He did not move. It whizzed by so closely that he felt the air move along his cheek. The shatter was spectacular; small stinging droplets dampened his back. She did not look away from his face. He did not look away from hers.
"Work on your aim," he said.
"I will do."
"You knew I was alive. You were not even surprised in there. And yet you didn't
—Emma,
my God. Not a single communication, not a
letter."
His hand was on her then, gripping her shoulder.
"Said what?"
"What did Lindley say?"
Like a candle doused, everything within him went dark. He marveled at it, from the curious distance where his thoughts still worked, where he was able to direct his mouth to assemble the words.
"I looked for you," he said.
Silence.
"I looked for you for months."
"Yes?" She was not looking at him anymore. She was studying the remnants of the champagne bottle behind him. "Pity, then. I shouldn't have thrown it. We could have toasted your efforts."
"You don't believe me."
Her shoulders moved in a small shrug. "I don't know. Perhaps I do." She glanced to him. "But it doesn't matter, does it? You still left me to die there. Oh, you couldn't have known, of course; and I don't blame you for it. After all, I didn't die. And all's well that ends well, yes? So I do hope you won't trouble yourself over it. Certainly it does not occupy
my
thoughts overmuch." Her brows rose. "Oh, I see that shocks you. What, did you expect me to still be in mourning for our … our star-crossed romance? The only man I ever loved, and all that?" She paused. "No answer for that, I see."
You left me to die there.
The words were acidic in his ears. They settled so well into the groove his own thoughts had worn on the subject. As for the rest of what she said—if he had not had the eyes to watch her, perhaps he would have believed she meant it.
"I want to know what happened to you," he said.
She smiled a little. "Curiosity killed the cat, your grace. And now—I think I'll be off. I'm sure my cousin is ripping up the place looking for me. Do convey my good wishes to Lady Edon."
She made her retreat into the house with slow dignity. But the stiffness with which she mounted the stairs, and the small bobble at the top, gave her away. Her knees were about to give out on her.
He let her go, only for that. Only because it was very clear that she would not want him to see her collapse. London was not war-torn; she would not be able to vanish. God help her if she were foolish enough to try.
A crack of thunder sounded. As the rain began to beat down, Julian shut his eyes and turned his face to the sky. The rain was cold. His thoughts felt more lucid than they had in a long while.
He thought it highly possible that he was going to kill Marcus Lindley.
Julian strode past. "Is she gone?"
"As though the devil were at her heels."
"No wonder you and I rub along. We have a peculiar talent for making women run."
Lockwood came up beside him.
"Careful,
Auburn."
"Indeed. Very careful."
A brief, aggrieved silence, and then: "That was a bloody
guest.
One I had to work quite hard to lure here."
Julian came to a stop. "I do not like the sound of that."
"Don't you?" Lockwood stepped in front of him. "I find it odd, but it seems we are about to come to blows. If that's the case, let's do it here rather than in the gallery."
"Afraid of an audience?"
Lockwood made an exasperated noise. "Did you perhaps notice that this entire event is meant to draw attention to Miss Ashdown's art? You are quite stealing her thunder." He frowned. "Have you seen the paintings, Auburn?"
"You are strange by routine, but I would not have thought you dense. No."
"Perhaps you should have a look at them."
"Alas, I have a prior appointment."
"And where might that be?"
"It depends," Julian said. "But I believe I will start at the East India Club. Step out of my way, or steal Miss Ashdown's thunder; it is all up to you."
Lockwood caught him by the arm, and he felt his fist curl. He had thought to save it for Lindley, but if Lockwood wanted a go first—
"Look at them as you pass, then." Lockwood was quiet but insistent. "At the least, do give them a look."
Julian threw off his arm. "Good evening," he said, and strode into the gallery. If not the East India Club, then Brooks's. Lindley was nothing if not predictable.
A woman backed into his path, her palm pressed to her mouth as she looked up. He sidestepped, but her arrested expression caused him to flick a glance toward the source of her horror.
Jesus Christ.
Julian took a step back from it. He smelled gunpowder. Dust and blood clogged the back of his throat. Another step. The wall pushed against his shoulder blades. His eyes moved to the next painting.
