Portrait of a Scotsman by Evie Dunmore

Chapter 33

“Mr. Matthews.”

Lucian’s assistant stood motionless behind the desk, staring at her as if she were an apparition. Then he straightened while furtively closing a folder.

“Mrs. Blackstone. Forgive me, it completely escaped my notice that you were to return today.”

His hair was lank, and his features were slack. In the smoky gaslight of the windowless room, he looked like a wax figure that had been held too close to a flame.

Then she noticed the papers, scattered on the floor.

Burglary.

Henchmen.

Aoife’s suspicions were correct. And she was alone in the vast house. Her heart began pumping, dangerously fast.

She feigned a smile. “Don’t trouble yourself,” she said. “My arrival was unplanned.”

“Yours?” Mr. Matthews said quickly. “Mr. Blackstone is not here?”

Ice slid down her spine. She had made a mistake. She kept her gaze on Matthews’s face, on his feverish eyes, pretending not to see the open briefcase on the desk, nor the broken hinges on the doors of the large cabinet behind him.

“He is following closely behind,” she said. “He should be here any moment.”

“Ah.” Matthews’s forehead gleamed, slick with sweat.

“I shall leave you to your task,” she said, and took a small step back. The man’s expression turned strangely flat. “I shall ring for some tea,” she added, her voice sweet, her pulse pounding, run, run, run.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Matthews said, and reached inside his jacket. The metallic glint of a pistol flashed.

Her mind blanked. Run, run, run. Her feet were rooted to the floor.

Matthews approached like something from her nightmares. “Come in,” he said, turning the black eyes of the pistol on her. “Close the door.”

Her voice sounded mechanical in her ears. “If it is money you want—”

A muscle began spasming beneath his left eye. “Close the door, please.”

She obeyed, but her hand was shaking so badly she could not grip and turn the doorknob properly.

“Oh, get on with it,” Matthews snapped.

She redoubled her efforts, and the moment the door clicked shut, Matthews’s rigidness turned into nervous, erratic movement. Keeping the shaking pistol pointed at her, he strode aimlessly around the room, muttering under his breath.

She mustn’t scream. That was one of the cardinal rules during a kidnapping: no screaming.

“I’m in possession of several pieces of jewelry,” she said. “If you need them, they are yours.”

“Hush.” He ran his left hand through his hair, gripping and pulling, whispering to himself. He spun and snatched a chair from the wall and dragged it in front of the desk, then he fixated on her with bloodshot eyes. “Sit.”

She couldn’t feel her legs when she walked to him and sat.

He stood so close she could hear his breath rattle in his lungs. He smelled pungently of sweat and smoke. He wasn’t well.

She looked up at him. “I’m willing to help,” she said quietly. “And I shan’t say a thing.”

“Hmm?” His gaze was flitting over the paper chaos on the desk. “And why would you do that, Mrs. Blackstone?”

“I … I am not fond of my husband,” she said. “Surely you know that he tricked me into a compromising situation.”

Matthews’s lips twisted with contempt. “Ah yes. And I would feel great outrage on account of any decent, gently bred lady trapped in the clutches of this villainous cad. You, however …” He looked at her, and his tongue slid out to wet his bottom lip. “You leaned in,” he said. “I furthermore witnessed your behavior at the inn. It is obvious to even a negligent observer that you have fully yielded to his corrupting influence. One can practically smell it on you. Don’t try me, madam.”

Any retort died in her throat. He had all but called her a tart.

“Hence, I hope you understand that while I shall accept the offer of your jewelry, I shan’t trust you to keep quiet.” He pushed the heavy typewriter toward her. “Load it,” he said, and nudged one of the crumpled sheets closer.

The more nervous she was, the clumsier she became. Her muscles were cramping. She fought for movement, one finger at a time. Sweat slid down her back as she flipped the paper lock and tried to force the sheet behind the roller.

