Night of the Highland Dragon

by Isabel Cooper

  “Hmm?” William chuckled, the vibration thrumming up through Judith’s fingertips. “Rather a combination, I suppose. The work requires fitness, and after so many years at it, I can’t really imagine being any other way. Though I suppose I’ll have to, eventually—once the knees give out and the rheumatism sets in.”

  “And what’ll you do then?”

  “Find a nice rocking chair and a pipe, I suppose. Give young men hell and tell them that hardship’s not a patch on what it was in my day.” He looked down at Judith. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever had to worry about it.”

  “Not for a century or two more,” she said. “We do get old, in time. We’re human enough for that.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I hadn’t thought to ask—and I certainly don’t mean to be impolite—”

  “Half,” Judith said, “or less. My mother was human. A witch, but human. And not even my grandfather could remember any of us who was pure dragon. The blood of the other side runs strong, ’tis all, when it’s present.” Before he could figure out the implications of what she’d said and go tense and polite, she added, “You’re very strategic-minded, and I approve, but I meant what I said in the train. We can interbreed, but it takes effort.”

  “That must be rather convenient, in its way.”

  “Very,” said Judith. “For me, at least.” There was no point pretending she’d been a virgin; he already knew otherwise. “But then, I’m not the heir and don’t have to worry about producing one. Fate be praised.”

  “And yet,” said William, stroking a hand down her shoulder and over her arm, “you’re the one who minds your family’s estates.”

  “I mind Loch Arach and the castle. My brother handles the finances and the city business. There’s more than what you see here, same as with any family like ours.” She smiled against the pillow, letting her eyes drift shut for a second and enjoying his touch. “Though I suppose it’s less metaphorical for most.”

  “Less physical, certainly. Most of us are more than the face we show.”

  “Most of us show different faces for different company. Varied, but perhaps not so layered as you’d like to think,” said Judith. She forced her eyes back open. “I can’t be falling asleep like this, you understand. Things still to do tonight.”

  In truth, she hadn’t expected to find sleep so tempting or so easy. Her mind held no memories of this kind of easy contentment after a tumble, or of the desire to let herself melt into the bed and her lover’s arms—but she’d been younger then and had been in ships or army camps or the sort of inn where the mattress made noises independent of any human or half-and-maybe-less-human movement. Different circumstances, Judith told herself, and different results.

  William made a languid but affirmative sound. “And they’ll be missing me down in the village, I suspect.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid the rumors will already have started,” said Judith, forcing herself up and onto her feet. The dinner dress was a lost cause, unless William was a good hand at both buttons and laces—and asking him to dress her seemed too intimate, far more so than the reverse had been—so she took a nightgown and a wrapper from the closet. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I’d resigned myself when I came up here.”

  “And yet you did come,” said Judith. She pulled on her clothing and watched William dress, admiring the play of muscles in his arms and back. “Queen and Country, old boy?” she asked, trying to imitate his accent.

  He turned, startled, in the process of fastening a cuff link. They watched each other briefly in a silence gone suddenly heavy. Then William smiled. “Among other things,” he said, “at least when I thought you were only offering dinner.”

  “I hope someone gives you a medal, then,” said Judith. Dressed, she kissed him quickly and then opened the door. “The rain’s stopped now,” she said after a moment’s silence to confirm it. “I’ll show you out. I told the servants to take the night off after we went to the drawing room. They’ll still gossip—but there won’t be proof, if that matters to you.”

  “It doesn’t to you,” he replied, a curious smile on his long, lean face. “Or so you said.”

  “No, I said hearsay doesn’t,” said Judith, and she didn’t answer him further.

  In all her years at the castle, she’d been discreet, as much out of habit as from fear of any real consequences. Out in the world, unusual license made people talk, and the last thing she—or any other member of her family—had ever wanted was to become the subject of speculation. Questions in one area too easily led to questions in others.

