Descent Into Dust (7 page)

We fled that place with me all but dragging Henrietta behind me. We’d gone a short way when I saw a figure framed on a hilltop in the direction in which we were headed. With the low-hanging sun behind him, I could make out a man astride a horse. I thought it was Sebastian. Perhaps he’d come from the house to find us.

I fled toward him, our progress slowed by tiny Henrietta battling the hip-high grass. Finally I scooped her up and carried
her, running against the tangle of my skirts and the uneven ground. He saw us, and kicked his horse into a gallop down the hill. As the gap between us closed, I could see the tall, slender figure commanding a huge black beast was Valerian Fox. He reined in his horse directly in my path and peered down at me.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Andrews?” he demanded sharply. His dismount was fluid, controlled. Once he was on the ground, he reached for Henrietta. The act so surprised me, I surrendered her without question.

His eyes lifted and scanned the horizon behind me, his face as inscrutable as ever. “You are too far from the house. It is dangerous out here.” His gaze jerked abruptly to mine, and I had a clear, unwavering revelation—

He knows.

Then he drew his horse close and issued a curt order to the beast. It was either some kind of code or another language, but the horse bobbed its head and went stock-still.

“You will have to ride astride,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

I set my teeth edge to edge, grasped the pommel, and turned my mind away from the humiliating business of having Mr. Fox haul me astride. But the process was done quite handily, his strength proving astonishing for one without the excess of brawn. Astride the saddle, skirts bunched around my lap and the hem nearly to my knees, exposing my boots and a peek of stocking, I straightened tentatively, very uncertain at the unaccustomed height I found myself upon the back of his great horse. The gelding remained perfectly still. Fox handed Henrietta up to me, and she curled comfortably in my lap.

Taking the reins, Mr. Fox led us back to the house.

Chapter Six

I
understand that is the second time you have come to some ill near that place,” Fox said. We were in the library, where he had asked me to meet him after seeing Henrietta to the nursery. I’d wished to duck into my room to freshen my appearance, and this thought, as soon as it occurred to me, struck me as strange indeed, considering the much more important things I had on my mind.

“What do you mean?”

He reached out and cradled my bandaged hand in his. There was sureness in the way he touched me, as if we weren’t strangers. As if we’d known one another a very long time. “You cut your hand out there.” His finger traced the line of the cuts,
visible through the bandage by the seeping blood. I’d ripped them open carrying Henrietta.

My mouth opened, and I was about to ask him where he could have learned such a thing when it occurred to me that a man like him had numerous methods to gain intelligence.

I disengaged my hand with some difficulty. “Funny,” I tossed out with a smile, “but I’ve never been accident-prone before.”

He changed tack. “The child is unharmed?”

“She is fine. I appreciate your concern. And your help. Your arrival was timely.”

“Yes…” He stood with his feet braced apart, looking like the captain of a ship poised at the prow. “Might I have a word with you?” he asked.

“We are having words now,” I replied, trying to be tart and then, hearing how I had just misspoken, blushing.

He smiled slightly and his eyes, too, eased somewhat in their intensity. “Surely our conversation was not that extreme. I meant, might we speak a bit more…plainly, you and I?” Moving toward me, he gestured to one of four wing chairs by the unlit hearth, inviting me to sit. I complied. He took the chair closest to me, his long legs stretched out so that his shoe nearly touched the hem of my gown.

Resting his elbows on the armrests, he laced his fingers just at his chin and leveled his black stare at me. I folded my own hands on my lap and returned his gaze evenly.

After an interval, the smile came again, this time a tad deeper. “It seemed from my vantage point that something disturbed you today on the Overton Hill.”

“How long were you watching me, Mr. Fox?”

“A while,” he admitted without embarrassment. “I noticed the child by the tree. What was she doing?”

“Nothing.” My reply was quick and obviously defensive. “Merely taking a rest.”

He disengaged a long finger, using it to stroke his lip. He said, “I had just come over the crest of the hill when I spotted you wading through the grass to her, but the child…The child was, if my eyes did not mistake me, talking to the tree.”

I swallowed first, then made my voice light. “I wonder you cannot find something more interesting to occupy an afternoon.”

