Letters to a Lover, page 17
Azalea frowned. “Couldn’t it be? After all, it was a woman dressed as a man who killed poor Nancy Barrow.”
“This is different,” Griz said. “She made a young, elegant, slightly effeminate man. This person, our blackmailer, runs like a man. And he is far too tall to be any woman that I know.”
“Lady Darchett is not as tall as me,” Azalea remembered reluctantly. “And unless she is pretending, she is somewhat too frail.”
“One of her servants?” Eric wondered.
“One who has a key to the front door,” Griz reminded him.
“We don’t even know if she has a butler or any other manservants,” Eric said discontentedly. “We only saw that maid who opened the door. I think we need to speak to Darchett, quite urgently.”
“I think you’re right,” Dragan agreed. “Does he live with his mother?”
“Actually, no,” Eric said, thoughtfully scratching one ear. “He lives in the official residence in Grafton Square.”
“Which must be one reason he is short of money,” Griz observed. “The upkeep of two establishments in London must cost a fortune.”
“The outside of the Charles Street house did not look to be in good condition,” Eric agreed.
“Perhaps we should also consider Gunning?” Dragan said abruptly. “The chances are he’s been in that house with Darchett, would know about the empty mews building and its unlocked stable door.”
“And I wouldn’t put it past him to purloin Darchett’s key,” Azalea commented. She tried to concentrate on the figure she had glimpsed in Grosvenor Square and again in the stable, picking up the cushion. “Could that have been Gunning?”
They all thought about it.
“I wouldn’t rule him out,” Eric said.
“Neither would I,” said Dragan and rose to his feet. “You should sleep now, Azalea. The laudanum will help. I’ve left some,” he added to Eric, “in case she needs it during the night. I’ll be back in the morning to make sure the wound is still clean. Feel free to call in your own doctor, of course.” His lips quirked. “I’m still not qualified.”
“Nor will be if you never have time to study,” Azalea commented, holding up her good hand. “Thank you, Dragan. And Griz.”
“We will sort it out,” Griz assured her. After an instant hesitation, she bent and hugged her fiercely. “Don’t frighten me like that again.”
“I’ll come down with you,” Eric said, rising from the bed.
Considering someone had tried to kill her and she had a throbbing gunshot wound in her arm, Azalea felt curiously contented. That would be the laudanum, she supposed, combined with relief at the ending of the added pain Dragan had inflicted with his cleaning and stitching. And if she was honest, it had felt good to have everyone sitting so casually around her bed with the sort of camaraderie that never seemed possible after childhood.
What evil monster lurked beneath the hat and scarf? Could it have been Gunning? His image swam into her mind, young, good-looking, entitled. She remembered him covered in tea and smiled. She remembered him at the Ellesmeres’ al fresco, still more resentful of the result than ashamed of his own conduct.
And yet, she had given him no real reason to hope for an assignation. For the first time, she remembered dancing with him at the Roystons’ ball. She had felt slightly dazed, very distant. She had smiled at most things he’d said because she hadn’t really taken them in, hadn’t known what to reply.
Except he had asked once, “May I call on you?”
She had smiled at that, too, and his eyes had sparked. She had felt dizzier, turning in the waltz so often.
“Alone?” he had asked.
And she had laughed. “Probably.”
Why had she said that? What had she meant? She had felt despairing, afraid, appalled, but she couldn’t remember why.
Eric came back into the room, and her heart lifted once more. “I’ve been remembering,” she said at once. She didn’t want to forget again, and she didn’t want to hide anything from him ever again.
While she told him about dancing with Gunning, he took off his coat and sat on the bed once more, kicking off his shoes and unwinding his necktie.
“The rest will come,” he said gently. “You’re remembering more every day.” He touched her cheek. “And you know, I think Tizsa is right. You are so afraid of what it is you’ve forgotten that your mind doesn’t want to remember. You mustn’t be afraid, Zalea. Whatever it is, you are alive, and I love you. And we’ll face it together.”
