Chapter Twenty-Seven




William flung himself from the horse’s back almost before it came to a full stop in front of the house. The little Jack-of-all-trades hall boy was standing near the carriage block. He tried to speak, but William ignored his words. He was too eager to see her to stop and talk to a servant. He threw the boy the reins and half-ran across the lawn to the house. As he went, his hand closed over the small lump in his left front trouser pocket. He was almost afraid it would not be there, but it was. A small, black jewelers’ box lined with blue velvet. His heart thumped in and out of rhythm as he thought of what he would say when he gave it to her.

He took the front steps two at a time and flung open the front door before Edward could do it for him. He dropped his coat and hat on the foyer carpet, and then headed for the stairs. She had said she would be in the library, waiting for him. It felt as if it had been ages since he had seen her, since he had held her. His hands shook with anticipation, and he clutched the banister tightly to steady himself. Took the first step—

“William.”

He turned slightly. His mother was standing just behind him at the foot of the stairs, and he could tell by her expression something dreadful had happened. His first thought was her health. Yet she seemed well, hardly leaning on her cane at all. But her eyes—her eyes were so strange—

“Mother,” he said. His heart was already in his throat, threatening to strangle him. Dear God, why does she look so strange?

“William, we have been looking for you,” she said. Her voice was strange, as well, and not remotely her own. She added, “I sent Matthew out to fetch you. I didn’t suppose you would be coming home so early.”

Early. How could he wait any later, now that he had found the ring? He worked with the accountant for only an hour after lunch before declaring that he could not bear any more. He had ridden home at a gallop. Still, it did not seem quick to him. Not nearly quick enough.

Now, he stared down at his mother speechlessly. Something about her eyes—something dreadful—

“William, come in here for just a moment please. Come down…”

She motioned to the parlor off to her right, but he didn’t follow her direction. Instead, he gripped the banister all the more tightly, almost painfully. “What is it, Mother? Has something happened?”

Her eyes flitted from his face to the floor and then back again. “Something…” she said softly. “Something terrible.”

“What? What is it? Are you all right—?” But he knew. By now, he knew it was not she, who was in trouble. “Where is Elizabeth?” he asked suddenly.

“Oh, William. She—”

“Where is she?” His voice was something between a sob and shout, frightening even to him. Anne extended a hand out to him but he stumbled backwards up the stairs, avoiding her touch. “Just tell me where she is!”

“She is gone, William.” Anne’s face crumpled, and her voice became clogged with tears as she said again, “William, she’s gone.”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




At first, he refused to believe it.

Gone. How could she be gone? She loved him. She was his. She wouldn’t leave him. She had promised never to leave him. Yet she had gone early that afternoon, taken the gray pony, and the animal had returned a short time later without a rider. She was going to visit him, they said. She wanted to take him some food, because she felt certain he had not eaten lunch. The constable who stood, red-faced and hat in hand, in their parlor, thought that she had most likely suffered a fall. His men were checking nearby hospitals and doctor’s offices in the event that she injured herself and someone had carried her for help. However, the possibility also remained that someone less virtuous might have found her. This side of London seemed particularly vulnerable to thieves and cutthroats, as of late. Possibly—

Well, William refused to believe that, too.

Although the constable insisted it was not necessary, William left the house to look for her himself. He made a careful circuit all around the area, taking the road to the accountant’s dozens of times before reconciling himself to the fact that there was nothing there. There was no sign at all that she had even passed through here, let alone any indication of what might have happened when she did. Even accepting the fact that it was doing no good, William was reluctant to give up his search. He did so only in the hope that perhaps the police had found something.

They hadn’t.

William felt curiously numb when he heard this. He knew it was shock, his mind’s way of giving him time to adjust to the idea, to the wound. It blocked the greater portion of the pain. For that, he was thankful.

The stunned look on his face and the stupor that he seemed to have placed on himself worried his mother. She reached out to grasp his hand.

“It is rising three o’clock. The constable promised to return at six with a report—sooner, if he should find her or hear of her whereabouts. Why do you not take a bit of a rest until he arrives?”

Slowly, he shook his head.

