It was dangerous to entrust him with anything besides the month he’d asked for. But then, her tastes ran to danger. Perhaps that was why she tossed her heart his way without a protest.
“You did that for me,” she said, as he handed her out of the carriage.
“If you think I put you up against a wall and had you without my own self-interest being engaged, you’ve a great deal to learn about men.” He opened her front door.
He made it sound almost vulgar. But he’d thought about her. About what she wanted. What she needed. It wasn’t the act itself that made her heart feel so tender; it was the care he’d put into it. As if she were somehow precious to him.
“It wouldn’t mean the same thing if you did it here,” she said.
“We can test that.”
She swatted at his hand. “Don’t. Don’t try to make something sweet and beautiful into something tawdry.”
Silence. Then: “There’s nothing tawdry about you, Miranda.” He paused, just that tiny amount. “Darling.” His arms came around her in the dark. It was an embrace—one without heat or want, just care. Affection. Love, even if he wouldn’t say it, and wouldn’t want it said. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close. She held that fluttering sense of new emotion close as well.
She loved him. How could she not?
And then she heard a rustle down the hall. The parlor door opened, and a small head poked out from behind it.
“Miranda?” The voice was rough with sleep, but shaking with terror.
“Robbie.” She let go of Smite. “Robbie, what are you doing here?”
He stepped out into the dim light of the entry and looked up at her. He had dark circles under his eyes. “Miranda,” he said, “I think someone is trying to kill me.”
Chapter Seventeen
“KILL YOU?” MIRANDA SAID. “What makes you think that?”
Robbie hunched. The bony points of his shoulders jutted out beneath his coat, an eloquent statement of his discomfort. But as eloquent as his expression was, it still was not an answer to her question.
“Robbie, please,” she said. “I want to help. Just talk to me.” And consider using actual words.
Beside her, Smite gave her a short shake of his head, and a look. She was probably doing everything wrong again—and here she’d thought, over the last two Sabbaths when he’d visited, that they were getting beyond that—but at least Robbie had come to her when he needed help. That counted for something, did it not?
Smite rang the bell, and when the maid came, he called for a blanket, a glass of warm milk, and a plate of sweet biscuits. While he did so, Miranda bustled them all back into the parlor to sit by the fire.
The maid didn’t ask what Robbie was doing there. It occurred to Miranda, rather belatedly, that she didn’t need to explain herself to the servants. The woman came back in short order with a tray.
Smite gestured. “Those ones, with the sugar on top—they’re quite good.”
Robbie needed no further encouragement. He reached out and took one in each hand. Before she could protest—or even convince him to chew—he’d inhaled first one, and then the other, and was eyeing the still-full plate with zeal.
“Hard to gather thoughts on an empty stomach,” Smite said. “Don’t worry about how you say things, or what order you tell the story in. If I don’t understand something, I’ll ask questions. Just tell us what you know.”
He was watching Robbie carefully. It was easy to forget that he did this sort of thing on a regular basis: asked questions, and tried to piece together what had happened. She hadn’t imagined that Smite was the sort of person who could put anyone at ease. But Robbie slouched into the cushions of the sofa and took another biscuit.
“I want you to think back. When was the first time you realized that something might be amiss?”
“This afternoon, when—no.” Robbie stopped. “Mid-morning, Mr. Allen said his ring had gone missing.”
“What sort of ring was it?”
Robbie frowned. “Gold?”
“A wedding band?”
“I guess.” Robbie frowned. “He wore it here.” He pointed to his ring finger. “Except when he worked. He takes it off to work. He asked us to keep an eye out for it, but I forgot about that, because somebody dropped a hammer on my head.”
Miranda winced. But Smite simply reached forward and rubbed his hand in Robbie’s hair. “You’ve a bit of a lump,” he reported. “Nothing serious.”
Miranda resisted the urge to report that men had been known to keel over after simple blows to the head. By the look on Robbie’s face, it wouldn’t have helped.
