The leaks of information to the Fenians from within League ranks had not stopped in the wake of Strathmore’s imprisonment. Instead, what had begun as a few drips here, and a few drips there dropping into a bucket, had turned into a swelling river of secrets, being sold to the Fenians for a king’s ransom.
Which meant one very troubling thing was true: either the Duke of Strathmore had an accomplice, or he was not a guilty man. Neither of those scenarios was one Lucien wanted to contemplate.
But any and all thoughts related to treachery and the League and the Home Office, and even the bloody Fenian menace, flew from Lucien’s mind when the front door of Lark House opened to reveal his grim-faced butler.
Reynolds wore a perpetual frown, as if he were the most long-suffering man on earth, but this frown…this expression…it was different, and Lucien knew it. His gut clenched, worry flooding him.
Mere days ago, his carriage had been shot at, and not just once, but twice, with his sister and his great aunt ensconced inside, vulnerable to the dangers. They could have been wounded by a glancing blow, injured, or worse—
He would not even contemplate whatworsewould have meant.
Since the existence of the League had been revealed to the public at long last in the wake of the death of the Fenian ringleader John Mahoney, and he had taken the reins from the Duke of Carlisle as the head of the League, Lucien may as well have painted a target upon his back. Especially since half his secrets were being sold to the enemy by a conscienceless traitor or traitors.
“What is the matter, Reynolds?” he bit out now, desperation joining with fear to become a coiled snake within him, ready to strike. “Is something amiss in the household?”
It could not be, he told himself, even as worry churned in his stomach; a sick broth. He had employed a dozen of his best men as guards. He was prepared. Lark House was a veritable fortress.
Reynolds took Lucien’s coat and gloves, his expression growing even more pinched. “Did word not reach you, Your Grace? I am so sorry. I had sent round to every address I was able, hoping…”
The butler’s words were lost in the wild hysteria of Great Aunt Hortense as she burst into the front hall, a tear-soaked wreck.Holy God.She was not merely sobbing, but bawling like a terrified babe whose mother had abandoned her in the midst of a busy London street, about to be run over by the next carriage racing by. She had either neglected to wear her customary cap, or had somehow misplaced it. Her outmoded hairstyle—the severe center part complemented by bunches of oiled gray ringlets over each ear—shivered with the violence of her emotion.
“Aunt Hortense?” He went to her, frowning. He had not seen her this devastated since Uncle Arnold’s funeral when she had been half mad with grief and crying that she wanted to be buried with him.
He could still recall his mother’s calm concern then—that had been one of Mama’s gifts, her ability to soothe in times of extreme unrest, ironic, considering her own afflictions—and how she had placed a motherly arm around Aunt Hortense. How she had whispered something in his aunt’s ear and drawn her toward her in an unfettered embrace. It had seemed to calm Aunt Hortense at the time.
And so, because he did not know how to deal with a weeping female—thank Christ Violet had never been the sort to turn on the waterworks—he made the same gesture his mother had. He awkwardly scooped Aunt Hortense into his arms, giving her back a ginger, soothing pat.
But he did not whisper in ears. At least, not in the ears of his elderly aunt.
Instead, he spoke in as calm a voice as he could muster. “Tell me, Aunt. What is the matter?”
“H-h-have they not t-t-told you?” she stammered through her sobs.
His blood went cold.
Where was Violet? Why was she not here to console Aunt Hortense with her droll wit and her effortless capacity to care for everyone within her reach?
Something inside him broke in that moment. Dread descended with the heavy, suffocating weight of a boulder on his chest. And with it came denial.
No. Not Violet. Not his sister.
“Have they not told me what, Aunt?” he asked somehow, forcing himself to speak.
His skin went hot, then cold. Then hot again. His mind attempted to close its doors upon him. If something had happened to Violet the way he was beginning to suspect it had, he did not know how he would live. She alone had been his driving force, his sole motivation, over all the years since they had been left first without a mother, and then without a father as well.
She was all he had left. It was the two of them, and then it was the world. Always that strict delineation. No one knew him better than Violet did, but for all that she knew him, a part of her was just like their mother, closed off. There was a part of her she kept hidden away, for herself alone. He wanted to believe she would never be like Mama, that she would never tire of her struggles and walk herself into the ocean. He had to believe it, or he could not breathe.
Desperation clamored within him, threatening to close off his throat. It seemed to him a dozen people were speaking all at once, shouting out this or that, and he could make sense of none of it. He was dizzied.
He was weak, just as he had always been.
Lucien had forever harbored two great fears in his life, and one of them was that Violet would one day turn into their mother. The other was that he would. To that end, he spent every waking hour devoted to a meaningful cause. To fighting wrongs and making them right. To seeing Violet settled with a calm, caring, stable husband. A man who would not keep a mistress in St. John’s Wood or raise his hand to her.
But what if none of that was enough? What if…
“Where is Violet?” he demanded of his aunt.
Her pallor was unmistakable. She stopped in her copious sobs, attempting to catch her breath enough to speak. Just when he swore he would lose his mind and begin to tear the wall coverings down with his bare hands, she spoke.
