Married to a Perfect Stranger (21 page)

It was a joyous, wholehearted laugh, the easiest she'd ever heard from her husband. And it went on, and on. Delighted, and a touch relieved, she joined in.

John pointed at the image. “The hair,” he gasped and went off again. He laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes.

Mary laughed along with him, delighted by this evidence that her drawings could make him happy as well as cause trouble.

It was quite a while before John's mirth finally ran down, reduced to occasional chuckles. “I didn't know you drew caricatures,” he said.

“I don't. I didn't. I suppose it was something about the conversation tonight…”

“The way he holds out the hat…” Laughter overtook John again. “How I wish I could hang that in my office for all to see,” he said when he'd recovered again. “Can we even show Conolly, I wonder?” He shook his head. “Far too tempting for him. How he would relish it, though.”

“I won't keep it,” Mary replied.

“No, you must. We'll take it out when we feel low and laugh again.” He grew more serious. “Don't show it to anyone else, though.”

Mary nodded. Did he think she would be rushing out to show off her drawings, after the last time? “You said you'd found something?” she asked, pointing at the sheet of paper in his hand.

John looked down and seemed surprised to find it there. “Oh, yes. This…diagram was on my desk. Is it yours?”

Mary took it. “No, Arthur did this. It shows the workings of a steam engine.”

“It does?” He gazed at the nest of lines scrawled over the page. “Why was it in my room?”

“He wanted to show it to you. I forgot.” She'd been preoccupied with her own problems again, Mary thought. She'd overlooked Arthur's confidences. “He was eager to impress you, I believe,” she added.

“With this?” John retrieved the paper and looked at it more closely. He turned it around to get another angle, frowning.

“He's quite knowledgeable about how the engines work.”

“Indeed.” The word vibrated with John's lack of interest in mechanics.

“He said something about not being able to find a proper adventure.”

“Proper…?” This appeared to arrest his attention.

“He seemed rather downhearted,” Mary went on. “And I forgot all about it. I've been so selfish, involved in my own concerns.”

“Nonsense,” John said.

“But I was. Arthur wanted to speak to…”

“He's probably forgotten all about this by now.” John put the page on the table.

“I don't think he will have.”

“I'll speak to him.”

“I know you have a great deal on your mind, but it would be…”

“Don't worry, Mary, I will take care of you,” he replied.

The tenderness in his eyes sent a tremor all through her. But she wanted to do her part, not simply be protected. “We'll care for each other,” she said.

Then he took her in his arms and kissed her, and her reasoned arguments were lost in a flood of desire.

Several days passed with no more talk of monkeys, or of Edmund Fordyce. Routine took over and, with it, a measure of calm. Yet the shadow of disappointment lurked in the background. As Mary went through her days, a question constantly echoed in the recesses of her mind, “What else can I
do
to make things right for John?”

This preoccupation so distracted her that when she went out on Tuesday morning to replenish her supply of watercolor paints, she forgot her reticule. She had to turn back to fetch it. The artists' supply shop would give her credit, but she had other errands as well and needed her purse.

She let herself in quietly, not wishing to pause for household concerns. She had one foot on the stair to go up to her bedchamber, when she heard Lady Caroline Lanford's voice from the kitchen. Which was odd. Had Caroline come to visit and found her out? But why would she go downstairs?

Mary started for the basement steps.

“Have you mixed it up for me?” she heard Caroline say.

“I have, my lady,” Kate's voice answered.

“And it will turn hair lighter with…umm…no ill effects to the skin?”

Mary frowned, confused. Caroline's hair was already a lovely golden blond.

“Yes, my lady, as long as you remove it after twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes,” Caroline repeated. “And…umm…if someone was to eat it?”

Mary stopped on the stairs, startled.

“Eat it?” Kate sounded incredulous, as well she might.

“Accidentally,” said Caroline.

“Well, they'd better not, nor get it in their eyes either. You have to take some care with this mixture.”