  But that was the wider world. Loch Arach was hers and her family’s, and different. And soon enough she’d be gone, first to England and then to some imaginary grave in the city, victim of an invented fever. Once word of the evening got around, those future rumors might take on a different hue, might delve into what she’d really died of and why she’d truly left, but that wouldn’t be so bad. Questions about a living woman were dangerous—gossip about a dead one diverted attention, like a magician’s trick.

  All the same, she didn’t particularly want to answer questions—or even to see them in anyone’s eyes—more than necessary. So she said a polite and proper good-bye to William as they approached the castle doors, then let him slip out without risking anyone outside seeing her dressed for bed. Judith locked the door behind him, then turned and considered the things she still had to do.

  She couldn’t think of any. The tasks existed, she was sure of it—she hadn’t been lying to William earlier—but they hovered just out of her memory, irritating and elusive.

  The castle was empty. She’d been very thorough about giving the servants the rest of the evening off. Part of her had remembered the train ride and hotly anticipated the possibility of the night progressing as it had, while more tactically, alert to the possibility of danger, she’d wanted to get rid of potential casualties or witnesses. Judith hadn’t thought it likely that William would try to kill her—if nothing else, he’d fall under considerable suspicion—but there were other possibilities, and if violence had broken out, at least there would have been no targets save her.

  Instead, there’d been talk and pleasure and the growth of the trust that had started building between them back when they’d fought off the robbers together. Judith didn’t regret any of it; she also hadn’t thought that the aftermath would leave her feeling so much at loose ends.

  “Well,” she said to the dark and silent hall. Absently, she twisted her hair into a knot behind her head and began to walk up the dimly lit staircase and back to her bedroom. Whatever she had yet to do would doubtless make itself known to her in time. The evening had gone well. There was no point in fretting.

  * * *

  “You’ve been stirring your tea for five minutes together,” said Agnes. “I dinna’ think the last three have improved matters any. What’s fashin’ ye now?”

  “I couldn’t say,” said Judith, which was the truth on many levels. She shouldn’t tell Agnes that she’d taken William to bed. She couldn’t tell her about his allegiance or her family’s secrets or the negotiations they’d held, nor could she pinpoint just what was troubling her, other than the feeling that she’d taken a step forward and was still waiting for her foot to hit ground. “Sorry. Bad company this morning.”

  “Perhaps I’m just no’ who you’re hoping to see.” Agnes grinned and lifted her eyebrows.

  Here it came. There was no point postponing the fatal moment. “You think I’m here after Arundell.”

  “Not completely. I’m no’ saying you’re visiting me under false pretenses. But I know well he came back late last night, and Claire says he’d been up to the castle. ’Tis your own affair, my lady, of course—but if you were here to see him, he’s above stairs. Reading a letter, he said.”

  “I wish him joy of it,” said Judith, though under the table, her fingers worried little patt
erns on the wool of her dress. “We had an excellent dinner. I wanted news from London—my brothers are damned poor correspondents—and he was good about providing it.”

  “He’s fair useful for that purpose,” Agnes agreed, “though what he mentions of concerts and music halls and such is like to drive half the young people here away before too very long.”

  “If it wasn’t Arundell, it’d be something else. That’s how the young are.”

  Agnes made a noncommittal sound. Below it, Judith heard a man’s footsteps approaching, and her fingers had tightened on the teacup and fabric before the door opened. She turned, made herself smile naturally, and met William’s eyes.

  He smiled back: quick, polite, discreet. Good. She should have known. He was a professional. She hadn’t been his first woman. Both of them knew how to conduct themselves. Judith watched him cross the room, remembered how he’d moved above her the night before, and fought back a shiver. “Mr. Arundell. Good morning. Agnes was just worrying that you’d lead all our youth to perdition.”

  “I’ll do my best to avoid it, Lady MacAlasdair,” William replied. “If it helps, I give you my word that I’ve never learned to play a pipe of any sort. Only the piano, and it’s rather difficult to lead children under a mountain with one of those.”

