24. CHAPTER 24
D alton waited in his study until the tea things had been cleared from the morning room and Vivienne had gone upstairs to rest. Then he sent a footman to find his sister.
Venus came in without knocking, the way she always did, and settled herself into the chair opposite his desk with the air of a woman expecting a battle and prepared to enjoy it.
"If you mean to scold me, Dalton, I should warn you I have traveled a great distance and am poorly disposed to it."
"I don't mean to scold you." He set down his pen. "I mean to ask you something."
She raised her eyebrows.
"How do you find her?"
The teasing went out of her face. She considered him for a moment. She knew him well enough to know he did not ask idle questions.
"I find her," she said slowly, "as I have always found her.
Quick. Warm. Perceptive. Stubborn when she has thought something through and has decided.
" She paused. "There is a watchfulness to her now that was not there before.
As if some part of her is always studying her surroundings.
But Val — " Her voice softened. "She is Vivienne.
Whatever else the amnesia has taken from her, that is intact. The woman I knew is still in there."
Dalton looked down at his hands. He had not realized until that moment that he had been waiting for someone else to confirm it .
"I find it so myself, but given the circumstances, I could not trust my own judgment."
"Is she frightened? Overwhelmed?" Venus asked.
"She would never describe it that way. But yes. She has spent seven years building a small, safe life for herself. Everything here is too large for her. Too much. She is wary of strangers who want her to be a person she does not remember being."
"Including you."
"Including me." He met her eyes. "Which is why I need you to be careful with her."
Venus opened her mouth, and he held up a hand.
"I am not telling you to leave. I'm glad you came.
She needs a woman in this house who is not a servant.
A true friend. She will trust you long before she trusts anyone else.
" He chose his words. "But the doctor was clear with me on one thing.
He said the danger is in telling her too much, too quickly.
If others crowd her with stories, she may mistake their version of her life for memory itself, and her own memories will not come back. "
Venus had gone still.
"So tread lightly. Let her ask the questions. Answer what she asks and stop there." He paused. "I know this is not your way. You love her, and you have missed her, and you want to pour seven years into her lap in a single afternoon. Please don't."
"I promise to be careful, Val." Venus's voice was unusually quiet. "I would not risk her for the world."
"I know."
She reached across the desk and laid her hand briefly on his. He let her.
"And what about you?" she said.
"What about me?"
"How are you, Val? And don't say you are fine. Even if finding her was the greatest joy imaginable, this situation must be strange. Difficult for you."
He looked at her for a few heartbeats. His sister, who knew him better than anyone. From whom he could hide nothing .
"I am happy," he said at last. "Her return feels like a miracle. Something I had lost hope for. Whatever else is true, that is the foundation of everything now."
"But."
"But our cousin is still at large. Alfred slipped me in Guernsey, and I don't yet know where he has gone or who is hiding him.
He is the most dangerous man in Britain to me, because he is the only one who knows exactly what I love and exactly how to use it.
Until he is in irons, I can't draw a clean breath. "
Venus nodded slowly. He had already given her the essence of Alfred's crimes. He had had to, in order to make sure his sister stayed away from their cousin. But she was unaware of how it connected to Vivienne.
"And there is the rest of it," Dalton went on, more quietly.
"Our life together was stolen. Not only the seven years apart, but everything that came before.
Our love. Our connection. I'm trying not to be angry.
I don't always succeed. When I look at her face and she looks at me without recognition… I want to break something."
"Val — "
"Don't."
But she was not going to be put off. She set both hands flat on the desk. "I owe you an apology, and I have owed it to you for a long time, and I would rather give it now than carry it any further."
"You owe me nothing."
"I do." Her eyes were bright. "When you came home from the wreck and you wouldn't stop searching, when you swore she was still alive and you were going to find her, I did not believe you.
I thought you had lost your mind, the way Papa lost his, and that the only way to save you was to make you stop.
I told you the cruelest thing I could think of to stop you.
And you were right, and I was wrong, and if I had let you go on — "
"Venus."
" — she might have been home years ago."
"Venus, look at me."
She did, with difficulty .
"There is nothing to forgive," he said. "I have had seven years to think about that time, and what I have come to is this.
You did not stop a man who would have found his wife.
You stopped a man who would have died trying.
You would have been left alone. At the mercy of Alfred, who turned out to be a traitor. You did not fail me. You saved me."
Venus pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
They sat in silence for a moment. Then he said, more steadily, "There is something else you should know. Something I have not told her, and will not tell her until I have to."
Venus waited.
"I suspect the wreck was not an accident."
Her eyes went wide.
"I think Alfred arranged it. I cannot prove every link in the chain yet, but I have enough. He meant to kill me, and when he didn't succeed, he hid her from me. That is why I could not find her."
"Dear God."
"I tell you this because I want you to understand what kind of man we are dealing with, and why I am as cautious with her as I am. He used her against me once. He will try again if he can. Until we capture him, no one in this house is entirely safe — least of all her."
Venus's face had gone pale. "And she doesn't know."
"I will tell her when she is stronger. To tell her now would be to give her a worry she can't bear. The doctor would call it the worst possible thing I could do."
"I won't say a word."
"Thank you."
She drew a long breath and let it out, and some of her color came back. "Whatever I can do, you have only to ask."
"I know."
"Even if it is to leave again, if my being here is too much for her. Say it and I will go."
"It is not too much. She likes you. I saw it on her face." He almost smiled. "Apparently, you are easier to be around than I am. "
"Well, of course I am. I'm charming."
"You are exhausting."
"That too." She smiled impishly.
He looked at his sister — really looked at her — for the first time in a long while. The girl she had been was still in her face somewhere, under the woman she had become.
"Venus."
"Yes."
"I'm glad you came."