Beloved (25 page)

“I have not yet decided the exact nature of how you will pay for the wrong you have done me.”

Wrong? She had done nothing wrong. Her brow became hot and damp. Mama and Papa had not yet left. Perhaps she should go to
them at once and show them the note.

No. They had already done too much for her.
“I know you will be anxious to serve me. Be patient, my virgin, be patient. I cannot tell you when I will come to you, but
I will come. Best stay away from public places—and from any man you would not wish to be embarrassed before. After all, if
I encounter you publicly, I may not be able to stop myself from warning any gentleman of your true colors. Red chiffon. Accommodation
to any gentleman’s needs. Large gentlemen particularly welcomed. That is how the sign over the door of Mrs. Lushbottam’s read.
But, of course, you remember such details well. Do you prefer large gentlemen to thread your needle?”

What did it mean? Oh, what did it mean?

Running footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“I am, my dear virgin, your ever-attentive master. Await my pleasure.”

She thrust the note and its envelope into the pocket of her gown and pressed her palms to her cheeks.

“Ella! Ella!” The door flew open and banged against the wall. “It’s me, Max. Footsore and exhausted, but at your service,
sister. Why are you in residence here instead of Hanover Square? Crabley would scarcely speak to me.”

Ella fell back a step. “Max? What on earth are you doing in London? You’re supposed to be in school.”

“Sick,” he said, staggering comically. “Surely you see I’m sick and have been returned to you in hopes you can save my life.”

Settling her features into an older-sisterly frown, Ella studied her fifteen-year-old brother from the top of his unruly red
hair, to the toes of his highly polished and very fashionable bespoke boots. “I am here because Papa and Mama are returning
to Scotland in the morning. Edward and Sarah need them, and Papa must deal with some questions about both Kirkcaldy itself
and the lodge. He needs Mama with him. Great-Grandmama is to be my mentor for my Season. But enough of that. What is all this
with you, Max? Surely you haven’t been expelled from Eton.”

“Expelled? I’ll thank you to take back such a suggestion. I am a model pupil in every manner. My masters gasp at my brilliance.
They have never seen the like. That’s what they say daily.”

At fifteen Max was over six feet tall and, rather than gangly as most youths so quickly grown might have been, he showed a
fine, strong figure. Max lived with vigor, confronted every experience with curiosity and energy. His once carrot-colored
hair had darkened to a rich, deep red and, although thick and tousled, no longer stood up as if in a condition of perpetual
shock. Green eyes now showed a developed humor that could sometimes be tempered with acute seriousness. Max Rossmara had become
a handsome young blade, and Ella looked upon him with pride.

Today Ella also looked upon her brother with suspicion. He could not possibly be ill and he could not possibly have any right
to be here unless he’d been sent away from Eton.

“You wrote,” he said, standing before her, resting a big hand on each of her shoulders and looking down into her face. “You
are not happy.”

Having to tilt up her chin to regard her young brother’s face disconcerted Ella. “I did not tell you I was unhappy.”

“Precisely. You did not tell me anything at all. Only that you were in London. Nothing more. That was because something is
amiss. You are unhappy. Otherwise your words would have bubbled with interesting news. There. That’s the way of it. You need
me, so I am here.”

Ella looked away. She could almost feel the horrid note— even through her layers of petticoats.

Max examined his fingernails. “I suppose this has something to do with Saber.”

“Saber is wonderful!” She closed her mouth tightly. “Wonderful, but?”

Ella shook her head.

“He has done something to make you sad, hasn’t he?”

“Do not persist in this,” Ella said. “You must return to school before you are missed.”

“I am already missed. They sent me home because I am sick.”

“But you are not sick, Max. What can you be thinking of, running away and coming here after all Mama and Papa have done for
you?”

He withdrew his hands and let his shoulders sag. His eyelids lowered until he appeared almost asleep. “Matron gave me leave
to return home,” he said weakly. “Apparently she feared some sort of epidemic. The fever, you know. When it became so high,
I saw demons. By coincidence that was after I dampened my shirt with hot water, and placed a heated stone beneath my pillow.
But I saw small purple demons dancing on Matron’s shoulders and disappearing inside her bodice. They shrieked. Apparently
they were overwhelmed by what they found there, I suppose. I told her so.”

