Violet stopped the tirade as soon as she could. ‘Did anyone in the marketplace have an idea of the dead man’s name or occupation?’
‘I do not think so. It is understood that he was from the city and that he had a gun found beside him and a full purse in his pocket.’
‘It was not taken by whoever had killed him?’
‘That’s the way of it. It was violence the murderer was after, not the money, it seems. I suppose there are men here like that, men who live in the underbelly of London and in places we would have no knowledge of. Maybe he wanted to silence the other so that what was known between them should never be allowed to escape and it is a secret so terrible there will be repercussions everywhere.’
‘I think you have been reading too many books, Amara. Perhaps it was simply an argument that got out of hand.’
A sniffle alerted her to stronger feelings. ‘I feel scared, Violet, for an incident like this brings everything that much closer. What if they find out about us? What then? This could all happen again if we are not cautious.’
‘It won’t, I promise you. They will never find out.’
‘I cannot pretend to be as brave as you are. I wish I could be, but I can’t.’
‘We are here in London, Amaryllis, and it has been over fifteen months since Harland died. We are safe.’
Violet laid the embroidery in her lap, all the neat and ordered rows of stitchery so contrary to the thoughts she was having. Did Amara hold the right of it? Had she fallen headlong into a world of disorder and tumult by rescuing a man she knew nothing at all about?
I will not forget it.
His note came to mind, too. Words of gratitude or of threat?
She had promised herself at the graveside of her late husband to be circumspect and prudent for that was the way that safety dwelled. And now look. Here she was wondering if the locks on her doors would be strong enough and if the stranger who knew exactly the layout of her house might be back.
Her contentment fell into disarray like a house built of cards, each argument falling on to the other until there was nothing left at all to find a truth with.
Stupid. Stupid, she chastised herself, her heart racing. She had been here before, in a position of weakness and vulnerability, a place she had promised never to be again. The worry inside knocked her off balance.
Swallowing hard, she made herself smile. It never paid to let anyone know your true feelings, for then control would be gone and this charade was all she had left of herself.
‘I am sure the constable will find the culprit, Amara, and that shall be the very last we hear of it.’
‘You do not think we ought to say anything about the one who was here last night? His wounds? The blood?’
‘No, I don’t think we should.’ These words came with all the conviction she could muster and she was glad to see her sister-in-law nod in agreement.
He was most memorable. He would stand out in a crowd. The scar, the golden eyes, his beauty and his tallness. All the pieces of a man who was not in any way ordinary and so easy to find if someone was looking.
Danger balanced on the edge of a precipice, the beginnings of the consequences of her lies, the start of all that might come next? Another thought also occurred to her.
‘Are the clothes the stranger wore last night still in the laundry?’
‘No. They were dried early before the kitchen fire and the downstairs maid has ironed them.’
‘Can you find them for me, Amara? Perhaps they might tell us things.’
‘Things we may not wish to know?’
When Violet failed to answer, her sister-in-law stood and took her leave.
Why should she want to understand more about the stranger by gathering clues from his laundered garments? Could knowing more hurt her? With Harland she remembered sifting through his lies and truths and feeling sullied, a sort of panicked dirtiness inherent in every new thing she discovered about him.
When Amaryllis returned, she handed the items over with a heavy frown. ‘If one made it one’s business never to look into the hidden affairs of others, oblivion would be the result, Violet. Perhaps the curious hold a curse that trips them up repeatedly. I think we ought to donate these garments to charity and forget that we ever met this man. He is gone and it is for the best. For what it is worth, the butler said he had the look of duplicity about him and, of all the things in the world, we do not need that again.’
Then, after uttering a quick goodnight, her sister-in-law was gone, the door closed behind her. Violet was pleased to be alone with what was left of the man she’d found on the street, the fine linen of his shirtsleeves edged in silver and the breeches of a good quality serge. Lifting the material to her face, she breathed in, but the smell of him had disappeared. Only lye soap and fire smoke remained.
‘Who are you?’ she whispered into the night. ‘And where are you now?’
The booming of a clock out in the hallway was her answer. He had faded into the teeming thousands who called London their home, lost in the melee of survival and danger. He would not be back.
Placing the garments on the small table beside her, she determined not to think of him again.
Aurelian de la Tomber, Eighth Comte de Beaumont and heir to the Dukedom of Lorraine-Lillebonne, lay in a gilded bathtub in his rented town house on Portman Square, trying to block out the throbbing pain in his side.
The man who had jumped out at him in the darkness of the boarding house had meant business and it was only a last-second intuition that had made him duck to the left and catch a bullet in his arm rather than the full force of it through his chest. He’d slit his assailant’s throat without blinking, his training homing in to demand full retribution. The fellow had gone down without a word, dead before he hit the floor, a fact that Lian deemed a shame given it would have been useful to have known who’d been sent to kill him.
The man’s clothes had held some clue for they were the garments of a gentleman. Lian had found a purse full of gold when he had rifled through the jacket in the few moments he’d had before the alarm was raised and footsteps were heard. The chain about his neck had sported a St Christopher medallion. A travelling man, perhaps, or a superstitious one? The medallion had looked like a bauble of good quality silver.
He should have known it might come to this when he’d left France, for greed was a powerful deterrent to telling the truth and the monies sent by the supporters of Napoleon to those who might help them in England had been substantial.
What he had not expected was her. Lady Addington with her red hair and kind eyes, blessed with the sort of light shimmering all around that could expose every single demon within him.
He raised one hand and saw it shake, a froth of fine lavender soap across his skin. He’d