  Laughing with him warmed her as much as lusting after him did. It was both a relief to Judith’s nerves and another sign of danger. It was also not a phenomenon she had the chance to think about for very long.

  More footsteps sounded outside. These were light and hurried: Claire, running. There was nothing out of the way about that—sixteen was a running kind of age—but the last few weeks made every sound and flicker of light an omen. Judith was tense, getting ready to rise from the table, even as the door burst open.

  “Mother—” Claire’s face was white, her blue eyes huge in contrast. If she saw either Judith or William, she gave no sign. Infatuation and awareness of rank were nothing to her right now. She was a child in that moment, and the only person who mattered was the one who’d mattered most from the start. “Mother, the most horrible thing has happened.”

  Twenty-nine

  Almost as fast as Judith had moved in the clearing, Mrs. Simon was out of her chair and across the room, wrapping her daughter in her arms. Claire pressed her face against her mother’s shoulder and started to cry. Between her sobs and the position, William couldn’t hear much of what she said, but whatever it was made Mrs. Simon start, her own eyes widening and her mouth going thin. A look at Judith showed a similar expression on her face, but with less shock and more suspicion in it.

  When the broken word “bodies” reached William’s ears, he understood why.

  Mrs. Simon pulled back, though she kept her hands on Claire’s shoulders. “Calm yourself a moment, quine,” she said. The word was obviously an endearment, though one William had never heard before. “You’ll need to tell her ladyship. ’Tis the sort of thing she ought to be knowing.”

  As if Claire were ten years younger, Mrs. Simon took out a handkerchief and wiped her face. As if Claire were ten years younger, she submitted without protest, though she did blow her own nose. William looked away and kept silent. The girl would look back on this with enough mortification as it was. Just now, she didn’t seem to know he was in the room. She only looked at Judith when her mother spoke, and that in a sort of daze.

  “I—” she began, her voice choked with tears. She cleared her throat, snuffled, and started over. “Mairi and I were going down to her house. And we cut through the graveyard. We—we’d done it before. Everyone does. It’s shorter that way, and there arena’ so many brambles, and a few folks walking about isna’ like to disturb the”—she gulped—“dead.”

  “I shouldn’t think it would, no,” said Judith. “Nobody’ll be angry with you, Claire. Just go on.”

  Claire nodded. “We saw the earth had been tossed up. And we thought that was odd, since nobody’s died. We thought perhaps an animal’d been at the place. So we went over to see—I thought maybe we could tell the minister how bad it was—and it was awful. And not an animal at all. They—somebody—somebody dug up the graves. Two of them, and they broke the coffins open, and we could see the bodies. And one of them, it was like he was staring at us, but he didna’ have any eyes—”

  The last word came out as a wail, and Claire buried herself in her mother’s arms again.

  William’s first feeling was relief. Whatever might have happened to expose them, the bodies were still in the churchyard and not, for instance, up and walking around. Claire’s mention of disturbing the dead had steeled him for the worst. Desecration wasn’t that, but it was bad and had the potential for worse.

  Almost reflexively, he turned to look at Judith. She met his eyes, her face grim, and nodded. “I’ll go and have a word with the reverend.”

  “He”—Claire sniffled—“knows. He came out when we screamed, and he screamed, and then he fell down and we ran for the doctor and he’s still alive but—”

  “Evans is in his seventies,” Judith said to William. “A good man, but—spirit, flesh, so on. You did well, Claire. I’ll see to it that this is set right.” Her voice itself was a pledge. As quickly as she’d turned to Claire, she looked back at William. “Mr. Arundell, may I impose on you? It’s not a scene I wish to walk into alone.”

  “Of course,” said William. Even in the midst of his alarm, he heard the real offer of cooperation underneath her words and the trust there, and rejoiced in it. After all, Judith MacAlasdair, who’d spent more years in armies than he’d spent walking the earth, would hardly be in need of male support to go and look at a body or two. “I’ll go get my things and be down directly.”

