Dark Season (24 page)

After last night, everything had changed for him, and nothing. He had risen from that stinking river with Ella in his arms. He had temporarily lost the power of speech and had poured forth into her ear the primal sounds that continued the world’s music, no words, but a guttural crooning, letting her know she was not alone. And if
she
wasn’t alone, then
he
wasn’t alone either. She was with him. He was with her. It was simple. It was profound and transformative and shook the foundations of his being. He’d knelt beside her on the shore, waiting for her to open her eyes,
needing
her to open her eyes. When she did, the exultation he felt was near to violence. A ferocious joy the likes of which he had never known.

The first word she had said, before her eyes focused:
Robert.

He stamped his feet to bruise them out of numbness, to vent his rage and self-loathing. Robert, she’d said, a hoarse cry, rough with longing. He was a fool, a fool to have felt the name like a blow, and later, after he’d nearly boiled himself alive in his bath, a fool not to have locked himself in his room and waited out the hours until morning. Instead, he’d gone to her. He’d buried his face on her lap and felt as though the chambers of his heart were leaking. He’d had to ask her, needed to know if she’d meant it, to know if, when she’d climbed up on that wall overlooking the river, she had courted destruction, and she had guessed it then. His darkest suspicion. More than suspicion. It was the certainty that had hounded him across the globe.

He had forced Phillipa into death’s open arms.

She didn’t guess the sordid details, of course, but now she would wonder.
Why did she jump? Why would Phillipa have jumped?
If she needed fodder for her spiritualist antics, for blackmail, he had given her plenty. Five years ago, he had closed everything inside him, set seals upon his heart, and now, this woman, this stranger, was opening them one by one.

Part of his mind whispered to him that he should trust her
.
Trust her even though circumstances told against her. But
she had no connections he could verify, no one who would attest to her identity. She had adduced no evidence to exonerate herself from Lizzie’s charges. She hadn’t even attempted to deny them.

That irrational part of him countered, seductive, insistent:
Trust
yourself
then.
What facts could he collect that would weigh heavier in the balance than his own impressions? She was intelligent, courageous, stubborn, intuitive, awkward, shy, beautiful. She made him want to talk, to invent stories just to amuse or soothe her, to tell her things he’d never told anybody. She made him want to throw caution to wind, dismiss every rational measure, and rely on his instinct to guide him. His
animal
instinct, which would guide him straight into her bed.
Christ.
Before he did anything else, he needed to talk to Clement. Get another perspective.

At last the door opened. Jenkins let him into the hall and took his coat, hat, and gloves. Isidore rubbed his hand across his roughened jaw. He hadn’t shaved. Or eaten.

“Is Lord St. Aubyn at breakfast?” He started for the breakfast room. Clement

always breakfasted from half nine to half ten.

“No, my lord.” Jenkins intercepted him.

“He isn’t out?” Isidore studied the butler’s face. Clement was a creature of habit. At ten a.m., he wouldn’t move from
The Times
and two eggs soft-boiled if the house were on fire.

“No, my lord.”

Was it his imagination, or had Jenkins the Expressionless grimaced?

“Well, where is he then?”

Jenkins hesitated. Something thudded above them. Isidore glanced up then at Jenkins, eyebrow raised.

Jenkins sighed. “I believe you’ll find him in the library, my lord. I’ll send up a tray. Perhaps … ” He hesitated again. “It would do him good if you could convince him to eat.”

It was unlike Jenkins to offer a comment that could so nearly be described as opinion. Foreboding made Isidore’s jaw clench.
What now?
He climbed the stairs, silent as a prowler.

Most libraries smelled like … well, libraries. Leather and vellum and wax and dust. Isidore’s nostrils flared as he pushed open the door. Turpentine. There was a large canvas on the easel silhouetted against the south-facing window, an enormous Venetian window, rain streaking the panes. He listened at the threshold for movement, breathing. Nothing. Just the muted sound of the rain.

“Clement?”

He stepped into the room. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the west wall. Smaller, glass-fronted cabinets flanked the fireplace with its curving marble surround, scrolling rosettes supported by acanthus-leaf corbels. Coals glowed in the iron grate.

“Clem?”

