A Restless Truth (The Last Binding #2)

Chapter 32

32

Morris caught it.

“There,” said Violet. “You’re clearly the brains of this outfit as well as the muscle.”

Partly, that was to keep chipping away at the grudging alliance between their enemies. The other part was just to annoy Arthur Chapman, who was now neck and neck with Jerry in the stakes of men whose corpses Violet would cheerfully walk over for a cup of tea.

Sure enough, Chapman scowled.

“ No! ” burst out of Maud. “ Miss Debenham, I shall never forgive you! ”

Violet tingled with the momentum of being with someone who was prepared to meet her improvisation, to keep step with her, to harmonise without fear. She still wasn’t sure if Mrs. Navenby had caught on in time, but she knew that Maud had.

“I’m not interested in your forgiveness, ma’am. I am interested in keeping our skins intact—those of us who still have them.”

“ You will have no further help from me on that score. Or any other, ” said Maud, furious and frosty, and then her jaw clacked shut.

It wasn’t altogether convincing, if you’d spent the last few nights hearing the difference between the ghost’s voice and the medium’s. But it didn’t have to be. Chapman and Morris had what they wanted now. All that mattered was that they had no reason to think, even for a moment, that Mrs. Navenby’s ghost had left Maud along with the locket.

Catching the thrown locket had forced Morris to drop whatever nasty trick he’d been cradling, and removed his focus from Violet’s fingers. Casually, she moved through the first few motions of a general negation, then held it half-finished between her hands.

Chapman looked on the verge of demanding Morris hand over the locket, but victory had calmed him again. “If the other one’s still useful, so be it. But now the old woman’s served her purpose, the medium is nothing but a liability. Will you kill her, or shall I?”

“That wasn’t the bargain!” Violet managed, barely, not to drop the half-completed negation. “You were to let us both go, unharmed!”

“Did I put my blood into any oath?” Chapman smiled nastily. “Be grateful you’ve escaped with your own skin, Miss Debenham. And this will stand as a reminder to you, as to what might happen if you later decide to double-cross us out of the knife.”

Violet opened her mouth to retort that he had no business double-crossing her and warning her against it in the same breath, but Morris got there first.

“Don’t be a bloody fool, Chapman. The last thing we need is ship security up our arse because a dead woman’s relative has also shown up dead. And Mr. Bastoke won’t be happy if the foreseer takes against us because we’ve killed his sister. Just use lethe-mint and be done. It’s been less than a week.”

“Miss Debenham might fill her in on the details afterwards,” said Chapman. “It’ll have to be both of them. And—blast, Lord Hawthorn might still shove his oar in. A secret-bind would be neater.”

Maud’s eyes went huge and her hand covered her mouth. Violet cursed silently— damn, she’d hoped it wouldn’t come down to this—and finished the negation. She shoved power into the cradle, too much, too hard, and the negation burst like an overfilled skin before she could gather the control to direct it. It flew wide as the room. Still, it did the job. Maud’s legs jerked abruptly away from where they’d been held against the chair.

Violet was already cradling her next spell as she got herself between Maud and Chapman. “Maud, stay out of the way.”

They couldn’t kill her. They couldn’t kill Maud. Violet just had to get them out of here.

“Forget Chapman! Get the locket!” cried Maud, in a stroke of creative genius, as she obediently scurried to press herself against the bureau.

Chapman was a fast cradler, but Violet had started first, and finished first as well: a fire-spell, with a clause to encourage it to catch hold even on difficult material, and another to turn it into an arrow. The spell flew into one of his thighs and began at once to burn through his trousers.

“ Fucking—shit .” Chapman dropped his half-formed cradle. Violet jerked her head urgently at Maud and then at the exit.

“Morris!” panted Chapman. He batted at the smouldering patch on his leg. “Don’t just stand there! Help me!”

Morris had his palm protectively over his pocket. He was close to the door. Having acquired the item that Mr. Bastoke wanted, he was visibly loath to put it at further risk. He was considering leaving Chapman in the lurch.

Chapman saw it and cursed. His teeth were bared as he spun back towards Violet. A reddish patch of raw skin peeked through the ashy edges of fabric. He began to build a cradle that frothed and billowed in his hands, mustard-yellow smoke glinting green where the light hit it.

Violet couldn’t identify the spell, but Chapman had formed it in fury and there was nothing but thwarted anger in his eyes as he advanced. Fear wiped Violet’s mind clear. Maud was shouting something that turned to cotton wool in her ears. She took an unmeaning step back and collided with the chair.

