“Breakfast sounds wonderful,” I said.
He took his hand away from my leg, and his expression grew more guarded. “Is everything all right?”
I’d given away my anxiety. “Er, yes, at least I think it is. I haven’t looked out the window, but I suppose the world continues apace? And you seem to be in good health, and reasonably cheerful, so…perhaps?”
He stared at me for a moment, before tossing back his head and laughing. “My dear Whyborne, every time I think I know what’s going on in that head of yours, you manage to utterly confound me.”
Oh. He’d thought my fears more commonplace ones. “Forgive me, I…everything is fine. I have no regrets about last night.”
His laughter trailed off into a wicked grin, and his hand strayed back to my knee. “I’m very glad to hear it. Perhaps you would consent to a repeat performance?”
My length showed its approval by rapidly forming a tent in the covers. Griffin’s smile grew wider at the sight, even as my face heated. What must he think of my complete lack of control?
“Would you be so kind as to pass me my drawers?” I asked. Still grinning, he did so, and then watched as I readied myself for the day. Had he dressed first and quietly as a way of steeling himself against rejection, should I harbor regrets or shame about our actions? Certainly it would be easier to take such a thing dressed and at a distance, instead of naked in bed with the fellow. But someone as accomplished, worldly, and handsome as Griffin would have no fear of rejection from, well, someone like me, so that couldn’t be it.
“Will you tell me why you expected disaster, simply because you lost control over your passions?” he asked, as I knotted my tie.
I hesitated. What would he think of me, when he heard my story? Would he regret sleeping with me?
“There was a boy,” I said at last. “A dear friend. Leander Somerby. He was two years older than me, the son of my godfather. Our fathers were great friends from their school days. I knew him my entire life.”
I paused, but Griffin only said, “Go on,” in a gentle tone I didn’t deserve.
I drew a deep breath, struggling to steady the beating of my heart and the sourness rising in my stomach. “We grew up together, more or less. We explored the bounds of Somerby Estate every chance we got: wading through its streams, riding through its fields, and skipping stones across the lake behind the house.”
Griffin smiled. “I must confess, I rather imagined you were the sort of boy to be happier reading indoors than running about outside.”
“Yes, well, you have the right of it for the most part,” I admitted. Would he think less of me for it? “Leander was always the leader in our exploits. Left to my own devices, I would have chosen the library.”
“I see.”
“One spring, Leander became convinced someone was performing blasphemous rituals on the island in the center of the lake. It was boyish nonsense, of course, but reading too much wild fiction had fired our imaginations. It seemed to have all the makings of a grand adventure.
“Leander came up with a plan. We would take his boat out on Walpurgisnacht—May Eve, the so-called witches sabbath—which seemed a natural time for any evil-doers to return to the island. He dreamed of the praise we would receive, having thus proved ourselves men. As for me, I imagined crouching in the little boat beside him, huddled under a blanket to hide ourselves from any observers, our thighs pressed together in the close quarters.”
“Heh.” Griffin’s smile hinted at memories of his own. “And rather more than that, I assume.”
“You assume correctly.” What a young fool I had been. “When the night finally came, it was nothing like my fevered dreams. A storm arose with the sunset. Rain and wind lashed the lake into a cauldron of thrashing water, and lightning danced off the surrounding hilltops.
“I should never have agreed to go out on such a night. It was madness, and I knew it. But I didn’t want him to be angry, or to scorn me for a coward. I wanted him to l-love me as I loved h-him.”
The smile vanished from Griffin’s face. Moving to my side, he put a hand to my shoulder. “What happened?”
“Disaster, of course. The boat capsized.” I rubbed at my arms, trying to warm them. God, the water had been cold. “I managed to get the boat turned back over, with me in it, more by luck than anything else. Leander didn’t have enough strength left to pull himself back in, though. I grabbed his hands, but the cold…I could barely feel my fingers even though I’d only been in the water a few minutes. I-I hung on for as long as I could, but…The last I saw of him was his pale face, staring up at me in despair as the water closed over him.”
