London, 1828
As it turned out, French aristocrats weren't the only ones wanting their countenances immortalized. A week after settling into the modest townhouse in Queen's Square, Leila was at work, and through spring, summer, and autumn, the commissions came thick and fast. The work left her no time for social life, but she doubted she could have had one anyhow. Her London clients and acquaintances moved in more exclusive circles than her Parisian ones. Here, the position of a bourgeois female artist was far more tenuous, and Francis' increasing profligacy wasn't calculated to strengthen it.
He had plenty of friends. The English upper classes, too, bred debauchees in abundance. But they were increasingly disinclined to invite him to their homes and respectable assembly halls to dine and dance with their womenfolk. Since Society would not invite the husband, it could not, with very rare exceptions, invite the wife.
Leila was too busy, though, to feel lonely, and it was futile to fret about Francis' worsening behavior. In any case, being shut away from the world made it easier to disassociate herself from his vices and villainies.
Or so she thought until a week before Christmas, when the Earl of Sherburne—one of Francis' constant companions and husband of her latest portrait subject—entered the studio.
The portrait of Lady Sherburne wasn't yet dry. Leila had finished it only that morning. Nonetheless, he insisted on paying for it then—and in gold. Then it was his, to do with as he wished. And so, Leila could only watch in numb horror while he took a stickpin to his wife's image and, with cold, furious strokes, mutilated it.
Leila's brain wasn't numb, though. She understood he wasn't attacking her work, but his evidently unfaithful wife. Leila had no trouble deducing that Francis had cuckolded him, and she needed no details of the affair to realize that this time Francis had crossed some dangerous line.
She also saw, with devastating clarity, that the wall between her life and her husband's had been breached as well. In alienating Sherburne, Francis had put her in peril...and she was trapped. If she remained with him, his scandals would jeopardize her career; but if she ran away, he could destroy it utterly. He need only reveal the truth about her father, and she'd be ruined.
He'd never threatened her openly. He didn't need to. Leila understood his rules well enough. He wouldn't force her to sleep with him because it was too damned much of a nuisance to fight with her. All the same, she was his exclusive property; she wasn't to sleep with anyone else, and she wasn't to leave.
All she could do was retreat as far as possible.
She said nothing of the incident, hoping Sherburne's pride would keep him silent as well.
She ceased painting portraits, claiming she was overworked and needed a rest.
Francis, lost in his own drink and opiate-clouded world, never noticed.
For Christmas, he gave her a pair of ruby and diamond eardrops, which she dutifully donned for the hour he remained at home, then threw into her jewel box with the previous nine years' accumulation of expensively meaningless trinkets.
She spent New Year's Eve with Fiona at the Kent estate of Philip Woodleigh, one of Fiona's ten siblings.
Upon returning home on New Year's Day, Leila heard Francis angrily shouting for servants who'd been given the day off. When she went up to his room to remind him, she discovered, with no great surprise, that he'd had his own New Year's Eve celebration—mainly in that room, judging by the stench of stale perfume, smoke, and wine that assaulted her when she reached the threshold.
Sickened, she left the house and took a walk, down Great Ormond Street, onto Conduit Street, and on past the Foundling Hospital. Behind its large garden two burial grounds lay side by side, allotted respectively to the parishes of St. George the Martyr and St. George, Bloomsbury. She knew not a soul interred in either. That was why she came. These London residents couldn't disturb her, even with a memory. She'd escaped here many times in recent months.
She had wandered restlessly among the tombstones for an hour or more when David found her. David Ives, Marquess of Avory, was the Duke of Langford's heir. David was four and twenty, handsome, wealthy, intelligent and, to her exasperation, one of Francis' most devoted followers.
"I hope you don't mind," he said after they'd exchanged polite greetings. "When Francis said you'd gone for a walk, I guessed you'd come here. It was you I wanted to see." His grey gaze shifted away. "To apologize. I'd promised to go to Philip Woodleigh's, I know."
She knew she'd been a fool to believe the worthless promise, to hope he'd start the New Year fresh, among decent people…perhaps meet a suitable young lady, or at least less dissolute male friends.
"I wasn't surprised you failed to appear," she said stiffly. "The entertainment was tame, by your standards."
"I was…unwell," he said. "I spent the evening at home."
She told herself not to waste sympathy on an idle young fool bent on self-destruction, but her heart softened anyhow, and with it, her manner.