That elegant finger leveled at me. “And I noticed you had a fright.”

My mouth worked a half-second before my voice came through. “I had lost sight of her. I was naturally overset. Let me ask you something, Mr. Fox. How was it you saw so much? You were very far away, and I could barely see from where I stood the outline of a figure of a horse and rider, let alone all this nuance of expression you claim to have noticed.”

“I have excellent eyesight,” he said.

“It must approach the vision of an eagle, I daresay.” I attempted a show of arrogance to indicate my disbelief, but succeeded only in feeling childish. “And you happened to be riding in the area of The Sanctuary this morning? Why?”

A ghost of some emotion passed over his face. “I am most interested in that tree.”

“Do you have an affinity for botany, Mr. Fox?”

His laughter came suddenly, an abrupt bark that punched sound into the quiet room. His smile lingered, showing teeth this time. They were very white and even. The fully blossomed smile was devastating on his somber face, and I saw he could very well have been very attractive indeed had he had better manners.

His eyes on me were keen. “I have many interests.”

“Including spying on us.”

He froze me with that icy calculation of his. “I wonder, was your mission on the hill so clandestine that my observing you creates discomfort?”

“I find it odd that you are so curious about an outing of a widow and a child,” I said pertly. I might as well have said:
I find you odd, Mr. Fox.

Nevertheless, he took no offense. He merely shrugged. “Inarguably.”

He would give nothing. Well, neither would I. I had the very strong, very definite sense that he knew something, and he was attempting, in a sly, disarming manner, to pry some sort of admission from me.

And yet I am embarrassed to admit that a small part of me—a part I most emphatically repressed—wanted very much to tell all to him, lay it at his feet and share the dark burden that was gathering across my shoulders.

I rose abruptly. “Well, I need to see to changing for dinner. Good afternoon, Mr. Fox. Thank you again for the generous use of your horse.”

He waited until I was at the door. “Mrs. Andrews.”

I paused, turning my head enough to see him approach with a feline grace. He drew uncomfortably close. I was forced to gaze upward to meet his eye. “May I ask you a question on a rather delicate matter?”

My heart, for some reason, beat wildly. “I am intrigued. Ask, then.”

His cheek twitched. “I fear my manner has offended you.”

I said nothing at first, then, “Is that the question? Then the answer is yes, perhaps it has a little.”

“No,” he murmured with a chuckle, “that was not the question. What I wished to know was…well, I was some distance away, but it seemed to me by the way you reacted that you may have seen something at that hawthorn tree…Did you, Mrs. Andrews?”

I am no good at lying. I said, “A trick of the light.”

“Or the dark,” he said, almost to himself, as he turned away. “May I offer something, a suggestion, Mrs. Andrews?”

My nerves, worn raw by now, made me unintentionally snappish. “And pray, what is that?”

“A book. Let me see.” He drifted along the shelves, paused, then selected a slim volume. “Here we are. Have you read Coleridge’s ‘Christabel’?”

“Yes, of course.” I was familiar with the poem to which he referred, but it was not one of my favorites. I had found “Christabel” a sinister, uncomfortable story with haunting images of witchcraft and hints of twisted sexuality. I had liked it not at all.

Mr. Fox closed his hand over mine as he handed me the volume. The action was exceedingly improper, and yet I did not balk. There seemed to be electric current in his touch, made skin to skin, for neither of us was gloved, and I blush to admit it was rather stirring.

“Read it again,” he said with gentle urgency. And then he left me.

I wanted to flaunt his suggestion, but the hope that Mr. Fox had some insight into my troubles had me secreted in the conservatory, devouring the lines of Coleridge’s work within a half hour. Sebastian found me a while later, sweeping into the room with a frown as he looked me up and down.

“That is an unbecoming color on you,” he said, collapsing onto a wrought-iron chair. His hand waved dismissively toward the embroidered silk gown I wore, cream-colored with sprigs of pale yellow and green stitched upon it. “It washes out your complexion and renders you pasty. You want to look your best for our Mr. Fox, don’t you? What do you have there?”

He was not dissuaded by my impatient look. He peered at the page and read aloud: “The night is chill, the cloud is gray: ’Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way.”

