Authors: Jennifer Donnelly
Freddie finished his tea, then took his leave, promising Isabelle
that he would invite India to Longmarsh presently to press his suit. She
allowed him to kiss her cheek and said she would await the good news.
Outside, the clouds were breaking up and the sun was shining. Freddie
was so pleased at his good fortune that he vaulted over the iron
railing sur-rounding Berkeley Square, startling a little boy in a sailor
suit. As he strode out of the park toward Piccadilly, he thought about
how he'd soon be able to outstrip Bingham, Wish, and Dickie Lambert.
With the Selwyn Jones fortune behind him, he'd be unstoppable.
Of course, his well-laid plans all hinged on convincing that awkward
bore of an India to actually set a date. Easier said than done. They
barely saw each other these days, what with his work at the Commons and
her hours at Dr. Gifford's, plus her involvement in the Society for the
Suppres-sion of the Opium Trade, the Fabian Society, and the Women's
Franchise League. He sighed, thinking how much easier it would all be if
that gor-geous Gemma Dean were titled and rich, but she wasn't. Far
from it.
He thought about the time he'd invested in India--years,
actually--and marveled at his own fortitude. He'd been playing a long
and masterful game of chess, carefully engineering each piece into
place, feigning an interest in her medical studies and her tedious
do-gooding--and yet the endgame still eluded him. He had to find a way
to get her to set a date for their wedding, but how? There was the
time-honored way, of course, and he had tried to make love to her on
several occasions, but she was cold-- frigid, in fact--and it had always
ended badly.
There had to be another way. Bingham had invited them all to
Long-marsh for the last weekend of June. That gave him a fortnight to
come up with a plan. He had planned to use the weekend to draft an
important speech in support of the Irish Home Rule Bill, but there would
be mornings and evenings. Time for long walks or horse-riding. He would
get her alone, appeal to her emotion, accuse her of being unfaithful,
threaten to break off the engagement--something, anything--to force her
hand.
It would be a tricky business. Even if he did get her to commit to a
wed-ding date, the job would still be only half done. Isabelle wanted
more than a wedding--she wanted India to stop practicing medicine. Well,
one thing at a time. First he would make India his wife, then he would
worry about how to end her career.
Freddie reached Piccadilly and, spotting the Ritz Hotel, decided to
treat himself to a bottle of Bolly. He was about to come into a fortune,
after all, and that deserved a toast. It was such a relief to know that
there would be money soon. His financial situation was almost always
dire, and he would need a good deal of cash for his campaign. The latest
rumors had the PM calling the election in September. Dickie Lambert was
continuing to make inroads in East London, visiting businessmen there,
buying rounds in pubs and clubs. Freddie knew he would have to work hard
to counteract him. He'd already started. He'd invited Joe Bristow and
other leading merchants and manufacturers with concerns in East London
to join him for dinner at the Reform Club. He planned to wine them, dine
them, and convince them that he was their man. It would be hellishly
expensive, but votes never came cheap.
Freddie was walking under the Ritz's tall stone colonnade when he
heard it--the "Raindrop Prelude." A man was standing under one of the
arches playing it on a violin. The case was open at his feet. A
sprinkling of coins glinted from it. Freddie stared at them, but didn't
see them. Instead, he saw the drawing room at Longmarsh. He was twelve,
his sister, Daphne, was six. She was lying on the floor crying. His
father was standing over her, his face contorted with anger. He'd been
drinking again. Freddie could smell the gin.
There was never any telling what would set him off. An over-salted
soup. A book misshelved in the library. Some childish infraction. That
night it had been Daphne's skipping rope. She'd left it on the dining
room floor and he'd tripped over it. He'd slapped her small face so hard
that he'd knocked her down. He was about to hit her again when Freddie,
desperate to stop him, picked up the skipping rope and whipped it
against his back-side as hard as he could.
Robert Lytton turned around. "Come here, boy," he said, stumbling toward him.
But Freddie was too quick. He darted away. "Run, Daff!" he shouted. "Lock yourself in your room. Go!"