Griffin put his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. “I don’t recall anything else until waking up in bed with pneumonia,” I said. “Uncle Addison had pulled me out of the boat, unconscious and cold as death. Th-they had to drag the bottom to find Leander.”
“The blame isn’t yours,” Griffin murmured against my hair.
“If I hadn’t loved him, if I hadn’t wanted him, I would never have gone along with his scheme. I might have talked him out of it, or at least not been so desperate to-to prove myself to him. I couldn’t let it happen again, so I tried not to think of, er, such things. To remain in control.”
His arms were warm around me. “What changed your mind?”
“I didn’t,” I admitted. “But it seems there is something about you I find irresistible.”
“Careful: your compliments will go to my head.”
Perhaps I owed him the truth. “Your kindness,” I said, not daring to look at him.
He regarded me with a mixture of warmth and puzzlement. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re…well. You’re an ex-Pinkerton. You foil bank robberies and chase down outlaws, and carry revolvers and a sword cane, for God’s sake. And you would have been far above me even if you were hideous, but of course you had to be terribly handsome on top of everything else, and-and I assumed you would be condescending, or cruel. A situation I know how to handle. But you weren’t, you were kind. You didn’t laugh at me, and you didn’t act like I was useless, even when I behaved foolishly. How could I defend myself?”
Dear heavens, how pathetic. I twisted my hands together and hoped the floor might open up beneath me.
His hands twined around mine, stilling them. I stared at the buttons of his vest, breathing in the smell of sandalwood. “I haven’t had much of any schooling, you know,” he said, apropos of nothing. “I grew up on the Kansas prairie, where the orphan train left me. There was a small schoolhouse with a few books, where I learned to read and do sums, but little else. Once I arrived in Chicago, I taught myself to speak and dress properly, and copied the manners of wealthier men until I made those manners my own. I read as often as I have free time, but I must admit to preferring novels to scientific treatises. How do you think I felt, going to the museum with the object of asking help from a man with a real job, who could speak a dozen languages—”
“Thirteen. But I can read more.”
He laughed. “Thirteen languages and can read more, and is the son of a railroad magnate to boot—”
“That doesn’t matter,” I objected.
“My point is you were raised with manners and books and servants, while I was hitching mules and milking cows. I was intimidated; I rather worried you’d sneer at me, and was very grateful when you didn’t.”
“Oh,” I said. Griffin, intimidated by me? Even given his reasoning, it seemed ludicrous.
He brushed a kiss across my lips, there and gone before I could gather myself to respond. “Come now, my dear. Let’s have breakfast.”
“Yes.” There was a golden bubble in my chest, pushing out against my ribs. “Thank you for being patient with me.”
His smile turned the gloomy morning to pure sunshine. “You’re worth it.”
Chapter 16
The snow of last night had piled up in deep drifts all around the house. “At least my absence at the Ladysmith thi
s morning won’t be remarked on,” I said, peering out a window while Griffin enthusiastically scrambled eggs. “Not to suggest it would be otherwise.”
“I thought the Ladysmith was a well-oiled machine, every cog working together to make it ‘the best’ museum in America,” he remarked, in a fair imitation of the director’s voice.
“More like a cabinet of curiosities—the staff, that is, not the museum.” I returned to the kitchen and sat down at the small table. There was a larger dining room, but I preferred this more intimate setting. It reminded me of all the meals I’d had with Miss Emily, when the rest of the family had been too busy for me. “The museum’s philosophy is to leave us alone to encourage our brilliance, which actually does produce results for the most part. The downside is, I could probably expire from a gas leak in my office, and if Christine were in the field, no one would notice for weeks.”
“You and Dr. Putnam are good friends?” Griffin asked. Although his tone was studiedly casual, he seemed to be giving the eggs far more attention than they required.
“She’s my only friend, besides you, I suppose. I would say she’s like a sister to me, except I was never at all close with my older sister.”