She caught his hand, carrying it to her cheek.
After a moment, she said, “Will you stay with me tonight?”
“I was going to sleep in my room to be sure of not hurting you by accident.”
“You won’t hurt me. I’d…I’d rather you were here. If you don’t mind.”
He smiled. “Mind? Zalea, there’s nowhere I would rather be. Ever.”
And so, as her eyelids finally began to give in to exhaustion and the drug, Eric removed the rest of his clothes and climbed into bed beside her good arm. He lay curled against her, her hand clasped in his, his face against her hair. Solid, physical, and at this moment, her whole world.
*
She woke to pain in her arm, and Eric’s low voice in the sitting room, answered by Morris. Daylight seeped through the bed curtains. Eric’s quick, firm footsteps came closer, and the curtains were drawn back.
“Good morning,” she greeted him, struggling to sit.
At once, he was there, easing her up by the waist and placing pillows to support her. “Morris has brought you coffee and toast.” He placed his hand on her forehead.
“Excellent. I don’t feel fevered, Eric. I’m fine.”
“You seem to be, but we’ll await Tizsa’s recommendation before you get up.” He brought a tray from the table and placed it over her knees, then poured a cup of coffee for each of them before perching once more on the side of the bed.
She could easily get used to seeing him there again.
“Also, the weather is dull and rainy,” he said with unusual satisfaction, “so there is less incentive for you to go out. Which brings me to more important matters.”
“What?” Azalea asked, sipping her coffee with relish.
“Someone tried to kill you.”
“I know. I was there.”
“The point being, whoever he is, he will know soon enough that he failed.”
She paused in the act of selecting a piece of toast. Her gaze flew up to his. “You think he will try again?”
“It’s possible.”
“Oh, no, surely he will be so appalled by you and Griz chasing him that he will give up? He cannot hope to get away with such a murder, for there would be a huge noise.”
“That did not appear to deter him last night. He must have assumed there would be nothing connecting him to your shooting. No one should have seen him entering Lady Darchett’s house. In any case, what we don’t want, is him thinking up new ways to try again. So, for that reason, as well as for the sake of your wound, you should not go out for the next few days.”
She stared at him. “Not go out? But I have to visit Lady Darchett! You can come with me,” she offered generously.
“Thank you. I believe I prefer to take Grizelda.”
She eyed him. “No, you don’t.”
“In this case, I do.”
“But I shall be bored! Why don’t we wait to hear what Dragan says when he has looked at the wound again?”
“You are a stubborn wife.”
“I am.”
“I haven’t agreed,” he pointed out. “In fact, we were talking last night when I showed Griz and Dragan out, and we think it might be a good idea to pretend you are—”
“Not dead!” she exclaimed. “Think of my poor parents!”
“Not quite dead,” he said apologetically. “But if we put it around that you are—er… at death’s door, then our man is less likely to come after you. It should give us some time to act.”
“You’re still not thinking of my poor parents!”
He shrugged impatiently. “I can have a word with them, assure them you only have a cold or something, while to everyone else, we’ll insist you are terribly ill.”
“No, no, that’s a dreadful idea! Augusta will come.”
“My dear wife, when have I ever given you cause to believe that I am not capable of dealing with Augusta?”
“Never,” she admitted, drinking more coffee. “It is I who cannot deal with her.”
She munched her toast in silence, glaring at her husband, who seemed blissfully unaware of her threatening stare. Only she knew he was not.
Fortunately, a distraction occurred, in the shape of the children tumbling into her room and jumping on the bed. Eric was quick, scooping them up in each arm.
“One moment, wriggling creatures,” he said severely. “Mama has a very sore arm—that arm—so you must not touch it under any circumstances. You must be gentle around her. No bouncing, bumping, or over-enthusiastic hugs until the arm is better. Promise?”
They had both stopped wriggling.
“Promise,” Michael said at once.
“Pomiss,” Lizzie agreed.
