A Lady's Guide to Ruin (4 page)

Elinor had a delicate way of eating, her wrists gracefully poised, her fingers arranged just so on the cutlery. Joan's father would have been proud. Joan tried to mimic the gestures, her own elegance roughened by months of disuse. She chattered a few moments longer, and was relieved when Elinor took the next moment of silence to switch her attention to her brother.

“What is this business you have to attend to?” Elinor asked him.

“I'm sorry?”

“The business. The reason you can't join us. What is it?”

“Terribly dull, mostly,” Martin said, and promptly took a bite of chicken roulade. A bit large for polite company. He was dodging the question, Joan realized. He wasn't very good at it. Elinor had noticed, too, and her lips thinned with no trace of amusement.

“Really, Martin, if you don't tell me, I shall be forced to find out on my own, and you know I can. Why delay the inevitable?”

Martin had swallowed, removing his best defense against the need to answer. He opened his mouth; Joan recognized the look of one concocting a lie—and botching it before uttering a syllable. She couldn't decide whether it was painful, or merely entertaining. It was marvelous, sitting here, being part of their familiar back and forth, however peripherally.

A crash sounded behind her.

Joan was on her feet and halfway around the table before she registered the flash of silver, the tray toppling from the footman's hands, his stoop to catch it. She fetched up against the wall, her mouth suddenly dry and her breath lodged in her throat. She'd spilled her drink. Her hand was wet, dripping dark wine. She held it out, fingers half-curled. They were all staring at her.

“I-I'm sorry,” she said, her stutter unfeigned.

Martin rose. She tried to school herself to calm, to stitch a smile across her face, but her hands were shaking and she couldn't get a full breath. She could almost hear the scrape of chains, smell the hot, whiskey-thick breath of the mad doctor—

“There is nothing to apologize for,” Martin said. He drew close, slowly, his movements deliberate. As if approaching a hurt animal. She gave a convulsive laugh,
swallowed it. Her emotions didn't seem her own—they lurched to and fro and she couldn't get hold of them, couldn't get hold of herself. She shut her eyes, wrenching herself back to center.
Control yourself and you control the situation,
her father said in her mind.

“It's all right,” Martin said. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and caught her hand, gingerly sponging the wine from it. His touch was painfully soft. “Take a deep breath. No one will hurt you here.”

Elinor watched in stillness and silence, compassion making her features all the more beautiful. The footmen, one more red-faced than the other, were gathering up the mess under the baleful gaze of the butler.

The handkerchief moved rhythmically over her fingers, catching every stray drop. “You'll ruin it,” she noted.

“I have dozens,” he assured her. He finished, but kept his free hand beneath hers, not quite holding it. She felt as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. “Better?” he asked.

Her heartbeat had slowed and her breath came easily. She was not in Bedlam; she was not trapped, not bound, not subject to the whims of the mad doctors.
That cannot happen again
, she told herself, and fixed the thought in her mind.

“Daphne,” Martin said. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes with reluctance. “You are safe here,” he said gravely. He believed it; she knew the sound of lies and this didn't have it. She wished she could believe as he did.

Daphne would believe him. So for tonight, let her be Daphne; let her be comforted by his words and his touch.

“You are safe here,” he repeated, low and urgent.

Slowly, she nodded.

You are safe here.
The words echoed through Joan's mind as she lay awake, waiting for the household to settle. They whispered and repeated, like the sound of wind stirring dried leaves along the street. Carried forward, leading somewhere—somewhere she could not bring herself to follow. She had heard so many promises in her life. Promises of love, inspiring guilt or contempt. Promises of harm, which left a coppery taste on her tongue and her heart beating quick. Safety, though? No one had been foolish enough to promise her safety. Not even her father, when he still lived.

The rest of dinner had been . . . strange. She had taken care to reconstruct her guise gradually, and by the end she thought she had them both convinced that her momentary lapse had been the overreaction of a silly girl. She'd made breathless excuses and giggled at her own misfortune, and
watched Martin frown more and more deeply each time he thought her attention was elsewhere.

