Thirty-two cards weighted the world, his whole world. He sank into the red chair and gulped in air that reeked of cheroot.
“A good man, you are.” Clement Solomon Becker sat across from him. “And a wise choice you made too.”
Ewan smacked the deck onto the table.
From beside him, Peter’s fingers twisted. Dimples … his hands bore dimples. Why had Ewan never noticed before?
“Shall we go over the rules once more?”
He knew them well enough. They were grounded into his mind as deeply as Lucy’s whispers, the ones he had treasured over and over again. “Ewan, my pearl, you are divine … and I love you …”
“A simple game of piquet.”
Lucy, help.
“The victor leaves with everything.”
Please, please.
“If you win, Mrs. Ashbrook’s blunt is yours.” He poured a stack of coins onto the table. “And if not, you shall relinquish the child to me, and I shall return him to the lordy. For a price, of course.”
Ewan wiped at the deck, scattering the cards. “No, no … I cannot.” He shook his head. Again, again, again. “No.”
“I was under the impression you were a gambler, good man, from the child’s accounts.”
“Yes … yes, I am.” He tightened his knuckles into fists. “My father forbids it … Henry too … but I can win.”
“Ah yes, I am certain you can.”
“Lucy loves me.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” Shaking everywhere. He grabbed Peter’s arm and jerked him to his feet. “I have to take him to her … our son.”
“Sit down, good man.”
“I have to take my son to her!”
“Do you?” Becker’s smile widened with ease, as one finger idly flipped a golden coin. “What a shame you shall appear before her empty-handed.”
“What?”
“Without funds, man. What shall she think of you?”
“She loves me.”
“But she believes you can win. Are you so willing to disappoint?”
A pocket of memories burst within—images of his mother’s disappointed looks, her stiff smiles, her cold aloofness.
“And if it is the boy you are concerned for, you needn’t occupy a worry.” The chair squeaked as Becker leaned back. “I shall return him to the papa from whence he came.”
“He’s my son.”
“So he is.”
“Lucy’s son.”
“Yes.”
“Henry will never have him.”
“Perhaps not.”
Ewan collapsed back into the chair. Throbbing pain pierced his temples. Perspiration stung his eyes. Fear stacked in his stomach. “Deal.”
Becker gathered the cards with stubby hands. “With pleasure, my good man.”
Wretched, ghastly shapes licked inside the room’s sooty hearth. Half the time, Henry fathomed himself in a nightmare, a dark place with no windows and no air.
But then he would hear her breathing. How faint and lulling was the cadence, like the gentle music of a breeze rustling branches.
She should not be in here. His eyes remained shut. Why is she in here? He’d fallen asleep and expected her to be gone. Never could have rested if he’d known otherwise.
Ella, I love you. The hearth’s light illuminated her. I love you.
Her head was leaned back into the chair, her arms folded across her chest, her lips gaped only slightly.
I love you so much I could die.
He’d loathed the proximity that the barn had forced upon them. Now he wished for it again. He wished there were black and empty stalls to run into, to escape in. He wished he were not in a room small enough to detect her breathing, bright enough to watch her sleep.
Ella, how shall I heal? Tears gathered, swelled, overflowed. He would have wiped them away, but he hadn’t the strength. How shall I heal this time?
He told himself there was a way. He told himself he’d find a path that would lead him into each tomorrow. He told himself, someday, he’d know the lack of pain.
But he didn’t believe himself.
Yet more lies he must live with.
No more dimples. He couldn’t see them, because they were engulfed in a massive, pudgy hand.
Becker’s lips moved, sneering, talking—but it was all a roar Ewan couldn’t understand. All he could focus on was Peter’s eyes. He clung to them like the mast of a ship going under, as if letting go would plunge him under cold waves.
Strange, but he already felt like he was drowning. Water everywhere, flooding his cheeks, slipping into his lips, tasting like saltwater.
Becker’s fingers squeezed his shoulder as he passed. “Good man,” came the jibe, then something cold was pressed into Ewan’s hands. “For your Lucy, wherever she is.”
