The Suffragette Scandal (The Brothers Sinister) (27 page)

I was born Edward Delacey. Marry me anyway?

Ha. There was no point even thinking about the matter.

Instead, as he had so often in the months since he’d met her, he tried to sketch her. His memory of her seemed as sharp as ever. Her eyes, mobile and intelligent. Her lips, sweet and smiling. He’d tried to draw all his memories: Free crouching next to him on the bank of the River Cam, opera glasses raised to her eyes. He’d attempted to capture her standing in the mews, the moonlight shifting across her skin.

His sketches never came out right. No matter what he did, how he tried, they were always missing some unknown element. He still didn’t know what it was. He put his notebook away in disgust.

But the letter that arrived from England early one July morning was not from Miss Marshall. Edward opened it curiously and then froze.

Mr. Clark,

This last week, the Honorable James Delacey sent not one letter mentioning Miss Marshall, but seven.

Sincerely,

A.

In the end, Edward didn’t even take time to answer any questions. The first letter he sent was in French.

July 6, 1877

M. Dubuque—

I’ll take thirty thousand francs for the metalworks after all. Five thousand in earnest money will do; we can arrange the rest at some later date. Correspond with my solicitor in London, please; the direction is below.

Clark

On his way out of town, he sent one last telegram.

FREE

WILL BE THERE IN THREE DAYS

EDWARD

“W
HAT ARE YOU DOING?
” Alvahurst hissed.

Edward shouldered past his brother’s secretary into the dark room beyond.

He had spent the last two days traversing France by rail, arranging passage across the Channel, and racing to London. Every hour that passed was an hour in which his brother could cause Free harm.

“You can’t come in here,” Alvahurst was saying. “We’ll wake my wife.”

“We’ll whisper,” Edward told him. “Or we could stand outside. It’s quite simple, Alvahurst. I need to know what Delacey wrote about Miss Marshall.”

Alvahurst rubbed bleary eyes and looked around the front room of the flat. There were, Edward noted, dozens of items that could be used as weapons. Alvahurst, however, didn’t reach for a one of them. Instead, he gestured to a chair next to the fireplace.

Edward sat next to the poker.

“You told me you’d never ask after the contents of the letters.” Alvahurst looked ridiculous, his limbs sticking out from a nightshirt and cap. He sounded even worse.

Edward had neither the time nor the patience to indulge him.

“I lied,” Edward said. “If you don’t tell me everything, I will go to James Delacey and tell him the truth. I have a letter in your own hand, in which you violate his confidences. How long will your employment last if Delacey discovers what you’ve done?”

Alvahurst winced. “But—”

“I have no time to be gentle,” Edward told him. “You knew the instant you took my money that you’d agreed to be my creature. We might have told some lies to each other during the negotiations, but we both knew what was happening. Now start acting like it.”

Alvahurst sighed, and then slowly, revealed what he knew.

When he’d finished, Edward frowned. “That makes no sense,” he said. “Even James is not so stupid. She’s been to gaol before. Another arrest will hardly make a difference, and she’ll be released—”

“Ah, that’s it,” the secretary said. “It’s not the imprisonment itself that he cares about, but what will happen once she’s held. The station has instructions not to release her. Her brother—the only one she knows who could raise a fuss—is abroad on some kind of a trip. When the sergeant there is finished with her, she’ll know how to keep her mouth shut. Do you know what can be done to someone in custody?”

A pool of dark fury rose up, threatening to choke Edward.

Oh, he knew. He definitely knew. The room receded around him. He held on to the arms of his chair, gripping them as he felt himself enveloped in dark, clammy fog.

Do you know what can be done to someone in custody?

Black water, thick and choking, so he could scarcely breathe. Pain that happened to someone else, someone who would believe anything to make it stop. He took a deep breath, shoving the memory away. All that had happened to Edward Delacey, and Edward Delacey scarcely existed any longer.

“So if that’s all you need to know,” Alvahurst was saying, “you might consider leaving before my wife wakes and asks what I’m doing.”

He was sitting in a darkened room, not in a black cellar. Still, Edward surreptitiously rubbed his right hand. “You’ve told me all I need.”

All that he needed, and yet still it was not enough. All he could do as Edward Clark was thwart his brother, plan by plan. He could spend the rest of his life bribing secretaries and blackmailing servants, and he’d only ever stay in one place.

Edward Delacey, on the other hand…

The thought made him feel almost feverish—that he could put on those old ideals, that old identity. Now
there
was an ill-fitting skin.

But if he didn’t…

You could do some good,
he heard Patrick saying.

Edward didn’t do good. He had to remember that, no matter how he might try to fool himself. He left the home of his brother’s secretary, feeling dizzy and nauseated. No matter how hard he tried, one day James would succeed in hurting Free.

Do you know what can be done to someone in custody?

