by Eve Silver
“There are too many St. Aubyns in this house,” he observed. “You must call me Sebastian. I know it is presumptuous on such short acquaintance”—he held up one hand to forestall any argument—“but confusion will otherwise ensue.” His lashes lowered and he cast her a sidelong glance. “Besides, I should very much like to hear my name from your lips.”
Practiced. Glib. His sultry tone and inappropriate words marked him for a rake. Or perhaps, for a man who wished to be perceived as one.
“Then you must call me Catherine, and we shall both be presumptuous. Now tell me about Egypt.”
“Egypt is hot,” he said with a laugh, “and full of sand.”
“Is it? Only sand? No green river delta? No farms? No cities?” She sipped her tea. “No pyramids or tombs?”
He sent her a sharp look. “You are well read, Catherine. Is it Egypt that fascinates you, or geography in general?”
“I like to read.”
His brows rose. “Books on geography rather than the latest penny dreadful?”
“Books on geography and science and philosophy. Even agriculture. And the latest penny dreadful.”
“I suspect there is an interesting reason for that…” His voice trailed away into a pregnant pause, and when she made no reply, he leaned back and held both palms forward as he said, “A lady deserves her secrets. I shall not press.” But his tone suggested he wanted to do just that.
Pressed or not, the reason for her eclectic self-education was one she would never reveal. There had been months when the books she had read had been her sole link to her sanity, and she had been so grateful for them. They had carried her away from the home that had become her prison.
But she said none of that. Instead, she asked, “Are you recently returned from your travels?”
“Not so recent, but recent enough.”
Well, there was an answer that was none at all. Perhaps he was more like his cousin than she had thought.
“Have you come from London today? You must have traveled through the night to be here at such an early hour.”
“Not from London, no.”
“Then you have been staying in the area? With friends?”
“Something of the sort.”
He leaned back in his chair and turned his head fully toward her at the exact moment the sun slid behind a cloud. The light in the room dimmed, casting his features in shadow. The set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head, the dark cloth of his square-cut coat and waistcoat… they reminded her of similar shadows painting the man she had seen lurking at the edge of the woods, the one she had mistaken for Gabriel time and again.
Was it Sebastian who prowled and skulked? Did he watch the abbey? For what purpose?
Given the evasive nature of his replies to her questions, she could not discount the possibility. Despite his open, easy manner—or perhaps because of it—there certainly was no reason for her to trust him.
The clouds shifted and the sun broke free once more, shining through the glass panes to refract in a rainbow of color, dispelling the shadows but not the weight of her distrust.
“You chose a lovely day for travel,” Catherine observed. “I arrived under the pall of a rainstorm that had me wondering if the coach would become an ark and float away.”
“Ah, the incomparable smell of a damp, rotting hired carriage. I know it well,” he replied with a small smile.
How had he surmised that she had arrived in a hired carriage? She had never said it.
An accurate guess, or something else? The possibility that Sebastian had been in the area for some time, that he was, in fact, the watcher in the woods—spying on the abbey, spying on her—could not be ignored.
In that moment, she was inclined to believe two things. First, Sebastian’s easy, charming manner concealed a different character entirely. Everything was evasion and mild flirtation, but his true nature swam beneath the surface, possibly a dark and dangerous thing. It seemed that Gabriel was not the only St. Aubyn to present a false face. She found she preferred his cool mask to Sebastian’s mummery.
Second, Sebastian’s words denoted that he knew far more about her than she had willingly shared, far more about her than she knew of him.
“Tell me about the wonderful things you saw in Egypt,” she prompted, her tone polite and even, betraying none of her thoughts.
“Wonderful things? I suppose there were some. And dreadful things, as well.” He set his cup on the table and shifted forward in his chair, leaning toward her with his forearms on his thighs. “I have been there many times. My most recent travels took me to the tombs of Qurna. There was gold in every tomb. A man could become rich purloining the treasures buried there.”
“Are you such a man?”
He sat back and shrugged. “I must confess that I was tempted. Gold and jewels aplenty beneath a thousand layers of dust. But I suppose I have some principles left. Robbing the dead lacked appeal.” Again, he grinned, a practiced, engaging smile. “Now, robbing the living is another matter entirely.”
Refusing to be baited, she asked, “What were the tombs like?”
He lifted his cup and saucer once more, and Catherine realized he was always in motion, never still. That in itself was enough to differentiate him from Gabriel, even if there had not been all the other clues. Gabriel was the eye of the storm, motionless, commotionless, but never serene. His was a quivering stillness, like a bowstring drawn taut, while Sebastian was laced with suppressed tension, ever shifting position in a suave, fluid way.
“The tombs,” he mused. “Darkness all about, and narrow passages, stale and dank. In some, we were obliged to get down on our knees and crawl, with the bite of sharp stones beneath us and the stink of death heavy in every breath.” His smile faded and his gaze grew distant. “The torches flickered and failed for want of air, and my nose and mouth and eyes were filled with grit. And all about… I can hardly describe it. Wrapped bodies, ancient and desiccated, stacked one atop the next, and shapes of other things, indistinguishable in the poor light. Statues. Carvings. Things that were half jackal, half man.”
