But this was no accomplishment, I realised as I saw the naked anguish in his eyes. He dropped his hands from the bedposts.
“I gave him my word,” he said simply, each word bitten off sharply.
“I have no doubt of it, and it is to your credit that you kept it. But I am no child to be cossetted and protected from everything that is dark and dangerous. If you cannot tell me the truth, at least own that you cannot and do not lie to me! I would not have liked it if you had told me you were bound to silence, but I would have respected it.”
Derision twisted his lip. “Now who gives a lie? You would have done precisely the same as you did tonight if I had given you half an answer. Do not deny it.”
I nibbled at my lip. He was, of course, correct. If I had known he was investigating on behalf of Bellmont, it would have made no difference. I would have acted the same as when I believed Brisbane himself was in danger.
“Perhaps you are correct,” I conceded.
“Perhaps?” One brow arched in enquiry. I did not rise to it. I merely dropped my head and contemplated the toes of my boots.
“I did not mean to frighten you,” I said softly. “I never imagined things would go so far. I only thought to follow you and be at hand if you had need of me.”
He cocked his head. “Because you believed I was in trouble.”
“A point which caused you no end of amusement when we were in the materialising cabinet,” I pointed out.
“It does not seem quite so funny now,” he commented. “But that was before that stupid French charlatan got herself killed.”
He was calmer now, the heat of his anger cooling just a bit. I ventured a question.
“Why could nothing be done for her? It was so dreadful just watching her die.”
He fixed me with a curious look, and I saw something there that told me his anger was not quite so cool as I thought.
“You found that dreadful, and yet you still question my wisdom in excluding you from such things? I have seen a thousand uglier deeds than that, my dear, and I carry memories that would turn the sanity of any man. Yet still you defy me.”
“I do not know what to say.” I spread my hands. “The situation was not at all what I expected, but neither I think was it entirely to your expectations,” I ventured carefully. “You did not look to Madame to be murdered tonight.”
“But I knew it was a possibility,” he said evenly.
“And you could not prevent it?” Too late, I heard the note of horrified accusation in my voice.
He stared at me a long minute, his emotions now carefully held in check, his expression as neutral as a chess king.
“Some people do not deserve to be saved,” he replied.
I said nothing, for there was nothing to say.
After a moment, he roused himself and shot his cuffs. “I am going out. You will remain here. I want your word upon it.”
There was no purpose in fighting with him. I was thoroughly exhausted, in mind and body. I wanted nothing more than a hot bath and my bed.
“You have it.”
He regarded me closely. “If you break it, I will keep you here by force the next time, if I have to tie you to the bed myself.”
I did not think even for a moment that he might have been jesting. I licked my lips and nodded. He did not kiss me goodbye, but crossed the room, pausing with his hand upon the knob.
“I am surprised at you,” he added as a parting shot. “You have seen someone die of aconite poisoning once before. Did you not recognise the symptoms?”
He did not wait for a reply. He left, and to his credit, he did not lock me in. He did not have to. I lay on the bed, utterly spent, considering all that we had said and done that night. It did not make for a very edifying inventory, I realised. We had been cruel to each other, each of us lashing out from our own fears until we drew blood from the other. Brisbane’s last remark was particularly barbed. My first husband had died as a result of aconite poisoning, and although it was unkind of him to point it out, he was correct. I ought to have seen it.
Madame had been lavishly sick shortly after eating. She had the same pallor as Edward had, the same convulsions. But I wondered. Many poisons could create a similar effect, some of them quite accidentally administered. Was there a chance Madame had met with her fate unintentionally? But Brisbane had been certain she had been killed with a purpose, and his remark that she did not deserve to live had not been delivered apropos of nothing. He had been uncharacteristically vicious in his speech, but not his thinking. He would have had a good reason for his opinion of Madame, but I had seen nothing in her séance or her conversation with her sister to indicate what evil she might entertain.
Of course, pondering Madame’s fatal evening meant I could avoid thinking of Brisbane and how badly I had blundered once again. I had meant to discover the truth about Bellmont’s call upon Brisbane, and instead I had muddled my way into something else entirely. It was not the first time I had pushed my way into his world, and not the first time I had made him shatteringly angry in doing so. The trouble, I believed, had its roots in our respective pasts. I came from a family too much in each other’s pockets. We Marches were forthright, emotional, feckless and impulsive. We also loved to talk. There was not a thought or deed that went unremarked amongst us. Secrets were short-lived in our family. We made a life’s work of interfering in each other’s business, and then telling the others about it, and with ten children, there was always much to tell.
Brisbane’s upbringing could not have been more different. He was an unwanted child, half Gypsy, half Scot, got in the heat of a passionate and tempestuous marriage that had not even lasted until his birth. His mother had died in gaol, accused of heinous crimes and crying down curses upon her accusers. His father was best unspoken of. His aristocratic Scottish family would not so much as acknowledge he had existed. His name had been struck from the family Bible, and Brisbane himself hovered on the edge of both worlds. He was neither fish nor fowl, for his Gypsy kin felt him too much a Scot, his Scottish family considered him a wild and savage Gypsy brat.
He had brought himself up, leaving his mother before he was ten and living upon his wits since then. He had achieved respectability by his own merit and wealth from his own accomplishments. He had built a life for himself that was larger than any his family could have given him. He was a man in a thousand, ten thousand, for I had never met another like him, and only Brisbane with his passion and his maddening ways could have tempted me again to marriage. I adored him in ways that frightened me, and the notion that frightened me the most was that Brisbane would come to regret marrying me. He had lived so long upon his own that the act of trust was a difficult one for him to master. He had his associates and friends—the redoubtable Monk, the gentle Dr. Bent, and now, perhaps, my brother Plum. His former mistress and my dear friend, Hortense de Bellefleur, was another. That he was capable of love was undoubted. That he could live with it was another matter entirely.
I made up my mind to call upon Hortense at the earliest opportunity and slid into an uneasy sleep, only to rouse as soon as Brisbane returned. I spied from the face of the clock that it was past two.
“Brisbane?” I called softly.
He sat heavily on the edge of the bed. I had turned the fire down before going to sleep, and only the softest glow from the hearth lit the room. His face was thrown into shadowed relief, and I could see his features only in turn. He pulled off one boot and dropped it to the floor.
“The death has been reported to the authorities. There will be a postmortem and an inquest.” The second boot fell.
“Good,” I said fervently. “Even if she was dreadful, her sister deserves to know what happened.”
He said nothing as he stripped off his clothes, draping them over the chair by the hearth. He was, as ever, casual