The Duke of Shadows (28 page)

"Emma—"

"If you want to continue this, we can do so in the morning." But at the door she recalled something. "Delphinia. 'Half-sick of shadows.' Do you know that line from somewhere?"

Delphinia bent over the chaise to gather up her knitting. "It does seem familiar. Let me think." With jerky movements she wound the tail of the yarn around her needles. "Oh, yes. What a heathen you are, Emma! It is Tennyson. 'I am half-sick of shadows, said the Lady of Shalott.' Why do you ask?"

She dimly remembered the poem. "It's about a curse, isn't it?"

"Yes. The lady is locked in a tower, and not allowed to look directly on Camelot. So she spends all her time weaving, and singing, and watching the world outside through a mirror. The line about the shadows comes when she spots a pair of young lovers and realizes she is lonely."

"And she dies," Emma said.

"Yes, Lancelot comes along, preening, and she cannot resist looking down on him. So the mirror cracks, and she leaves the tower, and dies. Very dim-witted of her to go floating down the river; I would have gone by foot, myself."

"Or not have looked down in the first place."

Delphinia huffed. "No, in fact I would have looked much sooner, or have gone mad from weaving all day. But then, I forget who I'm speaking to—the hermit who had to be pried, kicking and screaming, from Durringham."

It was a sharper blow than she had been braced for.

"Oh, Emma—no, I'm sorry, my temper is
awful,
I didn't mean—"

"No, it's all right." She turned away. Delphinia simply knew her too well; even by accident, she managed to strike at the heart of the matter. One
did
need to be a little mad to hold oneself apart from the world so strictly. And her cousin had every right to say it; after all, she had seen firsthand evidence, in these last few years.

But on the stairs, her feet paused, and her hand clenched over the balustrade as the realization struck her: it had not been
Delphinia
who quoted the poem to her.

She shut the book on her finger, staring into space. Save the slim sphere of light from her candle, the library was dark. No fire to warm the air. The carpet felt chill beneath her feet. This could not be how Julian saw her. If it was, why in the world would he care to associate with her?

Oh, it was only a poem. Quoted, no doubt, off the top of his head. She shoved the book back into the shelf and exited into the hall.

But her feet did not take her to her room. Rather, they ascended another flight, to the salon Delphinia had allotted as her studio.

She turned up the gaslight and stared at the unfinished grisaille. As bad as she remembered. Her fingers felt so clumsy around the brush these last few months. The space in her mind where paintings were born felt as flat and infertile as the desert outside Sapnagar.
Blood and guts and gore.
The nightmares that had fueled her earlier work had lost their grip now. But while she longed to paint, to drown her uncertainties in color, there was nothing to put on the canvas. She did not care about flowers. She could not be passionate about a bowl of fruit. The very concept of a "still life" baffled her. There was nothing
still
about life. Even the Lady of Shalott, despite her best efforts to resist, had been swept up in the current.

The girl she had been would never have inspired Julian to think of such poetry. That girl had been so eager for life that she would have broken the mirror with her own hands. Thrown open the tower door before a day of imprisonment had passed.

Did he see her like this? So remote and fearful and obsessed? So altered from that girl? Did he see her like this, even as he bent down to kiss her?

Now
she felt it building in her. Like an itch in her veins, this need to create. And yet it was different from the fevers of GemsonPark. His mouth had pressed upon her earlier tonight. He had touched her so softly. How was it that the merest brush of his lips could spread sensation though her entire body?

She crossed to the wardrobe. She watched her hand open the latch. The frame was cumbersome. She could not lift it onto the easel unaided, so she dragged it over to lean against a bare patch of wall. His eyes were perfect; she had done very well with them. This, her first painting after her return. Amazing, that the technique had already been in place. No blood or guts or gore necessary. He seemed to be watching her, and she felt something turn over in her chest.

You are not the only one who took that journey.

She returned to the closet, her hand passing over the tubes of already mixed colors. They were wrong for this. Nothing so dark was called for. She took up the jar of linseed oil, and a packet of mitis green pigment. It would be spring in the desert. Yes: everything coming alive. Plants with deep roots, that had gone underground for winter, would be rising again though the soil. She had always loved him, after all. And perhaps he knew it. Perhaps he saw more than she had suspected. And despite it, he did not look away.

She caught hold of the balustrade and pulled herself up the stairs to her bedroom. The door opened too forcefully; it cracked against the wall, swinging back at her, and she caught the rebound with the flat of her palm. A smarting pain, well deserved at that. She was very stupid, she feared.

Julian had sent a note this morning. And along with it came a charming sandstone carving, small enough to fit into her palm. She had taken it at first for an elephant, until she had noticed the human feet and hands, and the pouting little belly. His note read:

She looked around the room. It seemed likely that she would lie with him here, on the mattress. It would need to be aired. She would have the rugs beaten as well. He had taken her on the floor, in Colthurst's study, and she had not even noticed how the carpet felt. But she would notice here. She had the feeling that she would not miss a single detail anymore.

A peculiar feeling twisted her stomach. Nerves and anticipation all at once. She crossed to the corner of the room; one yank and the sheet that covered the mirror was collapsing in a cloud of dust. She discovered herself in the glass, looking back. Her lips were twitching. She released the smile, watched it curve across her mouth. He was wrong, then. She liked what she saw in her face. She would tell him so, when she saw him next.

