As she finished the eggs, Penelope reached for a thick slice of buttered bread, she took one bite. Then, moving with the practiced casual stealth of a rat in the kitchens, she slid her hand down to her lap. She slipped the remaining half of the bread into the deep pocket of the velvet dressing gown. She didn't know why she did it. It was instinct. Food was fleeting. Comfort was a lie. You had to hide sustenance for the inevitable moment when the world turned cruel again.
Alaric saw the movement. He paused, his hand halfway to his own teacup, his jaw tightened, a muscle feathering beneath his cheekbone. He recognized the gesture for what it was, the absolute certainty that this safety was temporary. He saw the hoarding of a woman who fully expected to be starved by tomorrow. He didn't call her out on it. He didn't assure her that she would never go hungry again. He knew that the words would mean nothing to a woman who had lived her life.
"I am going to visit a man named Caldwell," Alaric said, breaking the silence. His voice was low, gravelly. "He is my solicitor. He is utterly devoid of a moral compass, which is exactly what we require."
Penelope froze, her hand tightened on the fabric of the pocket, concealing the bread. "A solicitor? Why?"
"To find out precisely how much of the law I am going to have to break to keep you out of Carlisle's hands," Alaric replied.
"You cannot use the law," Penelope said, her voice turning sharp, cynical. She looked up at him, the fear replaced by a hard, bitter reality. "The law doesn't exist for women like me. Under the doctrine of Coverture, I do not exist. My legal identity was suspended the moment my father signed that marriage contract. I am Viscount Carlisle's property, Alaric. If you try to claim I am alive, the courts will simply hand me back to him and he will sue you for criminal conversation just to drag your name through the mud."
"I am the Duke of Cuddon," Alaric said softly. "I have more money than God, and I hold the ear of the prime minister."
"Carlisle is a viscount, and he is owed favors by half the House of Lords," Penelope shot back, leaning forward. "He hosts them at his hunting lodges. He pays their gambling debts. He provides them with distractions. They will not side with a duke who is trying to steal another peer's legal property. They will protect their own."
Alaric looked at her. He saw the intelligence burning in her eyes, sharp and lethal. The fragile, terrified girl from the kitchens was receding, making way for the woman who had survived the devil's own house.
"Then we won't use the courts," Alaric said. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, bringing his face level with hers. "We will use the gutter. I will buy his debts. I will ruin his shipping interests. I will bleed him until he is nothing but an empty coat."
Penelope stared at the teacup. Her reflection rippled in the dark amber liquid. "If he finds out I am alive before he is ruined," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, "he will kill me. He won't use his hands. He will lock me in a room at his estate and let me rot."
"He will never touch you again," Alaric said. It was not a promise. It was a statement of violent fact.
By 2:00 the following afternoon, the rain had settled over London in a relentless, miserable sheet of gray. Alaric sat in the corner booth of White's, the most exclusive gentleman's club in the city. The air was thick with the smoke of expensive cigars and the heavy scent of roasted meats. He held a newspaper he wasn't reading, his gaze fixed over the edge of the paper toward the card tables in the center of the room.
Viscount Carlisle was playing Faro. He was a large man, built like a bull with a ruddy complexion that suggested a fondness for port and high blood pressure. His thinning blonde hair was slicked back with pomade. He was laughing, a loud braying sound that cut through the low murmur of the room, slapping the table as the dealer turned over a card.
Alaric watched the way Carlisle moved. The heavy gold signet ring on his right hand flashed in the lamplight. Alaric thought about that ring striking Penelope's jaw. He thought about the silvery scars on her back, his right hand resting beneath the table, slowly curled into a fist.
He had spent the morning with Caldwell. The solicitor had confirmed Penelope's cynical assessment. Legally, Alaric was standing on a trap door. If he simply announced Penelope was alive, Carlisle could petition the courts for a writ of habeas corpus, forcing Alaric to produce her. She would be handed over to her husband at the courthouse steps. Property. The word tasted like ash in Alaric's mouth.
He watched Carlisle lose a hand, his face darkening with sudden volatile anger. He snapped his fingers at a servant, demanding more brandy, his voice dripping with venomous contempt. This was the man who owned the woman Alaric loved.
Alaric stood up. He left his half-finished scotch on the table and walked out of the club, ignoring the greetings of a dozen peers. He needed leverage. He needed a blade sharp enough to cut Carlisle's throat without drawing blood.
When Alaric returned to Cuddon House, he bypassed his study and went straight to the Sapphire suite. He knocked once lightly before entering. Penelope was standing by the window, watching the rain hammer against the glass. She had discarded his velvet dressing gown. In its place, she wore a simple day dress of dark green wool. It was a gown that had belonged to his younger sister, hastily altered by a trusted seamstress while Penelope slept. The dress was plain, devoid of lace or adornment, but it fit her.
She turned as he entered. The green of the fabric brought out the stark, stormy gray of her eyes. Her hair, no longer matted with grease, was tied back in a simple ribbon. She still looked painfully thin, the hollows of her cheeks still prominent. But she no longer looked like a scullery maid. She looked like a woman preparing for war.
"Did you see him?" she asked. There was no tremor in her voice.
"I saw him," Alaric said, closing the door behind him. "He was losing at Faro. He looked like a man who owes money."
"He always owes money," Penelope said, walking away from the window and taking a seat in the high-backed chair by the empty fireplace. She folded her hands in her lap. Her cracked skin was heavily slathered in an herbal salve he had left for her. "But gambling debts will not ruin him. He has estates in Yorkshire and a townhouse in Mayfair. He can mortgage them."
Alaric poured two glasses of sherry from a crystal decanter, handing one to her before taking a seat opposite. "Caldwell is looking into his shipping investments. If we can squeeze his credit..."