A Passionate Performance

by Eileen Putman

  “It was I who shot him. I must stay with him.” Tears filled her eyes.

  “Very well,” he said after a moment. “I will prepare some tea for you. It will help.”

  As Anh closed the door behind him, Sarah doubted anything would ease the torrent of guilt and sorrow that had washed over her since her cramped finger tripped the trigger of Lord Linton’s pistol. It had been a horrible accident, but that scarcely mattered — he had lain as still as death since that awful night. A nightmare of repeating images besieged her: Dr. Quincy’s stunned expression as he tended Lord Linton, the shocked faces of Lady Hogarth’s guests, Lord Pembroke’s softly urgent tone as he slipped her out the door and into his own carriage.

  Had it not been for Lord Pembroke, Sarah knew she would have been in a jail. He shook his head in bewilderment but otherwise offered no objection when she insisted that he take her to Lord Linton’s townhouse so that she could be present when Dr. Quincy brought him there.

  All had been a blur since then, save the stark knowledge that she had failed Lord Linton miserably by not following through with his plan. Because of her, he had come to grave harm.

  Now that lean, strong form lay still and immobile in the enormous bed, surrounded by soft pillows and bedding. Those mesmerizing grey eyes were closed. His lips were pale and motionless. Nimble fingers that handled cards with such ease lay inert on the covers.

  There were no words for her sorrow; only Ophelia’s came to mind. “O heavenly powers, restore him,” she murmured.

  “Sarah?”

  At the familiar voice, she turned. “William!”

  Her brother stood uncertainly in the doorway but stepped forward as Sarah flung herself into his arms. Tears coursed down her face.

  Finally, William set her gently from him. “What has happened?”

  Sarah stared at him. He was taller than when she had last seen him. “I was supposed to shoot him — pretend to, that is.” Her voice caught on a sob. “But my hand got a cramp and I did not shift my aim. Instead, the gun went off. I shot him. If he dies it will be all my fault.”

  William’s eyes widened. “I do not understand, but I am sure that whatever happens, it is not your fault.”

  Sarah gave him a watery smile. “You will ever believe the best of me. But you do not know the truth. I have deceived you. You will not wish to own me as your sister when you hear it all.”

  William listened carefully to Sarah’s tearful confession — how she had not been in the employ of various genteel ladies all these months, how she had taken to the stage and accepted Lord Linton’s offer of an extremely unusual job, how she had posed as his mistress in London and finally, shot him in a scandalous scene that he himself had scripted.

  He said nothing until she had finished, though his expression had grown increasingly grave. He seemed older than his fourteen years. His freckles were as noticeable as ever, but the boyishness had vanished. His voice was lower.

  “I see,” he said at last. “While I was away at school, blissfully unaware of your sacrifices, you were humiliating yourself to keep me in the style you imagined a baron should enjoy. You never even hinted at our dire financial circumstances.”

  “You were too young, William,” she said. “There was nothing you could do.”

  “I am fourteen now. That is old enough to earn my keep, and yours, too.” His chin rose defiantly. “You were wrong to keep this from me. Did you think I would dodge my responsibilities?”

  “No, but — ”

  “It was not your decision to make, Sarah. I know you tried to protect me, but I am a man now. It is my job to protect you from such a horrible fate as you have had to endure. You did not even give me a chance.”

  Sarah studied him. He seemed a full head taller. His reddish hair was tousled in the style of the day, but his green eyes, mirrors of her own, bore a somberness that removed any suggestion of the boy. William had indeed grown up.

  “I am sorry, William. It seems I have much to apologize for on all counts.”

  He smiled gently. “You have done nothing but that which your heart dictated. But you must let me take over now. I shall leave school. I will see about the house in Surrey. Squire Gibbons has much to answer for. Anh told me he has been pocketing the rent. I will force him to pay us our due.”

  “Anh?” Sarah frowned. How had he come to be involved in their financial affairs? She eyed the deathly still figure in bed. William answered her unspoken question.