Catherine nodded in mute encouragement, drawn in by his tale, imagining the place he described.
“One of the men in our party sought a moment’s rest. He sat upon a wooden box, when with a crash of bones and wood, he found himself sinking in a sea of mummies as his weight bore down on centuries of remains. So tenuous was his position that we were forced to wait several moments until the bodies settled and we could haul him out without sacrificing ourselves to the same fate. Imagine”— he gave a short laugh—“drowning in a sea of the ancient dead. For a long while after, I looked over my shoulder, certain that ghosts followed. You have no idea.”
Did she not? She had her own ghosts that followed close enough to nip at her heels. “Why would you visit such a place? What is the appeal?”
“I have been visiting such places since I was a child. My guardian, a most unconventional man, had a penchant for travel, and he dragged me along.”
His guardian. She wanted to ask about that, to query his exact relationship to Gabriel, to understand the link that made them cousins, but she was not so forward as that.
“Why do I continue to visit?” He paused, rubbed his fingers along his jaw. “Adventure. Knowledge. To be anywhere but here.”
She sucked in a breath at his blatant admission. “And yet, you return here and call it home.”
“Yes. In the end, Cairncroft always calls us home.” There was bitterness in his tone and a sardonic edge. “Do you know,” he said, lowering his voice as though to share a confidence, “the Egyptians mummified their dead in preparation for another life.” He gave a hard huff of laughter. “We simply bury them and let them rot.”
Or let them burn, Catherine thought.
He slanted her a glance beneath his lashes, and she wondered if she had given herself away by expression or action. But, no, he merely wanted to judge her response to his tale.
“Tell me more,” she said
. “Something fascinating.”
“I have always been particularly intrigued by the canopic jars and their gruesome contents.”
“Jars with gruesome contents?”
He nodded. “They are jars made of limestone or pottery, or even bronze. They hold the entrails.” After a heartbeat, he continued. “The ancient Egyptians cut the organs out and assigned one to each jar. Liver, lungs, stomach, and intestine. Four jars, often decorated with images of their gods.”
He was testing her, watching her, determined to see if she would become missish at such vile description. Why? Was this merely a game for his entertainment, or was there a deeper purpose?
“Liver, lungs, stomach, and intestine… Not the heart?” she inquired coolly, though her attention was split now between his answers and something in his words that nagged at her, disturbed her.
Again, he laughed. “No, the heart they left intact to be weighed at judgment.”
Judgment.
She opened her mouth to ask what the heart was weighed against, but before she could speak a new voice interjected.
“The heart is weighed against a feather.”
Catherine gasped and jerked about in her seat. Gabriel stood in the doorway, one shoulder against the frame, arms crossed over his chest. The cut of his brown riding coat accentuated the breadth of his shoulders, and the color reflected in his eyes, lending them a warm brandy glow. His hair was windblown, his gaze intent. Her heart gave a sharp little kick in her breast. Because she was glad to see him, though she ought not to be.
In that instant she realized that despite the cousins’ resemblance, for her it was Gabriel who made the air sizzle and crack, made her pulse speed up and her breath come a little faster. Beside him, Sebastian paled.
The realization rankled. Of course she would be attracted to the villain rather than the flirt.
“Gabriel.” Sebastian rose from his seat.
“Sebastian.” The cousins clasped hands and then broke apart, Sebastian returning to his place on the settee, Gabriel choosing a chair directly to Catherine’s right, far too close for her peace of mind. The tip of his boot brushed her hem, and she surreptitiously pulled her skirt away, only to look up and find him watching her. It came to her that he had chosen this proximity with the purpose of warning his cousin off, as though demarcating his territory or ownership. She thrust the thought aside as quickly as it materialized. Surely he did not think of her that way. As his.
And what vile malady assailed her that any part of her wanted him to?
“Please, do not let me interrupt,” Gabriel said, his lips curved in the barest hint of a smile. It did not reach his eyes. Had she ever seen him smile openly and fully? Had she seen a smile reach his eyes?
Perhaps… once or twice. She recalled the day at breakfast when he had first returned from London, she had seen his lips curve enough to carve a crease in his cheek and make tiny lines fan from the corners of his eyes. A rare happenstance. The rest of the time he seemed to mirror the expressions he saw in others, or perhaps he attempted an appropriate response, but never felt the emotion he portrayed.
What sort of life had he led to engender such a lack… or was it a trick of birth that had made him this way?
She realized that Sebastian was speaking, filling the silence with some unimportant comment. About the weather. Again. Shooting a glance at Gabriel, she found him watching her with the faintest flicker of shared amusement as she murmured a reply.
Quickly returning her attention to Sebastian, she said, “Do continue with your description of your travels.”
“Yes, do,” Gabriel prompted with a complete lack of inflection. The way the two men had greeted each other was both warm and cool. Was there genuine pleasure in their exchange? She could not say with certainty.
“The Egyptians believe each tomb is sealed with a curse placed there by their ancestors,” Sebastian offered, speaking to her, but looking at Gabriel.
“Of course. A curse,” Gabriel murmured.
