Bound by Your Touch (22 page)

She sat uncertainly for a moment. "And your father . . . ?"

"What of him?"

"He would not help her?"

Instead of answering, he drained his glass, then dug out a coin for another round, flipping it over to the tapster.

"You will get drunk," she said warily.

"Unfortunately, no. Pleasantly numb is about all I can achieve, these days."

"Then perhaps you should stop drinking."

The tapster brought the glass over, but Sanburne made no move to pick it up. "Perhaps," he said. "And no, my father would not help. The gossip about her marriage was affecting his political alliances. He told her to return to Bolands home. He told me to keep out of it. Between a husband and wife, he said. Boland was a gentleman, and Stella had always inclined to melodrama." He picked up the cup. "I did offer to kill him for her. My mistake was to listen when she told me no. Harder to put away an heir than to lock up a woman."

His face was so dark. All the possible replies running through her mind felt flimsy, useless. "You tried to help," she said finally. "You mustn't blame yourself."

"Oh, I don't," he said lightly. "I blame him. I blame Moreland."

Her throat tightened. What a terrible thing it must be, to have such loathing for one's own father. "But he did not realize," she said. "He thought her safe. And think of how terrible it must have been for him, once he realized the truth."

"He has
never
realized."

"Sanburne, surely—"

"No." He gave her a grim smile. The blazing light of the ginnery suited his looks, picking out the bright strands in his hair, emphasizing the high, sharp bones of his face. But his beauty did not seem appropriate to this moment. The look in his eyes belonged to someone much older. "He truly thinks Stella mad. I have tried every available means to get her out of that damned asylum. But he keeps her in there. I rather think he believes Boland never did lift a hand against her, till that last time. And so she rots. She rots in there."

She heard something else in his voice now. The contempt was not solely for his father. "That is not your fault."

He glanced up at her. "That's rich, coming from the woman who braves a gin palace to atone for her fathers mistakes."

"And even if the forgeries were owed to his mistake, I would not blame
myself for
it," she said. "But you do. Why else would you do these idiotic things? Why else would you go to the East End to let yourself get thrashed?" When he gave her a cutting look, she said more sharply, "Don't tell me these things if you don't want to hear my opinion. You said you liked pain, didn't you? You behave like a child to spite him and to punish yourself. I must say, Sanburne, it confirms my earlier opinion of you. It is unoriginal, and transparent, and
beyond
stupid."

He blew out a breath. "Well." The large swallow he took left his glass half-empty. "Here I thought I'd come for a drink in the company of a friend. Instead I'm delivered a sermon."

"I do like you," she said slowly, wondering over the wisdom of it even as she made the admission. "I will admit, though, that I find it very difficult to respect you. You have great potential, you know. But you waste it, despite all your opportunities."

"Potential," he said flatly. "Yes, I suppose I do have a great lot of that. Why, I'll be coming into two hundred thousand acres some time before I'm fifty. Think how many sheep I could raise."

"I find self-pity very distasteful as well."

"And yet you're so good at it. What else to call it, Lydia, when a fascinating woman considers herself a bookish drab?"

"Do not flirt. We're being serious."
\

"I can't help it. Your idiocy provokes me."

She looked down to hide the little smile that wanted to form. Strange, that she could listen to his accusations without taking offense. With one finger, she traced over the looping grain of the tabletop. Someone had carved his initials into the wood:
DSR Aug 81.
It had been etched very deeply. Not the work of one sitting, then, but of several nights. Yet the table would be sanded down at some point. The carver must have realized that, even as he labored.

The thought touched off a sadness too large for the provocation. Everyone wanted to leave a mark, even the patrons of a gin palace. But for most men, a tombstone would provide the only lasting record of their names. "You do have so many opportunities," she said quietly. "Sheep are the least of them."

"Oh, I'm not entirely useless. My factories are not. . ." When he trailed off, she looked up, her brows lifting in question. He shook his head. "I wouldn't mind having your respect, Lydia. But to be honest with you, I don't think I have it in me to bother earning it. It would ruin my whole routine, you see."

The remark was probably not meant to be cruel. But even as self-deprecation, it struck her like a lash. "Fair enough," she said briskly. "And I certainly have no intention of trying to entertain you." And then—forgetting the nature of the liquid that she held in her hand, and in an attempt to behave casually, as if inwardly she were not smarting from some obscure hurt—she lifted the mug for a sip.

It burned. Gasping and choking, she set down the cup. Her fingers dug into the carving, anchoring her as she tried not to retch.

He did an admirable job of restraining his laughter. "So," he said. "Cream of the Valley. Creamy, or no?"

The liquid trailed a path of fire down her throat and into her stomach. Once it hit bottom, it became a not-unpleasant sensation. Was that why people drank it?
"Not
creamy." He was smirking now. If he did not want her respect, she hardly needed to earn his. But now she was intrigued. She took another sip of the gin. This mouthful went down more easily. The bitterness seemed to complement her mood. "More like a lit coal," she decided.

"Ah, well. 'Embers from the Fire' does lack a certain ring."

A giggle escaped her. Shocked at herself, she touched her lips. Yes, the sound had come from her. "Am I drunk so soon?"

He grinned. "Highly doubtful. Why? Do you intend to become so?"

She had opened her mouth to answer when she spied, through the open archway, the woman from the sketch—a slim brunette of middling height, with a foxy cast to her eyes. "That's her," she said, and came to her feet. "That's Miss Marshall."

Nothing in Polly Marshall's manner bespoke cramped garrets and bad company. She smiled when she greeted them, and showed polite surprise upon learning of Sanburne's station. "What pleasant company for a chat," she said, and waved them to a bench that could accommodate all of them more comfortably. When she sat again, a casual twist of her wrist lent her brown skirts a smart drape. "Amazing you found me here." Her vowels were long, more refined than the company she'd been raised with; Lydia fancied that the voice of Mr. Hartnett echoed in them. "What good luck for me. It's a hard road I've walked to meet you, Miss Boyce."