Kate would never learn tact, Mary thought. Her tone made it plain that she thought the inquiry idiotic. It certainly was odd.

“Of course,” said Caroline.

Mary went on down the stairs. When she reached the kitchen she found Mrs. Tanner stirring a pot on the stove. Kate was standing nearby, next to Caroline, who held a small bottle of pale liquid. Arthur sat at the long wooden table, clutching a lidded basket on his lap.

All eyes swiveled to Mary. “Hello,” she said.

“Oh!” said Caroline. “I thought you were…that is, I came by to get one of Kate's marvelous concoctions.” She held up the bottle, then thrust it at Arthur, who put it in the basket.

Mary looked from her to the boy, and back.

“I've been helping…” he began.

Caroline cut him off. “Arthur has been kind enough to accompany me and carry my purchases today.” She reached for the basket handle. “Thank you very much, Arthur. I can take them across the square.”

Arthur held on. “But you said I could go along with you to…finish up.”

“I mustn't keep you from your work any longer.” Caroline lifted the basket.

Mrs. Tanner snorted and muttered something about Arthur not knowing the meaning of work.

“But…won't you stay a while, have some tea?” Mary wondered.

“Grandmamma will be expecting me,” Caroline replied and headed for the steps.

Mary looked at Kate, who gazed blandly back. She looked at Mrs. Tanner, who was tasting the broth from her pot. “What was that about?”

“Her ladyship wanted a hair dye,” Kate answered.

“For a friend of hers,” Arthur said. “Have we got any of them scones left, Mrs. Tanner?”

“No, ‘we' do not,” grumbled the cook. “You ate the last one this morning, Sir Greedyguts. That stomach of yours is a bottomless pit.”

“I'm growing,” Arthur declared hopefully.

Mrs. Tanner snorted again. “Well, grow into the scullery and finish scrubbing out the pots. I set a pan of hot water by the basin.”

“Yes'm.” Arthur jumped up and went out.

At least he seemed more reconciled to his job here, Mary thought. “It was kind of Lady Caroline to give you a commission,” she said to Kate.

The maid merely nodded.

“I think El…the dowager countess might be kind enough to offer her patronage as well.”

This would give Kate a great advantage, should she become…associated with the Jenkins apothecary, Mary thought.

“Yes…ma'am. She has said she would.”

Once again, Kate was ahead of her. But what precisely was going on? “Have you taken any more concoctions to Mr. Jenkins's shop?”

“Just this and that.”

“‘This and that,'” repeated her mother grumpily. “She's brewing and straining until she hardly has time for her proper work. And in
my
way with the doing of it.”

Mary retreated from yet another quarrel between them. As she passed the scullery doorway, she paused to say, “Mr. Bexley was quite impressed by your drawing of the steam engine, Arthur.” It wasn't untrue. John had found the diagram noteworthy, though he hadn't been much interested in the subject.

“That's good,” said Arthur, up to his elbows in suds.

He didn't seem nearly as pleased as Mary had expected.

Feeling somehow superfluous in her own house, Mary walked up the stairs, fetched her reticule, and resumed her interrupted errands.

* * *

Hearing Fordyce's voice in the corridor up ahead, John turned to find a different route out of the Foreign Office building. He required some sustenance this early afternoon, but he didn't care to encounter the idiot. “Well worth the investment,” he heard Fordyce say. And then he was out of earshot.

When he returned to the office, Conolly was back. He'd been out on some errand for the morning. “What have you done to yourself?” John wondered. Conolly's left hand was wrapped in gauze, and his right boasted a long red scratch.

“Oh,” was the reply. “Got an aunt with a tabby built like a Russian bear. Vicious thing.”

“Is that where you were? It attacked you?”

“Whenever you visit, she insists you pet the blasted creature. And then wrings a peal over your head when it shreds your hand.” Conolly made a wry face and spoke in a high piping voice. “‘What have you done to poor puss, you great brute? I'm sure she wouldn't scratch you if you were gentler with her.'” He shook his head. “Cat just sits there looking smug.”

