Chapter 15
I’ve never seen Jules look so happy,” Jane said as she watched her friend carry his new wife out of the ballroom, away from their guests.
Beside her, Nicholas looked on with a dark frown. “I only hope she doesn’t crush his soul.”
Jane startled at her husband’s uncharitable words. It was so unlike Nicholas. “Why would you say such a thing?”
His expression softened as he looked down at her. “Men who have lost everything, then find what they were missing, fall harder and faster when it is taken away.”
Jane froze as her gaze moved past her husband to the vacant doorway. “She won’t . . . will she?”
“It’s hard to tell.” Hollister stepped forward, joining the discussion with Margaret on his arm. “We know so little about Claire. What ever became of our inquiries?”
David joined their little group near the back of the room.
“Claire is what she says she is, a teacher. She rents a tiny painting studio on Leith Road. She has three wards, all of whom are child prodigies, much like herself, who were orphaned early in life. Claire took them in and not only teaches them, but she is for all intents and purposes their mother.”
The information startled Jane. “Then where are those girls now if Claire is here?”
“And why didn’t she say anything about them to Jules? She—” Margaret broke off with a gasp. Her hand went to her distended abdomen. “Sometimes I believe this little one is a musician in the making. Whenever I am around music the baby dances inside of me.”
“Margaret, are you feeling well?” David asked her, his face pale with concern.
“Yes,” she said with a light laugh. “The kicking only hurts for a moment.”
“You are certain?” David insisted.
“Why do you ask, David?” Hollister brought his hand down to cover Margaret’s abdomen protectively.
David bent down and moved the edge of Margaret’s skirt out of the way to reveal a palm-sized circle of blood on the wooden floor.
Margaret gasped and leapt back, revealing two more drops of blood. “It is not me, I promise,” she said, reassuring the man at her side.
Hollister pulled her into his arms. “I’ll not take that chance. We are going to our room to lie down. I will send for the physician.”
“Sweetheart, there is really no need.”
David dipped his finger into the red droplets before him. “There is no harm in rousing the physician, because if this is not your blood, then it most definitely is someone else’s.” He stood and moved past the droplets near Margaret’s feet, following the trail of blood.
A shiver moved through Jane. Someone was hurt.
“Hollister, take Jane and Margaret with you to our chambers while I help David,” Nicholas said, with a fierce look in his eyes. “Keep them safe.”
Hollister didn’t hesitate. He gathered both women and escorted them from the room, but not before Jane saw David and her husband following the trail of blood across the floor.
The blood was fresh. David followed the trail, all his senses on alert.
Images swam in his head of the pretty dark-haired girl with the striking blue eyes he had seen earlier that night, peering through the crowd, her face pale as she watched Claire and Jules dance.
He didn’t know why, but something inside him had connected with the girl.
He knew that look—hopelessness mixed with fear and anger.
David clenched his fists, forcing that image from his mind.
There was no reason in a room full of people that the person they were looking for was the one he could not clear from his thoughts.
The trail led to the far corner of the ballroom, behind where the head table resided before it was taken away to make more room for dancing and mingling.
But there was nothing there, only a group of people talking.
That was when David heard a gasp of pain coming from behind one of the new tapestries that had been hung only this morning—a wedding gift from Lord and Lady Davison. He stopped before the finely woven depiction of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, lifted the bulging edge, and froze.
“Merciful heavens,” Nicholas ground out beside him.
It was her. The dark-haired girl. Blood covered the front of her dusty-pink gown. She clutched her hand in the fabric of her dress as she slumped against the floor.
David knelt down beside her. Gently, he lifted her face and forced down an expletive at her bloodied lip and swollen cheek.
She turned her pale blue gaze on him. “Help me,” she whispered. “Don’t let her find me.”
A chill shot through him at the terror in her eyes, in her voice. “My God, who did this to you?” That chill turned to rage.
“Don’t just stand there staring at her,” Nicholas’s voice pierced his dark emotions. “Let’s get her out of here.”
David appraised her quickly, looking for the best way to lift her in his arms. Her hand was hurt, bleeding.
