"I have had some peculiar news," he said now. "Auburn has been needling the board at the Academy, trying to secure a private showing of your paintings."
Unease prickled over her. Had he been spying on Julian? Did he intend to take revenge for his arm? "Strange," she said.
"I wonder—you did not tell him you were Miss Ashdown, did you?"
"Of course not."
The floor of the warehouse abruptly sloped upward. They crossed under an archway, and he unlocked a door which opened onto a warmer, dryer space. The air here smelled different, green and raw like broken saplings. Bales of unidentifiable produce were stacked shoulder high to her left. "One moment," he said. "Hold the lamp, please."
She took the stick from him, grunting a little with the effort of balancing it. A key scraped into a lock. His hand at her shoulder pushed her to the right, into a large, hot room. A cot stood in one corner, stacked with what looked like cheesecloth. Next to it, a shelf held empty jars of various sizes. Along the wall to the left was a huge stove, with two chimneys rising into the ceiling; a copper kettle hung suspended over the unlit coals. There was a familiar, sickly sweet odor ghosting through the space. She recognized it from Colthurst's house. Opium.
Like a finger scraping down her spine, presentiment made her shiver. Even aside from the obvious, there was something very wrong here.
"All right then," he said. "Here they are."
She dutifully lifted the lamp, and the light spread across her paintings, strewn haphazardly across the floor. They were marked with boot prints, as if someone had paced across them, again and again. She moved the lamp in a slow arc across the jumbled pile. He had bought so many of them. Almost all of those she had sold. As she reached the end, she sucked in a breath. Anne Marie's crumpled form. The blood spilling from her throat.
As I Laughed.
"You see I have more than enough of them to make my case," Marcus said. "Even without the parade of witnesses."
"Yes," she said numbly. How could he have bought the painting from Sommerdon so quickly? Or—had Sommerdon ever had it at all? But what reason could Marcus have to purchase it under a false name?
"What will it be then?" he asked. "Your family's ruin, and my own? Or marriage, and your life?"
Her breath was coming shorter. Everything in her body was registering an immediate danger, only her brain could not puzzle it out. Why would he want to hurt her?
"Or perhaps I can make you an even better gift," he went on. "We will burn them. Would you like that?"
She licked her dry lips. "It would make no sense for you to burn them. They are evidence, aren't they? With which you may compel me."
"True. But as far as evidence goes, they are grotesque, and cumbersome, and draw too much attention. Auburn poking about—it unsettles me. So I have another solution. The letters from which you took these lines. You will give me those, and they will serve just as well."
She was grateful for the dim light. It concealed the way the blood drained from her head. The paintings damned her; they were the work of her own hand, dated by her own brush; they evidenced her possession of the letters to the year. But the letters alone—they were proof of nothing. Except whatever strange conspiracy the Urdu hinted at. "I destroyed those," she heard herself say.
"Hmm. But surely these paintings could not have been completed all at once? How did you recall the script so well, if you did not have examples before you? You do not
know
Urdu, do you?"
"No," she said quickly. "But—once I was finished with all the paintings, then I burned them."
A short silence fell. "I do not believe you," he said then, softly. "You see, it occurs to me that there is reason for you to lie. You take a perverse pride in these atrocities. You think them worthy of the Academy, no less. And so you do not wish to see them destroyed. Well, listen to me, Emmaline. I will give the paintings to you. Those which are not too damning, at least. Withdraw them from the Academy, and we will store them away in a place of your choosing. Provided, of course, you give me the letters. And if not…" His shoulder lifted in a shrug. "I can burn them now." He bent down, and his hand closed on
As I Laughed.
"It will not take long to light the fire."
"All right," she said instantly. "The letters are in GemsonPark."
"Excellent," he said. "We are speaking honestly now. It is a solid enough foundation for a marriage. And you may keep the works from the Academy, but I believe some of these must go. Hand me the lamp; I will light the coals."
She acted on instinct alone. With a mighty swing of the stick, she brought the lamp into the wall.
A loud crash, then absolute darkness. His curse was startled. She inched backward. A wooden frame cracked, and then another; his boots thumped over them toward her. She took a leap in the direction they had entered, and the stick still clutched in her hand caught against the door frame, slamming into her gut. Windless, she threw it behind her and darted out.
"I find it curious that you would run," he called. He sounded very calm, which frightened her more than anger would have done. "Unless someone has
read
those letters for you."
Oh God.
To the left, in the distance, was a dim red glow: the lights from the section through which they had come. She hauled up her skirts and ran.
