Laura Kinsale (15 page)

Gryf found himself suddenly among moored ships, much sooner than he had expected. The dinghy struck a mooring chain with a jarring thump and spun slowly away.

He began a twisting tour of the moorings, peering through the darkness at the outline of each silent ship. The wind had changed—or he had lost his direction. He rowed for the next lantern, and the next. The names and dark shapes began to run together. Again and again he drifted down upon a mooring chain and peered up at the figurehead. Some of the names seemed familiar—or were they the same ones he had just passed? He unshipped the oars and drifted, wiping sweat from his mouth with one hand. A musty taste of blood stained his tongue, and he looked down at his palms, at his hands that had gone soft and now bled from forgotten work. There was no pain. Just a dull ache, like the numbness inside of him.

The last lantern eased past him, lighting an unfamiliar bow. Beyond was darkness. He was lost.

It did not seem to matter. He let the dinghy glide on the current aimlessly. A steam paddler made its splashing way down the channel, recognizable first by its noise and then by the red engine glow and ghostly fall of water, like two white wings on either side. He slowly became aware that he was in its path. He stared impassively at the steamer as the slow, black river carried it toward him. He was tired. Tired of thinking. Tired of feeling. The water was dark and cool, the throb of an engine and the splash of paddles warm and close, like a steady heartbeat pumping lifeblood. It seemed easy, to wait there in the steamer’s path as she bore down on him. To not fight anymore; to not be afraid, or lonely, or hurt. To forget. It seemed so very easy to let go…

The steamer was almost upon him. His dinghy rose
on a wave, swept inward toward the rusty wall of freeboard, and scraped brutally along the side of the larger vessel. The unshipped oars jerked free of his hands, swung forward and back as the dinghy bucked wildly. The sound of the paddles grew to a roar, and they rose above him like a demonic waterfall out of the darkness. At the sight of the towering paddlewheel, a shot of pure physical terror lanced through Gryf. He scrambled for an oar. He broke it free and shoved mightily, fending off from the steamer, fending again, and backing water with frantic strength amid the white, roiling wake. The dinghy reeled, tossed like a piece of driftwood, and the great paddle passed within six inches of his stern. The wheel was slowing rapidly, and Gryf fought the weakening suction that would have drawn him under seconds earlier. The paddle creaked to a stop, and a deafening whistle and roar filled the night as the wheeler blew off steam.

As the whistling scream died away, he could hear pounding feet and agitated shouts, calling for a life buoy. He looked up the tall iron side of the steamer and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Ahoy there. Belay! I’m afloat!”

The feet pounded down the deck, and in the steamer’s lights he could see heads pop out over the railing. “In the muckin’ wherry?” someone called. “Damme, you still alive?”

“Aye.” Gryf pulled back a little from the steamer as she lay to, moving slightly with the current. “See to your course.” He wiped water from his face with one sleeve. “The blame is mine.”

“Sweet Jesus, man, you come right athwart ’er! We like to cut you in two!”

“That I know,” Gryf said ruefully. Several inches of water sloshed about over his boots in the bottom of the boat.

“Aye,” a deeper voice added, “’t were not for the bow light o’ that Aberdeen clipper over there off the point, I’d be ’alfway to Wool’ich and you’d be at the bottom, and none to tell the tale. I sees you in the water there, lying across the line o’ her light. What kind o’ fool you be, governor? You don’t say you didn’t ’ear us comin’, now?”

Gryf looked the way the man pointed, and saw the single light that burned there. With a sudden mental start, the vague chart in his head reversed, and the confusing pieces fell into place. He had been drifting lost, but now with a blinding clarity he knew where he was. He did not have to see the outline of the ship by the point to identify her raking masts and the elegant sweep of her deck. He knew her, every line and curve.

He looked back up at the deck of the steamer. “I’ve had a drop or two.” It was the only explanation he could think of. “I’m sober now.”

“Blest if you ain’t, arter such a scare!” A gruff concern colored the voice. “Can you get yourself off this river, governor?”

“Aye. That’s my ship, by the point.”

“Is it now? Would you be an officer, by the sound o’ you?”

Gryf hesitated, and then said, “Captain.”

There was a short guffaw. “None other, then? You’d best ’ave one o’ your boys take you next time, sir, if you be planning on liftin’ a pint.” The steamer captain’s voice paused, and then he said, almost shyly, “You’ll be needin’ a tug on that beauty sometime, sir?”

“I will,” Gryf answered promptly.