“Who dropped the hammer?”
“Don’t know.” Robbie shrugged. “It hurt too much at first to look.”
“Can you make a guess?”
“Could have been almost anyone. There was a crew working above me.” He cast Smite a defiant glance. “Besides, I didn’t want to fuss over it like a baby.”
“Naturally.” Smite waited, and Robbie took another biscuit. It vanished as swiftly as its predecessors; Robbie washed it down with a hefty swallow of milk.
“Half an hour before the dinner bell, a crane came loose. It swung across the deck. Knocked me clean off my feet and into the water.”
Beside her Smite had tensed. “How far above the water was the deck?”
Robbie shrugged. “Twenty feet?”
“You…you can swim, can’t you?”
“A little. Hard part was getting out of the water. The nearest stairs were on the north wall, and when you’re neck-deep in water you can’t see them.” Robbie’s nose wrinkled. “They had to send a boat for me.”
Smite stood. He picked up a biscuit himself and passed it from hand to hand. His breath was a bit ragged, and Miranda suspected that he had his own memories of water to contend with. But after a few minutes he turned back to Robbie.
“I hope you weren’t too cold,” was all he said.
“Freezing,” Robbie reported. “And everyone ribbed me.” He frowned, as if that was more disturbing than attempted murder. “They sent me back to my bunk to change into something dry.” Robbie reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled twist of paper. “That’s when I found this.”
He passed it over to Smite, who untwisted the paper. As he did, a worn gold ring fell out. Smite caught it midair, and then glanced at the containing foolscap. His eyebrow raised, and he handed the message to Miranda.
The paper held words written in a spidery hand—one that she recognized from the last note she’d received. And the message… Tell her that it will be you innstead, it said. She needs to come speak with me.
“The Patron is a poor speller,” Smite noted.
Miranda lifted the paper to her nose and inhaled. There was a faint scent of stale tobacco smoke. It could have meant anything, but… “The Patron smokes a pipe,” she said. “But no. It’s possible the Patron didn’t write this himself.”
“If they thought I stole the ring, they’d hang me, wouldn’t they?” Robbie whispered.
Smite gave a slight shrug of his shoulder.
“You’re staying with me,” Miranda said flatly. “You’re not to leave this house, hear?”
“I have to leave.” Robbie hunched deeper into the cushions. “It’s a crime to desert an apprenticeship. Besides, I can hardly stay here forever.”
“You can’t go back out there.” Miranda stared at the paper. “Or I have to—” Her eyes darted away and met Smite’s briefly.
His expression was frozen in hard contemplation. “It’s not any kind of life either of you will live, hidden away inside a building.” He frowned. “Robbie, how did you get in here? I sincerely doubt the maids would have let you simply take up residence in the parlor upon application.”
Robbie looked sheepish. “I, uh, I picked the lock. It’s easy enough. You just need a hairpin, and you slide the tumblers up and to the right.”
“Don’t tell me where you learned that.” Miranda put her head in
her hands.
“Joey,” Robbie offered anyway.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Miranda said. “I’m not worth the bother. The Patron has plenty of other minions. He’s going to extraordinary lengths to get my attention. Why?”
Smite stalked across the room to the window. They’d not lit any lamps in the room, but he pulled the curtains shut, regardless. “Does it matter? You’re not safe here.” His gaze swept the room, encompassing both Miranda and Robbie in that sweeping statement.
Robbie spoke first. “So what do we do?”
Smite looked at Robbie. “You’ll have to leave Bristol.”
Robbie’s eyes jerked down. “Why?” He swallowed. “By myself? Am I…am I going to another apprenticeship? Because I don’t really mind when Mr. Allen clouts me over the head. Aren’t they going to force me to come back?”
“No,” Smite said. “It’s only a crime to leave when you abscond without permission. That can be obtained easily enough. This will be somewhere temporary. Secure.”
“A prison?” Robbie gulped.
