Seven Dials

Now as he stood up at her entrance into the cell, he looked drained. His skin was pale and had a peculiar dry, papery look, and although he wore the same clothes she had seen him in last time, today they seemed too big for him.

“Vespasia… how good of you to come,” he responded huskily, holding out one hand to greet her, then withdrawing it the moment before he touched her, as if suddenly conscious that she might not wish it.

She was stabbed by the terrible thought that the change in him was because he no longer believed in Ayesha Zakhari’s i

She forced herself to smile very slightly, just a warmth to her face.

“My dear Saville,” she responded, “I shall owe favors to no end of people for the privilege.” It was not true, but she knew that just for an instant it would make him feel better. “And I have only a few minutes before some miserable man, tied to his duty, will return to fetch me,” she continued. “It occurred to me that there might be some service I could perform for you that perhaps you had not been able to ask of anyone else. If there is, then please tell me now, in case we do not have another opportunity to speak alone.” It was a brutal truth, but there was no more time left for skirting around it. This was the time, here, this evening.

He controlled himself with a magnificent effort, and replied to her with total calm. Certain bequests to staff who had served him well were already attended to, but there were personal thanks he would like to have given, and an apology here or there. It was the latter which weighed upon him most heavily, and he was grateful to have her promise to do those things, should it prove necessary. He knew that she would do it graciously, with both the candor and the humility he wished.

The guard returned. She told him icily to wait, but he did so standing at the door.

“Is there anything else you need?” she asked Ryerson. “Anything personal that I may bring for you?”

The ghost of a smile flashed on his face, and vanished. “No, thank you. My valet has done that for me every day. I am so…”

She held up her hand to silence him. “I know,” she said quickly. She looked at the guard and permitted him to hold the door open for her. “Good-bye, Saville, at least for the moment.” She went out without looking back. She heard the sound of steel on steel as the door closed and the heavy tumblers of the lock fell into place.

She was crossing the entrance on her way to the outside doors when she saw a discreetly clad dark-ski

And yet she was the center of this storm which was going to destroy Ryerson, and possibly Stephen Garrick as well.

Vespasia went out into the street where her carriage was waiting, and allowed her footman to assist her up the step and to be seated comfortably, her mind still absorbed in thought.

GRACIE WAS ALONE in the house when she heard the knock on the scullery door. It was late on a wet and gusty night. Charlotte and Pitt were both out briefly to visit Charlotte’s mother, whom they had not seen in some time.

The knock came again, urgent and persistent.

She picked up the rolling pin, then put it down and chose the carving knife instead. Keeping it hidden in the folds of her skirt, she tiptoed to the back door and opened it sharply.

Tellman stood on the step with his hand raised to knock again. He looked cold and worried.

“You should have asked who it was before you opened,” he said immediately.

The criticism stung her. “You stop telling me wot ter do, Samuel Tellman!” she retorted. “You in’t got no right. This is my ’ouse, not yours.” She realized as soon as the words were out that her heart was pounding with suppressed fear, and she knew he was right. It would have been so simple to ask who it was, and she had not thought of it because she had been so preoccupied with thoughts about Martin Garvie, and people taken against their will and shut up in Bedlam, and the fact that they had not been able to solve the case of a man shot to death in a woman’s garden at night. What was he there for? No good, skulking in the bushes.

Tellman came inside. He was pale and his face was drawn with lines of tension.

“Somebody’s got to tell you what to do,” he said, closing the door hard. “You haven’t got the sense you were born with. What’s that?”

She put the knife down on the kitchen table. “A carvin’ knife. Wot does it look like?” she snapped back.

“It looks like something a burglar would take off you and hold to your throat,” he replied. “If you were lucky.”

“Is that wot yer came ’ere ter tell me?” she demanded, swinging around to face him. “It in’t me ’as got no wits.”

“Of course I didn’t come to tell you that!” He stood near the table, his whole body too tight to sit down. “But you’ve got to act with more sense.”

If anyone else had said that, she would have brushed it aside, but from him it stung unaccountably. He was at once too far and too close. She hated that it mattered so much because it confused her, it stirred up feelings over which she had no control, and she was not used to that.

“Don’t you tell me off like I belonged to yer,” she said, gulping back a surge of emotion, almost a loneliness, that threatened to swamp her.

He looked startled for a moment, then he frowned very slightly. “Don’t you want to belong to anyone, Gracie?” he asked.

She was stu

“W-well…” she stammered. “Well… I… s’pose I do…” She had said it… aloud!

He took a deep breath also. There was no indecision in him, only a fear that he would be rejected. “Then you’d better belong to me,” he answered. “Because there isn’t going to be anyone who wants you more than I do.”

She stared at him. The moment had come. It was now or never. The warmth rose up inside her like sliding into delicious, hot, sweet water, almost like floating. She did not realize she was not saying anything.

“Well, you’re stubborn and self-willed, and you’ve got the daftest ideas about people’s places I ever heard,” he went on in the crackling silence. “But heaven help me, there isn’t anybody else I really want… so if you’ll have me-” He stopped. “Are you waiting for me to say I love you? Maybe you haven’t got the wits you were born with, but you’re not so daft you don’t know that!”

“Yes, I know it!” she said quickly. “An’… an’…” It was only fair that she answer him honestly, however difficult it was to say. “An’ I love you too, Samuel. But jus’ don’ take liberties! It don’ give you the right ter tell me wot I’m doin’ or wot I in’t.”

His lantern face lit with a huge smile. “You’ll do as I tell you. But I want peace in my own house, so I reckon I won’t tell you anything you’d mind too much.”