Was it my imagination, or did Griffin’s shoulders relax just a fraction? Certainly he seemed less intent on the eggs. “She seems very…driven.”
“She knew what she wanted from life, and she took it,” I said, although the words were far too simple to encompass the battles she’d fought. But the story was Christine’s to tell, not mine. “If she makes it in to the museum today, she might notice my absence, although she’ll probably just assume the snow kept me home. She isn’t really one to worry.”
“Well, then, we shall thank the snow gods for the chance to have a lazy breakfast,” Griffin said, neatly dividing the eggs onto two plates.
We had coffee and cold cereal in addition to the eggs. Griffin took the newspaper at home, and courteously offered part of the morning edition to me. We sat together comfortably, with our food and coffee, perusing the news. I couldn’t recall a better breakfast.
“Last night,” Griffin said, after cleaning a good portion of his plate.
From his businesslike tone, he doubtless meant the investigative portion of the evening. The investigation of the house, that is, not one another.
“It was a trap.” The words had even more weight now, in the light of day. “They knew we’d be there. Or someone would.”
He nodded, his mouth pressed into a tight line. “Yes. The question is how.”
“Did you speak to anyone? You said you’d asked around. Perhaps the Brotherhood knew someone was looking for this Buckeye Jim character?”
“Perhaps,” he allowed. “Or perhaps it was planned from the beginning.”
“You mean, er, Rosa?”
His gaze rested on nothing, as if he didn’t see the warm little kitchen, but rather some far colder and lonelier place. “Madam Rosa, yes. She was the one who gave me Buckeye Jim’s name and linked him with Philip Rice.”
“But you said she was your best informant. Surely she wouldn’t have betrayed you.”
Griffin looked down at his plate. “I learned a long time ago not to rely on other people,” he said tonelessly. “I paid Rosa. If someone else paid her more, why wouldn’t she turn on me?”
“Because you were kind to her?” I suggested.
He glanced up, blinking as if he’d half-forgotten I was there. “I tried to be. But kindness isn’t always enough.” Don’t be naïve, in other words.
“I see.” My cold cereal had been reduced to a puddle of milk; I put the spoon down carefully. “If you’re right, the Brotherhood knows your identity. Why set up an elaborate trap instead of simply finishing you off here?”
Griffin shook his head. “You forget—I always go to the docks in disguise. Rosa doesn’t know my real name.”
“Very foresighted of you.”
“It’s habit, to hide as much of the truth as possible.” His mouth tightened, as if at remembered pain. “There were times working with the Pinkterons, when I could barely remember who Griffin Flaherty even was.”
It didn’t sound as if his memories were pleasant. I touched him lightly on the back of the hand. “If you ever need reminding again, I will assist.” My stomach clenched around my breakfast; when had I grown bold?
Griffin’s pensive expression melted into a smile, and he turned his hand palm-up, linking his fingers with mine. “I’ll hold you to that, my dear.”
I ducked my head, unable to suppress the silly grin stretching my mouth. My eyes chanced across a headline on my neglected newspaper.
“VIOLENT ATTACK ON GOOSE TEMPLE ROAD LEAVES ONE DEAD, ONE INJURED,” it read.
Within a few sentences, I had snatched up the paper. “Griffin, listen to this! ‘Yesterday, early risers found two men lying to the side of Goose Temple Rd. One had already expired from his injuries, but the other remains in desperate straits in the charity ward. According to relatives, the men were in the habit of drinking together late into the night, and must have been met their assailant while walking home from the saloon.
‘The widow of the dead man, one Gerald Dalton, insists he was partially eaten and covered with human bite marks. Police, however, deny her claims and say the two revelers met with a wild dog rather than any human assailant. They also deny any connection between the attack and the disappearance of Miss Ashley Moore, last seen in the same area five days ago.’”
Griffin regarded me with a thoughtful frown. “Do you think they ran afoul of the Guardians?”