He stared down at it. A small stack of coins, glinting from chandelier light, but they slipped through his grasp and clinked on the floorboards.
Ching.
Flop.
His ears screamed with the sounds—then he heard the worst of all.
The door easing shut behind him.
“No.” Ewan pivoted, gasped.
They were gone. His son was gone.
“No, no, no, no.” His hands slipped over his ears. Weak legs gave out beneath him and he landed on top of worthless coins.
He couldn’t even weep.
“No.” Henry’s voice ricocheted against all four walls. “I said no, and I shall not be defied.”
“You are in no condition to command.”
“And you are in no condition to walk outside of this inn.” Why was everything with her so difficult? “Not dressed so.”
“My pride can endure the buffet.”
“Your pride is not my fear.”
“Then what is?”
“Are you such the fool? Or do you only play a poor argument?”
Rebuttal shaped her lips, but instead of answering, she whirled for the door.
“Ella, do not go—”
She flung it open.
Henry swung his legs out of bed so fast his head spun. “Ella, wait!” His knees hit the floor before he could reach her. “Wait.” Pain scratched away any voice he might have had, and he gripped the side of the bed with a growl.
Fool woman. Did she think all the world would treat her considerately—and dressed in dirty tatters, no less? What if she should run into another blackguard like the one at Darby’s tavern?
Or what if she should run into Ewan?
There was no respite. Just a blur, a bottomless tumble into madness. He didn’t know where he was. Prison?
No, he’d escaped.
And this was freedom.
Ewan swayed in the alley and took one more step. His body smacked into the building. His cheek dragged along the wet, mucky brick. Freedom, freedom.
Cries broke from his lips, with the same dying sounds Lucy had gurgled.
But he wasn’t dying. Oh, how he wished he were! How sweetly and gently the lap of death would rock him, soothe him, heal him.
“Henry! I shall kill you, Henry!” Rage came and fled, as quickly as it took him to force another step. He couldn’t hold onto it, couldn’t nurse the anger any longer. He had no feeling. He was empty, devoid, a shell.
My son, my son. Why had he lost again? He always lost, lost everything, everything he loved. My son, where are you?
More steps, closer to the street.
Where, where?
People sauntered by, horses, wagons, and carriages. None of them looked at him. None of them loved him.
Cool water splashed his legs. A puddle? He didn’t care. Didn’t matter—
Someone stepped into the street across from him. At first it happened slowly, a rise of emotion through his numbness, a torch of light in all his barren tombs. He stared without blinking. Breathed without exhaling.
Because she was here. Only a few feet away.
Lucy.
Ewan bolted into a run.
Perhaps she should have listened to him. For the first time in her life, she had wanted to listen. How could that be, when she’d spent her whole life disobeying everyone?
Ella smoothed down her dress with a gloveless hand. What she did or didn’t want hardly mattered—not with Peter’s future dangling in the balance.
If Ewan and Peter had been in Quinbury, she would find out. She would ask the questions Henry would have asked. She would go the places he would have gone.
There was no other choice.
“Excuse me, miss.” A plain-clothed man bumped past her, a young daughter on his elbow. “Clumsy of me.”
She hurried past with a small nod, then avoided a woman who came sashaying by with a broad parasol. Why must there be so many people?
If only the town were smaller. If only the world were smaller. How could they ever find Peter in—
Hands grasped her shoulders from behind. “Lucy.”
An explosion rushed up her spine as he jerked her around. “Ewan—”
“Lucy, you have come.” His strength hurled her out of the street, into the alley. “You are here.”
“Wh-where is Peter?”
“I waited.”
“Peter—”
“I waited so long, but you never came.”
She tried to wriggle out of his touch, but his grip only tightened. Should she scream? But if she could find out about Peter—
“I did not want to lose the child too.” He wagged his head. “My son … I did not want to lose him.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“Where?”
“Gone, gone, gone.” His hands tightened painfully on her shoulders. “Lucy, I waited but you never came … waited in prison … waited always …”
Ella pushed against his chest, but he backed her further into the alley. Further from the street, from the people, from escape.