He walked over to the center table, the surface piled with papers and books. A delicate, hand-stitched volume lay open to a vividly colored print: a man, naked, heavy flesh marbled blue, eyes staring, mouth open. A man flaming in hell. He turned the pages. A naked man unhorsed, he and his mount upside down, falling together into fire. Isidore’s eyes skimmed the words.

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

He lifted one heavy sheet, then another. He came to a page densely scripted; little drawings interspersed the words, washed with blue.

Proverbs of Hell

He closed the volume. Clement’s tastes had changed. Once it had been
The Annual of British Landscape Scenery
that lay thumbed open on the table.
Isidore
was the one who’d loved Blake.

He sifted through an adjacent stack of engravings, a wolf-like beast rendered by many different hands. Now it stood in profile, leering with red lips. Now it leapt from the trees at peasants who ran toward their hayricks, arms stretched out. Now it crouched atop a woman, open jaws prepared to fix on her neck.

“The beast of Gevaudan.”

Isidore let the print drop.

“You have quite a collection,” he said. He turned toward the voice. Clement was slouched in a leather chair in the far corner of the room. He wore the evening dress he’d worn the night before at Tenby’s, minus the cravat. His coat was spattered with crimson blood.

Isidore almost started.
Paint.
It was only paint. Blood didn’t stand out on black fabric, thick and red. Blood darkened. Blood dried and flaked away like rust. The blood in Phillipa’s hair had turned sticky, then, quickly, so quickly, it had stiffened. Her black curls had swallowed any hint of its color.

Clement laughed. He tapped his head.

“The beasts are in here,” he said. His voice was thick. “My friend.” He laughed again. “Go ’way,” he called at the footman’s knock.

Isidore frowned. “Put the tray on the lamp table.” He waved the footman toward the marble-topped table. He rocked back and forth on his heels, studying Clement, until the servant had positioned the tray and made his hasty departure. There was a bottle of whisky standing by Clement’s left foot.

“You didn’t leave much for breakfast.”

Clement tracked the direction of Isidore’s glance to the bottle and smiled thinly.

“Didn’t know I’d have guests.” He knuckled his eyes. “It’s early for you, isn’t it, Sid?”

“Early or late. I don’t know.” Isidore approached him slowly. “The days and nights have been running together.” An album lay on the floor to the side of the chair. Clement must have knocked it off the arm. Isidore went and picked it up.
Los Caprichos.

“Goya?” He lifted his brows. “I remember you preferring Girtin. More hills and clouds. More topography, less torment. Herbs, not hobgoblins.”

“Don’t push me, Sid.” Clement’s voice was strained. He had a faint golden shimmer of stubble on his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot.

“No, of course not.” Subdued, Isidore handed Clement the album. They didn’t know how to be easy with each other anymore. Clement accepted the album with indifference. He had paint on his knuckles. Isidore resisted the urge to look toward the easel. He would wait for an invitation. He and Clement had always respected each other’s privacy. That was part of why they’d been able to share so much.

Not even Clement.
Those had been Phillipa’s words when she swore him to secrecy.
Sid, promise me. No one can know.

He sniffed the air. “There’s ham on that tray.” He walked over to it. “Toast?” he asked. He carried the tray back to Clement, resting it on the windowsill. Clement ignored the proffered round of bread, sinking further into the chair. Isidore had seen Clement worse for drink hundreds of times, but never quite like this. Never slouching and sullen. Usually alcohol intensified his fastidiousness. Made him enunciate his words like an Oxford don and walk as though he followed a chalked line.

“You left before I could talk to you last night.” Isidore leaned his hip against the wall, buttering the toast. He folded a piece of ham on top. The explanation for Clement’s odd behavior had to lie in the exchange he’d interrupted.

“What did Ella say to you? You looked … ”
As though you’d seen a ghost.
He took a bite of ham and toast. Crunching the hard crust of the bread with his molars, he felt a twinge of pain. He swallowed. “You looked as though the conversation was not agreeable.”

“Ella?” Clement lifted his chin from his chest and tried to focus his eyes. “You use her given name?”

Isidore placed his toast carefully on a plate. He was conscious of a strange, nervous energy thrilling through him.

