For the Earl's Pleasure (17 page)

“That hardly matters. Would that they had told me more earlier. Tut, Miss Smart, but I’ll think you not so innocent after all.” He smirked. “I am here to extract information, but I believe I should start the process to end your part in this for good. I will accept the punishment from them, should they be displeased.”

“Perhaps you should do what they tell you.” She grabbed Valerian’s hand behind her and maneuvered his finger to point toward Effie’s corner, hiding the action with her body. “And escape unscathed.”

“You think to threaten me? Marvelous.”

“I can’t leave you,” Valerian whispered harshly, as if raising his voice would bring the doctor closer.

“Please,” she emphasized. “Believe me that I will prevail.”

“I won’t leave you.”

“Is he over there, Miss Smart? By you, perhaps?” He stalked toward her, and she dropped Valerian’s hand, squeezing the shears in her other.

“I won’t let you touch me. And you are foolish for believing me still afflicted. Why would I risk another visit from you? I loathe your very presence.”

“You haven’t missed me? I’m hurt. But everyone makes mistakes, Miss Smart. You lived up to your name until recently. What was it about this ghost that had you giving in and revealing yourself? I am most curious. I greatly desire to know. Do you fancy yourself in love? A substitute for the young lord’s rejection so long ago?”

Any mortification she was feeling was covered by anger so deep and swirling that it threatened to drag her forever into the abyss. “You try very hard to play your games,
Doctor
, but I’m no longer the naïve girl I was.”

“Gotten over your sadness and pain, have you? But it was so lovely to see. I wanted to cure you of that.”

“No, you wanted to play.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Alas, my weakness. Let’s play.”

He sent a ribbon of the liquid shooting from the bottle in Valerian’s direction, and she threw herself in the way, the liquid burning her skin where it touched. Valerian shot through the man, cleanly slicing him, but leaving no damage behind. The doctor gave a little shudder with his shoulders and smiled more widely.

“Come here, spirit. Just a little taste, then I will cure Miss Smart of her affliction and damn the consequences.” He started to loosen his cravat. “Unless you enjoy being a voyeur and care to watch me physically thrust it from her, before I banish you from her mind and from existence. I think the latter will be far more satisfying. There is a reason these ailments occur at the onset of womanhood, you know. I just need end that blissful phase and voila.” He smiled. “I was able to witness Miss Smart’s reaction to her previous friend dying, so I think I can make an exception this time. A different sort of satisfaction as I’m plowing you from her mind.”

Valerian rushed through him, trying to connect, and the doctor flicked the top of the bottle as he passed.

Abigail screamed as the liquid sprayed, nearly touching Valerian, barely missing as he arched and fell. He leaped from the floor in a defensive crouch.

The doctor kept his eyes moving about the room, smiling that awful smile as he gripped one edge of a strap he had laid upon the table.

She moved toward him, shears gripped tightly in her skirt. “I won’t let you hurt anyone else.”

“Patience, dear, patience.” He reached for her with the strap and Valerian literally flew at him. The doctor somehow anticipated the action and tossed another stream of liquid while grasping her hand and pulling her forward. She pulled the scissors out and shouted as the liquid arched toward Valerian. Valerian’s hands finally wrapped around the doctor’s throat and they fell to the ground, pulling her with them, the shears bouncing from her hand as her wrist whacked the floor.

She saw Valerian shove the man’s head against the hard wood. Valerian’s face contorted. And then he disappeared, a tendril of smoke from the burning liquid swirled through the room, pooling around the doctor’s suddenly still form.

“No!” She shoved into a standing position and wildly looked around. But Valerian was nowhere to be seen.

A sob built in her throat and then she began screaming.

H
e woke to screams. These screams were different though. Higher, like someone had lost something important. Not just the shrieks of pain and distress that he was accustomed to hearing upon waking to the madness.