  “Anh told me that Lord Linton had him look into our affairs. Did you know that Anh knows magic? And all sorts of mysterious arts I have never heard of. He has promised to teach me.”

  Sarah smiled. For a moment William’s enthusiasm for Anh’s tantalizing secrets transformed him into the boy she remembered. Something told her that Anh could teach William far more than a few magic tricks. It would be good for him to learn from such a man.

  Her gaze returned to the bed. Lord Linton was a man of many secrets, too. Beyond that black revenge in him lay something else, perhaps even goodness, of that she was certain.

  Was Anh correct? Did war wage within his soul even now?

  ***

  This time his father drew the ace of spades. Thin lips smiled mirthlessly at Justin’s paltry king. Bloodshot eyes glowed with the triumph of victory.

  “Alas, you are dead,” the ravaged voice said.

  The pistol pointed at him, its gleaming barrel the maw of death. Justin stared at it, at the man who clutched it, the man who’d given him life.

  “I have been watching you, my boy, waiting for the chance that has come at last.”

  A bony finger hovered over the trigger, and Justin shivered as something cold and unearthly passed over his skin. He had never felt such a sensation. Before he could puzzle it out, something exploded in his chest. White-hot heat seared his shoulder, but that was not the wound that hurt the worst. He looked at the smoking pistol and the finger that rested on the trigger. Not bony, like his father, or his father’s ghost. Soft, feminine. His gaze shot to the face of the person who held the weapon. The deep blue eyes that had been his father’s transformed to the color of precious emeralds.

  Sarah. His mouth tried to form itself around the name, crying out her betrayal. But all that he heard was his father’s ungodly laughter, and the words that were branded on his soul for all eternity.

  Revenge. An eye for an eye.

  Cold. It was so cold. And hot. The heat in his shoulder burned even as he shivered. The wound on his soul burned worse.

  Emerald eyes. Betrayal worse than any his father could have devised. Or had the man plotted this poetic justice from the grave? I shall find a comfortable grave and watch the lot of you make fools of yourselves for all eternity.

  Justin knew he had been a fool. If only he could fight off the cold, and the unbearable heat, he might find her and exact revenge.

  No. Not revenge. Not against Sarah. It hurt to think about it. Almost as much as his shoulder hurt. Something else, then. He must think of something else. Sarah in his arms, holding him, wrapping herself around him. Warming him. Chasing the cold. Pleading with him.

  Yes, he would think of that. He would think about it so hard that he could almost touch her, hear her whispered words in his ears, feel her salty tears on his face.

  Sarah.

  In his arms. In his heart.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The bat statue returned Sarah’s gaze with glowing jade eyes that did nothing to settle the growing turmoil inside her. The unfamiliar smoky sweetness of incense burning at the base of the statuette contributed to her uneasiness, which was heightened by Anh’s incomprehensible chanting as he sat cross-legged before a diagram of broken and unbroken lines.

  If magic or mysterious healing arts could cure Lord Linton, then so be it. But none of the strange artifacts, chants, and potions that filled the chamber had changed that cold, pale form on the bed into anything resembling the vibrant man who once occupied it.

  It was as if Lord Linton�
�s spirit had vacated his body.

  Only once, in the impossibly lonely hours just before dawn, had there been any sign that he was still among them. He had begun shivering, and Sarah had covered him with blankets and quilts. When that did not stop his teeth from chattering, she lay in the bed and wrapped her arms around him, not caring whether Anh or anyone else might discover her there. That quieted him, and she lay there for several hours, holding him tightly, willing her strength into him. Once, she thought she heard her name on his lips, but it faded as quickly as a sigh taken by the wind.

  Anh’s chanting abruptly ceased. Sarah looked up to see him watching her steadily.

  “Are you finished?” she asked, her voice groggy from lack of sleep.

  “It is never finished,” Anh replied. “The end is also the beginning. The cycle renews itself with each sunset and sunrise, with each ebb and flow of the tide. Life never stops. It only changes form.”