“Now type,” Matthews said, and she briefly felt the hard press of the pistol against her shoulder. “Husband,” he dictated. “What’s this?” he then said, leaning down. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She had missed the H key and typed a G.

Matthews’s left eyelid was twitching furiously. “Are you trying to play me for a fool?”

“N-no. I have trouble t-typing.”

“For Christ’s sake.” He ripped the sheet from the machine. “Get up. Move.” He took her place and put the pistol onto the desk. “Don’t do anything reckless,” he said. “Stand there nice and still. Don’t compel me to do something drastic.”

Nice and still.She stood like a puppet, but anger began broiling beneath the icy sheet of fear. How dare he wreck Lucian’s study and try to steal from him?

Matthews was typing, and after a few moments, he murmured, “Apologies. I forgot myself. Of course, you do not grasp the severity of the situation.”

It had to be the gambling henchmen on his heels; it was the only explanation.

He hacked away at the typewriter, humming through clenched teeth. Schubert, she thought numbly, he was humming Schubert’s “Ständchen.”

He pulled the sheet from the machine and placed it before her.

It was a letter—a letter as if written from her own hand. Telling Lucian that she had gone to stay with family on the continent awhile, and that she wished to live separately …. Her stomach clenched with fresh panic.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No—”

Matthews picked up his pistol again. “Sign it, please. Here is a pen.”

She looked him in the eye. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

“To buy us time,” he said tightly. “Since you interrupted me, and he should be here soon, I can hardly leave you here to tattle. You must understand that.”

Us?The letter swam before her eyes. The note would send Lucian in a wrong direction. She would be alone with a bungling criminal. Worse, after their row at the inn, Lucian would think she had indeed abandoned him, that she still loathed him …. Perhaps he would even think she had taken Matthews for a lover, and she’d never have the chance to tell him otherwise. The pen slipped from her damp fingers.

“Mr. Blackstone will never believe I ransacked his office and left,” she said. “You said it yourself: I have become his creature, and he knows this—”

A metallic click, then Matthews’s arm jerked up and he fired. Wood and plaster exploded above, and Hattie screamed as debris pelted her.

“He shall believe it because females are fickle creatures,” Matthews murmured, his voice trembling, “and you were morally loose enough to enjoy London unchaperoned even before you wed him. Sign. It.”

She signed it. Her fingers were gray with plaster dust. Red bloomed on the back of her hand from a shrapnel cut. She hadn’t felt the splinter strike.

“Good,” Matthews said when she put down the pen, “good. Now sit down again, on your hands. No, first, put your earrings and your necklace in here.” He pointed the smoking pistol at the open briefcase. “Your brooch, too.” He hastily began gathering papers and folders.

“Have you any knowledge where he keeps his ledger of debts?” he asked as he flung the contents of Lucian’s drawers into the briefcase.

“No,” she said.

His gaze narrowed at her. “The book where he keeps incriminating secrets of the ton.”

Her cheekbone felt oddly numb. Perhaps she had been hurt there, too. “Why would I know such a thing?” she whispered.

Matthews muttered something.

Then he froze and dropped the papers.

She had heard the fall of footsteps, too.

When the door behind them opened, Matthews was already next to Hattie, gripping her arm and yanking her in front of him. The cool pressure of the pistol touched her temple. But something colder and deadlier had entered the room. Lucian. He was holding a revolver and wore an expression as dark as the devil himself.

Harriet was bleeding. The red rivulet streaked from a gash that ran from her cheekbone to her jaw and pinkened the lace at her throat. But it was the flash of hope in his wife’s eyes that unleashed something terrible in Lucian. A crimson haze washed over his vision. Matthews was a dead man walking.

It must have been plain on his face, for his assistant flinched and folded himself more tightly into the shelter of Harriet’s body.

“Your revolver,” Matthews said. “Put it down, on the floor. Then … put your arms behind your head.”

