Rules of Passion (30 page)

“No, I won’t let you…” She clung on to Max, despite his efforts to unfasten her fingers from his clothing and push her to safety. She was shaking with terror, but she wouldn’t be moved. The man with the pistol growled again for her to get out of the way.

“No!” she screamed, the sound shredding the night. “Don’t hurt him, don’t hurt Max, please! Oh please!”

Max could see the man’s frustration was making him even more unpredictable. The pistol was waving dangerously as he took a step forward and then a step back. In a moment he would shoot, and it was
Marietta who would be hit. And Max could not allow that to happen.

He struggled with her, lifting her bodily, and this time he wrenched her hands free, holding them as he shoved her aside. She stumbled, cried out, and sank to the ground.

The man lifted the gun, his face grim and determined, and prepared to fire. “I’ll make it clean, sir. Don’t worry, you won’t feel nothin’.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Slipper.”

Dobson’s voice was soft with menace as he stepped out of the shadows on the other side of the path. He was holding a pistol of his own, and this one was aimed at Slipper’s back.

“Bloody hell,” Slipper moaned, twisting around to see who it was. “Is that you, Jemmy?”

“Drop your weapon or I’ll have to fire, and I’m not as good a shot as you.”

Slipper dropped the pistol, eyeing Dobson cautiously.

“I didn’t think you hurt women,” Dobson said. “Your mam wouldn’t like to hear you’ve been mistreating ladies, Slipper.”

Slipper sighed. “Why won’t nothin’ go right for me anymore? Since I took up with the duchess there’s been nothin’ but trouble for me.”

Marietta picked herself up, feeling dizzy, as if she might faint. The fireworks were still exploding in the sky but they seemed inappropriate now, an distraction from the important business of the night. Max was standing a little way from her, staring at the man Dobson had called Slipper, and his face and body were rigid.

“Duchess?” he whispered. “What duchess?”

Slipper shifted his feet, his ugly face turning from Max to Dobson, as if he didn’t trust either of them. “I call her that,” he explained, “because she looks like a duchess, not because she is one.”

There was only one woman Max thought looked like the perfect duchess.

Slipper eyed him slyly. “You wanna know who she is, right? If I tell you, will you let me go?”

Dobson laughed. “Still the same old Slipper. Tell us anyway.”

Slipper hesitated, but after Dobson had another little talk with him, he told them.

Dobson squeezed Marietta’s arm gently as they stepped from the hansom. “Are you all right, miss?”

“I think so. I’m worried about Max.”

“Max is tougher than any of us, don’t worry about him.”

But she couldn’t help it.

Dobson had explained that Slipper had been one of his sparring partners when they both spent some time bare-knuckle fighting. It was useful sometimes, he said, having grown up in Seven Dials; it meant he knew just about every villain in London, and just about every villain’s mother. Slipper’s mother was a fire-breather and he was more afraid of her than any policeman. It had been fear of his mother that Dobson had used to convince Slipper to finally tell them who had paid him to kill Max.

Marietta glanced at Max now, but his expression revealed nothing to her. Since he had heard the name he had been silent, holding his emotions inside, preparing for the confrontation.

The house they had come to was not as grand as his own. Lights blazed from the windows and the sound of a piano drifted from one of the upper rooms. Max walked up the steps and knocked, loudly. Marietta followed more slowly, dreading the next few moments. They had argued in the hansom—Max had wanted her to go home and wait for him, but she had refused, and after a short, tense battle he had given in. She needed to be with him, to support him or simply to watch over him. Marietta had almost lost him tonight and she was caught between elation that he was alive and unharmed, and dread of what might have happened. What might still happen.

Max strode past the servant who opened the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Valland are not receiving visitors,” the man began, his gaze sliding to Marietta and Dobson. “Sir, I’m sorry but you—”

Max ignored him and climbed the stairs with barely a pause, heading toward the sound of the piano. Dobson took Marietta’s arm and they followed in his wake. By the time they reached him, Max had already flung open the door, sending it crashing back against the wall.

That was when Marietta realized how angry he was—Max had the Valland temper after all.