"I'm sorry you were ill," she said. "On the other hand, I did get my wish: for once, at least, you didn't spend the night with Francis."
"You'd rather I were ill more often, then. I must speak to my cook and insist upon indigestible meals."
She moved on a few paces, shaking her head. "You're a great vexation to me, David. You awaken my maternal instincts, and I've always prided myself on not having any."
"Call them 'fraternal,' then." Smiling, he rejoined her. "I'd much prefer it. Less wounding to one's manly pride, you know."
"That depends on your point of view," she said. "I've never seen Fiona, for instance, show any regard for her brothers' manly pride. She leads them all about by the nose—even Lord Norbury, the eldest—whereas their mother can do nothing with them." She shot David a reproving look. "Mine is more like the mama's case, obviously."
His smile slipped. "The Woodleighs are not an example, but the exception. Everyone knows Lady Carroll is the true head of the family."
"And you're too male to approve that state of affairs."
"Not at all." He gave a short laugh. "All I disapprove is your talking of the Woodleighs when you should be flirting with me. Here we are in a graveyard. What could be more morbidly romantic?"
He was one of the few men she would flirt with, because he was safe. Never once had she glimpsed the smallest hint of lust in that handsome young face.
"You ought to know by now that artists are the least romantic people in the world," she said. "You mustn't confuse the creators with the creations."
"I see. I must turn into a blob of paint—or better yet, a blank canvas. Then you might make anything of me you wish."
I dance with a beautiful woman who cannot distinguish a man from an easel.
She tensed, remembering: the low, insinuating voice, the force of collision, the shattering awareness of masculine strength...overpowering...the heat.
"Mrs. Beaumont?" came David's worried voice. "Are you unwell?"
She pushed the memory away. "No, no, of course not. Merely cold. I hadn't realized how late it was. I had better go home."
Surrey, England, mid-January 1829
Ismal paused in the doorway of Lord Norbury's crowded ballroom only for a moment. It was all he needed. He wanted but one swift glance to locate his prey. Leila Beaumont stood near the terrace doors.
She wore a rust-colored gown trimmed in midnight blue. Her gold-streaked hair was piled carelessly atop her head—and doubtless coming undone.
Ismal wondered if she still wore the same scent or had mixed a new one.
He wasn't sure which he would prefer. His mind was not settled about her, and this irritated him.
At least the repellent husband wasn't here. Beaumont was probably writhing in the arms of some over-painted, over-perfumed trollop—or lost in opium dreams in some London sinkhole. According to recent reports, his tastes, along with his body and intellect, had rapidly deteriorated upon his removal to London.
This was just as Ismal had expected. Cut loose from his sordid little empire, Beaumont was rapidly sinking. He no longer possessed the wit or will to build another enterprise like Vingt-Huit. Not from scratch—which, thanks to Ismal, was the only way it could be done.
Ismal had quietly and thoroughly disassembled the Paris organization Beaumont had so hastily abandoned. The various governments were no longer troubled by that knotty problem, and Beaumont could do nothing now but rot to death.
Considering the lives Beaumont had destroyed, the suffering and fear he'd caused, Ismal considered it fitting that the swine die slowly and painfully. Also fitting that he die in the way he'd ruined so many others—of vice and its diseases, of the poisons relentlessly eroding mind and body.
The wife was another matter. Ismal hadn't expected her to leave Paris with her husband.
The marriage, after all, was merely a formality. Beaumont himself had admitted he hadn't slept with his wife in five years. She became violent, he said, if he touched her. She'd even threatened to kill him. He treated the matter as a joke, saying that if a man couldn't have one woman in bed, he'd only to find another.
True enough, Ismal thought, if one referred to the common run of women. But Leila Beaumont was...ah, well, a problem.
While he pondered the problem, Ismal let his host lead him from one group of guests to the next. After he had met what seemed like several hundred people, Ismal permitted himself another glance toward the terrace doors. He caught a glimpse of russet, but could no longer see Madame Beaumont properly. She was surrounded by men. As usual.
The only woman he'd ever seen linger at her side was Lady Carroll, and she, according to Lord Norbury, had not yet arrived from London. Leila Beaumont had come yesterday with one of Lady Carroll's cousins.
Ismal wondered whether Madame had spied him yet. But no. A great crow-haired oaf stood in the way.