The laces seemed to constrict around her ribs. The breath squeezed from her in raw, pained gasps. She made it through the archway, and the smell of grapes was upon her again; she stumbled down the slope into the cellar and his hand hooked into her chignon.
Her feet went out from under her. Backward she fell. Her torso hit his knees, and he came down under her on a curse. She threw her elbow back toward his arm, hoping to hit the sling.
A cold pressure jabbed into her spine. "I will shoot you," he said hoarsely.
She froze. The rasping of her breath she could not control. "Then you will not have my money."
"Turn around. Are the letters really at GemsonPark?"
She met his eyes. "Yes."
He slowly wriggled out from beneath her. Now the cold metal rose to kiss her forehead. Just between the eyes. He could not miss such a shot, even if his left hand gripped the hilt awkwardly.
She swallowed and wet her lips. "What would you gain from it? I have told you where the letters are. And you have so much evidence against me."
"Whom else have you told of the letters?"
"No one."
"That does not account for Auburn's interest in the paintings," he said flatly. "Damn the bastard! It should have been mine.
You
should have been mine." The regret in his voice chilled her; she heard her death in it. "Your parents always intended your fortune for me. If you hadn't been such a bloody—do you see, Emmaline? You gave me no choice."
"I don't know what you mean," she whispered.
"Oh, I think you know well enough. Otherwise—well, this whole farce. I had to have that money from Nana Sahib. A little exchange of troop movements, a friendly deal. The debts were piling up—what else was I to do?"
A click sounded: the hammer being drawn back.
"The letters are
not
at GemsonPark," she said.
"Then I will be gone from England by daybreak."
A gunshot rang out.
He fell away from her.
She sat there. Her trembling fingers rose, hit against her nose. She traced up to her forehead. Whole and smooth. Covered in a film of cold sweat. Not dead, then.
"Emma."
She flinched at the sound. So unexpected. The hand on her back was gentle.
"Emma," Julian said again. He bent down to settle his gun on the ground. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," she whispered. She took Julian's hand and let him pull her to her feet. His arms came around her; she hugged him back, fiercely. Then she realized he was not hugging her; his hands were making a rough, quick survey of her arms and torso. "I
am
all right," she said, and saw over his shoulder Lord Lockwood, standing at a few steps' remove. It recalled her to the moment. "We need a lamp," she said. Her voice was jerky. "Colthurst's painting. It's here. The room down the corridor."
"Good," Julian said, and pulled her into a real embrace this time. She set her face into his shoulder, breathing in the smell of him. He was shaking, she realized. She ran a hand along his back, making a shushing noise. Against her neck, his lips turned into a smile.
"He was a traitor," she whispered. "The letters indicted
him."
Lockwood cleared his throat. "Shall the body disappear, or should we go about it properly?"
Julian pulled back from her. "Properly. Let the letters go to Whitehall."
"Copies for the newspapers too, I should think. No editorials on fallen heroes that way."
"Quite right. No mourning; save the world some bombazine."
"No!" She caught Julian's arm. "You mustn't circulate those letters. God, why do you think I came here with him? Marcus said the Urdu would prove you'd colluded with the mutineers!"
His brows arched. "And you
believed
him?"
"No, of course not! Only, if your cousin was involved, and the letters mentioned your gifts to him—"
Lockwood lifted a lamp off its hook and moved past them, down the corridor.
Julian took her face in his hands. "Emma. It's
all right.
General Wilson knew I was visiting Deven. Hell, it was his right-hand man who showed me how to slip into the city." He sighed, and suddenly he sounded very tired. "If Marcus was paying his spies to catch me out, his money was wasted."
"Oh." There was so much she still did not know of that time. And so much he did not know, as well. A strange sound came out of her throat.
His hand turned, so his knuckles brushed her cheek. "Lockwood can handle the rest," he said. "I will take you home."
The thought of facing Delphinia's bright questions made her shudder. "No," she said. "Your house." At his look of surprise, she mustered a weary smile. "It is time we talked, I think. You see, Marcus is not the only one those letters will damn."
When he entered after her, she saw that he meant to come straight to her, and she raised a hand. "No," she said.
"Wait."
She considered him in return, and the panic within her began to subside. The painting was so
right.
Thus did he look on the canvas: grave, steady, patient, warm; prepared for anything, really. "Julian, I must say I do not like Lancelot very much. He seems vain. The Lady of Shalott deserved better."
It took him a moment to reply. "Yes. True. And I dislike the reapers as well. Sad shows, listening to her sing and taking no action. If any of them had known his fairy tales, he would have seen the proper course was to climb the tower. Remove the lady before the curse took effect."
