“We were going to become innkeepers,” she said. “When he went out, I thought it was to do with the money, and making arrangements. But it wasn’t, was it?”
“He was watching us,” Marchmont said. “Watching where we went and what we did. He was waiting for his chance.”
She nodded. “He told me afterward, and it was then I knew he must be out of his senses. He always had a temper, but I never knew him to do violence. He never needed to. No one dared to sauce him or cross him. He’d gone wrong in the head, that was clear. But I had to wait, because I feared he’d try to kill me if I left him, knowing what I knew.”
She told them how Harrison had regretted not being able to stay to watch.
Zoe saw Marchmont’s hands clench, but he un-clenched them immediately. His countenance told nothing, as usual, except to her. He wore his customary, sleepily bored expression. He controlled himself as he always did. He hid his feelings as he always did.
“The way he talked—it wasn’t like him,” the housekeeper went on. “I didn’t see until then how bad it was with him.”
The housekeeper went on to describe a degree of vengefulness others might have found shocking. Zoe wasn’t shocked. She’d seen worse cases than this, murderous rages and vendettas over trivial matters: a hair comb, a bracelet.
Harrison had devoted twenty years to climbing a ladder of power. Then, when he thought himself securely at the top, she had come along. In a matter of days, he’d fallen off—and this time there could be no climbing back.
Mrs. Dunstan snapped her fingers, drawing Zoe’s attention back to her. “That’s what he did, again and again,” the housekeeper said. “Snapped his fingers. ‘Like this she knocked me down,’ he said. ‘And I’ll knock her down. I’ll finish her, I will, like this.’ He snapped his fingers and ‘I’ll finish her,’ he said, ‘because she finished me.’ He drank and talked mad like that and finally he drank himself senseless. He fell onto the bed, dead to the world. Then I packed up and ran.”
“But he’s still here?” Marchmont said. “In London?”
“He knows where to hide,” Mrs. Dunstan said. “No one knows London like he does, and no one has the kinds of friends he has. He can hide right under your nose and you’ll never know. He knows everything, doesn’t he? Knows what you’re going to do before you do it. A proper servant, he is. And like a proper one, he’ll find a way to do it, whatever it is.”
Since Mrs. Dunstan could tell them only where Harrison had stayed last, there was nothing more for Marchmont to ask her. Zoe had nothing to add. He’d done a fine job of provoking the woman to reveal what she knew.
She told him so when they were back in the carriage and on their way home.
“She was right, you know,” he said. He looked out of the carriage window into the lamplit streets, where the pedestrians were merely anonymous dark figures, hurrying along the pavement. “It was a wonderfully well-run house. They did their jobs brilliantly. I took them completely for granted.”
“But that’s the way it ought to be with good servants,” Zoe said.
“I understand that,” he said. “But I know, too, that had I paid the slightest attention—taken an interest, however cursory—none of this would have happened.”
“You can’t know that,” she said. “Some people are simply dishonest. Many are corrupted by power. Harrison was no lord, but in his world, he wielded great power.”
“If he was corrupt, I should have been the one to discover it,” he said tightly. “Because I didn’t, I endangered your life.”
“That’s illogical,” she said. They were sharing the carriage seat. She drew nearer to him and took his hand. “You’re a clever man—much cleverer than you let on—but your logic isn’t good. If he’s gone mad, then his mind has become diseased. That’s no more your fault than the state of any wretch in Bedlam. If he hasn’t gone mad, then he’s evil. You didn’t make him evil. You didn’t corrupt him. That was the path he took. For the upper-level staff he hired the kinds of people he could corrupt. For the lower levels, he chose the kind he could bully.” She twined her fingers with his. “I told you I could manage a household. With the troublemaker gone, all will be well.”
“Nothing will be well until I see that man hang,” he said.
“The Bow Street Runners will find him,” she said. “You’re the Duke of Marchmont, and you’ve offered a large reward. They’ll ignore every other task in order to hunt him down. These are men who know London, you said. They must know it as well or better than Harrison does. It’s their business to know it. Finding people is their livelihood. He won’t get away.”
“No, he won’t.” His grip on her hand tightened. “I don’t care what it costs. I’ve doubled the reward. I’ll triple it if I have to.”
“They’ll find him,” Zoe said. “Leave it to them. We’ll go to Lady Stafford’s rout and count how many people step on our feet and how many elbows stick into our ribs. Shall I wear the lilac gown or the blue?”
“We’re not going to the rout,” he said. “We’re going home and you are not leaving the house until that man is in custody.”
Seventeen
For a moment, Zoe couldn’t form a thought, let alone speak. It was as though she’d plunged into a deep, cold well.
To be trapped in a house for who knew how long, after she’d only begun to taste freedom, and while everyone else about her was free—when she wouldn’t have even the companionship, such as it was, and the amusements, such as they were, of the harem…
Her heart was racing, and her mind raced, too, pointlessly.
All the past rushed at her in an icy wave of panic—the moment they’d taken her away in the bazaar…the voices speaking a language she couldn’t understand…the darkness…the men touching her…she, screaming for her father, until they gagged her…the drink they’d forced down her throat that brought strange dreams but never complete oblivion…the slaves stripping off her clothes—
She shook it off and made herself stare out of the window and breathe, slowly. This was England. She was in London, with her husband. She was safe, and all he wanted was to keep her safe.