The second thing he noticed was that he was lying facedown on a hard, cold floor. A cellar? Had they unhooked him and dumped his body? Energy surged through him. If he was back in his body, he could return to help Abigail. His last thought had been murderous anger, and the knowledge that he couldn’t leave her.

He hadn’t thought he’d been hit by that liquid, but perhaps he had and it had returned him to his body for good.

He pushed off the floor and rose to his feet, surprised with how well his limbs worked. Not atrophied at all. A large bundle of supplies and a casket of wine and other cooling items surrounded him. Definitely someone’s cellar. Perhaps the cellar of whoever had kidnapped him in the first place.

He walked to the door, again surprised when he didn’t stumble. The cold of the room barely registered. He reached out to open the handle and his fingers touched cold steel and relished it.

A woman yelled. Abigail. Dear God. They had her too. She was locked up as well.

He frantically turned the handle, and then stared mutely as his fingers slipped right through.

He was still a spirit.

Shouts punctuated the air upstairs. Running feet and banging.
He was still in Abigail’s house
. And that man was still upstairs.

He concentrated and pushed through the door, then ran up the stairs to the kitchen. Servants were in varying states—some looked uncomfortable, some shocked or surprised, a few looked completely intent to ignore the hubbub abovestairs, stoically continuing their jobs.

“None of our business,” an elderly matron said as she ordered the maids about. “Go about your tasks.”

“But Mrs.—”

“No, none of that. We all know she’s a strange one. None of our concern. Let them take care of it.”

Valerian usually took little notice of the servants, but he considered the punishment he could mete out were he ever to regain his form.

He continued through the hall and up the next set of stairs, then the next. A servant fled down the stairs past him. Valerian finally arrived on Abigail’s floor to see the door open and the man still lying on the floor. Cold satisfaction rocked him.

“Abigail, calm down,” Mrs. Smart frantically said.

“No, Mother, I will not calm down. Get him out of my sight. And if you ever bring him back I will run. You’ll never see me again,” she said harshly. “And I will no longer call you mother.”

“Abigail.” Mrs. Smart sounded deeply hurt, but Valerian held little sympathy for her.

“No! Leave.” Abigail kicked the prone man in the side and her mother gasped.

“You are crazed.”

“Of course I’m crazed, Mother. Isn’t that what you’ve wanted to hear? Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to stamp from me all these years?”

“No, I just want you to be happy.”

Abigail gave an ugly laugh. “You put us on this path. This has to do with your happiness, not mine. I had little to say in the matter. Little to call happiness.”

“But you have success. Look at your success now.” Mrs. Smart extended her hands, her arms, her face begging.

“And how long will that last? A fortnight more?”

“Lord Rainewood is gone. He can’t hurt your chances anymore.”

“Mother,” Abigail’s voice was unnervingly calm all of a sudden. “Did you have anything to do with Lord Rainewood’s disappearance?”

Shock rocked Valerian.

“He’s off carousing. How would I have?” Mrs. Smart sounded genuinely confused as she pulled her arms back to her sides.

“You didn’t hire someone to remove him from society? To murder him?”

“Abigail, you are scaring me.”

“Am I?” He watched her run fingers down her dress. “Remove Dr. Myers, Mother, or I will never speak to you again. You can commit me and lose your place in society. I’d like to see you try to maintain your position after that. Curious that I never thought through the ramifications to your position sufficiently to stop fearing being locked up. You stand to lose just as much as I do. Now? Now I find I don’t care. What is the point?”

She turned away from her mother and faced the window.

The butler appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Smart?”

“Yes, yes.” Abigail’s mother smoothed her hair. “Remove this man.” She bit her lip and pointed to Myers. “Throw him in a carriage.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The butler snapped his fingers and two footmen appeared, grasped Myers under the armpits, and dragged him off.

Mrs. Smart turned back to her daughter. “Abigail, we have a later meeting with—”

“Cancel it.”

“But—”

“Cancel it.”

