Of Noble Family (44 page)

Admiral Cunningham spread his hands in apology. “Truly, that was the only reason I came. Rear-Admiral Hume had delayed Lord Verbury's arrest due to his health, and then he passed away. But Mr. Pridmore claimed he was alive and … well. It seemed best to be certain.”

“I quite understand.” Vincent maintained a remarkably even tone.

“My thanks for behaving like a true gentleman about all this bother.” The admiral shot a glance at Pridmore to suggest that
he
was not a gentleman. “Good day, sir. Madam.”

Mr. Pridmore gaped in the hall. “You can't—he's here. He's got to be here somewhere.” He stepped forward again, but this time the officer in the hall stopped him. He tried to shake the man off but, at a gesture from Admiral Cunningham, was dragged backwards out of Jane's view. “I'll find him! I don't know where you've hidden him, but I'll turn over every stone and smoke him out!”

Admiral Cunningham shook his head as Vincent began to follow him into the hall. “Best to stay here, eh? I would have lost my temper long ago.” He pulled the door shut after him, leaving Vincent in the room with Jane.

They all stood, in frozen silence, listening to Mr. Pridmore's rants fade into the distance as he was marched down the passage and out of the building. Without turning, Vincent said, “Nkiruka, Dolly. May I ask you to leave us?”

Though his tone was painfully calm, it brooked no discussion. They broke from their positions by the wall. In moments, the two women were out of the room, and Jane was alone with her husband. Still, he remained staring at the door.

Jane waited, giving him time to collect himself. She looked to the basin, to see if there were clean towels. There were. The side table had a fresh decanter of lime juice. She could not rise to offer him either, but they were there if he needed them.

Vincent drew a sudden breath. “I have just lied to an honourable man.” His hands tightened into fists. “I just lied to protect a man I detest, because if I did not, I know precisely what he would do to Frank's family. So I lied, knowing that my father was depending upon my nature, knowing that he was using me, knowing that even when he is not present, he can still twist and shape me to his purpose. Knowing that the lie would be another weapon he could use against us. And still I lied for him.”

“Not directly.”

“As you have reminded me, lies of omission are still lies. I still did exactly what my father wanted. I
protected him.
” Only the edge of his face was visible from Jane's position, but she thought his eyes were closed. “I keep thinking how much easier it would be if he were actually dead.”

“I have entertained the same thoughts.”

“But you would not act upon it.”

“Nor would—”

“I am so angry that I do not trust myself.” He spoke rapidly, as if the words escaped against his will. “Will it alarm you more if I hide or am visibly disturbed?”

“I would rather know. Always.”

He grunted in reply and, for two moments longer, remained still. When Vincent moved, he shoved his hands into the ether, tearing great masses of red into the room. With an inarticulate growl, he flung them away, reaching for more glamour as the red rippled and frayed out of sight. Stretching forward with his full body, he dragged folds of black and vermillion into the room. Vincent wrapped them around his body and reached for more glamour till the air around him was heavy with rage.

Jane watched him until she realised that the illusion had made her press back into the pillows in fear. She had told him to stay, and she had meant it. She could not comfort him, but she could at least keep him from feeling that he had troubled her.

Jane shut her eyes and curled onto her side as if she were sleeping. But she could still hear him gasping as he worked.

A rustle of cloth suggested that his cravat had been discarded. The hiss and thump was probably his jacket. The ragged panting might be nothing more than an extremely large fold. If she did not look at the glamour, Jane could almost pretend that those were the normal sounds of Vincent working.

 

Thirty

A Question of Nature

Jane had not intended to fall asleep, but she did so too easily of late. When she awakened, the sun had shifted towards evening but was still well above the horizon. Vincent lay on the bed beside her in shirt and breeches, utterly limp. Sliding closer, Jane carefully curled up against him. With her head resting on Vincent's chest, she could hear his heart and the hushing of his breath. His shirt was dry to the touch and his breathing calm and regular, so he must have been asleep for some time.

What had been most difficult about their time in Antigua was watching the sharp alteration to Vincent's manner. During the course of their marriage, he had slowly let her know about the abuse that he had suffered as a child. Nothing had driven the point home so thoroughly as being here and seeing him struggle not to fall victim to his father's designs again.

She felt the shift in his breathing before he stirred.

His chest rose as he inhaled, then tightened with a held breath. Beneath her ear, his heart sped. She pressed her hand against his chest and rubbed circles against the tension there.

With a soft exhalation, Vincent brought an arm around her and drew her closer. “I am very sorry.” He turned his head to press a kiss against her forehead. “That was an indulgent display.”

She rose on an elbow to look at him. The evening light had crept under the veranda and now lay across the bed. The pool of ruddy sun gave some colour to Vincent's face, which was otherwise haggard. Whether it was the colour or the angle, the light caught on three silver hairs at Vincent's temple. Jane ran her finger over them, wondering when they had appeared. “You seem calmer, so I cannot call it unnecessary.”

“Well, I am not in danger of throttling anyone, so I suppose that is something.” He turned into the pressure of her fingers with a little grunt of appreciation. “And how are you?”

“Much the same as I have been.” She moved her attention to his forehead, trying to ease the lines that had appeared there. “Enormous.”

Chuckling, he lowered his hand and rested it on her stomach. “You have been saying that since we realised that you were with child.”

“Yes, well, I now have a thorough understanding of why it is called ‘increasing.'”

“Is it because my affection for you increases?” Vincent ran his hand up her side and pulled her down into a gentle and chaste kiss. Jane inhaled the warmth of her husband and very much wished that he were allowed to agitate her.