This did not sound like an overture to blackmail. Very cautiously, Lydia let the woman tap their tankards together. "I hope you will tell me why, Miss Marshall."

Miss Marshall took a generous sip, then set the mug down with a clank. "Sorry," she murmured, her eyes on her hand. Her fingers, Lydia saw, were trembling. "I would ask my share from you." She looked up, her mouth firm. "I deserve it."

Lydia hesitated. "I don't understand."

The woman's fingernail made a sharp tattoo against the mug. "Let's be frank, Miss Boyce. It was a fine deal, while it lasted. And I wouldn't be so forward if he'd made some provision for me. But eleven years, good as married, and what does he leave me? Spit. I deserve something, don't you think?"

She had no idea how to reply. Sanburne stepped in, speaking quietly. "Be more specific, madam.
What
do you deserve?"

"Just one of them." Miss Marshall glanced beyond them, then leaned in confidentially. "I'll sell it for a ticket to the country. A nice plot of land. It's a good bargain for you, miss—and I'm owed it. Would you have found a fencer without me?"

The woman made no sense. Lydia found herself shaking her head, an expression of simple disbelief.

Miss Marshall frowned and sat back. "Don't refuse," she said. "You'd leave me no choice. I've a friend working at Fleet Street who'd put out the word."

The word?

Sanburne's hand closed over her wrist, exerting steady pressure. "You mean that you want one of the forgeries?"

"Forgeries? Oh, I see. Is that what they used? Clever. But no, I've no use for it—won't be shipping it onward, will I? I just want one of the gems."

The paralysis that had gripped Lydia now snapped. "Are you insinuating that my father is a
smuggler*"

Miss Marshall went still. "Dear God." She gave a short, strangled laugh. "Never say you didn't know?"

Lydia came to her feet.
Laugh,
would she? "I don't know what you think to gain from these lies." She spoke very calmly. She would not exert herself to yell at this trollop. "If you contact me again, I'll set the police on you for extortion."

Sanburne caught up as she crossed into the front room. "Lydia. Perhaps we should hear her out."

"Hear her out?" She turned on him. "She accused my father of thievery!"

"She knows of the forgeries," he said quietly. "How could she know of them, if Hartnett had not planned to receive them?"

Yes. How could Hartnett's mistress know of that? She drew a sharp breath. "Did Hartnett arrange for the substitutions, then? But why? He was Papa's dearest friend!"

"Lydia." He sounded weary, of a sudden. "You're an intelligent woman. You mentioned before that your father requires a good deal of money for his projects.

Have you really not considered the possibility that he plays a part in this?"

She opened her mouth to rebuke him, but the impulse faltered. An hour ago, she would not have understood him. But then he had told her of his sister.

She found herself reaching out to touch his arm. Maybe he did not need to earn her respect to have her friendship. After all, she could think of nothing more intimate than this: a knowledge of someone that stripped his harsh words of their power to sting. "Not all fathers are like yours, Sanburne."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. "This has nothing to do with Moreland. It's a matter of facts and logic. The simplest explanation points to your father."

She studied him for a moment, then smiled. This could be a lesson for him, one that he needed. "The simplest explanation is not always correct. But you're right, there's no point to wondering when we can test the facts ourselves. You think there are diamonds in those forgeries? Then come." She took his wrist. "Come with me now."

"Where?"

"Why, to shatter my naivete, or your cynicism. We will have to see which."

The houses lining Wilton Crescent were quiet as tombs in the yellow dusk. All the doors along the street stood closed, stern green mouths beneath the twin eyes of the gas lamps flanking them. Like fairy lights on the moors that lured wanderers into bogs, these lamps shone a false welcome. They suggested that one need only take hold of the knocker to be invited in for tea. Lydia knew better, of course. What invitations she received were extended in deference to George and Sophie, and always on the tacit understanding that she would occupy a seat unremarkably. She was taking a large risk, then, asking Sanburne to her home. But one took risks for friends.

In the front hall, she startled the butler with a request. "I need a hammer, Trenton. And have the crate in my dressing room brought into the garden."

She led Sanburne down the hall and out through glass doors into the little plot of terraced greenery. Her stomach was only jumping because of him; it had nothing to do with that woman's lies.
Never say you didn't know?
It was a morbid coincidence that Sophie had said the same four years ago, after George had left the drawing room and she'd come in to find Lydia crying.
That
had been naivete;
that
had been foolishness. But she was not a fool to trust her father.

"You don't need to do this," Sanburne said.

Yes, I do. An
uneasy feeling came over her. She was doing this for Sanburne. Wasn't she? She looked away. The sky was the color of a dusty yellow dog, smudged here and there by long, thin clouds that looked like streaks of mud: sunset, seen through a haze of coal smoke. In the strange light, the garden looked artificially illuminated. The emptiness of the stone benches and graveled path seemed oddly conspicuous, as if they were set pieces on a stage where the players would soon arrive.

A footman stepped out with the linen-covered crate; Trenton followed with a hammer. She waved them back into the house, then knelt to withdraw the stela. Placing it carefully on the ground, she tapped the rough edge with her fingernail. "Note that the surface of the stone is seamless. I don't see how anything could have been placed inside it."

Sanburne crouched down by her side. "It seems unlikely." And then, once more, he said, "You don't need to do this. Not for my sake."

The careful neutrality of his manner inadvertendy betrayed him. He had no doubt; he fully believed Polly Marshall. "You think faith requires proof," she said. "That it must be earned. So, I will produce the proof for you."