“Perhaps, but most of them wouldn’t leave a human bite. I suspect something else. Someone else.” I dropped the paper and pulled the Arcanorum from my breast pocket. A hasty perusal brought me to the passage I needed. “Here we are. According to the book, anyone raised from the dead ‘must have it red’ for three months after.”
“And you don’t think they’re referring to wine.”
I glared at him from under lowered brows. “It means raw meat and blood, I’m sure of it. Perhaps cattle might do for the likes of the Guardians, as they’ve merely been built from the parts of dead men and animals, but for someone who had truly been resurrected, only human flesh would do.”
Griffin’s hands clenched convulsively on the table. “Blackbyrne?”
“Blackbyrne. It must be.”
~ * ~
The snow melted throughout the afternoon, until only a trace remained on the soggy ground. Griffin spent the day immersed in newspaper clippings and notes on the Brotherhood, cursing and muttering to himself as he scratched down ideas and wild speculations on a notepad. Sifting back through the newspapers, which he kept copies of in his study, he found reports of other unexplained attacks going back to the beginning of November, when Blackbyrne’s grave had been violated. It seemed more and more likely that our guesses were correct, and the Brotherhood had stolen Blackbyrne’s body and resurrected him toward some unknown purpose.
“I wonder…if Philip Rice was a member of the Brotherhood, did he begin to have doubts?” Griffin murmured, half to himself.
“After resurrecting a cannibal? Who then perhaps set about making the Guardians, or giving the instructions to do so? I’d think that would be enough to give anyone second thoughts,” I said. “Do you believe they killed him for it?”
“Maybe.” Griffin rubbed tiredly at his eyes. “Without more evidence, all we can do is speculate.”
When the alarm clock went off the next morning, before the sun had even risen, a number of curses in several languages went through my mind. Dragging myself out of Griffin’s warm bed and into the icy dawn was tortuous, a procedure made no easier when he sleepily tried to pull me back under the covers with him.
Only my need for a change of clothing before work impelled me out the door and back to my apartment. None of my neighbors seemed to have noticed my absence, which didn’t surprise me. I certainly wouldn’t have noticed theirs.
I walked up the steps to the
Ladysmith’s entrance a short time later, surrounded by other staff members rushing to get to their desks on time. I’d washed, shaved, and attired myself in clothing not rumpled from being left on Griffin’s floor, and yet I still felt marked. It seemed as if any of them would know what I’d been up to with Griffin simply by looking at my face.
None of them gave me a second glance, however. The phalanx of suspicious-eyed guards hired to protect the exhibit did glare at me, as if certain I’d committed a criminal act of some kind—but they glared at poor Dr. Leavitt the same way, and he was over ninety years old and had never done anything more savage than collecting the Lepidoptera which formed his study.
Miss Parkhurst gave me her usual smile as I passed by her desk. “Good morning, Dr. Whyborne. Did you enjoy your snow day?”
My ears grew hot. “Er, I-I suppose.” It occurred to me I ought to respond in kind. “Did you? Enjoy your day, that is.”
“Oh yes!” Her smile was big and bright. “I went out with some of the other girls who live in the same boarding house, and we had a bit of a snowball fight.” She blushed lightly. “I suppose such things must sound rather silly to you.”
“It sounds delightful,” I answered. And it probably was, if one had enough coordination to actually hit anything with a thrown snowball. I’d watched my brother and his friends play in the snow as children, only to be laughed at and told to go back inside when I asked to join them.
Her smile had flagged; now it returned full force. “It was, sir. Would you like me to bring you some coffee?”
“If it isn’t too much trouble—”
“Not at all, Dr. Whyborne. You’re never any trouble.”
I sat at my desk for a while, uselessly shuffling papers and putting off the inevitable. Perhaps if I went to the library and searched for more references to Nyarlathotep? Or found Christine and pried her away from the exhibit long enough to discuss what Griffin and I had found?
All of which I needed to do…and all of which was simply an excuse to avoid the most urgent, but most unpleasant, task.
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3 Page 14