  Sarah suppressed a sigh. Anh spoke in cryptic axioms, and he rarely answered a question directly. He viewed the world from a different perspective and seemed to know things beyond her ken. “What happens next?” she asked.

  “What will.”

  With that, Anh rolled up a piece of parchment on which had been painted a series of symbols and held it to the tiny flame in the bat statue’s base. When only charred ashes remained, he murmured some incomprehensible words and slipped from the room.

  Sarah stared dejectedly at the bat. For all the mystical power that Anh’s ritual directed at the jade figure, it still looked repulsive. Even as she studied the statue, its death’s head grin seemed to take on an eerie life of its own.

  Sarah blinked. Was it her imagination, or was there movement about its unsightly snout, a barely perceptible fluttering of its revolting wings? She rubbed her temples. Clearly the lack of sleep had distorted her senses.

  “Ugly, is it not?”

  With a little shriek, Sarah whirled. From the bed, Lord Linton’s haunted eyes held hers. There was life in his gaze, but her relief stilled as she identified the cold shard of bitterness there as well.

  “How do you feel?” she whispered.

  Ignoring the question, he condemned her with a look as hard as stone. “You betrayed me.”

  Sarah did not flinch.

  “I failed you,” she conceded. “I abandoned the plan. But I did not intend to shoot you. My finger got a cramp, and the gun went off. I cannot tell you how deeply I regret that.”

  Did he believe her? His closed expression revealed nothing. His gaze flicked to the statuette. “A bat,” he muttered. “Symbol of happiness and long life. Anh is ever the optimist.”

  His mouth curled into a bitter smile, but it was fleeting as he was quickly overcome by a dry croaking cough.

  Whatever he thought of her, at least his wits were intact. Sarah poured a glass of water from the pitcher at the bedside table and held it to his lips. “Drink this.”

  Silently he accepted her assistance. “I am as weak as a kitten,” he managed.

  “That will soon change, now that you are awake,” Sarah assured him. “We have only been able to give you water and Anh’s special tea, but now that you can eat, you will regain your strength.”

  “You have attended me?” Uncertainty filled his eyes.

  Sarah nodded. “Along with Anh. You are a remarkably complacent patient when you are senseless, my lord.” She gave him a tentative smile. It would not do to confess how desperately she had urged those precious drops of liquid past his lips, how fearfully she had thought never to see that familiar sardonic smirk again.

  “And you are remarkably docile at the moment.” His eyes bored into hers. “Does a guilty conscience plague you, Sarah? Is that why you tended me so diligently? Tell me: Is Bow Street on your heels? Or did you somehow manage to keep your identity a secret?”

  Sarah sighed. He would have the whole. “I am told that an officer appeared at Brook Street the day after the shooting. I wore a mask that night, but since the entire ton knew of our bickering, everyone knew exactly who I was. Besides, only your mistress would have taken such umbrage at your special attention to Lady Amanda. Indeed, I believe Lady Manwaring is the object of a most diligent search.”

  “How is it, then, that you have not been taken into custody?”

  “After the shooting, everything was in chaos. When I realized I had really shot you, I did not want to leave. But Lord Pembroke was kind enough to press the issue — he helped me outside, then ferried me to your town house.”

  “How gentlemanly of him.”

  Sarah ignored that. “Dr. Quincy arrived with you sometime later. You had lost a good amount of blood. He tended you, but frankly, my lord, I was not persuaded he knew how to save you.” She hesitated. “And so I had you taken to Lintonwood. I felt you would have a better chance of recovery here.”

  He regarded her silently.

  “It was perhaps presumptuous of me,” she added.

  “I take it my loyal staff raised no objection to being ordered around by a woman in a Marie Antoinette costume?”

  Sarah swallowed hard. “I believe they understood I had your best interests uppermost in my mind.”

  “I see. And what of Bow Street?”

  “It may take time for Bow Street to discover that Lady Manwaring was not who she pretended to be,” Sarah replied. “If they think to look for me at Lintonwood — and I suspect they will not — they will see that you are not dead, and indeed have recovered sufficiently to make it impossible to try me for your murder.”