Even as Ismal was wishing him to Hades, the large man turned aside to speak to a friend, and in that moment Leila Beaumont's glance drifted round the ballroom, past Ismal...and back...and her posture stiffened.
Ismal didn't smile. He couldn't have done so if his life depended on it. He was too aware of her, of the shocked recognition he could feel across half a room's length, and of the tumult that recognition stirred inside him.
He left his own group so smoothly that they scarcely noticed he was gone. He dealt with the men about her just as adroitly. He ingratiated himself without having to think about it, chatted idly with this one and that until he'd made his way to the center of the group, where Leila Beaumont stood, spine straight, chin high.
He bowed. "Madame."
She gave him a quick, furious curtsy. "Monsieur."
Her voice throbbed with suppressed emotion as she introduced him to those nearest her. Her lush bosom began to throb, too, when one by one her admirers began to drift away. She was not permitted to escape, however. Ismal held her with social inanities until at last he had her to himself.
"I hope I have not driven your friends away," he said, looking about him in feigned surprise. "Sometimes I may offend without intending to do so. It is my deplorable English, perhaps."
"Is it?"
His gaze shot back to her. She was studying his face with a penetrating, painterly concentration.
He grew uneasy, which irritated him. He should not allow himself to feel so, but she had been irritating him for so long that his mind was raw from it. He returned the examination with a simmering one of his own.
A faint thread of pink appeared in her cheeks.
"Monsieur Beaumont is well, I trust?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And your work goes well, I hope?"
"Very well."
"You have accommodated yourself to London?"
"Yes."
The short, fierce syllables announced that he'd driven painting altogether from her mind. That was enough, he told himself. He smiled. "You wish me at the Devil, perhaps?"
The pink deepened. "Certainly not."
His glance trailed down to her gloved hands. The thumb of her right hand moved restlessly over the back of her left wrist.
She followed his gaze. Her hand instantly stilled.
"I think you have wished me at the Devil since our first encounter," he said. "I even wondered whether it was on my account you fled Paris."
"We didn't flee," she said.
"Yet I offended somehow, I am sure. You left without word—not even the simple adieu."
"There wasn't time to take leave of everybody. Francis was in a great—" Her eyes grew wary. "He had made up his mind to go, and when he makes up his mind, he can't bear delay."
"You had promised me a portrait," Ismal said softly. "My disappointment was great."
"I should think you'd have recovered by now."
He took a step nearer. She didn't move. He clasped his hands behind his back and bowed his head.
He was just close enough to detect her scent. It was the same. There was as well the same tension between them that he remembered: the pull...and the resistance.
"Yet the portrait is reason enough to come to England, I think," he said. "In any case, this is what I told your charming friend, Lady Carroll. And she took pity on me, as you see. Not only did she invite me to join her family and guests in this picturesque town, but she ordered one of her brothers to accompany me, lest I lose my way."
He raised his head. In her tawny eyes he saw a turmoil of emotion—anger, anxiety, doubt...and something else, not so easy to read.
"Yes. Well. It would appear that Fiona has lost hers. She should have been here hours ago."
"Indeed it is a pity, for she will miss the dancing. Already the music begins." He looked about. "I have expected to discover some English gentleman bearing down upon us, seeking his partner for the first dance. But no one comes this way." He turned back to her. "Surely someone has asked you?"
"I know my limits. If I begin now, I shan't last the evening. I've reserved four dances only."
"Five," he said, holding out his hand.
She stared at it. "Later...perhaps."
"Later you will put me off," he said. "Your feet will hurt. You will be fatigued. Also, I may become fatigued as well, and so I may...misstep. I did this once, I recall—and never danced with you again." He lowered his voice. "You will not make me coax, I hope?"
She took his hand.
¯¯
"This morning?" Fiona repeated. "You can't be serious. You've been here hardly two days. And I've only just come."
"You should have come sooner." Leila shoved her russet gown into the valise.
They were in her assigned bedroom. It was only eight o'clock in the morning, and the party hadn't ended until nearly dawn, but Leila was well rested. She'd slept like the dead. That wasn't surprising. She had gone to bed feeling as though she'd just spent five years at hard labor—with Esmond as the ruthless overseer. The entire evening had been a battle. Actually, she would have preferred open warfare, with real weapons. How did one fight shadow, innuendo, hint? How could he seem to behave so properly yet make one feel so hotly improper?
