The Dark Lady (33 page)

“I don’t—”

“You would rescue me. Save me. Indeed you would bring me back from the very dead if necessary.” Her words came rushing out. “But then I would be placed
safely on a shelf like some porcelain doll. Sometimes looked at, but utterly alone.” Her eyes shone with tears and fury. “Unloved. Cold. Hard.” Her mouth pressed into a firm line and her fingers dug into his arms. “A figure on a pedestal. A memorial to the—dead.”

She stumbled against him. “You will never give yourself to love.”

Dread clenched Ian’s insides. This was not at all what he’d intended, this passionate anger rolling off her, passing into him. “Eva—”

“No,” she hissed, yanking her hands from his. “Take me off the floor.”

He wanted to grab at her, suddenly certain that if he truly let her go, she would never be within his reach again. “I don’t think—”

She glared at him with the full force of her fury and disappointment. “Now.”

There was nothing he could do but comply. Escorting her slowly, with as much dignity as he could muster, he led her out to one of the quiet halls.

The voices and orchestra behind them became a mere din. When at last they stood alone in the hall, their forms barely visible in the sparse candlelight, Ian took her hand gently in his. “That is not what I wish.”

She glanced up to the gold-lined ceiling. “Isn’t it? I have waited these last days. Certain that you would give in. But with each day that passes, you do not yield. In fact, you grow worse, silently dancing about our dead. You are content to live without loving me but nor do you wish anyone else to.” She sighed. “That is what this is.” She gestured wildly, arms flung out, displaying herself.

Her reasoning was far too close to his own and it didn’t bode well.

The mockery faded as a slow dawning lit her face. “That’s it. Isn’t it?”

“No,” he said firmly, quickly.

“I see it in your eyes,” she said softly. She lifted a gloved hand, about to touch his face, but hesitated. “It’s there.”

He remained silent, having no defense but lies.

Defeated, she dropped her hand. “You will not leap into the breach and take a chance at our love because you are still caught in the past.”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Couldn’t, because it was true. That was exactly how he felt.

She shook her head. “All this time . . . All this time, I thought it was I who would never recover from the memories.” A wry smile tilted her lips. “But it is you. You are the one condemned to it.”

White-hot pain laced through Ian’s heart. “It is how I am,” he hissed. Unforgivable words pushed their way to his lips. “And if you—”

“What?” Anger tightened Eva’s features. “If I would not live? I would not love? I would not laugh? I have paid for my mistakes.” She took a strong step forward, her shoulders squared with pride. “I will go on paying for them. Every day, I remember more and it is often more painful than I can bear. But I remember Hamilton, flawed man that he was. I remember my son.” Her throat worked and she grabbed his shoulders as she stared up at him. Tears filled her eyes and her voice shook. “Do you not understand? I will not make my memorial to them a living death. I deserve someone who will live in the present. Here. Now. With love freely given.”

She withdrew a little, smoothing her hands down her gown. “I will not let you force me to live the cold life you’ve envisioned.”

He attempted to regain the distance between them and reached out. “Eva—”

“Thank you for my freedom,” she said softly, backing away. “I will never forget.”

She was saying good-bye to him. She was sending him away. Forever. She couldn’t. She was still in danger. And she was his whole purpose. “You cannot—”

“I can,” she said simply. “You gave me that power. And I will not have those about me who would force me to live in remorse and guilt.” For one brief moment, her eyes softened as if she might relent, but then the moment was gone. “Even those I love.”

Ian winced, wishing he could seize her, claim her mouth with his, then brand her body with his own. If he could, maybe then she would see that they couldn’t be parted. But she would hate him if he attempted such an act now. She’d known too many men who’d forced her to their purpose.

“Now go, please,” she said gently. “I don’t need you anymore.”

Those words ripped him asunder. “What of Thomas and that woman?”

“I will hire men to keep me safe,” she replied quickly, calmly, clearly having thought the matter through.

Ian fought back the urge to roar that she was wrong. So wrong. But he couldn’t. Not as his own conviction crumbled. She was slipping through his fingers like so much sand, and though he wished to, he could not keep her within his hold. If this was what she truly wanted, he had no choice but to give in.