“Max!” It was Harold, staggering to his feet. He had been half asleep in front of the fire and he looked bewildered, his hair on end, his shirt sleeves rolled up.

Max said nothing. He looked at Harold as if he had never seen him before, and then he turned his head toward the piano. Susannah was seated there, her hands still resting on the keys, but her face was blank, as though she was seeing a ghost.

“Yes, it’s Max,” he said quietly, grief meshing with the anger in his voice. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“Disappoint us?” Harold echoed, puzzled, coming forward. He saw Marietta then, and behind her Dobson, and his expression grew even more confused. “What is this about, Max? What are you doing here? And why have you brought these people—”

“Susannah can tell you what it’s about. Why don’t you ask Susannah?” Max moved toward his sister, his eyes never leaving her.

Marietta had expected to hate Susannah, to be so angry she wanted to strike out at her and hurt her as she had hurt Max. But now…she was confused. Susannah was picking out some notes on the piano, trying to recapture the tune she had been playing a moment ago.

“Harold likes to be played to in the evening,” she said, as if to excuse herself, as if Max regularly forced his way into her house.

“Susannah—”

“We did not have a piano in Jamaica, so I could not play there. We were poor and my father could not afford to have me educated as he would have wished. We had our land and our house and our past glories, that was all. When I came to England I learned to play. I learned to become a lady, a cold and polite lady. Did you know, it is not considered proper to have feelings in England? You must suppress them, you must pretend to be indifferent, and sometimes if you pretend long enough then you begin to feel as if you are dead.”

Anger glittered a moment in her eyes and was gone again. Suppressed. She smiled at Max.

“I’m glad
you’re
not dead,” she said.

Marietta felt it then, the tragic air that enfolded Susannah. The silent suffering in the line of her mouth and the set of her shoulders. Susannah was in pain, but whether it was justified or not, real or illusion, Marietta could not tell.

“Max,” she murmured a warning.

But Max was beyond understanding such subtleties. “You’re glad I’m not dead?” he shouted, his voice so full of anger and betrayal that it made Marietta wince. “Then why did you pay Slipper to kill me! Do you hate me so much? What have I ever done to you, Susannah? You’re my
sister
…”

“You don’t understand, Max,” she said, and sighed. Her face was beautiful but it was also gaunt, as though her life was being eaten away from the inside. “This has nothing to do with my love for you or yours for me. This is to do with justice. Papa took me away from my father and our home. He took everything, so that he could use the money to save Valland House and rebuild his fortune. My father had nothing, but he had me, and then the duke stole me too. So my father took his own life. Where was the justice in that, Max? Papa…the duke said he was sorry, afterwards, and I know he felt guilty when he looked at me. I always remind him, you see, of the kind of man he really is.”

“But that’s in the past,” Harold began.

She turned on him, her dark eyes blazing. “I have never forgotten! It is always with me, always!”

“Susannah?” Harold was staring at her, his mouth working. “Why are you speaking like this? Max, why is she saying these things?”

“It’s all right, Harold.” At once the anger was gone and her smile gentle. “I want to explain. I want Max to know why.”

“Know what?” Harold whispered, but now there was dread in his face, as if he was beginning to realize they were entering a place from which there could be no return.

“That the reason I tried to take him away from Papa was because Papa had taken me away from my father and my home. What he did was wrong, and he needs to be punished for it. If I take Max from Papa, then he will understand. Then he will suffer.”

“You tried to kill me,” Max said bluntly.

“Of course,” she replied. “At first it was just a thought in my head, an impulse. The day I threw the coins into the lake for you and Harold to dive in and fetch, that was when I thought, what if I throw Max’s closer to the reeds? What if he gets tangled in them and drowns? No one could blame me for that, and I would have given my father what he wants from me. Justice. But you swim too well, Max. So then I made the hole in the boat when I knew you were going out in it, but that didn’t work either. There were other times, other accidents, but I didn’t really plan them. They just seemed to happen. I didn’t want you dead, you know, Max. This isn’t about you, you can see that, can’t you? You understand, don’t you Max?”

Harold made a sound and turned away, and Marietta saw that he was crying like a little child.

