by P. N. Elrod
If Edmond would even allow it. Before God, he could tell me to go to hell and be well within his rights and then I’d never see—
My moment of panic came and instantly passed. He would allow it. I’d make certain of that no matter what. If I could turn the likes of Ridley into a lamb, then I could just as easily convince Edmond to cheerfully welcome me into his home. Elizabeth would probably disapprove—she usually did when it came to forcing my influence upon another person, but this was a special circumstance. Surely she’d not object to my making life a bit smoother for all concerned by the use of this strange talent.
Then the only limitation I’d have against being with Richard would be my inability to see him during the day. Damnation, but there was one obstacle I could not influence my way around. Half a loaf was better than none, but it irked me all the same. Ah, well, I’d just have to live with it until he got older and could stay up later. By then he’d be away at school, though . . . but he’d be home for visits between terms. . . .
So much to think about, so much to dream and plan. I stared at the fire until my eyes watered, blinked to clear them, but they only watered the more. To my astonishment, first one tear then another spilled forth.
“You’re being absurd, Johnny-boy,” I muttered aloud, wiping at them with my sleeve before remembering my handkerchief. It was the one I’d used in the stable, the one bearing evidence of my last feeding in the form of some small bloodstains. No matter, I thought, scrubbing away at my wet cheeks.
Though in a way it did matter, for now did I realize why I wept. Mixed with my happiness was the certain knowledge that Richard was the only child I would ever father, thus making him immeasurably precious to me.
Because of my changed condition the male member of my body, though still capable of providing enjoyment to any lady so desiring to make use of it, was now incapable of producing seed. Though it could come to glad attention, allowing me to roger away as happily as any other man, it was no longer at all necessary for the achievement of a climax to my pleasure. That sweet accomplishment was only to be found when partaking of the lady’s blood, a process we could both enjoy to its fullest for as long as we could stand the ecstasy. Wonderful and superior as it was to the more common way of making love, it had a wretched price. The joys of having a wife and a hearth might yet be mine in the future, but my present state tragically precluded any possibility of fathering a family of my own to cherish.
Why was it so? I wondered. The question had long occurred to me prior this night, but never before had the lack of an answer seemed so hard to endure.
If I could only find Nora.
Seeing Nora Jones again had ever been the focus of all things for me since that summer night when I’d awakened in a coffin buried deep beneath the church graveyard. For all its limitations, though, the condition she’d bequeathed upon me had its favorable side. I was grateful for the advantages, but needed to know more about the drawbacks. Ignorance had caused me grief in the past, so I harbored a reasonable desire to learn all there was to learn before committing additional blunders. If I could just speak with her, even once, and put to rest my questions, then might I find a bit of peace for my troubled heart.
I’d have to tell her about Richard, of course. There was no way around it. I hoped she would find a delight in him similar to my own. Her temper was such as to make it a possibility, though in our time together we’d not discussed any matters to do with children, so her reaction was not anything I could predict with certainty. Most females were fond of children, though, and Richard was a singularly charming specimen. One smile from him and she might fall in love with him as well.
If I ever found her.
Oliver and I would just have to take up the search with renewed vigor. I could have another look through her London house on the slender chance that I’d missed something earlier, and Oliver could track down the agents who had sold it to her. Perhaps they had records on where she’d lived before and we could speak to her neighbors. . . .
I quelled the speculations. Firmly They’d had their race around inside my head far too often already to offer any new approach to this particular hunt. Time to let them rest and cast my mind back to better, more productive thoughts. Like Richard.
Alas, it was not to be. Just as I was summoning the energy to forsake my comfortable chair and build up the dwindling fire, one of the footmen came in with a message for me. Damnation, if it wasn’t one thing it was another.
He handed over a small fold of paper, then stepped back a pace to await my reply. I half expected it to be from my valet, Jericho, who was probably wondering if I planned to return home tonight. An excellent question, that. I opened the thing, but did not recognize the bold, flowing writing within.
For God’s sake, will you come speak with me? I beg only a moment.
The signature was a large, florid C placed in the exact center at the bottom of the sheet.
Clarinda, I thought, my spirits sinking. What the devil did she want? And did I really wish to find out?
Edmond Fonteyn had taken full charge of his murderous wife to make sure she was securely confined for the remainder of their stay at Fonteyn House. Had he not been forced by his injuries to rest, he would have swept her away to their own home by now.
A temporary prison for her had been improvised from one of the more distant upstairs rooms. I understood it to be cold, bare of furnishings except dust, and horrifically dark and stuffy since it had no window. Oliver’s description of it, given earlier when he filled me in on the day’s events, was vivid, as the chamber had served as a place of punishment for him when he was a child. His mother had a great fondness for shutting him away there for hours at a time whenever she deemed any given transgression of correct behavior to be serious enough to merit it. That meant most of them, he’d added with heartfelt disgust. Nanny Howard hadn’t approved, but was forced to comply with orders or risk a dismissal with no reference. To mitigate the worst of it for poor Oliver, she’d sit just outside the door and keep him company, talking and cheering him while pretending for his parent to play the stern and watchful guard.
