Jane shivered, her entire body breaking out in gooseflesh. She wrapped an arm around her stomach, as if that would protect the child she carried. She now understood why Vincent wished so strongly to keep her condition a secret.
“I should advise you to tread carefully, sir.”
“How did she catch you? I have never been able to satisfy myself as to that. A mannish thing with no heritage to speak of.… I suppose you are more like Richard than I had hoped, if that is what catches your fancy.”
“Stop.”
“Do I trouble you because I come too close to the truth? Yes, I saw how it upset you on the witness stand at the trial when the questions bent towards your tastes. Men’s clothing? Is she truly a woman, or just a boy to serve as your punk?”
Vincent turned towards the door without a word.
“There he goes. The conversation touches difficult ground and he runs. You always were a coward.”
Jane crept back along the wall as Vincent opened the door to the white parlour.
“You know … it has only just occurred to me. Garland made a half dozen bastards before he married, and not a one from you. Perhaps you should ask Mr. Pridmore to show you how to handle your wife.”
Vincent stood in the door, his face clearly visible through the white parlour’s windows. Rage had bared his teeth and made the muscles in his jaw into knots. Like a glamourist at work, his gaze went vacant for a moment. He seemed to seize all the anger and push the tumult within himself. His face cleared with a speed that frightened Jane more than that glimpse of fury. Turning, Vincent leaned against the door-case. With tones that belonged only to the most aristocratic of families, he drawled, “Really, Father … if you think that threatening my wife will convince me to aid you, then your judgement has slipped more than I thought. Good day to you, sir.”
Vincent pulled the door shut as he stepped back into the parlour and stood for a moment supporting himself against the door. Jane stepped into the parlour, the shade of the room stopping the effects of the Verre. At the sound of her foot on the broad wood boards, Vincent spun, his face mottled red with fury.
The moment he saw her, colour drained from his features. Vincent swallowed heavily, glancing back to his father’s room. He raised a finger to his lips.
Jane nodded to let him know that she would not betray her presence by speaking.
Still half-turned from her, Vincent pointed to the front veranda with his brows raised in question. Jane gave a little nod and followed him along the veranda to the front of the house. Even once there, he waited until they had progressed across the shaded stretch away from his father’s wing of the house.
He coughed into his fist, clearing his throat twice before speaking, and still his voice was hoarse. “Are you all right?”
“Only concerned for you.” She put the tips of two fingers, no more, on his arm, and yet he flinched under her touch. “Are you well?”
He glanced behind them. Through the long stretch of windows that spanned the front gallery of the house, a maid was quietly polishing a table. Vincent turned to face the yard again, gaze resting now upon a gardener trimming a shrub, and then upon a groom walking a horse in a circle upon the walk. None of them so much as glanced towards the Vincents, and yet Jane became aware of their presence as she never was of servants back home.
When Vincent spoke again, his tone was painfully calm, as if he were saying that the day was a fine one. “Well … you had expressed curiosity about what I was like as youth. Now you know.”
In spite of the heat, a chill washed over Jane, as if a coldmonger were weaving glamour directly on her skin. Your husband was marked by fury.… His apparent calm worried Jane more than agitation might. She could see a preservative shell hardening around Vincent, and they had not even been in Antigua a full day. “There will be more of this. If we stay here.”
“Yes.” He looked over the horizon of the estate, appearing for all the world like a man at ease, if one could disregard the rigour with which he gripped the rail.
“Shall we go inside? To escape the heat.”
The skin around Vincent’s eyes tightened slightly before he looked down and lifted one hand just a little above the balustrade. It shook as though he were palsied. He lowered it again and said, with deliberate mildness, “I think it might be best if I were to walk about and look over the estate. If you are truly all right.”
“I am. Truly.”
“May I further ask that you to wait in our rooms? It would…” His voice faltered, and then his jaw locked around whatever emotion was there. “I should like to know where you are.”