“You’ll not ’old it against the good
Rose
when that time comes?”

“I shall count it heavily in her favor. The tide turns at five…can she be here then?”

“Oh, aye, sir, that she can! She’ll ’ave that pretty bird at Gravesend ’fore the day’s out.”

Gryf manned his oars. “Five, then.” He did not ask what the
Rose
would charge for a tow. He owed her.

“Steady on, Captain.” Another hearty laugh drifted out over the water as the steam blew again. “Never say die, sir, as long as there’s a shot in the locker!”

The words made Gryf stop his rowing. He watched as the steamer charged her boilers. The big, slow paddles began to turn, and she swung again into the stream. Her lights passed on, down the river, and winked out around the point. The river was silent again, only the sound of a barking dog on the far shore, and the faint squeak of one of the
Arcanum
’s spars on the light wind.

Never say die.

He began to pull for his ship…for the ship that had saved his life with her steady light. She materialized out of the darkness, solid and real, patiently waiting, the one love that had not deserted him. His life came down to that: that as long as he was alive, he would have her. And when she went down, he would go too.

Never say die.

It was something Grady would have told him.

I
t was spring again.

The thought of it made Tess cry. She cried often now…silently, without emotion, as if the tears were the slow upwelling of blood from a wound.

In the dark gallery, in the fingers of sunlight that crept under the doors, she could just see the malevolent, pale stares of the huge portraits of Ashland’s ancestors as she huddled in a corner and wept. Only in that one corner of the hated room could she sleep, because whatever portrait had hung above it once had been removed, leaving only an outline against the faded wall. Only in that one corner had Stephen not had a bizarre story to tell, a sick fancy to act out, a new and brutal way to punish her for what he had failed to accomplish himself. Until she was a proper wife, until she would do what pleased him and no longer fought, he would see that she suffered the consequences.

“Lady Tess,” Mr. Taylor said gently, bringing her back to present reality, to the library at Morrow House instead of Ashland’s gallery. She slid too easily into the dreams—the mental scars had not healed as quickly as the chilblains on her hands and feet, the reddened swelling from too many winter weeks without a bed,
without even a blanket, in a room so cold that she had to break the ice in the basin before she could drink and wash herself.

She smiled wanly at Mr. Taylor, still half-surprised to see him there, so familiar, so matter-of-fact, a part of the everyday world that had faded almost to unreality during the nightmare of her marriage to Stephen Eliot. She looked down at the stack of papers he had placed before her and said, “It seems you’ve thought of everything.”

He stood up, his whiskered face troubled, and came to lay a hand on her shoulder. “I wish you would come home with me.”

Tess looked out the window at the budding trees. April. The world’s inexorable clockwork had brought the season round again, in spite of everything. She said, “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“What will I tell Mrs. Taylor?”

“Tell her…” Tess stopped, blinked. “Give her all my love. Tell her that I have to find him.”

“Frost.” It was a statement, not a question.

Tess nodded.

“And if you can’t?”

“Then I’ll come to you. I have to try.”

He made no answer. It was a discussion they had had before, in the weeks since he had arrived from Brazil. Ever since he had broken down the ornate door of the gallery at Ashland and found her huddled where Stephen had locked her, Mr. Taylor had barely let her from his sight. That day, the shaft of light through the splintering door had nearly blinded her, but the sound of his voice, bellowing rage and disbelief, had been like a miracle. He had carried her out, taken her away from the darkness into the light and the air. After six months of torment, he had set her free. And he had come because Gryf had sent him.

Her gaze wandered about the room. There Gryf had been once, and there, and there…there he had knelt and said that he loved her; there he had stood and endured her accusations and abuse, without protest, with mute patience, and she had not understood. Had not known that women as foul as Louisa Grant-Hastings existed, until all of London was abuzz with the news of Lord Falken’s bastard and how much the duke had paid Louisa to take herself off for good. Had not realized that there was more than one kind of honesty, until she learned from her guardian that Gryf had not taken a penny of his earnings for trying to protect Tess, because he felt that he had failed his trust. Had not known—had never even imagined—that monsters lived in the form of men…

Until Stephen had come to her room on their wedding night.