“A home in the country.” Smite turned.
“It’s an orphanage.” Robbie stared at the wall, his spine rigid. “A place for unwanted children.”
“No,” Smite said softly. “Not an orphanage. I’m taking you to my brother. He’ll enjoy having you. He might not want you to leave.”
“Likely, I’ll have to fight him to give you up,” Miranda added.
Robbie lowered his head.
“Can you consent to that?” Smite asked.
There was a long pause. And then, Robbie gave a bit of a shrug. “I guess,” he said.
Smite took this equivocation in stride. He simply nodded. “We’ll leave in the morning.” He glanced at the curtained windows. “I’ll be here all night, to make sure you’re safe.”
“You’re…you’re staying the night?” Miranda asked.
He glanced at her, perhaps understanding what she was intimating. He gave her a slow shake of his head. “Not as you might think. I won’t be sleeping.”
THE FIRST FEW HOURS were not so awful. Smite called for pen and paper and sent off a series of instructions—a long one to his solicitor, a shorter note to his clerk, and a brief query to the shipwright to whom Robbie was apprenticed. But he hesitated a good long while before he started the last communication.
Ash—
I will be unable to attend you tomorrow evening. I have been called out of town on urgent business.
He found himself drawing in the margins and staring at the still mostly blank sheet of paper, not knowing how to go on without making things worse between them.
Undoubtedly, you will hear that my urgent business is with Mark. I can only imagine how that will seem to you—my abandoning our time together, in favor of visiting him. I beg you not to enlarge upon it.
I will return the day after tomorrow, and if it is convenient, I will wait upon you at noon.
He paused once more. In years past, he’d received letters from his brother. They had all been written entirely in his secretary’s hand, save for the complimentary closing. That alone had been scrawled in Ash’s scarcely intelligible script. When he’d been younger, he’d thought it had been negligence on his brother’s part—that he’d been too busy to even compose his own letters. He’d only learned what those additions had meant to his brother years later. Writing did not come easily to Ash.
Sometimes, he felt that the gulf between him and Ash was unbridgeable. But if it could be spanned by anything, maybe it was those few words Ash had always offered in closing.
And so now, he finished as carefully as possible.
All my love,
Smite.
He blotted the ink dry and then passed this, too, to the maid to seal and deliver.
Responses started to return to his inquiries. Some were long; others were quite short. It was hours before Ash’s reply arrived.
Be well.
—Ash
He’d written it out entirely by himself. He wouldn’t have taken that trouble if he were irreparably angry. Smite drew a deep sigh of relief.
He imagined that Miranda must have gone to bed by now. But when he wandered down the hall to her room, he found her oil lamp burning at the dimmest setting. She sat on the edge of the lace coverlet and stared at the wall.
“Miranda Darling,” he said, as sternly as he could manage. “You ought to be asleep.”
He ought to be watching her.
She turned to him and gave him a wan smile. “Do you suppose I’ll see Robbie again?”
“I’m sure of it.” He sat next to her on the bed and pulled her into his embrace.
He didn’t think she had followed what he had said to its logical conclusion. If Robbie had to be sent away from Bristol, so did Miranda. And if Miranda went…
This had been inevitable, since the day he’d kissed her.
He could recall that moment now. The luminous look of her eyes. The quiver in her voice. Kiss me, he’d said, and make it worse.
He’d not realized then how bad it was going to be. When Miranda left, he would be alone. He had known this was coming. He hadn’t expected it to be so soon.
“He needs to know that I’m not leaving him,” Miranda said. “He’s been left so many times. I’ve never been a parent to him, but I’m all that he has.”
“He’ll know,” Smite said. “He’ll know because you’ll tell him. And then you’ll write to him, and when it’s safe, you’ll come and get him.”
Smite felt a tug of wistful envy. She’d come back to Bristol to see Robbie; of course she would. Maybe he could get Robbie to tell him how she fared over the years. Years. Robbie would meet her husband. Her children.
