Chapter 6
“Did you find her?” Vincent croaked while keeping his eyes closed and his breathing steady.
If there was anything Vincent despised half as much as the men who defrauded his father, it was the sickbed.
The few times he had spent here during his youth, the pain, clawing helplessness, and the fitful sleeps were often as bad as the illnesses themselves.
At least back then, he had Benjy for company, who rarely left the sickbed himself.
Now laden with laudanum, all he physically felt was numb, while his mind raced with spiraling thoughts.
Over and over again, he replayed that night of the attack, trying to find the small nuances where he could have done something better, used more force, where he could have been stealthier and quicker.
He knew I was coming. The bastard knew I was coming to find the last piece of proof that he’d backstabbed my father. He missed his one chance to kill me.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Weston replied.
Even though he had his eyes closed, Vincent knew his butler and most faithful manservant was glaring down at him, thin-lipped and disapproving.
Weston was one of the very few who had stayed with his family after his brother and father had passed. Why? Vincent had considered two things: fidelity to his father, or that he’d wanted to make sure Vincent would not go off on a half-cocked quest for revenge while he was still wet behind the ears.
“I can feel your judgment halfway across the room, old sport.”
“Would you prefer if I came closer so it is magnified?” Weston replied dryly.
“I’d prefer not,” he muttered, cracking an eye open. “Tell me what you’ve found about the girl.”
Tossing open a folio, Weston read, “The good lady’s name is Emma Haverleigh, age two-and-twenty, sister to Viscount of Penrose, James Haverleigh, who himself is six-and-twenty. They live with their paternal grandmother, Agnes Haverleigh, who is one-and-seventy.
“Lord Penrose does not hold his office as he’d been deemed mentally incompetent from childhood,” Weston continued.
“The good lady works as a seamstress on Gower Street to offset the cost of living while her grandmother receives ten pounds per month from a trust her late husband had set up years ago.”
A seamstress. That explains the clean stitching.
“I take it you have her address?” Vincent asked—for although he remembered the quaint little house in Bloomsbury Square—he could not for the life of him recall exactly where it was located.
“I do.”
“Send over a bouquet of daffodils,” Vincent ordered as he allowed his eyes to drift shut again. “But I will write the card.”
“Consider it done, Your Grace.”
Lifting an arm, Emma wiped away sweat beading at her forehead while bounding away from the chickens rushing to get the feed she’d just scattered.
As she dropped her hand, she twisted it to stare at the back; even though the blood was washed away, she could still see the lurid red marks on her skin and feel the tightness of a fading grip.
“Just who are you…” she wondered aloud for the tenth time today.
The scrape of a door had her looking up and dropping her arm. James poked his head out. “Emmy—” his head swung from left to right, “—are you out here?”
“Yes. Over here.”
Tall and lanky, his trimmed hair curled at the ends and his green eyes, so much like hers—so much like their late mama’s—glimmered with glee. James’ untucked shirt flapped in the breeze, and his old tan breeches were fraying at the shins.
He sat with a thump beside her on the grass, and only then did she realize he was holding a book, one of his many worn copies of Gulliver’s Travels. “I was hoping you could read to me—” he looked around “—that is, if you’re not too busy.”
“Don’t be silly,” Emma chided him while prying the book from his hands. “I am never too busy to read to you.”
Heartbreakingly, she remembered at the tender age of eight, seeing when James’ tutor’s face had twisted cruelly and snarled, “You are utterly feeble-minded. You will never be the man your lettered title will give you. You’d best leave business to the men who understand it. Men with all their wits intact.”
While her brother might not have had business acumen, he was very sharp and intelligent and more capable than other people realized.
He took orders extremely well and was very active; he loved to run, climb, and swim.
She had no doubt he could and would excel at something; they just did not know what that thing was—yet.
“Where do you want to start?” she asked.
“With the giants!” he clapped happily.
“Brobdingnag, it is,” Emma smiled. “Having been condemned, by nature and fortune, to active and restless life, in two months after my return, I again left my native country, and took shipping in the Downs, on the 20th day of June…”
As she read, she stole glimpses of her brother and felt pleased at the pure delight on his face. It charmed her that he was so easy to please; not once did he ever worry about the future, marriage prospects, or what he would do when Grandmother passed.