Clarinda had no such companionable warden. Edmond instructed two of the footmen to keep a close eye on her locked door, and see to it she didn’t make too much noise. He had been up twice today to see she got her meals, but no one else had come since he’d put the story about that she’d fallen ill from the strain of the funeral and needed complete quiet to recover. That and the long climb up the stairs had been sufficient to discourage the remaining elderly relatives from paying calls, though Oliver reported that speculation on the real nature of her illness was rife. Some took Edmond at his word, but others maintained that he’d gotten tired of her infidelities and had finally decided to lock her away. Though close enough to the truth, the chief mystery for them was why Edmond had waited so long, and then chosen this particular time and place to take action.
They would most certainly connect it with the row last night: Edmond and Arthur Tyne’s injuries, Ridley being held prisoner in the cellar, Oliver getting roaring drunk and all the other odd goings-on that had taken place in the wee hours after Aunt Fonteyn’s funeral. I grimly wondered how Oliver and Elizabeth would ever manage to hold fast to a topic like the weather throughout the ordeal of supper. The gouty crows would be disinclined to ask a direct question, but there was always a chance one of them might pluck up the nerve to try. Just as well for me that I was missing it all, for I’d find myself hard-pressed to keep a neutral and sober face.
I dismissed the footman, thanking him with a penny vale. He had surely gotten the note directly from Clarinda, and even if he could not read might have some idea of what it was about. Though the servants of Fonteyn House were fairly trustworthy, they were not above taking an avid interest in the antics of their betters. Would I go to see her or stay? I intended to have a talk with her, but not really planned out when. It was rather like having a tooth
drawn—sooner or later it would have to be done, but neither haste nor delay would make the process the least bit pleasant to endure.
Well, I thought, heaving out of my chair with a groan, mustn’t disappoint the below-stairs gossips.
CHAPTER THREE
Edmond instructed the footmen on guard to ignore everything Clarinda said or promised on penalty of a prompt discharge from service and the pain of a sound thrashing that he would administer personally. Either threat was enough to ensure a close observance of his orders; together they had the effect of inspiring a formidable dedication to duty. When I first approached and made known my intention to visit the lady, the fellows were thrown into a painful dilemma. Passing on Clarinda’s correspondence—that is to say, the note to me slipped under the door along with a penny bribe—was one thing, but they had no idea what to do about visitors. Another bribe to grant me admission was out of the question because Edmond possessed the only key to the room. It would seem my one choice would be to confront him and ask if he might grant his consent to this call.
Well, that was one course of action I wasn’t keen to follow. Clarinda was asking much if she expected me to go that far for her. She probably wasn’t aware of the business of the solitary key—that or she anticipated conducting a conversation through the locked door. Hardly wise, considering the footmen would hear all and be only too glad to share a detailed recountal with the other servants. Perhaps she would think I’d simply order them out of earshot. Indeed, I could do so, but possessed no enthusiasm for crossing Edmond’s orders.
With a grimace for my own weakness, I chose the lesser of several evil options and quietly persuaded the men on guard to avail themselves of a short nap they would not remember taking. I borrowed one of their candles and stalked up to the storage room door, pausing before it to reflect that this was also a not very wise action. However, it would be easy enough to cause Clarinda to forget anything inconvenient. I vanished, candle and all, and resumed solidity on the other side.
Oliver’s description was accurate; it was a depressing little closet: cold, dark, and with a chamber pot smell to it, but not totally bare. A narrow bed with several blankets had been crammed in, along with a small chair and table. The latter held the leavings of her latest meal, paper, pen and ink and several candles, though only one was currently lighted. Unlike Ridley, Clarinda could be relied upon not to try burning the house down, though I wasn’t sure I would have given her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps Edmond based his trust on her acute sense of self-regard, and he knew she’d not attempt anything that might miscarry and endanger her own skin.
She faced the door, apparently having heard me outside with the footmen and had composed herself to receive, standing in the small space between the bed and the table, hands folded demurely at her waist. Still wearing yesterday’s black mourning clothes, her dress was the worse for wear with some tears and dried smears of mud, so the suffering dignity she strove to affect was somewhat spoiled.
Of course, she could not have possibly expected me to make the entrance that I did, but before she could do more than widen her eyes in reaction, I bored into their depths with my full concentration.
Forget what you’ve just seen, Clarinda, I whispered into her mind.
Her mouth popped open and she swayed backward one unsteady step as though she’d been physically struck. Had I been too forceful? Bad business for us if that proved true. Fear of the dire consequences made me turn away from her until my composure was restored.
