Romance: Detective Romance: A Vicious Affair (Victorian Regency Intrigue 19th England Romance) (Historical Mystery Detective Romance) (48 page)

She met with Saul after she attended her husband in the morning. She met him fifteen times over the next couple of weeks. They fell into a sort of routine. She would attend to her husband, whose health weakened by the day, and then she would walk through the Castle to the library, where Saul awaited her.

This day, the sixteenth, he was on his feet when she walked through the door. She nodded to him and together they sat. Sometimes they didn’t say anything for several minutes. It wasn’t needed. They were just two people, sitting together. Sitting with him, she found, brought her a great deal of peace. When they did speak, it was about everything. Zita told him of her childhood, when she and her sisters would hide in the dining room and giggle madly when Father stopped around the house trying to find them. She told him of her love of painting, and how she had had to quit whenshe came here. Maynard would not tolerate that. He told her about his time in the war in France, and the horrors he had endured, and his relief when he had finally come home.

Today, he rested his chin on his knuckles. “You still don’t trust me,” he sighed. “You still think this could all be a plot to trick you.”

Zita wanted to deny this, but she knew that Saul would see through her. They had become so close that he would definitely see through her. She didn’t bother denying it. Just nodded her head slightly. “I have become cautious, it is true,” she said. “I cannot stop now.”

“But I am not your enemy,” Saul whispered. He regarded her for a few moments, his eyes brimming with emotion. “I am your friend, Zita. I want to be your friend. Maybe even—” He stopped, and shook his head. “Let me tell you a story from when I was young.”

“Okay,” Zita said. “Tell me.”

He nodded. “I was around nine years when I first met uncle Maynard. He was a grotesque man, even back then. He talked to my sister and her husband – who was
just a lord
– like they were peasants. He made sordid comments about bedroom matters. He laughed too loud and he used the house as though it were his own. He even tried to touch Bessie, our beloved maidservant who had been with the family since before I was born. I learnt all of this later. At the time, I just saw a big, scary man.

“I was in the gardens, playing with some children – I forget who – when he came out and slapped me across the face.”

Zita gasped.

Saul nodded and went on. “I didn’t know why he did it. He just walked up, slapped me, and then walked away like it was the most normal thing one could do. I cried, of course. But when I told my mother, she said: ‘He is a Duke, sweet. Just try and stay out of his way.’ He was a Duke, and so he was allowed to his children. It was only years later that I realize why he did it. It wasn’t because of anything I’d done. It was because he enjoyed it, plain and simple. He
liked
inflicting pain.”

Saul watched her and waited. All their conversations, their meetings, over the past two weeks led to this. She could tell the truth, or she could retreat into herself. The ever-present fear was still there; it was always there. She couldn’t ignore it. She could never ignore it. But she could run away from it, as she always did. And hide it. And pretend to the outside world that she was happy, a regular English wife, as she had been doing for over a year.

But something in Saul’s face stopped that. It was so open, honest, and shrewd. She knew, by looking at him, that he had seen through her long ago, and any lies she told would be purposeless. He already knew the truth. He already knew that she was unhappy. There was no point in pretending otherwise.

She sighed. It was a risk, but it was a risk, she discovered, that she wanted to take.

“I hate him,” she said. The words were oddly calm. She had imagined saying these words before, and they had been fierce and full of rage. But they were placid. They could have been discussing the weather. “I hate him, Saul. I have always hated him. He treats me worse than a dog. He hits me, calls me brutal names, and—and other things.” The degradation whirred around her mind. The humiliation.The lack of personhood.“To tell you the truth, I was glad when he fell ill. I hope he dies. I know that is a horrible thing to say, but it’s true. That’s how much he’s hurt me.”

She waited and watched, as he, moments ago, had waited and watched her. He could laugh at her, reveal himself as Maynard’s ally. He could go to her husband right now and tell the man all of this. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he opened his arms.

“Come here,” he said.

She leaned forward in the chair and rested her head
upon
his chest. She could hear his heartbeat. It was quick, frantic. She breathed in the scent of him, and he laid his hand upon her head.

They stayed like that for a long time.

*****

Three days passed in which
she
and Saul, when they met, held each other. There was nothing less innocent than that. He did not
try
anything dishonorable with her, and for that she was thankful. She had endured too much dishonor at the hands of her husband. She didn’t want to experience it at the hands of the man who had pulled her out of her shell. Sometimes, he would kiss the top of her head. But there was nothing salacious in it. It was about closeness. And Zita didn’t mind. It had been over a year since she’d felt close to another human being. Since she’d felt she could step outside of her cage.

Maynard was so ill now that he could barely open his eyes. He just laid there, a sack of old, wrinkled flesh, breathing hollowly. The nurse would often try and reassure Zita that it was possible he would pull through. Zita was glad that the nurse was lying. After being with her husband for the appropriate amount of time, she left the depressing room and made her way to the library.

Saul wasn’t there today. She started, and immediately dreadful thoughts filled her mind. Saul had left the Castle, had left her alone with the dying man. Saul was right now in the sickroom with Maynard, whispering in his ear everything he had learnt. When took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. And then she saw the single red rose upon the desk. Beside it was a folded piece of paper.

She picked up the rose and unfolded the paper.
Meet me in the gardens. S.
She smiled to herself. With Maynard, she had never had any of this excitement. She had not even met him before her wedding day. Her parents had just carted her of like cattle. A thrill ran through her. She knew it was wrong, to meet Saul so openly in the gardens where the servants might see, but she no longer cared. If she was selfish for considering her own wellbeing now that she had the chance, then call her selfish.

I won’t be his plaything any longer. Let me attend to myself for once.