“After the party, we became … better acquainted.”
I knocked her into the Thames, dragged her to shore, carried her half a mile in my arms, cut off her boots in my coach, and gained an intimate knowledge of her toes. Her toes, by the by, are beautiful.
He took a breath. “I will lay the whole matter before you. Your opinion will be very valuable to me as I decide my course of action.”

“Get rid of her.” Clement lurched out of the chair, and
Los Caprichos
fell again to the floor. “You want my opinion? There it is. Send her away. Give her money if that’s what it takes. Buy her a cabin on a steamer to America if you can and be done with it.”

Isidore felt an icy wave rippling through him. The chill creeping out.

“Tell me what she said to you.”

Clement staggered forward. His arms wrapped Isidore’s throat. Isidore’s hands twitched, but he did not strike. He stood motionless. Clement’s weight pulled his neck down, and he tensed his muscles, standing straight, allowing Clement to hang from him, half strangling, half embracing. Clement smelled like turpentine, liquor, sweat. Isidore pushed him, gently, and Clement released his hold. He stepped back, and Isidore saw that he was crying, soundlessly, tears coursing down his cheeks.

Isidore had never seen a grown man cry. He couldn’t bear to look in Clement’s face. He turned away and stared blindly at the wall of books. Clement touched his shoulder.

“Let me show you my nightmare,” he said.

Isidore followed him to the easel. The room felt cold as a tomb, but maybe it wasn’t the room.
He
was cold as a tomb. All of his organs had turned to ice.

Clement kicked away the oilcloth he’d laid over the floorboards. He stood to the side of the canvas, turned away from it, facing Isidore. His cheeks were livid and tear-tracked. Isidore glanced at him. He let his eyes slide over the canvas and rested his gaze on the rain-streaked window. He didn’t know how long he stared at the thin panes of glass.

He was afraid. He was afraid of Clement’s tears. He was afraid of the paint drying there on the canvas. He had faced every kind of brutality with unflinching calm, and these little, harmless things—a few drops of salty water; crushed pigments—threatened to undo him.

Finally, he forced his eyes back to the canvas. The brush strokes were small. The colors jewel-bright. A beast on a balcony loomed over a young woman in a black-and-red gown. The glazed black of the night sky contrasted sharply with the white marble of the courtyard beyond the balcony. The light that spilled through the French doors glossed the beast’s black fur, the young woman’s black hair. The beast was on its hind legs, like a man, wore trousers like a man, and a waistcoat. Its furry chest split its white shirt wide open. The feet were furry, tipped with cruel claws. The claws on the furry hands were crueler; they dangled over the woman, ready to tear her to ribbons. The beast had a lupine face, rapacious jaws. One of its pricked ears was notched. Its eyes were blue.

His mouth had gone dry.

“I could show you more. I have a dozen of them.” Clement stepped beside him and examined the painting. “The beast changes. Wolf. Ape. Bat. Donkey.” He laughed, a harsh sound, almost a sob. “Its eyes are the same.”

“What does this mean?” Isidore was trembling. The cold, he couldn’t fight it.

“Isidore.” Clement’s voice was steady now. Isidore felt physical relief as he tore his gaze from the hideous beast, the terrified girl, but Clement’s hectic face provided no comfort. His sea-green eyes shone, the whites threaded with red veins. “I found her. I found her on the balcony. Her skull … ”

The cold had numbed everything. He couldn’t feel his limbs. He didn’t trust himself to move. Didn’t know if he
could
move. He listened to his own voice as though a stranger were speaking. It was a stranger who said the words with such calm.

“I don’t understand you.” As though it were an abstract point of logic they were discussing, or a mathematical equation.

“I heard you fighting. I heard her tell you that she was running away to Paris.”

Isidore said nothing. His frozen organs had stopped his blood. How long before his eyes would frost over? He saw white light at the corners of his vision.

Clement’s features were unrecognizable. Contorted by his inner struggle as he formed the words.

“She was not … faithful to you. She was breaking the engagement. She was leaving you for a lover. I heard you threaten her. She screamed at you. She was hysterical. I couldn’t listen. It was wrong of me to stay as long as I did. I went downstairs. I thought you’d come down, and when you didn’t, I went back up. I couldn’t find you. The balcony doors were open. I went onto the balcony. Oh God.”