Matthews’s pistol was cocked, and his trembling finger was curled around the trigger. An accidental slip—and it would be the end. Of everything. Lucian went light-headed for a beat. He took a sobering breath.

“All right,” he murmured.

He lowered his arm, then he carefully placed the revolver on the floor. While he straightened and raised his hands behind his head, he took a small, seemingly incidental step toward the desk.

“What’s your plan, Matthews?” he asked. “A double murder?”

Matthews’s face was shiny like a pork rind. “It shan’t come to that as long as you are sensible,” he said, quite haughtily.

“Sensible,” Lucian repeated, nodding. “Sensible sounds good.”

His pulse was too high. Something needed to be between Harriet’s soft temple and the gun. A double-barreled pocket pistol. Two shots in total, one already in the ceiling. There’d be no double murder today. Only the justified killing of a rat.

“You seem to be in trouble,” he said to Matthews. “Care to explain?”

Matthews shook his head. “Just follow my orders—”

“I have experience with trouble,” Lucian said and shrugged, gaining another inch. “I might know a better way.”

An angry emotion flared in Matthews’s eyes. “Don’t treat me like a fool. As if you would let me walk from this.”

Correct, Lucian thought. He tsked. “I think I already know what your troubles are. You played too deep at Ritchie’s in Covent Garden.”

Matthews’s surprise quickly slid into a thin smile. “Of course,” he said. “You put spies onto your own spies. Watching the watchmen.”

“Nothing personal,” Lucien said mildly. “And I settled the accounts the first time round, but during my absence in Drummuir, you had little to do and no one to hold you accountable here. You returned to Ritchie’s, didn’t you, and played a losing hand.”

Matthews’s gaze flicked to the left, confirming the suspicion.

“Then I ordered you up north,” Lucian continued, “where you were held up, unexpectedly, due to the flooded tracks. Ritchie became impatient, since you hadn’t paid, and I wasn’t here to settle it for you.”

“That’s quite enough,” Matthews said, and yanked Hattie’s arm.

Lucian bored his gaze so deeply into the mind behind those bleary eyes that Matthews was hooked. “You returned to the den and thought to win your losses back,” he murmured, the shrug of his raised arms distracting from the advance of his feet. “Instead, it all spiraled deeper and deeper, toward the bottom pit of hell—”

“Stop,” Matthews snapped, and now the gun was pointing at Lucian’s chest.

A tension unfurled in him. Point-blank to the head, the Remington was deadly, but if shot from several yards away, a man might be lucky, might stand it long enough to attack and win.

Harriet made a sound of distress. He shut her out. Kept his mind cold and clear.

“What I cannot piece together is: Why ransack my study?” he asked. “Did you suspect I’d refuse to settle your debts forever? That would have been correct, but it wasn’t imminent. Did you think you could steal incriminating information from me?” He surveyed the chaos on the desk. “Yes, I think that was your plan: to run, and to then blackmail me to keep settling your bills from afar.”

Matthews blinked. Sweat was running into his eyes; it had to be burning him.

Lucian tilted his head. “And you searched Miss Byrne’s house, too, didn’t you? The question remains: Why now?”

“The truth?” Matthews snapped. “You were becoming too big for your boots. All my attempts to mold you into something other than an uncultured beast were failing, and I knew it was a lost cause when you married a Greenfield.” He wiped his sleeve across his brow. “And now you have killed Rutland. I would have refused another day in your service regardless of my pecuniary situation. I could not fathom taking a single order from a scoundrel like you.”

Two paces. The man was two paces away. So close, yet so far.

Cold and clear.

“Odd that you should have a fondness for Rutland. He left you to rot in the jail.”

“His lordship,” Matthews corrected, “would not support my vices; he was a morally upright man. You, however, are corrupted to the bone. You feed my weaknesses. All this,” he cried in sudden agitation and waved the pistol, “is your fault.” He pushed Harriet aside and took a step toward Lucian, the flicker of anger in his eyes flaring to a blaze. “Look at you,” he said. “A lowly upstart, playing God. Killing noblemen because you can. How dare you?”