He slipped his arm beneath her legs and another around her shoulders and lifted her slight form against his chest. She cried out in pain as David got to his feet, jostling her hand in the process.
“We will keep you safe,” he promised, his voice thick.
She tried to lift her head as they shepherded her from the chamber without notice, then down the stairs and to a bedchamber near his own. “You’re safe.” He repeated the words over and over. A chant he hoped was the truth.
Claire stirred from her slumber before dawn.
Jules curled against her back. His arm kept her close while his hand cupped her breast possessively, claiming her as his even in his sleep.
The closeness they had forged last night lingered deep inside her as she lay there for several long moments.
She allowed the silence of the morning to wrap around her.
Satisfaction warmed her and brought a smile to her lips, until she remembered that everything they had shared last night was a lie. Everything about their life together, except their actual marriage, was a dream that could not continue.
In the silence of the morning, she heard rain as it pattered against the window. A flash of light followed by a roll of thunder confirmed that a summer storm had come in over the night, perfectly reflecting Claire’s somber mood.
Slowly, gently, she slipped out of Jules’s embrace until she stood beside the bed.
She had intended to reach for her dressing gown, then realized the only clothing she had in this chamber was from last night.
She slipped her chemise over her head then moved to pick up her gown when her gaze snagged on a small, wooden box tied with a pretty red bow near the door.
Claire set her gown aside and moved toward what appeared to be a present.
She knelt beside the package. A note had been tied to the bow and read, For my darling Claire.
He had called her his darling once before, but only in anger .
. . She glanced back at the bed, to Jules lying there, relaxed and at ease.
How had he managed such a feat while she had been lying curled in the warmth of his arms all night?
Curious, and a little nervous to see what he had left for her, she slid the bow off the box and lifted the wooden lid. A note lay inside.
Penelope can no longer paint.
Claire frowned. What did it mean? She removed the note, then gasped. She felt a sudden cold sickness in the pit of her stomach. Her fingers trembled as she stared at the contents.
A bloody, severed index finger lay inside the box on a bed of dusty-pink fabric. It took only a heartbeat for Claire to remember the familiar face she had seen amongst the crowd.
Penelope.
Claire couldn’t breathe. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Did this all mean Penelope was here, that it was real? Claire drew in a shattered breath and reached for the door latch. She had to find Penelope before something worse happened to her charge.
She grabbed the gown she had thrust aside, slipped it over her head, fastening it quickly before hurrying from the room.
She stopped in the hallway. Where would she look?
Tears came to her eyes, and she let them fall to her cheeks.
Why was this happening? She was doing everything they had asked.
She would give Jules up to keep her girls safe, exactly as they had demanded.
And they had harmed Penelope anyway.
“Claire,” Jules called from behind her. “What is wrong?”
When she didn’t respond, he grasped her shoulders and turned her around. Her gaze fixed on his face as agony tore through her. She couldn’t tell him. They made her promise not to tell him anything. She stiffened suddenly. They’d also promised not to hurt the girls.
His eyes darkened with concern as they searched hers. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head and held out the box, her decision made. He would hate her when he found out what she had done, but right now she needed his help if she was to get Penelope away from her tormentors.
Jules’s eyes flared as he stared at the contents. He grasped Claire’s hands, searching for a missing finger.
“It’s not mine.”
He frowned. “Then whose?”
“One of my wards,” her voice was raw. It hurt to speak.
“Your what?” His face contorted. “I don’t understand.”
“I have three wards.” She reached for her locket and flicked it open, showing him the miniature of the three girls inside.
“Penelope is here, somewhere. I saw her tonight, in the ballroom. The glance of her face was so quick I had assumed it was only my imagination.” A sob broke free. “They promised not to hurt her.”
“They who?”
“The people who threatened me.” She stared into his face, memorizing his features one last time before she pulled free from his grasp and backed away. Her blood ran icy cold.
“Who threatened you?” Jules spoke haltingly.
“I don’t know. All I know is . . .” Pain tore through Claire. She wanted to heap explanations and apologies on him, to make him understand why, but she knew it wouldn’t help. “They forced me to marry you, to come here.”
He watched her closely, his face a hardened mask.