Page 46 of A Tale of Two Dukes

Viola hadn’t felt like lingering in York buying bed linens and crockery after what Julia Lesmire had told her, and was soon on her way back to Ventris Castle – a journey of many hours even in the best of circumstances, since some of the roads were bad and the changes of horses numerous and time-consuming.

She was uneasy as she sat idle in the carriage, and disposed to blame herself for carelessness.

She had been lulled into a sense of false security lately, as though she and Richard and the boys were an ordinary family with an ordinary expectation of being happy together if no immediate ill health or mischance threatened their tranquillity.

But it wasn’t true – there was always a shadow hanging over them, the shadow of Tarquin Armstrong and his malice, the shadow of the past, and she had been foolish to allow herself to forget it.

She told herself that falling prey to agitation would not help matters, but she was undeniably not in the calmest frame of mind when at last her chaise jolted across the uneven cobbles into the courtyard.

It was dark by now, since it was late autumn and even the sunny days were short, but there was moonlight, and she could not repress the feeling that the old building looked eerie in it, and somehow ominous, the empty windows gaping in a sinister fashion.

Bad things have happened here in the dark , she thought with a shudder.

It was a ridiculous fancy, and she shook it off as the huge door to the great hall opened and her sons came tumbling out to greet her, talking – at full volume and both at once – of all that they had been doing with Richard in her absence.

He stood behind them, bathed in the warm light from inside, smiling a little – an undeniably reassuring presence, despite everything.

She’d tell him, as soon as they were alone.

She had expected him to show some perturbation when he heard of his half-brother’s recent presence in York, but he did not, to her surprise and irritation.

When she accused him of not treating the matter seriously enough, he responded coolly, ‘We knew his intentions towards you and the boys were not kindly – how could they be? This news is merely confirmation of that fact and nothing more.’

‘I do not know how you can take it so lightly!’ she said with some heat.

They were in bed and both naked, the long, tattered velvet curtains at the mullioned windows closed against the evening chill, a fire of sea coal glowing in the imposing stone fireplace.

There was little furniture in the room beside the big four-poster bed, and nothing that gave evidence of modern times; it would be easy enough to fall prey to Gothic fancies in such a setting.

‘I don’t take it lightly, Viola, I promise.

But I think you overestimate what it is in Tarquin’s power to do.

As you said yourself, this woman can have no knowledge of your particular circumstances, and in fact claims none.

She can only speak of her own situation, and the facts as they stood thirty years ago.

That is not evidence in law of anything. ’

‘Of course it is not. But Madame Lesmire said?—’

‘Madame what ?’ His voice was suddenly sharp, a crack of raw emotion in the quiet room.

Her heart beat fast at the sound, the little hairs on her arms standing on end in some kind of primitive warning.

‘Madame Lesmire. Julia Lesmire. Did I not tell you her current surname? Her husband was a French émigré, she said – a refugee from the Terror.’ She was talking too much, too fast and high, as she often did when she was discomposed.

Why had the woman’s name affected him so?

He could not possibly have heard it before.

‘Ah,’ he breathed, a wealth of meaning she could not hope to interpret in the single exhalation. And then, very low, ‘I can never escape it, can I? Not even in bed with my wife, where I should be untroubled, if I can be untroubled anywhere.’

‘You know her?’

‘I’ve never met her. I am sure she cannot have claimed to have met me. If she did, she lied.’ His voice was like a whip-lash.

‘She did not say she had, unless she saw you when you were just an infant and she was married to Edward. What can she be to you, Richard?’

‘Nothing. Less than nothing.’ After a moment, he said bleakly, ‘There is no point trying to conceal from you the fact that I knew her husband. But if she has ever heard of me from him, it would have been by another name, an alias I always used, and so she would not have made the connection. He might easily have known my true identity, indeed I expect he did, but I very much doubt he would have shared it with her. What a hellish coincidence.’

‘I think she said, or implied, that he was a respectable tradesman in York, a living he took up after losing his position in society as a result of the revolution in France.’ When Richard did not reply to this, she said heavily, ‘Is that all he was? Or was he even that?’

‘Would you believe me if I said so – that he sold me a pair of riding boots when last I was in the north, or some such tale?’

He had not reacted as he had because the man had engaged him in some casual transaction of business, she was sure. ‘ Should I believe you?’

He laughed mirthlessly. ‘It was not boots, at any event. He was a wine merchant, in fact, a very good one. I’d known him casually for years.

He had all manner of connections across the Continent – Spain and Portugal, as well as France, with which country, of course, we do not legally trade at present.

