Dangerous to Know

13

We passed the remainder of the day in a most pleasant fashion, making up for the time we’d lost the night before. There are few institutions with as much to recommend them as a good marriage, and the time alone with Colin made me long for the day we could return home to some real privacy, and I made the mistake of saying so out loud.

“You ought to go now, yourself,” Colin said, tightening my corset with a strong tug.

“I don’t want to be away from you.” I slipped into my tea gown, fashioned from rich blue pompadour silk with Watteau pleats. Outrageously wide sleeves shot out at the shoulders, tapering thin at the elbows, tight at the wrists, and buttoning around a cascade of Venetian lace that covered my hands to the knuckles.

“And you know I’ve no interest in spending even a day away from you, my dear.” He bent down, kissing the back of my neck. “But you’re not going to torment me, are you?”

“Never.” I turned to press my lips against his.

“Then you must agree to go home.” His hands circled my waist.

“It’s not fair of you to use your powers of persuasion this way,” I said.

“Would you rather I stormed about the room and demanded that you go? That I book you on the ten-eighteen train to Paris without telling you?”

“It worries me that you know the schedule.”

“I didn’t get the ticket,” he said. “Only investigated.”

“You’re very bad. Do you really believe this man is seeking out victims similar to me in appearance?”

“I don’t know precisely what he’s doing, but I’m convinced—and beginning to sound like you—we’re missing something significant about him.”

“He can’t be the Ripper,” I said.

“Why not?”

“None of it fits. The Ripper struck in a limited urban area and targeted prostitutes. Here we have one death in the middle of the countryside. Our murderer may be copying the method, but he’s not the same man.”

“I do love it when you recklessly speculate.”

“You’re only saying that to put me in an easy frame of mind so I’ll agree to return to England.”

“Am I that transparent?”

I sighed. “Is it so important to you?”

He took both of my hands in his. “It is. It may be ridiculous and irrational, but I need you to do it.”

How could I deny him? I would want him to acquiesce should I have a similar sort of request; I considered it part of loving someone. You owed your partner the right to be unreasonable sometimes, when it mattered to him. I lifted his hand to my lips and kissed his palm. “Very well,” I said. “I shall do as you wish.”

He pulled back, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. “I cannot believe what I’m hearing.”

“It all comes from adoring you,” I said. “You leave me no other viable choice. But I must put you on notice: I have every intention of luring Sebastian to London with me. You’ll have no chance of winning our bet.”

“I’ll gladly relinquish what would have been certain victory to keep you safe.”

“Certain victory?” I blinked three times in rapid succession. “My dear boy, you are full of delusions.”

“Am I?” he asked. “Sounds like you’d better kiss them away.”

As I’d already started heeding his wishes, I saw no reason to stop now.

We agreed I would leave the following morning for Rouen, where I would stop for a few days to see Cécile, who was still with the Priers. I wanted to speak with her before departing for England, but wasn’t keen on spending much time with her eccentric friends. Better them, though, than my mother-in-law. I would not mourn the loss of her company, but now that I was safe in the knowledge I had very few remaining hours with her, I could let myself feel the slightest guilt at my inability to get along with her.

Colin and I had dawdled so long upstairs that he couldn’t join us for tea, instead heading out to meet Inspector Gaudet, while I went down on my own. Mrs. Hargreaves greeted me as she never had before, with what appeared to be genuine pleasure.

“I’m more sorry than I can say to lose you,” she said, all chattiness as she passed me a steaming cup of tea. “You take milk, do you not?”

“Yes, thank you,” I said, hoping my face did not register the astonishment I felt. “I can’t thank you enough for sharing your house with us. It’s a beautiful setting in which to recover.” My words were not entirely disingenuous; the scenery did not disappoint. I loved the bocage, with its undulating hills and wide fields, apple orchards, and thick copses of trees. Few sights had delighted me like the seemingly endless expanses of flax, bright blue when in bloom, and the sky, heavy with moisture, loomed incomparable to any I’d seen elsewhere.

“I don’t think you’ll miss us much,” she said, placing a delicate, buttery palmier on a plate for me. “But isn’t this all somewhat outrageous? Whitechapel wasn’t evacuated during the murders. Is my son overreacting? Or is this what you truly want?”