The frame barely contained the massive form of the British soldier. The perspective was from beneath him, as though the man were reaching down to throttle the viewer. His uniform was covered in dirt and blood. He looked familiar. It was not simply the death in his eyes that Julian recognized.
His gut realized before he did. The roll of nausea alerted him, lifted the fine hairs on his neck.
If I see you again, I'll kill you.
On a breath, he forced himself closer to the painting. The brushstrokes were harsh, long and angular and thickly layered. He could envision how it must have been done: by literally slashing the colors onto the canvas, violent downward strikes of the brush-wielding hand.
Save for the bottom. From a few feet away, it became apparent that there was delicate gibberish running along the base of the painting. A pace closer, and the gibberish snapped into focus: sloppily rendered Urdu.
The city is not secure; therefore wait.
He could not imagine wanting to look on these paintings every day. Or ever again. "Not the—" He swallowed. Where was his voice? He had forgotten the smell of it, the smell of the dying; but suddenly it was everywhere around him. The blood—the texture of the oil paint served it so well—"Not the sort of thing one hangs in a bedchamber."
"You think? I'm not sure. The man has a powerful lust in his eye."
The key turning in his locked memory.
Chandni Chowk.
Emma on the ground.
One man over her, reaching for his belt. The other holding her maid.
This one. Yes.
"—if you could stop by Dover Street—"
There were war drums in his head as he walked down the gallery. The ground was vibrating beneath his feet in steady, regular vibrations, and all of these people, whispering and drinking and staring at the wall, had no idea. No idea at all.
As he reached the last of the paintings, his breath left him. For there was Sapnagar, its distinctive plateau detailed in miniature, as though seen from a great distance. And in the foreground, a village on fire, and a band of bloodied sepoys approaching.
And where was I then?
he thought. At that very moment, rendered with such clarity that it was as if he were seeing it through her eyes—where had he been then?
Curiosity killed the cat,
she had said to him, and smiled.
She shuddered, dropping her head to her knees. She was as much a monster as any whom she'd painted.
And the dream. Her parents. The shipwreck. For the first time in more than a year, it had come to her last night. Her mother's face—
Damn him.
She had been done with this, finished. She could not bear to live it again!
A knock came at the door. She ignored it. Delph would go away in another minute. All day she had been knocking, and retreating, and knocking again. It would be kinder to assuage her concern, but Delphinia wanted answers to the most irritating questions—such as why the Duke of Auburn felt entitled to manhandle her.
"What is the connection between you?" she had demanded upon boarding the coach. And when no reply had proved forthcoming, she'd said to Lord Chad, "I did not know madness ran in that family. You should have seen it, Gideon. He was looking at her as though she were a ghost, and groping her, and mumbling all manner of claptrap!"
As though I were a ghost.
It seemed a fitting comparison. Ghosts were also robbed of their peace, at the very time when they should have found it. Her career launched. Her paintings a success. She kicked at the newspaper by her foot. The critics were most impressed.
And the guests—they had not simply admired her work, they had wanted to buy it. She was sure Lockwood had stopped her in the hallway to tell her that, as she'd come in from the garden. She'd been in no state to fabricate happy hallucinations, so she expected that he really had said to her, "Several people have inquired about purchasing the work."
So, an all-around triumph. Ruined by him.
How effortlessly he destroyed her. Had once not been enough? She had never admitted her love, as he had done. But how she had loved him. Did he imagine that
his
declaration, so long ago, to that girl she had been, gave him the right to question her now? And yet he
had
asked. He had asked what had happened to her, and he had looked at her as though he knew her, as though he could guess the answers. How she had wanted to strike him! As if anything remained in her that he might recognize.
Look more closely,
she should have said.
See what is really here, if you can bear it. And once you do see, you will not ask me again to tell you how I made it out of that country. You will no longer wish to hear it.
The sound of the key turning in the door brought her to her feet. "I do
not
desire company."
"I only wished to see if the bedroom was still standing," her cousin said as she stepped inside. She carried Poppet, her small white lapdog, in her arms. "It sounded as though you'd taken to ripping up my floorboards."
Emma settled back onto the chair. "Very well, then. You see the floor is intact."
