Deanna Raybourn - The Dark Enquiry

Aquinas kept an enquiring look fixed upon Brisbane, who flicked me a quelling glance.

“If my lady so much as opens the door to her bedchamber, you have my permission to use force to restrain her.”

“Brisbane! Aquinas, ignore him. He does not mean it,” I assured him.

Brisbane rounded on me, and I saw the rage, barely restrained within him. “Do. Not. Try. Me,” he managed through gritted teeth.

Before I could reply, he stalked past Aquinas, dragging me along and up the stairs until we reached the bedchamber. Morag was there, laying out my nightdress.

“Out,” Brisbane ordered. It was a mark of his bad temper that he should speak to her so. He was usually gentle as a lamb with Morag, treating her with better courtesy than he did most society ladies. She started, dropping my nightdress onto the floor.

“Judas,” I muttered as she bent to retrieve it. She put her tongue out at me as she fled, banging the door sharply behind her.

Brisbane towed me as far as the bed, where he dropped me as if I weighed no more than a feather. I blinked up at him and he braced his hands upon the bedposts, clenching so hard his knuckles turned white and I heard the bones cracking.

He leaned forward, the crescent-moon scar on his cheekbone standing out in livid relief against the smooth olive of his skin. I had never seen his eyes so fathomlessly dark, so implacable. Usually Brisbane’s temper was cold, his rages controlled, but this night, he burned with it, the heat of his anger fairly radiated from him, scorching me where I sat.

“I do not know where to begin,” he ground out. “I have never lifted a hand to you in anger, but you must know what it is costing me not to beat you within an inch of your life.”

“Brisbane,” I began, my tone deliberately soothing.

I reached a hand and he shied as if I had burned him. “Do not think to wheedle me. I have been soft with you, Julia. I have looked past deeds other men would have whipped you for and I have laughed. I have allowed you to take chances that might well have got you killed, and this is the coin with which you choose to repay me.”

“Do not say that,” I protested. “I have taken every precaution to preserve my safety. And the chances I take are nothing compared to the risks you collect! And do not attempt to turn this back upon me when you have lied to me,” I flung.

It was a hit, a palpable one, for he rocked back. “What do you mean?”

“My brother called upon you, and you gave me a lie when I asked if you had seen him. You cannot deplore my subterfuges when you force me to employ them,” I explained calmly. It was a gambit only. I pretended to coolness so he could not see how deeply his emotion had affected me. If he had pressed his anger just a moment further, my poise would have deserted me, of that I had no doubt. I had no skill for anger. My father was a gentle soul, whose occasional bad moods were something his children laughed about. My previous husband had given me a taste of violence and I had found it completely unnerved me. Until this moment, Brisbane’s rages were something that excited me. To arouse passion, of any sort, in a man like Brisbane felt like an accomplishment.

But this was no accomplishment, I realised as I saw the naked anguish in his eyes. He dropped his hands from the bedposts.

“I gave him my word,” he said simply, each word bitten off sharply.

“I have no doubt of it, and it is to your credit that you kept it. But I am no child to be cossetted and protected from everything that is dark and dangerous. If you cannot tell me the truth, at least own that you cannot and do not lie to me! I would not have liked it if you had told me you were bound to silence, but I would have respected it.”

Derision twisted his lip. “Now who gives a lie? You would have done precisely the same as you did tonight if I had given you half an answer. Do not deny it.”

I nibbled at my lip. He was, of course, correct. If I had known he was investigating on behalf of Bellmont, it would have made no difference. I would have acted the same as when I believed Brisbane himself was in danger.

“Perhaps you are correct,” I conceded.

“Perhaps?” One brow arched in enquiry. I did not rise to it. I merely dropped my head and contemplated the toes of my boots.

“I did not mean to frighten you,” I said softly. “I never imagined things would go so far. I only thought to follow you and be at hand if you had need of me.”

He cocked his head. “Because you believed I was in trouble.”

“A point which caused you no end of amusement when we were in the materialising cabinet,” I pointed out.

“It does not seem quite so funny now,” he commented. “But that was before that stupid French charlatan got herself killed.”

He was calmer now, the heat of his anger cooling just a bit. I ventured a question.

“Why could nothing be done for her? It was so dreadful just watching her die.”

He fixed me with a curious look, and I saw something there that told me his anger was not quite so cool as I thought.

“You found that dreadful, and yet you still question my wisdom in excluding you from such things? I have seen a thousand uglier deeds than that, my dear, and I carry memories that would turn the sanity of any man. Yet still you defy me.”

“I do not know what to say.” I spread my hands. “The situation was not at all what I expected, but neither I think was it entirely to your expectations,” I ventured carefully. “You did not look to Madame to be murdered tonight.”

“But I knew it was a possibility,” he said evenly.

“And you could not prevent it?” Too late, I heard the note of horrified accusation in my voice.

He stared at me a long minute, his emotions now carefully held in check, his expression as neutral as a chess king.

“Some people do not deserve to be saved,” he replied.

I said nothing, for there was nothing to say.

After a moment, he roused himself and shot his cuffs. “I am going out. You will remain here. I want your word upon it.”

There was no purpose in fighting with him. I was thoroughly exhausted, in mind and body. I wanted nothing more than a hot bath and my bed.

“You have it.”

He regarded me closely. “If you break it, I will keep you here by force the next time, if I have to tie you to the bed myself.”

I did not think even for a moment that he might have been jesting. I licked my lips and nodded. He did not kiss me goodbye, but crossed the room, pausing with his hand upon the knob.

“I am surprised at you,” he added as a parting shot. “You have seen someone die of aconite poisoning once before. Did you not recognise the symptoms?”

He did not wait for a reply. He left, and to his credit, he did not lock me in. He did not have to. I lay on the bed, utterly spent, considering all that we had said and done that night. It did not make for a very edifying inventory, I realised. We had been cruel to each other, each of us lashing out from our own fears until we drew blood from the other. Brisbane’s last remark was particularly barbed. My first husband had died as a result of aconite poisoning, and although it was unkind of him to point it out, he was correct. I ought to have seen it.

Madame had been lavishly sick shortly after eating. She had the same pallor as Edward had, the same convulsions. But I wondered. Many poisons could create a similar effect, some of them quite accidentally administered. Was there a chance Madame had met with her fate unintentionally? But Brisbane had been certain she had been killed with a purpose, and his remark that she did not deserve to live had not been delivered apropos of nothing. He had been uncharacteristically vicious in his speech, but not his thinking. He would have had a good reason for his opinion of Madame, but I had seen nothing in her séance or her conversation with her sister to indicate what evil she might entertain.