It was nightfall when Emma collapsed to the mattress one last time, breathless from Edward's lovemaking. He had taken her in every way she'd yet known – and several she had not – for hours, and she hoped his ravenous appetite was appeased now, for her limbs were weak with strain and her vision blurred with exhaustion. She was prepared to beg for a reprieve should he insist they begin again, but he, too, lay back to rest, and pulled her into his arms.
In the month they had been wed, never had he taken such care in her pleasure, though he had loved so long to torment her with her own sinful weakness. He had teased her, tasted her, taken her until she cried and begged for sweet release; this night alone, he had granted it at her every desperate plea.
Why this sudden mercy? That very afternoon, he had taken her hostage, as if she were nothing more than a pawn in his deadly game. If John had dared to sacrifice her, Edward may have even killed her to escape – and she would not be the first woman to die by his hand. One, she had known well; the other, she knew only by name.
"Edward?" she asked.
"Yes, my love?"
A tremor of fear wavered through her tentative whisper. "Who was Lucy Harris?"
Before she could even draw breath to scream, his hand clamped tight about her throat, his fingers digging painfully into her skin. Panicking, she pried helplessly at his forearm, to no avail, and her heart thundered in her ears; only when she went limp did he release his deadly hold.
"Never speak that name again!" he growled.
Emma coughed, her chest heaving. He had nearly killed her; she could not be certain whether it had been merely a threat, or if he had spared her only at the last moment. Either way, she shook with terror beneath him, tears streaming down her face.
"Why?" she asked, sobbing.
His hateful sneer faltered. "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes."
Edward settled on his side, looming over her, and his treacherous grasp upon her chin ensured her attention.
"She was mine, just as you are," he said, laying his hand upon her sex. "A whore who didn't know her place. I offered her a life she never could have dreamed of, so long as she would be mine alone. But Jekyll convinced her to betray me."
Her husband had known of this woman, too – there were so many secrets from those dark days which he had yet to reveal, and those he kept had killed yet more. If he had tried to save this woman, he had shared more with her than with his own wife.
"Henry did?"
"Yes," Edward said.
"How?"
Edward hesitated, for perhaps the first time since she'd known him, and she feared she had dared too much, but there was no reclaiming the question now. If she did, it could only be to ask something she would surely be struck for: what had this woman meant to him – to both of them?
"He wrote a letter begging her to leave London – to leave me," Edward said at last. "If I'd arrived before John delivered it, her life might have been spared. But it was too late."
Too late for what? Had, perhaps, Henry's interference given her the deadly knowledge of Edward's true nature, and may have led the authorities to her beloved if he did not act? Or was it merely that Edward had feared to lose his whore? Either way, his affection toward her had not moved him. Love would not stay his hand.
"And so you killed her?"
"Yes." He yanked Emma onto her knees, and she held her breath as he embraced her from behind, his arm across her chest. "I pulled her close, whispered in her ear – and the moment she thought she was safe, I stabbed her in the back and slit her throat."
Emma shivered under the caress of his finger, drawing a slow, deliberate line along her neck.
"Do not betray me."
He said nothing more, and nothing more needed to be said. Though exhausted, she lay awake in the arms of her enemy, and did not know she had slept until a shout shattered her half-remembered dreams.
"Henry?"
She felt him sit up in a panic, his chest heaving, and though she could barely see him in the dull grey light of dawn, she knew his terror. His eyes were both wide and unseeing, as if he still dwelled within his nightmares.
"You're safe now, Henry," she said, sitting up beside him, and lay her hand over his heart.
He looked to her, relief easing his tormented expression, and embraced her without a word. She held him close, a slow smile warming her tear-stained face. How she had longed for something as simple as this – yet, it was fear, not happiness, that had brought him into her arms at last. Even this embrace was not free of their horror, and whatever joy she might have known was stolen by his worry as he pulled back.
"You've been hurt," he said, tracing the bruises on her neck. "Did Hyde—?"
Emma nodded, prying his hand from the injury. "I'm all right."
"And John, is he—?"
"He's alive." She glanced away, warding off the memory of that frightful afternoon. "Edward spared him."
Henry was silent for a moment. "I don't understand."
"John said he had changed his will, as you had yours – if he should die, you would be accused of murder."
"And Hyde believed him?"
Perhaps, or else he thought a murder in his own home was too great a risk. Whatever he believed, she could only be certain of this: it had not been her plea that had moved him.
"I don't know," she replied.
"Do you?"
Emma studied her husband's anxious gaze, finding there a trace of Edward's darkness. Could it be that Henry regretted John yet lived? No – he could not wish such a thing against his friend.
