by Deana James
"You'll strangle her," Piers cried. He reached for the pudgy wrist.
Sister Grace shook her head. "Soothing syrup. It'll ease the throat. It'll—” She broke off with a smothered cry. Her fingers clenched, then flew apart. The glass spilled its liquid onto the coverlet.
"Here. What are you doing?" Piers grabbed the glass as the nun stumbled back.
Her hands mashed into her bosom, clutching, kneeding. She wheeled away from the bed and stumbled blindly across the room. One step. Two. The door opened. The young nun hurried in just in time to see Sister Grace sink to her knees, her face twisting in agony. "M-milady," she called, reaching out toward the woman in the doorway. "Oh, Milady Viv—"
"Here," Piers called. "You can't—"
Too late the young nun tried to catch her older sister as she fell forward striking the floor face downward with a horrible crunching sound. Piers gasped and stepped away from the bed, then returned to his mother whose spasms seemed likely to tear her throat out.
With trembling hands the young nun turned the body over. The skin of the old woman's nose and forehead had been split by the fall. Blood welled from the wound. Sister Grace could have made no effort to save herself when she struck the floor. She had been dead even as she fell.
The young sister opened her mouth, then clasped her hands together in front of it as if to stifle a cry. Horror and terror mixed in equal parts and twisted her face.
At last the countess's coughing ceased. She subsided on the pillows, her eyes were closed, her head drooped 10 one side.
Piers smoothed a tendril of hair from her cheek and returned her hand to the coverlet. Satisfied that she would rest for a moment, he flung himself at the door. His voice boomed in the hall outside. "Felders! Watkins! Rot you both! Get up here!" Turning back, he threw another glance at his mother, then dropped to one knee beside the body of Sister Grace. He fumbled beneath the sleeve of her habit, found her wrist and checked for a pulse. "She's dead."
The young nun pressed her hands to her mouth. Her eyes pleaded silently over the tips of her fingers. She gave a quick shake of her head.
He looked down at the mutilated face. "I doubt if she knew when she hit the floor."
The valet stumbled in first, his eyes on the bed. His gaze dropped in amazement to the tableau around the body on the floor. "Milord! What's happened here? What happened to the poor woman?"
Piers rose to his feet with a resigned air. "She looks to have had some sort of a fit." He shrugged wearily. "Anyway she's dead."
The valet murmured unintelligibly as he lifted his eyes from the dead face to the stone white one above it. "Miss-that is, Sister, you have my sympathies."
Again Piers went to the door. "Felders! Damn it. Where are you?"
"Probably getting the hot water and towels." The valet nodded toward the young nun. "That was what was wanted, wasnt it?"
Both men stared as she lowered her head to rest on the old one's chest. Her eyes were closed as she listened desperately for a heartbeat.
"You're wasting your time," Piers returned and came down on one knee beside the body. This time he turned the back of his hand beneath the nostrils. "No breath," he muttered. "What an ungodly mess! "Not the faintest stirring of warmth could be discerned. "She's dead. Damn it! Right here on mother's carpet."
The young woman's head snapped up. Blue eyes, so pale they were almost colorless, glared at him with cold fire. He raised a quizzical eyebrow and started to speak.
At that moment Mrs. Felders burst through the door, her eyes on the figure drooping on the bed. "Oh, sir, has the end come?"
Piers's head snapped round at the eagerness in her tone. He rose angrily. "No, the end has not come. At least not for Mother, but for this poor creature. For God's sake, Mrs. Felders. Could you not have hired someone healthy?"
For the first time, the housekeeper glanced at the two nuns one lying, the other kneeling on the floor. Her eyes narrowed; her mouth puckered as if she had bitten down on a sour pickle. With a disgusted grunt she bent to inspect the body of Sister Grace. "Wasn't my doing that brought them here to begin with, milord. They've been more trouble than they're worth, making all the extra work of two rooms. Are you sure she's not just fainted?"
The young nun, tears trickling down her cheeks, lunged to her feet. Her fingernails arced like talons toward Mrs. Felders's face.
The housekeeper stumbled back throwing up her arms to protect herself.
"Here now." The valet Watkins thrust himself between them and caught the nun around the waist. "Easy now. Don't take offense." He held her while the housekeeper ran out the door. "She don't mean a thing by that. She just sees everything from her own angle. Is it going to mean more work for her, don't you see?"
At that moment the countess uttered a terrible pained cry and began to cough again.
"Mother." Piers jumped to her side. "Mother, it's all right. I'm here. Mother."
The old woman's face turned red from her efforts to clear her throat. She raised one hand trembling pathetically. Her eyelids fluttered.
"For God's sake, get yourself over here," he snarled. "What was that stuff the old one was going to pour down her throat?"
Shifting the terrible death aside with visible effort, the nun's eyes flew to the bottle of syrup on the bedside table. Retrieving the glass from among the bedcovers, she poured another draught and held it to the old woman's lips. While Piers held his mother's head and shoulders, she managed to get the countess to drink some medicine between the spasms.
Almost immediately, the syrup began to take effect. The next bout was much less severe. The countess again sank back on the pillows with a piteous moan.
