Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

S tephen was feeling very pleased with himself. He had outdone himself. And for a beginner, Beatrice had also done a fairly good job.

The two of them were lying side by side on the table, sprawled on their backs, staring up at the domed ceiling. It wasn’t dark enough for stars yet, and Stephen found himself wishing that it was.

How long had it been? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Longer? He’d lost track of time. His breathing had returned to normal, and some of the sweat on his skin had cooled. When he risked a glance sideways at Beatrice, he saw that she had pulled down her skirts, hiding her bare legs. Her underthings, of course, were beyond repair, the torn fabric left scattered somewhere on the floor among the dislodged papers and books. He would have to remember to pick them up before he left.

“Why am I not allowed in the observatory?” Beatrice suddenly asked.

Stephen stiffened. He’d been fairly sure that this question was coming sooner or later, right from the moment when he drew up those rules. Back then, of course, he’d imagined himself carelessly telling her to mind her own business or something like that.

That seemed out of the question now.

He sighed. “Careful, Duchess, unless you want another round of punishment.”

She nodded as if seriously considering it. “Perhaps later.”

He wanted to laugh. “You are a nonsensical girl.”

“A mad duchess for a blackhearted duke. I don’t mean to pry, Stephen, I just… Well, this room is wasted. It’s such a wonderful place. It could be my favorite room in the house. A real, working observatory. I could learn so much from a place like this if you’d let me try. Do you not like looking at the stars?”

He sighed again, biting his lip. “Of course I like looking at the stars. Astronomy is… well, it competes with botany for my favorite pastime. However—and I think you may have guessed this already—this room holds painful memories for me.”

He glanced sideways and found her looking at him, waiting. He bit his lip hard and continued.

“I think you already know that my father was a cruel man. He originally built this observatory for my mother, back when they were newlyweds and in love. His love quickly fizzled out and turned into something like hate. He was cruel to her, and to me. One of his favorite punishments was to lock me up in here. He would open all the panels so that the room was sweltering hot during the day and freezing cold at night. I lost count of the times I was locked up in here. Never any food, seldom any water.”

He swallowed hard, not looking at Beatrice. Instead, Stephen stared up at the familiar slopes of the glass ceiling. In an instant, he was a child again, hollow with hunger and dry with thirst, staring up at the endless expanse of stars. Closing his eyes, he could almost count them. Constellations he could not name yet, once even the steady pulse of the aurora borealis .

When he was looking up at the stars, just for a moment, he forgot the hunger and cold and pain, the sharp sting of humiliation and the sense that it was not fair .

He felt eyes on him and glanced to the side to find Beatrice studying him thoughtfully.

“I’m sorry,” she said, at last. “You and Theodosia suffered too much at the hands of that man. It should never have happened.”

Stephen shrugged. “It did. But it’s in the past.”

She turned on her side to face him. “You can’t dismiss all that suffering by saying that it’s in the past.”

“But it’s true. It’s behind us. Why not let it be?”

Beatrice sighed. “The past is behind us, true, but it doesn’t leave. The past isn’t like swimming through a pool of water, where we can simply get out, dry ourselves off, and go on with our lives with no signs of where we have been or what we have endured. It’s more like… like swimming through a pool of ink. You may clean most of it off, but not all. There will be stains. You can’t pretend the ink pool never existed.”

He shifted to face her. “Are you saying I am stained?”

She gave a huff of annoyance and flopped back. “I give up.”

“Thank heavens.”

There was a comfortable silence between them. Stephen cast a few glances her way, chewing on his lip.

“I’m not a child anymore,” he said in a rush. “I am a man. A strong one, a clever one. I do not need to put myself through such experiences, so why would I want to relive them in my head? I have freed myself. My mother is free. I don’t care to dig up the past because all I will get from it is a hole in my heart and hands covered in dirt.”

She eyed him for a long moment, then slipped her hand across the table, her fingers brushing his.

After all they had already done together, Stephen was a little shocked to find that the contact was sharp and intense, shivers running up his arm at her touch.

“Perhaps you aren’t so black-hearted, after all,” Beatrice said quietly.

A block of ice lodged itself in Stephen’s gut. He carefully slid his hand away from hers.

“I’m afraid I am,” he said curtly. “Be careful, my dear Duchess. Darkness swallows up everything it touches, even the light. The darkness in me may well eat up the light in you, and then where will you be?”

She held his gaze for a long moment as if expecting something else. There was disappointment in her gaze, he realized after a moment.

He opened his mouth, waiting for something else to come out. A witty retort, or a joke, or something to break the silence, but nothing came out. Only silence.

Abruptly, Beatrice sat up, shaking out her skirts.

“I should go,” she said briskly. “It’s getting late. I’m exhausted, and I promised I would go see Anna today. I want to see the new baby, and I promised Kitty I would bring a new dress for her doll. She’ll hold me to it.”

Without another word, Beatrice slipped off the table, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ears. Stephen struggled into a sitting position, still unsure what to say. He wanted to say something , but everything seemed to be not enough.

Beatrice bent down, neatly retrieving her torn underthings and balling them up in her hands.

“I’ll need to change,” she added, wryly indicating her underthings. “I suppose I shall see you later, Stephen.”

She left the room, padding on silent feet, and Stephen was left in the oppressive quiet.

He still could not think of what to say.

“Ah, Stephen, there you are.”

Stephen blanched at the sight of his mother poking her head out of one of the morning rooms near the observatory entrance.

“Mother! I… how long have you been in the house?”

Theodosia blinked. “What? Oh, I’ve only just arrived. I came straight here. I have to talk to you. Come in here—quick.”

“Should I fetch Beatrice? I… she’s in the house, I think.”

