The Midnight Man. Charlotte MedeЧитать онлайн книгу.
of us are as adept at compartmentalizing our lives, Horace. You would never give up your painting.” The words were more resentful than she’d intended.
“Helena—you risk too much.” Anger seeped into his usually mild tones. “You know he’s the Bishop of London and he can make good on his threats.”
“To have me committed, you mean? Yes, I know that the Bishop of London has the ability to do that and much more. But what can I do? If I can’t work, I might as well stop breathing. And don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same. You’re as obsessive about your work as I am—if not more so.”
Horace pulled the drop cloth back over the canvas, his impatient movements communicating anger and frustration. “If your work is so important to you, have you considered compromising with the bishop? Being more diplomatic, for a start, and selecting more appropriate subjects and approaches for your painting?”
Helena shook her head mutely, Horace’s suggestions inconceivable.
He picked up a paintbrush by the easel and then almost immediately put it back down, his brow furrowed with concern. “Your very freedom is at stake. And there is nothing I can do to help you if you persist in this willful and headstrong path to self-destruction.”
“It’s already too late,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Sissinghurst has amassed evidence to support my incarceration, and the authorities are so close, I can feel their breaths on my neck.” She shivered. “He sent one of his emissaries specifically to entrap me this evening, I’m sure of it.” Her pulse began an erratic beat, her mouth suddenly dry. “Is the name Nicholas Ramsay familiar to you?”
Horace’s kind eyes widened in disbelief as his hand once again closed around the paintbrush. “Ramsay, did you say?”
She nodded, watching carefully for his reaction.
The older man looked away for a moment before relinquishing the brush to take both her hands in his. “My dear girl,” he said, worry lacing every word. “You don’t want to know this man, trust me. If Sissinghurst has enlisted his aid, you are in grave danger indeed.”
Helena pulled away, the chill returning to her bones. She remembered Madame Congais’s warning along with Beckwith’s hasty retreat. And her own galvanic response to the man, the shiver that had run from her head to her core at his touch. “So do your worst, Horace.” She straightened her spine in defiance. “What and who could possibly be worse than Sissinghurst? Tell me?”
Horace gently released her hands and glanced briefly out the room’s one window. It was quiet, except for an early-morning robin beginning its song. “Nobody really knows,” he said slowly, “and that’s the dilemma.”
“Knows what, exactly?”
“Who Ramsay is and where he comes from.”
“Then why all the trepidation whenever his name is mentioned?”
“Ramsay is possibly the richest man in England. He could buy and sell the monarchy, the House of Lords, and Parliament several times over. Rumor has it that if he ever decides to call in his chits, the world would end as we know it. And I’m exaggerating only slightly.”
Helena shrugged, unable to reconcile the Faustian powers of a wealthy potentate with the intensely physical man from Madame Congais. Nicholas Ramsay had exhibited none of the rarefied airs of the insanely rich. Quite the opposite, her instincts told her. He belonged to the open seas, to exotic terrain and savage mountain ranges. “Wealth alone does not make one dangerous. I’m still not clear why he instills such”—she paused awkwardly for a moment before concluding—“fear.”
“It’s what he does with his money, Helena, that’s the sticking point. As well as the fact that it’s unclear how and where he amassed such a stupendous fortune. There are rumors as I’ve mentioned, one more unsavory than the next.”
Her throat was suddenly dry, her legs unable to support her. Looking for a place to sit, she collapsed onto an embroidered ottoman before the fire. “You’ll need to explain because I still don’t understand.”
Horace looked relieved that she was finally paying heed to his warnings. “The little I know can’t help you, I’m sad to say, my dear, and if anything, the less you know about Ramsay, the better.”
The room fell into silence except for the light warble of the lone robin and traces of watery sun leaking into the room. Helena looked at her old friend, at the lines of worry etched in his forehead. A feeling of dread swept over her. “You aren’t in his debt, are you, Horace?” she asked, bolting from the ottoman to his side. “I shouldn’t ever want you to risk your reputation or your family or Perdita by associating with someone as dangerous as this man. If you need more money, you only have to ask and I’d be more than willing to help.”
He looked at her hand on his arm, a strange expression on his face. “No, I’m not in his debt,” he said stiffly, a strange formality infusing his words. “But I thank you, as always, for your concern. I’m fine at the moment.”
Helena dropped her hand, feeling awkward. The specter of financial doom had always clung like a fine mist over Horace’s dealings, a delicate issue for a family whose name had been associated with nobility and wealth for centuries. She hurriedly changed the subject.
“It probably doesn’t matter, anyway, what you know or don’t know about Ramsay. In a few short days I shall disappear into the continent for several months at least until Sissinghurst’s campaign loses some of its luster for him,” she added bitterly, hunching further into her cloak.
Horace frowned, their previous conversation seemingly forgotten. “But where will you go? What will you do for funds?”
Helena pulled the collar of her cloak up around her neck, preparing to leave. Morning had broken and she didn’t dare make her way through the streets later in the day. “I’ve been funneling some money into an account in Paris for the past several months, so no need to worry, even if Sissinghurst does manage to seize my inheritance.”
“And how will you manage to avoid him—and this Ramsay fellow? Europe is hardly beyond the reach of powerful men, my dear.”
Helena’s back was against the door. “I don’t have much choice, Horace. I must take this risk to pursue my work elsewhere.”
“Or?” he asked.
Her voice cracked with revulsion. “Or spend the rest of my days shackled in a filthy cell. Slowly and inexorably going mad.”
After the early-morning sunshine, the narrow stairway to the attic was dark as a tomb, but Helena knew the winding steps to her atelier as though by heart. The rest of the building was empty, save for boxes and containers, detritus from a former tenant, the A.R. Burrows Shipping Company, that had long ago decamped to a more favorable location closer to the dockyards. Several years earlier, she had instructed her solicitor to buy the property for her under an assumed name, as a refuge from the official residence of the Duke of Hartford on Belgravia Square.
She was exhausted, perilously close to collapse. After leaving Horace’s carriage house in Soho, she had made the trip to her atelier in short order. The early-morning streets had been empty, only workmen and domestic servants going about their business while their betters slept untroubled by the demands of the oncoming day.
The stairway came to an end and she carefully moved the old flowerpot on the grimy windowsill. The key waited for her, its familiar scrape against the lock a reassuring counterpoint to the chaos that had overtaken her life just a few hours earlier. The door opened on well-oiled hinges and she was struck by the welcoming aroma of turpentine and paint. And something else. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom to take in the floor-to-ceiling windows covered with drapes against the outside world.
She sensed, rather than seeing, that something was desperately wrong.
Panic shot to her brain. She slid low into the dimness, nausea rising in her throat. Her two easels, usually positioned in the middle of the room, were