“Max! You are not changed at all.” Ella barely contained her mirth. “You continue to tell the most frightful stories. That
poor woman. You shall return to her and apologize at once.”

“Not until I have made sure all is well with you,” he said, absolutely serious now. “I have been given leave to rest here
with you until I am recovered. I will be recovered once I am no longer concerned for you.”

“What will Papa say? And—”

“Leave them to me. Finch said they have gone out to visit friends and will not return until late this evening. By then I shall
have thought of an appropriate excuse for being here.”

“No doubt,” Ella said wryly. “Just leave out the purple demons and the bodice of your matron’s dress.”

Max ignored that. “Tell me what Saber’s done to you.”

“Nothing.”

He rested his chin on his chest. The lines of his face were sharp and clever. Despite his youth, in his black, tailed coat
and high, starched white collar, he was a figure bound to command notice. “And therein lies the answer, I think,” he said
in measured tones. “Yet again Saber has failed to act. You love him, don’t you, Ella?”

She blushed and averted her face. “Quite,” Max said. “I know exactly how that feels now.”

“What?” Her head snapped in his direction again. “What does that mean?”

He gestured vaguely. “Nothing. Only that a man of my experience understands these things. Not that I have known love, but
I have felt the small twinges that might be mistaken for that emotion. However, we are not discussing me. Tell me about Saber.”

“You speak so well now, Max. One would never imagine you had once been… well, one wouldn’t, would one?”

He grinned. “No, one wouldn’t, would one? No more than one would imagine you had once been… well…”

“Very well,” Ella snapped. She must not be further reminded of the other. “We have made that point.”

“And you tried to change the subject. I take it you have seen Saber?”

Oh, indeed she had seen Saber. Seen him and much, much more. “Yes.”

“How is he?”

“Marvelous.” She bit her bottom lip.

“Good. If he’s so marvelous, why do you look so sad?”

“He does not want me, Max.” Tears stung her eyes. “He has vowed to help find me a husband. Can you countenance such a thing?
Saber is going to help find another man for me.”

Max paused in the act of perusing a small portrait he’d picked up from a tiny marquetry table. “Surely you jest?
Another
man? Saber is trying to find someone else to be your husband?”

“Yes,” Ella said in a small voice. She did not feel particularly like the older, more mature sibling at the moment.

The gilt frame of the portrait met the table with a sharp clack. Max said, “Then he is a fool or mad—or both.”

“Don’t,” Ella implored. “I cannot bear to hear you speak of him so. Oh, Max, he was wounded in India.”

“Yes.” Max’s straight nose rose. “Years since. We already knew of this. What has it to do with the situation at hand?”

“I think …I think it has everything to do with it. His face is quite severely scarred.”

“Really?” Rather than revulsion, Max’s expression showed impressed interest. “How very dashing.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more. I would not wish him to have suffered such pain as must have been his, but he is still the
most handsome man in the world, not that I should care what he looked like as long as he was my Saber.”

“There is another female, perhaps?”

Ella swayed a little. “There is?” Max declared. “Who is she?”

“Well, he does have a friend, a Countess Perruche. Margot. But I don’t think… No, I don’t think so.”

Max took Ella’s hand and led her to the chaise. Once she was seated he leaned over her. “Then what, sister dear? What is keeping
the rattle-brain from sweeping you to the altar?”

She shook her head. “It’s mysterious.
He’s
mysterious. He says he cannot be with me. We cannot be together. It is not
possible
for us to be together. And he appears desperate when he says so. Desperate and unhappy. Then there is Devlin North.”

“What about Devlin? He’s in London too?”

“In London and possibly courting me.”

“Possibly?” Max snorted. “Either a man is courting a woman or he is not.”

“I just don’t know,” Ella said. “The most beautiful gifts have been arriving. Lots and lots of them. I was suspicious that
Devlin might be sending them.” She considered before she said, “But I am not at all certain Saber isn’t the one.”

