A Proposition For The Comte. Sophia James
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Thank you for your help. I will not forget it.
It was unsigned.
The hand was bold and sloped, the f’s tailed in a way that was foreign to an English way of writing. He’d underscored the word not as a means of emphasising its importance and somehow she believed him, for he hadn’t given the appearance of a man who might forget a promise.
Edith stepped back into the room, clothing across her arms and her expression full of curiosity. ‘I don’t know why he left so quickly, my lady, for the downstairs girl said there was blood on the handrail of the stair balustrade so he was hardly well.’
‘Let us hope then that he got to his home safely and is being cared for by his own family as we speak.’
Even as she gave this platitude she wondered if he would have a family. He gave the impression of detachment and isolation, a man who had walked the harsher corners of the world and survived. Alone.
He’d been dressed as a gentleman and had spoken like one, too. Had she the way of his name she might have made enquiries, but she shook away such a thought. If he had wanted her to know him, he would have given it and when he had made a veiled reference about others who might have followed him she had sensed his preference to remain anonymous.
She had finally got her life back on track and she did not wish to derail her newly found contentment. Better to forget him. Better still, maybe, to have never stopped and picked him up in the first place, but she could not quite make herself believe in this line of reasoning. The snow outside today was thick and the temperatures had plummeted. If he had been left all night out in such conditions she doubted he would have been alive come the morning.
Later that evening, sitting with Amaryllis in the downstairs parlour, Violet tried to concentrate on the piece of embroidery she was doing of a rural scene with a thatched cottage near a river, the garden full of summer flowers before it. The fire was bright and warm, the embers sending out a good deal of heat. Outside she could hear the occasional carriage passing, their noise muffled by at least four inches of newly fallen snow. Usually she loved this kind of quiet end to a winter day, with the darkness complete and a project in hand. Tonight, however, she was feeling restless and agitated.
‘My lady’s maid said that the marketplace was full of gossip this morning.’ There was a certain tone to Amara’s words that made her look up.
‘Gossip?’ Violet was not one to enjoy the whispers of tittle-tattle, but after her badly broken sleep she could not help but ask.
‘It is being said that there was a fight last night in a boarding house in Brompton Place that left a man dead. A gentleman, too, by the sounds. Seems the man had his throat cut. Brutally.’
The hint of question in her sister-in-law’s voice demanded an answer.
‘And you think the stranger we brought home may have had something to do with this?’
‘Well, we did find him at one end of Brompton Place and there was blood on his clothes, Violet. He also carried multiple weapons. God, he might have done away with us all in our beds had he the inclination for it and then where would we have been?’
Violet stopped the tirade as soon as she could. ‘Did anyone in the marketplace have an idea of the dead man’s name or occupation?’
‘I do not think so. It is understood that he was from the city and that he had a gun found beside him and a full purse in his pocket.’
‘It was not taken by whoever had killed him?’
‘That’s the way of it. It was violence the murderer was after, not the money, it seems. I suppose there are men here like that, men who live in the underbelly of London and in places we would have no knowledge of. Maybe he wanted to silence the other so that what was known between them should never be allowed to escape and it is a secret so terrible there will be repercussions everywhere.’
‘I think you have been reading too many books, Amara. Perhaps it was simply an argument that got out of hand.’
A sniffle alerted her to stronger feelings. ‘I feel scared, Violet, for an incident like this brings everything that much closer. What if they find out about us? What then? This could all happen again if we are not cautious.’
‘It won’t, I promise you. They will never find out.’
‘I cannot pretend to be as brave as you are. I wish I could be, but I can’t.’
‘We are here in London, Amaryllis, and it has been over fifteen months since Harland died. We are safe.’
Violet laid the embroidery in her lap, all the neat and ordered rows of stitchery so contrary to the thoughts she was having. Did Amara hold the right of it? Had she fallen headlong into a world of disorder and tumult by rescuing a man she knew nothing at all about?
I will not forget it.
His note came to mind, too. Words of gratitude or of threat?
She had promised herself at the graveside of her late husband to be circumspect and prudent for that was the way that safety dwelled. And now look. Here she was wondering if the locks on her doors would be strong enough and if the stranger who knew exactly the layout of her house might be back.
Her contentment fell into disarray like a house built of cards, each argument falling on to the other until there was nothing left at all to find a truth with.
Stupid. Stupid, she chastised herself, her heart racing. She had been here before, in a position of weakness and vulnerability, a place she had promised never to be again. The worry inside knocked her off balance.
Swallowing hard, she made herself smile. It never paid to let anyone know your true feelings, for then control would be gone and this charade was all she had left of herself.
‘I am sure the constable will find the culprit, Amara, and that shall be the very last we hear of it.’
‘You do not think we ought to say anything about the one who was here last night? His wounds? The blood?’
‘No, I don’t think we should.’ These words came with all the conviction she could muster and she was glad to see her sister-in-law nod in agreement.
He was most memorable. He would stand out in a crowd. The scar, the golden eyes, his beauty and his tallness. All the pieces of a man who was not in any way ordinary and so easy to find if someone was looking.
Danger balanced on the edge of a precipice, the beginnings of the consequences of her lies, the start of all that might come next? Another thought also occurred to her.
‘Are the clothes the stranger wore last night still in the laundry?’
‘No. They were dried early before the kitchen fire and the downstairs maid has ironed them.’
‘Can you find them for me, Amara? Perhaps they might tell us things.’
‘Things we may not wish to know?’
When Violet failed to answer, her sister-in-law stood and took her leave.
Why should she want to understand more about the stranger by gathering clues from his laundered garments? Could knowing more hurt her? With Harland she remembered sifting through his lies and truths and feeling sullied, a sort of panicked dirtiness inherent in every new thing she discovered about him.
When Amaryllis returned, she handed the items over with a heavy frown. ‘If one made it one’s business never to look into the hidden affairs of others, oblivion would be the result, Violet. Perhaps the curious hold a curse that trips them up repeatedly. I think we ought to donate these garments to charity and forget that we ever met this man. He is gone and it is for the best. For what it is worth, the butler said he had the look of duplicity about him and, of all the things in the world, we do not need that again.’
Then, after uttering a quick goodnight, her sister-in-law was gone, the door closed behind her. Violet