Temptation & Twilight

“LIZZY, WHAT BRINGS YOU here?” Sussex asked sleepily.

With arms outstretched, Elizabeth waved them in front of her, trying to search for any obstacles in her way.

“Your valet said you had a headache. I wanted to check on you.”

“No, keep going straight, otherwise you’re going to crash headlong into the bedpost.”

She was relieved that Adrian had not bothered to stir himself from the bed to help her. She’d had her fill of overprotective men who sought to stifle her with help, reminding her of how she was nothing but a disabled nuisance.

“There. If I plop down here will it be on a chair or a stool?”

“Dressing chair.”

Lowering herself, Elizabeth felt around with her hands for the rounded edges of the seat. “There,” she said, while she artfully arranged her skirts, hoping she appeared appropriate sitting there, wondering what she was wearing this morning. She had been too irate over Alynwick’s demands that she keep her nose out of Brethren business to enquire about the colour of her dress. It was taffeta, she knew, just by the way it sounded as she arranged the long skirts. A grosgrain taffeta; she could feel the nap beneath her sensitive fingertips. Other than that, she had no clue what Maggie had dressed her in.

“You look lovely in that shade of yellow.”

“Thank you. I was wondering what color this gown was.”

“The hue reminds me of a summer day.”

“Good heavens, brother, I do believe that Lady Lucy’s penchant for description is rubbing off on you.”

“Do you? I had rather hoped that it would be the other way around—that I might be rubbing off on her.”

“And what makes you think you are not?”

“Because she made it known, in no uncertain terms, that she finds me rather loathsome.”

“Posh,” Lizzy said, waving away her brother’s worry. “Lucy is confused, is all. She feels for you, Adrian. I can sense it. She doesn’t loathe you at all. She is merely trying to understand what it is you do to her. Besides, we had a chat over tea this morning, after that horrible business was concluded, and she asked me a few questions about you.”

“Really?” The covers rustled, as though he was sitting up. “What questions?”

“I am not at liberty to share our discourse, but suffice it to say that I think you have captivated her, despite her best intentions not to notice you.”

“And when did you become an expert in affairs of the heart?”

“After the stacks of penny dreadfuls Isabella and Lucy have been reading to me these past weeks.”

“Ah,” he said, laughing. “Advice from overwrought literature. You are indeed an expert.”

“Mark my words, Adrian. Lucy will be your wife, and will fall head over heels in love with you. Every bit as much, if not more, than you love her.”

She was met with silence, and she listened for the sounds in the room. Nothing. Adrian must be lying there, hands folded behind his head, studying her. Drat the man, he was too observant. She never could hide much from him.

“Lizzy?” he murmured, and she heard the silent question in his voice.

“I only came to find you, to see if you might need anything.”

“Well, here you are,” her brother drawled, sounding amused. “Risking life and limb to check on me and my aching head. Isn’t that what you claimed?”

“Indeed. How is your head?”

“I took a sulphur tonic and it is much improved.”

Curling her lips, she said, “I thought I smelt something foul upon entering this room, but felt it was impolite and far too personal to point it out.”

Adrian laughed again and she heard him settling back onto his pillows. “And what of the other questions, Lizzy?”

She never could fool Adrian. There was a time, when she was much younger, that Adrian had been nothing but a thorn in her side. He’d been mean, taunting, but then he had grown quite ill, and was whisked away by their father to a remote estate. It had taken months for him to heal from his ailment, and when she had next seen him, he had been a changed man. Kind and thoughtful. Protective without being overbearing, and so very, very understanding of her needs. She had been completely blind upon his return, and she frequently lamented the fact that she could not see his face. See the man he had become.

“Let’s have the real reason, Lizzy. Out with it.”

Shrugging, she fidgeted with her hands. “I came to ask about Lucy. I wondered, with the events of the morning, how she was. She seemed rather determined to avoid the topic with me.”

He sighed. “I sent her home with a footman to protect her. I read the note to you, so you know the bastard might have just as easily killed her—the redhead in the note, no doubt—as opposed to Anastasia. And the thought of it chills me to the core.”

“Yes, Anastasia,” Lizzy murmured, thinking of the lady who had been murdered and presented to them in the back garden. “Imagine, Lucy crossing paths with that monster.”

“I’d rather not. I’ve barely slept thinking of it, and how it might have been her, her red hair spilling from the wheelbarrow, the bruises on her lovely neck.”

“She is safe, and I have no doubt she will remain thus. She seemed unnerved to me. I doubt she will go searching for trouble, or any of those occult meetings and séances she has been dabbling in.”

“I shall have to find a way to believe as you do. But, Lizzy, I’m terrified. I have only you to confess it to, but I’m frightened to the marrow of my bones that this man we hunt might strike again before we find him. He knows so much about us—the Brethrens, our father….”

“As to that, I have questions, Adrian.”

“I knew you would.”

“What did you tell the servants about Anastasia?”

“I lied, of course. Said that she was an actress from the opera who took an unnatural fixation with me. She killed herself because I would not have her. Seems a bit vain and sanctimonious, but the staff knows that I am nothing if not a stickler for proprieties. They believed my reluctance to begin an affair with an opera dancer. They accepted what I told them, and will carry on in their service, and silence, as they always have.”

“But you were saddened by the tale. I hear it in your voice even now.”

“I wish I did not have to malign her reputation after death. Seemed such a cruel, unforgiving thing to do, to claim her to be something she was not, just to save my reputation.”

“Not only your reputation, but the knowledge of the Guardians. She would understand, I think, Adrian.”

“Yes. She would. She was that sort of woman. I only regret that she knew such suffering in her life.”

“She was Father’s mistress?” she guessed. The woman would have known no kindness, no softness from their father. No man was more cold, more unforgiving than him.

“I heard your gasp when I announced her name. I thought perhaps you knew her, or of her.”

“No, I didn’t. I guess it was merely a sound of shock. Father never struck me as the sort to keep a woman. How did she bear it, do you think, suffering and enduring him?”

“Theirs was a strange relationship. She loved him. And in his own way, I think he … cared for her. His style of caring, anyway.”