Straightening, Max puffed up his cheeks and made his green eyes round. “Too complicated for a simple mind like mine, my dear
sister.” He bent closer again. “What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”

Ella’s heart leaped. “Nothing!”

“Oh, yes, there is,” he told her, pinching his nostrils and assuming an air of wise concentration. “I feel it. I see it. Something
else is afoot here. You are not just unhappy. You are troubled. Frightened even.”

He could not possibly know. He was guessing or fabricating. Max had been a master fabricator all his life. She composed herself,
arranging her skirts and settling a calm expression on her face.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Max said, tapping the tip of her nose. “You may try to appear calm and removed, but I know better. We
have been everything to each other, Ella. Without you, I should not have survived. Without you—and Papa, whom you persuaded
to rescue me—I might still be picking pockets in Covent Garden. Although by now I’d be rotting in prison, if I were still
alive. I’d be little better than an animal. Tell me what makes you pale beneath that lovely golden skin of yours. Other than
unrequited love.”

She pressed a hand over the pocket where the letter rested. “Nothing, I tell you.”

“Nothing, hmm.”

“Exactly. Nothing at all. I’m a little fatigued by all the revelry is all.”

Before she guessed his intention, one of Max’s large, strong, nimble hands descended upon hers—on top of the letter in her
pocket.

“Max! What are you thinking of? Let me go.”

He transferred her hand from his right to his left and deftly removed the letter from her pocket. “I think this is the something
that bothers you? It is, isn’t it? You were never good at hiding things from me.”

“That is private.” She made an unsuccessful grab for the envelope. “Give it to me.”

“I saw the way you touched it when I pressed you for information. Whatever is so private here is also a great trial to you.”

“It is not. It is nothing but a personal note from a friend. Kindly—” She made another grab, but he turned his back and she
heard him pulling out the notepaper. “Max, I beg you, do not read it. Oh, please, do not read it!”

He kept her at bay with infuriating ease—and read the letter.

A dull red gradually rose up his neck and over his face. “Please sit down,” he said to Ella in a voice not at all like his
own. “Sit down and collect yourself.”

“You had no right to take what was mine and read it!” Max pounded the back of a chair. “How dare this foul creature write
such filth to you.”

She trembled so, her teeth clattered together. “What does he…?” How could she ask her fifteen-year-old brother to explain
what must be the truly horrifying suggestions of the letter writer?

Max flattened his lips to his teeth and stared at her. “You do not understand this, do you?” He waved the paper. “Of course
not. How could you?”

“How could
you
?” she snapped back.

He pushed his fingers through his hair. “I am a man. I became a man when I should have been a child. The world made it so
for me. Now. Be calm.”

“You are not calm.” Her voice was a squeak. “You are not calm at all. You are angry.”

“Angry does not describe my feelings at all fittingly. Sit down, Ella.” When she had reluctantly done so, he continued. “What
did you intend to do about this?”

She was helpless to stop tears from falling. “I don’t know. I had only just finished reading it when you arrived. Who can
have sent it to me?”

“A fool,” he said shortly.

Ella wiped at the tears. “I shall kill him,” Max added. “No!” This is exactly what she’d been afraid of. “There will be no
violence. It is against the law. And you, rather than he, might be hurt. I will discover the identity of this creature and
reason with him. I will make him understand the error of his ways and apologize to me.”

“Hah!” Max’s eyes were narrow slits of green fire. “You will
reason
with a sick, mad man? Will you do that while he ravishes you?”

“Max! How could you speak to me so?”

“Someone must speak to you so. You have lost your senses. These are not the words of a sane man who might be reasoned with.
A creature with evil designs sent you this. He guessed, correctly, that you would attempt to hide it and deal with him yourself.
And, when you did, he would have accomplished what he wanted—he would have you, Ella.”

“But—”

“Saber will help us.”

“Saber?” Saber must never know exactly how dreadful the story of her life at Lushbottam’s had been. “Saber doesn’t want any
part of me except as a helpful family friend.”

“Come, we shall visit him now. Where does he live?”

“No. It would only be as before. He would refuse to see me—if I could persuade his man Bigun to announce us— which I doubt
after the last fiasco.”