Daphne ran in one direction and Freddie in another, the skipping rope
still in his hand. He knew where he was going. He'd had to escape his
fa-ther many times before. He ran up to the first-floor landing, down
the long portrait gallery, and crawled behind a skirted chair. A few
minutes later his father staggered by, knocking into the paintings on
the wall, kicking at the furniture. Then he lumbered up to the second
floor, where the children's bedrooms were. Freddie heard him battering
on Daphne's door, yelling at her to come out, that he'd teach her to
respect him, by God.
Freddie put his hands over his ears, trying to block out the noise.
Their mother and grandmother were visiting a neighbor. Bingham was
probably hiding in the stables. That's what he usually did. The servants
had scat-tered. There was no one but him to stop his father. But he
didn't know how. What if he got into Daff's room? He had to act. He had
to do something, but what?
A new noise started up. His father was kicking Daphne's door. He
heard Daff sobbing. He'll kill her, he thought frantically. This time
he'll kill her. There was no one to help him, no one. Not his mother.
Nor his grand-mother. Not even the God he'd prayed to in church, for He
never an-swered. Freddie was alone, all alone. And terrifled.
There was another kick, and then the sound of wood splintering. He heard Daphne shriek with fear.
"No!" he cried. "Stop it! Please stop it!"
He banged his head against the chair in fear and frustration. The
chair shifted, scraping across the floor on its wooden feet--and it was
then that Freddie discovered that he was wrong. He was not alone.
Richard Lytton, the Red Earl, was staring down at him.
The earl's eyes--fierce, shrewd and pitiless--seemed to ask him what
the devil he was doing sniveling while his sister was being terrorized.
"I ...I don't know. I have to stop him. But I don't know how,"
Freddie whispered. He ran across the hall and touched the portrait.
"Help me. Please," he said.
The earl had been painted in full armor astride a fearsome black
destrier. He held the horse's reins in his left hand, a sword in his
right. Beneath the animal's hooves were the maimed and bloodied bodies
of soldiers. In the background, castles and villages smoldered, and
women knelt, weeping over the dead.
Freddie knew his ancestor's history. Richard Lytton had been a
childhood friend to Edward, son of Henry III. Henry was a weak ruler, a
man who favored compromise over conflict. His rebellious nobles rose
against him. Led by Simon de Montfort, Henry's own brother-in-law, they
defeated him at the Battle of Lewes, then kept him and his family under
house ar-rest. While de Monfort ruled in Henry's place, Henry's eldest
son, Edward, also under arrest, simmered. Richard, who had always
attended Edward, remained with him during his imprisonment.
"I will take the crown back, Richard. I will be king one day," Edward
told him. "And when I am, I will rip out de Montfort's heart."
Richard thought of the old king, pious and indecisive, soft when he
should have been ruthless. "Would'st be king?" he finally said. "First
rip out thine own heart."
Edward followed his friend's advice. He escaped imprisonment with
Richard's help, assembled an army, and captured de Montfort at Evesham.
It was the age of chivalry, when nobles were not killed in battle.
Edward ended that age. He beheaded his uncle, gutted him, and scattered
his remains to the crows. It was but a foretaste of his reign. When he
finally became king he rewarded Richard Lytton, giving him money and
lands, putting him in charge of his armies, making him one of the most
powerful men in England.
"But you could be powerful," Freddie said to the Red Earl now. "You
had horses and weapons." He didn't have any of those things. All he had
was a blasted skipping rope and you couldn't hurt someone with that
unless they were stupid enough to trip over it.
Or drunk enough, said a voice inside his head.
Freddie's breath quickened. He looked down at the rope in his hands.
It was as if the Red Earl had heard his plea. And answered it. He lost
no time. The stairs were flanked by two newel posts. It took only
minutes to tie the rope around one, tuck it just under the edge of the
Turkish runner, and hide the other end behind the second post. The
portrait gallery, and the staircase leading down to the ground floor
from it, were poorly lit. He knew that his father, half blind with gin
and rage, would never see it. When he had finished, he took off his
shoes. He hid one and placed the other on the stairs.
Then he walked upstairs to the second-floor landing. His father had
nearly kicked Daphne's door in. Freddie heard her keening with fear.
"Stop that!" he shouted. "Leave her alone!"
