Nero's Fiddle (15 page)

They slipped out into the cool night air and he kept his arm around her. “Even if living is with a cripple?” He raised his stump.

She curled her fingers around his upper arm. “A man’s strength does not lie in his hands, but his heart and mind.”‘

“You are an incredible creature.” His head dropped closer, his breath mingled with hers. “If you stay out here, you will be ruined. The entire room saw us waltz out the door.”

“Not ruined.” She rose up on her toes and met his lips. “Saved.”

London, Wednesday 15
^th
January, 1862

ara stood at the window of her study, sipping coffee as she watched fat flakes of snow settle on the rear lawn. The aethergram jumped into action, vibrated and hummed for several minutes and then spat out a stream of tape. She ripped off the paper, read the message and then chewed her thumb nail.

Need medical supplies for estate. Please ask my father to order a standard hospital kit.

Brick sat in the corner with the newspaper. The front page ran another scandalous story about the decades old rumour of a supposed love affair between the Duchess of Kent and John Conroy, her secretary. Cara had hoped they killed that story when the queen executed Duke Nolton, but the public exhibited an insatiable appetite for gossip about the royals. She heaved a sigh.

Brick’s head lifted from the scandal rag. “Problem?”

“I hope not. We left Jackson to look after a dear friend of mine and now she is requesting medical supplies.” She hoped the henchman used kid gloves to handle Amy. Her friend still smarted from her broken engagement and the cad’s attempt to besmirch her reputation. “I told her to treat him like I would, now I’m wondering if she shot him.”

“He seems to inspire that response in women.” Brick gave her a wink. “Whatever is happening, his heart is probably in the right place.”

She crumpled the message and tossed it into the waste paper basket. “It better be, or I will remove it with a spoon and then Nate will deal with what’s left of him.”

Her new bodyguard gave a huff of laughter. “Any plans for today?” He closed the paper and tossed it on the end table.

“Yes, I have work to do here. I need you to run to Madame Levett’s. She has a new gown for me, and your suits and waistcoats.”

The brightest smile lit the man’s face. “They’re ready?”

“Yes. Not that there is anything wrong with Nate’s tailor, but he doesn’t understand the needs of a budding Beau Brummell.”

His smile became even broader before a frown darted across his enormous forehead. “Promise you won’t sneak out on your own.”

Cara patted his tree trunk arm. “I promise, I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of the opportunity to wear your new clothes out this afternoon. I suspect you would throw a worse sulk than Jackson.”

“I won’t be more than a couple of hours,” he said, and left singing a popular tune in a melodious baritone.

Cara collected the books for her morning’s work. She sat at the desk and pulled open the first volume. She reached for more coffee as her brain swam in the unfamiliar Latin sea. Two hours later, the coffee pot had sacrificed its last drop and the book only yielded two pages.

“How did I end up as a scholar?” she muttered, tossing aside one old dusty tome to pick up another.

On the other corner of her desk sat a stack of neatly folded newspapers. Each article about the recent unusual deaths was circled in red ink. With two deaths by spontaneous human combustion, the reporters ran stories full of lurid speculation about what supposed crimes the poor unfortunates committed that made God resort to burning their presence from our world with divine fire. As a consequence, church attendance went up. Others seized on the fear of the weak-minded to peddle charms against God’s wrath, and advised keeping curtains closed in a bid to escape the all-seeing eye.

In the open book, Latin and medieval English warred across the pages in spider scribble that made her squint. Her fingers caressed a page end as she scanned each sheaf. Her linguistic skills were rudimentary and her brain deciphered only the occasional word of Latin. Miniature oil paintings embellished with gold and silver were her best guide to what she would find described in the text if she took the time to laboriously decipher each word and phrase. Even then, strict translation often failed to convey the true meaning of the sentence.

Amy is right, maybe I should have spent less time up trees and more time in class.

She thumbed open
Suetonius’ Secrets
while her short interview with the inspector played over and over in her mind. Two deaths of apparent spontaneous human combustion. A coincidence so unusual Fraser suspected something other than mere coincidence. It still seemed quite the mental leap from horrible natural death to murder by fire, but Cara gave up trying to figure how Fraser’s mind worked. A mind that conceived of using her as bait to catch a killer. Shame he pegged the wrong man as responsible.

She rubbed the long faded scar over her chest as she turned the pages of the book. Images of cups, blades, and various items of jewellery passed before her vision. Her sluggish caffeine-deprived brain caught the flash of red and orange but her fingers already flicked past. Her eyes widened and her breath hitched as her hand stopped and lifted the previous page. Cold dread slithered down her spine as she peered underneath, before laying the leaf flat.

“Oh bugger.”

Flames licked outward from the centre of the little book, the colours glowed with metallic paint lovingly rendered by some long dead hand. God’s holy fire consumed the body in the centre of the riotous conflagration. Flesh melted from bone to reveal a screaming skull, the horror of the moment forever captured in the tiny likeness.