Mrs. Smart seemed to be trying to calm herself, as if canceling had been her plan all along, instead of Abigail’s directive. “Very well. I will inform Mrs. Browning not to return today, that you are feeling poorly still. We can speak later.”

Abigail didn’t acknowledge her. She merely waited for her to leave.

Valerian slipped through as Mrs. Smart clicked the door shut. He noticed that the lock was broken.

Abigail’s shoulders gave a shake and she leaned her forehead against the windowpane. Conflicting emotions ran through him—the desire to comfort her, the desire to yell and shake her, the urge to do more.

“Would you like me to go down and hit him again?”

Her head whipped around so fast that she stumbled. “Valerian,” she whispered.

“Who were you expecting?” He tried to sound flippant, but it didn’t quite work.

She ran toward him, arms wrapping around him, head buried in his shoulder. “I thought you gone.”

“I was.” He had thought himself back in his body, had felt the joy of being whole. The feeling slipped from him, leaving him numb. “I fell all the way into the cellar. Nasty places, cellars.”

“No, really gone.”

He frowned and then realized what her last comments to her mother had meant. His arms tightened automatically around her.

“No,” he said.

“He didn’t hit you with that poison?”

“No.”

“Thank God,” she said, her voice breaking.

He didn’t know how to respond. Discomfort and fierce protectiveness twined together unpleasantly. “What was in that bottle?”

“I don’t know. Something foul.”

“He hurt someone before?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “There was another spirit before, not like you, not one I could touch or speak to in the same way, but a companion. She made things…”

“What?”

“Less lonely.”

His stomach twisted.

“He got rid of her,” she said woodenly.

“What did he do to you?”

Her muscles tightened. “I don’t wish to speak of it.”

“Did he—” He swallowed. “Did he force himself on you?”

“No,” she whispered. “He tried, he claimed that would cure me fully, pretended that only he could do so. But I held off long enough, convinced Mother that I was already cured. I don’t know that she wholly believed me, but she turned him away anyway. I don’t think she could bear it.” She laughed harshly. “Though one wouldn’t know it since she brought him back.”

“You should have reported him.”

“To whom?” She pulled back and narrowed her eyes. “Who would believe me? They would throw me into the nearest strapped cell. A creature to be gawked at by the hordes. To ridicule.”

“Not everyone would.”

She unwrapped her arms from him, but her fingers played with the stitching along his left cuff. “You did,” she said softly.

“Well, I’m a bit of an ass.”

That caused the edges of her mouth to lift.

“I’m surprised that you didn’t just play it up,” he said. “Make yourself into a spirit talker. People would line up to pay. It would also give you some level of security.”

“The ton loves ghosts and fortune tellers as novelties. But someone who is trying to establish herself in their midst? Maybe an eccentric matron could get away with it, but a miss looking to marry? That doesn’t go along with Mother’s plan.”

“You could make a fortune, then you wouldn’t need to marry.” He thought that sounded brilliant.

“We have a fortune already. It just doesn’t seem to be enough.” Her hand fell from his cuff and she walked over to her dressing table and righted the fallen chair. “I need to go outside. Let’s leave. Let’s search for your body.”

“It’s not safe—”

“It’s not safe in my own home,” she said harshly.

He shut up and watched her ring for her maid.

She fingered the tassels of the cord, looking pensive. “You hit Dr. Myers then fell through the floors and into the cellar.”

“That’s what I said.”

“How?”

“I lunged for him—”

“No, how did you stay here? How did you touch him and stay here? That hasn’t happened before.”

He had thought of her—hadn’t wanted to leave her. Desired to save her more than anything. Had pictured home and her face had appeared.

“I have no idea,” he said glibly. “Isn’t this your area of expertise?”

She frowned, but her maid saved him from further questions as she knocked, then entered the room.

“Telly, we are going out. Have the coach prepared. Mother will say nothing.”

Valerian wasn’t so sure of that, and Telly didn’t look as if she was either, but she disappeared back through the door.

Surprisingly, Abigail was correct and the coach was ready for them in half an hour.

