The Dark Volume (57 page)

Elöise did not answer. It was obvious to Chang that the other woman was as terrified as she was arrogant.

“And who
was
he again? That
fellow?”

“Doctor Svenson,” replied Elöise softly.

“O yes, the Prince's man. Lord
above
—”

“He has saved my life repeatedly.”

“So you intimated. Or,” the woman added dryly, “so you
remember
…”

“He saved my life from
Francis.”

“Why would Francis hurt
you?”

“Charlotte—”

“Why would Francis hurt any one of us? What
nonsense
!”

“Charlotte.” Elöise sighed with some forbearance. “Charlotte, that is not
true.”

To Chang's astonishment, Charlotte Trapping
laughed
.

“Ah, well, there you have me.” She chuckled quite merrily. “Per haps I fathom one or two elements after all!”

“Charlotte—”

“Stop blubbering! Your
dear
friend—of, goodness, ten days?—is still alive. And left behind he will remain so, and there's an end to him. What did you want instead, Elöise? A romance to sweep you away? After all you've done?”

“What I've done for you—”

“You say that—so often that I nearly believe you. Do
you
believe her?”

This last was to the man.

“She is very pretty,” he answered gently. Charlotte Trapping huffed.

“Pretty!
What girl
isn't
pretty?
I
was perfectly pretty, and look what happened! Come now, Elöise, did you really expect—and from a
German
—”

“He is very decent.”

“Decent!” Mrs. Trapping crowed. “A word to describe a churchman! Elöise, a woman cannot put her hope in a man
she pities!”

“I do not pity him. Doctor Svenson—”

“He struck me as—O I don't know—rather
weedy
—”

“He was injured!”

“Not like Arthur. Arthur was a strapping man, with very broad shoulders. Even if you grant your Doctor his uniform—though it was extremely shabby—you cannot allow his shoulders are anywhere near as broad. What's more, your fellow's hair was unpleasantly fair—not like Arthur with his very thick whiskers. I do not believe this Doctor possessed any whiskers at all. You approved of Arthur's shoulders and his whiskers yourself, didn't you, Elöise? I am sure you said something very much like that—perhaps you did not know that I could hear you. I made a point to hear
everything
, you know.”

“Yes, Charlotte.”

“Arthur
. My husband promised to save me, but he was always promising things he didn't understand.”

“I am
sorry
, Charlotte.”

“Everyone is always sorry for everything.”

“Not Francis,” said Elöise.

To this, Charlotte Trapping was silent.

“THE TEA is hot,” said the man, quietly, as if he had been waiting for some time to speak. Both women ignored him.

Chang eased two fingers to the oilcloth and edged it aside with glacial patience. Elöise sat on a broken-backed wood chair. She still wore her black dress, but had added a dark shawl. Her hair had become curled with the moisture of the woods and rough travel. There was a lost look in her eyes Chang had not, even in their determined struggles aboard the airship, seen before. The veil of kindness and care that had been so customary had gone, and a frank, bitter clarity had taken its place.

To her right, on a rotting upholstered bench, the still-steaming mug of tea held tight between his palms, sat Robert Vandaariff, hat-less, in a black topcoat with silk lapels and the muddy shoes and trouser cuffs of a sheep farmer. Like a child for whom an absent parent bears responsibility, the mindless magnate's hair was uncombed and his cravat had gone askew.

Charlotte Trapping sat with her back to Chang, in what was obviously the only whole chair in the ruined house. The widow's hair was pale with a touch of red (he would have taken it to be a henna wash had he not known her brother), silhouetted against the light of the glowing fire. She wore a well-cut jacket of blue wool over a warm straight dress. Next to her chair was a leather travel case, a hat, and long gloves, all spelling out that Mrs. Trapping had attired herself for travel and difficulty. A patterned velvet clutch bag had been looped around her wrist and hung heavily. When Mrs. Trapping raised her mug of tea, the bag clacked as if it were stuffed with Chinese ivory tiles. Near to Vandaariff lay another awkward bundle, wrapped in a blanket and bound with twine.

“SO YOU have
seen
Francis,” remarked Charlotte Trapping.

“I have,” replied Elöise. “Have you seen your brother Henry?”