The moment past, Piers eased back and looked around him. His mouth relaxed slightly as he watched the young nun smooth his mother's hair back and straighten the lace-edged mobcap where it had slipped. He exchanged a glance with Watkins, who waited anxiously at the foot of the bed. At last he looked at the body of the old woman where it still lay stiffening on the floor. Mrs. Felders had not returned. A shocking expletive burst from his mouth.
"Milord?" Watkins said uncertainly.
"That damned Felders couldn't even bother to send the footmen up to carry out the body." Piers strode to the door. "Damn and blast!"
"I'll take care of it, milord." The valet raced him to the door and darted out.
"Can you care for my mother while I get this properly taken care of?" Piers tossed over his shoulder. When no answer came, he looked irritably in the direction of the bed.
The young woman nodded, her face white as the white linen around her neck and shoulders.
He raised one eyebrow. "I think the vow of silence much overstrained, ma'am. Surely the situation here allows a bit of latitude."
A slow flush rose in her cheeks. She turned back to her charge who coughed fitfully.
A couple of footmen appeared at the door. He motioned them into the room and then snorted in disgust as they looked helplessly at him awaiting direction. "Pick her up in the carpet," he snapped. "It'll need a good cleaning anyway. Roll her up and be gone."
When the nun would have left his mother's side in protest, he motioned her back mockingly. "Only as a means of carrying her, Sister. We won't bury her in an expensive carpet. Rest assured."
At that moment the housekeeper appeared in the doorway, her composure intact, though her face was white. Piers's eyes narrowed. "Mrs. Felders, was something said about hot water and steaming towels?"
She lifted her chin and came on to the foot of the bed. "Yes, sir."
Even as she spoke, a footman appeared in the doorway, a yoke over his shoulders and two buckets hanging from the ends. Turning sideways he could not keep his eyes from the body of Sister Grace-her poor mutilated face turned upward to the light, thin streams of blood running down her cheeks and across her forehead. He dropped the yoke off his shoulders. The buckets thudded to the floor, water splashing as he bolted for the door.
Piers cursed again, disgust and anger in his tone
. Hefting one of the buckets, he carried it to the bedside. Watkins came in with towels. At Piers's signal, he passed them to the sister, who stared at the water helplessly.
"Get on with it," Piers snapped. "My mother could die while you stand thre like a dummy."
Again her anger flashed from beneath the habit.
"I've never heard such confusion." A raspy voice froze them all in their tracks. "I can only presume it is all over."
"No, your grace." Mrs. Felders folded her hands under her apron. Color stained her cheeks. "The commotion is because one of those stupid nuns has fallen down and broken her head open. Clumsy, useless bead rattlers."
The young nun turned from the bedside. Her fingers clenched around a steaming towel. She drew back her arm, but before she could fling it at the housekeeper, Piers caught her wrist. One corner of his mouth curved upward in a humorless smile. He held her stiff body back and tried to turn her to her patient.
The earl looked with some interest at their muted struggle. The corners of his mouth twitched. He cleared his throat. "So I am safe in assuming that the body hustled out so unceremoniously past me was not that of my beloved wife. I rather thought as much." He glanced at the figure in the bed. "I rejoice in the news."
"And now you are come to bid her good night." Piers's voice was equally ironical.
The earl shuffled forward to the foot of the bed. There he rested, hands crossed over the top of an ivory-headed walking stick. "Of course. Good night, Georgina."
A spasm crossed the countess's face. Her eyes flickered open. Illness and exhaustion blurred the sharp edge of her hatred. "I'm not dead yet, Larnaervon,"
"So I see."
They stared at each other in silence. Then her eyes slid to the housekeeper hovering at his shoulder. "Get out."
Mrs. Felders did not move though her mouth drew tighter than ever and her nostrils dilated.
"Get out," the sick woman repeated, her voice rasping in its intensity. She coughed.
Still Mrs. Felders did not move.
"Get out!"
The paroxym gathered strength. Piers came to the end of his mother's bed, forcing the housekeeper to retreat. Her pinch-purse mouth straightened. She might have smiled had she not turned and left the room.
The earl moved across his son's path. Almost breast to breast the two men faced each other. One tall, broad-shouldered, his disarranged hair glowing burgundy red in the lamplight. The other bent, his once tall figure crookbacked, his long white hair spread over the shoulders of his black velvet coat. He cocked his head up to his son. "Georgina has always played *dog in the manger' about Felders," he confided with a smirk.
Biting down hard on his temper, Piers stepped back and returned to his mother's bedside.
The earl shuffled nearer, passing the end of the bed and coming up behind the nurse. While he watched, she draped a sheet over the head of the bed and poured aromatic oil into the steaming water. For a time everyone was silent except for the countess's labored breathing. The odor of camphor filled the sickroom.
When the countess began to breathe more easily beneath the makeshift tent, the earl looked to his son. "Thanks to this young woman's good work, the crisis has been averted, wouldn't you say, Piers?"
"I'm sure you're pleased, Larne."
"Why, yes, as a matter of fact I am." He moved slowly around the end of the bed, his cane tapping on the bare floor. "As a matter of fact, I am very pleased."
