Eve Silver (28 page)

She stumbled to the door that led to Nicky’s chamber. He slept on, the innocent slumber of a child, arms flung wide, covers tossed aside. A sigh of relief escaped her lips.

Her feet were near to frozen as she climbed into her bed. She curled them underneath her, wrapping the coverlet around her body. The image of Delia's fallen portrait gnawed at the edge of her thoughts. Was it merely happenstance that her cousin's likeness had fallen at that very moment? Was it coincidence that the picture had been ruined, torn asunder by the sharp sliver, just as Delia's life and the life of her daughter had been ripped from this mortal coil?

Emma tried to reassure herself that there was nothing prophetic about it. The portrait had fallen from the wall, as portraits do. A poorly placed nail. A crack in the wall. Perhaps the shifting of the foundations. No ghostly undercurrent steered the course of her fate. But no matter how many times she silently admonished herself to be realistic, to be rational, to be strong, the image of Delia's painted likeness, punctured and torn, taunted her pitilessly, and the memory of the terrible laughter grated on her like gravel in an open scrape.

Emma wrapped her arms about herself and stared at the far wall, seeing nothing, lost in contemplation. She narrowed her eyes.

Surely no ghostly perpetrator, but perhaps one of this world.

Crawling to the foot of the bed, she hung over the side and dragged her fingertips along the floor searching for Delia’s diary. When her touch did not discern its smooth rectangular shape, she shimmied closer to the edge and hung over the side, but though she twitched the bedskirts to and fro, and eventually bunched them in her hand and dragged them up to search beneath the bed, she found no sign of the journal. It was gone. Taken.

By whom?

Anxiety gnawed at her and so many questions swirled through her mind. There seemed no possible explanation, no reasonable rationalization for all she had seen this night. Her heart was heavy in her chest, a dull ache burning behind her breastbone, and she wondered if Anthony had taken the diary, if there was some incriminating passage that he wanted kept secret.

And then she felt like a traitor for thinking it.

She sank her teeth into her lower lip and dashed at the unwelcome tears that stung her eyes, for the most terrifying question was the one she least wanted to confront.

What had he been doing in his son’s room, blade held in terrifying ready? What manner of darkness gnawed at Anthony Craven’s soul?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The following morning, Emma went in search of Anthony, intent on confronting him in his lair. A sleepless night had done little to sweeten her mood but much to sharpen her thoughts. And the one thought that burned brightest was that she must determine the root of his bizarre and frightening actions the previous night. She could not equate what she knew of Anthony Craven with the scene she had witnessed at Nicky’s bedside, and her sensible nature demanded that she find some resolution. To that end, she bolstered her determination, girding herself for an inescapable confrontation.

She reached the open door of Anthony’s study, resolute and sure in her course, her queries well ordered in her thoughts. Dragging in a deep breath, she closed her eyes, centering her thoughts, and then she stepped forward.

He was not there.

His absence dampened her confidence, leaving her as deflated as an empty bellows.

Turning to leave, she caught sight of a stack of printed booklets on the small table by the door. The title of the top one caught her eye—
An Inquiry Into the Causes and Effects of the Variola Vaccine
. The author was Edward Jenner, and the pamphlet was dated 1798. The year of her birth.

Frowning, Emma lifted the next pamphlet:
A Prospect of Exterminating the Small-Pox; Being the History of the Variola Vaccine, or Kine-Pox
by Bejamin Waterhouse, dated 1800. Smallpox. A shiver chased up her spine. Smallpox had killed her mother, and now there was smallpox in Derrymore. Mrs. Bolifer had said it was so. What could this mean, a prospect of exterminating such a dread plague?

‘Twas likely a hoax.

Emma returned the pamphlet to the table and turned to leave. Her heart stuttered and stopped, for there, standing in the hallway, was Anthony, in his most disheveled glory. His dark hair was still damp from his morning ablutions, and the sleeves of his linen shirt were rolled back in defiance of decorum, revealing strong forearms etched with veins. He watched her warily, eyes narrowed, and she could not help but recall how only days past he had gazed at her with heat and need, how he had wrapped those strong arms about her body in a passionate embrace.