They sat securely inside, rocking toward their first destination. “How many places with M-A-L do you have on the list, Telly?”

“Thirty, miss. Right popular, those letters. Mal-folk’s, Maling’s, Remallard’s…”

“Well, we will just have to tick them off one by one. Perhaps section by section.”

They broke down the list, Valerian adding his opinion and Telly twitching nearly every time Abigail spoke to or answered him. He watched the maid, watched the look on her face as she watched her mistress. There was something odd there. He’d have to keep track of her, perhaps follow her when they returned.

They made it through fifteen of the places on the list, stopping to have supper at a cozy hotel near the Strand. Valerian could nearly smell the juices of the succulent duck as Abigail chewed thoughtfully on each piece.

Food, top-notch cuisine, had always just been…inherent. He’d never questioned it or paid too much attention. A poor meal was an anomaly. The first meal he had when he was back in his body was going to be exquisite.

They ticked off ten more addresses before giving in to the pending darkness and returning home.

“We will tackle the last five tomorrow morning.”

“But your appointment, miss—”

“We will make it in plenty of time, Telly. We looked at twenty-five sites today. Quite exhausting. But the last five are near one another. I am confident that we can get to them and still be on time.”

“Very well, miss.” Telly looked upset. “I just think that you should be concentrating more on the prospects you have and the—”

“Thank you, Telly.” Abigail’s voice was steely. “I plan to do that, do not fret.”

Her maid remained silent the rest of the trip.

Mrs. Smart was waiting in the foyer when they returned. Probably sitting in the front drawing room, watching for them.

“Abigail, I’d like to speak with you about today and about the future.”

Telly slipped away and Valerian was torn between following her and staying to watch the confrontation.

“Perhaps tomorrow, Mother.”

But her mother blocked her way. “We can bring in someone else. Someone better suited—”

“Good night, Mother.”

Abigail pushed past her and ascended the stairs. Valerian watched Mrs. Smart a moment more and thought about trailing her as well when she turned sharply and headed to the back of the house. But Abigail’s stiff shoulders made him choose to follow her instead.

Abigail didn’t say much as she put her things away. He opened his mouth to say something, he didn’t know what, when Telly walked in and started to help Abigail change.

“To bed early, miss? Yes, I think it is a good idea too. Should I bring you some warmed milk?”

“No, Telly, I’m sure I will be sleeping soundly shortly. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Telly hesitated, then nodded and slipped from the room.

“Your maid is worried for you.” Or something more, he still had to find out.

“She just wants me to find a nice young man. She says it often enough.” Her voice was distracted.

A spike of jealousy, sharp and piercing in its intensity, struck him. “You have plenty of suitors, to my knowledge. I’ve been on enough outings.” And tried to get rid of more of them than he could count before that.

“I know you hate the outings.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Perhaps you will be able to see how tiresome they can be from the female perspective as well.”

“Stop going on them, then.”

She gave him a look full of exasperation.

He thought of the next day. The outing he truly dreaded. “You shouldn’t go anywhere with Basil.”

“We’ve talked of this already. My mother and Mrs. Browning will both be there.”

“You don’t know that he doesn’t intend you harm.”

“He is your brother.”

“Doesn’t that make it worse?” He grimaced, admitting his own fault in her circumstances.

She said nothing for a second, just watched him with her lovely blue eyes. “As much as Basil has been acting strangely, I can’t believe he wishes you ill. He will likely be absolved.”

And me?

“I don’t share your confidence,” he said instead.

“That is because someone is trying to harm you.”

“Someone is trying to harm you too,” he said pointedly. “Because of me. Unacceptable.”

She fiddled with her brush as she was wont to do when she was near her dressing table. He paused for a second and looked more closely at the handle. He hadn’t paid much attention to it previously, usually more interested in what she was saying when she fingered it then in focusing on the object itself. The familiarity of the brush clicked and he brought his head up sharply, but she was looking away.