“My sister, Sorcha, was eight years old when she drowned in a ventilation shaft,” Lucian said. Still a foot too far. If he lunged now, the answering bullet would be fatal. His heart beat a slow, labored rhythm. “My sister died thanks to your moral man Rutland not giving a damn about his workers.”

Matthews licked his lips. “Regrettable, but if they were workers, then this was always a risk, wasn’t it? You scurry around in mills and among dangerous machinery and belowground, and accidents happen. It’s natural. Do you know what is not natural? A man of your breeding living like a prince. A man like me, whose family owns a four-hundred-year-old estate, being sent to fetch your flowers and lurid pamphlets.” He thrust the pistol forward. “But your kind shall not succeed. There are too many of us who won’t tolerate this disintegration of order, of every wretch pushing above their station. Our lines harden with every strike that sabotages a cotton mill, whenever there is a new labor union; yes, the more severely Parliament is beleaguered to enfranchise the have-nots, the women, the anarchists, the more firmly we stand ….”

“Watch out,” cried Harriet behind Matthews’s back, and fell to the floor with a thud.

Matthews’s gaze slid sideways, toward the disturbance.

Lucian charged.

Screams and a feral snarl rent the air, and a shot rang out.

For a distorted second, the world was white light and the sound of someone breathing.

When all snapped into focus, Lucian found he was on the floor. Matthews was pinned under him, emitting a wheezing sound. The pistol lay empty and useless on the rug, the bullet lodged somewhere in the walls. Next to them, Harriet rolled onto her side, brushing her curls from her eyes. Her face was frozen. It was the loveliest, loveliest face he had ever known, and she was alive.

Alive.

His heart was pounding so hard, it would break through his ribs. “You all right, love?” he asked.

Her lips moved, but no word came out.

Beneath him, Matthews moaned.

The cold cage around Lucian’s mind splintered apart, smashed by a wrecking ball of wrath. Energy burst through him like a firebrand. In place of his body was a force.

He was on his feet, his hand a fist in Matthews’s collar, and he dragged the man across the floor like a sack of spuds as he strode toward his revolver.

“Lucian, no.”

Her cry in his ears, he scooped up the gun and cocked it.

“You bloody bastard,” Matthews said softly.

Lucian pulled him up onto his knees by his cravat and twisted his fist into the fabric. Matthews made a satisfying little choking sound, but he stopped scrabbling when Lucian pressed the revolver muzzle between his eyes. He did not move at all then. He did not even breathe.

Lucian stared into the frozen eyes. “You,” he said. “You made her bleed.” His voice was torn up, barely recognizable; it came from the rawest, darkest place of his soul. “You scared her. You could have killed her. For that, I should send you to hell.” He yanked Matthews forward as he leaned down. “I should send you to hell just so you can’t ever hurt her again. No one would find it regrettable.”

Matthews’s scent hit his nose. Pure fear. The type of fear Harriet must have felt when the gunmetal had pressed into her downy skin. When she had been alone with a man who wanted to harm her …

A tear slipped from the corner of Matthews’s eye. Lucian bit back a growl and shook the man. But the longer he held on, the quicker the primal ecstasy of surviving battle was cooling and fading, and the hot roar of fear simmered down, too. A hot glow lingered; then there was only ash.

A tremor ran through his body. He could have lost her today.

The world would have been empty.

But he hadn’t lost her; she was still there, a quiet shape in the corner of his eye.

He lowered the revolver and loosened his grip.

He took a breath, and another.

He couldn’t. He badly wanted to hurt the man, but he shouldn’t, either. It wasn’t his place. And while Rutland’s ruination was the only measure of justice his victims could expect to receive, it hadn’t brought him any joy. And it had nearly cost him his wife. His wife. This, here, was not what she’d want or need from him; this was what he needed. Perhaps he didn’t even need it himself. Perhaps he didn’t even want it. More rage, vengeance, and death—when would it stop? Rutland was gone; he could stop being that man. He could stop. He could try.

