The charitable part of her said that he was trying to spare his sister embarrassment, but the increasingly cynical portion of her brain insisted there was something more…. Something he very much did not want her to know.

  Well. She would not find out more about it by avoiding Mr. Ferrand or his sister. And she would absolutely not resign herself to an evening of flattering the strange and unknowable Lord Boyle. She unearthed a black lace fichu from the top shelf of the closet and held it up.

  “What will I tell Tansy?” she said, sighing as she stood and walked to the slightly warped looking glass propped near the window. Clemency draped the black lace over her face, and found it made her gray eyes even more startling. She looked dangerous and tempting, and she told herself it would be a diverting role to play. A nervous prickle began in her stomach, a warning, perhaps, or a little sparkle of excitement.

  Her eyes brightened with an idea. “Honora asked me to deliver a letter to her friend here in town,” she practiced, shocked and unnerved by how convincing, how natural it all sounded. “She said it was a matter of some urgency, but I promise to be home before dark. Just leave a bit of cold supper upstairs for me; it will be no trouble at all.”

  * * *

  —

  The house at Grosvenor Square was less grand than Clemency expected. In fact, it was downright modest compared to the soaring monument to wealth and ostentation she had imagined. She told the driver to wait, and vowed she would not be long, then pulled out her veil and draped it over her face, watching as a wigged servant darted out from the townhouse door to help her down.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, brushing off her skirts as she stood staring up at the Ferrands’ London home. The family had become a puzzle to her, and this place was just one more piece. It was difficult to fit along the rest, the opposite of Beswick’s sprawling grounds and castle-like profile. Indeed, this townhouse, while certainly nice and claiming a fashionable address, blended in among the other slim, white-stone buildings with their gated, shallow yards and nondescript walkways. Nothing distinguished this one from the next, and Clemency could only hope she had remembered the address correctly as she followed the wigged man up the stairs and into the warm foyer.

  Here too, she found the home clean and tidy, sparsely furnished, a decidedly masculine air to the dark red patterned rug and lacquered tables. A few stuffed stag heads were hung on the wall opposite the door, a sturdy table beneath for calling cards and the post.

  A mirror was to her right, the only visible touch of opulence, for it was immense and perfectly clear, not a ripple to be seen, something that had been purchased at great expense.

  Clemency caught her reflection and gasped. She hardly looked herself, dressed not in her customary light blues and pinks and whites, but in a deep burgundy wrap-style dress, the only dress she had brought dark enough to match the delicate black veil draped over her head and hair. The combination made her appear older and certainly more mysterious, and had she seen this reflection as a stranger, she would think unfavorable things, and make assumptions about where that woman was going and whom she was going to meet.

  Her heart beat a little faster, and she couldn’t quite decide if she liked this new guise or feared it. Her thoughts swirled, especially the idea that she was becoming someone else, someone more like the daring authors and thinkers and heroines she admired, willing to stake their very reputations to follow their hearts. Was that so bad? She was ready to eschew love and marriage forever, so she could at least look the part.

  That confusion was quickly obliterated, as from around the corner leading deeper into the house, came scratching and scrambling, and then two hulking, shaggy dogs charged toward her, their paws the size of saucers. She reeled back in surprise, clutching for her chest, pulling off her veil as she did so.

  “Talos! Argus! Come, you ruddy beasts!”

  Clemency recognized the voice, but it was not Mr. Ferrand’s. A man hastened around the corner, catching the dogs by their collars and keeping them from leaping on her skirts. Ralston, the dark-haired man she had met at Beswick, had come to her aid. He blinked at her and then smiled, taking a moment to study her face.

  “Ah! Miss Fry, welcome,” Ralston said, wrestling with the jolly, drooling dogs. They were wolfhounds, massive and gangly, and they soon lost interest in tackling her and instead turned to licking and nuzzling Ralston’s hands.

  Behind him, a small figure entered the foyer. The wigged man who had helped Clemency down from the carriage had just been on his way to fetch someone, but now there was no need. Delphine Ferrand beamed at her, bird-fragile and pale in a soft, billowing dress of cocoa brown silk.

