A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
—Bacon
Christian had no memory of bounding down the steps of the folly; no clue as to how he found his way through the maze. It seemed to take hours; it must have been mere seconds. The voice kept shrieking, rising to a hysterical pitch now. Christian did not stop to see if Elise was behind him. He bolted from the maze and turned the corner, running down the path toward the Dutch Garden. Toward the ornamental canal which encircled it.
Water came into view around the next corner, sheened with gold in the fading light. Belinda squatted awkwardly in a flat-bottomed rowboat. One hand was pressed to her mouth, the other was holding an oar, poking at something floating in the water. Something—someone—wearing pale yellow muslin.
“Her head!” wailed Belinda. “She struck her head!”
Christian did not pause to think. He had no need to. Instead, he hit the canal at a run. But the water was not deep; he struck bottom almost instantly, surfacing only yards from Henriette. By now she was flailing wildly. Her head went under, her arms wheeling in the water. “Oh! Oh!” sobbed Belinda, kneeling in the boat now, her knuckles white against the wood.
But Christian had his arms around the child. In one swift jerk, he forced her head to the surface. She came up wild and sputtering, water weeds clinging to her hair. Christian fought for purchase on the slimy bottom, Henriette gagging as he dragged her backward. His boots were like lead weights in the water. He reached the stone wall of the canal, slapping his free hand up on the ledge to anchor them. And then Elise was there, screaming and clawing at the child, her face a mask of terror.
“Henriette! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Her hands shook as she forcibly dragged the child, sodden skirts and all, onto the graveled path. Her face was bloodless; her entire body trembled.
Christian planted both palms on the ledge, and somehow hefted himself out. He went at once to the child, squatting down beside Elise, trying to restrain her. She was hysterical with fear, clutching and clawing like a madwoman at the child. Christian seized her hands, forcing them into her lap. “Get back, Elise, you are making things worse,” he demanded.
“My baby, my baby!” Elise was crying now, tears pouring down her face as she reached again for Henriette, trying with all her might to drag the child onto her lap. “Oh, give her to me! Oh, God, give her to me!”
Christian pushed her away. “Calm down, Elise!” he roared. “Don’t drag her upright! She must retch up this water.”
Still shaking uncontrollably, Elise fell back onto her heels, her eyes wild, her fingers digging into the gravel as if it might anchor her. Tenderly, Christian turned the child on her side and began to pound between her shoulder blades. Suddenly, a spasm wracked her slender body, and Henriette began retching up green water. Three times. Four. And then she fell back, her eyes fluttering.
Belinda had somehow gotten the rowboat to the canal’s edge and scrambled up. She fell onto the path beside Christian. “Oh, Aunt Elise!” sobbed the girl. “Oh, I’m so sorry! Sh-she stood up. I turned my head, and—and she just lost her balance! She hit her head on the boat.”
Christian shut out the racket. Murmuring quietly to Henriette, he pushed the hair from her eyes and surveyed the damage. Beside him, Elise was stifling her sobs and clutching her hands in her lap as she watched him. “It is not bad, Elise,” he said confidently. “Miss Onslow, go send someone for a doctor at once. She has a mild concussion, I’ll wager.”
Her face pale, Belinda hastened away. Elise was leaning over the child now, obviously struggling to sound calm as she slicked the hair back from Henriette’s fore-head. “Poor baby, my poor baby,” she murmured.
“Oooh, my head,” whispered Henriette faintly. “Mama, I … I hit my head.”
“Yes, we know you did, sweetie,” clucked Christian, stroking Elise’s back with one arm. “I am going to pick you up now, Henriette, and your mama and I will take you into the house.” A little awkwardly, he scooped up the child and stood, water streaming off his coat.
Elise was still at his side, her eyes fixed on Henriette. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Oh, Christian, thank you.”
“She is fine, my dear,” he said with a sidelong glance. “The water was hardly deep enough to drown in. Had she not hit her head, she could have walked out on tiptoes.”
“But a concussion!” whispered Elise in a horrified voice.
“Yes, she likely has one,” said Christian gently, striding through the topiary garden. “She’ll want watching through the night, and perhaps need a plaster. But by morning, she’ll be on the romp again.”
Elise jerked to a halt and burst again into tears. “Oh, God, it is all my fault,” she wailed. “I did not tell her to keep away from the water. I always tell her that. I tell her to be careful. But this time, I forgot. I forgot—and now look what has happened!”
Christian turned to face her, Henriette still limp in his arms as she drowsed against his shoulder. Elise was still far more distraught than the situation warranted. Moreover, she was not the histrionic type. “Elise,” he said gently, resuming his stride and forcing her to follow. “Can you swim?”
Wildly, she shook her head. “N-No.” It was a horrified whisper as she rushed to keep up with him.
“Can Henriette swim?”
Just a shake of the head this time.
“Then you must learn,” he said very calmly. “Both of you. I shall teach you. It is a dangerous thing to be unable to swim, Elise.”
“No!” Eyes wild, Elise shook her head again. “No! Don’t ask it of me. We cannot.”
Christian shot her a steady look. “Can and will,” he said firmly.
Elise was white-faced now. “My m-mother,” she blurted. “Sh-she drowned. When I was six, she f-fell from our boat. Papa jumped in, but he c-could not save her. Oh, Christian, I am afraid. Sometimes I think … yes, I think water is the only thing I truly fear.”