“If she came…and I was sleeping…”

Her hand passed over his cheek. “Sweetheart, you know should that happen I will wake you straightaway. And you do not have to sleep, if it makes you uneasy. At least lie in the dark for a bit, and take a moment to collect your thoughts. It is nice and quiet, now. No one will disturb you until we hear news…”

He climbed the stairs reluctantly. Slowly, like an old, old man. He might not have gone, had he not been growing tired of the servants. They were, for the most part, still awake. The lower servants, he knew, were waiting down cellar for the higher servants to come and tell them the gossip. James, Sarah Fitzpatrick, Livvy—even Edward—were milling about in the parlor and the hallway, staring at him as if he were an insect under glass. It was unnerving, and he could bear it no longer.

Still, he did not intend to lie upon his bed. Should she arrive home, he did not want to wait even the few moments it would take to wake him, to see her. Not that he expected he would fall asleep. He was in shock; he wasn’t sleepy. Nonetheless, it was a risk he was not willing to take. He went instead into the library. Someone had lit the lamps, as if expecting his arrival. The room was warm with the glow of the fire and almost silent save for the quiet tick tick tick of the grandfather clock. William dropped wearily onto the sofa.

I will never leave you.

So she said. And she hadn’t, had she? It was his fault, not hers. He had left her. He knew better than to leave her like that; he had felt for days that it wasn’t safe. So for what earthly reason did he allow her to convince him to go?

Because I love her.

He loved her so much that he left her alone and vulnerable. He loved her so much he sulked and made her believe that she must come to him when he was away. He loved her so much that he gave her that bloody horse, the accursed animal that might have killed her.

Shock slowly began to fade from him, the numbness bleeding away to be replaced by an almost intolerable pain. Also with anger. Anger at himself, at his mother—anger at everyone who could have stopped her from leaving and hadn’t. It had been with him since he first heard of her disappearance, that anger. Then it had been small, a flickering spark. Now it caught hold, lapping at his heart like a fire to paper, burning until it consumed him wholly—

His glazed eyes darted across the empty room, and suddenly it seemed as if he could stand it no longer. His life had been nothing but a series of empty rooms until he met Elizabeth. Until he met her, living was something he did vicariously through books and fantasies. Until he met her, books and fantasies had been enough.

Now, they were not.

Now, he faced the possibility of having lost her forever. The possibility that he must return to that former barren existence. Suddenly, the library seemed to him to be a symbol of that previous life—a mocking reminder of the life to come—and he hated it. He hated it so terribly that he did what any man with hatred in his heart does when he has nothing else to lose: he tried to destroy the thing he hated.

He almost did not realize he was doing it. It happened so fast, and the fire inside him was blazing, obscuring everything in a dense black fog. He leapt from the sofa like a cat on the hunt and darted over to the nearest set of bookshelves. Dozens of beautiful books all like careworn and much-loved friends. Except that now he hated them. He dragged them from the shelves and threw them helter-skelter around the room. One of them shattered a mirror; another one landed in the fireplace and threw up a shower of sparks. William didn’t notice. He noticed nothing. Nothing at all, except—

She’s never coming back.

He had tried to block out the thought all night, but still it came. Because he knew, she wasn’t. She was dead. The fall from the horse had killed her—or else some disgusting vagabond had—and it was all because of him. He had been too weak to take her into hand, to teach her to obey him. Because of this, she saw fit to ride out into London, alone. In effect, he had allowed her to die.

He had killed her.

It was this thought more than anything that kept him going. Had it been only the loss of her, perhaps he might have tired himself out or come to his senses. Yet the knowledge that he had caused her death was literally maddening, and at that moment, when he could no longer block it from his consciousness, he went out of his mind completely.

Dimly above the sounds of his own devastation, William heard the pounding of many footsteps hurrying down the hallway. Through the opened door, a half-dozen stunned faces appeared, and his mother’s was amongst them.

“My heavens,” she gasped. “William, what on earth—”

He turned his head to look at her, but when he did, hers was not the first face he saw. Matthew was standing just outside the library, one hand propped lightly on the doorframe. He had been down in the cellar—no doubt gossiping with the other servants—when he heard the crashing sounds coming from the library. Like the others, he had hurried to investigate.

There was a kindly, sympathetic look to Matthew’s face, but William did not see it. All he could see through his utter desperation was the man who sent his love away on horseback to die. The man who could easily have stopped her, but didn't. His mother could hardly be blamed; she was a woman. But Matthew was a man; he had been ordered by William not to let her go out alone. He could have stopped her—

William lunged across the dozen or so feet that separated them and grabbed Matthew by the lapels of his coat. He yanked him into the room as if he were nothing but a doll. He slammed him into the wall and demanded through clenched teeth, “Did you smile at her?”