Mrs. Trapping waved her hand toward Vandaariff with a sniff. “The world will lose no sleep over
Henry,”
she said, and then too lightly, “I did not know if Francis was alive.”

Elöise did not respond, and once more Chang noted the dull hardness of her gaze. Mrs. Trapping must have noticed it too, for she muttered with disapproval.

“I thought you
liked
Francis.”

“Charlotte… your brother Francis… has
changed.”

“But that is where you are ignorant, Elöise. Francis has
always
changed—it is why he is the opposite of Henry! You would not have known him before he went to school, or again before each of his celebrated travels. Every time he returned he appeared entirely new— and each time he made new friends with no inkling how strange or dissipated he had become. It was as if portions of his character kept vanishing one after another—given over in exchange for… well…
something
. And what did he have to show for it—for all his boasting? Land? A title? I will tell you, Elöise, and it is Francis all over: nothing but more wicked stories… more cruel
tricks.”

“But this is different, Charlotte. It is physical. It is
monstrous.”

“Really, Elöise—”

“Francis is beyond whims and cruelties—it is the blue glass!”

Mrs. Trapping pursed her lips and took an unsatisfying sip of tea. “I am heartily sick of this blue glass. Is it true that especially nasty man is dead?”

“The Comte? Yes.”

“And who killed him?”

“Cardinal Chang.”

Mrs. Trapping snorted. “Are you sure you remember correctly? Are you sure it was not my brother?”

“Your brother and the Comte were fast allies!”

“I very much doubt it.” Mrs. Trapping smirked. “Francis is not one to keep promises. He was never the
Comte's
true friend! And who can blame him? I never liked the way that man smelt. Just like a
Russian
—or how one
imagines
a Russian—”

“Charlotte—”

“If you take that tone with me, Mrs. Dujong, I will forbid you shelter in even this crude ruin! We find ourselves at liberty—and you find yourself
rescued
—precisely because I have learned all there is to know about this blue glass, about this supposedly alchemical
woman
—and these apparently all-powerful books. Not that I have
seen
any of them, you understand, but I have done my share of work. You will not perhaps credit that as children I always got the better of Francis playing chess, and always got the better of Henry too—whenever he would play me, which was very rarely, because he hated to lose! Do you think I spent my time at those dreadful Harschmort galas worrying about my evening gown? I watched Henry, and I studied Robert Vandaariff. Look at him now, Elöise! Smarter than Henry, smarter even than Francis, though of course without Francis'
appetites.”

“I saw Francis shot in the chest. Yet he lives.”

Mrs. Trapping stopped talking.

“I thought him dead,” Elöise said. “We all did—and drowned beneath the sea. But then there were signs, Charlotte, murders—innocent people, terrible attacks made to look like an animal. Then I saw him myself. He has poisoned himself to stay alive, and the only man who could cure him is dead. It is all hopeless. You must abandon this business. You must go home. You have other responsibilities. Francesca needs you, and Charles, and Ronald. They have no one else.”

Mrs. Trapping remained silent.

“I am sorry,” continued Elöise. “I know how… how… how—”

“Who shot him?”

Elöise's face fell. The woman had not heard a word.

“Charlotte—”

“Who shot my brother Francis?”

“It was Doctor Svenson,” said Elöise, heavily.

Mrs. Trapping stood up and emptied the whole of her tea mug into Elöise's face.

TAKING THIS as the best opportunity he might find, Cardinal Chang took the sill with both hands and vaulted through the window, shooting past the oilcloth to land in a crouch. Charlotte Trapping wheeled to face him, quite obviously wishing she had not just emptied her cup on such a lesser target. Vandaariff stood as well, but this was in mere imitation of the woman, for the man did nothing other than stare as Chang rose, the razor slipped from his pocket.

“It is Cardinal Chang,” said Elöise quickly, her face wet, taking a warning step toward Mrs. Trapping.

“Is he your lover as well?”

“Charlotte, come away from the window.”

Elöise gently reached both hands for Mrs. Trapping's arm, but at her touch the woman sharply shrugged herself free.