  “Miss Fry! What a lovely surprise, though Audric said we might expect you,” Delphine said, holding out both her hands for Clemency to take. She eased by the dogs, who whined up at her. “My brother’s dogs, they are cumbersome and a nuisance but sweet; I promise they will do you no harm, only beg for attention and the occasional belly scratch. He never takes them hunting; they are now more spoiled children than animals.”

  Clemency let Delphine take her by the hands and maneuver her away from the foyer, around the corner, and into a spacious sitting room that overlooked the street. This too was modestly appointed, though comfortable enough. A roaring fire greeted them on the opposite wall, and the furniture huddled near it.

  “Is your brother at home?” Clemency asked, trying to sound conversational. “He bade me call when I reached London.”

  “How diligent of you, and still weary from the road! Fear not, he will be returning soon,” Delphine assured her, gesturing to the tea and cards already laid out by the fire. With only Delphine present, she could only assume Ralston had been her partner for cards. “Again you must sit with me and wait, and make the customary talk of weather and road conditions and accommodations….”

  Clemency sat on the sofa, glad for the fire, and not at all bothered by the company. Ralston lurked in the hall, speaking softly to the dogs before letting them loose. They came, slowly this time, and curled up side by side before the hearth, their loving, glossy eyes trained on the new woman in their house.

  “More tea, Ralston, I think, unless Miss Fry has a taste for something stronger?” Delphine picked up the two hands of cards and shuffled them back into a single deck. It was obvious she played cards often, for she handled them deftly, without so much as a glance at her hands.

  “Actually…” Clemency considered the alien, mysterious woman that had gazed back at her in the mirror and felt a queer tremor pass through her from head to foot. What was London doing to her? And after only a few hours…Honora would be scandalized. “Brandy, if that is all right and not too daring.”

  “Brandy!” Delphine shrieked with excitement. Her whole face brightened, banishing some of the sallowness from her hollow cheeks. “Two brandies, Ralston. And do not be stingy.”

  “Miss Delphine, I do not think your brother would—”

  “Forget my brother, Ralston, I am the lady of the house when he is absent.” Delphine sniffed and raised her chin. Despite all their wealth, she did a very poor job of looking imperious. It simply wasn’t in her nature, Clemency mused. “Two brandies.”

  Ralston shuffled off with a huff, and then the only sounds in the room were the crackle of the logs behind the grate and the soft hush-hush of Delphine shuffling the cards.

  “Ralston and I have only just arrived ourselves,” Delphine informed her. “Last night, in fact. That big, empty house made me feel like a ghost. Like I was haunting it. Dreadful. I may not love London society but it feels like there is so much happening all the time. It lifts my spirits. May I ask where you are staying, Miss Fry?”

  “My brother and his wife are staying with her family on Gracechurch Street,” Clemency told her. “It is not as lovely as all this, Miss Ferrand. Your home is beautiful.”

  Delphine raised her thin, dark brows. Ralston had returned, and he set down two crystal glasses of brandy, though to Clemency’s eye they did not seem generously full. He retreated quickly, as if not to be scolded for exactly that.

  “You are so kind, Miss Fry,” she said, swiftly dealing out hands for cards. “But my brother oversaw the decorating of this place, and it shows. He has such sober taste. I should have done a better job, I will never know why he chose a plum-colored sofa, of all things….”

  Clemency carefully sipped her brandy and found the taste extraordinary. Between the hearth and the drink, she was sure her cheeks and neck were bright, shiny pink. “I quite like it. It is rather simple. Simple but inviting.”

  “Really? You are the only one to think so, I assure you,” Delphine teased, eyes bright with mischief as she drank almost half the brandy in her glass in one go. She did not seem ready for it, sputtering a little as she dabbed her lips with the back of her hand. “I will absolutely not tell Audric; he will gloat and be impossible to live with. Do you play cards or games of chance?”

  “A little,” Clemency said, taking up her cards. “And not well.”