Eric set them down on the bed, on Azalea’s good side, and she hugged each of them with her right arm.
For the next half hour, while she finished her coffee and toast, the children helped distract her from the pain and the lurking unease that the blackmailer who had tried to kill her could indeed try again.
What if he attacked her when she was with the children? What if he came into the house, endangered all her family and servants, and the new governess who was due to begin tomorrow? She had almost forgotten about her in the chaos of the past few days.
Morris stuck her head around the door. “Lady Grizelda and Mr. Tisza want to come up, and Elsie wants to know if she should take the children?”
“Oh, yes, send them up,” Azalea said eagerly. She glanced uneasily at the children. “And children, you should go to Elsie now. Uncle Dragan is going to help my sore arm get better. Oh Morris!” she added as the maid shooed the laughing children toward the sitting room. “Tell Elsie to keep the children indoors today.”
“Don’t think that will be much hardship,” Morris muttered, glancing at the rain-soaked windows.
Griz had raindrops on her spectacles, though she immediately took them off to dry and polish them on her handkerchief.
Azalea wondered if it was to avoid looking at her, afraid to find her worse. “I feel perfectly well this morning,” she said brightly. “The arm hurts, but less, I think, than last night. And I have taken no more laudanum.”
Dragan set down his medical bag and asked Eric to send for boiled water. “The cleaner we keep the wound,” he told Azalea, “the less chance of infection and fever, and the quicker you will heal.”
Unwinding the bandage, he inspected his neat handiwork. He did not look displeased, though he bathed it carefully when the clean water arrived, reanointed it, and put on a fresh dressing.
“Will I do?” Azalea asked lightly.
“So far,” Dragan said with a warning glance at her as he tied off the bandage.
“We have lots to tell you,” Griz burst out, “if you’re up to it, Zalea?”
“More than up to it,” Azalea assured her. “Tell me instantly.”
“Dragan has found the Roystons’ missing footman!”
“I might have found him,” Dragan corrected. “Since Griz found traces of blood on the garden wall, it seemed likely someone was injured, so I’ve been asking around the physicians of my acquaintance if they’ve treated any injured young men called Ned for severe cuts. It was a bit of a long shot, you might say, but I finally met someone this morning who had. I have an address for this Ned—at least if he is still alive. The physician has not seen him since.”
“Well, the Roystons will be pleased you’ve located him,” Eric remarked. “Do we know, then, if his vanishing has anything to do with us?”
“Not yet, but two such dramatic events as a severe injury and Azalea’s loss of memory are unlikely to be a coincidence.”
Azalea’s stomach was uneasy. “What was his injury? What happened to him?”
“He told this doctor he was in a fight while drunk. He had a knife wound to the stomach.”
A knife sliding through flesh like jelly. Blood, pools of blood…
“The wound was infected,” Dragan said. “Although it had begun to heal. The doctor had to open it again, to remove—Azalea, is this distressing you? Shall I go on?”
Eric took her hand in a strong clasp, and she clung to him, banishing the image of blood and the sickening sliding of a knife.
“Yes,” she said determinedly.
Dragan kept his gaze on her. “I mean to go there now and see if this is definitely our missing Ned.”
“Franny, the maid, seems glad he’s gone,” Azalea contributed. “I’m not sure he should be restored to the Roystons.”
Dragan shrugged. “We won’t know until we talk to him. I can look at his wound, too, see if I agree with my colleague that it was inflicted around the time of the Roystons’ ball.”
Azalea swallowed, afraid to let in the bloody image. She let it come, anyway, sickening and frightening. But that was all there was, no before, no after, no context.
“I need to come with you,” she blurted.
“Zalea, we need the blackmailer to think you are at death’s door,” Eric reminded her.
“Then I’ll go in disguise, like Griz does, but I think I have to see this man.” And she told them about the disconnected image in her mind, of blood spilling over a knife.