His fist clenched around the coverlet.
“Will you take me to visit him?” Miranda asked. “While he’s there.”
It took Smite a moment to realize that she was still talking about Robbie. His fist clenched even further and he looked away. “No.”
Her breath rushed in.
“I don’t go to Shepton Mallet,” he finally offered.
“You’re going tomorrow, are you not?”
He shut his eyes. He hadn’t been back to Shepton Mallet since he and Mark had escaped, all those years ago. It had been decades, now, and still he felt that cold chill creep over him.
“Tomorrow,” he said more to himself than to her, “it can’t be helped. What can’t be helped must be tolerated.”
He didn’t know whether seeing Miranda in his childhood home would make the place bearable, or if it would taint his memories of her forever.
“That hardly sounds auspicious,” she said. “And you’re doing it for me. I might almost think that you tolerated me, too.” She was looking directly in his eyes as she spoke.
“Would you know,” he finally said, “I’ve hit the end of my sentimentality quota for the day.”
“How can that be? That’s the first remotely sentimental thing I’ve said tonight.”
“Yes, but…” But he’d been wallowing in sentiment all evening. “I’ve spent the last minutes memorizing you,” he finally said. He didn’t think that memory could capture the bright color of her hair, though, or the intelligent light in her eyes. Memory would never quite capture the luminous look she’d given him on the carriage ride home after the opera. Even a memory as clear as his couldn’t call back the precise feel of her seated next to him, or the texture of her fingers against his. And he never could recall scents once they’d gone.
He folded his arms and set aside the inevitability of the future. There was only the present. In the present, Miranda was here. Solid. Touchable. He held her close, breathing her in. She smelled like mint tea—sweet and cool. Calming.
He wouldn’t be able to hold the feel of her in his memory after she’d gone. Still, he could try.
SMITE HADN’T THOUGHT THROUGH what would happen when he arrived on his brother’s doorstep after a lengthy journey. His brother must have seen him arrive from the up
stairs window, because instead of waiting for him to be announced like a rational human being, Mark crashed through the door, his face utterly white. He grabbed hold of Smite’s arms before he’d had a chance to properly step down from the phaeton.
“Oh, God,” Mark said in urgent tones. “It’s Ash, isn’t it?”
“What about Ash?”
Mark shook him. “What’s wrong with Ash? Why are you here?”
Smite stared at his brother in confusion. His brother’s fingers gripped his arms all the more tightly. His blond hair seemed wild on the top of his head. His bare hands were stained in ink.
In fact, he’d smeared ink on Smite’s cuff.
It was easier to concentrate on his younger brother than to pay attention to his surroundings. Behind him, he could see the entryway of his childhood home. The door was clean and new, painted a bright blue in color. Mark had replaced the older front windows with clear, smooth glass, so that the entry shone with sunlight. It wasn’t the same house, he told himself.
But beneath the fading scent of the lavender that had been planted by the front entry, the house smelled the same. There was something about that peculiar combination of wood and stone that brought to mind old memories—as if the unquiet ghost of his mother still lingered.
“What the devil are you talking about?” he finally asked. “Nothing’s wrong with Ash. He was the picture of health, last I saw him.”
Mark let out a deep breath. He let go of Smite, but only long enough to punch his shoulder. “What were you thinking, scaring me like that? You never come here. Why else would you come, except to bear—oh.”
His gaze shifted behind Smite, landing on Robbie, who had climbed out of the hired phaeton.
“Oh,” he repeated, more stupidly this time. “I’d best get Jessica.”
Smite reached out and grabbed Mark’s cuff. “Wait.”
Miranda followed Robbie out of the conveyance. She adjusted the dark brown fabric of her traveling gown, and then glanced at Mark.
“You’ll never understand this,” Smite said his voice low, pitched for Mark’s ears only. “And you’ll never see the two of us together again. I want to introduce you.”