She made her way through the Castle and out into the startling spring sunlight. The flowers were like rainbows in the flowerbeds. She looked around the garden, and then saw Saul sitting on a bench at the far end. She breathed in the scent of the flowers. She didn’t think she’d breathed them in before. They had always been tainted by Maynard. Now, she could smell them for the first time.

Saul rose when she met him.

“I hope you do not think I am inappropriate, Zita,” he said.

“Oh, you are,” Zita said. “But I don’t mind.”

He let out a sigh of relief. Then he moved beside her and offered her his arm. “Would you care to walk with me?”

Despite her conviction, Zita still looked around. She couldn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean they weren’t watching.

“We are not doing anything wrong,” he said. “Just a nephew and his aunt-in-law taking a walk.”

“Aunt!”Zita could not help but giggle. “You are older than me.”

“Yes, the world is a strange place.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Zita said, feeling like a lady for the first time in recent memory. “I will cast caution aside and take this walk with you.”

She took his arm, and Saul led her away from the Castle, toward the private Bainmore woods. The Castle grew smaller and smaller in the background until Zita could cover it with her thumb. This was the furthest she had been away from the Castle since her marriage, since her imprisonment. The Castle had been her cage. It was a beautiful, well-furnished cage, but a cage all the same.

“What are you thinking about?” Saul said, as they stopped at the edge of the words.

“I am thinking that this is like a holiday for me. This is so far away from where I usually stray. It is as though we are in a different county.”

Saul laughed. He often laughed at the jokes she made. At first, it had made Zita blush. She was so accustomed to being something to be laughed
at
, that when Saul had first laughed at her joke, she hadn’t known how to react. That was how seriously Maynard had warped her sense of self. But now when he laughed, she laughed with him, only blushing slightly.

“Shall we walk?” he said, gesturing at the woods.

Maynard would sleep for the whole day now. He only woke in the mornings, before the nurse gave him medicine to ease the pain, and then he slept again. For the first time in a long time, she was free to say, “Yes.”

His arm felt firm and strong in hers. Holding onto that arm gave her strength. She found herself wishing that she could always hold onto his arm, that she never had to let it go. It was a silly, fanciful wish, but it came to her again and again. After the hell of Maynard, Saul was heaven.

They walked until they came to a giant oak which had been here long before them. Saul sat on a log and smiled up at her. “I know it is not a divan, but it is comfortable enough.”

Zita smiled and sat beside him. Their legs touched, and Zita felt something moved through her body. A desire she had not known she possessed. They sat in silence for a long time, like two nervous children, unable to look into each other’s eyes.

“I’m nervous,” Saul said. He laughed, and then looked at her. “Are you nervous?”

“Yes, and excited, but I don’t know why. Do you know why you are nervous?”

“Yes, because I want to kiss you. Do you know why you’re excited?”

“Now?Because you want to kiss me.”

Zita knew that the words were wrong, that as a Duchess – as a lady, she should not be speaking them, and yet she could not help herself. Saul was so handsome, so nice, so different to what she had known. It was as though a painting existed of her life before he had arrived at Bainmore Castle. A stark, brutal painting. And now the artist had painted a reinterpretation, with Saul as the centerpiece. Her heart pounded in her chest with the illicitness of it, and yet she did not stop herself. She looked bravely into his eyes and parted her lips.

“You may kiss me if you like,” she said.

She put his hand on the back of her head and drew their lips together. They touched, and energy buzzed between them, moving through Zita’s body to her chest, warming her. The kiss was over quickly, and when it was done both of them looked away, embarrassed. But not ashamed.Zita licked her lip, savoring the taste of him.

This is the most pleasure I have had in my life,
she wanted to say.
This kiss is the pinnacle of my pleasure. Thank you, Saul, for bringing me something other than pain.

But she did not say that; she did not say anything. If she’d tried to talk, her words would have stuttered. Her frantic heartbeat choked her, stilled her words. When he met her eyes, she saw that there were tears in them. Wordlessly, she reached over and brushed the tears away.

She took a deep breath and wet her lips. “Why are you crying?” she said, though tears had started in her eyes, too.

“I never expected this,” he said. “When I came here on business, I never expected to feel like this.”

“Neither did I,” Zita said. “Not in my wildest dreams.”

“Are we evil, Zita, because we are glad an old man is dying?”

Zita considered this. Her mind filled with the depravity of the past year, with the wicked things Maynard had made her to, with the wicked things he had done to her. She steeled herself. He would not take this from her. He would not steal this tiny piece of pleasure from her.

“No,” she said. “We are not evil. We have done nothing wrong. It is
him
that has done the wrong. He struck you as a child. Do you imagine he has treated me any better?”

Saul wiped his eyes and grinned weakly. “I am happiest when I am with you,” he said. “Is that mad? We have not known each other for long.”

Zita shrugged. “Sometimes, I suppose, it is not time that dictates us. It is circumstances.”

“May I kiss you again?” Saul said.

Zita nodded, and they shared another kiss. Longer, deeper. Urges awoke within Zita, urges that had been stifled and hidden for the longest time. His hands braced her shoulders, as though she would fall. When the kiss was over, they held each other, as they had done in the library countless times. Held each other against the evils of the world.Held the warmth and the glow between them.

*****

Five nights later, Zita awoke to a scratching at her door. She breathed quickly, frantically, as memories of other nights when the same sound at her door had pulled her from sleep.
Is it possible? Is he better? Has he returned?
She padded barefoot to the door and opened it. It was dark, and for a half-moment she thought the silhouette that greeted her was Maynard. But then her eyes focused, and she saw that it was Saul.