"Are you happy here, my dear?" he asked her quietly one day when he came over to admire some embroidery she was working on what he suspected had to be one of his own shirts.
She was in her gold dress with the black print. He had seldom seen her looking so lovely, and allowed himself the liberty of sitting closely to her.
"It's wonderful. A lovely place to live, some day, of course. Not that I would ever wish anything bad to befall Mr. Jerome, of course. But it's a fine home and they're a good family, wonderful companions."
"They like you a great deal too. As do most of the men in the neighborhood, and beyond," he added.
She stiffened, recalling the scene at Bath before they had arrived here. "I know I've been the center of attention here, but the novelty will soon wear off. It can be no bad thing for the girls either to widen their circle of acquaintance, though they are still young yet. But then, many women marry at sixteen, even younger sometimes."
"And yet you never came close? I mean, before you came to me?"
She shook her head. "I never even considered men until I met you. I mean, you became my guardian." She blushed. "My life was very quiet at home with Father. I had no wish for beaux. Even now-" She halted before she said anything she would regret.
"Yes, even now?" he prompted.
But as always, someone approached to join in the conversation, and their privacy was lost.
Adam Neville, who had soon followed on from Bath and insinuated himself into the family circle, had come over to admire her handiwork as well.
"The man who wins you for a wife will be a most fortune one," he said with his suavest smile.
She sparkled at the compliment, and hoped it was one which Blake would take note of. Surely no one would say the same of Leonore. But then, he wasn't interested in her skill with a needle, now was he.
Blake stood up and allowed Adam to sit. He was in agony. He was no fool-he could see the way things were tending. He had made all of the appropriate inquiries into Adam's affairs and his brother's and found nothing objectionable. He had been a bit premature perhaps, but he had thought it best to discover all he needed to know about Adam now rather than run the risk of Arabella getting in too deeply and then finding out he was not suitable for some reason.
He had watched Adam's assiduous attentions towards Arabella the past couple of weeks with a mixture of furious jealousy and relief. He would lose her, it was true. But there were some compensations. He would never need to know what sort of husband he would turn out to be. Whether he could keep her happy or he would end up miserable and heart-broken as his own father had done….
Blake sighed. He was being a coward, he knew full well. But he had had such a narrow escape with Rosalie that he hardly dared risk taking a chance on love, even though he longed for Arabella so badly that he could practically taste her.
His dreams had been growing more and more haunted by the memory of the one time she had been under him- He quailed at the recollection. What would their lives have been like if he had dared….
Life was made up of hundred of such moments-if he had left an hour sooner or later, he might not have rescued her and the hapless Mr. Greengage, and James the coach driver… He might have found her frozen or crushed to death.
The thought of Arabella not being in his life was so painful he had to sit down.
"What is it? Are you ill?" she asked in alarm, for he had groaned aloud without even realising it.
"Fine, fine. I just recalled an unpleasant task I had to perform. Pray excuse me." He ignored her worried look and fled.
Blake needed to be alone. He had also told her he had business to attend to. So he dutifully went in the library and sat with his head in his hands for a time, trying to tell himself it was all for the best.
He loved Arabella, but he could never keep her. He hadn't kept Rosalie, after all. Not that she had been worth keeping, but still. It did not bode well for future fidelity.
When he began to feel a bit better, Blake sighed and picked up the pile of letters he had been neglecting. He sorted through all the correspondence, which included several letters from London, some just keeping him abreast of the ordinary day to day events which concerned him at his three main addresses in London.
But the earliest one from the clinic piqued his interest. After a couple of more cases, there had been no more women dying of the cantharides poisoning. But one poor woman in Islington had been subjected to it, then suffocated. Murdered.
Islington… He wondered what the address could have been, for his other house-
He started as he opened the second letter from Dr. Herriot. Another woman had been found in Reading and another in Winchester. And one in Bristol and one in Bath. All prostitutes, all found abandoned, and all dying in the most painful agony. And all describing a tall, dark-haired man before they died….