Chapter Twenty-One #2
more than blow on the worthless scrap of metal to get it to spring open. “Might I borrow a hairpin?”
She reached up, and he realized his mistake as tendrils of her outrageous hair spilled out of her mobcap. Her scent—the intoxicating
musk of clean skin, soap, rum, and the lingering traces of her posy—invaded his senses.
He reached for the hairpin, barely able to tolerate looking at her any more than he could the sun, but she pulled it back.
“Why were Willie and Tommy out asking about the snatchers?” she asked.
Their wills were too evenly matched to play at this for long. And while he longed to test it, to see who might truly conquer
the other, they hadn’t the time for it. He reached for the pin again. She drew it back.
“Why?” Viola asked.
He was desperate to crawl off the steps and roll into the shadows.
“Because I asked them to investigate any rumors of the so-called snatchers,” he managed to get out around a strange knot in his throat, “and intervene if they saw something.”
Her hairpin was slowly, carefully lowered into his palm. Hugh was as aware of her soft gaze as if she had wrapped her arms
around his neck. He swore as he dropped the hairpin before he got around to inserting it in the lock.
She was silent long enough for him to regain his composure and defeat the pathetic lock with a few twists. He returned the
pin to her for safekeeping, shouldering the door open as quietly as he could.
Her hand closed around his wrist, sending a bolt of pleasure through him. Hugh willed himself to look back slowly. Her lovely
face, those warm hazel eyes, considered him.
A swift feeling rose, and he killed it before it could pierce his heart.
“Thank you,” Viola whispered.
“Did you really expect me to do nothing when you spoke of children being kidnapped?” he asked, imbuing the words with stone.
He suffered her flinch and the loss of her touch like a man drawn and quartered. By the flash of guilt in her eyes, he realized
she had. She truly thought that little of him.
But, really, what reason had he given her to think him better than any of the other “toffs” she derided? A sardonic smile
tightened his face as he ushered her into the small vestibule with a mocking sweep of the hands.
What a supreme job he’d done at casting himself as the villain of this story. Exactly to plan. He could congratulate himself
on that much, at least.
“If you won’t wait here, at least try not to thunder about,” she whispered. “It’s a fine of six silver pieces for any man
caught inside.”
Hugh shut the door gently behind them, drawing the holy wheel on his chest to swear it.
As it turned out, six silver pieces would have been the least of their problems.
He had felt her tense as they’d climbed to the second floor, turning her face toward the right and breathing in deeply, but
he had noticed it before she had. The door at the end of the hall was ajar, and he knew, by the look of devastation on her
face, that it was their destination.
Wordlessly, he held her back, easing into the room first. Something drifted by to tickle his nose—a loose feather. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, the destruction came into focus.
The room was small enough to cross in six paces, with only a bed, a washstand, and a chair hardly big enough for a child.
The breeze that followed him into the room through the open window tossed several gray feathers into the air, pulling them
from a pillow that had been sliced open. His boots slid against the innards of the thin mattress—horsehair and straw. And
. . .
The violets in the window box had been crushed, dark soil scattered across the floor.
He took in the sight with growing dread, committing every inch of it to memory, the way his uncle had taught him. Searching
for any clues the intruder might have been careless enough to leave behind.
A low sob sounded behind him. Hugh hung his head, failure crashing over him in suffocating waves. He stepped aside to allow
a frantic Viola past him.
She knelt beside the bed, her hands desperately feeling beneath it, again and again, her breathing hitching higher with each
fruitless pass. One hand brushed her cheek roughly, then the other. Hugh felt like he might truly die at the sight.
“They took everything,” she said hoarsely. “My clothing . . . Mama’s necklace . . . her journal . . . my oils . . .”
There was a long, shattering moment of silence as the realization of what she’d lost bore down on her, crushing. She braced
her hands flat against the floor, her ragged breath the only sound between them.
It felt as though he were being carved open from the inside as he watched, piece by heartbreaking piece, as she put herself
back together. Hugh could all but feel the force of her thoughts as she regained control of herself, the way she must have
tried to diminish what she’d lost, convince herself it didn’t matter. As if she’d been forced to do it a thousand times before.
He knew then for certain who had the stronger will between them.
My God, he thought, desperate to do something—to say something—to be bloody useful to her.
Viola looked to the window, saw the ruined flowers, and quickly looked away, as if she wouldn’t survive another blow. When
she rose to face him again, the moonlight turned the tracks of tears on her face silver.