Delphinia surveyed the room. "You were very angry."
"And now I am exhausted." Emma manufactured a laugh. "Dismantling bedrooms is very hard labor."
"A note came for you."
"Put it on the dresser."
"Oh, do open it, Emma." Delphinia set Poppet onto the floor. "I'm dying to know if it's from the madman."
"He is not mad," she heard herself say. "That is … he says he thought me dead."
"Dead!"
Emma bent down to scoop up the dog. "I wish you wouldn't let Poppet wander in here. I've got turpentine about."
"Emma, why in the world would he think you dead?"
She toyed with one of Poppet's soft ears, receiving an enthusiastic lick in return. "He helped me to escape Delhi. I told you once that I'd had help. But then we were—separated."
"Oh!"
It was somewhat amusing to watch Delphinia struggle to restrain herself. She had tried asking about India before, in darker days; no doubt she feared a response similar to the ones she had gotten then. Hysterical tears. Or, later, stony silence.
Emma had never been able to speak of it, or him. Only paint it.
Her one painting with no blood. It appeared in her mind now. Frighteningly immediate, with his face last night to draw upon. On the canvas, his figure was complete. The rooftop was complete. And the moon was perfect, swollen gold in a soft dark sky. But the background remained blank, even though she had always been able to envision it. At first she had thought it would be a flat, gray wasteland, dotted with corpses, stretching out like a premonition behind the promise of his eyes. She'd done the first rough sketch of it in Kurnaul, while waiting, like a fool, for his reply.
Then, later, she had changed her mind. No corpses were necessary to symbolize the horrors she'd seen. She would leave the plain barren, as barren as his promise had been.
Yet she'd never managed to bring herself to finish the background and call it done.
She wondered whether he had thought her dead even as she'd sat in Kurnaul envisioning it. Or had he come to that conclusion later? He said he had searched for her. Had she somehow missed word of him? Had he come and gone, all while she sat there sketching, pouring her heart and love and sorrow into her pencil, watching his face come to life on the page? If he had found her then, it might still have been all right. Even then, she
—God,
she could not bear to think on it!
She would not think on it.
As for the present, he would not prove bothersome. No, he was done with her, quite done, engaged to be married to the lovely Lady Edon. The perfect match for a duke, was Baroness Edon—a quick glance in
Burke's Peerage
had proved it. That volume was the first thing Emma had thrown today.
What pompous little children they'd make together.
She put her fist against the sudden pain in her gut. Pounding stakes together to stretch canvas was such a physical endeavor, and disassembling them even more rigorous. All sorts of twinges resulted.
She saw that Delphinia was still waiting for her to speak. "Here, take Poppet back. Did Lockwood tell you last night? He received offers on some of the paintings."
"What a marvelous compliment! Will you sell them?"
She shrugged. Once, she had supposed that she would simply burn the paintings. That a time would come when destroying them would be the logical final step. But she hadn't even been able to burn that first sketch of Anne Marie. She would have liked to destroy it, for it lingered at the edge of her mind like a sore. She had
tried
to burn it. Two years ago, she had snatched a bottle of wine from the cellar, some bread and cheese from the kitchen, and nursed a fire in her bedroom—intending to celebrate as she watched the drawing incinerate.
But there was something of herself in the sketch—and even, perhaps, in the letters she'd snatched from the soldier—that she was not quite able to let go. A piece of what had made her as she was today. She could disown that part of her, certainly; she could leave it behind, but it would not be destroyed. And so she had put the papers away from her. All of it. The evidence of her greatest crime, and the scene of the greatest crime she had witnessed—they lay pressed together in one of the frames hanging in Lord Lockwood's gallery. Perhaps Julian had even considered the painting that held them. Surely he had seen her paintings last night? She wondered whether it had crossed his mind to speculate at who could have produced such scenes. What he had thought of them, and whether—
She pressed her fist harder into her stomach. The busk dug into her sternum, a bruising pressure, satisfying somehow. "Coz, I must go."
"Now? Where? May I come?"
"I mean, I must leave London. I am expected in Rome anyway; I can rebook my passage this afternoon."
"Oh,
Emma."