Sadly, that is my burden alone to bear.
“I measured the tail of the dead rat, and found it to be two yards long, wanting an inch; but it went against my stomach to drag the carcass off the bed, where it lay still bleeding; I—” A rife memory of the unknown lord covered in blood surged up to the forefront of her mind.
I hope he is alive and that I-I didn’t make his injury worse.
A soft nudge at her shoulder dragged her back to the present, and she found James eyeing her curiously. “Emmy? Is something wrong? You stopped reading.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she mumbled as she tried to find her place. “I just remembered something from a few nights ago. It’s—it’s fine. Where was I…”
Her eyes passed over the passage twice before she found it again. “I observed it had yet some life, but with a strong slash across the neck, I thoroughly dispatched it. Soon after my mistress came into the room, who seeing me all bloody, ran and took me up in her hand—”
“Emma, dear.” Agnes stepped out of the back door, wiping her hands on a towel. “Come inside a moment. You won’t believe what has just arrived for you.”
Emma’s brows drew together. “For me? But I’m not expecting anything.”
“Just come inside and see,” Agnes smiled brightly. “You too, James.”
After sharing a look with her brother, who simply shrugged, she closed the book, dog-earing the page she was on, and headed inside. They passed the kitchen, and the moment she stepped into the small front room, she jerked to a stop.
Placed on the small round table where they took their meals was an enormous bouquet of the brightest daffodils she’d ever seen, sitting in a tall glass vase. The book slipped from her hold and landed on the floor with a dull thud.
“Aren’t they magnificent!” Agnes chimed. “Oh, do I remember those days. I received so many flowers the weeks after my balls that my father would ordain entire rooms to put them in. That was before I met your grandfather, of course.”
Woodenly, Emma plucked up the card from where it rested near the base of the vase and flicked it open.
“Is it from that lovely young lord you were telling me about? Lord Ashton, was it?”
She swallowed as she read, “…The evening was a forgettable affair until you stepped into it, Lady Emma. I find myself already looking forward to our next dance.”
“Oh my…” Agnes sighed, pressing a hand to her chest. “This is how it begins, dearest. Every young lady deserves to know what it feels like to be sought after, and I am so happy it is finally your turn!”
After picking the book from the floor, James leaned in and plucked a flower from the bouquet. “These are pretty.”
“I think…” she paused, then took exactly seven flowers from the vase. “I’ll put these in my room.”
“Don’t you want to put the whole thing in your room, child?” Agnes asked. “They are for you, after all.”
Emma shook her head. “I think it is best to leave them here. They—they really brighten the room. Excuse me a moment.”
Taking the stairs, she headed to her room and closed the door before weakly wilting against it.
Pulling the card from her pocket, she read the real message.
“One good turn deserves another as they say, but seeing as you brought me back from what could have been the brink of death, I think I owe you more than one turn—Vincent.”
At least she had a name to go with a face, a broody, handsome face with eyes like burnished steel and arms like iron. She’d never forget that night, not for a thousand years.
The note felt enigmatic. What did he mean by I think I owe you more than one turn.
Did he think they would cross paths again? Why? How?
Swallowing tightly, she stowed the card between one of the few books she had, a well-read romance novel that Harriet had gifted her on her last birthday.
It was a reimagining of Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s La Belle et La Bête, where the lady was the beast, scarred over by fire, and the belle, a handsome young farmer lad, accompanied her on the way to a healer deep in the wood to regain her former beauty.
Upon arriving at the healer, the price to regain her beauty was to surrender half the years of her life to the healer. Desperate to regain what she had lost, the young woman was going to agree to the terms, when the young man jumped in between the two.
Stopping her, he said he would rather give half his life so she could be happy; that enough of her life had been stolen by the fire.
“Why?” the girl had asked.
“Because I’m in love with you,” the lad declared. “Your soul is beautiful enough for me.”
“If only such love were real,” she muttered, then headed back downstairs to finish reading the story to James.
Vincent was handsome, chivalrous, and brave, but she could not fathom how or why he’d want to keep company with her again.
It was a great pity, she thought, that gentlemen like him were not more common.