“What—?” Matthew’s brown eyes were wide with shock.

William hit him, then. So hard across the jawbone that his knuckles split, and Matthew spat blood.

“When you saddled that pony—did you smile at her?” He didn’t give the man time to answer before he hit him again, this time across the mouth. He kept beating him, grunting between blows: “When you let her go—when you sent her off to die—”

Matthew’s hands came up in front of his torso, struggling to shove William off him, because he would not strike his employer, not for anything. His hands were strong, but madness and sheer force of will made William even stronger. He couldn’t push him away.

“Sir—sir, I didn’t want—I never wanted her to come to harm—”

William didn’t even hear him. He could hear nothing except the roaring hatred in his ears. The brutal thought, singular in its intensity: I will kill him. I will.

And he would have.

In the end, it was only through the combined efforts of James and Edward that Matthew escaped. They hauled William away from him, pinning his arms behind his back so that he could not strike them. Nevertheless, he gave them a rough time, kicking and cursing. Struggling to break free and return to Matthew.

Meanwhile, Matthew staggered back to the doorway. His face was streaming blood, and his body felt like one enormous bruise. Yet when Anne asked him if he was all right, he said only, “I shall be fine.”

“Can you ride?” Anne asked. Her voice was hushed and frightened. Matthew nodded, and she added urgently, “Then go for your Master’s doctor. Quickly.”

He hit the stairs at a run, wiping the blood from his face as he went.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




Dr. Gull scarcely had to look at his patient (who still was being forcibly restrained by the hired help) before making his diagnoses.

“Hysterics,” he said. “I can give him something to calm him until it passes. As it happens, I have with me quite a good sedative.”

“A sedative,” echoed Anne anxiously. “Is that quite safe?”

The doctor was already pulling a syringe and a small glass bottle from his bag. He answered off-handedly: “Oh, very safe. This is a morphine derivative, one used commonly for this purpose. We shall give him enough to offer him a good bit of rest, then keep administering it until the danger period is over.”

He rocked the bottle gently in between his thumb and forefinger and then plunged the needle of the hypodermic into it, drawing a good amount of fluid into its glass barrel. He tapped it once or twice to remove air before he turned to his patient.

“Hold him quite still,” he ordered the servants. “It needs to go into a vein.”

They forced William onto the floor. He lay on his back with Matthew sitting across his legs to prevent him from kicking. James held down his right arm and pulled his head to the side. Mr. Edward restrained the left arm, around which the doctor was placing a tourniquet.

It went very quickly.

Afterward, they did not immediately release him because, although injected into the bloodstream, the drug did not take effect immediately. In the matter of a few moments, however, William’s body began to go slack. Once it became apparent that he was sleeping—and therefore no longer a threat—the three men let go of him. On the orders of the doctor, Edward and James picked him up and carried him to his bedchamber. Matthew, however, did not accompany them.

He limped quietly down the corridor. The cook and some other servants were standing near the stairs, huddled together like a group of clucking, gossipy hens. When they saw him, they all went quite still. No doubt, they felt shocked by the hideous condition of his face. He could not really fault them for that.

It was Livvy, who finally broke the silence.

“How terrible for you,” she said softly. “Was it Master William? It must have been; we all heard the commotion. Sarah said he’s gone quite mad…”

The cook snorted. “Mad, my foot,” she said angrily. “It’s plumb spoiled, he is. Treated like a prince ‘round here and parading that little girl about as if she were his bride, instead of a common mistress. You ought to press charges for this, Matthew. Of course, it will do you no good. Nobody in London cares about the working class…not when the wealthy can do whatever they like and get away with it.”

“It is all right,” Matthew said wearily. “He did not realize what he was doing. Furthermore, I feel that I haven’t a right to press charges, even if it was guaranteed to do me some good.”

“But why not?” the cook demanded. “Look at your face, man—”

“I would not,” he answered softly, “because he was right. I should not have allowed her to leave on that horse. It is my fault she is gone.”