“So you might know what happened to him,” Dragan said slowly. “And through him, remember what happened to you. With luck, it will bring us closer to the blackmailer’s identity, too.”
“But is she up to going out?” Griz asked Dragan worriedly.
“In the carriage, perhaps. I’ll make you a sling to keep your arm still, and we can smuggle you in and out of the house. Trench?”
“Please, Eric,” she whispered, squeezing his hand.
His lips curved. “You are very brave,” he said unexpectedly.
She didn’t feel brave, but she liked to hear him say so.
Chapter Eighteen
Morris was summoned and instructed to help and to pretend to everyone else that her mistress was unwell. While the maid helped Azalea to dress, Eric swept the others downstairs to inform the housekeeper and butler that Lady Trench was too ill to receive callers today.
By the time a veiled Azalea descended the deserted stairs—without Morris’s help—the carriage had been summoned.
“It’s a little fine for Cheapside,” Eric said cheerfully, “but it hardly matters since it’s Mayfair we’re hiding from.”
“The carriage is too fine?” Azalea asked. “Or my understated dress? I assure you, this is quite the dullest gown I possess, and the skirts are no wider than Grizelda’s.”
“It doesn’t matter what you wear,” Griz said, “except for the veil. Shall we go?”
Traveling east along the side of the Thames was not a route Azalea had often taken. Nor was the maze of narrow streets behind the Cheapside warehouses. Bad smells of rotting meat and sewers invaded the carriage, even before the door was opened. A vague fog seemed to hang in the air, heavy and threatening.
“Is John armed?” Azalea asked nervously about the coachman.
“Yes,” Eric said easily, lifting her down by the waist.
Dragan led the way as though he knew where he was going. He did a lot of work among the poor, Azalea knew, with patients who could not pay. She did not envy him coming here or other such places. She could only pity those forced to live in such squalor.
For the first time, as she entered a filthy tenement building that smelled of urine and stale cabbage, she began to seriously understand Dragan’s radical politics. Only birth decreed she and Eric lived in elegant mansions, while the young couple with a baby she glimpsed through an open door lived in one tiny room and coughed their lungs up.
Picking up her skirts, which would probably need burned when she got home, she followed Dragan and Griz up a narrow stone staircase, where young children sat sullenly staring at them.
Dragan paused on the first landing and knocked loudly. There seemed to be a lot of shouting beyond the door, two women screeching at each other, so perhaps it was not surprising no one answered. Dragan knocked again and kept it up until the door suddenly flew open, and a blowsy woman said, “What?” in a thoroughly annoyed tone of voice.
She wore a dirty bodice with her hair spilling from its pins, and she reeked of some low form of alcohol. Gin?
“We’re looking for Ned,” Dragan said politely. “If you please.”
The woman’s jaw dropped, and she emitted a cackle. “If I please, eh? And if I don’t?”
“I’m a doctor.”
Her eyes narrowed and darted beyond him. “Are you? And the toffs behind you?”
“Charitable ladies and gentlemen,” Dragan said smoothly. “May I see Ned?”
“If your charity covers his friends.”
Eric reached around Dragan and handed a coin to the woman, who looked awed and stepped back out of the way.
“Got any more of them?” she asked hopefully.
“Once we’ve seen Ned, I might find another,” Eric said.
“He’s in there.” She pointed to a door with a boot-sized hole in it. “Ain’t fevered no more, but he’s weak as a kitten, thank Gawd. Here! You ain’t the same doctor who was here last time!” she appeared to recall suddenly.
“No,” Dragan agreed, walking purposefully across the cluttered room to the broken door. “I’m a colleague.”
Azalea followed, glad of Eric at her back, for another hungry-looking couple sat at the other side of the room, their expressions speculative.
Dragan knocked on the broken door and opened it. Only after a quick glance inside, did he open the door wider and step in. “Ned, I believe? My colleague Dr. Lyle asked me to call in on you. I hope you don’t mind my…observers.”
“We’re charitable,” Griz assured him.