When you can’t think, cherie, let your hands think for you.

It was Claudette’s voice. Claudette sitting on a prop table in the green room, smoking cigarette after cigarette—Claudette nodding at Thom, who was playing a more sinister role than his usual, advancing on Violet from every angle. From behind, from the side, with a knife, with a handgun. The weapons were illusions, but lackadaisical Thom was a consummate actor when he wanted to be. Violet’s nerves recognised only threat, and turned that threat into a bucket with which to reach down into the well of her anger.

Claudette saying Again, and Again, until Violet’s fingers could fly through the cradles of the knife-spell without conscious thought. They didn’t practice finesse. They only practiced speed, and the ability to pull this to the surface when the rest of the body was singing panic.

Violet lifted her hands, barely seeing the pink light that limned them.

She took a step forward, closed her eyes, and slashed.

All of her was braced for the hot splash of blood on her face. It didn’t come.

She heard the muffled shriek from Maud. She smelled something new and coppery and fierce. She heard a gurgle like water running beneath a grate, and then a small, unimportant crumpling sound, not far from where she stood. She couldn’t get enough air in, though she fought her lungs for it. In the end, she opened her eyes because it was that or fall over.

There was blood, after all. There was a lot of it: all down Chapman’s front, and wet on his hand where he’d grabbed the wound, and on the floor, where it seeped and clashed with the green and yellow of the rug.

A few scarlet spots adorned Violet’s bodice and sleeves, as if painted there with a delicate brush.

She should be shaking. Instead she was hollowed out. She felt as though she had spent an hour in the ice room, like Mrs. Navenby’s corpse, and walked out chilly and calm. An unpleasant and yet necessary chore had sprung up in her path and been completed.

She looked at the body of the man she’d sliced open.

“I told you I’d slit your throat.” Her voice should have hung visible in the air. “I did tell you.”

The rest of the world rushed in at the edges: colour, sound, warmth. Now the smell of blood did curdle Violet’s stomach. Morris, inches from the door, had frozen in surprise. He looked from Chapman’s body to Violet, and back.

None of them moved. Violet’s breathing seemed the loudest thing in the world.

A bang on the cabin door proved her wrong.

Maud gave a little leap. Even Morris flinched and looked at the door as if it would fling itself open. It did not. Another brisk knocking followed the first. A few interminable seconds went by before Morris cleared his throat. “Who. Who is it?”

The muffling-spell he’d cast must have gone down with Violet’s overzealous negation, because the reply came almost at once.

“Ah, Morris,” said Lord Hawthorn’s sternest tones. “Excellent. Open the bloody door.”

“We’re in here!” shouted Maud at once. “We’re both fine!” Which was a generous twisting of the word fine and also showed a touching assumption of what Hawthorn’s priorities would be.

Morris looked at Maud. Then at Violet.

“Open it or I fetch the master-at-arms and a large axe,” said Hawthorn.

“He knows we’re in here,” said Maud to Morris, low and quick, “and so far the only one who’s killed anyone is Violet. Do you want Lord Hawthorn to open the door and find our corpses as well?”

Morris’s hand strayed over his pocket again. His expression was unreadable, but uncertainty bled in at its edges.

He turned the key in the cabin door and opened it.

“Morris,” said Hawthorn.

“M’lord.”

Hawthorn stepped briskly inside and shut the door behind him before Morris could gather his wits to escape. His lordship’s eyes flicked over Maud and the blood-sprinkled Violet and then landed on Chapman—after which they closed, briefly. Then opened in resignation.

Maud and Morris spoke at once.

“He was—”

“It was—”

“ I don’t care .” The Baron Hawthorn was in full force. He spun to look at Morris with military precision. “As far as I’m concerned, I walked into this room when you were standing over him with a bloody knife, and I will swear that on my name and my title in front of the master-at-arms and any magistrate it takes.”

Morris paled. He actually looked offended, as if he’d expected his retainer-loyalty to be respected and returned by his employer’s cousin.

“Right,” Morris growled. “Don’t suppose your name’s worth any more to you than your magic was, my lord .”

It was a reasonable jab, but it might as well have been a blown kiss. Hawthorn didn’t blink.

“Remove yourself, Morris. And given that you’re soon to become a wanted man, you might want to lie very low for the rest of the voyage. I’m sure you’re a capable enough magician to manage it.”