“I tried to die for you, but he would not let me. Did you know?” Closer. “Did you know I tried to die for you?”
“Tell me about the child.”
“I love you.”
“Tell me.”
“More than anyone, I love you … and you love me.” Tears slipped loose, making grimy channels down his cheeks. “Tell me you love me, Lucy. I want to hear you say you love me.”
“Then you shall tell me where Peter is?”
“Gone, gone.”
“But where—”
“I want to hear you say it. Say the things you used to say, Lucy. I want to hear you say them.”
Silence.
Burning flames crawled along her skin.
“Why?” His question rang with fear. “Why will you not say them?”
“Ewan—”
“Why?”
“Because I am not Lucy.” The words exited half whisper, half sob. “My sister is dead.”
For a moment, he did not move. One of his eyes twitched, as the dark pupils widened with grief. Then senselessness. Then rage.
Ella’s back slammed against a brick wall.
“You love Henry.”
“Please—”
“You love him! You have forsaken me like her … my mother …” Shaking, beating her head into the wall.
Pain cracked her skull. Then again, again, again, until a scream lifted.
His hands hurried higher to her neck. “Why did you have to do it, Lucy?”
Again.
“Why did you have to betray me?”
“I loved you … loved you so …”
She kicked, but she couldn’t see. Blackness hovered over her vision. Why was something crawling on her, dripping down her neck?
Now his fingers dug into her throat.
Harder to breathe, harder to fight away the blackness.
“I left my prison for you, Lucy. Why did you have to—”
A shot ripped away his words. Must have torn away his hands too, because they loosened one finger at a time until the air flowed back into her lungs.
Then he toppled in front of her.
And Ella sank into a heap.
“Someone get the constable.” A scruffy boy darted off at the command. “You other men, grab his bleedin’ body.”
Murmurs rose from those peering into the alley, then grunts as the body was hoisted into several arms.
“Where to, fellow?”
“I don’t be knowin’.” The man in charge finally turned to her, his gun still dangling from one hand. Wasn’t he the one she’d bumped on the street? “The dead house, ye wants?”
“No.” Scratchy, whispered voice. She pulled herself to her feet. “No, take him to the Banter Inn on Dowington Street. He …”
“He wot?”
“He is an acquaintance.”
“Not a friend though, eh?” Shoving his gun back behind a woolen coat, the man gave a glance to the alley’s entrance. “Sarah, ye be comin’ over and helpin’ me with the maiden.”
His daughter hurried forward.
Carefully, the man took Ella’s arm. “Now, we’ll be gettin’ ye straight to the constable, so’s ye can tell him I had no choice but to—”
“No.”
“Pardon?”
Ella eased free. “No, I must get back to the inn.”
“An’ so ye will, but the constable will be wantin’ to have a word with ye.”
“I—I would be most grateful if you would tell him where to find me.” Her legs shook as she took a few steps away. “But I must get there before …”
“Before wot?”
Before the body. Ella started away. Before Henry sees.
The man’s strides caught up with her. “Ye will tell the constable wot happened?”
“Of course.”
“If Sarah hadn’t o’ dropped her hankie, I’d o’ never heard the scream.”
Should she thank him?
“Like as not, he would have killed ye.”
Yes. Ella quickened her pace away from him, from the alley, from everything. Yes, I know.
If he hadn’t the strength to comb the whole of Quinbury, at least he could make inquiries downstairs.
He descended each step with a strong grip on the banister, then slipped into the crowded coffee room. He took a seat at a table with four other patrons, who gave him a brief nod before resuming their conversation.
“Just brought the corpse in, an’ I don’t know but what he’s the man I saw the other night.”
“Aye?”
“That fellow who spit his bloody accounts on the floor?”
“And dropped his coins the very next day?”
“Aye, one and the same. Souls like him oughtn’t gamble.”
“Excuse me.” A man with a glistening brow leaned in from the door. “Any strong gents in here who wants to carry a carcass upstairs?”
A few volunteering hands went up, followed by the scratch of wood on wood as they scooted out of their chairs.
