Page 32 of An Honorable Deception
Yates frowned, trying to place the name.
Merritt didn’t even try, it seemed. “Who is Mrs. Jeffries?”
Xavier ran a hand down his face. “Sometimes I forget that you’ve spent most of your adult life out of country. A madam, Merritt. She runs a brothel that caters to the aristocracy.”
Watching Merritt’s face wash pale might have been amusing if Yates didn’t feel the same revulsion. He glanced over his shoulder. “Those men? Rather glad I bowled them over.”
“And they have the audacity of frowning atmefor not settling down yet.” Xavier’s usual good humor simmered into genuine annoyance. “As if it would be better to follow in their footsteps, marry for convenience, and then do whatever I please behind my wife’s back. Some people do make a mockery of what they espouse. And Rheams! All of society has heard him grumbling about his wife, yet to show his face here while she’s near death?” Face in harder lines than Yates had ever seen it, Xavier shook his head. “Pompous, heartless prat. And worse. Were he a common man, Scotland Yard would be pointing the finger athimfor hiring someone to supposedly rob and beat her.”
A theory they would certainly do well to entertain, horrifying as it was. After a check to make sure no one was nearby, Yates plunged a hand into his pocket, frowning anew at the metal that met his fingertips. It wasn’t a coin, that was certain. It had a circular side, yes, but the opposite side wasn’t flat. It was bumped, almost like ... He pulled it out for a better look. “A pin.” And now that he was looking at it more closely ... “Tie pin. The other two were both wearing them.”
“Let me see.” Merritt took it from Yates’s fingers, tilting it toward the nearest sconce they passed. “Something’s inscribed, but I can’t make it out.”
Xavier motioned them toward the coat check to reclaim their hats. It had the added bonus of being better lit than the corridor.
They waited until the attendant had taken their claim stub and vanished into the back before Merritt lifted it toward the light. “The Empire House.”
Yates pursed his lips. “One of the charities on our list.” He looked at Xavier, not bothering to explain what list he meant. “Have you heard of it, X?”
Xavier, good sport that he was, gave it a moment’s thought but said nothing until after he took his hat from the man behind the counter, then passed theirs each to them and led them out the doors. “In passing, at least. One of those that seeks housing and opportunity for displaced women and children who end up in London from around the empire, isn’t it? I seem to recall Mother attending some gala and telling us about the woman she’d met from British Guiana or Borneo or some such.”
Merritt handed the pin back to Yates, so he took his turn examining it as Yates put on his hat. Letting the questions roll about. The pin itself was simple enough—a gold circle, embossed with a classically styled building, the words around the circumference.
“I’m missing something,” Yates said. “Why would Dunne be carrying pins for a charity in his pocket, as if they’re some sort of invitation to a ‘good ally and patron’?”
With a shrug, Xavier merely stepped aside rather than moving directly to the valet who’d fetch his car. “That sort? They seek out those positions as trustees and board members for the status of it. Given the gala Mother described, that place has sponsors and donors with deep pockets. Being associated with it could be a kind of badge of honor. Literally, perhaps. Could be that they seek out certain chaps and dangle a position before them in return for a favor for something else.”
Yates grimaced and put the pin back in his pocket.“Doesn’t seem like the proper point of a charity, does it? When it’s more about being seen helping than actually giving any aid?”
“Welcome to society, old boy.” Xavier finally lifted a hand to get the attention of the valet stationed outside, a white ticket in his fingers. “Nothing’s ever about what you do—only about how you look doing it. And how many people see you.”
The summer night was warm and close and made him wish for the North Sea. Yates sighed. “I should have run away and joined a circus.”
TEN
The dream had fangs as piercing as daggers, dripping with venom and swaying like a cobra. It was the one Alethia hated most—the one she knew was a dream, and yet the knowing couldn’t break through it. No matter how many times her sleep-silent lips chanted,“It’s only a nightmare,”the nightmare laughed in her face.
She knew that laughter. Hated it. Feared it. That laughter sent her running every time she heard it. Up the stairs, past the courtyard, into her room. Crying for Samira, shouting for her.
In the dream, she could hear Samira’s voice in the darkness. Feel the soothing touch of her trembling hand over her hair. But she couldn’t see her. She could never see her because it was night. Always night, endless night. Deeper than dark as Samira shut her in the only safety they could find, locking the door and hiding the key.
He’ll find you, the nightmare whispered in her ear.He knows exactly where you are.
“Don’t scream,”Samira whispered, the Bengali a cadence of comfort in the treacherous dark.“Whatever you do, don’t scream, or he’ll find you.”
But she wanted to scream. She wanted to clasp hold ofSamira’s hands. She wanted to pull her into the wardrobe with her, cry into her shoulder, cling to her. She wanted to beg her to stay where it was safe too.
But Samira never stayed. Not in the dream. Not in life. As a girl, she hadn’t understood it. As a woman, she did. And it made her love her all the more.
Samira!The cry was silent, even in the nightmare, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth by terror and dread and memory and sleep.Samira, come back!
Her absence didn’t feel like protection, it never had. It felt like writhing snakes and sinking sand and rising water. It felt like suffocation and starvation and infection. It felt like bullet wounds burning her side.
“Samira!”
She could hear her, speaking the same low, soothing words she always spoke. Telling her to be quiet. Telling her to pray. Telling her to trust in the God who was so good, despite people being so evil. That beloved voice singing a lullaby outside the wardrobe door until the footsteps came.
Only the words weren’t right. The lullaby had changed. Still soothing, still rhythmic, still the cadence that meant comfort and peace. A hand soothed away the sweat-soaked hair that clung to her cheeks, but it was bigger than Samira’s, stronger.
