her tutelage to bear. She knew Edward hoped for just a confrontation. A moment of truth in which she could face her father and force the facts out before all of London. But she couldn’t predict what she might do when she finally set eyes on her father.
Poor Edward. But it would matter not. His intention to leave her as soon as revenge had been delivered had been conveyed only too clearly that afternoon, even if he had not wished for her to overhear. Once her father was brought to justice, Edward could move on.
She was so grateful that, in the end, even though Edward didn’t agree with her plan, he had decided to accompany her. He gave her so much strength.
As they swept up the grand staircase, followed by a tittering horde of London’s most important families, Mary’s heart sang with a sort of hideous anticipation. Each step unfurled the memory of her father at the top of the stair and her mother plunging down them, her silk gown twisting about her body. Yes, she could recall every moment that had led to her mother’s death at the bottom of the stairs. The same stairs that she now soberly climbed.
Not even the bright glow of the crystal lamps could dim that infringing memory.
When they reached the first landing, she froze. Something was there that hadn’t been when she was a child.
A portrait, taller than Edward, mounted in a gilt frame hung at the top of the landing. Any who ascended would see it.
Immediately, she snapped her fan open and brought it to her face. The portrait showed a woman in a lavender gown, her black hair curled and artfully arranged around her elfin face. Amethyst eyes stared down upon her as if the woman were beckoning Mary to be a part of her secret world.
She could not breathe. Not under the siren gaze of her mother.
Edward caught sight of the portrait and his step hesitated. “Impossible,” he said so quietly it was almost inaudible.
She kept her fan close to her face as she tore herself away from the landing. Many people here had indeed known her mother and she did not wish to play her hand too soon. “Please. Let us move on.”
Edward led her up the remaining stairs to the first floor, which, too, was crowded with the full skirts of ladies and the ornamental swords of the officers. Once again, as soon as Edward was noticed, the thick parade of guests began to move apart to allow the duke through.
As though it were the most common thing in the world, Edward escorted her through the gawkers to the entrance of the ballroom. He gave his title and instantly his name was boomed out into the burgeoning ballroom, accompanied by
“Miss Smythe,”
her own amusing alias for the evening.
As they swept through the arched doorway, Mary placed her fingers lightly upon the top of Edward’s extended white-gloved hand. She attempted to glance about, but before she could even take in the ballroom she had played in as a child, she was in the receiving line.
“Are you ready to reveal yourself?” Edward asked so low she almost did not hear him amid the muddle of conversation and the sugary notes of the orchestra.
She was going to rip her father from the pinnacle of society and she could barely wait. “I have been ready since the day he killed my mother.”
Edward met her eyes. The look in his own black orbs was the stuff of murderous gods. He might not agree with her, but at this moment no one could have been more ready to aid her.
As they followed the other couples before them, Mary spotted her father.
The room stilled and the sound dimmed until she heard nothing but the insistent slam of her heart.
The perfumes of the many guests melded into one noxious scent and her stomach turned, but as she drew in a slow breath her resolve solidified so intensely she almost savored her progress forward.
In the last years, her father had not changed. His jetty hair was brushed back and oiled away from his strong face. Once, she had loved that face with all her childish heart.
He was smiling graciously at the couple before them, offering his hand, bowing as though he were a benevolent being come down to shower his graciousness upon them all. But she knew the true nature of that withered organ beneath the snowy waistcoat.
The woman beside him was a diminutive blond in a gown that bore a striking resemblance to her mother’s in the portrait. Her face was a mask of fear, and her eyes . . . Her eyes were glazed in a way Mary knew all too well. A burst of sympathy for the young woman only added fire to her conviction.