John laughed.

Conolly sat down, letting his bandaged hand drop behind his desk. “Did you see the report from Hansen? I thought he was onto something.”

“No.” John looked down at the piles of documents before him.

“I put it there on top. You should take a look.”

“Right.” They fell to work in their customary easy rhythm. John was lulled, comforted by the details of his work. There was no upheaval among his papers, whatever mayhem they might report. He could study and analyze them with measured care. This familiar world was a kind of retreat from worries and plans.

When he had made his way through the pile, he turned to the private notes he had accumulated over his visits to the London slums. They still amounted to little more than hints and implications. And his sources continued to dry up. People were more evasive. They threw looks over their shoulders and retreated from conversations.

His guide Henry Tsing was restless as well. On their last foray, he'd said, “You don't live anywhere near Limehouse. You go off to your safe life and leave me here among them.” Which was perfectly true. And all of it suggested that some new factor had entered Limehouse and was causing a change in his reception. He wanted, needed, to discover what it was. But the more he pushed, the more people resisted.

He riffled through the notes again. He had to find a way to discover more or his grand plan was going to come to nothing. He was set to go out tonight. He'd persuaded Henry, with great difficulty. This trip must yield some progress. John shoved the pages into a drawer and returned to his regular work.

* * *

When she went down to the kitchen to let Mrs. Tanner know that John would not be home for dinner, Mary found Jeremiah Jenkins there, looking very much at home at the wide wooden table, with a cup of tea before him. He stood at once when she appeared. “Ma'am.”

“Mr. Jenkins.”

“I've just brought some attar of rose for Kate.”

With his use of the maid's first name, Mary was not much surprised when Kate turned from the large pot she was stirring to say, “We're getting married.” She was smiling, eyes bright, but otherwise she seemed much like her customary self.

“Ah.” Mary wondered how this had come about. There'd been so little sign that a connection had been formed. “I'm very happy for you. Both.”

“Thank you…ma'am.”

Mary suppressed a smile at that last reluctant word. Kate would no longer have to exert herself to defer to a mistress. She wondered if the young woman would find it easier to cater to customers at the apothecary shop. Probably she would, as they would be holding out their hands with payment.

“I'll have to give in my notice,” Kate added. Steam had curled stray strands of her blond hair about her face, and she pushed one back.

Mary tried to look suitably regretful, though it would be a positive pleasure to replace Kate with someone who was glad of the position and better at it.

“I figured I'd stay a month, so's you can find someone else. And I can train her up, like.”

So her staff troubles weren't completely over, Mary thought, foreseeing many rough spots in that process. “Thank you,” she said. “That's very thoughtful. But if you would like to go sooner, I would not wish to…”

Kate took the gratitude as her due. “The rooms above the shop need a deal of fixing up,” she replied, revealing a more likely reason for the delay than goodness of heart. “We've all sorts of plans for the place.”

“Indeed.” Mary's heart sank a little at the prospect of a month's perturbations. Kate would be preoccupied with the details of her new life and probably more difficult than ever over her household tasks. Though it was, of course, nice to see her happily settled.

“I'm installing a double-sized closed range in the back premises of my shop,” put in Mr. Jenkins. “Plenty of space for Kate's work.” He gazed at his fiancée with pride.

“No more taking up space on my stove,” said Mrs. Tanner. She looked as pleased as her pinched features could manage.

“We'll have a distiller as well,” replied Kate. “
Our
shop will stock only the best.”

If Mr. Jenkins noticed the changed emphasis, he gave no sign. “I must get back. I don't wish to miss any customers. And the carpenter is working in the upstairs rooms.”

“Make sure he sets that new window just where we marked,” Kate commanded.

With a nod, Mr. Jenkins took himself off. He showed no signs of realizing that a new power ruled in his household and that the days of his sovereignty were ended. Or perhaps he knew and was glad of it. Mary hoped so.