Stephen was stammering and stuttering, horrified at coming face-to-face with his mother so soon after an intimate encounter. Did she see Beatrice heading to her room, dizzy and satisfied, with balled-up underthings in her hand?

“No, I don’t want Beatrice to hear this,” Theodosia said firmly, ushering her son into the room.

Stephen relaxed a little. His mother was not scandalized, at least.

“What’s the matter?”

Theodosia paused, hesitating. “Well, I suppose you might know I’ve been spending time with a gentleman friend of mine.”

“ Gentleman friend ?”

“Yes, yes, a gentleman friend, keep up. I mentioned him to Beatrice—she knows.”

“ Beatrice knows? And not me?”

“Well, perhaps if you spent a little more time with me, you would have known. But that is not the point. He is Mr. Harvey Harris and owns a great many newspapers. He came to visit me today to warn me about something.”

The hairs on the back of Stephen’s neck prickled. “Oh?”

Theodosia drew in a breath. “The Marquess of Hampton is back in London. What is more, he has been approaching editors of various scandal sheets and newspapers. Approaching them in secret, no less.”

Stephen lowered himself into an armchair, his fingers curling around the armrests.

“The wretched man,” he muttered. “I warned him to stay away from me. What is he thinking, coming back so soon? Did this… friend of yours tell you what he wanted from the editors?”

She shook her head. “He hoped that the Marquess would approach him for a meeting so that he could hear him out and come back to me with some information. It concerns you and Beatrice, so of course Harvey knows that I would be interested. But the Marquess has not approached Harvey, so I can only assume he has gotten wind of our friendship.”

“Wait, do you mean that others know about… Ahem, it doesn’t matter.”

Stephen leaned back in his seat. The languid, happy feelings of lovemaking had faded away, replaced by the usual tension in his frame. He wanted Beatrice, but not for anything intimate. He just wanted her to be there, with him, holding his hand or perhaps resting her hand on his shoulder, ready with her advice and her cool, clear logic.

Stop it. Only a few hours ago, you were telling Theo that more distance was required between the two of you. Is this distance? No, I think not.

“He’s here to get his revenge on me, of course,” Stephen muttered. “And on Beatrice. I humiliated him and destroyed his reputation, but I can guarantee that he blames Beatrice for it, too. I don’t know what he plans, but if he has been approaching newspaper editors, it cannot be good.”

Theodosia nodded. “I’m concerned, Stephen. Beatrice pretends not to care about what those scandal sheets write about her, but I know it’s just pretense. Which of us could stay firm and unconcerned with so much cruelty thrown our way? I worry that the humiliation will be too much for her.”

Stephen glanced sharply at his mother. “The humiliation I brought on her, you mean.”

His mother pressed her lips together. “You said that, Stephen. Not me.”

There was a moment of tension between them.

“Thank you, Mother,” Stephen said, at last. “I am glad you told me. And pass on my thanks to your… to your friend. I should like to meet him one day if you’d care to introduce him.”

Theodosia brightened. “Oh, that would be lovely. Well, I shall leave this business with you—you are always so good at managing these things.”

She crossed the room, pressing a quick kiss to the top of Stephen’s head, and flitted away without another word.

Stephen sat still for a few moments, lost in thought. After a while, he rose tiredly to his feet and moved to the bell pull.

The answer to his summons came almost immediately.

Mouse appeared at the door, looking a little flustered. “Your Grace, I must tell you that a key is missing. The key to the?—”

“Observatory, yes, I know,” Stephen muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “The Duchess had it.”

Mouse bit his lip. “I shall retrieve it from her immediately.”

“No, let her keep it. I don’t mind her going up there.”

The butler looked equal parts baffled and appalled. Stephen didn’t bother with an explanation.

“Mouse, the Marquess of Hampton is back in town, and I believe he intends to cause trouble for me and the Duchess.”

Mouse clenched his jaw. “A great pity that he would not be warned, Your Grace.”

“Yes, a great pity, indeed. Still, there is no sense in wishing things were other than what they are. Send word to our eyes and ears. I want to know where the Marquess is staying, where he is going, who he associates with, and why he has returned to London. Of course, he must not know that I am watching him. I do not know how long he has been in London—I daresay he already has quite the head start on me.”

The eyes and ears had begun as ne’er do wells on the street—homeless men and women, abandoned children, and so on. It began as a simple charity—Stephen offering food and occasionally shelter or money. It behooved a duke to be charitable, after all.

It occurred to him soon enough that the recipients of his charity much preferred to work for their money and bread and were eager to do favors. Since then, Stephen had learned that the dispossessed, the homeless, and the insignificant members of society were the ones who saw… well, saw everything . Maids in grand houses, homeless men on the streets, the urchins and vagabonds that darted everywhere—they were often not seen by their ‘betters’, but they saw everything .

In effect, Stephen had created a little spy network.

No, not a little spy network. The largest one in the country, most likely, stretching far beyond London. A little generosity went a long way, and he always rewarded good information.

“Forgive me, Your Grace,” Mouse began. “But is it possible… Could he have gone to his sister? She, too, is in London.”

Stephen drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. His frustration mounted. He wanted to scream, to break things, to tear up and down the room like an angry child.

Instead, he limited himself to drumming his fingers, a hectic rhythm that increased in power and pace. Abruptly, he stopped.

“Yes,” he said—as if there were any other answer to give. “It’s quite likely that he has gone to his sister, or at least that she is helping him. Have her watched too. But, Mouse? Be careful. Cornelia is far cleverer than the Marquess. And I think perhaps she hates me more than he does.”

Mouse swallowed. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but I am afraid that perhaps she hates the Duchess even more.”

Cold, stark fear shot through Stephen’s chest, fluttering down his spine.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, I am afraid of that too.”