“So you are the one who killed that odious Comte,” Charlotte Trapping cried to Chang, her eyes bright and glittering. “I daresay it has saved me the effort, and yet the
timing
has proven most unfortunate. Ought I to be frightened by your fearsome appearance? I am
not
. What do you intend with that implement?” She nodded at the razor.

Chang looked at his hand as if he had not known what it held. “This? I suppose I hold it out of instinct—like an animal. Or because I do not choose to share the fate of Doctor Svenson.” Chang kicked Mrs. Trapping's chair across the room with enough force to make both women flinch. “You will sit down until I tell you otherwise.”

The women did so, Elöise moving hastily to right the chair and brush off the seat. Chang watched with disgust, wondering what could possibly drive her to abandon the Doctor, who had saved her life, in favor of an
employer
. He turned to Vandaariff, still standing with an expression of blank concern.

“Sit down, Lord Robert.”

Vandaariff did. Chang plucked the tea mug from the man's grasp and drank it down, then handed the mug back with a nod of thanks.

“I think you
are
an animal—” began Charlotte Trapping.

“Be quiet,” growled Chang, and turned to Elöise. “Where is Miss Temple?”

“How on earth are you here?”

“Dry your face and answer my question.”

“Elöise, do not tell this man one thing.”

Chang shot out his hand and slashed Mrs. Trapping's jacket— trusting the razor would not cut through the whalebone in her corset— clean across her torso, causing the blue fabric to hang, the gash made before the woman could even squeak.

“Do not speak again until I am asking questions of
you
. I promise, we
will
talk, for I have spoken to your brother. Elöise?”

Elöise looked into Chang's black lenses for the first time since his entry, her gaze grim and beaten.

“I left Miss Temple at the town of Karthe. We became separated. We had quarreled. The Contessa was there, and Francis Xonck. If you have truly seen him—”

“I have seen him.”

“I believe he took me for the Contessa. He attacked me, with a sliver of glass.”

“Elöise,” muttered Charlotte Trapping,
“really.”

But Elöise had already pried free the third button down between her breasts, and pulled the fabric open with her hands. Chang saw the bandage, and its coin-sized stain of blood.

“The Doctor found me—”

“What was Svenson doing in Karthe?”

“I have no idea. He left the fishing village not long after you yourself… we had quarreled—”

“Elöise quarrels with
everyone,”
whispered Mrs. Trapping.

“When I woke I was on the train. The Doctor removed the glass. He saved my life.”

“Again,” said Chang.

“Again,”
echoed Elöise, miserably.

“I found him rather
weedy,”
whispered Mrs. Trapping.

“Charlotte,
please
!” cried Elöise, her voice a whisper.

“Francis Xonck was also on that train,” said Chang.

Mrs. Trapping looked up.

“And the Contessa,” sighed Elöise, “hiding in a freight car. When the train stopped at Parchfeldt, she fled and the Doctor and I went to find her. The last we saw, Francis was bent double on the trackside, sick as a sailor. The Contessa escaped into the park. Abelard insisted that we follow.”

“And what of you? Did you want to follow?”

“I believe I more wanted to die,” sighed Elöise, and she covered her face with both hands.

CHANG LOOKED down at the unhappy Elöise, whose dismay only inflamed his desire to cuff her face. Instead, he stepped to the bound bundle. He flicked the razor at the blanket and then ripped enough of an opening to see the vivid colors of the painted canvas beneath it. Charlotte Trapping had gone to Harschmort, burned the laboratory, taken the paintings, and captured Robert Vandaariff all by herself. He had taken her for a society ninny. He glanced up and met her fierce, determined gaze—the green eyes unpleasantly like her brother's— and recalled Xonck's story, that the second child had inherited the intelligence of their powerful father. From the conversation he had just overheard he knew she was whimsical, cruel, and insufferably proud—that she was here at all proved her bravery and determination … and that she was a Xonck meant she was also probably insane.

But he was not finished with Elöise Dujong.

“Where is the Doctor now?” he demanded, harshly.

“We left him at my uncle's cottage.”

“Struck on the head,” added Mrs. Trapping.

“He will be safe,” said Elöise quickly. “The cottage is warm and there is food and firewood and a bed—Lord knows he deserves an excuse to let all of this go, to let me go.”