“The necklace! He has the necklace!”

“ Maud, ” Hawthorn barked. “There is a corpse in the corner and the two of you will be lucky not to be arrested for murder on top of thieving and fraud, at this rate.”

“No, she’s right!” said Violet, earnestly polishing this gem of misdirection. “We can’t let him escape with it! Not after everything that’s happened!”

Finally, Morris saw sense. In one abrupt move he lunged at the cabin door, let himself out, and was gone. In his haste he slammed the door so hard it bounced ajar.

Hawthorn, after a moment, went over and closed it again.

“Do you think he bought it?” Maud asked, breathless.

“I hope so,” said Violet.

“Why,” muttered Hawthorn, “did I ever set foot on this accursed ship?” He stalked across the room—narrowly avoiding Chapman and the furniture—and turned Maud’s face in his hands, somewhere between clinical and avuncular, frowning down at the split lip. “Maud Blyth. You are a terror and you should not be allowed to run loose in the world.”

Maud’s smile looked shaky. “Robin always says that.”

“He has more sense than I thought.” Hawthorn released her and turned inquiringly to Violet, who had managed to drag some composure together.

“As rescues go, this one was belated, Hawthorn. We had things in hand.”

“My apologies—were you about to dispatch Morris as well? Did I interrupt?”

“We were about to do what we just did, which was let him go, believing he had the contract piece in hand.”

She explained how the scene had played out. In return Hawthorn explained that Chapman had managed to charm him unconscious in the séance room. He’d woken sometime later to the sight of Mrs. Moretti having professional hysterics at the master-at-arms; the spiritualist claimed not to remember anything from the moment they’d all joined hands around the table.

“I,” said Hawthorn dryly, “claimed to have been overcome by a malicious spirit. Then I made my escape and came to Chapman’s cabin. I thought there might be a mess of some sort to clean up, and that it would be best not to bring along an audience of security officers.”

As one, they looked at Chapman, then away again. Nausea rose in Violet’s throat and her knees weakened at the sight of the blood. No. She was not going to faint, or empty her guts, or apologise.

“We’ll have to come up with a good story for why this is Morris’s fault,” she said. “And what we were all doing here.”

Maud made a long, soft sound and collapsed at the knees.

“Maud!” Violet knelt.

Maud hadn’t swooned. She had simply wilted, to sit on the floor white-faced. Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I’m sorry . Goodness. I should be made of better stuff than this, shouldn’t I? This all began with one dead body. I don’t know why I didn’t think to prepare myself for more of them.”

Violet moved without thinking, reaching out to gather Maud up in one arm. Maud made a sniffling noise and collapsed against her. Hawthorn dangled a clean handkerchief at them; Violet handed it to Maud, who gave a gurgling sound as she cleaned her face.

“It’s not— Oh, I’m crying about Mrs. Navenby, I think. I hate to think that she didn’t get to tell us goodbye.”

“She was thankful to have your voice for a while. She said so,” said Violet. “And you know she’d have wanted you to protect the real cup, above everything.”

Maud blew her nose, loud and unladylike in Hawthorn’s kerchief, and looked marginally brighter when she was done. “It was very clever of you, Violet, making them think the locket was the piece they were looking for.”

“We all thought it, when we first found the silver. I was just showing them what they wanted to be true. And performing the selfish bitch was easy enough.” Her smile felt tense. Her rings sat heavy on her hands. “Most men stop looking closely when you start being the person they expect you to be.”

At that, Maud lifted her eyes to Violet, a hint of reckless fire kindling in the grassy depths. “You know, I have an idea of what the story can be. Of what happened at the séance, and why it was Morris who killed Chapman.” Her gaze shifted to Hawthorn. “Did you bring your chequebook on this rescue mission, my lord?”

A resigned pause. “And how much will this cost me?”

Maud removed her weight from Violet entirely. She folded the damp handkerchief into quarters, then eighths, and dabbed beneath her eyes with the freshest corner. “That depends on how much our Mr. Ross likes you,” she said, apologetic. “But having watched you two bargain over pornography, I’d say… quite a lot.”

The master-at-arms leaned back heavily in his chair and inspected the bounty spread across his desk as though he expected it to vanish at any moment.

“My word,” he said, for the third time.