She had been frightened anyway that first night at Ashland, miserably nervous and unhappy, all of her fine resolutions to be a good wife lost in the first clear apprehension of the irrevocable commitment she had made. She sat in her silky gown at the dressing table in the great, ancient bedchamber and thought—not of Stephen—but of Gryf. She tried not to. She tried to concentrate on Stephen, to make herself recall his quick, cynical wit, the unerring courtesy and deference he had always shown her, the way he guided her through the shoals of Fashionable Society when she would have floundered on her own. He had made it clear that he would protect her and revere her, and she had tried to imagine his promises were something more than a cage in which to keep a pretty bird. But it was useless. As she sat there at her mirror, married before God and man, another face rose in her mind’s eye, and she knew that she would never be truly faithful to her husband in her heart.

It was that conviction that kept her sane through all that followed. She had never loved Stephen, never from the start, and so there had been something else to cling to when the facade of normality cracked, and revealed the madness beneath.

It had begun with the child, the little boy who crept to her door that night and stood behind her staring timidly. She turned from the mirror in surprise. He did not speak, and Tess took a moment to find her own voice before she managed a small smile and said, “Hullo. Who are you?”

He put a finger in his mouth, not answering. She looked at his flowing white gown and large gray eyes in puzzlement. “Are you lost?”

He hesitated a moment, and then shook his head.

“What’s your name?” Tess asked.

“Sammy, mum.”

The words were no more than a whisper, accompanied by an apprehensive flick of the large eyes, as if the child expected some punishment for daring to speak. Tess smiled again, to reassure him, but received no smile in return.

“Where’s your mother, Sammy? She’ll be wanting you in bed at this hour.”

Tess had half-expected him to look chagrined, for she had decided he must be some servant’s child on a nocturnal adventure. Having only arrived that afternoon, she barely knew the staff at Ashland, but what else could he be, dressed in nightclothes as he was? He only shrugged at the question, and sucked a little harder on his finger.

She pressed her lips together in doubt, and reached to ring for the maid. Her movement caused him to start, and the sleeve of his gown fell a little, revealing deep red welts on his wrist. Tess frowned, recognizing inflamma
tion beneath the scabbed skin. “Sammy,” she said gently, careful not to frighten him, “you’ve hurt your arm.”

He stared at her warily.

“Come here,” she said.

He came readily enough, with a puppetlike obedience. She took his hand, and felt him tense beneath her touch. “I won’t hurt,” she promised. “Just let me look. Oh, dear, Sammy, however did you manage this?”

He bent his bright, blond head and looked down at his wrist, as if it puzzled him as much as it did her. He looked up again, about to speak, and then his eyes fastened on the mirror behind her, widening. Tess automatically followed his gaze.

She gagged on a stifled scream.

Behind her, reflected in the glass, stood a man. Her fingers dug into Sammy’s arm as she stared at the apparition—all black it was, except for the white hood that floated like a death’s-head above the shadows. For one suspended moment terror clutched her: she could not move, could not even think, and then she lunged for the bellpull, yanking it madly. No sound accompanied the summons, for the bell itself would be ringing somewhere far belowstairs, but she continued to tug at it with frantic strength, expecting the intruder to flee at the sight of a sounded alarm.

He did not. He simply stood, watching her. She gave off pulling at the bell and whirled to her feet, shoving Sammy behind her as she faced the hooded figure. “What do you want?” she demanded. “Leave here at once.”

The eye slits in the hood seemed to regard her with unblinking, silent menace. She choked back dry panic and felt at the dresser behind her, pulling open the drawer. “I have a gun,” she lied. “I know how to use it.”

The specter took a step. Tess’s heart jammed her throat. “No closer.” Her hand closed around a brush in the drawer, and she drew it upward, behind her gown, so that the handle thrust out of the filmy material. “I’ll shoot to kill.”

“Boy,” the figure whispered, a harsh sound that sent a chill of horror down her spine. “Come here.”

Unbelievably, Sammy disengaged himself from Tess’s grip and in docile compliance approached the dark silhouette. She almost called out to stop him, but something in his solemn little face made her hold back the protest. She said, desperately, “You have no right to be here. My husband is coming.”

An eerie laugh issued from the white hood. “I have the right.”

Tess fingered the hairbrush, unable to take her eyes from the blank visage. Awful stories of victims found with their throats slit seized her imagination. Her legs wanted to collapse under her. For God’s sake, where were the servants—why hadn’t they answered her call? As Sammy went to stand before the apparition, the intruder reached out with one black-gloved hand and touched a shining blond lock, sliding it through dark fingers with a leisure that was at once tender and yet dreadful.

Tess watched. She swallowed. The gesture, the sibilant voice, some combination of height and weight and outline…

“Stephen?” Her own voice was a faint croak.