The son's jaw set stonily. "You have paid your obligatory call, Larne. I'm sure you want to be off to—er—bed."
Larnaervon chuckled. "Perhaps. Perhaps. Indeed I might go 'off to-er-bed' in a little while. On the other hand I might not. After all, my wife is very ill. Perhaps I should stay here in the sickroom. Perhaps do the watching thing beside the bed. What do you say?"
"I never believed you were a hypocrite."
Again the short humorless chuckle. "No?"
"No."
"We’ll, perhaps you're right. Besides, if Georgina were to awaken and find me beside her, she might be moved to use her tongue on me again. I find I have had quite enough of that over the long years." His black eyes followed the nun's black-clad figure as it moved past him, retrieved the other bucket, and set it up on the other side of the bed under the sheet. The odor of camphor again permeated the room.
The earl coughed affectedly. "The whole house will need to be aired."
A muscle leaped in the viscount's jaw. "Good night, Larne."
The earl managed to look remorseful. "Ah, Piers, 'tis a fact of life that sickrooms develop the odor of the disease and the medicines that are required to cure it. You shouldn't be so sensitive. I assure you that if I were lying there and Georgina were standing here, she would be saying the same thing."
Piers ran a distracted hand through his hair. "God damn you," he whispered. "Ah, Watkins, returned at last. How fortuitous. The earl needs your strong shoulder to escort him to his room."
"Ah, not at this hour of the evening." The knobby, brown-spotted hand lifted in protest. "But I will let you lead me down the stairs and into the library."
"Milord." The valet bowed obsequiously.
"After which I shall expect a spot of brandy, suitably warmed." The earl allowed himself to be led to the door. "I leave you to your watching, Piers." He paused, one hand on the valet's shoulder. "And you, Sister. Good night to you both."
With Watkins supporting him, he made his way slowly out. When the door had closed behind them, Piers sank down in a chair. "God, what a mess. What a damnable mess!" He cast a glance at the nun. "I beg your pardon if I offend your delicate ears, but I'm quite certain that God has consigned this house and its occupants to eternal damnation long ago. He wouldn't pay attention to His name on our lips if we shouted it to the skies."
He watched the nun's face for some sign that she disapproved of what he was saying, but there was none. "God, you're a cool one. The only time I really saw you forget your humble pie was with Felders."
The nun bowed her head.
"Damned witch. She'd try the patience of Saint Simeon Stylites himself. Never leave her alone in this room with my mother, do you hear? Never." He leaned his head back on the chair. His breathing evened after a time and his head drooped to one side.
************************************
"Remarkable job, Caleb. Truly remarkable." The earl turned a ledger page, skimmed down the column of figures with his finger, then leaned back in his chair.
"Thank you, milord."
Eagle eyes studied the solicitor approvingly from under tangled white brows. Thin lips quirked. "You weren't somehow responsible for that timely demise on Georgina's carpet, were you? If you say you were, I will believe you because I see before me the proof of your cleverness."
"No, milord." Caleb Pross's face was an emotionless mask. "I did not seek to name the companion who came with her. My assignment was only to see that she came."
The earl laughed-a humorless staccato sound. "And these—” His knobby hand slid across the page in front of him. His stained nail underlined the notation at the top of the page. "How did you come by the estate accounts from Stone Glenn? Or should I want to know?"
The solicitor raised one sandy eyebrow. "I assure you, milord, they were acquired through the most appropriate channels. Audits. Excises. Taxes. All these things must be looked into regularly. The firm of Pross, Davey, and Fieldstone regularly exchanges such activities and arranges to perform duties of these types with other reputable firms. Favors for favors, you understand. Barnstaple and Rowling is a reputable firm. Quite unexceptionable. I assure you."
The earl laughed again. "For months?"
"The mills of the gods grind slowly—”
"You are a pirate."
"No, sir." Pross allowed himself a small smile. "I am simply a man of business."
************************************
Someone was shaking him by the shoulder. He woke disoriented and stiff. The fire had gone out on the hearth and the room
was chill. He pushed aside the blanket that had been draped over his body and stood.
The nun led him to his mother's side. He heard her draw a faint breath. For what seemed forever she did not move again. At last another tiny movement of the chest.
"She's dying," he murmured, his voice breaking. "Mother. I love you. Take that with you wherever you go. I love you." He bent to touch his lips to her forehead and cheek and to whisper at her ear. "I love you."
A whisper of breath. A tremor of facial muscle at the corner of the mouth.
"Always, Mother, I love you." He waited for the next breath, but it did not come. The body seemed to settle in the bed, its functions ceasing, its muscles relaxing in death.
Piers's head sank to the pillow beside it. He could feel the tears on his cheeks. Even though death was a blessing and a release for her, his mind could not command his heart to stop hurting nor the emptiness to fill.
At length he rose. His muscles seemed to cramp with every inch of height he gained. Brandy. Suddenly his mouth felt parched. He licked his lips. His face felt tight particularly across his cheekbones where the tears had dried. He was glad that his father had not stayed to see him at the end.
The nun stood across the bed from him, her fingers moving through the beads of her rosary, her lips moving silently.