Violet and Maud sat across from him; Hawthorn stood near the door, as unobtrusive as such a man could be, which wasn’t very. Mr. Berry looked at all of them in turn, then back at the jewels and valuables. The pile contained every item removed from first-class cabins by the elusive jewel thief operating aboard the Lyric . It had—supposedly—been recovered from the bottom drawer of Cabin 44, B Deck.

Maud had, in fact, insisted on searching Chapman’s cabin thoroughly before they left, in case they turned up any clues in regards to the Last Contract. Violet had muddled Chapman’s over-neat arrangement of toiletries into vindictive disorder but hadn’t found anything interesting or incriminating.

“How did you first come to suspect Mr. Chapman?” asked Mr. Berry.

“He stole some things of Mrs. Navenby’s,” said Maud, wielding her lethal honesty. “He was careless, and I saw him with them, and I—I liked the idea of playing detective, to see if I could get everyone’s jewels back. I thought it would be an adventure.” She hung her head. Hawthorn’s handkerchief was still clutched in her hand. “I truly didn’t think it would be so dangerous.”

“It was a foolish thing to do, Miss Cutler.” Mr. Berry was aiming for stern, but it was wilting in the face of Maud’s sniffles. “You should have come straight to the proper authorities.”

“I know that now.” Sniffle. “I realised it when he tried to accuse Miss Debenham and me of being the thieves. He’d heard about the misunderstanding with Mrs. Vaughn’s cabin.” Her face shone with rueful, innocent appeal. “He—he threatened us. He was going to force me to admit that I stole the jewels, and I didn’t !”

“I’ve known men like that before,” said Violet. “Miss Cutler—forgive me, dear, but you know it’s true—is still naive in the ways of the world. I told her to run. We didn’t realise he had an accomplice.”

“Mr. Joseph Morris?”

Violet gave a shudder. “They tied us up, and they were arguing. Morris wasn’t happy that things had escalated from theft to abduction .” This really was easier, when you sprinkled in truth with a generous hand. “And then… I think matters flew out of control.”

A domestic spell to remove spots from clothes had left Violet unspattered by blood. Hawthorn had, indeed, given a vivid description of catching Morris—red-handed, as it were. Heavily implied was that his lordship had heroically rescued and untied the helpless girls, which made Violet feel spiky with irritation.

“Morris is nowhere to be found now,” Mr. Berry said. “You have my word, Miss Cutler, that we will search tirelessly for him until the Lyric puts in to port.”

“Suspect the man’s spooked,” said Hawthorn. “He knows he’s nowhere to run. He might even have leapt overboard, to cheat the hangman.”

Maud gave another snifflet. Mr. Berry directed a disapproving frown at his lordship for this grisly suggestion. “Jamison and Rogers told me there was a matter of… being possessed by ghosts, my lord.” It didn’t quite gather the courage to be a question.

“It was a chilling experience, sir,” said Hawthorn. “I do not recommend it.”

“It’s such a pity everything went wrong. The séance did make me feel closer to Mrs. Navenby’s spirit,” said Maud wistfully. “I do so wish she were still here with us!”

Violet couldn’t resist. “Yes—before Chapman took control for his own purposes, it was quite thrilling, I thought. You should engage Mrs. Moretti to do them on every voyage,” she told Mr. Berry, “as an attraction.”

Maud kicked the side of Violet’s ankle beneath the desk.

Mr. Berry gave her an uncertain smile, then glanced back at the jewels. He was transparently overcome with relief that he’d be able to return them all to the passengers and salvage the White Star Line’s reputation.

They’d handed him a story he could swallow, and they’d made it sparkle.

“Very well. Thank you again, my lord, for your—efforts. And I hope you’ve learned a lesson, Miss Cutler.”

“Oh, many lessons,” said Maud. “I do think this has been the most educational week of my life.”

Violet went to return the kick, but Maud had tucked her feet beneath the chair, out of the way.

“Now, we’ve the ball to prepare for,” said the master-at-arms. “Though I suppose you’d like to rest quietly, after your ordeal. The stewards could… bring you dinner in your cabin…”

He and Maud shared an awkward moment that Violet didn’t understand. Maud looked like she was overcoming laughter.

“We’ve so been looking forward to the ball,” said Maud. “Miss Broadley’s performing, isn’t she? And the lottery? We wouldn’t miss it.”

Christ. The bowl. They still weren’t done. Violet had actually managed to forget the existence of Dorian the bloody Grey’s water bowl.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she echoed.