The Bride Wore Pearls (3 page)

“I do not,” he gritted. “But it now appears I shall have to.”

“I don’t understand.”

Welham’s every muscle seemed suddenly taut, like those of a great cat ready to pounce. “I’m told the man works for a newspaper,” he answered. “Until this moment, however, I imagined his name did not much matter.”

“But my brother wrote that the Lord Chancellor overturned your conviction.” Anisha glanced uneasily over her shoulder, but the man, of course, had long vanished. “What could the papers want of you now?”

“In my experience, most of the world’s evils have to do with money.” Welham’s jaw twitched. “Specifically, the gaining of it. And usually at someone else’s expense.”

“True,” she acknowledged, “but . . . ?”

He shrugged. “A great many people believe my father bought my justice for me,” he said. “More than a few would be pleased to see me fall from grace. And that, I daresay, would sell a vast number of newspapers.”

For a moment, Anisha considered it. “It’s an ugly thought,” she said softly. “How horrible for you.”

“Horrible?” he echoed, his voice dangerously soft. “No, ma’am. Horrible is being left to rot in prison for a crime you didn’t commit. Horrible is having a noose drawn round your neck and not knowing for certain you’ll breathe your next. Horrible is watching good soldiers left to die in the blood and mud of Africa because they have no better way to earn a living. And if you can survive that, then you generally don’t give a bloody damn what people think. But that fellow has begun to ask questions about my father. And your brother. Twice he’s been seen skulking round the St. James Society, trying to worm his way inside.”

“The St. James Society?” Anisha’s eyes flared with alarm. “That is your new name for the
Fraternitas
here in England, is it not?”

“More of a camouflage.” Welham’s jaw was set tight, his eyes still hard. “A safe house of sorts, and a way to explain away the scientific research Dr. von Althausen is conducting. Your brother’s former diplomatic standing helps justify some of the odd traffic in and out.”

Anisha hesitated, unsure how to ask her next question. “And so this reporter,” she said. “Have you met him? Touched him?”

His smile was strained. “I am afraid, Lady Anisha, that I am rather ordinary,” he said. “I have nothing like your brother’s strange talents.”

“So I understand,” she said. “And I am happy for you.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps, were I to spend some time in the reporter’s company, I might glean something of his true nature,” he acknowledged. “Or perhaps not. Some days I’m not persuaded I have any special skill in that regard.”

“And I’m not persuaded I believe that.”

“Believe what you wish, ma’am, but many people are inscrutable to me.” His hard gaze was fixed watchfully out the window now. “Yourself, for example, I should wager. But I believe, too, that there are a rare few to whom evil is so natural and so connate, so much a part of what they are, there is nothing more to perceive. And that reporter—he’s watching the
Fraternitas
’s every move, our every breath.”

“Good Lord.”

“And now, it would appear, he means to watch
you.
Your children and young Lucan, too, perhaps. And there are a few things, by God, which even I will not tolerate—as he is perilously close to discovering. So it’s time I settled this business.” His voice fell, as if he spoke only to himself. “It is time—past time—for me to do what I swore I would.”

Every trace of humor had vanished from the man’s countenance. And however much charm he might feign, Anisha was no longer fooled.
Incorrigible
was not the word for this man. Even had she known nothing of his dark past, she could see that Rance Welham carried himself with the barely leashed strength of a soldier.

His gaze was quick—unnervingly so—and she was now convinced he could turn lethal in an instant. There was a veiled anger in him, Anisha sensed, that had burned through to his very core; a bitterness eating like a cancer behind that amiable façade and those laughing eyes. It unnerved her, yet she found it oddly humanizing.

Anisha knew from her brother’s letters that in his youth, Welham had been convicted of murder and twice put in prison. The first time he had cleverly cheated the gallows. The second time, a witness’s deathbed recantation had saved him. In between, he’d fled England, landed in Paris, then shipped off to Africa in the French Foreign Legion—an organization made up of criminals, thugs, and mercenaries, and only a little less deadly than the gallows.

