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In the end, Kilmartyn didn’t return, and there was no way she could look into his dark green eyes and know for sure whether he’d committed a horrific crime. Or two of them. She picked at the venison pie Mrs. Harkins had made for her absent employer, and it wasn’t until late that she finally managed to crawl up the endless flights of stairs to her room beneath the eaves, and she was so weary she almost forgot about her hidden cache under her narrow bed. She’d waited until everyone else had retired, insisting she had work to do on her housekeeping books, and it was all she could do to stay awake long enough to be certain that each and every one of the servants was sound asleep. Bertie had been relieved of hallway duty, both because he’d failed so dismally the night before and because Kilmartyn had left word not to expect him home. Bryony could only thank the heavens for that small blessing. She wasn’t sure she could look at him again, not after having spent the day cleaning blood from his wife’s bedroom. His despised wife’s bedroom. No matter how often she told herself it meant nothing, a strange feeling lingered between her shoulder blades, a feeling she didn’t want to examine too closely.
She also had no intention of going to bed with dried blood caked beneath her fingernails. She waited as long as she possibly dared before creeping back up to the second floor, the floor of bloodstains and no living soul around. Her understanding of plumbing had its limitations, and by the time the copper tub was six inches deep with water the stuff coming out of the tap was cold, so she simply stripped off her clothes and climbed in, letting the water lap around her hips. It still felt wonderful, even if she had to duck and bend and turn, even if she had to rinse her hair in icy water, even if she panicked every two minutes, thinking she heard footsteps. It wasn’t until she’d finished that she realized she’d forgotten something as mundane as toweling, so she simply dried herself off as best she could with the cleaner bits of her clothing, wrapped it around her body and then sped up the two narrow flights of stairs to her bedroom, all without anyone catching her. By the time she closed the door behind her, dropped her soiled clothing, and fell naked on her bed, she was shivering and laughing at the same time, thrilled with having gotten away with it. It wasn’t until she reached for her nightdress that hung in the small armoire that she remembered what had happened to her the last time she wore it, and her momentary sense of triumph vanished.
There was no gaslight on the top story of the town house, but the oil lamp provided more than enough illumination. Once she was dressed she hauled her cache out from under the bed, dumped it on the mattress and set to work on the lock. It seemed to be meant more for fashion than function, because she easily opened the ledger that would provide proof of Kilmartyn’s guilt or innocence.
She slammed it shut again with a horrified gasp. It wasn’t a ledger, a journal, any kind of proof at all, unless you considered it a proof of moral depravity, and she hadn’t needed proof of that. The book was very old, filled with engravings that were detailed, delicate, hand-tinted. And startlingly obscene.
The men and women in the drawings were in various stages of undress, though the clothing, or lack thereof, was the least shocking thing about it. It was what those men and women were doing that was so astonishing.
At least it answered her question about the Elgin Marbles. These men were possessed of body parts that were very different from those she’d seen in the British Museum, and after one close look she immediately slammed the heavy leather covers closed again as she felt the heat rise in her face. She wasn’t so naive that she doubted that’s what people actually did to each other. She’d spent enough time in the country to understand the rudiments of animal congress, though the sketches in this book seemed to suggest that humans use a great deal more variety in their amorous pursuits. And surely the… appendages must be exaggerated.
She opened the book again, steeling herself to look down at the drawings. There was text as well, in old Italian, and she suspected the book was both old and valuable. Perhaps people didn’t do such things anymore. Perhaps this was aberrant behavior practiced by Italians, or members of some cult.
She closed it again, scrambled off the bed, and shoved the book underneath the mattress, blowing out the lamp before climbing back under the covers. If Kilmartyn could sleep on it so could she. Tomorrow she would burn the wretched thing.
Five minutes later she sat up, lit the lamp, and pulled out the book once more. The oddest thing about the drawings was how happy everyone appeared to be. The women who were being pleasured most outrageously were laughing in delight, the men equally pleased with the world. She didn’t equate copulation with such open joy. Carefully she began to read through the book again, distracting herself by translating until she began to understand what the words were saying. She almost slammed the book closed again, but she steadied herself, studying each page with care. In fact, now that her initial shock had faded, it seemed more like some wicked chapbook, with careful instructions for degrees of intimacy if her limited grasp of Italian served her. She stopped at the strangest engraving of all. A man was standing by an open window, his breeches unfastened, and a woman knelt in front of him. All she could see was the back of the female’s head, but she had a strong suspicion about what that woman was doing. And indeed, when she turned the next page the view was from a different angle, and the activity was far too clear.
Bryony told herself she should feel horror, disgust, shock. Instead she stared at the drawing for long moments, wondering what would cause a woman to do such a strange thing. Wondering what it would taste like. Feel like. Wondering why she felt heat begin to pool low inside her.
