‘How you gunna pay?’ a man’s voice demanded, rough and suspicious. ‘How you gunna get the cove out t’other end now Big Tom’s gone?’
‘I got the ready — look. An’ you make no mind of t’other end. This ’ere cove’s quality. He’s got servants.’
German Place? There was something about that address that she should remember.
The world rocked; a slam of a door and a clip-clopping lurch that rolled her back against the seat. Lamps flashed past a rattling window, the yellow light sliding across a pair of small dirty hands holding her arm.
Sprat’s face loomed over hers again, crooked teeth showing in a reassuring smile. ‘Won’t be long, my lady.’
She had something important to say. What was it? But the rocking motion beneath her body soothed the sense of urgency, drawing her once again into the gentle, healing darkness.
A thick fingertip pulled back her eyelid, the white ceiling and chandelier above her blurring into a smear of light. Worried brown eyes edged with a swirling tattoo peered intently into her fixed gaze. Quinn. Where had he come from?
‘She’s in a Reclaimer fugue. It doesn’t look deep. I would say she’ll come out of it in an hour or two.’
Fugue? But she had something to say. Something important. Something about … She could not grip on to the words that drifted through her mind.
‘There don’t seem to be any physical injuries.’ Darby. Voice thin and tight. ‘She’s holding something, but I can’t shift her fingers.’
‘It’s a book,’ Sprat’s voice announced. ‘She called it a jer-nell.’
‘Journal?’ Carlston’s voice, urgent.
Now she remembered. Must not go back to German Place.
Too late. Carlston’s face hovered over her; a half-healed split across his cheekbone, mouth still bruised. She’d done that. Amore mio. She saw his hand reach towards the book.
Do not touch it! She screamed the words, but they were caught in her mind. No sound.
A blur, then Quinn’s fingers locked around his master’s wrist. ‘You must not get too close to Lady Helen, my lord. Let me get it.’
Carlston’s hand balled into a fist. ‘Of course.’ He jerked his wrist out of Quinn’s grip. Eyes pained, space between his brows furrowing. ‘Sprat, that’s your name, is it? Tell me exactly what happened.’
She saw Quinn’s head bend to his task. Felt her forefinger prised from the book. She tried to fix her scream into her eyes. No! Quinn, do not let him touch it!
‘Like I said afore, my lord. She killed Mrs Holt’s bruvver and saved Lester. He was touched in the head, real bad, but now he’s not. Just like that. It’s all ’cause of that book. She says it’s writ in blood. Made her real sick.’
‘Blood?’ Carlston leaned over again and she saw the realisation dawn in his eyes, their black centres flaring with horror. ‘Dear God, get it off her now, Quinn! Benchley made a Ligatus!’
She felt the journal wrenched from her hands. The terrible weight of it shifted from her mind, the sudden ease like a sigh through her soul that pulled her inexorably away from Carlston and into the quiet grip of oblivion.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
WEDNESDAY, 22 JULY 1812
Helen surfaced through layers of heavy languor that dragged at her consciousness. The white ceiling blurred into focus again as she fought to form one sentence through her parched, aching throat.
‘Do not touch it!’
The words grated across her throat in a raw sting. She struggled upward, elbows sinking back against the give of damask cushions. She was on the sofa in the German Place drawing room: how did she get there? In the candlelight, the clock on the mantel showed that it was just past midnight, but the shutters on the windows had been left open. They framed Delia, clad in her blue pelisse, as she peered pensively down into the dark street.
‘My lady!’
Beside her, Darby straightened from a tired hunch on the ottoman pulled untidily next to the sofa. She touched Helen’s arm as if checking the sudden animation.
Delia turned from the window. ‘Helen! Thank goodness you are awake.’
A small face bobbed up beside the ottoman. Sprat smiled. ‘See, I told you she’d be spruce.’
Darby cast a quelling frown at the girl, then addressed Helen, her face softening with relief. ‘How are you feeling, my lady? Let me help sit you up.’
She rose and wrapped her arm around Helen’s shoulder, pulling her up against pillows and cushions, her broad body a warm anchor in the sudden dizzy swirl of the room.
Delia crossed from the window. She was wearing gloves as well: dressed for travel. ‘Mr Quinn assured us you would emerge from your fugue soon, but I was so worried. You did not move at all.’
‘We were all worried,’ the Duke said, coming into view. He was not wearing his jacket, and his linen shirt and green waistcoat were creased, his blond hair raked back and lost to all style. He was smiling his relief too, but underneath Helen saw an ominous solemnity.
Now she remembered: stealing away from his house; Lowry; the journal; Sprat. She closed her eyes. Of course, Sprat had brought her here by mistake. Straight to Carlston.
She opened her eyes, noticing damage around the room. Broken vases, a wall mirror cracked, a hole punched into the wall, pieces of plaster hanging from it.
‘Where is Lord Carlston?’
The Duke’s face pinched, nostrils flaring, piqued that her first question was about Carlston. Right now she did not have time for his sensibilities. Not with the Ligatus anywhere near Carlston.
She caught her maid’s hands. ‘Where is the journal?’
Darby looked up at the Duke, deferring to his rank, her soft mouth pressed into a worried line.
‘Carlston is on his way to London with the book,’ the Duke said, crossing his arms. ‘That journal, or whatever it is, did something to him. As soon as he opened it,’ he waved his hand at the side of his head, ‘he nearly destroyed the place. Screaming about the Comte d’Antraigues and a cure.’
Helen shuddered, remembering the chittering, howling presence of the journal in her mind. It must have wreaked havoc upon Carlston’s fragile sanity.
‘He was just like Lester, my lady,’ Sprat said. ‘All snarly an’ sick an’ jibbery.’
‘Quinn too, my lady,’ Darby said. ‘He tried to read the book, but it made him purge over and over again. Said it was like having claws in his mind. In the end, Lady Margaret managed to look through it. She wasn’t so sick with it. She found what his lordship wanted, but he couldn’t tear it from the book. Just made him sicker and sicker.’
‘Yes, it would.’
Helen released her grip on Darby and dug her hands into the soft seat, pulling herself upright. The room shifted again into a nauseating spin. She took a steadying breath, waiting for the dizziness to pass. She had to get up and follow the journal and Carlston.
‘Mr Hammond fears his lordship is going to offer the Comte d’Antraigues the whole journal,’ Delia said. ‘We — Mr Hammond, Lady Margaret and myself — are set on following him to the Comte’s house in Barnes Terrace. Mr Hammond is readying the carriage at this minute.’