He had come upon her with silent tread, unannounced. With a frown, she glanced at his booted feet, wondering if he could have been the one in the portrait gallery last night, the one who had defaced Delia’s portrait. But to what end? If he had wanted it gone, he had only to take it from the wall and store the thing in the attic. Or burn it, as he had instructed her to do with Delia’s gown.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he looked away and with a start she realized that Meg stood on the other side of the open door. The maid’s eyes were wide and anxious, and she wrung her hands nervously over her distended belly before bobbing an awkward curtsy.

“You have the look of a woman with something important on her mind, Meg,” Anthony said, his tone kind.

“Yes, my lord.” Again she bobbed a curtsy, her expression revealing a mixture of adoration and trepidation.

He sighed and said gently, “I could well become dizzy if you persist in bobbing up and down like a cork. What is it you wish to say, Meg?”

There she went again, down and up in another curtsy. She wobbled unsteadily as she straightened and Emma sucked in a breath in a nervous rush. Anthony moved as if to steady the girl, but at the last moment Meg righted herself, and Emma exhaled softly in relief. She had imagined Meg keeling over forward, the great weight of her belly dragging her to the ground.

“Would you like to sit for a moment?” Anthony asked.

Meg grimaced, pressing one hand to the small of her back, and Emma felt a surge of sympathy. She looked positively worn out.

“I can't sit and I can't stand. In the morning I fair need to be winched out of my bed,” Meg said, and then fell silent, turning her gaze to Emma, then away. She studied the carpet with inordinate interest.

“Out with it, Meg.” At Anthony’s firmly voiced command, she jumped, and began to speak in a rush, as if his words had opened a spigot.

“I know you're a doctor. I know you don't physic anyone, but I know you know how. I heard other things, too, about how you're a mur—” Meg stopped abruptly and swallowed convulsively before continuing. She raised her head to look at him as he stood above her, and her huge blue eyes shimmered with a desperate plea. “I don't care what I heard. You've only ever been kind to me. I want you to be there when my time comes. My lying in. I want to know that you'll help me. I'm afraid and I don't want him—”

Meg shook her head, obviously unable to continue, and dropped her gaze back to the floor.

“I know you know how,” she said softly. “Please.”

“Meg,” Anthony’s voice was gentle, but Emma heard something else in his tone, a dark undercurrent that she could not name. “Meg,” he said again, “you know not what you ask.”

“I know I ask for help. A chance for life and the life of my babe. I’ve been having dreams, terrible dreams, of pain, and blood and darkness. Sally Firth died of childbed fever just last week. Despite that
he
was there. The doctor, I mean. Now her husband has three little ones and no wife. And the way she died…” She paused. “I don't want to die, and especially not like that, fevered and ranting and taking so long to go. And though I didn't ask for this babe, didn't ask for what was done to me, I want the child to live. It's an innocent, with no crime on its head. You can help me.”

Anthony laughed, a harsh sound laden with pain that made Emma’s heart twist. He was suffering, and despite all her qualms and fears and distress, she could not stop herself from suffering with him. She wondered what it was about Meg’s simple request that caused him such anguish.

“You think that I will save you?” he asked bitterly. “You could not be more wrong, Meg. The last woman I attended died, and her babe with her. You know that.”

Emma gasped, certain he spoke of Delia, so bleak was his tone, so laden with self-contempt. “But I thought she died in a fall—” she blurted.

Anthony shot her a sharp glance, then scrubbed one hand over his face, and when he spoke his voice sounded infinitely tired. “Go home, Meg. You are too far along to see to the heavy chores.”

“Oh, my lord, never say it,” Meg cried, her face twisting in distress. “No. Please. I am desperate for the coin. I can—”

“I shall pay you your regular wage regardless,” he said gruffly, cutting her off. “Send your sister in your stead and I will pay her, as well.” He paused for a long moment. “And when the time comes, have your sister come to fetch Mrs. Bolifer. Not the doctor. Do you understand, Meg? Mrs. Bolifer. She will ensure your safety and that of the child.”

“Oh…” She hesitated, seemingly intent on saying something more, her hands twisting nervously in her apron.

Anthony gave her no encouragement, merely watched her through narrowed eyes, never looking at Emma, though she wished he would. His generosity to Meg, his offer to pay her wages though she could not work, was astonishing.