Fiona sat on the bed. "You're running away from Esmond, aren't you?"
"As a matter of fact, yes."
"You're a fool."
"I cannot deal with him, Fiona. He is beyond me. He's beyond anything. Francis was quite right."
"Francis is a sodden degenerate."
Leila took up a petticoat, rolled it into a ball, and stuffed it into a corner of the valise. "He isn't stupid, especially about people."
"He's jealous because Esmond is everything he's not—or what Francis may have been once, but won't be ever again. That cur doesn't deserve you, never did. He certainly deserves no loyalty. You should have taken a lover long ago."
Leila shot her friend a look. "Have you?"
"No, but only because I haven't found just the right one. It's not on account of some idiotic principle."
"I won't be anybody's whore."
"'Whore' is a man's word," Fiona said. "Reserved for women. A man is a rake, a libertine. How dashing it sounds. But a woman who behaves the same way is a whore, a tart, a trollop—gad, the list is endless. I counted up once. Do you know, English contains about ten times as many disagreeable terms for a pleasure-loving woman as it does for her male counterpart? It makes one think."
"I don't need to think about it. I don't wish to think about it. I don't care what the words are. I will not sink to Francis' level."
Fiona let out a sigh. "You haven't even got to the point of flirting with your lovely count," she said patiently. "And he's not going to drag you to bed forcibly, my dear. I assure you, my brother does run a respectable household, and you may stay out your week without the least fear of being sold into white slavery."
"No. It's...He's treacherous. I don't—oh, how am I to explain?" Leila pushed her hair back from her face. "Can't you see for yourself? Francis was right, as usual. Esmond does something to people. It's like—oh, I don't know. Mesmerism."
Fiona lifted her eyebrows.
Leila couldn't blame her. Of course it sounded insane. She sat down on the bed beside her friend. "I had resolved not to dance with him," she said. "It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Then—oh, I know it sounds laughable, but it wasn't. He threatened to—to coax me."
"Coax you," Fiona repeated expressionlessly.
Leila nodded. "And immediately, that became the last thing in the world I wanted." Looking down, she saw that she was rubbing her thumb over her wrist. She frowned. He'd noticed even that. He missed nothing, she was sure. The smallest self-betrayal. It had told him she was uneasy, and he used it. He'd threatened to coax her because he knew—the wretch knew—she was afraid he'd addle her even more than he'd already done.
"I don't think it's Esmond at all," Fiona said. "Your nerves are frayed, and that's Francis' doing, mostly—and overwork, as you admitted weeks ago."
"What Francis does is of no concern whatever to me. If I heeded his moods, I should go mad. But I know it's the opiates and the drink, and so I ignore it. He's the one with the frayed nerves. So long as he keeps out of my studio, he can tear the house to pieces for all I care. I scarcely see him anymore—and the servants are well-paid to clean up after him."
"Yet you prefer to go back to that? When you might have the Comte d'Esmond just by crooking your little finger?"
"I strongly doubt Monsieur comes at any woman's beckoning. Rather the other way about, I suspect. He does precisely as he pleases." Leila rose and resumed packing.
Despite Fiona's unceasing remonstrances, Leila was finished in another half hour. Very soon thereafter, she climbed into a hired carriage and headed for London.
She was home shortly after noon. She changed out of her traveling dress into an old day gown, donned her smock, and marched into her studio. Then and only then did she begin to release the turmoil that had been roiling inside her since the moment she'd spied Esmond in the ballroom at Norbury House.
Fortunately, she didn't have to decide what to do. She had assembled a still life before she'd left, and no one had touched it. The two daily servants never entered her studio to clean unless expressly told to do so.
The heap of bottles, jars, and glasses seemed merely a haphazard mess, but it presented an ideal painterly exercise. One had to look, concentrate totally, and paint only what one saw.
She looked, she concentrated, she mixed her colors, she painted...a face.
She paused, staring disbelievingly at the canvas. It was the face of the man she'd fled.
Her heart thudding, she scraped away the paint with her palette knife, then began again. Once more she focused upon her subject, and once more the face appeared.
And she knew why. Esmond's countenance haunted her because he was an enigma. She could read faces intuitively, but not his.