She smiled. "A much better ending." But how to go on, how to get there, she had no clue. Her eyes dropped to the coat on the floor. "Your valet will be angry with you."
He said nothing to that.
"Yes," she said. "All right, then." Her lips were dry. She licked them. "I must tell you I have done things," she said, and yes, that was good, that was in the right direction. "I have done things for which I would have been hanged in England."
No reaction. His perfect face blank as he regarded her. Then he gestured toward the sideboard, asking her permission to move. She nodded, and he crossed to take up a decanter. She mustered a thin smile as he splashed two glasses full of it. Looked that bad, did she?
"I have never told anyone," she said. "I—" Her lips felt too weak to hold the words. She bit her knuckles, waiting, waiting. Yes. There it was. "About the man I killed. Or what I did in Sapnagar."
Slowly he approached, to set the glasses on a long, low table. "May I sit?"
"Yes," she said. He took the seat across from her, drawing it up so close their knees almost touched.
The beveled glass was slippery beneath her fingers. Her palm was sweating. She took a sip, and choked.
He leaned forward—a convulsive, aborted movement that her eyes caught, and warned him against. Slowly he sat back.
"Surprised me," she said. "That's all. It burns like seawater." She took a deep breath, then tipped the glass back. She could take the rest, one long swallow. The flame spread down through her. When she lowered the glass to the table, she saw how hard he was trying. But his expression would not be schooled. That telltale tick in his jaw. He knew it, and he did not look away from her; he let her see his struggle.
She was not so brave. She did not want to cry in front of him. But then, she did not think she would. Even if she had never spoken the story aloud, she had relived it in her mind a thousand times; and now, as her mouth opened and she finally began, she heard how her voice reflected the familiarity of the tale. So did schoolchildren speak, when reciting an old and much hated lesson.
Sapnagar. That was where it had started. That bright, sunny morning, four years ago. She spared him no details. She told him that she had been thinking of him. That Kavita had warned her not to look too deeply into men's affairs, that the British justification for ruling India had nothing to do with either of them. She told him of spotting the sepoys from far off, of how they had assumed it was the Maharajah's tax collectors.
She told him how they had laughed at Anne Marie and Grace, and how her own hasty words, the false comfort she'd called down to them, had stopped them from fleeing the sepoys.
She told him what she had seen the sepoys do to the women.
He made a noise. She looked to him, and he reached out to take her hand, pressing it firmly within his own as he lifted it to his lips.
"Go on," he said quietly, settling it on his thigh.
She recalled that horrid ride through the desert, when she had not cared whether she lived or died. Such strange thoughts she'd had. The sand, like an endless ocean. Memories of Kurnaul were blurry, too. Perhaps she had been in shock. Could that be it?
"Yes," he said. "Yes, Emma."
In retrospect, she wasn't sure why she'd gone to Marcus's tent. Perhaps she'd wanted to see a familiar face. Despite his betrayals, she still associated him with home—the simple happiness of GemsonPark, and girlhood. But he hadn't been there, of course. She'd fallen asleep—
"No," she corrected herself, voice thickening. "I'd drawn a very horrible drawing, of Anne Marie. And then I fell asleep."
She'd dreamed the drawing, dreamed it was real. That it was all happening again, but to her now. And then—when she'd woken—
Julian refilled her glass.
"He'd followed me into the tent. Watched me sleep. It was that man, of course—the man from the bazaar. You recognized him in my painting. The unfinished one. I do wish you'd just shot him then—when you were pointing the pistol at him. Unkind of me, I suppose. Then it would have been on your head instead of mine. Do you remember that day?"
Her words were all out of joint. Jumbled, a Bedlam poem. But he seemed to understand. He also seemed pale. It looked odd on him. "I have never seen you pale," she said.
"I should have shot him. I would gladly have shot him. What did he do, Emma?"
"Oh, he did try to rape me. But I killed him first."
Julian lowered his head for a moment. When he looked up, she did not recognize him. There was nothing to his face, nothing, only those green eyes which seemed to burn straight through her numbness, leaving her raw, unprotected against her own guilt and horror. She could not look into them. Here was what she had feared. The seed of all her freshest nightmares. She lowered her head. Her hands smelled like the liquor. They felt very cold against her face.
"Emma," he said.
And the sound of her breathing, so loud against the seal made by her palms.
"Emma. You must let it go."
The darkness behind her eyes was red. It did not have to be so. Press hard enough, and one could see stars.
"Emma," he whispered.
"Let go."