Catherine recalled Mrs. Bell’s talk of curses and tragedies, and she wondered if there was some secret the two cousins shared. From the exchange of glances, she thought perhaps there was. “What sort of curse?”
“One that must be nullified with a counter-curse lest the tomb’s opener suffer a vile and painful demise,” Sebastian replied, his tone overly dramatic, as though he poked fun at himself. Or did he poke fun at her? She was not of a mind to ask him. “They say only a handful of Egyptians know the counter-curse. I cannot claim to have faith in such fribble, but I am a cautious fellow. I made certain never to be at the forefront of the charge into the tombs lest I be afflicted.”
Catherine blinked, taken aback at his casual admission of what some might construe as cowardice.
As though he read her thoughts, Sebastian laughed. “Not fear, Catherine. Caution. The difference is subtle, but there nonetheless.” He slanted an unreadable glance at Gabriel. “Cowardice is not a St. Aubyn trait.”
Sebastian used her given name so casually, and she wondered if it was that or the mention of cowardice that had Gabriel stiffening in his seat. The movement was ever so slight and she might have missed it except she was utterly attuned to his presence, his mood, his every breath.
And that made him unutterably dangerous to her.
“Do you believe in curses, Catherine?” Gabriel asked, his tone cool and remote.
Was this the man who had comforted her, kissed her? Yes. Somewhere inside the cold exterior lurked at least a modicum of passion. Perhaps a vast storm of it. She had felt it, shared it. Hadn’t she? Or had she only imagined it, a reflection of the tumult he stirred inside her?
“No, I do not.” But even as she made her reply, she wondered if her words were the truth. Had there not been occasions when she believed her own life had been cursed? The thought had proven anathema to her nature. She had always regarded her ability to overcome whatever horror was visited upon her—to survive—as a sort of gift. But at the darkest of times, doubt had crept up on her, whispering to her.
“Perhaps you should,” Gabriel said, with an inflection that might have been either humor or derision. Aimed at her? At himself?
Sebastian watched them with blatant interest. He could not have missed the undercurrents in every word they spoke, or the way she subtly shifted her hand away when Gabriel had moved his to brush her own. It was no accident. She did not believe anything Gabriel St. Aubyn did was accidental.
They engaged in innocuous conversation for only a few moments more, when Gabriel abruptly lost patience.
“Enough.” He rose and offered Catherine a shallow bow, then turned to his cousin. “We have things to discuss, Sebastian. Join me.”
With a dark look, quickly masked, Sebastian rose as well and took his leave, far more politely than his cousin. Gabriel gestured for Sebastian to precede him, and only then did he turn back to Catherine, the light from the window touching half his face, painting his hair and the glint of beard on his jaw in shades of glittering gold, leaving the other half of him in shadow. Reaching out, he stroked the backs of his fingers along her cheek, the touch barely there.
She stared at him, her breath frozen. Then he turned and followed his cousin from the room.
For a long while, she sat alone in the parlor with the beam of sunlight slanting across her skirt and her thoughts spinning like a child’s top. It was only when she glanced up and saw a pottery vase on the pedestal table that she again thought that something about Sebastian’s description of the canopic jars nagged at her. Something…
And suddenly, it struck her.
Rising, she stood in the center of the room, seeing nothing, her heart pounding, her mouth dry. Recollection of the words from the newspaper clipping that described Martha’s body slammed her. Coincidence was an impossibility, but perhaps she was wrong, perhaps—
Closing her eyes, she recalled the horrific article, every word branded in her mind though the actual paper was gone, burned to ash.
Her clothes had been cut away from the torso, and the chest and abdominal cavities opened with a sharp instrument, without precision. On postmortem examination of the body, he found the lungs, liver, stomach, and intestine removed, again, without precision. The heart was untouched.
Her legs trembled and she sank down onto the chair once more. Martha was dead. Four of her organs removed, and the heart left behind, exactly as Sebastian described in his blithe recounting of the canopic jars and their purpose.
Had he shared those stories with a particular purpose in mind?
When exactly had he returned from Egypt? Had he been in London when Martha was killed?
Icy dread touched her. She pressed her fingers to her brow, thinking, thinking. Her suspicions were impossible. Ridiculous.
How many people lived in London? Any one of them could be the killer. Why in Heaven’s name did she think there was some significance, some link, between the killer, the organs removed from Martha’s body, and Sebastian’s recounting of the purpose of the canopic jars?
Her thoughts spun in a cacophony of sound and light, and emerging from the melee was the recollection of Gabriel asking her if it was Martha’s death that had her so distressed, or the fact that Martha’s organs had been removed. He had known that fact despite only glancing at the article, not reading it in its entirety. She had noted it then, remembered it now.
For some reason, she thought, too, of Madeline’s story that day in the garden about a girl found covered in blood. With a shake of her head, she took a deep breath, counted back the days… and realized that although she could not account for Sebastian’s whereabouts, she knew from his own admission that Gabriel had been in London in the days before Martha’s body was found.
12
“On a bright and sunny day”—Sebastian paused long enough to glance at the window—“well, somewhat sunny when the clouds break. Either way, here we sit in the gloom.”