The mystery had plagued her in Paris. She hadn't seen him, refused to think of him, for ten months. Yet after less than ten minutes in his company, she'd been lost again in the puzzle. She couldn't stop herself from trying to understand what he did, how he did it—whether his eyes told the truth or lied, whether the sweet, lazy curve of his mouth was reality or illusion.
He had caught her, and understood what she was doing, and didn't like it. She'd seen the anger: one evil spark in those fathomless blue depths, there and gone in the space of a heartbeat. He'd caught her trying to peer behind the mask and didn't like it. And so, he'd driven her off. He'd done that with his eyes alone, with one look of burning intensity...and she'd backed off, scorched.
Yet some dark part of her had wanted to be burned again.
Perhaps it was not entirely the artist in her, but this dark part that had kept her with him in the first place. She might have walked away any time, might have greeted him and gone, but she didn't. Couldn't. Wanted to, didn't want to.
She wasn't an indecisive or unsure woman. Yet she'd remained with him, all the while barely able to think, let alone speak, because she felt as though she were being torn in two. Yes. No. Go away. Stay.
Now, though he was miles away, she couldn't drive him out of her mind with work. Now he was in the work, and she couldn't get him out.
Concentration washed away, and anger flooded in. Her temples began to throb. She threw down the brush and hurled the palette at the canvas, knocked oils and solvents to the floor. Furious tears streaming down her face, she stormed from one end of the studio to the other, tearing it to pieces. She hardly knew what she was doing, didn't care. All she wanted was destruction. She was ripping the drapes from the windows when she heard her husband's voice.
"Dammit, Leila, they can hear you all the way to Shoreditch."
She swung round. Francis stood in the doorway, clutching his forehead. His hair was matted, his jaw dark with stubble.
"How the devil am I to sleep through this?" he demanded.
"I don't care how you sleep," she said, her voice choked with tears. "I don't care about anything, especially you."
"Gad, you picked a fine time for one of your fits. What in blazes are you doing home, anyway? You were supposed to be at Norbury House the week. Did you come back just to have a tantrum?"
He entered the studio and looked about. "One of your better ones, by the looks of it."
She pressed her fist to her pounding heart and looked about at what she'd done. Another tantrum. God help her.
Then she saw him pick up the canvas. "Leave that alone," she said too shrilly. "Put it down and get out."
He looked up at her. "So this is what it's all about. Pining for the pretty count, are you?" He tossed the canvas aside. "Want to run back to Paris and be one of the maggots crawling over him, do you?"
The thunder in her head was abating, but the furious frustration remained. She set her jaw. "Go away," she said. "Leave me alone."
"I wonder how he'll like dealing with a temperamental artiste. I wonder what he'll think of Madame's little rages. I wonder what method he'd use to quiet you down. No telling with him. Maybe he'll beat you. Would you like that, my love? You might, you know. Some women do."
She felt sick. "Stop it. Leave me alone. Talk your filth to one of your whores."
"You were one of my whores once." He eyed her up and down. "Don't you remember? I do. You were so young and sweet and so very eager to please. Insatiable, too, once you got over your girlish shyness. But that was only to be expected, wasn't it? Like papa, like daughter."
A claw of ice fastened on her belly. Never, since the day he'd first broken the news, had Francis referred openly to her father.
"Ah, that gives you a turn, does it?" As his glance moved from the canvas back to her, his dissolute mouth twisted into a smirk. "What a fool I was not to have thought of it before. But then there was so little at stake in Paris. What do the French care what your papa did or was? The English, though—they're another matter, aren't they?"
"You bastard."
"You shouldn't have made me jealous, Leila. You shouldn't be painting the face of a man you haven't seen in nearly a year. Or has it been? Have you been seeing him on the sly? Was he at Norbury House? You might as well tell me. I can find out easily enough. Was he there?" he demanded.
"Yes, he was there!" she snapped. "And I left. So much for your disgusting suspicions. And if your cesspit mind isn't satisfied with that, ask your friends—ask anybody. He's only just arrived in England."
"How did he come to be at Norbury House?"
"How the devil should I know? He was invited. Why shouldn't he be? He's probably related to half the peerage. Most of the French nobility is."
The twisted smirk hardened. "Fiona invited him, I'll wager. Pandering for you, as usual—"
"How dare you—"
"Oh, I know what she's about. She'd love to help you make a cuckold of me, the black-haired she-wolf."