At last, the maid spoke. “Yes. I understand.” And after yet another laborious and unsteady curtsy, she turned and lumbered away.

“You turned her down.” Emma stood in the doorway, every sense focused on Anthony.

“’Tis for the best,” he said, and then stepped forward, his gaze roaming her face. “She asked for my help, asked me to deliver her babe, because she thought my presence would keep her safe.” He threw back his head and laughed, a hard, ugly sound that bore no relationship to mirth. “Like as not my ministrations would kill her.”

“Stop it,” Emma whispered. “Stop this now. You wallow in your memories and you deny that girl your help.”

 “
Do I disappoint you, Emma mine? I warned you that I would
.”

Her breath caught at his use of such tender endearment, and, too, at his implication that she had expected something unrealistic from him. Had she built a fantasy? Had she?

Steeling herself against the urge to step closer, to rest her cheek against the strong expanse of his chest, she forced herself to meet his gaze.

It was Anthony who looked away. “She should sooner ask the devil to guard heaven's gates than ask me to guard her life.”

And then he strode from the study, leaving her feeling confused, bereft, alone. He had not trusted her with an explanation, and she had not trusted herself to ask.

o0o

The following morning, Emma felt as though her entire body was bruised. She’d passed the night on Nicky’s floor, unwilling to leave him. Now, she dragged her feet as she descended to the breakfast room, knowing that she could not postpone facing Anthony and questioning him about what she had seen the night he had come to Nicky’s room. Each passing hour had lent her a calmer perspective, and she realized that she should have confronted him long before this, either that night, or the following day when she had spoken to him in his library. Meg’s presence had precluded such a conversation and, later, Emma had found that she had lost her nerve. She was a coward, fearing whatever terrible explanation he might give when, in truth, her imagination was likely painting a grimmer picture than the reality would yield.

But there was more to her reticence. She was so confused, her heart yearning for him, her body aching for his touch, her mind distressed by the terrible tableau branded in her thoughts—Anthony standing over Nicky, knife in hand.

Do I disappoint you, Emma mine? I warned you that I would. Had she expected him to disappoint her, as her father had disappointed her mother?

Emma shook her head. She wanted him to come to her, to trust her, to share with her the truth of whatever he had been about.

“Here we are, Nicky,” Emma said, looking up to find that Griggs barred the breakfast room, his massive bulk filling the doorway, preventing her from entering.

“Master wants to dine alone with the boy,” he said gruffly. His scarred face was creased in a concerned frown. “You are to dine with the others in the kitchen, miss.”

Emma glanced at Nicky, who sent her a jaunty grin and ducked around Griggs’s massive legs, unconcerned about this change in plan. And why should he be? He treasured the time he spent with his father.

“I found a mouse in the stable, Papa.” Nicky’s voice drifted into the hallway. “Mrs. Bolifer told me not to go near it, but I took a bit of cheese with me when I went riding last week, and I left it in the corner of the far stall. I'll have to check to see if the little fellow got my gift.”

Despite herself, Emma felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. She wondered what the stable master thought of Nicky's munificence.

With a slow nod at Griggs, Emma turned away. Still, with the issue unresolved and the memory of Anthony standing in the darkness, knife in hand, she was loath to leave the child alone. Foolish, really. He had been alone with his father for more than six years before her arrival. And the naked truth was that despite what she had witnessed, she believed some rational reasoning lay at the root of all she had seen. She was not certain if that was willful blindness or calm rationality, or perhaps a contagion of lunacy that pervaded these walls, but she believed that Anthony could calm her fears should he so choose, could provide an explanation that would eradicate all her doubts and suspicions.

As she made her way along the hall, she heard the low murmur of Anthony’s reply to Nicky. To her consternation just the sound of his voice made her heart kick against her ribs and her breath quicken. Dear heaven, she knew not what he was capable of, and her treacherous heart did not seem to care.

Emma shook her head and hurried along the hallway, suddenly glad for this reprieve. Her initial surprise at Griggs’s edict quickly gave way to the realization that this plan was likely for the best. Anthony was protecting his son. Better for them to speak alone later in the day than to confront each other now, with Nicky’s big ears taking in every word of their exchange.