The louring sky matched my mood, as I rode home through the hot dusty streets. The gathering wind felt portentous, though I struggled to see how things could get worse. Every time I thought about that fire burning under Moses Graham, something stabbed inside me. I thought it likely my ribs were broken. Sweat rolled off me.
Outside my door, a large black-and-gold coach-and-six was drawn up. Beggarly children crowded around it, impressed by the footmen and the glossy black horses. The coachman flicked them with his whip when they strayed too close.
Pomfret met me in the hall. He had evidently grown tired of being surprised by my appearance, for he merely bowed. ‘Mr Napier Smith is waiting for you in the drawing room, sir.’
Of course he was.
*
Napier Smith was standing, studying Caro’s portrait. He appraised me fleetingly with his cold blue eyes. His youthful face was flushed with anger, and I remembered the Woolwich harbour master’s words: I wouldn’t cross the Chairman of the West India lobby for all the sugar in Jamaica.
I was too weary for niceties. ‘What is it you want, Mr Smith?’
‘Lucius Stokes tells me that you’ve been back to Deptford. I’ve written to Nicholas Cavill-Lawrence to let him know. Disregarding your patron’s orders – now that’s a bold step. Taking that slave girl off my ship – I’d call that bold too.’ He smiled coldly. ‘You know, I’ve been trying to work out why you would do all this. Risk a glittering future for a man such as Archer. Finally, I think I understand.’
Blood pulsed behind my ears, a primal sense of warning.
Smith turned back to the portrait. ‘A beautiful woman. If she were mine, I wouldn’t leave her at home to go delving after dead men in Deptford. But perhaps you do not place as high a premium upon her worth as another man might.’
‘I don’t grasp your meaning, sir,’ I said, though I feared I did.
‘Don’t you? We’ve been looking for a molly whom Archer trusted, someone from his past. I think that person was right under our noses all along.’
I like to think that I kept my nerve, that my voice didn’t shake. I’m not sure I did. ‘If you mean to imply what I think you do, then I will not dignify such an allegation with a response. Except to say that if you repeat it publicly, I will sue.’
Smith smacked his gloves against his hand, a duellist’s slap. ‘If proof exists then I will find it. And if it doesn’t – well, perhaps I’ll find it anyway.’ He turned a circle, looking around the room as he did so. ‘This house isn’t yours, they tell me. Everything’s in trust for your wife. Old Craven didn’t have much faith in you as a son-in-law, eh? Good guess.’ His eyes flicked back to me. ‘You will cease your hunt for Archer’s killer, or I’ll take everything you have left. Your name. Your reputation. Your family’s happiness. Oh, and I want the slave girl too. And a letter of apology for the temerity of your theft.’
It was one of those moments on which a man’s future turns. On one side certain ruin. On the other a woman’s life, a dead man’s memory, and a gentleman’s ability to live with himself. When put like that, my reply came readily enough.
‘You asked me before if I supported abolition, Mr Smith. I lied. I support it entirely – with every sinew in my body, every rational thought I’ve given to the subject, every decent, human impulse I’ve ever had. Your trade disgusts me, sir. You and your friends disgust me. Now leave my house, before I have my footmen throw you out.’
*
I was still sitting there, several hours later, when Caro came home.
She stared at me. ‘Oh, Harry. What have they done to your face?’ She walked over and touched my cheek, the first time she’d done so in many months. ‘You are a bonfire. I will send for Doctor Everett.’
‘Please, won’t you sit down? I must tell you something.’
Perhaps hearing some hint of my inner turmoil, she did as I asked.
‘It’s about Tad,’ I said. ‘He and I.’
She was holding herself tightly, and now she looked away. ‘Do we really need to talk about Thaddeus now?’
‘I’m afraid we do. Napier Smith came to the house earlier. He is unhappy about some of the things I’ve been doing in Deptford.’ I stopped, drew a breath. ‘He has made certain allegations about Tad, and now he threatens to draw me into them too. There is no truth to them, but I am not sure that will matter. I tell you this because I want you to consult a lawyer. Someone who can guide you on how best to shield yourself and Gabriel from any unpleasantness that will follow. I’ll not take Gabriel from you. It is important that you know that.’
I readied myself for a salvo of questions, but her eyes were distant as oceans. Just when I was starting to wonder if she’d even heard, she spoke again: ‘Did Thaddeus ever tell you that he came to my father’s house to see me?’
I shook my head, confused. ‘Came to see you when?’
‘Not long before we were married. He was drunk and rather upset. I had to bribe the servants to ensure Father never heard of it. He’d come to tell me you didn’t love me. That you loved somebody else and always had.’
I stared at her. ‘That isn’t true. I did love you. I do.’
I felt as if I was falling with no idea what was beneath me. The buzzing in my ears had stopped. I heard her very clearly, perhaps more clearly than I had ever done before.
‘That’s what I told him. He went away disappointed. I think he hoped I’d manufacture some reason to break off our engagement.’
For once I could read the hurt in her eyes, understood it. ‘But you believed him.’
She stared intently at the portrait over the fire, the happier Caro.
‘So why didn’t you?’ I said hoarsely. ‘Break off our engagement, I mean.’
‘Because I’d fought so hard to have you. I’d used up all my capital with Father, and I didn’t want to have to marry the manner of man he’d have chosen for me. Sometimes all our choices wear cruel faces. This was one such time. Nor would I give Thaddeus the satisfaction.’
I wasn’t falling, but sinking. The shadow of The Dark Angel above. The depths below full of shipwrecks, so many ghosts. Many things suddenly made sense to me, and I wondered that I hadn’t seen it before. Her distance before the wedding, which I’d put down to nerves. The spectre that had always lain between us in the marital bed.
‘I regret that he caused you pain – more than you can know. He had no right to do that.’
She was silent a long moment. ‘Does Napier Smith have any proof of his suspicions?’
‘There is no proof. I told you. It isn’t true. But he implied he would falsify proof if necessary.’ And if he talked to Nathaniel … The thought made me recoil.
She rose from the sofa and took a turn about the room, something she did when she wanted to think more clearly. She stopped in front of the window, a black silhouette against the glare. I couldn’t read her expression.
‘I don’t want a divorce or a separation, Harry. Nor do I want a scandal. I want Gabriel to grow up proud to be your son. If Smith means to destroy you, then we must make the consequences unpalatable to him. He is a man of business. Let him see the debit side.’
Something about that ‘we’ touched me inexpressibly. My voice thickened. ‘Hurt a man like Smith? I’m not sure we can.’
‘Will you tell me about it – Deptford? Thaddeus’s murder?’
We talked for several hours, long after the light had faded and she called for candles. Caro had always been a good listener, and she saved her questions until the end. I left out only Nathaniel. Everything else we discussed and sifted. The strangeness of it all did not escape me. We were like two allied generals advancing towards a common enemy, with only ancient treaties to define us. Gradually a strategy took shape and gathered form.
Our plan was not without risk, but we both agreed that it might work. From the theory, came the means, came the method. At one point she paused to pour more wine, and I felt compelled to speak. Not out of expectation, nor even hope, but because I needed to hear her say it.
‘This ship on which we sail – is there truly no way of righting her?’
I saw from her expression that she understood we were no longer talking about Smith and his threats – but about Carlisle House, about young viscounts, and separate rooms.
Her smile contained worlds: intimacy and distance, anger and absolution, defiance and regret. ‘It is the curse of the Cravens to want it all. If we don’t have it, we feel compelled to go out and find it. Nothing’s perfect, Harry. I understand that now. We simply have to make the best of the cards we’ve drawn.’