But if you wanted a fine French wine or brandy, even in these unsettled times, he would engage to obtain it for you, personally.

He offered an excellent service to his customers.

Nothing was too much trouble for Lesmire. ’

‘He was a smuggler.’

‘Certainly.’

‘A spy?’

He let out a great gust of breath. ‘A very dangerous one. Whether his wife knows as much, I could not tell you, Viola. Such men are discouraged by their masters from idle domestic chatter, shall we say? But he’s dead now, so any secret knowledge he may have had can no longer threaten… anyone.’

She could hardly believe that they were having this conversation, as the flames illuminated his disturbingly impassive face for a second and then it was concealed in the shadows when he turned away from her a little.

Perhaps he could not meet her gaze, and no wonder.

This man was supposed to keep her boys safe .

This did not sound anything like safety. ‘Unless he kept records.’

The response was terrifyingly swift and sure. ‘He did, but there is no need to suffer the least anxiety over them. They have all been destroyed.’

‘The only way you could be positive of that…’

‘Is if I made certain of their destruction myself, yes. I did. I burned them, one by one; it took hours, and then I broke the ashes into pieces so no shred remained that could be read.’

She was silent for a moment. ‘Julia did not tell me how he died. The topic did not arise.’ She felt removed from herself, as if in some fever dream, and her voice echoed unpleasantly in her own ears.

‘He suffered an unfortunate accident. He liked his own wares a little too much – and so he fell down the cellar steps on his premises and broke his neck. I do not think it came as a great surprise to anyone.’

‘Not to you, at any rate, it seems.’

Again, the pregnant silence stretched. ‘Viola, are you asking me if I killed him? Because before you do, you might wish to reflect upon whether you really want to hear the answer.’

‘That sounds like answer enough to me. You did; you killed him.’ She was unnaturally calm.

‘Very well. Yes.’

The confession of murder dropped into the quiet room like a stone into a pool, and when she said nothing in immediate response – what was there to say?

– he looked at her with what she began to recognise as desperation, which scared her more than all the rest. At last, he had been completely honest with her, and it was horrifying.

‘Viola, I had my reasons for what I did, though I cannot share them yet. If you are disgusted at my actions, knowing just a tiny fraction of them, I cannot blame you. I am disgusted myself. I have done terrible things – as you once rightly said to me, I’d started doing them even before you and I first met.

There are matters that lie far heavier on my conscience than sending Citizen Lesmire to his grave.

But I will not ask you to accept any of this with complaisance.

You should not. All I will ask is for you to be patient a little while longer.

I need to tell you much more than I have – but I cannot yet.

I am not deliberately being mysterious – I simply cannot.

You heard me say that men such as Lesmire are not supposed to discuss their affairs, even with their loved ones.

Especially with them, and on pain of death. The same applies to me – for now.’

‘We’ve spoken of this before,’ she said, suddenly bone-tired. ‘You promised me you would not put the boys in any danger. That was all I asked of you, I think, and it does not seem like so very much.’

He was insistent; he took her hands and gripped them with painful intensity.

‘And I won’t. I haven’t and I won’t. Nor you.

I’d sooner cut off my own right arm than harm any of you.

I’m waiting for a letter that has been promised me, and when I have it, my situation will be different.

As soon as it arrives, I will go and see my brother, and put a stop to his threats forever, so that you may be entirely easy in your mind. ’

‘Are you going to kill him too? Because Richard, if that is your scheme, I must think you have run mad.’ She felt hysterical laughter bubbling up inside her, and only just managed to suppress it.

‘There is no safety in that for any of us; you could hang. He is your own brother, whatever else he is. I suppose you have been lucky before, with Lesmire and perhaps with others of whom I know nothing, but you cannot count on that. You must surely be able to see as much, however far you have gone to dark places where I cannot follow.’

‘It is true that I have been in dark places,’ he said sombrely.

‘But I hope to put all that behind me for good, and live in the light, with you. And I will make all sorts of threats to Tarquin, I am sure I will have to, just to get his attention, but I shall not kill him. I assure you I am not mad. I am saner than I have ever been in my life. I know exactly how much I have to lose now, when I had nothing before to live for.’

She could have told him that he had far more to lose than he knew.

She wondered if he suspected it. But he had said nothing on the subject, and she did not.

It was not the time. She snuffed out the candle at her bedside, and they spoke no more, though she did not sleep for hours and thought that he lay awake at her side too, with God knows what thoughts running through his mind.