*   *   *

On the first of
August, Jane woke from an involuntary doze in the late afternoon to the sound of murmured conversation outside her room. Vincent was speaking with someone, but she could not make out what was being said. She pushed herself up to sit against her pillows, blinking the sleep from her eyes. Nkiruka was not in the room. Perhaps they had stepped into the hall so as not to disturb her, but there was Frank's voice as well. She thought about ringing the bell to let them know she was awake, then thought better of it. She was not her mother, to require attention simply because she was afflicted with ennui.

The baby pushed against her side, making a brief visible bulge under her shift. She had reached two-and-thirty weeks, and the baby's activity had increased in strength. Jane smiled and pressed back. The pressure was met with another thump. “Patience, my little pugilist. I know you are crowded.”

Jane picked up the bundle of notes she had made during Imogene's visit that morning. Imogene had only had an hour to spare, but she had been able to help translate some of the phrases that Dolly had used.
Kyim homa
, for instance, turned out to be comparable to
boucle torsad
é
e
. Other words simply had no equivalent concepts in European glamour.

The door opened and Vincent entered. “Good afternoon, Muse.”

“I had not expected to see you until dinner.” She set the papers aside on the bed.

“Yes, well … I hope I am not disturbing you?” He drew his chair from its usual spot and turned it so he sat near the middle of the bed rather than at the head of it. He sat stiffly in the chair, face in profile.

“Not at all.” The baby kicked again, hard enough to startle an exclamation from Jane. She laughed before Vincent could fret about something beyond whatever was troubling him. For something was troubling him, of that Jane was certain. She would see if she could ease his mind a little before she pressed him to find out what was the matter. “Your child and I have been playing a thumping game today.”

“I did not know that was possible.”

“I will show you. Here.” She took his hand to draw it to her side.

As she pulled on his hand, a glamour tore. It frayed into oily rainbows, obscuring Vincent's face for a moment. He jerked free, turning in his chair so his back was to her before the last edge unravelled back into the ether.

He had been holding a masking glamour in front of his face. Small wonder he had looked uncomfortable. It was devilishly difficult to walk with a glamour in place. Doing so required holding all of the threads in correct relation to each other, to oneself, and to the ether, and none of them could be tied off to conserve strength. Which raised the question of why.

“Show me.”

He let out his breath in a long sigh. “I am sorry. I thought you would worry unnecessarily if you did not hear the explanation first, so I wanted to assure you that I was well—and I am—before you saw this.” Vincent turned in his chair to face her.

His left eye was swollen nearly shut, and deep purple bruises surrounded it. More contusions mottled his cheek. The skin over his brow had torn and been stitched neatly back together. All of this had clearly transpired much earlier in the day, and no one had told her.

Internally, she again railed about being confined to her bed. “Did Mr. Pridmore do that?”

He snorted. “I have not seen him since his visit with the admiral. With luck, he has taken his wife and left the island. I think word has gone round that he is not to be trusted, so he is unlikely to find work. No … this was an accident with my father.”

If Jane were allowed out of bed, she would have been halfway to Lord Verbury already. That hideous man. “Hideous, cankered, ill-hearted, splenial spit-poison.”

Vincent looked up, eye widening, and Jane realised that she had spoken aloud and with some vehemence. “You see why I wanted to tell you first, before you saw the bruises?” He spread his hands. “The fault resides largely with me.”

“I fail to see how you can possibly bear any blame for being so misused.”

“I had not been to see him since Pridmore's visit. I had been too angry. But he does not like being kept in the dark any more than you do.”

“I do not ever have the urge to hit you.”

“Be that as it may, I know that he nurtures a grudge, and I had given him several reasons recently. He complained that he had to hear of Pridmore's visit from Frank and not from ‘his son.' I pointed out that Frank was also his son, which started an argument about legacy. He again raised the desire that we should name the child after him, and I, foolishly, said ‘No.'”

“You have refused before.”

“I have used polite evasions. This time, I was blunt.”

Jane waited, but Vincent seemed little inclined to continue the story. He did continue to drive his nail into the side of his thumb. “How did a man confined to a wheeled chair do that to you?”

“I would rather not … very well. He seemed to let the matter drop, which is an approach that I really should have recognised. Then his lap blanket slipped to the floor.” Vincent's jaw clenched, and, when he continued, his voice was flat and unaffected. “I bent to pick it up, and he struck me with his cane.”

“He hit you with his
cane
?”

“Not in the face. Across the back. The blow shocked me enough that he had time to land a second before I took it from him. Then he—he seemed to lose his mind to fury. I have never seen him so … but then, I have never stopped him before. He tried to get out of the chair. I was afraid he would do injury to himself, so I restrained him, which was when … this happened. His head.” He waved his hand at the bruises. “But, as I said, it was my own fault.”

“That is not your fault.”

“If I had not taken his cane, he would not have had cause to become so angry.”

“He
hit
you with it.”

“Yes, but I—I know what things anger him, and I did not shy from any of them.” Vincent stopped and spread his hands helplessly. Slight tremors ran through them. “At any rate, it was a good reminder.”

“Did you really need a reminder that your father is a vindictive fiend?”

“No, that I have—” Again, he stopped himself, this time shaking his head. “So. How is your book coming along?”

“Changing the subject would work better if you at least made an effort to tie the two topics together.”

Vincent stared at his hands still longer before pressing them together to quiet the shaking. Jane gave him time to organise his thoughts. Her much-tried patience was rewarded when he sighed and sat forward, turning his face so that the bruises were more prominent. He did not meet her gaze, though, and seemed to be studying the base of the wall behind her. With one hand, he touched the heavy purple under his eye. “This. My response to Pridmore, both when he was here, and when I punched him—I needed the reminder that.… It has been easy to pretend that I do not have a temper these past few years, but that is only because it has not been tried.”

“I would say that it has been sorely tried on several occasions and that you have exhibited admirable restraint.”

“Restraint. You mean when I am afraid to move because if I do I will hit something?”