Next, to the curtains, which years of stoppered sunlight had faded from bronze to a dull yellow. As she hauled them apart, a movement in the street below caught her eye. Of all people, Marcus Lindley was stepping out of a coach, and into her yard.

He looked up. She stepped back, but too late—he had seen her; he lifted his hand in greeting. She frowned and came out into the hallway. Downstairs, the footman was opening the door to him.

"What in the world," she said as she descended the stairs. "What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

"I had to speak with you." He seemed more subdued than she remembered. The beginnings of a paunch stretched his mauve waistcoat, and burst blood vessels dotted his nose. His arm was in a sling. "I am contemplating a certain proposition," he said. Something in his words seemed to belatedly amuse him; he gave an odd little laugh. "I should like to discuss it with you, if you please."

"You may call on me at Lord Chad's. I am not at home to you here."

"Ah yes. I do remember that about you, Emmaline. You recall propriety, but only when it suits you."

She traded a look with the footman. His brows lifted slightly, an offer of support. "Leave or I will have you thrown out," she said.

"Even though I come in memory of a certain soldier, last seen in Kurnaul?"

A rushing filled her ears. It resolved into the voice of the footman, saying, "Miss? Miss?" He had stepped forward, his hands outstretched as if to catch her.

"No," she said, through lips gone numb. "No, I am quite all right. Viscount, if you will follow me."

It was the longest walk she had ever taken, down that empty hall. So much of her furniture was in GemsonPark; there was nothing to absorb the echo of her footsteps, or the sharp ring of his boots on the marble behind her. He had come running through the Residency, that bright sunlit morning, and she had thought then that he would be gone from her life forever.
How could he know?

The air in the front salon was musty from disuse. She drew the curtains, hoping it would give her thoughts time to clear; but when she turned back, there was only the pounding of her heart, and a panicked denial repeating in her head.

He was leaning against the door. She drew a breath. "All right, Marcus. Explain yourself."

He tilted his head. "You must be confusing me with someone else, Emmaline. I have never taken orders from you." He paused. "You have paint on your sleeve, you know."

She did not glance down. "Yes, I've been painting this morning. You always knew I painted. What of it?"

He shook his head. A lick of blond hair fell over his eyes, and he flicked it back impatiently. It stuck her suddenly that he was not as calm as he appeared. His gaze would not focus on hers; it wandered around the room, latching onto nothing. He had visited her parents here, before. Perhaps their memory would recall him to decency.

But when his gaze returned to her, his smile was very ugly. "Your little talent has grown even more vulgar than I could have imagined. Those paintings! They are atrocious, fit only for burning,
Miss Ashdown."

"I will tell you
what of it.
You have written lines from a military communiqué all over your paintings. That communiqué was entrusted, by me, to a man who was found dead in my tent in Kurnaul. Curiously, the letter had been stripped from his corpse. I therefore have no alternative but to conclude that
you
were the one who took the letter, and
you
were the one who killed him."

She looked away. The oak leaves brushing against the window were very green. The color, she thought, of Julian's eyes. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"That will not fly. You see, I have made inquiries. Do you remember that portrait of you, the one your parents sent to my mother? It prompted a former lieutenant of mine to recall your presence in camp. He says you asked after my tent. There are other eyewitnesses to place you there as well—coming into the camp.
Leaving
the camp, shortly before my aide's body was discovered."

With every word he spoke, her thoughts grew strangely clearer, and her pulse slower. "He attacked me. I defended myself."

"I find that difficult to credit. You knew I was there, but you did not turn to me. Rather than seek my help after
defending
yourself, you chose to run. That is not the action of an innocent woman. I think the court would agree."

Why
had
she been so foolish as to run? It seemed very distant to her now. "I did not know what to do," she said. Her voice sounded very flat to her ears. She could not find the appropriate emotions within her; they seemed to have withdrawn from the scene.

"Well, I have come with a proposition. I am in financial straits. And it's a seller's market for art, I fear."

"You bought my paintings?"

"Yes, to protect you," he said impatiently. "Of course, it's all up to you. If you prefer to hang, you are welcome to it. The murder of a soldier during wartime—it's no small crime. But if you chose differently, it would be of benefit to me. I could make use of your fortune. And your parents intended it for me anyway, you know."

She looked to him. "You can't be proposing—"

"We will wed. I will have your money. And no one ever need know you killed the man. Otherwise, the noose. Your choice, Emmaline."

"You are mad. You cannot prove I killed him."

"Indeed? Tell me how
you
would prove your
innocence.
So many witnesses to place you in Kurnaul. And others, I'm quite sure, from Alwar all the way to Calcutta, who will remember you by the name Anne Marie. I told you I made inquiries. The East India Club is a hive of information; you cannot imagine the number of people who recognized your portrait."

She looked down to her hands. Her fingers were twisting together, a fleshly puzzle that looked very painful. Her knuckles were white.

"If not for yourself, Emmaline, then think of your family. Lord Chad's career certainly would not thrive, after your execution. Your cousin's life would be ruined. Your estates would be confiscated. A terrible waste."

The silence was immense. Uncanny. The clocks, she realized. The clocks were wound down. She had not considered how one depended on the sound of them. "No," she said. She could not go back. Not now. "I will not do it."