Recoiling, he exclaimed, “Good God, Emma, can you not find something more cheerful? This is why I object to the influence of literature. Too bloody dreary!”

“I had a disturbing thing happen this afternoon,” I said after a moment’s pause. “Hen and I went out for a bit of a walk. I know she isn’t allowed, but I thought there could be no harm in taking her into the meadow since it was a familiar path for me. She wandered off and wound up near that tree. Did I tell you about the tree she draws? She calls it Marius’s tree, and was just sitting by it, staring up as if she were speaking to someone. She said she was talking to Marius.”

“Oh. Did he ask for me?”

“It is not a joke, Sebastian. And what has happened to Victoria, by the by? That doll used to be with Henrietta everywhere she went, and now I never see her at all.”

He shrugged. “Good riddance, I say. She was always so judgmental.”

I sighed, for once not at all amused at his silliness, and he realized my frustration. “Forgive me, Emma.” He sounded truly contrite. Leaning forward solicitously, he grabbed my hand. “What is it?”

I could say nothing more than “Marius.”

He lifted his brow.

“Mr. Fox saw us out on the meadow. We…we had a fright. He brought us home, actually.”

His eyes lit up. “Really? How romantic. Did he make you ride pillion, with his strong body pressed up against yours?”

“Certainly not,” I protested.

“Ah, pity. I tell you, Emma, I am absolutely rabid for a scandal of some sort. How dreadfully thoughtless of you not to provide one. Oh, well, perhaps I can stir some mischief at dinner. Which is being served promptly, so we should go.”

He gallantly offered me his arm. “Sebastian,” I asked softly as we were exiting the room. “I beg you to tell me the truth. Did you teach Henrietta to play chess?”

He was perfectly serious when he shook his head.

After the meal, I sat with Alyssa and Mary while the men lit cigars and lingered over port.

“I think the custom of taking tobacco is barbaric,” Alyssa pronounced.

I smiled. “You are put out because it is an aspect of men that excludes women.”

“Well, it is a smelly habit, and I do not see at all how it is pleasurable. And all they wish to talk of is politics—how boring. I do not know how a lady such as Queen Victoria stands it.”

Mary waved a hand at her, smiling indulgently. “Men must make their power games and play them out. I, for one, am glad they are out of earshot.”

“Does anyone have an indication of Mr. Fox’s politics?” Alyssa pouted. “Is that how Roger knows him? I know your
husband is devoted to the Reform movement. Something is not right with Mr. Fox. He did not speak to me once!”

Mary shrugged, ignoring my sister’s petulance. “I am sure I do not know. Roger has not told me much about him, but I do believe he is very well connected. We were pleased to offer an invitation when his correspondence arrived saying he’d be in the neighborhood. Roger admires him.”

To this praise I said nothing but I’m afraid my curled lip betrayed me, for Alyssa looked at me strangely. “You are not down with the headache again, are you?”

“No…” The headache had been gone since the incident on the meadow, when I had seen the vision of the figure (dare I think of it as Marius’s shadow?) that afternoon. But I remained much distracted by the entire matter, and all that had gone on before. I was terribly concerned for Henrietta besides. I felt there was something wrong, something happening that I must put an end to. “I am merely a bit tired,” I said at last.

“Oh, please do not fall ill again, or Roger will be overset.” Mary appeared annoyed. “He is always going on about illness, as if the poor were not inherently prone to all manner of unfortunate contagion.”

“Perhaps that is why he is so dedicated to Reform,” I suggested carefully. It was a bad idea to make my social views known, but I simply could not help myself.

She seemed startled. “Well, of course, we all pity the poor, but, Lord, one cannot make them a cause.”

“Please,” Alyssa wailed, “not politics!”

In deference to her condition, we changed the subject. I slipped away at my first opportunity before the men joined us—I was in no mood for Mr. Fox’s enigmatic presence—and went upstairs to check on Henrietta. I found Miss Harris in her
nightdress, reading in the sitting room. Behind her, Henrietta’s door was slightly ajar.

“She’s sleeping,” the woman said, putting her book aside and standing, as if to block my path. “Poor dear was quite exhausted.”