“Ain’t by no chance a Lord Sedgewick in here, huh?”
Henry stood. “Here, sir.”
“Good.” The man wiped his brow with a ratty sleeve, then motioned to someone behind him. “All right, miss, there he be.”
He was halfway to the doorway before she filled it, with something dreadful twisting her expression, with something strange emptying her eyes.
He halted inches away. “The body?”
“Ewan’s.”
He pushed past her for the steps. She called after him, but he didn’t wait to listen. Instead, he followed the four men up steep stairs as they carried a limp form into an empty bedroom.
By the time they’d all filed out, Ella was next to him, grabbing his arm. “There was no help for it, my lord.”
“Peter?”
“They were not together.”
Henry started into the room.
Her hand didn’t loosen. “Henry, please, there’s no need to go in there—”
“I want to be alone.” His arms flexed beneath her grip. “I want to be alone.” Then he pushed through and sent the door hurling shut.
From across the room, a dead and scroungy face stared up at the ceiling. His eyes were still open. Why were they open?
Henry drew himself forward. A sob churned, but instead of sound, only shook his shoulders. “Where is he?”
Ewan’s dry eyes didn’t blink.
“Where is my son?”
Still, nothing.
Henry should have known. Even in death, his brother only wished to torture him. “Where … where …” Henry’s hands seized the motionless shoulders. He shook hard, digging his fingers into flesh without feeling, inflicting pain into one who could no longer hurt.
Then a cry finally escaped Henry’s wrath.
He sank his face into his brother’s chest, making fists around the fabric of his coat. He should have hated. He needed to hate. For Peter’s sake, for his own sake … why couldn’t he hate?
“I am sorry.” If only the dead had ears. “I am sorry, Brother, for killing her.”
“Where is she?”
A man at the bottom of the steps glanced up from his broom. “Constable just took her in the coffee room, he did.”
Henry headed for the doorway. When he entered, the room was less crowded, the scent of coffee more nauseating.
Ella.
At the end of a table, she sat alone with a man, her back as stiff and erect as the iron gates of Wyckhorn. Dry blood crusted at the nape of her neck. How had such a thing escaped his notice?
He didn’t know, didn’t really want to know. His brother was dead. Wasn’t that enough to endure without bearing the details?
Even so, he approached and slid into a chair next to her.
She didn’t turn to look at him. Instead, fast-blinking eyes remained fixed on the constable’s face. “Yes, sir, I knew him.”
“Who was he?”
No answer.
Henry supplied it for her, “Ewan Sedgewick.”
The constable’s red-rimmed eyes made a casual turn toward Henry. “And who are you?”
“His brother.”
“Interesting.” He flicked his hand to Ella. “Continue, Miss Pemberton.”
“H–he forced me into an alley. He thought I was … I mean, he always thought I was …”
“Thought you were who, Miss Pemberton?”
“Someone else.”
“Odd, do you not think?”
“Ewan was …” The last color drained from her face. “He was not well, sir.”
“I see. Go on.”
No, do not go on. Rage and hurt mingled, as Henry listened to whispered words that made him want to bash his fists through the walls of time. He should have been there. He should have stopped this from happening. He should have protected her, defended her—
“And then he was dead.”
The constable never flinched. “Wrapped up case, it seems. The fellow got the finish he deserved.”
“Maybe I could have prevented it.” Ella’s shaking voice rose. “Maybe if I had pretended to be Lucy, said the things he wanted … he would still be … still be …” Her shoulders collapsed with a whimper.
Henry reached for her. “Ella.”
She scooted away from him. “Constable … if that is all?”
He stood with a brief nod. “Quite so. Want me to see to the burying?”
“Yes,” Henry answered. He pulled coins from his pocket, aware that her chair had become empty. “See to it there’s a headstone.”
“Elm coffin?”
“Yes.”
“What of the coffin covering? Velvet or black baize—”
“It does not matter. Just see to it.” Henry hurried after Ella. He grabbed the banister, pulled himself up creaking steps, and caught her partway down the hall. “Ella, just a moment.”