The blank mask looked up, stared at her.

“What—what is the meaning of this?”

His silence was more ominous than words. She was certain it was Stephen. Her mind struggled to make some sense of the masquerade, of the nameless fear that squeezed her chest in the face of that opaque counte
nance. Perhaps it was a joke—some obscure nuptial custom whose meaning was beyond her. She did not like it. “Stephen,” she said shakily, “I wish you would explain. You frighten me with this—costume.”

He moved suddenly, startling her. He crossed the room and came close, so close that she instinctively backed against the dresser. He caught her chin in one hand and forced her to look up into the featureless mask. Tess tried to wrench away, not expecting such strength. His fingers hurt her; she stood still and faced him, trying to see his eyes behind the hood. She was beginning to understand that he
wanted
to frighten her. “Let go of me,” she said, as firmly as she could.

He did. She leaned back against the table. His gloved hands came up and took her by the shoulders, his fingers sliding inside the high collar of her gown and pulling downward with a movement too quick to evade. The buttons popped; he pushed the silk down far enough to reveal her pale shoulders. Tess flushed with shame and fear and anger. His intentions were clear enough now.

She waited, determined to be a dutiful wife. This was part of it. She had to comply. But the mask, the gloves, the child—it was all too threatening and strange. The black slits stared at her like a serpent’s eyes; she felt hysteria bubbling up uncontrollably. At last, just when she thought she must break and run, he turned away from her with a move that was clearly disgust.

Tess slumped a little. In her relief, she forgot Sammy momentarily, but his muffled whimper caught her attention, and she looked up to see the boy shrink before Stephen’s eerie gaze. The pinch of anxiety on his small features stunned her—it was more than a child’s natural reaction to that fearsome figure. It was anticipation, a numb, haunted certainty that strengthened as Stephen
drew closer—and then suddenly, aghast, Tess knew what was going to happen.

“…annulment,” Mr. Taylor’s voice droned. Tess opened her eyes, realizing she had squeezed them shut on the memory as she stared down at the papers. She drew a shaky breath.

Mr. Taylor paused. “Would you like to rest? We can finish this tomorrow.”

“No,” she said quickly. “No. Let’s finish as soon as possible.”

He nodded, and went on in the unperturbed way that he used with her, as if it were all a simple matter of business instead of a long, slow walk out of Hell. “This is the doctor’s certificate; it states that you have been examined and that your marriage was unconsummated. We’ll want to keep this, in view of Mr. Eliot’s adverse position concerning the annulment, to forestall any future efforts to reverse the church’s decision.”

Adverse position. How lifeless such legal terms were, how well they smoothed over and concealed the fury, the threats and counterthreats. Stephen had not let her go without a fight, but he was wary of scandal. An annulment, quiet and quick, was the price to keep his foul pleasures off the pages of
The Times.

Tess did not care. She was afraid of Stephen still; any thoughts of trying to protect his other victims had long since vanished in the dark eternity locked in the gallery. The tears began again as she thought of Sammy. She had not seen him since that night. For all those black months it had been only Stephen, and a manservant who had come to bring her food enough to stay alive. The servant was almost as terrifying as Stephen himself. He came only when it was too dim to see him and he never spoke. He watched her: she could feel his eyes on
her in the dark. Often she had woken from a fitful sleep and seen the dull orange spark of his cheroot illuminate his bearded chin as he stood with insolent leisure against the door that she knew she could not pass.

“You’re certain you do not want your family notified?” Mr. Taylor asked. “I’m afraid they will be concerned for your whereabouts.”

Tess set her jaw. “They haven’t shown any concern yet,” she said. She tried to keep the pain from her voice, but still it quavered with the ache of betrayal. “They never even asked Stephen where I was. I don’t want anyone to know. I couldn’t b–bear the questions.”

Mr. Taylor cleared his throat. “I believe we’ve done enough for the day,” he said gently. “It was only to make you aware—there’s no need for you to deal with these documents personally. I’ve tried to make every possible arrangement.”

“Thank you.” The words were hopelessly inadequate. She pressed her handkerchief against her mouth and said them again.

He only nodded, and cleared his throat again, gruffly.

Tess tried to bring her tears under control, succeeding only partially. “Have you taken care of…the other matter?”

He hesitated. “I’ve opened an account. The money is in it. I cannot do more, not knowing—”

“I’ll find him,” Tess said, with quick obstinance. She twisted the handkerchief. “I will.”