Maybe his brother didn’t intend anything more than a talking-to. But after everything Edward had seen James do? He wasn’t willing to wager on it. He had to stop this now. Any way he could.

All this time, he’d kept himself away from her by reminding himself what he was. There was no future in being with him, and he refused to let himself lie and believe otherwise. Now, for the first time, it all became clear.

He could have her. He could keep her safe. And—best of all—once she discovered what he’d done, what he hadn’t told her…

He wouldn’t have to tell himself lies about the future they wouldn’t have. She’d get rid of him herself.

H
E ROUSED HIS SOLICITORS
at four.

At eight in the morning, Edward presented himself at Baron Lowery’s London home.

The man he was about to become should have knocked on the front door. But he had enough of his old self to him that he went back to the mews. He roused a groom, who went into the house. Ten minutes later, Patrick came out.

“Edward.” Patrick came forward, grabbing hold of his arms. “You didn’t tell me you were in England. How did you know I was in London?”

“I surmised as much from the newspaper,” Edward said, his voice low. “You see, Baron Lowery is on the Committee for Privileges, and they’re meeting in two days.”

Patrick looked at him. They both knew why the Committee was meeting. The Committee always met when a man made a request to join the House of Lords. They did the boring work of listening to the evidence detailing a man’s right to take his seat.

Three days ago was the seventh anniversary of Edward’s last official correspondence with his family. James had been waiting for precisely this moment.

“Are you…” Patrick’s eyes widened.

“I am,” Edward said. He felt sick to his stomach. “I won’t do any good—don’t give me that look—but at least I can stop him from doing harm.”

Patrick let out a long sigh. “I’ll get George,” he said.

It took fifteen minutes before Patrick came down again, accompanied by a man in robe and slippers. Baron Lowery took one look at Edward. His nose wrinkled.

“You.” That might have been disgust in Lowery’s voice. It might have been curiosity.

“Me.” Edward came forward. His heart was pounding. He thought back to his childhood—to the Harrow-educated accent he had once had, one that he’d done his best to lose over the years.

He recalled years of privilege that he’d shed over the course of a fortnight. He made himself stand straighter.

“We were not properly introduced when last we met,” Edward said. He sounded like a caricature of himself, a stuffy, upright little snob, someone who deserved to have the stuffing beat out of him.

But he held out his gloved hand expectantly to Baron Lowery.

“I told you that I was Edward Clark. But I was born Edward Delacey,” he said. “I’m not dead. And I’m the current Viscount Claridge.”

F
REE HAD KEPT
E
DWARD’S
confusing telegram—both so straightforward and so utterly baffling—in her pocket for the last few days, pulling it out at odd hours, until the cheap paper had begun to fray at the edges.

He was coming back. She’d always known he would return in his own time, and yet now that it was happening, she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it.

She was standing out of doors now, with Amanda by her side. Together, they contemplated the replacement cottage some fifty feet distant. It had been completed a mere two weeks ago.

The last months had erased all evidence of the fire she had fought with Edward. Grass had grown over charred marks; trees had been replanted, flowers put back in boxes. Her memories of that night were rather more permanent.

Edward was coming back. She smiled.

“We should paint the cottage white,” Amanda said. “One can never argue with white.”

Free frowned. “What’s the point of doing something that nobody can argue with? Don’t you think yellow would be nice?”

“You would say that.” Amanda smiled faintly. “Well, I’m with Aunt Violet half the time now. Maybe we can compromise on a stately gray.”

“Gray! No, anything but gray. Gray is nothing but a white that can’t make up its mind.”

To anyone else, it would have sounded like an argument. But Free understood it for what it truly was—a distraction. She’d shown Amanda the telegram, and Amanda must have known how nervous she was.

Behind them, the sun was high in the sky, and the press was running, a comforting clatter at this distance.

That was when she saw a man coming up the track from the university. He was walking in that swift, direct way of his, long strides, arms swinging. It took less than a second for Free to recognize Edward. She didn’t need to see his face; she knew him deep in her bones, as if something resonated between them across even this distance.

She had a brief moment of panic—what was she to do?—and then she remembered that she didn’t panic. Good to know that; her heart must be racing for some other reason.

“Free,” Amanda asked, “why have you turned bright red?”

“No reason,” she said rather stupidly, as he would arrive in the next few minutes, and her lie would be obvious.

Amanda, no fool herself, peered down the road. “Ah,” she said sagely. “There’s your Mr. Clark after all. Right on time.”

Free had only that one too-brief telegram to guide her expectations. She didn’t know why he’d come back, what he intended with her, or if he’d walk away again. She didn’t know if she should hope or despair.

She looked back in his direction. “Ha, is it? No. It can’t be. He’s seen me, and he hasn’t so much as lifted a hand in greeting. But then, I’ve seen him, and I haven’t…” That logic would get her nowhere.