They continued on in silence for a time, but the mood inside the carriage had oddly shifted. There was an unsettled emotion in the air that even she, in her limited abilities, could discern.

Not knowing what to say, Anisha instead watched through the window as their little caravan wound its way through streets that alternated from dark and narrow to wide and elegant. Never in her life had she seen so many church spires, and as they progressed, the streets were increasingly choked with traffic and people. At every turn, one could observe wagons and carts being offloaded and doorsteps being swept as the banks and storefronts of London opened to embrace the day’s commerce.

Inexplicably, however, Anisha’s new home could not hold her attention, and her gaze drifted back to her companion. Dressed more for a ride in the country than a drive, Welham was a large, long-legged man with few pretensions to sartorial splendor. He wore a snugly cut coat of black superfine—but not so snug as to have required the assistance of a valet. His high boots and breeches showed his muscular legs to quite good effect, though Anisha suspected trousers might have been the more fashionable choice.

In fact, the only hint of elegance about Welham was a charcoal silk waistcoat with tortoise shell buttons, a blindingly white cravat, and the tall black hat lying beside him. And when he twitched back his coat to extract his pocket watch, Anisha could see the lean turn of his waist and almost sense the strength that lay beneath his sleeve.

Rance Welham was, Anisha concluded, a man’s man—which regrettably made him all the more intriguing.

After checking the time and tucking the watch away, he relaxed against the seat, one arm draped across the back of the banquette, his booted legs set wide such that he seemed to own every inch of space around him. He dipped his head to the window, one lock of dark hair falling over his forehead as his quick gaze swept the streets beyond his carriage window. The whole of Welham’s demeanor left Anisha with the vague sense that the man missed little and was intimidated by less than that.

She searched her mind for what else her brother had said of him. Welham descended from a wealthy family in the north of England, but his mother had been a Border Scot. Raju and Welham had met perhaps four or five years earlier in Morocco—or was it Algiers?—but doing what, precisely, her brother had declined to say. Something not fit for a lady’s ears, Anisha gathered, for at some point in their checkered history together, Raju had come to realize that both he and Welham bore the mark of the Guardian.

And thus had their inseparability begun.

The mark was most commonly etched high on the left hip, to indicate that a man had been chosen by his family—by dint of temperament, tradition, and the alignment of the heavens—as a Guardian of the Old and Noble Order of the
Fraternitas Aureae Crucis.
Part religious order and part secret society, the
Fraternitas
was ostensibly devoted to the study of natural philosophy and its connection to the great Greek and Druidic mysteries.

Guardians served as the protective arm of the society, like Christian soldiers sworn to the sword. The mark itself was simply a Latin cross positioned above a crossed quill and sword. Sometimes, if the family descended through the Scottish line, their mark would be enclosed in a thistle cartouche. The symbol in both forms was common, hidden in plain sight on pediments, crests, and gravestones all across Europe, much like the fleur-de-lis.

The
Fraternitas
had roots, it was whispered, in the ancient Celtic world and the Christian Templar tradition, perhaps even a vague connection to Masonry. Vague seemed to be the operative word when it came to the organization
.
Nonetheless, Anisha’s father had belonged, as had generations of Forsythes before him.

But none of this mattered, really, to Anisha. Her children had not been born in the Sign of Fire and War. They could be initiated into the
F.A.C.
in some intellectual, legal, or religious capacity should they wish—a Savant, an Advocati, or a Preost—but her sons would never be Guardians.

Never would they be cursed with the Gift, thank God.

No, her sons would never have need of a Guardian. It was a small blessing for which Anisha was deeply thankful.

She must have sighed, for she realized that Sergeant Welham was staring at her across the depths of the carriage, his once-sparkling eyes now sharply focused, as if he had been ruminating over something and did not much care for the conclusion he had drawn.

