Romance: Detective Romance: A Vicious Affair (Victorian Regency Intrigue 19th England Romance) (Historical Mystery Detective Romance) (17 page)

It is too painful!

Lyla stayed silent.

How can I speak of demons which haunt me?

His Grace rose.

Just leave me to my fate!

He made for the door.

Yes, just let me suffer alone! Let me try to blot the memories which stab into me each night!

He was about to leave when he stopped and looked at her across the candlelight. “Join me for supper, on the morrow,” he said. “Perhaps it is
time
we spent a little time together. Perhaps then you will feel comfortable around me.”

I will never feel comfortable again
.

*****

She donned a dinner dress and joined His Grace in the main dining hall for supper. It was the first time she had entered this room. Much of the castle was unknown to her. Her world had turned from one of
wide
open fields and infinite expectations to three or four rooms in a small piece of the castle. Her heart beat with anxiety as she followed Tammy through the hallways to the dining room. “Many thanks, Y’r Grace,” Tammy was saying, “for not objec’ing overly to the business with the supper last night. I am truly sorry,Y’r Grace, that something like that happened, and I promise it won’t be happenin’ again.”

“It is fine,” Lyla said. She was not really listening to the girl. She was young and fresh and full of life. Life poured from her eyes like streams, and her step was bouncy. She had brought Lyla’s supper ten minutes late. It was no disaster, and Lyla really wished the girl would be quiet. Thankfully, she said nothing more as she opened the dining room doors and stared at the ground. Lyla muttered a
thank you
and walked on unsteady feet toward the table.

His Grace was already seated at the far end. He did not stand when she entered. He
simply
gazed at her as one gazes at an exhibition with which one is unfamiliar. She was about to sit at the other end of the long table when the footman proffered her a seat beside His Grace.
Clearly
, His Grace had ordered that this
be
her seat. (The footman never would have acted alone.) Lyla walked to and collapsed into the seat. Cups of wine were poured, and in
silence,
they drank.

“I am glad you came,” His Grace said.

I did not have much of a choice.

Lyla inclined her head. Words seemed tiresome and exhausting things of late.

“I feared you would not come,” His Grace persisted.

Lyla inclined her head again.

“Is your throat sore? Are you ill?”

“Ill?” Lyla said.

A small smile touched His Grace’s lips. “I was jesting with you,” he said. “Ill, I said, because you were not ... Ah, perhaps I am not as funny as my ballroom compatriots would have me believe with their raucous laughter.”

“So many lies are told in ballrooms,” Lyla muttered. “I fear you may be correct.”

As soon as the words had escaped her lips, she knew they were a mistake. But His Grace did not behave in a shocked or aghast way. He merely tipped
his
head forward, as though to say:
Well said.
She nodded, a tiny fragment of forgotten confidence and self-assurance sparking briefly to
life
within her—before being extinguished by the weight of
inescapable
memories. They drank some more wine, and Lyla’s head began to feel fuzzy, as though the room were trifold before her. She set the cup down and continued on water instead.

Soon the food was served. It was a simple meal of goose and potato. They ate for what seemed like
an awfully
long time, and then His Grace withdrew a pipe and began to pack it with tobacco. “Do you mind?” he said.

“Not terribly,” Lyla replied.

Everything was cold. Her words were cold, her gaze was cold, her skin was cold; coldness enveloped her. The memory of that warm June day was iced over. She felt her bones would crack with the coldness of what had happened. And this man was his brother … The thought trailed away into the recesses of
a running
mind.

His Grace blew puffs of smoke into the air, regarded her, looked away, and then
regarded
her again. Finally, he leaned forward slightly. “My lady,” he said. “I know you do not want to speak of what happened—”

“You are correct, Your Grace.”

“What I was going to say is that perhaps we could forget about that for a short time. I have a proposal. (Not that kind of proposal; that has been said and is solid and cannot be undone.) No, I have another
proposal
. Perhaps we should try and see more of one another. I know you have become quite used to your books. I studied much when I was younger. Perhaps I could join you in the library one day?”

“It is your library,” Lyla said.

“It is,” His Grace said. “But it is your sanctuary.”

“Why are you being kind to me, Your Grace? I am a killer, remember. I am a slattern, remember. I am a fallen one; I am the very antithesis of all that is proper and right. You should have distanced yourself from the Wemmicks; you should have burned us. Indeed, I do not know why you made this proposal. I would have been quite happy soaring away from a clifftop, toward rocks that would end it—”

“Enough!”
His Grace roared, his voice obliterating her words. “That is quite
enough
!”

Lyla laughed. It was a reflexive response with absolutely no mirth behind it.

His Grace shook his head. “You must not fall into self-pity. Nothing was ever won or achieved that way. I am trying, here, my lady, to make some kind of relationship between us apart from cohabitants. I am
trying
to fix whatever this breach is that exists between us. My brother – he is the reason we are together. My
lovely
brother – he is the reason we are distant and do not talk. Well, blast it, I am saying that we
should
talk. If only for the sake of our sanity. It is not healthy, being married to a stranger. It can destroy a man and drive a woman to madness.”