It was the first sentence she’d spoken to me void of irony, sarcasm, or condescension. “He’s trying to protect me,” I said.

“Do you need protection, Emily?”

“Would you?” I asked, shocked that she hadn’t used my title.

She did not reply for a few moments. She stirred her tea, added more sugar, stirred again. “Probably,” she said. “But I wouldn’t admit it. There are times, I’ve found, when it’s preferable to do what one can on one’s own, without regard for the opinions of others.”

I had not expected this sort of candor from her. “Why has your manner towards me changed so completely?” I asked. “Up to now you’ve had no interest in hiding your disdain from me.”

“It is only now that I’ve begun to sympathize with you,” she said. “You’ve begun to reveal some semblance of spirit.”

“Because I’m being packed off to London?”

“No, because I saw how you fought off that dreadful man last night.”

“You were watching?” The thought horrified me. What must she think?

“You’re not so quiet as you’d like to think,” she said. “I particularly liked the way you tried to smash his head. It was the first time I’d seen you show any sort of initiative. What did my son think?”

“I was a bit vague on the details when relaying the story to him.”

“I might just come to like you, Emily. But you should never withhold details—no matter how small—from him. A marriage requires absolute honesty.”

“I agree, of course. It’s just that—”

“There can be no just thats,” she said. “Full disclosure on every subject or you’ll mire yourselves in a web of deceit. What seems insignificant today may prove essential in the future.”

I could not argue with her reasoning.

“It’s sound advice and you know it,” she continued. “So don’t play Oscar Wilde. In this case, the only thing to do is not to pass it on.”

I smiled, relieved as the tension between us dissipated. “Thank you,” I said. “I shall heed your wise words.”

“I expect you will. Now, onto the other matter much on my mind. Are you going to be able to give my son an heir?”

“I—I—” I sputtered, her words slicing through me.

“It’s a simple enough question and I have a right to know.”

She certainly did not have a right to know. “The doctor couldn’t be certain,” I said, disappointed I’d answered her at all. Too many years of social niceties had undermined me.

“Colin said as much. But what do you think? Do you feel capable of carrying a child?”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to contemplate it so soon after—”

“Don’t be overly sensitive. It’s desperately unattractive. A suitable period of mourning would have been necessary had the child actually been born. But in this case, you need do nothing but continue on. It’s simple enough.”

I did not want her to see me cry, and knew the tears forming would not be kept at bay long. “Of course,” I said. “I was referring more to my own injuries and getting back my strength.” I know not how, but I managed to keep my voice steady.

She nodded. “Excellent. I shall hope for good news from you before the end of the year.”

“I’ll do all I can,” I said. “You must excuse me now, though. I can’t leave Meg to pack my things wholly undirected.” I held my composure until I’d closed the door behind me, and then ran up the stairs to my room, where I collapsed on the bed, sobbing. Did no one understand the pain of my loss? Was this grief so unusual?

No doubt it was. Because other women, like Madeline, who suffered disappointment after disappointment had no ethical ambiguities to torment them. They longed for children. I feared the ambivalence I’d felt made me different from them, as if my child had been taken because I hadn’t wanted it enough. I felt myself falling into despair, an empty coldness in my chest, my hands clammy, my eyes blurred and swollen. Would it ever stop? Could a person ever be free from this sort of guilt?

I pulled myself to my feet and staggered to the window seat across the room. I could see Colin far off in the distance, speaking to one of the gardeners. The sight of him, with his easy, affable manners, brought a further round of tears, as I counted the ways I’d disappointed him. How would he feel in five years, or ten, if we still had no child? Would the way he looked at women like Toinette Prier change? Would he be filled with regret at his choice of a wife? Would he come to resent me? Was he already thinking back on the years he’d shared with Kristiana, wishing she were still alive?

Even worse, what would he be thinking now if she hadn’t been killed? What if she were waiting in Vienna, biding her time, confident that eventually he’d become tired of me? Six months ago I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but now it seemed nothing short of inevitable. I hated the fact that she’d been murdered while trying to assist Colin, but in a way hated even more that her killer had done me a despicable and unwanted favor.