When I had nerve enough to look again, I saw her shake her head and blink as she regained her balance and her senses. Until this moment I’d taken care not to examine my feelings about her; now came the realization of just how strong they were and how dangerous they could prove. If I held mere anger in my heart for Ridley’s actions, then Clarinda’s had inspired white hot fury. With all this night’s preoccupations I’d managed to thoroughly bury it, like heaping earth upon a fire. But instead of smothering the flames, the burial had only served to preserve, if not increase, their heat. I couldn’t trust myself to keep my temper under strict control with her. No more influencing for me; that state brought the true wishes of my deeper mind too close to implementation for comfort.
“Jonathan?” Her voice was none too firm, but I found it distinctly reassuring. It would seem that no permanent damage had been done to her mind if not her body. The fight last night left its mark on her. Her jaw was bruised and swollen where I’d struck her unconscious. Until then I’d never before raised a hand against a woman. In all honesty, that singular occasion did not weigh on my conscience.
“I got your note,” I said in as flat and discouraging a tone as I could summon. It wasn’t difficult.
“Thank you for coming.”
“What do you want?”
“I—I want nothing. That is to say—”
“Clarinda, you didn’t ask me up here without a reason,” I said wearily, putting my candle on the table.
She snapped her mouth shut.
“Just speak and have done with it.”
She lifted her chin, her eyes steady. “Edmond said that you were well, that when I shot at you I’d missed.”
At two paces she had not missed, but I’d been able to vanish for a crucial instant, and the darkness and flash of the powder served well to cover things.
“I thought he might have lied to me. I am glad to see he did not.”
“Are you?”
“You can believe what you like, Jonathan, but I never wished you harm.”
“Oh, indeed?”
“What was done was done only to protect my child.”
“And what rare pleasure you took from it, madam, trying to murder his father. Remember I heard everything you said at the time.”
“That was a sham for Thomas Ridley’s benefit. All of it. If I hadn’t pretended such for him he would have killed me on the spot.”
“You were most convincing.”
“I had to be!”
“Of course.”
Her hands formed into fists and dropped to her sides. “I can’t expect you to understand, but I did want you to at least know why I was forced—”
“Clarinda,” I said in a clear, cold voice. “If you want to waste the effort telling me this rot, that’s your business, but I have better diversions to occupy my time. I am not a fool and neither are you. I recall exactly everything you tried to do last night and how close you came to success, and nothing, no distortion of truth, half-truth or outright lie from you will change that memory.”
That stung her good and square. Were we in another place, she’d have probably slapped me soundly and marched out. Here all she could do was stand and stare and fume. Not that it lasted long. She recovered beautifully,. Her fists relaxed and she assumed a rueful expression.
“Very well, no more pretense. Is it possible that with you I may be able to speak the whole truth?”
A cutting reply concerning my sincere doubt that she would know how hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I held it back and gave a brusque nod.
She may have seen or sensed my skepticism, but chose to ignore it. “Edmond doesn’t know you’re here, does he?” She’d just correctly read one of the other reasons behind my abrupt manner. I should have to take extreme care dealing with her.
“It seemed the tactful thing to do for the moment.”
“No doubt. He’s a formidable man.”
I offered no comment, though I could easily agree with her on that point.
“He said that you’d seen Richard.”
“Took me by last night.”
“Did you like the boy?”
“What does it matter to you?”
Another sting for her, which was something of a surprise. I thought her beyond all tender feeling.
“It does matter. I’m afraid for my child. Our child.”
“In what way?”
“I’m afraid that because of what’s happened Edmond might do him harm. He could punish Richard for the things I’ve done.”
Clarinda was shut away in a most disagreeable spot with only her own dark soul for company, so hers was a reasonable fear, but not one I seriously harbored. Edmond could be unpleasant and gruff, but my feeling was that he would never purposely harm the boy. Elizabeth was even more sensitive of such matters and would have mentioned something had she the least misgivings about Edmond’s attitude. Even so, I had an excellent means of dealing with him to guarantee Richard’s well-being.
“I’ll see that the child is safeguarded from harm.” Instinct told me to continue to preserve a cool and indifferent front before her, but she was perceptive enough to see through it.
“You do care for him, don’t you?” she asked with a hint of rising hope.
It seemed better not to answer, though my silence was answer enough.
“I’m glad of that. What I say now, what I ask now, is not for my sake, but for the sake of that innocent child. You’re a part of this family, but you haven’t lived long with them, you don’t know them as I do. Richard will need a friend. Will you look out for him?”
A fair request, and certainly for something I’d be doing regardless of her intercession in the matter. “I shall do what I can. What about your other son?”
She looked away briefly. “He’s lost to me. He’s away at school; his life has been ordered and set out for him. Edmond saw to that. Edmond and Aunt Fonteyn.”
“Whom you murdered.” Edmond and I worked as much out between us—that Clarinda had killed Oliver’s mother—but I wanted to know for certain.
Clarinda’s lips twitched in a near smile. “If you think I regret helping that evil old harridan along to her place in hell, then please do reconsider. You—any of you—could get away from her. I could not. It was an ill day for me when I married her favorite brother and worse still when I gave him a son. She was always there, interfering, sharp as a thorn, and never once letting me forget who controlled the money”