It was as Elizabeth said: She was not a child. She was a woman. A woman who deserved respect.

His heart cracked against his ribs, bleeding inside. Despite this, Ian cupped her face in his palms, then bent down and pressed his lips so softly to hers it might not have been a kiss at all. In the way one rips a bandage away, he pulled back. “Good-bye, Eva.”

He lingered for a moment, praying against all odds that she would beg him to stay. That their mutual desire could be enough.

Silence filled up the space between them. She stood strong, her hands folded before her. Unrelenting.

Finally, it became clear that he could not force himself to retreat. So she turned from him and walked down the hall. Her head high. Her shoulders set.

She did not look back.

E
va fingered the pistol tucked into her burgundy reticule and the note pressed next to it. Every breath she took stung as she resisted the urge to read it yet again. And yet? Her fingers danced over the small, folded parchment and she whipped it out.

Eva
,

I have information pertaining to Adam. I have let you and society believe a lie these years. Meet me and I will disclose the story. It will ease your heart, but if you do not come, a bullet shall find its way through Ian’s brain. Do not test me. Come posthaste with the carriage that shall come to collect you. Bring no one. Tell no one.

Thomas

Come alone? Thomas was mad himself to think she would come with no defense. But perhaps it was because her heart had leapt at the possibility of news of her son. She’d never seen his body. She’d never kissed him good-bye. What lie could he mean? Could he . . . ? Did she dare hope that the lie was that Adam had not died? She’d heard sordid stories of heirs being spirited away so that a relative might inherit.

Her heart pounded wildly, mixing with the clop of the
horse’s hooves beating along the cobblestones. Tucking the note deep in her reticule, she caressed her weapon once again, drawing assurance from its cold metal.

It would never occur to Thomas that she would carry a pistol. Not when he had controlled her so fiercely for so long. Not when she’d been so weak the last time they’d seen each other. No doubt he assumed she would do whatever he said, docile as sheep herded over a cliff. He was arrogant enough. And it most definitely would never occur to him that she’d enlist the aid of a man like Wyndham. She resisted the temptation to glance out the rain-specked window and look for the big lord who’d promised to assist her.

She should have gone to Ian. But she couldn’t. Not after what had transpired between them. Wyndham had been quiet and understanding and had attempted to persuade her to speak with Ian. Her adamant refusal had secured his promise that he would not be far behind her.

The carriage rolled through the packed streets, struggling to find its way.

Each jostle of the vehicle wore at her nerves. She’d been exhausted after having been on display all evening at the ball, but she had not once closed her eyes in slumber last eve. Over and over again, she’d gone over the note. What secret could there be? The thoughts repeated in a cruel, unending cycle, wearing down her mind through the waning hours.

She shouldn’t dare hope for the impossible. But she did. Her rational self knew it was far too fantastical, but her heart? Her heart would not listen to reason.

Most likely, Thomas would relay some horrid detail of her son’s death meant to drive her to the edge. That was the most likely conclusion. Even so, she could not force herself to believe it.

Yet so many things surrounding the day Adam had
died danced in her head unresolved. Once he’d been flung from the curricle, she’d never seen him again. It was a detail she’d not considered under the haze of laudanum. She didn’t even know what he’d truly died from. And she could have sworn that Thomas had hated her son.

She sucked in a sharp breath in realization. The letter. That’s what the letter had been for. She’d written to Ian, begging him to return, no longer trusting her and Adam’s safety to Thomas. She’d had to deliver it by hand because the servants—all under his employ—couldn’t be trusted to deliver it for her.

It came back to her in a pummeling tide, as did the sudden recollection of her begging to see her child, begging to see his body but not being allowed. Horror shook through her as she felt Thomas’s bony hands holding her down as a doctor had poured laudanum into her mouth.

The hackney turned down a narrow alley, leaving the choke of people behind. Tall brick walls pressed in on the little way, blocking out the daylight.

Lord, how she wished Ian were here with her. With one look, he’d wipe her fears away. He’d help her make sense of her assaulting memories. But she’d sent him from her life.