  “Ah. My survival was uppermost in your mind, for it was the ticket to your own.”

  Sarah blanched. “That is most unfair, my lord.”

  “Then all of London still believes me dead? My plan is still intact?” His eyes held a feverish gleam.

  Illness had done nothing to change his twisted craving for revenge, Sarah realized forlornly. “I believe that everything is indeed as you wish it,” she said stiffly. “Except, of course, for your injuries.”

  “You expect some remuneration, some tangible evidence of my thanks, I suppose.” He watched her carefully.

  Abruptly, Sarah set the water glass on the table with a hard thump that rattled the nearby pitcher. “I expect nothing from you, my lord. Nothing at all.”

  With that, she rose and left the room.

  ***

  When Justin awoke from his afternoon nap, a pair of impossibly green eyes was watching him with unnerving intensity. They were so precisely the shade of Sarah’s that Justin blinked to clear his vision. Freckles dotted his observer’s nose and cheeks in far more profusion than Sarah’s, but the resemblance was uncanny.

  “You must be William,” he observed in a hoarse voice. At the sudden flare of hostility in that green gaze, Justin quickly added, “That is, er, Lord Armistead.”

  The young man nodded, and Justin noted the mixture of pride and reserve that seemed to war with the youth’s natural curiosity. Unlike Sarah, William was as transparent as glass.

  For a long while they stared at each other. Justin was surprised to feel a twinge of recognition at the vulnerability he read in William’s steady gaze. At times, as he well knew, the cusp of manhood was a frightening place to be.

  “I am indebted to you for your hospitality and your attention to my financial affairs,” the young baron said at last. “I assume that your relationship with my sister is the reason for your efforts.”

  William held himself stiffly, and Justin could see the question in his eyes. The lad must have been reluctant to broach such an awkward subject, but the burdens of manhood were upon him.

  “Your sister informed me of certain financial difficulties arising from the administration of your affairs in Surrey,” Justin said easily. “Likewise, she told me of your decision to seek her out during your school holiday. I had business in town that also involved your sister, but in the meantime I took it upon myself to send Anh to you and to have him investigate the Surrey matter.”

  William looked tro
ubled. “I do not understand the nature of your relationship with my sister, sir. Perhaps you would be so good as to explain.”

  If he could explain that, Justin thought wryly, he could fly to the moon. But he owned the youth an explanation. The time for prevarication was past.

  “I employed Miss Armistead to play the role of my mistress in order to bring my father’s killer to justice,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I imagine that sounds rather strange to you, but it is a plan I have been formulating for some time. I have hopes that the result I seek will soon come to pass, thanks due to your sister’s excellent — if rather unfortunately improvised — performance.”

  Angry currents swirled within those green depths. “Sarah is excellent at all she undertakes, sir, but I would not have her stoop to ruination. I can provide for her well enough.”

  Justin met the youth’s gaze. “My relationship with your sister was a pretense only, Lord Armistead.”

  William frowned. “Do you mean to say that she is not...?” Flushing, he broke off.

  “Miss Armistead is not my mistress,” Justin said quietly, hoping William would not pursue the subject. At the moment he could not have said what the true nature of their relationship was. It seemed to change daily.

  William absorbed this information in obvious relief, until another thought intruded. “But if she was presented as such before all of London, she was compromised just the same.”

  “You may be certain that no one knew her as Sarah Armistead,” Justin assured him. “She used a different name and was attired rather more flamboyantly than perhaps you are accustomed to seeing. At all events, I understand Armisteads have not moved in London circles for years. There was little chance of her being recognized.”

  “Whether or not she was recognized, it seems to me that she was compromised nevertheless,” William insisted. “And she is an unmarried woman, alone and unchaperoned in your home. How much time has she spent thus?”

  Justin did not think that William wished to hear that a woman in Sarah’s profession was hardly subject to compromise. The lad was only trying to do his duty and seemed genuinely troubled by the potential wrong done his sister. But Justin was not about to let the lad force him into the parson’s noose.