She couldn't keep it up. She couldn't be Daphne with Moses so close, with the threat of Bedlam still looming near. Just as well, then, that it was time to go, and find her own safety.

She threw off the sheet and slung her legs over the side of the bed. Mrs. Wynn, whose acquaintance Joan had made after dinner, snored beyond the wall. A clock ticked in the hallway. A skitter in the wall marked the passage of some quick-footed creature but the sounds of human activity had vanished.

She had slept better in Bedlam, with Mary Farley screaming into her mattress two beds down, strange as it seemed. Or perhaps not so strange: at least there, she hadn't been waiting for Hugh's tread on the floorboards, or Moses's shadow to fall across her.

She rose and dressed quietly, pulling a shawl around her shoulders. She would make her exit through the back door; there were plenty of trinkets along the way that she could tuck away, and she still knew a fence or two that owed her favors, though none with the coin or the contacts to handle her little pebbles.

She had marked her route on the way upstairs. The bedroom door had a propensity to creak; she opened it shy of the point where the hinges would whimper their small betrayal and slid her body through the gap. Long rugs ran the length of the hallways, quieting her footsteps. She carried her shoes in her hand to silence them further. She made her way, counting doors. Mrs. Wynn, Elinor, sewing room. The servants were quartered in the basement, too distant to be disturbed by her movements.

She made her way down the stairs, testing each step with her toe and dodging the creaks. She leapt from the last step and spun silently on the ball of her foot, taking a bow to an imaginary audience. 'Round the house in perfect silence. She hadn't entirely lost her abilities.

A snuffbox set out on display and a petite silver candlestick joined her shoes in her hand. She wished she could somehow repay Lord Fenbrook and his sister, rather than take more from them. But they would hardly miss the trinkets, and she had little choice. She stole to the rear door with no guilt, but still a measure of regret. She eased the door open and peered through the crack.

The stars shone bright overhead. Bright enough to stir the shadows and sketch the outline of the slender form at the end of the street. She knew that silhouette, with its limbs like knobby sticks. Hugh. She swore, quietly and fiercely. Moses might be a brute, but Hugh was worse. He made Moses worse. He was the sort to stand back and laugh while Moses broke bones and drew blood. And he had eyes like a hawk with a spyglass.

She glanced down the other way, but there was no help there. A dead end, and nothing to hide her but the darkness. If he moved, she might get past him. But he had found himself a comfortable spot, it seemed.

She would guess that he could see the front of the house from that position, which left her nowhere to hide. She drew back, a sour taste in her mouth. She was trapped. She closed the door and locked it as silently as she could, and crept back. She set the candlestick and the snuff box back in their respective places; she'd not be making it out tonight, and better they not turn up missing. She held her
hand outstretched and willed it to stop shaking. She would find a way out. Hugh couldn't be everywhere at once.

She turned, and froze. A figure stood in the hallway, beside the door to the cupboard beneath the stairs. It was too dark to make out more than broad shoulders and a slight stoop. Her mouth went dry. Moses.

But, no. The faint huff of amusement shattered the illusion. Martin stepped forward, straightening up and dispelling the stunted silhouette his pose had created. “Cousin Daphne,” he said. His voice was warm and rich. She could just make out his features in the dark, those bewitching eyes catching some stray glint of light. “Do you frequently wander through the hallways at night?”

“You startled me,” Joan said. The hitch of her breath in the middle of the words gave it truth. He couldn't have seen her replacing the candlestick or he wouldn't be so calm. He had no reason to be suspicious. Her fear vanished into a sharp excitement, leaving her feeling raw and light-headed. She stepped back, clutching her shawl about herself and hoping the shadows would hide the fact that she was fully dressed and ready to travel. “I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep.”

“It is a family affliction,” Martin said. At her confused silence, he waved a hand. “Insomnia. My father never slept more than three hours at a stretch, and as I recall, yours is not much better. I myself spend too many hours pacing the halls in the dark. Elinor says I should find myself a drafty castle, so I might become a tragic hero in some gothic story.”