  “I rely on instinct,” Delphine instructed her with a wink. “And of course in that regard, brandy is always useful. It has been such a long, long time since I have had the chance to enjoy a wicked taste of brandy and a wicked hand of cards with a woman close to my own age.”

  She sighed and called for Ralston to return and fill their cups. Clemency hurried to finish her first glass, finding that her head felt light and stupid, and her body heavy and bolted to the sofa. Her mother disapproved of ladies drinking, and so even at balls Clemency always behaved herself.

  “My brother’s wife is likely a better match for you,” she told Delphine. “Tansy is diabolical when it comes to whist.”

  “Then you shall have to make introductions, Miss Fry, though I do not doubt you will be a charming partner also.”

  “That is much too kind,” Clemency said with a chuckle. “And soon to be disproven. You will trounce me so easily it will be no fun at all.”

  “Oh, there is plenty of fun to be had in a trouncing,” Delphine replied lightly. Ralston, for his part, did not seem happy about refilling their drinks, but he acquiesced, wearing a hangdog look all the while. The brandy was refreshed, and Delphine again partook with the eagerness of a girl suddenly unchaperoned. “The next game we play must be on Gracechurch Street, if such a thing would please you, of course.”

  Clemency hesitated, the cards nearly slipping from her grasp. Though Miss Ferrand seemed the exact kind of sweet, rich company Tansy would love to have, there was the complication of a certain Mr. Turner Boyle coming to stay at that very house. She sensed an opportunity to tease out more about the situation, and perhaps gain an advantage over Audric. He had omitted any mention of Delphine and Turner knowing each other, and now she had her chance to discover why.

  “Only if you can withstand an onslaught of new company. It is a very full house at present,” Clemency told her, pretending to study her cards, but really waiting to see how she might react. “Tansy’s father and uncle reside there, and now William, my brother, has come, and of course I am there, as well as Turner Boyle….”

  The effect was immediate, and so was Clemency’s regret. Delphine went even paler than her normally ashy hue, her lips parting on a silent sound of shock. Her cards scattered to the table between them, and she jolted to her feet as if struck by lightning.

  “Oh. Oh, I see. Now it all becomes much clearer. Damn you, Audric.”

  Delphine grew instantly cold and withdrawn, and hugging herself went to the fire, slipping the toes of one slipper under a dog’s side, as if for protection.

  “I have said something to offend you.” Clemency scrambled to stand too, turning the same shade of plum as the sofa. Stupid, clumsy, unfeeling fool…“If so, it was not my intention—”

  “So many things have now come sharply into relief,” Delphine murmured, cutting her off. Her huge, wounded brown eyes traveled across the carpet and then up Clemency’s entire form until their gazes met. “You are part of my brother’s games. I should have assumed as much, but then I had begun to like you, and regard is so utterly blinding. I should know.”

  She showed Clemency her back, hunching, becoming impossibly small as she shook her head and leaned toward the flames.

  “Forgive me, Miss Ferrand, I did not mean to wound you. I will go—”

  “No.” Delphine’s head came up quickly and she twisted in profile, swallowing a sniffle. “No. Stay. I want you to stay; I do like you, and therefore you deserve to know just what it is you have stepped full into.”

  Something caught her attention behind Clemency, and a wave of horror passed over her face, then she mastered it and sneered. “There you are, brother. And just in time.”

  “Delphine.” The warning in Audric’s tone was unmistakable. He loomed in the corridor, watching them. “Do not say another word.”

  “I will say as many words as I please,” she hissed. “Come. Join us, Audric. It is only fitting that you are here while I tell this friend of yours our truth.”

  Audric prowled the edge of the room, far more intimidating and feral than the two massive hounds curled up at Delphine’s feet. He was dressed for the club, in a sharp black coat and snowy cravat, close-fitting tan trousers tucked into glossy, knee-high boots. His low-simmering green eyes flicked to Clemency, and a horrible quivering nausea traced over his face as he looked at her.

  She felt suddenly trapped, and sick, and wrung out her hands, wishing she could bolt. But she felt bound to stay and sensed that leaving would hurt Delphine more than staying to hear what the girl wanted to say.