"I believe John will honour his promise to say nothing." She looked to the clock on the mantle; it was just past six. "If the police haven't arrived by now, it must be so."
Henry nodded and settled back against the headboard, gazing out across the room. The floor was strewn with their clothing, Emma's vast array of feminine garments tossed carelessly wherever Edward had deigned to undress her. Of his own accoutrements haphazardly discarded, there was but one missing: the pistol, laid aside before they had moved to the bed. It rested now inside the top-most drawer beside them.
"Why were you armed, Henry?" she asked.
"What?"
"Edward had a pistol, but only because you carried one."
Henry hesitated before giving a resigned sigh. "It's for protection."
Protection from whom? He had not yet been accused, if indeed he were suspected at all, and if he were hunted, no mere pistol would save him from capture. Violence would only beget more violence, leaving even greater bloodshed in its wake.
"Against the police?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Against Hyde."
Emma could not decipher her husband's distant gaze, and it was long moments before the weight of his meaning settled upon a terrible answer.
"You mean, suicide?" she whispered.
"Yes."
"You carry it in case he kills someone else?"
"Not someone." Henry swallowed, at last looking to her once more. "Only you."
"He won't," she said, her eyes filling with tears even as she denied their cause, and she took his hand, anchoring herself against a rising panic. "Please, tell me he won't."
Henry entwined their fingers and cupped her cheek, on the verge of weeping himself. "I wish I could be certain of that. Until I am, I will keep it by my side."
Till death do us part. That ominous oath would loom over her all her days. Would this end with his execution, or her murder? However that fatal vow came to pass, it would be by his own hand.
She held it still, wondering that such care and cruelty could be within the same grasp. It tortured, and caressed; it healed, and it killed. This hand was forever bound to hers, but what of his heart? Henry loved her; of that, she had no doubt. Edward had professed the same. Whether it would save her from this dreadful fate remained to be seen.
"Did he love her?" Emma asked, low and quiet, as if to herself.
"Who?"
She held her breath, the tender bruises on her neck a painful reminder of the last time she had dared speak the woman's name.
"Lucy Harris."
Henry started in surprise, but said nothing until she caught his eye. He shook his head. "I don't know."
But this answer could not suffice. There was something more there, something beyond guilt or simple regret: loss. This woman had been no mere stranger.
"Did you love her?" she asked.
"No. I felt only pity – and it killed her," he said, his voice soft with unshed tears. "I never should have met her in the first place."
Edward had said the woman was a whore; had he meant that as an insult, or had such been her profession? If so, that Henry had had occasion to make a fallen woman's acquaintance left but one suspicion: his betrayal.
"You… knew her?" she asked softly, lest her accusation curtail a truthful answer.
Henry held her hand all the tighter. "Not as Hyde did. I was faithful to you, Emma, I swear it."
Faithful? His body had lain with another woman even as he awaited his marriage vows. She could not expect a bachelor to be chaste, but they had been promised; the thought of a whore in his arms while she slept lonely was revolting.
Yet, what good would it be to scold him? It was Edward who had defiled him; if she were to blame Henry for his conduct, he must bear the burden of all the monster's misdeeds. She would not fault him for this, but her question remained unanswered.
"Then how did you meet her?"
"The night of our engagement party, John arranged for a… celebration at a music hall in the East End. It was to be my last temptation before matrimony. I did not succumb, but I did meet a woman there I could not forget. Neither could Hyde."
How did Henry know this? Had he learned it from the villain's fleeting memories, or had it been written, in such detail as only Edward could describe, in that book hidden away in the laboratory?
"How long did you know of this?"
"A few weeks," Henry replied.
It had been those very nights, then, when she had found no rest, pacing her room, waiting and worrying that her beloved suffered that same loneliness – and all the while, his body lay with another woman. What's more, he had known the danger Edward posed to his whore, and yet had done nothing until the night she died.
"Why didn't you warn her sooner?" she demanded, squeezing his arm.
"Because if I had, he'd have set his mind on having you!"
Emma recoiled as he tore himself from her grasp. She shuddered at the thought of what may have happened had she encountered Edward before the nuptial day, and the fate she would have known had this woman not appeased his lust. Perhaps it was always so – the ones society scorned as sinful merely served to save those more fortunate from the men both women should fear. She had suffered, and perhaps even died, in Emma's own place.
But the killing was not yet at an end.
Henry fled from her side, going at once to the wardrobe. She had spoken with him for but a few moments; was he to abandon her again so soon?
"Henry—"
"I must get to work," he said.