His father turned around. His once-handsome face was bloated. His
eyes were heavy and bloodshot, but they could still register surprise.
"You are very bold today, boy," he said, taking a few steps toward him.
Freddie backed away. "And you are very drunk," he said, careful to
keep his distance. "I should like to beat you, you drunken pig."
And then he ran. For his life. He was down the long staircase, across
the landing, and behind the newel post before his father had left the
second floor.
Freddie could see his father coming. He looked over the banister as
he descended, spotted Freddie's shoe on the stairs, and smiled. He
quickened his pace, rounded the landing, and rushed for the main stairs.
Freddie pulled the rope as hard as he could. He felt his father's leg
catch against it, saw him pitch forward. He heard an endless crashing
tum-ble, and then the sickening crack of bone against marble, as his
father's skull smashed open on the foyer's floor. Freddie stood up then
and looked over the banister. His father's eyes were open but unseeing.
His limbs were splayed. Blood pooled under his head.
Freddie unknotted the rope. He put one shoe back on, walked down the
stairs, and put the second one on. When he reached the bottom, he
side-stepped his father's twitching body and placed the skipping rope
back in the drawing room. He found the butler in the cellar dusting off
the claret and told him that there had been an accident.
"I don't know what happened," he told the frantic man. "I was hiding
in the portrait gallery. He was angry. He had beaten Daphne and wanted
to beat me. I heard a shout and a crash and then I found him at the
bottom of the stairs."
He said the same thing to the doctor, and his mother, and his
grand-mother, and the vicar, and the police inspector. By the time
they'd all left, it was very late. His grandmother had given him a cup
of warm milk with a tot of rum in it and put him to bed. Although he was
exhausted, he didn't fall asleep, but lay staring at the ceiling, sick
to his very soul. Some time af-ter midnight he rose and crept quietly
back to the portrait gallery.
"I killed him," he said. "That makes me like him. Like you. It does, doesn't it?"
There was no reply.
Freddie started to weep. "I didn't want to hurt him. I wanted to save
Daphne. I'm afraid now. So afraid. What do I do? Please, sir. Please.
Tell me. Help me."
The earl's voice seemed to come to him from beyond the centuries. Would'st be king? First rip out thine own heart...
"How?" he asked, his voice an agonized whisper. "How?"
His heart still beat inside him. He could feel it. It remembered the
man his father had once been. Long ago. Before the gin and the money
troubles. Before the defeats in the Commons. Before the bitterness and
rage. It still loved that man.
He was only twelve. He didn't know yet that it wasn't done all at once. It was done over time. In bits and pieces.
He'd returned to his room and climbed back into bed, still afraid. He
thought there might be repercussions--a wailing ghost or demons with
pitchforks. But there weren't. There was nothing at all. Only quiet, and
a deep relief that came from knowing neither his mother nor his
siblings would ever be brutalized again. As dawn broke over Longmarsh,
he'd closed his eyes and slept.
Some weeks after the funeral, he was alone at breakfast with his
mother. She was wearing mourning and gazing out the window. "How sad for
you, Freddie, to be a fatherless boy," she'd said.
"No, not very," he'd replied, buttering a piece of toast.
She turned her head and looked at him. Her eyes widened, and
al-though she was as still as stone, he felt her recoil from him. He had
touched his palm to his chest, checking. It was getting easier.
Already. It didn't hurt as much now. He'd smiled, then dipped his toast
in his egg.
Outside the Ritz, the violinist finished. The last notes of the
prelude rose and faded and with them Freddie's memories. He threw a
handful of coins into the violin case and walked into the hotel. He
thought of India, of the sham marriage he would soon dupe her into
making, and his hand reflexively went to his chest, palm against his
heart. It barely hurt at all.
The pieces were in place. He was poised for checkmate. He would make
his final move at Longmarsh in a fortnight's time, and he would win.
For �20,000 a year, he'd damn well better.
Fiona stood in her nightgown in front of her mirrored armoire,
flushed and flustered. Her stockings and petticoat were in a heap on the
floor nearby. She looked at the silver clock on her vanity table
anxiously. She was late. Again. It was only seven in the morning, but
already she was late.