Mary stood in the darkness of the garden in the middle of the square and pulled her cloak more tightly around her. The night was cold, but she had a thick shawl under her cloak as well as a wool scarf tied about her head and fur-lined boots and gloves. The chill was endurable. Her determination made it easier to ignore.

As the minutes dragged into an hour, and part of another, she rubbed her hands together to keep her fingers supple. She knew John wouldn't like what she was doing. But she'd thought and thought about it and considered the risks. She'd planned it all out very carefully.

She leaned down and checked the dark lantern sitting on the ground beside her. It had taken her some effort to procure it, and she had spent time learning exactly how to work it as well. All she needed was the opportunity. She knew she would only have one. If she botched it, there would be no other chance. She strained her ears in the silence.

At last, when she had begun to shiver with the cold, she caught the sound of footsteps coming along the lane that led into the square. Silently, Mary bent and picked up the lantern. After a moment, she spotted John walking briskly along with his own simpler light swinging at his side. Mary looked away to avoid being dazzled by the beam of his small lantern. Her eyes had fully adapted to the darkness.

John moved across the square and paused before their door, getting out his key. He unlocked it and went in.

Now was the moment. Mary scanned the darkness. She'd posted herself near the place where the shadow following John had crouched the last time she'd seen it. She stood perfectly still, staring and listening. There was no sound. Wait. There was a tiny scrape of boot on the cobbles. It she hadn't been motionless and straining her ears, she wouldn't have heard it. Mary took hold of the dark lantern's catch. Scarcely breathing, she waited.

A shadow left the shelter of the street leading into the square, slipped across, and stopped not too far from her hiding place. All its attention was on the house as John passed the lighted parlor window. Mary took a breath, made sure her lantern was centered on the spot, and pulled back the panel. Light erupted, sending a shaft of illumination through the bars of the fence and washing over the watcher. Startled, the figure turned. Mary blinked away dazzlement and got a good look. Not tall. Cloaked. But clearly the shoulders of a man. From within the cloak's hood, an Asian face snarled at her.

Mary willed her hand not to shake. She kept the light on the man and stared, determined to memorize every detail of his face.

With a spring like a great cat, the man rushed at her, crashing against the wrought iron spears of the fence. Mary stumbled back a step. The lantern beam wavered. She steadied it on him. He leaped, but the spiked tips were still three feet above his clawing fingers, well out of reach. Landing in a crouch, he gripped the bars and shook them violently, but they didn't yield. He glared at her again, then turned and hurried away.

Mary shifted the lantern's beam to follow him across the square and over to the street entry. She held it there, waiting to be sure he was really gone, listening with all her might. He was making no effort to be silent now. Rushing footsteps receded without pause. She waited a bit longer to be certain he was gone, before letting herself out of the garden and running to the house. All the way, she kept the lantern open, scanning the empty street.

She'd barely gotten the front door open when John pounced. “Where have you been? I looked everywhere. No one knew where you were!”

“John, I saw the man…”

He gripped her shoulders and shook her slightly. “How could you go out alone, at night? Haven't I told you…? Where have you
been
?”

“I have to draw him!”

“Draw who? Now? What are you talking about?”

“You don't understand. I saw…”

“No! I don't. Do
you
understand how worried I was? Searching the house, not finding you anywhere. The servants with no idea…”

“The man following you, I saw him.” Mary wriggled out of his grip. She wanted to get to her easel and record the face she'd seen. Impatient, she jerked off her gloves and the scarf around her head and pulled at the fastening of her cloak.

“Mary.” At his tone, she turned. His face was stony. “You cannot worry me this way. Haven't I enough to bear with…?”

“But if we find out who this man is…the one following you…”

“No one is following me! It's over, Mary.”

His voice chilled her more than the night's vigil. “What is over?”