"A cuckold?" she echoed bitterly. "What does one call what you've made me? What name does one give the wife? Or maybe the title 'wife' is sufficient joke in the circumstances."
"What should you like to be instead? A divorcee?" He laughed. "Even if we could afford it, you wouldn't like that a bit, would you? Why not? The scandal might do wonders for your career."
"It would destroy my career, and you know it."
"Don't think I won't make a scandal if you attempt an affair." Kicking aside the canvas, Francis crossed the room to her. "Don't think I won't make you pay in private as well. Can you guess how you'll pay, my precious?"
He stood inches away. Revulsion churned inside her, but she refused to retreat. If she appeared to doubt her own strength and will, even for a moment, he'd doubt it, too. She lifted her chin and gazed coldly up at him.
"You're not to see him again," he said. "Or Fiona."
"You do not tell me who I may and may not see."
"I'll bloody well tell you what I like—and you'll obey!"
"And you can roast in hell! You don't dictate to me. I won't take orders from a whoremongering swine!"
"You viper-tongued little hypocrite! I let you go your way—let you deny me your bed—and this is what I get. You skip off to Surrey to wrap your legs about that—"
"Shut your filthy mouth!" Hot tears welled in her eyes. "Get out! Go drink yourself senseless, why don't you! Eat more of that poison you love so much! Intoxicate yourself to death! Only let me be!"
"By gad, if my head weren't pounding like a steam engine, I'd—" He raised his hand. He was just about furious enough to strike her, she knew. Yet she wouldn't shrink from him.
He only stared at his hand. "But of course I can't throttle you, can I? Because I adore you so." He chucked her under the chin. "Naughty baggage. We'll speak of this later, after you've calmed down. And you won't come in and knock me on the head with a blunt instrument, will you, love? We're not in France any more, recollect. English juries are not at all soft-hearted—or headed—about women. They've hanged plenty—even the pretty ones."
She made no answer, only stood rigid and silent, staring at the floor as he left the studio. She remained so while his footsteps faded down the hall. When, finally, she heard his bedroom door slam shut, she moved stiffly across the room and sat down on the sofa.
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
She was not afraid, she told herself. Any scandal Francis brought down on her must hurt him, too—as he'd realize when he recovered from last night's debauch. If he recovered. If the drink and opiates weren't destroying his reason.
In the ten months since they'd come to London, he'd grown steadily worse. Some days he didn't leave his bed until dinnertime. He took laudanum to sleep, and again when he woke, to relieve the pain of rising from his bed. Always, he needed something—drink or opiates to dull the restlessness or peevishness, the headache and other discomforts. Always he needed something to carry him through this demented existence he called living.
She should not have quarreled with him. His mind was diseased. She might as well try to argue a man out of cholera. She should not have let him upset her.
She rose from the sofa and picked up the offending canvas. She should not have taken a fit about that, certainly, she chided herself. It had happened only because she'd let Esmond upset her. What a fool she'd made of herself: running away from Norbury House, after babbling to Fiona about mesmerism, for heaven's sake.
"Gad, I shall become as deranged as Francis," she muttered. "Just from living with him, probably."
There was a thump and a crash from down the hall. "That's right, you poor sod," she said, glancing up from the smeared painting. "Knock over the furniture. Throw things about. Maybe that's from living with me."
She righted the easel, set the canvas back upon it, dug out fresh supplies of paint from the cupboard, retrieved her brushes from various parts of the room, and resolutely set to work.
Her mind—if not her heart—cleansed by the recent tempest, she eventually succeeded in obliterating every trace of the Comte d'Esmond's provoking countenance.
While she worked, she told herself she could leave Francis. She could go away from England and change her name. Again. She could paint anywhere. She was only seven and twenty. That wasn't too old to begin again. But she'd think it over later, when she was calmer. She'd talk to Andrew. Though no longer her guardian, he was still her solicitor. He'd advise and help her.
Hand and mind occupied, she didn't notice the time passing. Not until she'd finished the painting and begun cleaning up did she glance at the clock on the mantel. Then she discovered it was past teatime. She'd been working for hours in rare, blessedly uninterrupted quiet. But where the devil was her tea?
She was about to yank the bell rope when Mrs. Dempton came to the open studio door bearing a heap of bed linens.
As the servant glanced into the wrecked studio, her jowly countenance tightened with disapproval.
