With This Curse: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense (30 page)

And Atticus knew it.

He knew that a man ruthless enough to kill his own father and a relative stranger would not be motivated now by contrition or a sense of justice. But, being a man of honor himself, Atticus could not give up trying to evoke those long-buried impulses in his brother.
After all,
he must be thinking,
in spite of everything, we are twins. We are branches of the same root.

But Richard had traveled far since their common origin, and I despaired of his retaining all but the faintest glimmer of kinship with my husband. Even as I watched, his eyes flicked over Atticus, taking in, I was certain, the slight spasm in his bad leg. His walking stick was nowhere to be seen. No—there it was, broken in half and lying on the sand. I noticed now how churned up the sand was. Had they struggled here before Atticus drew the pistol? It seemed likely. Surely he would have saved it for a last resort.

My heart swelled suddenly with a fierce, hot rush of love for him that was actually painful, and tears squeezed from my eyes. My brave, foolish, steadfast husband was going to confront this matter according to his own sense of fair play, whatever the risk to himself. And the risk was so terribly great. For an instant I sagged against the wall, overwhelmed by the crushing weight of what seemed an inevitability.

Then I straightened, wiped my eyes with my sleeve, and set myself with renewed determination to watching, listening, and waiting for the moment to make a move. He had an ally, and Richard did not know it. Somehow I would help tip the scales in Atticus’s favor.
You are not in this fight alone,
I silently vowed.

Richard lounged casually where he stood, one elbow propped on his bent leg, flicking ash from his cigarette. “You’re looking a bit seedy, old fellow,” he said. “Tired, are we? Why don’t you stop this charade? We both know you would never kill your own brother.”

My husband’s smile belied the tension in his stance. “Perhaps not, but I might wound you severely. Enough to incapacitate you until the authorities arrive.” A pause, as if he were weighing choices. “In the thigh, say. It might not kill you, but it would slow you down well enough. And it would be damned painful.” His eyes always on Richard, he carefully switched the pistol to his other hand, and I remembered with a jolt the injuries to his shoulder and hand—more weaknesses Richard might know to exploit, especially if he had been the cause of his brother’s so-called accident. “That’s a bad place to be wounded,” he continued, as calmly as if he felt no fear. “Through no intention of mine, you might even bleed to death before assistance arrived. Are you willing to chance it?”

This did not ruffle his brother. “I’m a pretty tough specimen, and far more ruthless than you. If you injure me but don’t finish the job, you can be certain I’ll not stop until I have made an end with you.” He drew on the cigarette again, and observed, “It isn’t that I bear you any ill will, you understand. But you must go somewhere if I’m to step into your shoes, and I can tell you are too stubborn to vanish as I did. No, if I’m to become the new baron—”

It was then that I slipped.

I had been inching closer to the two of them in my stocking feet, when I stepped on a pebble that abruptly rolled under my foot and nearly threw me off balance. I caught myself in time, but there must have been some sound—the rattle of the dislodged stone, some rustle or gasp or simply the rush of my body through the air—and both faces turned in my direction.

It all happened in an instant. Atticus’s shock was the greater, and his attention rested on me just a moment too long. Richard, recovering more quickly, lunged across the distance that separated them and, even as the warning cry hovered on my lips, brought something down on Atticus’s head that made him crumple to the ground. He lay there unmoving.

“Thank you for your help, Clara,” said Richard almost gaily, as dread churned in my stomach. Atticus could not be dead, surely? Richard nudged the pistol away from him with one foot, and when Atticus neither moved nor protested, he bent swiftly to retrieve it.

“What did you hit him with?” The question forced itself from me.

“A blackjack,” he said, and flourished it. It was a small thing, so small that—I realized now—he must have had it concealed in his sleeve all this while, just waiting for a moment when his brother’s focus wavered… the moment I had blunderingly created.

“Aren’t you glad to see me?” he continued, still in high spirits. “This isn’t the greeting I expected from a former sweetheart. For that matter, how did you end up married to the martyred Atticus here?”

“I thought you were dead,” I said. I did not mean it as an answer to his question; it was simply the only thing that came to me to say. A kind of numbness seemed to have descended upon me, and I sounded quite calm. “We all did.”

He chuckled. “I did quite a thorough job of dying, didn’t I? Not even Father guessed. Although I didn’t expect him to have a stroke when I returned. That was a bit more of a reaction than I had anticipated. But let’s have a look at you! Come closer, pet.”

There was a thread of command in the words, and although he was not pointing the pistol at me, we were both aware that this could change at any moment. Slowly I descended the stone steps into the cavern. Atticus still had not moved, and I needed to get closer to him so that I could see if he still breathed. On that everything else hinged.

Richard had pocketed the blackjack, and now the hand not holding the pistol caught my hand. “My soul upon it, but the years have been kind to you, Clara. Come, give us a kiss.”

Gazing on Richard’s face again after so long was unsettling, in more ways than one. Seen up close, however, he did not look as untouched by time as he had seemed at a distance. There were traceries of red blood vessels showing in his cheeks and nose, and together with a puffiness about his eyes they suggested that he had grown immoderate in his habits. The end of a scar showed just above his collar beneath his left ear.

“Were you wounded in the Crimea?” I asked, indicating it. An irrelevant point, but I was still trying to collect my wits. And I did not wish to kiss him.

“Wounded—? Oh, the scar. No, that I received one fine dawn from an outraged husband.” He laughed at my expression. “My dear girl, I do not claim to be a saint, or anything like it. I have always enjoyed feminine company, and when one has to move about rather unexpectedly, as I have, married women are so much less of an encumbrance.” He smiled as he held me at arm’s length and surveyed me again with evident pleasure. “It was most considerate of Atlas to provide me with a bride along with the other perquisites of the barony. Come, Clara, you’ve not even said that you missed me.”