“Please.” With his touch, she froze. Her eyes never made it farther than the lapels of his coat. “I cannot talk anymore.”
“Then do not talk.”
“Henry—”
“No.” His hands grabbed her face, but she backed herself into a wall.
“No,” he said again. “Do not speak, only listen.”
“You blame me.”
“Never.”
“I have hurt you.” Her eyes lifted to his neck, then his mouth, then his eyes. “Again.”
Forgiveness sprang to his heart in one pulsing moment. If only it could so easily spring to his lips.
“If there were any hope left of finding Peter, I have destroyed it,” she said. “And for all your anguish at Ewan’s hands, he was still your flesh and blood.”
“You can no more blame yourself than I can.”
“But I should have listened to you.”
Guilt. He recognized the dark, plaguing demon in her eyes—the same one he had lived with for five long years. He would not have her suffer on his behalf, on Ewan’s behalf, on anyone’s behalf. Not as he had suffered. “No, Ella, you have done everything right.”
“I should never have followed you. We shall never find Peter and you are ailing and I have—”
His lips stopped her words, dissolving them into the bittersweet taste of passion. Oh, if only he could but live here. No malice, no pretense, no threat. Just soft, throbbing lips that yielded to his own, as if the brief haven was as blissful to her as it was to him.
“You were meant to follow me.” His kiss dragged to her cheek, as his thumbs caressed her warm jaw. “I shall regain my strength, and we shall find our Peter.”
Our Peter? His own words half mocked him, half delighted him.
But if nothing else, the small phrase rewarded him a smile.
And a bit of life leaked back into his soul.
“He is here.”
Henry reached for the covers, gripped them hard. “Send him in.”
Ella’s nod was quick, her smile limp yet comforting. She disappeared without a word.
Four days. He stared from one bedpost to another, then up to the ceiling that seemed to stifle him. Four days, God, and I cannot even look for my son.
The constable had done what he could. He’d asked questions, gone places, found a club where Ewan had gambled away his funds.
Still nothing.
Always nothing.
With a dreadful creak, the door came back open. The constable approached the bed with Ella at his heels, and he set his hat on the stand as if the procedure were becoming habitual.
“Well?”
“You can thank God for a man called Reeves.”
“Reeves?”
“He’s the only gent who remembered a thing about a little one.” The constable crossed his arms and half grinned, as if the mystery appealed to his interest. “Fact is, he was there the night it happened. Sitting one table away, he says, and listening all the while.”
“Listening to what?”
“The bargain.”
Alarm jerked through Henry’s stomach.
“Reeves said it was a game—piquet or something—and the winner gained the kid. Seems your brother lost.”
“The man. Who was the man?”
“Now that is a question. Been asking myself all day, and if Reeves hadn’t mentioned hearing the name Ashbrook, might have never known.”
“Ashbrook?”
“Handsome lady, recently widowed. Visited her this afternoon and drank tea, if you can believe that.” The constable uncrossed his arms. “Becker was the name.”
Ella slapped a hand over her mouth as she sank into a chair with a muffled groan.
“Clement Solomon Becker—and from what Reeves overheard, he has plans to return your son.” A pause. “For ransom.”
Hours, years, decades—and finally, they were alone. As soon as the constable closed the door behind him, Henry swung out of bed and groped for his boots.
She stayed in her chair. Not knowing what else to do, she gripped the wood of the chair’s rough and grainy arms. “You are not well enough.”
He didn’t answer. He crossed the room and yanked on his tailcoat, then his greatcoat.
“We do not know where he is.”
“If he is returning Peter, he will find Wyckhorn. When he does, we shall be there.”
“Henry?”
“Yes?”
Courage almost abandoned her. “Does the name Becker mean anything to you?”
“Should it?”
“The m-man,” she said. “The man at Darby’s.”
Now he turned, came around the bed, towered over her. “It can’t be.”
“It is.”
“Doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.”
“God, no.” The prayer came out a whisper. He pulled her from the chair, then grabbed his hat. “Let’s go.”