But it was barely dawn – too early to go to St. Jude's. Only those poor souls whose maladies left them dreamless would be awake at this hour, and they'd be attended to by lesser physicians. He must mean closer to home.
"In the laboratory?" she asked.
With its contents no longer a secret, perhaps she might assist him now, and stay by his side. But he shook his head as he put on a new pair of trousers, ignoring that which lay about his feet.
"No."
"Then where?"
"You know I cannot tell you that."
"He has never asked me—" she began, knowing well what he feared, but Henry would not hear it.
"Because he knows I would never risk giving you that knowledge. Please don't insist."
Emma slipped from the bed, holding the sheet about herself, and he turned his back to her once more.
"I just want to know where my husband is!" she cried.
She dug her fingernails into her palms to resist the urge to strike him – or embrace him. If she dared move any closer, she couldn't be sure which was more likely.
"Somewhere secret and safe," he said after a moment, low and soft, "and I intend to keep it so. I must, if we are ever to be rid of him."
Emma wept. Did her pleas mean as little to him as they did to Edward? Where one was cruel, the other was negligent; while the man she loathed would not part from her, the man she loved would not spare her even a moment. Both had turned her fondest dreams into nightmares, and her life into a living Hell.
She said nothing, silenced by her tears, and Henry looked to her in the mirror, standing deadly still in a way too familiar. When at last he spoke, it was in a pained whisper.
"Unless you do not want to be rid of him."
Emma hesitated. What was she to say to this? "I…"
Words abandoned her. He had said himself that any attempt to destroy Edward would bring death when the villain awoke – and if this antidote should be anything less than a cure, it would be her own life at stake.
"Don't you?" he asked, and when she did not answer, slammed his fist upon the vanity. "Well, don't you?!"
Emma rushed to him, reaching out to lay a soothing touch upon his cheek. "I want nothing more than for us to be together, Henry, but—"
He turned and grabbed her wrist, wrenching her hand from him. "Then you must obey!"
Through a haze of tears, Emma looked to the man she loved, and found a stranger's eyes. But it was not Edward she saw within him – and whoever this was, he frightened her more than even the killer who shared her bed.
She cried out in fear, and Henry released her at once, his voice softening. "I'm sorry, my love—"
"Don't call me that," she said, turning from him.
Henry's weak reply was but a whisper. "Emma?"
With a sob, she wiped away her tears and looked back at her beloved, but could not meet his gaze. "It's what he calls me."
A long moment passed in silence, and Emma flinched as his fingers brushed her damp cheek.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Her heart broke at his tender apology; before he could see it shatter, she fled, retreating to her room. He did not follow.
She loved him. Only him. The man whom she had married before God, no matter what words had been forced from her lips by pain and fear. Nothing else mattered, so long as God knew the truth.
And so He did. If He knew all, as she had been taught, her husband's sins were marked and his soul damned, not by the blood upon Edward's knife, but that upon his own hands. Aside from a single warning given too late, he had done nothing to save those who had been slaughtered in his name, even if not by his deed.
Emma shook as she lay down; whether in terror or rage, she could not be certain. Though Edward held her captive, it was Henry who had condemned her to this fate. He had risked her life to prove himself superior to his ill-fated enemies – and now, his hubris would be her death.
She woke at a soft knock, opening her eyes to find that it was midday. The sound had come from the door leading to the hallway, not her husband's room; it was not Henry who beckoned.
Calling out to her visitor to delay, she turned over her tear-stained pillows and slipped on a clean nightdress, buttoning the collar to conceal the bruises upon her neck. It was only her maid, as expected, but it was always safer to avoid questions or encourage gossip; it was bad enough the woman had come to return the delicate silken ensemble Edward had stripped from her the night previous.
Though she had little appetite, she welcomed the prospect of a late luncheon alone in her room, and when her tray was brought, so was a message: her husband would not be home for dinner. Supposedly, he would dine at his club, as many men of Society did – but to her knowledge, Henry was not often one of them, and Edward's time would overlap his own.
Unless something had changed.
She could only find out from the man who returned to her that evening, whomever he may be, and as evening approached, she waited in his room. Though she would rather have spent an evening downstairs, playing the piano or tending to her small collection of winter blooms, she'd best not bet against the even odds that Edward would be the one to arrive. If he should find her any further than an arm's length from his bed, she would not make it through his night unharmed.
But temptation lingered in other forms. The bottle of liquor kept upon the mantle shone like a jewel in the firelight, and Edward had often enough shared a glass with her; she would have one now, and pour two glasses, should he wish to join her.