“That fellow on the corner,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “This whole business, really—it doubtless makes you wonder why your brother sent me, of all people, to fetch you. Indeed, I advised him to send someone else, but—”

Almost without thinking, Anisha reached through the shadows to set a gloved finger to his lips, her expression lightly chiding. “But it is you whom he most trusts,” she said quietly. “And so it is you whom
I
most trust.”

His answering smile was muted. “I believe, though, that Ruthveyn hopes you will take here in Town, Lady Anisha,” he said. “I rather doubt your being seen in my company will serve that cause—and I told him so.”

“I beg your pardon? Take what?”

He smiled again, but this time it did not reach his eyes. “Ruthveyn desires you to make the proper social connections,” he clarified, “and forge a new and happy life for yourself here in London. He is determined, I collect, that you will marry again, so my company is not ideally—”

Anisha went perfectly rigid. “I beg your pardon?”

Welham’s expression stiffened. “Sorry, I put that boorishly—I’m too plainspoken, you’ll find—but I daresay you’ll hear the same hope from his lips within the week.”

Anisha drew a deep, steadying breath. “Shall I?” she said stiffly. “And tell me, sir—has my brother chosen this new husband as yet?”

At that, Welham’s eyes widened. Then, as he apparently recognized her pique for what it was, his smile returned, the tiny lines about his brilliant blue eyes crinkling once again. “I believe, ma’am, that he does in fact have one or two candidates in mind,” he murmured. “And I can already see that you will be perfectly content to leave the matter in his capable hands.”

“Oh, perfectly,” she said sweetly. “And I, in turn, shall be equally happy to assist
him
. Indeed, having scarcely laid eyes on the man in the last five years—and knowing absolutely nothing of his life here, nor of his wishes nor of his hopes or his dreams—I am utterly certain that his widowhood cannot suit him.”

“Lady Anisha, forgive me.” His gaze sobered. “I ought not suggest—”

“No, no, suggest away,” she cut in, her voice shrill. “I mean to do precisely that. Why, there must be at least two dozen simpering English roses willing to hang on every pearl of my brother’s wisdom, and tell him what a charming devil he is, all in exchange for a countess’s coronet and his fat fortune. And trust me, Sergeant Welham, I shall manage to ingratiate myself with each and every one of them should my brother dare fling me out into his so-called English society.”

“Shall you, indeed?” he said.

“Never doubt it,” she returned. “And then I shall bring them home in turn to dinner until hell freezes over. But whilst waiting for that happy occasion, I shall turn my attention to his bad habits. His womanizing. His drunkenness. His habitual use of opiates. No, Sergeant Welham, Ruthveyn’s secrets do not escape me. Indeed, I shall be perfectly relentless in
my
pursuit of
his
self-improvement. What do you think of that? Will it make his life happier, do you imagine?”

But Sergeant Welham no longer looked quite so relaxed or sanguine upon his banquette. “Good Lord!” he murmured.

“And what of yourself?” she asked, cocking her head to one side. “Perhaps you, too, could benefit by my help?”

“Oh, I think not,” he demurred. “Though I thank you, ma’am, for offering.”

“Quite sure, are you?”

“Quite, yes,” he answered. “And now, ma’am, if you will look to your left, you can see the Tower of London.”

“Thank you,” she said tartly. “But I have no interest whatever in tourist attractions.”

“Hmm.”

Then Welham simply set his hat back on his head and tipped it forward over his eyes.

Anisha forced her gaze to the window and watched the grim gray walls go flying past. They rumbled on in silence for some time, through the seemingly endless quagmire of streets, until Welham actually began to snore quietly.

She glanced across the carriage in exasperation. His chin had fallen to his chest, and his fingers were interlaced over his waistcoat. Really, how
could
he sleep? And how irritatingly large London was! Were they never to arrive at wherever it was they meant to go? Impatience bit like a horsefly at the back of her neck.