John made a throwaway gesture. “Creeping about the slums…playing spy, imagining…adventures like a silly schoolboy. It's all come to nothing. Tonight, no one would talk to us. They've closed ranks.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Even in Limehouse, I am snubbed.”

“You can try…”

He shook his head. “You don't understand. My guide and I were threatened. With knives.”

Mary put a frightened hand on his arm.

“Something roused suspicions against us. I don't know if it was my manner or a stray remark…” He shook his head. “It doesn't matter. Suspicions are enough in a place like that. The word has spread. I can't go back to Limehouse—not without a platoon of soldiers at my back, which would rather defeat the purpose. I must face it. My plan has failed. I won't be uncovering vital information in the depths of London.” He walked into the parlor. Anxious, Mary followed.

“Not everyone is cut out to shine,” he added, going to stand by the fire. “How could they be? There must be a mass of…others for them to shine against.”

“You
do
shine,” Mary insisted. “You're…brilliant…”

His answering smile was distant. “And there, perhaps, is the key to contentment. Think of the wives in houses across the city who believe exactly that about hosts of quite ordinary men. Are they not happy with a quiet, undistinguished life?”

“You are not ordinary!” Hot now, Mary thrust off her cloak and the shawl beneath and let them fall to the floor. “You can't just give up. I tell you I've seen…”

“Come over to the fire. We'll have a glass of wine.” He took her hands and seemed surprised to find that they were not cold.

“Why will you not
listen
to me?” In her frustration, Mary pulled her hands free and grasped his coat lapels. She gazed up into his blue eyes. “It must mean something important that you were followed…”

He captured her hands again, dropping a kiss on one of them. “It's kind of you to…”

“I'm not being kind!” Would a sharp blow to his midsection make him pay attention?

“We'll sit by the fire a while and talk of more pleasant things,” John replied, as if they spoke entirely different languages. He slipped an arm around her. “And in a little while,
do
more pleasant things. That should be enough for any man.”

“John.” Mary let him pull her to the sofa and draw her down, marshaling her thoughts. She must find the right words to get through to him, to convey what she'd seen. Why was he being so infuriating? He almost seemed like another man. Or… Mary looked in his eyes as they sat side by side. He was rather like the earlier version of himself that she hadn't seen since their honeymoon, she realized. It was as if that mild, distant fellow had returned and was in charge once more. His detached manner was back, the sense that he didn't really hear, that the deepest part of him would always be veiled.

She felt a flash of panic. She didn't want that man! She didn't want the trivial, unexciting life he offered. She'd fallen deeply in love with the new John, and she intended—longed—to spend the rest of her life with him. She had to get him back. How could she get him back?

She needed to think, but that was hardly possible when John was drawing her close, murmuring her name, kissing her. In this, at least, he hadn't lost himself. Her train of thought was disintegrating with the distraction of his touch. She had to push him away.

He drew back, surprised.

“After the last time I saw someone following you, I bought a dark lantern,” Mary said. She realized she hadn't extinguished it; it was sitting on the floor in the entryway. She must do that. “I made sure I knew precisely how it worked.” She spoke slowly, clearly, repeating the experience in her mind, demanding his attention.

John frowned. As she'd hoped, the minute detail seemed to sink in.

“I stationed myself inside the garden fence, near where the shadow had been before, and I waited, with the lantern closed.”

“In the dark…”

“And the cold. You came home and went in. After a few minutes, the other man crept into the square.”

John's gaze was fixed on her face. At last, he was truly listening.

“He stopped by the fence. I opened the lantern and saw him. He looked Chinese.” Mary shivered a little at the memory of his snarl, the way he'd lunged at her. “He was
very
angry at being caught in the lantern beam.”

“Angry?”

“Furious. He was not someone out for a walk, John. Or lost in an unfamiliar district. He was watching you through the parlor window.”

John's eyes narrowed. “But I took great care, each time I left Limehouse, to make certain I was alone.”