She shoved the book away again. Nanny Gruen would tell her it ought to be burned, but even Bryony, despite her innocence, knew better. The sketches had been done by a master’s hand, and the sheer inventiveness and joy in the pages should never be obliterated. Kept out of sight of innocents, of course, but it really was the most extraordinary document.
She lay still in her bed, fighting her curiosity. Her long thick hair was still damp, and she shivered slightly in the cool night air. She needed to sleep. She’d worked abominably hard today, tomorrow would bring new challenges, and she was exhausted.
She lay on her back, and yet the covers seemed to caress her body, including the fine lawn nightdress she’d brought with her. It was almost as if there’d been some sort of magic elixir in the bathwater that had made her skin sensitive to the feel of everything. Perhaps her father had been correct about the dangers of excessive bathing.
Or perhaps he
’d known nothing at all. It wasn’t the hot water caressing her skin, the scent of lavender from the fine-milled soap that had roused such a strange reaction in her body. It was the book hidden beneath her bed, the drawings. The suggestions of possibilities that seemed to have slid beneath her skin like some wicked itch.
She suddenly realized her hand had drifted to her stomach, and she pulled it away, shocked at herself. Women didn’t touch themselves. Pleasure themselves. Unless, of course, they were the women in the sketches, who seemed just as happy using their own hands or cylindrical objects provided by their partners.
She sat up. Her skin was on fire, the secret place between her legs felt heavy, aching. She needed to think of something else, something to wipe the erotic images from her brain.
The answer was clear, obvious, and unacceptable. She could think about what happened in the room two flights beneath her. The struggle, the blood, the death she didn’t want to believe had happened. Or she could think of the men in the book, the clever hands touching places no gentleman should touch, the body parts that were much larger than seemed possible, and slumberous pleasure on the women’s classic faces.
She lay back down again. She could think of it in scholarly terms. Artistic ones. She had a certain talent with brush and ink, but the delineation of muscle, the smoothness of flank, the delicacy of expression clearly showed the hand of a master. What artist had spent such time crafting naughty drawings? And had he experienced everything he’d drawn? She suspected he had, and more than once, if he’d been able to capture it so faithfully, and then she realized her hand was stroking her pebbled breast and she yanked it away again, keeping her arms rigidly by her side.
She couldn’t think about those drawings, not with the peculiar effect they were having on her own flesh. And she wouldn’t think of Lady Kilmartyn’s devastated room and whatever disaster she had covered up.
She could think of Renwick, its vast, sprawling lands, the house that went back to the time of Good Queen Bess, the dairies and honey house and gardens, all tended with loving care. But the longing that had always suffused her seemed muted now. Renwick was in the past, no longer hers to watch over. This was her home now, as disordered as it was.
Was it feminine nature, to claim wherever one lived as home? Was it normal to cleave to the new household, dismissing the old? Or was there something else about this place that drew her? Not just the mysteries, the questions, the unproven hints of violence. Why did this suddenly feel as if this was where she belonged?
She knew the answer, of course. Knew it, and refused to think about or dissect it. Adrian Bruton, fourth Earl of Kilmartyn, degenerate, sensualist, rake, and reprobate, had as powerful an attraction for her as the wicked drawings beneath her bed. No matter what crimes she thought him capable of, she was still drawn to him in a way no Christian woman ought to be. And as she let sleep claim her, her drifting mind saw herself on her knees in front of him, the taste and size of him in her mouth, the delight on her face with her half-closed eyes.
It had been a hell of a day, Adrian thought as he stumbled through the darkened hallways of his town house. There was no one waiting up for him this time—little wonder, since his footman had been sound asleep when he’d come in the night before.
Of course, that hadn’t been an accident. Bertie wasn’t the brightest of lads but he was usually reliable. He expected someone had drugged the boy.
He hadn’t even thought more about it, heading up to bed until he’d woken up with the delightful surprise of Bryony rummaging underneath his mattress. Hadn’t thought of anything at all until he’d been sitting at his desk, thinking of his housekeeper, Russell’s daughter, and he’d finally decided he’d had enough of his blackmailing harridan of a wife.
If he was going to be tried for treason so be it. He’d be gone before they put him in the dock—he had enough money to disappear. He had little reason to trust the British government, and he’d done his best to find peaceful ways to change the current iron control of Ireland since the debacle of the first Fenian Outrage. If he had to leave he would, and never look back.
But he was damned if he was going to spend one more day married to a woman who paraded her lovers in front of him and toyed with him when she grew bored. Those damnably few moments with the sweetly delectable Bryony in his bed had done something to him. Changed him in some immutable way.
He hadn’t thought the world could get much darker, but it had. It was pure luck that he’d found the blood-soaked clothes, his clothes, before his unwanted but acceptable valet did. He had little doubt that violence had been done in his house, and that his despised wife was dead. And someone was trying to make certain he was the one who’d be blamed for it.
He’d had no idea he had such a powerful enemy. Or maybe it was simply Cecily who had enemies, and whoever had killed her needed a scapegoat.