“That wouldn't work,” Joan said, before she could think better of it.

He puffed himself up with feigned affront. “And why
not? I can brood as well as the next man, I'll have you know.”

“You aren't dangerous enough,” Joan said, and bit her lip. A brush with danger always did make her too bold. Something about him did, as well. She could not think of him as a threat—a foolishness that her father would have berated her endlessly for. “I don't mean to insult you,” she added.

He chuckled. His laugh was as warm as his voice. It seemed to twine around her. She curled her toes into the carpet to keep from stepping toward him. “Some men would take that as an insult. But I find I cannot be insulted by the notion. Although all men are dangerous to young women, Miss Hargrove, by the fact of their mere existence. We should not be here, alone in the dark.”

“We should not be
seen
alone in the dark,” Joan corrected him. The blackness seemed to shrink the space between them. He could have been inches away, close enough to touch, and she would hardly be able to tell.

“I suppose that depends on what we are trying to avoid,” he said. His voice had an edge to it. He was all hidden edges, this man, afraid that he would cut someone. She was accustomed to those who sharpened their edges to fine points and delighted in setting them against her skin; his attempts to gentle himself disarmed her. He could be trouble for her, and she almost wished she had the time to let him. “You should be careful, cousin.”

“Careful of what?” she asked, deliberately obtuse, wanting him to spell out with those lips and that tongue exactly what it was they weren't supposed to be doing. At his huff of frustration, she suppressed a chuckle, more at herself than him. Lock a girl away for six months and she concocted the wildest of fantasies.

“At least you will be safe in the country, tucked away,” Martin said, half to himself.

She nearly laughed in sudden relief. Joan Price could not scurry out through the shadows, but Daphne Hargrove could walk out of here in broad daylight. They would be traveling by carriage; that would hide her from sight, if she could get herself within it without being spotted. And surely she could convince the Hargroves to aid her there, pleading fear of the brute from yesterday. A few carefully selected lies, a short carriage ride, and she would be out of Moses and Hugh's reach.

It was the civilized way out. The scam, not the clamber, as her father would have said. He'd never really approved of her second-story excursions.
It's a rude game to take what isn't yours,
he'd say.
A thief of quality doesn't have to take the prize. It is given to her
. Then he'd knock back his flask, rap a knuckle on the table, and order her to speak French or curtsy or rattle off the rules of precedence.

She could have kissed Martin right then.

“I think the country air will do me well,” she said lightly instead.

He was silent for a long moment. “You are not what I expected,” he said, and a chill shot through her. She had been too bold. Too eager to test how well they were matched once her mask was dropped.

“I'm—I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said all of that,” Joan said, drawing Daphne's persona around her as tightly as her shawl. She could not afford to indulge her curiosity. She needed him gone, quickly, so that she could make her escape. But where would she go?

“That was not a rebuke,” he said, distress laced through his words. She smiled in the dark, where he could not see.
He feared he was a harsh man—she'd seen that about him from the start, when he seemed to wince each time he spoke with anything but the utmost gentleness. If she had been made of spun sugar, perhaps she would have found him harsh. “I would never wish to be a danger to you,” he said. “I wish for you to feel safe.”

That word again. He wielded it so easily. “I wish that as well,” she said. She stepped past him, holding herself carefully to hide the shoes in her hands. But his gaze was fixed firmly on her face. She paused, an arm's reach away. He wanted to protect her, and she wished, with a fervency she could not entirely explain, that he could.

“But you don't?” Martin asked.

He was her way out. He and Elinor would see their cousin safely to Birch Hall, and far from Joan Price's life. She need only pretend a few days longer. A few more days of tears and sighs, playing the silly girl who would never be caught in the dark with a man. She had lied her way into the trust of a dozen men and more. She could not say why, now, the prospect was a bitter one.

“I don't,” she said. “Not yet. Good night, cousin.” She fled up the stairs and tried not to notice how long he lingered before his footsteps finally moved away.