‘I have heard a number of versions.’
‘None to my advantage, I would wager,’ he said bitterly. ‘I did not kill my wife, Lady Helen, if that is what you are wondering. She disappeared, and from that day onwards I have been under suspicion. Do you know how that feels?’
‘My parents disappeared too, Lord Carlston. I know, at least, how that feels.’ She paused, remembering the overwhelming pain of those childhood days and the never-ending echo of it still tolling through her. ‘The helpless agony of not knowing what happened.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, helpless agony. You do understand.’
For a moment they were both silent.
‘Elise and I were at my seat in Carlston for Michaelmas,’ he said abruptly. ‘I had gone to visit a neighbour about a trifling matter. On my return home I found …’ He stopped, lower teeth clamping for a moment upon his upper lip. ‘A large amount of blood in Elise’s dressing room. Even then I had seen enough death to know the volume would have been almost the full complement of a human body. It was also still warm. Whatever had happened had occurred only minutes before. If I had returned just a little earlier, I would have …’ He stopped and flexed his shoulders, as if pushing past the guilt. ‘To this day I do not know what actually happened in that room. Foolishly, I picked up the knife lying in the blood and raised the alarm. I had everyone searching the estate, but we found nothing — neither Elise nor a perpetrator. Eventually, as the investigation fruitlessly continued, all eyes inevitably turned to me. That suspicion was compounded by one of the maids who claimed she saw me coming from the room with the knife. Which, of course, she did. I never found Elise or any trace of the other person involved. I searched England, and then, when the rumours turned into accusations, I was ordered to go the Continent. So I took my search there, just in case she had somehow survived.’
Helen realised her hand was pressed over her mouth. She pulled it away. ‘You thought she might still be alive?’
‘No, I don’t think I did, but it is hard to give up hope, isn’t it? Almost as hard as having it.’ He rubbed his forehead as if the pain of that hope still lingered. ‘I suppose I knew even then she could not be alive. Not with all that blood.’
‘But why would someone murder a woman and carry her body away so that there was no trace?’
‘Indeed. I could think of only one organisation that could do that so efficiently. Which has done so in many cases before, and continues to do so.’
Helen stared at him. ‘Are you saying the Dark Days Club killed your wife?’
‘No. After the events at your ball, I now think Benchley killed my wife and the Home Office cleaned up after him, as they did the Ratcliffe Highway murders. I will never know if that was truly the case, but it is my belief.’
‘Why would he kill your wife?’
‘I did not know it at the time, but his paranoia was extreme even then. Six years had passed since he had dumped his darkness into your mother and I believe he had tipped once again into vestige madness. I think he believed Elise was a Deceiver. Sir Jonathan, our Tracer, has told me that Benchley had in fact requested a Trace upon Elise.’
‘If you believe the Home Office cleaned up after him, how can you bear to work within that organisation?’
‘I gave my oath, Lady Helen. Besides, I have no proof, and if I abandon the Dark Days Club, I will never have a chance to find out the truth.’
Would that proof be in the journal, alongside her own answers about the death of her parents? Yet she could not even hint at that possibility.
‘This oath expects a lot from us,’ she said.
‘It does, and one of those expectations is that we do not become attached. Quinn knows it is against the rules, as I am sure Darby does too. They must put an end to it.’
Helen stared at him. Had she heard right? ‘What do you mean, against the rules? Are you saying the oath actually forbids them to fall in love?’
‘Surely you are aware of the oath that you swore? Attachments in the Dark Days Club are forbidden, Lady Helen. We are an army, albeit a very small one. We cannot afford to be compromised by tender emotions.’
Helen crossed her arms. ‘My mother and father loved each other, and they were both members of the Dark Days Club.’
‘Indeed, it was their tragedy, and my own, that forced the rule against attachments into existence. Pike instituted the ban, and it is not his worst decision.’
‘Does it apply to everyone?’
‘Not everyone. Just Reclaimers and Terrenes.’
She had a horrifying sense of a trap closing; one that she had stepped into willingly. ‘Even with someone outside the order?’
‘Even outside.’ He looked at her sideways. ‘Even Dukes.’
She ignored the jibe. ‘Banning love and marriage is absurd,’ she said hotly. ‘How does the Home Office plan to enforce such a rule?’
‘It is not up to the Home Office to enforce it. We must control ourselves.’
‘You may find it easy to expel all emotion, but I do not want to live like that, and I am sure Darby —’
She stopped. He was looking at her with such an odd expression upon his face.
‘Easy? You think that I do not feel anything?’ For just a second the guard within his dark eyes dropped away and she saw what lay behind: a silent howl of pain and guilt and, clawing through it all, desire for her. Savage and intense.
He turned from her shock and took a few steps away, placing some space between them. ‘There is nothing easy about putting one’s duty above all else, in any way, but we have sworn to protect our country. Self-gratification is not part of our oath.’
She drew in a shaking breath. He still felt it too, that wild pull towards each other. Yet he was saying they must control it.
She cleared her throat. ‘I do not think Darby knew she was swearing to forgo love and a husband and children.’
‘I acknowledge that I am subject to its rule,’ he recited, turning to face her again. ‘That I serve at the King’s pleasure, and that I will never, by deed or word, place the Dark Days Club in jeopardy.’
‘I see.’ Helen looked down at her hands. She had laced her fingers without even knowing, the knuckles aching and white. ‘Deed or word. It is a very wide definition.’
‘It is in the regulations as well.’
Ah, yes, the rules and regulations. She had tried to read through them all, but had been defeated by the endless paragraphs of tortuous legal language. Clearly she had missed some very important clauses. And poor Darby, who had her letters but did not read with any ease, would have had little chance of understanding the ramifications.