The driver made some inarticulate noises and the hackney began to slow.

Eva’s heart took to life, pounding at her breastbone. It was all well and good to be brave in the safety of one’s room. Or with Ian at her side. Here, she was alone.

Well, not entirely alone. She’d not been stupid, thank God.

She wound the strings of the reticule about her wrist, leaving it a little open so she could reach the pistol swiftly.

The hackney swayed as the driver jumped down. His
shoes clacked against the cobblestones. Eva closed her eyes for a brief moment. She could do this. Whatever it took. She’d lived enough of her life afraid. She wouldn’t be ruled by fear. Nor by Thomas. Not anymore.

When the door swung open, Eva climbed down with a confidence she didn’t truly feel, her calm hands guiding her full skirts through the door.

She paused and looked about. The driver, in his black coat and dusty trousers, stood just a few feet off.

He gave her a shaky smile. “This is the place, ma’am. The gent asked me to drop you here.”

Eva nodded sharply. The fellow probably was used to dropping people in bizarre locales. “I assume you have been paid?”

He tugged at his sandy forelock. “Oh, yes. All taken care of.” Quickly he shut the door, then started patting his front. Puffs of dirt flew into the air. “It’s about somewheres.”

Eyeing him cautiously, she tried to stay alert to her surroundings. The walls stretched on in both directions, largely uninterrupted by windows or doors.

The cab driver pulled out a rumpled piece of paper. “I can’t read it. But the gent asked me to give it to you.”

Eva stretched out her gloved hand and took the twist of paper.

Without a word, he climbed back up onto the black hackney, cracked his whip, and trotted off down the alley.

Standing entirely by herself in the dark alley, Eva let her eyes drop to the note in her palm.

Find the door with the mark. I’ll be waiting.

She looked down the alley and crumpled the note in her fist. There were two doors to her immediate left. She
took a few quick steps, unsure whether she was headed in the correct direction.

There on one of the peeling brown doors was a white chalk stripe. Taking courage in hand, she strode up to the door. Her mouth dried ever so slightly as she reached for the iron handle. For one brief moment, her hand refused to obey her will, all the fear that Thomas had invoked in her pulsing through her veins. As if she could defy that very domination of fear, she twisted the circular latch and pushed.

The heavy panel opened into darkness. Somewhere ahead was the faint, flickering glow of candlelight. She followed the dirty light and crossed over the threshold.

The door swung shut behind her, the iron hinges groaning.

“Welcome, Eva,” Thomas called from the darkness.

Swift movement flashed in the corner of her eye. She jerked to the right just in time to avoid the club aimed at her head. She ripped the pistol from her reticule.

Thomas stumbled when the club dashed through the air and met contact with the wall, crushing the plaster. Crushing it into white shards . . . just as it would have done to her skull.

Eva leveled the pistol at him, her hands shaking slightly. “Not exactly how you had planned, now, is it?”

Thomas caught his footing, his face a mask of shock. He looked at her as if he had never seen her before. “No.” He swallowed, placing the club down on the floor. Lifting his hands in supplication, he shifted back on his shining boots. “Not exactly.”

E
va’s heart sank.

Thomas would not stop until she and now, most likely, Ian were dead. It had all just been a lure to bring her here. And fool that she was, she’d come. Adam was dead. But she could still save Ian and herself from Thomas’s unhinged passions.

Keeping the pistol aimed at his heart, she demanded, “What were you going to do with me?”

“Since you seem so inexplicably difficult to kill”—Thomas’s gaze flicked up from the barrel—“I was going to toss you in a trunk and throw it in the river.”

“You didn’t think I’d ever escape that place,” she said. “You wanted me to die there.”

Glancing up and down her slight frame, Thomas arched a disdainful brow. “I had doubts you would survive.”

Good God, he was an evil bastard. “Murder by chance, then?”

Thomas’s pale green eyes widened as if the answer were obvious. “Blood and I have never been friends.”

Eva laughed dryly, the sound painfully sharp in the small space. “No. How foolish of me to forget.”