He pushed past the little crowd to the staircase. In the wake of such chaos, the house and yard now seemed utterly silent. There was a light burning in the carriage house window, and Matthew knew that inside their small quarters his wife waited for him. But he could not face her just yet. His heart was too heavy for explanations just now, and he could stomach no solace from his wife on the matter. It was his fault, and he did not wish her to tell him otherwise. Matthew was a great believer in holding one accountable for one’s actions.

In the dim quiet of the stable, the horses were pacing nervously. They, too, had heard the uproar in the house, and they felt the disturbance just as surely as a person would. He spoke softly to each of them as he passed, and they nickered in response, their soft eyes following his movements with curiosity.

In the stall at the end, Elizabeth’s gray pony was bobbing its head nervously. The mare had been quite edgy since she arrived home that afternoon without her rider, leaving Matthew to wonder just what happened out on the streets. He unlatched the door to her stall and stepped inside. When he passed his hand over her neck, he found that it was still quite damp with sweat.

“What frightened you out there?” he asked her softly, rubbing soothing circles beneath her mane. She arched her neck and sighed, and Matthew murmured again, “What did frighten you? You, who are so gentle…so steady. Did you become frightened and lose her? Or did you become frightened because you lost her?”

The gray mare, of course, gave him no answer.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




When William drifted back into consciousness, it was dark outside. At first, he interpreted this as a positive thing. He thought that it meant he had not slept long. However, when he looked at the small clock on the mantle it read 10:45. He had been asleep for almost a day. They must have sedated him more than once, then.

He sat up in bed quickly. Too quickly. The drug was still quite evident in his system, and he became dizzy when he moved. Nevertheless, he forced himself to his feet. He was still clothed but for his shoes, and he managed to slip those on without too much trouble.

Down the hallway he staggered, wrenching open the door to her bedroom with a clumsy, trembling hand. He half-expected to see her there, lying on the bed and smiling at him as she had so many times before. With everything in him, he hoped to see it.

Of course, he did not.

Her nightdress lay rumpled across the foot of the bed, and he picked it up, buried his face in it. He could smell her in the soft folds of the muslin; he could smell himself there as well. And he remembered—with a painful sense of loss and longing—that last, beautiful night with her.

“Oh, sweetheart, sweetheart,” he groaned. “Why—?”

He ran the delicate material across his mouth and breathed in its fragrance. Part of him imagined that she would suddenly appear behind him. That at any moment he would feel her slim, smooth arms wrap around his shoulders and her melodious voice in his ear. Because always before when he fell into despair, she had appeared. Always before—

But not this time.

His free hand closed over the small lump in his left trouser pocket—her ring. The ring she would never see…that would never grace her small finger. He felt ill with the thought. He dropped the nightdress and stumbled back out the door, unwilling to sully her room. Instead, he vomited onto the bright wool hallway runner.

After he finished, it seemed that he could not bear to be in the house any longer. She was in the house. She was all around him, but untouchable. Uncaring. She was dead, but her memory remained, taunting him with that which he could not have.

He fled outdoors to the quiet of the dark London streets. It was cool and damp, and he had no coat. Yet he hardly noticed the chill wind and needle-like rain. His heart was bleeding. He had given her everything—everything! His secrets and his dreams, his love and even his very soul. Now she was gone, and she had taken it all with her.

He walked for what seemed like forever. In time, the rain slackened and then stopped. However, the wind picked up. William began to shiver. He sought refuge in an alleyway between two dilapidated brick buildings in a neighborhood not familiar to him. One of the buildings had once been a livery, and there were some moldy bales of straw thrown against the side of it. William sat down on one of them and leaned against the crumbling brick wall. He closed his eyes, not bothering to try to check his tears, nor to stifle the occasional sob that rose in his throat. Why bother? Life was abysmal. He wished to die.

Some time passed—minutes, hours, days, it was all the same to him—when suddenly a small clip-clopping noise approached the mouth of the alley. A woman’s heels clicking against the cobbled stone street. William looked up sharply. Hoping—

It was a slim, dark-haired, sloe-eyed woman. She was dressed in black silk and lace, her hair drawn back from her face in a demure chignon, her little hands daintily gloved. Despite the elegant feminine attire, there was something odd about her, something feral and dark. Almost serpentine. At first, William looked away disinterestedly. Then she spoke, and her voice was as smooth as cream, as numbing as the opiate that still circulated in his blood:

“And I wonder. What possible catastrophe came crashing down from heaven and brought this dashing stranger to tears?”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~