Leila ignored it. Obviously, she and Francis were not ideal employers. They'd been through three different sets of servants in ten months. All had disapproved of her.
"When will tea be ready?" Leila asked.
"In a trice, mum. I was only hoping to get in to change Mr. Beaumont's bedding first—but the door's still shut tight."
And Mrs. Dempton knew better than to knock. When Francis' door was closed, he was not to be disturbed unless the house was on fire. Today Mrs. Dempton had surely heard for herself what had happened when the master's wife had troubled his rest.
"Then I suppose he'll have to wait until tomorrow for clean sheets," said Leila.
"Yes, mum, only he did ask particular, and told Mr. Dempton he'd have a bath, and now the water's near boiled away, because I told Mr. D. not to haul it up until that door was open. The last time—"
"Yes, Mrs. Dempton. I quite understand."
"And Mr. Beaumont asked for scones for his tea, which I was happy to make, I'm sure, as he don't eat enough to keep a mouse alive, but there they are, turning stone cold in the kitchen and the water boiled away and you looking for your tea, and the bedding not even changed." The disapproving expression sharpened into accusation.
She thought it was all Leila's fault, obviously. Leila had quarreled with her husband and he'd locked himself in his room to sulk, inconveniencing the servants.
But surely he'd given the orders after the quarrel, and so he could not have been sulking then—or intending to sleep so long. Leila frowned. Laudanum, of course. He'd complained of a headache. He must have taken laudanum and fallen asleep. There was nothing new in that.
Nonetheless, she felt a prickle of uneasiness.
"I had better look in on him," she said. "He may have an engagement. He'll be vexed if he sleeps through it."
She left the studio and moved quickly down the hall to his bedroom. She rapped at the door. "Francis?" He didn't answer. She gave a harder rap and called to him more sharply. No response. "Francis!" she shouted, pounding on the door.
Silence.
Cautiously she opened the door and looked in.
Her heart skidded to a stop.
He lay on the carpet by the bed, his hand wrapped about the leg of the toppled nightstand.
"Francis!" Even as she cried out, she knew he couldn't hear her, couldn't be roused, ever again.
Mrs. Dempton came running at the sound, stopped short at the doorway, and let out an ear-splitting shriek.
"Murder!" she screamed, scuttling back from the door. "God help us! Oh, Tom, for the love of heaven! She's killed him!"
Leila didn't heed her. She moved stiffly to her husband's too-still form and, kneeling beside him, touched his wrist, his neck. His flesh was cool, too cool. No pulse. No breath. Nothing. Gone.
She heard Mrs. Dempton screeching in the hall, heard Tom's heavy footsteps as he hurried up the stairs, but it was mere noise in some other world far away.
Dazedly, Leila looked down.
Broken glass. Shards from the water glass, smooth and clear, and the etched glass of the laudanum bottle. Puzzle pieces of blue and white porcelain...the water pitcher.
"Missus?"
She looked up into Tom Dempton's narrow, leathery face. "He—he's...please. Get the doctor. And—and Mr. Herriard. Quickly, please. Hurry, you must hurry."
He knelt beside her, checked for signs of life as she had, then shook his head. "Doctor won't do him no good, missus. I'm sorry. He's—"
"I know." She understood what had happened, though it didn't make sense, either. Yet the doctor had warned him. Francis himself knew. He'd told her: the wrong dosage was poison. She wanted to scream.
"You must go," she told Dempton. "The doctor must come and—and..."
Sign the death certificate. Papers. Life went away and left papers. Life went away and you put what was once alive into a box. Into the ground. Only a few hours ago he'd stood shouting at her.
She shuddered. "Get the doctor. And Mr. Herriard. I'll stay with—with my husband."
"You're all a-tremble," said Dempton. He offered his hand. "Best come away. Mrs. D. will stay with him."
She could hear Mrs. Dempton weeping loudly in the hall beyond. "Your wife is the one who needs looking after," Leila said, fighting to keep her voice level. "Try to calm her, please—but do fetch the doctor. And Mr. Herriard."
Reluctantly, Tom Dempton left. Leila heard his wife trailing after him down the stairs.
"She killed him, Tom," came the strident voice. "You heard her screaming at him, telling him to die. Told him to roast in hell, she did. I knew it would come to this."
