She turned on the small landing, passed the bathroom, and climbed another, shorter flight of stairs to the second floor. The door to the study was at the far end. It was shut.
She hesitated for a moment. What might he be up to inside? Newbury was weakened by his ministrations to Amelia and might not know his own capabilities. If he was practicing more of his rituals, there was no telling what state she might find him in.
With this in mind, she approached the door and rapped gently with her knuckles. There was no response.
She pressed her ear against the wooden panel and heard a shuffling noise from within. “Sir Maurice?” she asked quietly. “Are you there?”
Again, there was no answer.
Veronica tested the handle, and, to her surprise, discovered that the door was unlocked. She pushed it open, the hinges creaking, and stepped inside. “Sir Maurice, I…” She trailed off, lost for words. The sight that greeted her was enough to stop her dead in her tracks.
The room was wreathed in a thick, smoggy cloud of incense. Heavy curtains were closed across the window, and candles flickered in sconces on the walls, or stood in candlesticks peppered around the room, on the floor, desk, and bookshelves.
The room had a funereal air about it. As she moved forward, the breeze of her passing stirred the candles, causing them to gutter and cast deep, dancing shadows across the bare white walls.
At the centre of all this, on the scarlet rug, lay Newbury. He was naked and was clutching his knees to his chest in a foetal position. He was twitching and shaking violently, and it was immediately clear that the shuffling noise she had heard from outside was the sound of his feet repeatedly striking the floor as he shook. At once she recognised what was happening: He was having a seizure. She had seen Amelia in this position countless times.
Horrified, she ran to Newbury’s side.
Never had he looked so vulnerable, so unlike the Newbury she knew. Not even in the depths of his opium trances, or when he’d been wounded and dying in the footwell of a hansom, or the time he’d caught a desperate fever in Switzerland while on the trail of Lady Arkwell and had to be returned to London on a military airship, unconscious and close to death.
She put her hand to his forehead. He was cold and clammy. “Maurice! Maurice!” she shouted, desperately.
His eyes had rolled back in their sockets, and she realised he was babbling quietly to himself, his words barely perceptible. “Tick-tock, tick-tock. Darkness. A throbbing heart, pulsing slowly. Tick-tock, tick-tock.” He stopped mumbling for a moment, and then his body shuddered violently again. “Executioner,” he said. “Executioner. Executioner. Executioner.” He kicked out, thrashing on the rug. His hands clawed at the carpet. His breath was coming in irregular, desperate gulps.
Veronica’s heart seemed to stop. Her mouth was dry. She willed herself to move, but she was frozen, rooted to the spot. Executioner …
She shook her head. There was no time for that now. She had to make sure he was safe, and deal with that later. “Maurice? Can you hear me?” His head turned fractionally towards her. “It’s me, Veronica. Everything is going to be well.” She heard the crack in her own voice, realised she was trembling. How could this be? How could he now be suffering from the very same affliction as her sister, visions and all?
“Maurice?” she said insistently.
He emitted a low moan and his body shifted, his upturned face turning towards her. His eyes were still rolled back in his skull, white and unseeing.
“Can you hear me?” she repeated urgently. She put a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently. “Can you hear me, Maurice? I’m here.”
His eyes suddenly flicked around, and his breathing became more regular, his chest once again rising and falling with a constant, reassuring rhythm. He wore a startled, vacant expression.
“Maurice, it’s me, Veronica,” she said.
His eyes seemed to follow her face, and then slowly focus. His expression hardened. “Get out!” he hissed. “Get out!”
“Maurice … I…” she faltered.
“Get out!” he bellowed for the third time.
For a moment Veronica was unable to act. She remained where she was, crouched over Newbury’s naked form, trembling in shock. She had never once, in all the time she had known Newbury, seen such a fierce look in his eyes, such a fearsome glower. She hesitated. She didn’t know what to do, how to respond.
Then, a few moments later, something snapped. Reality rushed in, cold and unwelcome. She stood, hurrying from the room, feeling nauseous. She didn’t stop to close the door, nor to worry about what Scarbright might think.
She thundered down the stairs, charged across the hall and back to the drawing room, where she stood for a moment, leaning upon the back of a chair, labouring for breath.
What had she seen? The way his body had convulsed, the muscular spasms, the way his eyes had rolled back in their dark, bruised sockets … and the mumbled word, Executioner, as if he were seeing things that no one else could see.
Newbury was suffering a clairvoyant seizure, like the ones Veronica had witnessed her sister have a hundred times before. But why the candles, and the nakedness?
She glanced back at the door. She didn’t know what to do. Should she leave? Should she go back to him? She heard a footstep in the hall. Scarbright appeared in the doorway bearing a silver tray that clattered with the tea paraphernalia. Concern, however, was evident upon his handsome face.
“Miss Veronica, is everything quite well?” he asked, hurrying into the room. He slid the tray onto the top of the sideboard and approached her. Veronica held up a hand as if to shoo him away, but realised she was still shaking.
“I heard footsteps. Has Sir Maurice finished with his work?” he asked, the trepidation evident in his voice.
“No, no. All is well, Scarbright. Sir Maurice is still … otherwise engaged. Do not trouble yourself,” she said, her voice quavering slightly.
“But Miss Veronica…”
“No, Scarbright. It’s fine. Now pour me a tea, will you? Be a good chap.”
Scarbright frowned. “Forgive me, Miss Veronica, but you’re looking terribly pale. Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?”
Veronica forced a smile. “No. No, I shall remain here and wait for Sir Maurice. Thank you, Scarbright.” She could tell he was not convinced, but he acceded to her wishes, crossing to the sideboard and straining her cup of tea.
“Here you are, miss,” he said, handing it to her.
“Thank you,” she replied.
He made to leave, but turned about on the threshold. “I’ll be in the kitchen, Miss Veronica, if there’s anything you need.” He paused, as if to add emphasis to his words. “Anything at all.”
She nodded. “I’m sure I will be just fine,” she said, although she knew her voice lacked conviction.
A moment later-when she was sure Scarbright’s footsteps had receded-she let out a single, brief sob, which she stifled quickly with a handkerchief. Her every instinct screamed at her to leave, to snatch up her hat and coat and get as far away from Newbury’s house as possible. She wanted to be anywhere but there, somewhere where she didn’t have to face that man who was so different from the Newbury she had come here to visit.
Nevertheless, she had to be strong. She’d dealt with worse. He hadn’t meant to be so vicious-it was simply embarrassment. She had burst in on him naked and vulnerable, and he hadn’t known how to react. She had uncovered a secret, something he’d managed to keep from even his valet, and he’d felt exposed. Perhaps this was what he’d been talking about yesterday when he’d spoken of trust?
More than any of that, though, she needed to be there to help him. This was not some trifling matter that could be shelved and forgotten. For how long had he been succumbing to these episodes? Was it that, rather than the opium, that had left him so weak, so diminished?