No sooner had she begun to cross the room than the door opened, and Emma froze. She did not turn – that he insisted he greet her first was a small mercy – and caught his reflection in the standing mirror close by.
It was Edward, unmistakably. He closed in on her as a predator stalked toward its helpless prey, his hungry gaze roving her figure, but did not touch her. Instead, he only looked over her shoulder to study their reflections.
"What do you see?" he asked.
A naïve girl and her handsome suitor. A wife and her husband. A whore and a killer. They were all of these at once, and yet, strangers to her.
"I don't know."
"What do you want to see?"
"Your hands."
Edward smiled, his fingers sliding across her stomach. "So you can watch what they do to you?"
She knew it was a taunt, but even so, she must tell the truth – even if it would bring the tears she had fought to keep back these long hours.
"So I know you will not stab me in the back like you did your whore," she whispered.
Her tone was more an accusation than a plea, and Emma bit her lip, anticipating a painful reminder of her place. His hand drifted upward, nearing her throat. Emma held her breath.
"Then let's undress." He unhooked the top button of her collar. "Skin to skin, no weapons."
She exhaled slowly, thankful to have found him in good humour. Still, she could not rid herself of fear while one question – the only question – plagued her every waking moment.
"Please, Edward. Tell me truthfully," she asked, a lone tear sliding down her cheek, "are you going to kill me?"
A gleam of anger shone in his cold gaze, and Emma closed her eyes, praying for the answer she knew she would not hear.
"Only if you betray me," he replied at last, and traced the path she had wept. "It would pain me to lose you, Emma. But I will kill you if I must."
"If you truly loved me, you could not even think of it!" she sobbed.
Her shoulders shook, and he took hold of them, pulling her back against himself.
"If I didn't love you, I'd have killed you the moment I finished with you on our wedding night!"
Emma cried out in fear. He embraced her from behind, forcing her arms to stay by her sides; whether he thought she may try to escape, she didn't know, but she daren't move. There was no use in fighting him, and only pain to be wrought by resistance. She had learned that lesson too well.
He waited until her weeping had stopped and her tremors had ceased before freeing her, only to capture her waist instead, and she reached for his hand. He entwined his fingers with hers.
"We needn't say anything more," he said. "Obey me, and there's nothing you need fear."
Emma sniffed, blinking away what remained of her tears. "I wish I could believe you."
"You know this much is true," he said, and guided her hand to his arousal, already rigid and demanding. "I need you, and until I am satisfied, you can trust that your screams will be ones of pleasure."
She sighed in longing at the memory his assurance evoked, but the fear remained. "And afterward?"
"I don't intend to harm you, but you are trying my patience," he growled.
Since the first night when he had threatened her, rarely had he offered a warning before he struck; if he deigned to do so now, when she had already tempted his anger, perhaps he was in earnest. It was more generous a gesture than he had yet made – and it was her only hope.
"All right," she said, and allowed herself to lean back against his chest. "I believe you."
He nodded. With a tenderness she could never have expected, he wiped her tears away, and she kissed the hand that had eased her sorrow.
Brushing her hair aside, he brought his lips to her neck. His slow, teasing kisses quieted her fears at last, a warmth building within her. Safety was all she had asked for; pleasure was her reward. Despite herself, her sex began to ache with every sweet stroke of his tongue as it mimicked the wonders she'd known by its ravenous hunger, and she wished for nothing more than to know that joy again.
She could not meet her reflection's gaze as Edward unbuttoned the front of her nightdress. He pushed the fabric aside to reveal her breasts, aching now for his touch, and she moaned as his fingers deftly circled and stroked her nipples. With a sigh, she closed her eyes, revelling in this familiar pleasure.
"Look at yourself," he commanded, and she obeyed.
Though she had stared long enough these past few minutes, she did not recognize the woman in the mirror, whose cheeks were crimson with passion's heat and whose gaze shone with lust. Her rosy lips parted, moaning softly at each caress, and she trembled with desire as he slid her nightdress up to her waist and reached beneath the embroidered hem. His strong hand cupped her sex, fingers trapping her aching peak between them, and she whimpered at the slightest pressure, a shock of bliss racing deep into her core.
"Please," she whispered.
He grinned. "Begging already, my love?"
"Yes. Please." She caressed his forearm, gently urging his attentions. "Please don't tease me. I need…"
"I know what you need," he said, thrusting his thick, rigid manhood against her backside, and Emma gasped. "Submit, and I'll give it to you."
"I submit."
Her knees shook, and they may as well have folded beneath her, for it would not be long before he ordered her to pleasure him. Though Emma begged for release, she hoped he would give the command that would bring their joining closer, even if it meant his satisfaction before her own.