He fell back into his chair and took a long suck on his pipe. Lyla closed her eyes for a
moment
and then opened them. Of late, when she closed her eyes, it appeared in her mind. It appeared stark and brutal, and the feelings came rushing into her chest like parasites. She felt used, even as it was happening, like a pair of socks: a dirty pair of socks which nobody cares a fig for. She was
a devilish
woman. If she weren’t, why did the Devil come for her? She was
a bad
woman
. She was a dishonest woman. That
had
to be true, or the fabric of the world was bent out of shape, and there was something disastrously wrong with the way things trotted along. Yes, for things to be sane, she had to be insane; she had to be the wrong parted, not the
wronged
party.

“Let me tell you something, my lady,” His Grace said. “It is a story, but it is true. When we were young, Haywood and I would go
into
the woods and hunt rabbits. Oh, we thought we were quite the heroes. Only, Haywood was always jealous of me. It is quite uncomely to admit it, but it is the truth, and it is only the two of us here. Yes, he was quite jealous. You see, I was always quicker and steadier than him, and so I would always return first with my catch, to show Father.

“That was what it came to: showing Father. He was a distant man, but when he saw his boys with rabbits they had caught themselves, he would smile and rub us on the head. But only the first one, you understand. The first one to return with a rabbit got a smile and a rub on the head. The second—nothing. Father was no longer interested.”

His Grace chewed on his pipe and looked meditatively at his cup of wine.

“The first one,” he went on, between puffs of smoke, “and not the second. I was quicker, steadier, and more effective. But Haywood was something else, something that eclipsed my qualities. He was morally oblique. There was a capacity in him to be brutal. One day, after I had slain my rabbit, he produced a rope – I do not know from where he acquired it – waited for me to approach the creature, and then lashed the rope around my body, pinning my arms. He quickly tied me to a nearby tree, and then whisked up the rabbit and sprinted home to show Father. My rabbit!”

His Grace shook his head.

“Why are you telling me this, Your Grace?” Lyla said. For some reason, her hands had started to shake.

“I wanted you to know,” His Grace said, “that
I
know who Haywood was. And when you are ready to talk about the day at the ball, I will listen. It will push aside doubts in my mind, and may confirm things I secretly think. That is why I have married you, my lady. I suspect that the blame does not lie
upon
you. But
suspect
is meaningless without confirmation.”

She knew this was her opportunity, but when she delved into her mind for those memories – for the harsh, stark words that would elucidate those memories – she crunched against an icy wall. Through this
icy
wall,
his
eyes gleamed, his tongue pressed against his teeth, his breath plumed. She
shivered,
though the dining room was warm.

“I cannot,” she stuttered. Her teeth were chattering. “I – cannot. Your Grace, may I be excused?”

“Of course,” His Grace said. “But on the morrow, I shall see you in the library. Do I have your permission?”

“Yes,” Lyla breathed. Suddenly the walls felt close, as though the castle was closing in around her. She needed the warped breathing space of her small bedroom, her dusty library. “Yes,” she repeated, and then stumbled out of the room, wine seeping and sweating out of her pores.

Tammy joined her in the hallway and supported her arm. “Your Grace,” she said. “You don’t look too well. Let’s get you back to y’r room.”

With the assistance of the girl, Lyla managed to return to her bedroom. She excused the maidservant and lay upon the bed, her head buried in the pillow, wishing the pillow would swallow her—wishing it would absolve her.

But there was a promise of minor reprieve: a promise that perhaps the gloominess of the past five months could be somewhat assuaged. His Grace would join her tomorrow. His Grace had cause to doubt popular opinion. His Grace was giving her honor a chance.

But the ice within her was
tough
, and cold, and would not crack easily.

*****

Her habit was to arrive at the library at ten o’clock in the morning, just after breakfast, and stay there until five
o’clock
when she would return to her bedroom and lie
upon
her bed and try her best to banish the thoughts that threatened to send her tumbling into full-blown insanity. She tried to tire herself out as much as possible when she was in the library, so that when she returned to her bedroom, she would be too exhausted to think of anything. Her Latin was improving steadily, and her Greek was not far behind. There was a certain timelessness in the library. Sometimes she would read over the same passage for what felt like a half-hour only to realize that the entire day had elapsed. She was as happy as she could be when this happened, for it meant less time with her thoughts.

The morning after her supper with His Grace, she went to the library as usual. But she couldn’t focus. The words were naught but hazy black lines upon her vision, and every sentence was read in His Grace’s voice. He had made a profound impression on her. The rabbit story, no matter how prosaic, was like poetry to her mind. It went a long way toward proving everything she thought about
him
. It went a long way toward vindicating her darkest feelings. The boy with the rope had grown up, physically, but mentally and emotionally and spiritually he had remained the same.
But now he is dead
, she thought,
and he is nothing.

His Grace entered quietly. “My lady,” he said. He sat beside her at the desk. “What are you reading?”

She told him.

He nodded.

They stared at each other and then down at the table. Lyla found herself fidgeting, her hands fiddling with the fabric of her dress, constantly having to stop herself from touching her face. His Grace’s eyes burnt into her, and she found it difficult not to flinch under his gaze. He was not being aggressive, and yet violence was fresh in her mind. She almost jumped from the chair when he leaned over to turn a page. She almost slapped him when he shifted his chair to be more comfortable. She almost screamed when he rose to open the curtains.

Blue winter sunlight filtered in through the frosted windows, making the room look old and depressing: not at all like the haven it had become to Lyla. His Grace walked over to the shelves and perused them at leisure, and then returned with a large tome. “A translation of
The Odyssey
,” he said. “Perhaps it will make your job easier.”