Page 74 of A Proposition for the Comte
The bastard had destroyed her in so many ways that Lian could only wonder how she might have survived, her kindness still there even after all the horror. He held her hand and willed warmth and strength into her, glad when her eyelids finally fluttered and she came back to him.
‘You knew what he was like? My husband?’
‘I guessed. Was Amaryllis the one who killed him? Did you cover for her because of the boys?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because you understood that it was not only the gold that had ruined him but sheer malice?’
‘I didn’t know about my nephews but I had seen others...’
‘Others?’
‘Other women. In his bed. He taunted me with them and they did not always look...’ She stopped, and regrouped her bravery. ‘Happy. I prayed to God so many times that he might die and if I had said something to Amaryllis I might have saved the boys and her from everything that happened afterwards.’
‘You did anyway, Violet. You and Amaryllis dealt with him in the best way you could.’
‘Only you would tell me that, Aurelian, and it helps, but how can you look at me and not hate all that I have been?’
‘Easily,’ he replied. He leaned over and took her hand and she held on, feeling both his goodness and his strength.
‘It is over, Violet. All of it. Now we just have to expose Antoinette Herbert and Douglas Cummings and the others and then everything will be finished.’
His eyes flicked back to the list.
‘Could anybody have known that Harland wrote this? That he kept lists like this?’
‘Perhaps. He was a man who needed things written down. Always. It was something he just did.’
‘Then maybe they think you have things that would implicate them if they got into the wrong hands. Has your town house ever been robbed?’
‘Yes, when I first came to London and then again some weeks ago. Nothing was broken or taken but every room had been gone through.’
‘Perhaps because I have been asking questions. When the man in the boarding house tried to kill me on Brompton Place he said a woman had sent him.’
‘Antoinette Herbert?’ There was a whisper in her words.
‘I would bet money on the truth that she is the one and that the others on this list were her minions.’
Early in the afternoon they headed towards Sussex in a fast carriage Aurelian had rented.
Aurelian wanted to show Violet his life, his house, his past, all the losses and the gains. Safety also beckoned at Compton Park with its attending quiet, and with the men he had employed watching the perimeters they could stop and breathe and begin to understand each other in a way that would lead them forward.
He hoped that the opulence and beauty of his home would not frighten Violet but would heal some of her cracks as it had his own. He didn’t want her to feel distanced by its wealth or its majesty.
Beside him Violet looked so much younger than she had even a week ago, her worry softened with the bruises on her cheeks largely faded. He could feel her breath against his arm.
He was glad his sister and aunts had left Sussex to go to their house just outside London and would not be visiting Compton Park again until the beginning of March. Leaning back, he closed his eyes for a moment, the tension of the past three days having left him with a building headache. For all that was difficult, Violet was with him, her warmth comforting, her trust gratifying.
It would have to be enough for now until he could sit without interruption and in safety and be honest. There were so many things he needed to say to Violet and he could see in her eyes that she felt the same.
Compton Park was the most imposing house she had ever had the pleasure of viewing, its symmetrical three-storeyed façade boasting a great number of turrets and gables and parapets. The windows were numerous and mullioned, the glass panels glinting even in the dull sun of a February day.
The staff were all lined up in the bottom hallway, obviously having realised it was their master who had come home.
‘You do not come here often,’ she said to him before he stepped forward to shake the first man’s hand.
‘Rarely. My work has kept me in Europe.’