  Once they’d left the house behind, Judith glanced at the bag William had retrieved. “More preparation?”

  “One never knows.”

  “In this case, one knows a little too well,” said Judith. “Or at least suspects.”

  William had gone to services on the occasional Sunday, keeping up an image of respectability for Loch Arach that he’d never bothered about in larger cities. He’d spoken with Evans only briefly. The old man did not appear to concern himself much with things of this world, and what he’d been able or willing to say about either the village or the MacAlasdairs had been vague and not helpful. He’d been gentle and amiable to all appearances, and when William saw Dr. McKendry coming out of the parsonage, he hurried forward with almost as much interest as Judith herself did.

  “He’ll be all right,” said the doctor, not waiting on Judith’s question. Her face was expressive enough when she wanted it to be. “Only a shock—but that’s no joke for a man of his age. I’ve told him to rest for a few days. You’ll have heard what brought it on?”

  “I heard,” said Judith. “Have you seen it?”

  “No. Neither do I want to, unless you feel I’ll do any good. The graves disturbed were older, I hear, and I dinna’ think medicine’s of much help there any longer—but if your ladyship desires—”

  Judith shook her head, one quick motion like the stroke of a knife. “No. Take care of Reverend Evans. Tell him I’ll handle matters. Tell anyone else who asks too. I don’t guess there’s much chance of keeping this quiet, is there?”

  “Not hardly,” said Dr. McKendry.

  “Aye, so I’d thought.” Judith sighed. “Mr. Arundell will be helping me have a look. They’re doing wonderful things with investigation in London now, I hear. If you have a moment, send a few strong lads with shovels round in about an hour. We should be done then.”

  “I’ll pass the word. Good day, Lady MacAlasdair. Mr. Arundell.”

  “Good day,” said William. Judith was already striding toward the graveyard.

  The older part was right up near the church, but the graves in question were a little distance away from that, set apart from the clumps of families. Before he could see the headstones, he spo
tted the graves themselves, dirt piled up in rich brown hills. He heard Judith hiss breath in through her teeth.

  “Anyone you know?” William asked quietly.

  “I’m not sure yet. But—if I had known them, it didn’t end well.” She closed her eyes for a second, as if that would aid her memory. “It’s harder to tell now, with the graves more crowded together and so many of them worn down. But I’m fairly certain those men were hanged.”

  “Oh, hell,” said William. She was probably right. When they drew close enough to see the gravestones, he noticed that they were plain things, with only the dates of birth and death on them and no words of comfort for anyone—not absolute proof that they’d died as criminals, but further evidence.

  Both coffins were open—smashed with a heavy implement, likely a shovel. Only a skull stared out from one of them, while thick wood hid the rest of the body. The other corpse was, well, fresher—buried more recently and in a sturdier coffin. The man still had a face left, ravaged though it was. The grave robber had been more thorough in this case. The whole top of the coffin was gone. The body lay plain in William’s view. William looked down the length of the probably-not-a-gentleman and found what he’d been dreading.

  “The left hand is gone,” he said. Only the two of them stood in the graveyard, but he spoke quietly anyhow. The spirit of the place demanded it. “Do you know if he went to the grave that way?”

  “Let me think.” She read the name and dates on the gravestone over, tapping her index finger against her lips. “Sixty-eight. I was here—I recall the trial. Murder, it was, and a shocking case. His own wife and daughters.” Judith spoke slowly and without emotion, a woman describing a dream. “We sent to the Queen for permission. Have to, these days. Ryan. Aye. Brute of a fellow. And we buried him with both hands. Which means someone took one. Why?”

  “I couldn’t say for sure,” said William, “but I’ve heard a legend or five. Things you can do with a dead man’s hands—walk through walls and the like. Criminals’ hands in particular. I wish I knew more theory.”