“Last year you tried to shoot me? Was that you, Susannah?” Max’s voice had taken on an emotionless quality, as if he was sleepwalking.

“Yes, I was always a good shot, but for some reason I missed or you moved, I forget. There was a timber that I pushed onto you from the stable loft. I saw it hit and you fell and…After that I…I didn’t try
again. I felt sick afterwards. And anyway, Mama died. I was looking through her papers and I suddenly thought: What if there was a letter confessing that Max wasn’t Papa’s son? It just happened, and I pretended to find it and…I was as surprised as anyone when I was believed. Papa was so angry, and I was glad, because I could see that both of you understood then how it had been for me. How my poor father felt when he lost me. You can understand now what it means to be wrenched away from where you belong.”

“You
wrote
the letter?” Max shook his head. “I don’t believe—”

“Of course I did. I used to do your lessons for you and Harold, didn’t I, when we were children? So that you two could sneak off fishing or whatever it was you boys did. I was always very skilled at copying handwriting, Max, and I knew Mama’s as well as I knew my own. Have you forgotten?”

He said nothing; there seemed to be nothing to say. He felt as if the earth was shaking beneath his feet and in a moment it would collapse and take him with it. Susannah was so reasonable, her tone was calm and persuasive, and her words even made a terrible sort of sense. But Max felt chilled to the bone by her.

“When he read the letter, Papa disinherited you and sent you away just as I’d hoped he would, but I knew that it wouldn’t last. Papa loves you, Max. He loves you more than me, and more than Harold. He loves you best of all. He would never let you remain an outcast. His temper got the better of him for a while, but now it has cooled he will eventually recant.”

“So you hired Slipper?” Marietta had forgotten
Dobson was there, but he came forward now. “You got him to attack Lord Roseby in the lane outside Aphrodite’s Club, and tonight you paid him to shoot him at Vauxhall Gardens.”

“That’s right.” Susannah gave him a smile. “I hired Slipper. I couldn’t bring myself to try again, not after the last time. So I found a man who would do it for me, and Slipper was very fond of me. He called me his duchess. Vauxhall Gardens seemed like a good idea, and Harold saw a letter inviting you there, Max, and he told me. And I told Slipper.”

She nodded at her own cleverness.

“Max.” It was Harold, recovered now, although his face was still flushed and stained with tears. There was a desperate light in his eyes. “Please, don’t listen to her. She’s not well, you know that. She hasn’t been well for years.”

“My dear Harold, you must not say that. Apologize.” With a reproving frown, Susannah held out her hand to him. Harold hesitated, and then reached to take it with shaking fingers. He bent and pressed his lips to her skin, squeezing his eyes shut, as if he would hide from the truth.

“Sometimes it is necessary to take matters into one’s own hands,” Susannah said. “Make one’s own justice. The dead demand it.”

Such cold-bloodedness was breathtaking.

Harold gave a sob and shook his head. Marietta knew that Harold could not have known the truth about his wife; he had been so besotted with her that he had believed she could do no wrong. Poor Harold was just as much a victim of this as Max.

“Well,” Susannah stood up and smoothed her skirts. “This is very nice, but I wish to retire.”

She smiled vaguely and drifted toward the door. No one stopped her, Dobson even stepped aside to let her pass, and they listened to her footsteps fading into silence.

“All those years,” Max said bleakly, shaking his head in disbelief. He looked at his cousin. “How could you not know, Harold?”

“I didn’t know,” he insisted. “There were times when she was low, when she stayed in her room, but Susannah has always had her moods. You know that. We always took great care not to upset her. I did not think it was anything more than melancholy. I didn’t realize it was…”

Madness.

Harold’s voice took on a new urgency. “Max, let me take her home to Jamaica. I’ll buy a house for us and she can live there quietly. I can find a doctor. I can…Please, do this for me. For all the years we have been friends.”

Max turned and read the same misery and shock in Harold’s eyes as he knew must be in his own. It was easy to convict someone in hindsight, and how could he blame Harold for failing to see something he had not seen himself?

“Don’t let her go to court,” Harold whispered. “The scandal. It would kill her, and destroy us. Max?”

“Yes,” he said, “do as you think best.”