“Missed you!” But his self-certainty would work to my advantage if I could but shore it up sufficiently for him to assume me an ally. “My life ended when yours did,” I said, and the remembered grief and agony of those years came back in a rush. I saw my younger self from a remove, with the pity of one who now knew that the man I had lost had not been worth shedding tears over. “Why did you let everyone believe you had died?”

His shrug was magnificently unconcerned. “Oh, life as myself had become damnably complicated. Some rather highly placed chappie was after me for bilking him of a good sum of money at cards. And then at Eupatoria another officer accused me of interfering with his wife, and suddenly death seemed quite convenient.”

I was nearly certain then that there had been a faint movement from Atticus. The more time I could buy for him, the better situated we would be to overpower Richard. I could only steal quick glances at him, or else I would arouse Richard’s suspicion—especially since, as I recalled, Richard preferred to be one’s entire focus of attention.

“The death mask was a clever touch,” I said, and his chuckle was richly self-satisfied.

“I fancied so. It was unpleasant enough being cast, but having the sawbones send it along with the news of my death seemed like the perfect way to convince my father that I was truly gone.” He narrowed his eyes at me speculatively. “I had not expected to find you wedded to my brother, even if it is merely for show.”

During his boasting I had had time to think of an explanation. “When Atlas proposed, I thought it might be like having you back in some ways,” I said. “Being here at Gravesend, with all its memories of you, seemed worth enduring him for.”

“How fortunate that you overcame your revulsion to him and accepted him. Now you shall have me back
and
remain the lady of Gravesend.”

I forced myself to smile. “Fortunate indeed! But how did you know that our marriage is no more than show?”

His smile was more of a smirk this time. “I was there last night, pet, lurking in the wardrobe—an audience of one while you played your romantic scene. By the gods, I have never despised Atlas more than I did then—or admired you more!
You
weren’t going to let him fob you off with some stingy settlement; no, my magnificent Clara was prepared to go to any length to secure the marriage and the position of Lady Telford, even if it meant seducing my plaster saint of a brother.
Don’t shut me out, Atticus. Let me shoulder your burden.
I wanted to cheer for you.”

Nausea rose in me at the knowledge that he had been a witness to that wrenching confrontation. No wonder Atticus had ordered me away: whether he had wanted me or not, he would never have subjected me to his brother’s spying eyes and ears for longer than he must.

And even in my horror at the knowledge of all that Richard had done and planned to do, I must confess that there was a part of me that rejoiced: Atticus was not mad, nor was he a killer—nor was he as uninterested in marriage with me as it had lately seemed. I was almost certain now when I risked a glimpse at his prone form that he still breathed. Surely that had been a faint motion of his fingers. Bright, jolting energy sang through my veins. I could save him, save
us,
if I could only think how.

“How frustrated you must have been when he came under suspicion for your father’s death,” I said. “If he had gone to prison or the gallows, you’d not have been able to take his place.”

“Exactly. When that fool maid tattled about seeing me, I was half desperate. And it needn’t have come to this, either.” Roughly he nudged his brother’s prone form with a booted toe, and I bit back a protest. “I
tried
to persuade him to leave. He would have had some difficulty in making his way alone, for he never had the stomach for thieving. But it would have been a life, even under some other name and far away… and, I must admit, with a few unsavory types after his blood. Not our Atlas, though.” His self-satisfaction had waned, and his expression had gone sour. “Such a joyless creature, my brother. He couldn’t see it as an adventure; no, he had
duties
here to see to.”

I wanted to slap his face. Atticus knew more of joy, the kind that came from caring for those who relied on him, than any man I had ever known. I remembered his bringing Genevieve into our lives, remembered his excitement as he discussed his plans with Bertram, remembered dancing with him and his saying
I would have been honored.
“Atticus takes his responsibilities seriously,” I said, and had to strive to keep the censure from my voice. “I expect you’ll be a very different baron now that your day has come.”

That won a grin from him. “Very different indeed, pet.” Before I knew what he was about, he had drawn me closer and kissed me lingeringly on the lips. It was like kissing a stranger… indeed, that is exactly what it was, for I had never known this Richard, or had never allowed myself to know him. In the hard, demanding pressure of his mouth I caught the not unpleasant taste of tobacco and brandy, but it was nothing like the way Atticus kissed me. I was scarcely able to pretend a response, so struck was I by the difference and by the injustice of being embraced by the wrong man, the wrongest of men.

Apparently it was satisfactory to him, however, for he released me and tweaked my nose. “We’ll have a fine time, pet. I should have known better than to—I should have known you would cleave to me after all.”

“Did you think I would betray you?” Memories of that fall down the stairs gave me a shiver I tried to suppress. He must have been the one to remove the stair rod.

He winked at me. Throughout, he had been of such high spirits that it baffled me. Engaged in this most deadly of enterprises, he approached it as if it were—what was the word he had used?—an adventure. It held a certain perverse charm, and I did not wonder that I had been so in love with him in my girlhood. Charm and enthusiasm could make even the most sordid things seem exciting, especially to a naive girl. “I wasn’t certain,” he admitted. “At first I thought it would be better to be safe than sorry. But having you by my side will allay any possible suspicions that may arise. If the dour, joyless Atticus Blackwood suddenly seems to be possessed of more
joie de vivre,
it can be credited to his recent marriage.”

“And what do you intend to do with him?” I nodded in my husband’s direction. He lay still, as before, but something in me whispered that he was doing so deliberately, listening, even as I had listened, for a moment when he might gain the advantage. “If he is still alive, you would be wise to keep him that way for a few days or weeks, until you have learned everything from him that you’ll need to know to assume his identity. You must learn to copy his signature, for a start.”