  “What has he told you about me?” Delphine asked, her voice high and almost babyish. Mocking. “That I am ill. That I am frail. Has he told you what was between Turner Boyle and me? Only that was not his name when I knew him, was it, Audric? No, he was Morris Alston, a gentleman, or so I thought. We met at the opera in Paris. Normally my brother would accompany me to the performances, but I begged him to let me go with an acquaintance. She and her mother were far less watchful than Audric. It was five winters ago now, but it feels like a lifetime has passed…since…” She almost swooned but caught herself. Audric strode urgently as if to catch her, but Delphine put up a hand, keeping him at bay.

  He stood near the abandoned table with the brandy and cards, his shoulders bunched up around his ears as if he were coiled to strike.

  “N-No, I will tell it all. I must. If you are to join Audric on this damned crusade of his, then let it be with eyes wide open,” Delphine stammered. Clemency couldn’t help but admire her; it must have taken immense strength, for each word seemed like an agony. “We courted in secret. He said we would be married, that he had claim to a fortune, that when he returned to Paris all would be settled, and our lives would begin.”

  At last Audric spoke, but only to growl, “She was sixteen.”

  “Yes!” Delphine cried. “A girl. A reckless, senseless girl. I loved him and I believed him, and of course none of it was true.” She balled her hands into fists and a spasm gripped her, a tear sliding free down her cheek. “There was a child. I had survived cholera not long before that, and the babe…It nearly killed me. And now it is gone, for it had no father, and it did not deserve a mother that would look at it only with hatred and regret. Audric found it a loving family, or so he says. I do not know! How could I know? I do not even know if it was a boy or a girl!”

  She whirled again to face the fire, a sob overwhelming her as she dropped her face into her hands.

  Clemency trembled, and stared, and felt her body go numb as Audric went to his sister and held her. A hurt had been building inside her, and it was high as a wall now, brick by brick, indignity by indignity. She’d thought Turner Boyle very low indeed, but he had sunk now to a depth she had never thought to encounter in her life. Her simple, sheltered life in Round Orchard. The occasional voyage to London, but there only to clean and lovely assembly halls and gleaming ballrooms. And so she had led a narrow life, walking down a single hall, unaware of the paths snaking off it and into the darkness. That narrow life had made her an easy target for someone like Turner Boyle, but now she was building that hurt, brick by brick, and she would build it wide indeed.

  How easily she could have been Delphine. How easily she might have fallen prey to Turner’s easy, charming manner when first they met and he worked so hard to woo her. Clemency had sworn never to marry, and Turner had scaled even that high wall.

  Delphine startled her, racing out of the room, brushing by Clemency close enough to ruffle her hair. Still, she could not move, frozen by the unfairness and the sorrow that felt potent enough to choke her.

  “Are you satisfied?” Audric whispered, bent toward the hearth, his right hand braced on the mantel, a broken man, a silhouette of fire. “Are you satisfied?”

  “Why did you not tell me?” Clemency whispered, hoarse. “You ask for my trust and yet you keep such things from me. I would faithfully guard such a secret! I should have known. What if he had tried to do the same to me?”

  The mere suggestion of that made him wince and groan like a wounded animal. “It was not my truth to tell. It is a pain so deep and ragged and raw that I dare not even think of it, for whenever I do, it threatens to drive me mad. There is a howling in my soul, and it will not stop until the proper justice is had. Not the justice of courts and judges, but true justice. Poetic, unflinching, searing justice.”

  An urge to hold him as he sagged against the hearth rose in her. She had never thought to see him a defeated thing, but all his arrogance was gone, and when he turned his head to look at her, his eyes still held the danger she had seen before, but now she felt it echo in her own gaze. Just to know what had happened to Delphine—just to glimpse that cruelty—made her want to be dangerous too.

  “Delphine does not approve of your…crusade, she called it,” Clemency said slowly. Carefully. He began to stand again, regarding her with hooded eyes. “Why not?”

 

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