Grayston could well believe that. Certainly she was not afraid of him, and God knew she should have been. They were going up the steps now. Lady Ariane Rutledge was standing on the veranda, the wind whipping through her hair. “My papa is coming,” cried the girl, her face pale. “Major Onslow has gone for a doctor. Will Henrie be all right?”
Just then, Lord Treyhern burst through the windows of the salon. “Good God, man,” he said, striding across the veranda in an instant. “You are soaked, Grayston. Here, give the child to me. Ariane, fetch a footman. He is to build up the fire and take hot water to his lordship’s room at once.”
With a determined nod, the girl darted away. Together, the rest of them hastened through the salon and down the corridor, Elise leaning on Christian’s arm now. When they reached the top of the curving staircase, he paused. “I am ruining Onslow’s carpet, Elise,” he said softly. “Go. Go with Treyhern. I’ll join you shortly.”
With obvious reluctance, Elise tore herself away and started down the corridor after the earl, who was striding in the direction of the schoolroom wing. But at the last possible moment, she turned back, her face a mask of gratitude. “Christian, wait!” she cried, wringing her hands as she stared at him. “You are right. About th-the swimming. If you will teach us, we … we will try.” And then she turned around and ran to catch up with Lord Treyhern.
For a long moment, he stood stock-still in the middle of the corridor. Suddenly, his heart felt heavier than his sopping boots. He watched Elise’s small, neat figure hasten around the corner and vanish.
If you will teach us, we will try.
Her brave acquiescence cut him to the quick. Good God—he had said that he would teach them to swim? Yes, and he had said it sternly and instinctively. He had said it from the heart. But he wasn’t going to be around long enough to teach anyone anything, was he? Not unless one counted the hard lesson he would shortly be teaching Denys Roth. And suddenly, it was as if that aching sense of despair were dragging him under again, as immobilizing and as hopeless as it had been after reading Lenora’s last letter.
Christian found himself seized by the urge to flee, to run away, as if the pain were something he might outdistance. But it was not. He had long ago learned that pain could traverse oceans, could sneak insidiously into the darkest and most distant corner of any hell or whorehouse—could always manage to find him. Still, he turned away and strode toward his bedchamber, almost at a run, half-afraid he might meet someone, afraid that his grief was so plainly written on his face, the whole world might see it. His breath rapid and shallow, Christian reached his door and threw it open.
The room was the same, everything just as he had left it. So why did it seem as if his world had been suddenly turned upside down? Why did he feel as if some sort of chance for salvation had just slipped from his grasp? He had selfishly abandoned his sister, and for that, he had to atone. Was he not on the path to expiation? Or was he about to do something unutterably destructive? If Denys were dead, where would Lenora be?
Still dead.
That was the answer. Or a part of it. Grayston shut the door and let his weight fall back against it, as if he feared the whole truth might burst through and overcome him. He had no notion how long he stood there, trying to force his brain to make sense of his muddled and miserable life. Trying to decide what next to do. He knew only that when a sharp knock rang out, he leapt away from the threshold, only to realize he’d been standing in a puddle of water.
Blindly, he stared down, trying to remember where it had come from. The knock sounded again. “My lord—?” called a footman. “You requested hot water?”
Henriette, as it turned out, suffered little from her accident. In fact, she suffered scarcely at all until she had fully recovered from it. And then the bad news had thundered down, so stern it might have been carved in stone. Henriette knew the rules; she was never to go near water, no matter the circumstance. And she knew the punishment for deliberate disobedience.
It was a lowering thing indeed for one of her mature years, she complained to Christian over their piano duet on Thursday afternoon. For one full week she was to be put to bed at half past seven—right along with “the babies,” Gervais Rutledge and the littlest Amherst girls—none of whom was above age four! And the worst of it was, this was the night of the Hunt Ball! In honor of the grand event, Ariane, who was all of eleven, along with Arabella and Davinia Amherst, were to be permitted to stay up an extra hour so that they might peek down from the long gallery as the guests arrived in the great hall.
Before the wheedling was over and done, those big brown eyes—the ones which Christian had already noted were far too large for her face—had seemed as if they might swallow him whole. And so he gave the child a tight smile, and like some foolhardy knight with a dull lance, left the ballroom in search of Henriette’s dragon.
It was, Christian supposed, as good an excuse as any to seek out Elise. For two whole days, he had subtly avoided being alone with her, simply because he was not yet certain what he ought to say. He had no notion where he ought to go from this point. And had he even reached a point? He no more knew the answer to that one than he knew what ought to be done with Denys Roth. Perhaps he should just tell Elise the truth, or a part of it, then take his quarrel with Roth elsewhere. Handle it in some other way. But where? How? And there was something else which had to be done before Christian could even begin to wonder about his future. For if Elise discovered the truth about what he’d done to Maynard Onslow, there would be no questions worth answering, and no future save the bleak one he’d come to expect.
With each passing day, the major had lost a little more of his vivacity. And with each passing day, the guilt of what Christian had done in that London hell had weighed heavier and heavier on his mind. Oh, perhaps he’d done nothing strictly unethical. He never did. But he had very skillfully and very easily enticed an amateur gamester into playing too deep and drinking too much. Despite his military skill, Onslow was too naïve and trusting for his own good. Yes, it had been a simple matter to persuade the fellow that he was playing a game of chance, when the truth was, he’d had no chance at all. Christian had acted almost unconscionably. And a conscience, he was belatedly discovering, was an onerous, yet delicate thing.