“Fuck,” he murmured.

He gave Matthews a shove.

Matthews fell back onto his bum, a disoriented expression on his face.

Lucian raked a hand through his hair, then he crouched, bringing their eyes level. “You’re unwell,” he said.

His former assistant blinked, slowly, like someone just returned to the living. “I know,” he finally said.

The door opened, and Lucian was upright, the revolver at the ready again.

Carson’s bald head poked into the study. “Boss,” he said, the deep bass of his voice resonating in the savaged room. He whistled through the gap between his front teeth as he looked around. “I heard a shot.”

Lucian pointed at Matthews, who still hadn’t moved. “Take him to the basement. Bring him water and bread and stay with him.”

Disheveled and bloodied, Harriet stood amid the debris, watching him with a blank look in her eyes. He went to her, wrapped her in his arms, and held her so close. He felt every precious breath she drew against his chest.

She came to him later, when the sky outside his chamber windows had turned a pale rose and he was stretched out on his bed, capitulating to the effects of hot whisky and crushing fatigue. She wore one of her thickly ruffled nightgowns and her red hair loose around her shoulders, and wordlessly she crept onto the mattress. She lay down beside him, so close the whole short length of her was touching him. He embraced her eagerly, enjoying the tantalizing feel of her soft weight in his arms. She smelled of warm skin and finely milled soap after her hot bath. She was still shaking, as if frozen to the bone. He made a soothing sound.

“We had a terrible row, you and I,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest.

He stroked her hair. “Under the circumstances, I call a truce.”

She burrowed into him, and he held her more tightly. There was only one way to be even closer, and she did not seem in the mood for his attentions. Well, there had been a terrible row.

“I keep thinking,” she said, the words coming haltingly, “I keep thinking: What if you had read Matthews’s ghastly note and thought I’d run away, and I would have died before I could tell you the truth?”

His shoulders shook with a quiet laugh. “Nah,” he said. “I read the note. Obviously, you hadn’t written it.”

“How would you know?” she said. “I left you before, in Drummuir.”

“I’m aware,” he muttered. The memory was a dark smudge on his mind, like something singed. His latent fear of losing his selkie had roared to life when she had begun packing.

“Matthews’s note was written flawlessly,” he said. “You can’t write straight for the life of you.”

“Oh,” she said. He stroked the dip of her waist, then her hip, sensing how her mind was roiling. “Saved by word blindness,” she finally murmured. “Who would think?”

Her breathing was still erratic, her teeth still chattering, and so he held her, comforting himself by comforting her.

“How did you know to bring your revolver?” she asked.

“The house felt strange when I arrived,” he replied. The very air had felt disturbed; he had a sense for such things. “I came to your chamber and found Aoife Byrne’s note on your vanity table. So I prepared myself.”

Her breath struck his neck in erratic little puffs. “I keep seeing him pointing the pistol at your chest,” she whispered. “I keep feeling how I felt that moment.”

He kept seeing it pointed at her head. “We’re alive, love.”

“Even so,” she said in a low tone. “I shall now forever live with the knowledge that without you in it, the world would be a strange place, and I should never be at home in it again.”

The world would have been empty.

Giving voice to her fears seemed to ease her anxious mood. She was softening against him and eventually became heavy with sleep. She didn’t wake when he undressed, nor when he returned to her side in his robe. He lay awake and watched her breathe.

He dreamed he returned to Inveraray with Harriet, and his grandmother was sitting on the bench in front of the old cottage, enjoying the sun. Her hair was gray and her face lined, just as he remembered, but when she saw him and laughed, she sounded young, a version of her he had never met in life. She looked wholly unsurprised and happy to see him, and the warm sensation of a deep peace settled in his chest. But when he made to introduce his wife, Harriet had disappeared.