But when he stopped, it was not to urge her to kneel; instead, he turned her toward him and tilted her head up almost gently to meet his eye.
"I love you, Emma."
Her heart thundered in her ears as a stifling heat warmed her cheeks. Love? What did he know of love? He had threatened her, hurt her, ruined her. He was sin, and hate, and death itself. How could one who killed without remorse possibly love? And what was she to say to this declaration? Would he beat her if she did not reply with the same?
All these questions, she asked herself in a single silent breath. Before she could even glance away to gather her thoughts, he kissed her, sparing her an answer.
It was much the same as all his kisses – deep and passionate, at once giving pleasure and demanding his own. But this one was somehow more, with an ease she hadn't yet known, and she gave into it eagerly, greedy with desire. It was not until they parted for breath that she realized what had changed: he was no longer forcing her submission.
He was taking what was already his.
Should she not do the same? This was her husband's body; he would give it freely, if only he were able. Why should she deny herself the joys he offered? There was no sin in their pleasure, for they had been made one before God – even if her desire burned now with Hell's own fire.
She kissed him then, wrapping her arms about his shoulders to hold him close, and he responded in kind, crushing her to him. For the first time, she was without hatred, or even remorse; in his arms, there was nothing else in the world save for their passion. No secrets. No lies. No fear.
He backed her into the bed, and she caught herself, climbing onto the mattress even as his kisses followed her, teasing her neck, the hollow of her throat, her breasts. He unfastened his trousers as he joined her atop the sheets, and she lay back, too eager for their union to mourn what other pleasures they may have had, but he pulled her up against him, face to face upon their knees. He gripped her waist, leaning back to lift her onto his lap, and Emma whimpered as he entered her.
Henry. Though Edward's eyes were closed, she couldn't help but see her beloved beneath her. Why did Edward have to take her as Henry had? But any protest quieted at his first hard thrust, finding the nearest of pleasures within her sex, and she moaned, opening herself to him.
Bracing her with an arm around her back, he impaled her upon him, ramming so deep that she screamed with joy. He laughed and stifled her cries with his kiss as he pounded her, pure bliss building in her core until her toes curled and she wept for mercy.
"Edward!"
At her desperate plea against his lips, he freed her, and she arched, tossing her head back to reach for release like a drowning woman gasped for breath upon breaking the ocean's surface. At last, the most incredible of climaxes hit her with the force of a tidal wave, shattering her senses, and her wild screams of ecstasy pierced the air.
Her sex quaked as she bore down upon him, meeting his every thrust; bliss rushed through her veins, and did not relinquish its hold until his own bellows of release sounded in her ear. Even when he had stilled, she trembled, utterly helpless.
She'd often known such rapture in his embrace, but never had her pleasure been so complete. Its warmth caressed her for long moments after she had collapsed against him, laying her head upon his shoulder. But as the heat of their joining gave way, an icy shiver ran down her spine.
Her back, though still clothed, was vulnerable – bared to both his caress and the point of his knife. Only one of his hands lay upon her hip; what if, with the other, he reached for a weapon?
That they were still joined meant nothing; as he had killed his whore, so too may he kill her now. His only promise hinged upon her faithfulness, and if her silence at his proclamation of love was proof of her betrayal, her life was at its end.
The point between her shoulders ached, and she shuddered at the phantom sensation of a cold blade against her skin.
"Please don't kill me," she sobbed, embracing him.
She whimpered with relief at the caress of his hands, soothing her, but this alone could not ease her fears, and as he pulled back to look at her, she saw only the murderer who haunted her dreams.
"So long as you are mine, you are safe," he said. "I promise you that."
I am not yours. I will never be yours. Though she closed her eyes to conceal their anger from him, he could not mistake her disobedience.
"Have you defied me again?" he demanded. When she said nothing, too frightened to speak, he shook her shoulders until she looked to him. "Did you touch him?"
"No."
That much, at least, was the truth. Her attempt to comfort her husband had been met with the same violence she dreaded now; his heart was forbidden to her, and had been since the moment they were wed – if it had ever been hers at all.
Edward's rage calmed, his eyes almost caring as he tipped up her chin.
"Then do not be afraid," he whispered.
Slowly, she nodded. He took her hand, turning it over as he brought it to his lips, and pressed a kiss to her palm. She sighed, remembering such a playful gesture long ago, when a happy couple danced alone upon an empty ballroom floor, with love and laughter as their only music.
But this was not Henry's tender caress; it was Edward's seduction, and as he lay her back upon the mattress, for the first time, she wished the memory of her beloved away.