“He was amazingly silent,” Mary told him, “and stealthy. I never would have gotten a look at him if I hadn't lain in wait. With the lantern.”

“That was very clever.”

Mary basked in his approval and in relief at seeing the calculating intelligence back in his face.

“This could be—must be—the person I've been hearing about in Limehouse for some time,” John said slowly. “And he is probably the reason the place is closed to me now.”

Mary nodded. She didn't know exactly what he meant, but she was delighted to see him back to his “new” self.

“Why?” he went on, as if thinking aloud. “Why follow and why shut me out? Because I was about to discover something important?”

“Yes,” said Mary. She didn't mind now that he was lost in his own thoughts. The tone of them was completely different.

“But how to find him again?” John wondered. “I don't think he'll come back here, after being caught like this.”

“I'll draw him,” Mary said. “I can give you a good likeness.”

Her husband turned to look at her. “But I thought you saw him for only a few moments.”

“That doesn't matter.”

He looked appreciative but a bit doubtful. “That would be helpful.”

Mary was filled with a fierce desire to help and to show him what she could do.

“He's been extremely elusive,” John went on. “A ‘presence' talked of in Limehouse but not seen. Clearly, he's well able to hide.”

“We'll find him,” Mary vowed.

It had grown very late. Mary put out the dark lantern on the way upstairs to bed. Once there, she put her belief in him, her confidence and love, into the touch of her hands, the pliancy of her lips. She assured him, in every way she could imagine, that he was masterful and desirable and all would be well.

* * *

Though she itched to get to her sketchbook, she wanted daylight, not the wavering shadows of candles, to draw the face she'd seen in the garden. This must be the most accurate portrait she'd ever produced.

And so she forced herself to lie still as the hours of the night passed. She breathed, willing her agitation to ease. And slowly, slowly, it did. The silence of the house, the warmth of her husband's body next to her, and a dragging tide of fatigue finally combined to lull her. And sometime in the respite of that oblivion she wrapped herself around John, holding him like a rare treasure, so that the first words she heard the following day were, “Mary, let go.”

She blinked awake and found John gently tugging her arms from his chest and easing his legs from under the one she'd flung over him. He loosed her clutching fingers and pressed a kiss on them before setting her hands on the coverlet. “I'm sorry to wake you,” he said.

But she was glad to be roused. She sat up and reached for him again, touching his stubbled cheek and murmuring his name. He smiled and took her hands briefly again before slipping free. He climbed out of bed, away from her. “I must go.”

“I'm going to draw the person right away.” He nodded. She threw back the covers and rose.

An hour later, Mary sat before her sketchbook, pencil in hand, concentrating, demanding inspiration. Drawing was her lifeblood. It came as naturally as her breath. But this morning, that didn't seem the case. The page remained stubbornly blank. No portrait had ever been so important. Why could she not begin? The fate, the happiness, of the man she loved hung on her skill.

The hand she'd raised to the page trembled a bit. Mary went still, breathed, and waited for the pencil to move, as it always did. And waited. Time ticked past. Her pulse accelerated; her throat grew tight. She'd never had to try so hard to draw. Her hand could not have lost its innate ability. That wasn't it. She was anxious. That was all. In a moment, it would come.

Mary leaned in, put the tip of the pencil to the paper. A small black dot appeared. But nothing followed. Very well, if inspiration wouldn't descend, she would coax it to life. Mechanically, she laid down the folds of a cloak, sketched the hood with a blank oval within, put in the suggestion of the fence, recreating the general outline of what she'd seen in the lantern beam.

A knock came on the door, and Kate entered before she could speak. Mary stifled a curse. “I really mustn't be disturbed…”

“The servant said this was important.” She held out a folded note.

Even in her frustration, Mary felt a flash of amusement at the way Kate said, “the servant.” Clearly, she no longer saw herself in that category, and just as clearly, the change pleased her no end. Mary unfolded the note and found a summons from Eleanor.