“Can you tell me anything about the man who broke in?” he asked, surprised at how hoarse his voice was.
“Two men,” she said softly. “One lives near the tanner on Willow Street, or works there, just north of here—Franklin’s. I
recognize the vegetable tanning they use on their leather. The other mostly smells of ale and horses, but also”—her gaze met
his, searing—“freshly dyed wool.”
There was a sound in the hall behind him. Hugh turned, making for the door, and met the wide-eyed gaze of an elderly woman
in a frilly night rail and cap.
“Mrs. Gregory,” Viola whispered, edging out from behind him. She signed, “Good evening,” to the woman with her fingers. As
if to confirm his suspicion, Mrs. Gregory looked at him and tapped her ear.
“Did you see who came into her room?” he signed.
She nodded, looking suddenly ferocious, like a fluffy lap dog that had decided to bare its teeth. She signed the word letter
by letter so there would be no misunderstanding. P-O-L-I-C-E.
Hugh swore beneath his breath, thanking her.
“Police?” Viola confirmed, retreating into her room. “But why would they seize my belongings? What would give them the right?”
The duke was already a marked man, but Hugh knew precisely how he would draw out his suffering.
“Glenmoor knows who you are and is trying to frighten you,” Hugh said. “I’ll get your belongings back, I swear it.”
The warning was in the jagged rips in the mattress. Logically, he knew it had been cut open during the search, but the way
they’d slashed brought something more sinister to mind.
This is what I shall do to you, it said. I will erase you from this earth.
Clearly Glenmoor had not spent time in Viola Lockwood’s company.
“I’ll kill them,” she said fiercely, looking more beautiful than he’d ever seen her in the shadows, her small hands clenched
into fists.
“That can be arranged,” he promised.
“My mother’s journal would have had details on where to find Dobbin or what he’s procured for her in the past,” she said.
“But now all we have is the name.”
“It’s a start.” And it was, truly; it gave shape to their search. “I had men keeping an eye on your boardinghouse. I don’t
know how they missed this. I should have brought you here to collect your things that first night.”
This was what Felicity and the others couldn’t understand, why these decisions couldn’t be made with emotion. This was why Uncle Giles had warned of becoming too involved, too attached, with anyone. It clouded your judgment, undermined
your choices, and opened the door to fatal mistakes. Agonizing over another’s feelings was like fighting with a hand tied
behind your back. Glenmoor had certainly never allowed himself to fall into that trap.
If he was going to keep her alive, he had to cut away any piece of himself that was softening to her.
“Shall we go home?” Hugh asked.
Viola’s lips pressed in a tight line as she took one last look around her. Then, to his relief, she nodded.
Had it been any other night, Hugh might have been more alarmed at the sight of Keyes waiting for them at the back garden door.
Now, it only seemed to fall in line with the dark pattern that was emerging.
“There you are,” Mrs. Keyes said, taking Viola’s arms as she drew her inside. She cast an arrow-quick glance at Hugh over
the younger woman’s shoulder, as she asked, with that terrifying cheerfulness, “All in one piece, I hope?”
Hugh grimaced. He knew that tone.
“Yes,” Viola said, sounding even more exhausted than she had on that first night, when he’d dragged her to the palace on the
King’s orders.
God, he really was the beast of this story.
Viola’s gaze drifted toward the door to the still room—no, to the scullery just beside it, her brow creasing. Mrs. Keyes cast
an anxious look—well, what passed as an anxious look for her—toward it, then Hugh, and his heart made a swift descent into
the pit of his stomach.
Salvation appeared in the form of Felicity, rushing out of the servants’ wing, barefoot and in her favorite pink wrapper.
Her dark braid whipped about her as she seized Viola by the shoulders. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re well!” Another sharp look knifed
him. “Let’s get you up to bed, shall we? You look ready to topple over.”
Viola nodded, accepting the girl’s arm as it wrapped around her shoulders. She leaned into the touch like a cat seeking rare
affection. He heard her tell Fizzy, “I’m sorry to have made you worry—” just before the kitchen door swung shut behind her.
A hard finger jabbed into Hugh’s kidney, and he doubled over, wheezing in pain.
“She wanted to come,” he gasped out, fighting to straighten. “I would never have allowed it if I thought she’d be in danger—”
Keyes raised another finger in warning.