She tapped a fingernail on the poor individual, his limbs in the process of being devoured by flame. As long as the volume existed, he would suffer the horrible death, he would never know peace.

“Got you.” She turned the page holding the drawing to scan the following text then flicked back and forth. “This doesn’t make sense.” What few words she could translate mentioned fertility and birthing rites. The polar opposite of the picture holding her captive.

Lifting the book, Cara risked cracking the delicate spine to hold the book flat. She hissed out a breath just as the door to the study opened.

Nate crossed the floor to stand opposite her, his head cocked at his wife’s careful examination of the object in her hands. “Find something?”

She turned the book to show him the double spread holding her interest. Leaping flames danced around outspread arms and legs. The illustrator captured the moment of one limb turning to ash, the outline filled with black soot up to mid-calf.

One black brow arched and the cold blue gaze met hers. “An artifact can do that?”

“I don’t know.” She angled the book, pressing the pages as flat as she dared. “The relevant text is missing.”

Nate leaned close to examine what made his wife hiss. Someone had removed the pages with a very sharp blade; only a sliver of paper showed where the knife severed the leaf from the spine.

“Any chance it’s some sort of Roman fire ritual? Or a bonfire out of control?”

She laid the book on the desk and pointed to the fiery corpse’s leg. “One that devours flesh leaving only ash? Fraser was right. Two deaths are far too coincidental, they were deliberate if this is caused by an object.”

A frown settled over Nate’s face. “I don’t like it.”

Cara continued her inspection of the ancient book, trying to imagine what was missing and why someone would go to such effort to remove the relevant pages. “I don’t like it either. I’m all for being toasty warm, but I prefer not to be crispy fried.”

“Actually I meant Fraser being right.”

Her head shot up. Nate stood with his arms crossed over his chest and a frown settled between his brows. She would have to keep the two of them apart. Putting them together was like mixing baking soda and vinegar, things could turn volcanic in the blink of an eye. “There’s no good end to things between you two.”

“There’s a good ending the way I imagine it.” His face remained dead pan.

Boys.
Cara sighed, perhaps she should lock them in the Pit until they worked it out or they ran out of oxygen. Although that wouldn’t work with Nate. “First things first. Since the book came from Helene, I need to visit her and find out if she knows what happened to the missing pages. The picture is a start and tells us there is an artifact at play. Then I need to tell Fraser his natural deaths most likely just became murder.”

He moved behind the desk and his large hands played over her collarbone. Fingers splayed up her neck to stroke the skin behind her ear.

An idea popped into her mind. “Do you have access to photographic equipment?”

His lips trailed a blaze behind his fingers. “Want to pose for me?”

“I rather thought I would send something to Fraser.”

A growl came from Nate. “Tread carefully,
cara mia
.”

She tapped a finger on the open book. “I want to photograph this and send it to him.”

His teeth nipped her skin. “I’ll sort it for you.”

“Thank you. Once I do that little chore and Brick returns, I need some fresh air. Latin is clogging up my brain.”

They took a photograph of the image in the book and once the paper dried, Cara popped it into an envelope for Inspector Fraser. She handed it off to one of the men to deliver and gave Brick the good news that they were heading out to the park. On foot. Unlike Jackson he didn’t grumble, but he did need ten minutes to decide which hat to wear.

Cara grabbed a long wool coat with military buttons and fur trim and soft kidskin gloves. Brick wore a new outfit with a green velvet frock coat and green and cream striped waistcoat. He grumbled to the other men about Cara forcing him to wear the clothes but grinned once out the door. His awkward posture transformed into something fluid. The clothes became a new skin, one he was unafraid to don in her presence.

He held out his arm to her. “Come on then, milady.”

She hooked her hand in the crook of his elbow. “I hope you don’t mind too much that we walk? I hate being trapped inside by this gloomy weather.”

He swept his hand down his body. “And hide this in a carriage? I don’t think so.”

Outside the main gate to the house a man stood on a barrel. Bundled up against the cold, he waved a placard urging Nate to repent or suffer the hot wrath of God. “Sinners!” he yelled when he spotted Cara and Brick. “God’s fire will strike you down.” He waved his board with renewed vigour now he had an audience.

“Doesn’t God have other things to worry about?” she asked. “Shouldn’t he sort out the civil war in America, or does he condone slavery?”

God appeared to strike down his supporter with apoplexy as the man choked on his words under Cara’s watchful stare, unable to explain why God would smite an elderly physician and a housekeeper but allowed some people to keep their fellow men as slaves.

“You shouldn’t toy with them,” Brick said, pulling her along the pavement and away from the confused man.

She enjoyed Brick’s company and their conversation always covered a raft of topics from fashion and literature to politics. With his background as lower class muscle, Cara didn’t expect to find an active mind hidden under his fashionable hat. As they walked he expressed his opinion about the ongoing civil war across the ocean.