Leila heard Dempton mutter some impatient response, then the slam of the door. Mrs. Dempton's cries subsided somewhat, but she didn't quiet altogether, and she didn't come back upstairs. Death was there, and she left Leila to look upon it alone.
"I'm here," she whispered. "Oh, Francis, you poor...Oh, God forgive you. Forgive me. You shouldn't have gone alone. I would have held your hand. I would. You were kind once. For that...Oh, you poor fool."
Tears trickling down her face, she bent to close his eyes. It was then she became aware of the odd scent. Odd...and wrong. She looked at the broken laudanum bottle, its contents soaking the carpet near his head. But it wasn't laudanum. This smelled like...ink.
She sniffed, and drew back, chilled. There was water and laudanum. Nothing else. No cologne. But she knew this odor.
She sat back on her heels, her eyes darting about the room. She'd heard the noise. The crash and the thump. He'd knocked over the nightstand, and pitcher, bottle, and drinking glass had crashed down with it. He'd fallen. But not another sound. No cry for help, no curses. Just the noise for an instant, then silence.
Had he died in that instant?
She made herself bend close and sniff again. It was on his breath and in the air about him. So very faint, but there: bitter almonds. Why had she thought of ink?
Her mind didn't want to think but she made it. Ink. The doctor. In Paris. Long ago, yes, telling her to keep the windows open. He'd taken up a bottle of blue ink. Prussian blue. Even the fumes could make her very ill, he'd told her. "Artists, they are so careless," he'd said. "Yet it is they who spend their lives amid poisons of the most deadly kind. Do you know what this is made of? Prussic acid, child."
Prussic acid. The symptoms began in seconds. It killed in minutes. The heart slowed...convulsions...asphyxiation. A teaspoon of the commercial variety could kill you. It was one of the deadliest of poisons, because it was so quick, the doctor had said. It was also hard to detect. But there was the bitter almonds odor.
That was what she smelled.
Someone had poisoned Francis with prussic acid.
She shut her eyes. Poisoned. Murdered. And she had been quarreling with him, loudly, bitterly.
She's killed him. You heard her…Told him to roast in hell.
English juries…they've hanged plenty—even the pretty ones.
A jury. A trial. They'd find out. About Papa.
Like papa, like daughter.
Her heart raced. She'd never have a chance. They'd all believe she was guilty, that evil was in her blood.
No. No, she would not hang.
She rose on shaky limbs. "It was an accident," she said under her breath. "God forgive me, but it must be an accident."
She had to think. Coldly. Calmly. Prussic acid. Bitter almonds. Yes. The ink.
She crept noiselessly from the room, looked down the stairs. She could hear Mrs. Dempton sobbing and talking to herself, but she was out of sight. Her voice was coming from the vestibule, where she was waiting for her husband to return with the doctor. They'd be here any moment.
Leila hurried to the studio, snatched up a bottle of Prussian blue and was back in Francis' bedroom in seconds.
Her hands trembling, she unstopped the bottle and laid it on its side amid the shards of the laudanum bottle. The ink trickled from the bottle onto the carpet, and the potent fumes rose.
The fumes. She must not remain here and inhale them. The doctor had said even that could make one ill.
She rose and retreated only as far as the threshold, though she wanted to run as fast and as far away as possible. She wanted to faint, to be sick, to be anything but fully conscious. She made herself stay. She mustn't run. She mustn't leave Francis alone, and she mustn't be sick or swoon. She must think, prepare herself.
She focused all her will on that. There were sounds below, but she shut them out. She must make herself very calm. No tears. She couldn't risk even that small loss of control. She needed all her will.
She heard the footsteps upon the stairs, but didn't look round. She couldn't. She wasn't ready. She couldn't command her muscles.
The footsteps neared. "Madame." It was a soft voice, a whisper so low she wasn't sure she heard it. The entire house seemed to be whispering. Murder.
Like papa like daughter.
Hang the pretty ones,
"Madame."
Her head turned slowly, jerkily...to inhumanly blue eyes and a crown of spun gold hair. She didn't understand why he was there. She wasn't sure he truly was there. She couldn't think about that or anything. Tears were burning her eyes and she mustn't cry, mustn't move. She would shatter like the glass, the bottle, the pitcher. Broken…puzzle pieces.
"I c-can't," she mumbled. "I must..."
"Yes, Madame."
She swayed, and he caught her in his arms.
She shattered then and, pressing her face to his coat, she wept.