In the Brief Eternal Silence

by Rebecca Melvin

  As he was looking away from her hiding spot, Miss Murdock drew the curtain back a small amount further, pressed her face to the glass to look below her. The sight that met her eyes there caused her to suppress a little surprised laugh. A dandy dressed in a turquoise coat, and God help her, yellow shirt and pantaloons stood on the pavement of the mew beneath her window. He held a cane in one hand and as Miss Murdock watched, he signaled up to the boy at her window with it, holding it in mid-air and miming taps. The boy outside her window gave a disgruntled shrug and turned back to do as he was bid.

  But Miss Murdock did not draw back and conceal herself in the curtain, for something about the man below had made her draw a quick breath of recognition. His eyes had glinted gold in the darkness.

  As if to confirm her suspicion, another man moved into her view, and the very height of him next to the dandy, the very powerfulness of him next to that other slight, lithe figure, told her it was none other but Tyler. And that foppish dandy could be none other than St. James!

  She moved now with quickness and drew back the curtain so that she could unlock the window and draw up the sash of it, nearly surprising the young boy off the ledge. “Am I to come down?” she whispered to that startled lad.

  “Aye, miss, if you please,” he answered in a short breathless burst.

  Miss Murdock nodded once. “Typical,” she said with cryptic crispness. Then she drew the window up further. “You may as well come in and go down with me. I wouldn't be risking my neck further for him if I were you.”

  The boy climbed through the window with a good deal of finesse which Miss Murdock had to admire. “Risked me neck for a lot less honur'bul reas'ns, Miss.”

  '“If you judge waking a poor girl in her bedchamber in the middle of the night and scaring her half from her wits as being more honorable than what you've been about before, then you are in very sad shape, indeed,” Miss Murdock replied in a tart, hushed voice. “But here, I do not mean to abuse you, for I well know who has put you up to this stunt,” she added in the cause of fairness. “Just allow me to put these slippers on and then we will go down.”

  “Yes, miss,” the boy said, not in the least chastised at any rate. “Coo, miss, this is a grand room!” he whispered in admiration.

  “So it is,” she agreed and taking him by the shoulder she opened the door to the hallway, looked quickly up and down it and then shoved him without ceremony out into it. “And you may wait for me out here for you have no call to be in a lady's bedchambers,” she whispered back. Then she shut the door, ran to her closet, dug out the same cloak she had worn on her journey to London and put it on over her robe. She buttoned it up quickly, as quickly as she could, for to her surprise, her hands were shaking, and then she paused a moment to look in the mirror, and wished she hadn't, for of course the beautiful hairstyle she had worn earlier that evening was quite gone except for a mass of tangled, ratty curls.

  “Oh, why in God's name do I have to look like a perfect shrew each and every time I see that man?” she asked herself in exasperation, and then gave a little sigh and a laugh. It did not matter. It could not matter.

  She opened the door, found the boy in the hallway, looking rather subdued at being left alone by himself in the luxurious expanse of it. “I am Miss Murdock,” Lizzie whispered. “And I had better get your name, I suppose.”

  “It is Steven, miss. I'm pleased to meet you, miss.”

  “All right, Steven, this way.”

  They snuck along the hallway and down the staircase, Miss Murdock having a moment's doubt about what she should say if they were caught, but the house with the most of its servants being nearly as elderly as their employer remained quiet. Miss Murdock realized it would have been more expedient to go out a different entrance than the front, but as she was unfamiliar with anything but the main front rooms, she did not want to be stumbling about any more than she had to. So she carefully unlocked the large front doors, opened one enough for she and the boy who was nearly as tall as she at any rate to slip through, and then clicked it closed again, seeing to it that it remained unlocked.

  Then Steven was skipping ahead of her, laughing in the night. “You're a right cool one, Miss. I was made sure that you would scream when I came to your window, but his lordship, he said he thought not, and so he was right. Was you expecting him then?”

  “No,” Miss Murdock replied a little crossly. “I am certainly not in the habit of slipping out of the house at night to meet gentlemen, so you can disregard that notion out of hand! I would not be down here now, but would have sent his lordship packing except that I have something I expressly need to talk with him about.”

  “Oh,” Steven said, much of his pleasure taken out of the escapade as she had managed to make it all seem very reasonable and respectable. But then they rounded the corner and Miss Murdock sighted St. James and was impaled by the gold gleam of his eyes. She drew up for a second, having forgotten just how overpowering his gaze could be, then she continued to walk and her pace was slower, as if she were measuring him with every step she took.

  He came toward her, using the cane as elegantly as it was useless to him. He stopped in front of her and Steven went ahead to where the carriage, the driver and Tyler were, leaving them in semi-privacy beneath the moon and the street lamp at the corner of the house. “Miss Murdock,” he said with a wicked little flickering of an eyebrow, “you are looking very well tonight.”

  To Miss Murdock's disgust, she felt her face heat into a blush. “I know very well how I look! And I fear it is not half as well as you, milord,” she managed to say. “Your sudden pressing engagement must needs you to look very fine, indeed.”

  “Ah, yes,” St. James returned and gave a self-deprecating glance down at his clothing as though he had forgotten it until her reminder. “Ludicrous is it not? You suspect I did not put on this peacock attire to come and visit you?” he asked.

  “You would hardly need to put on boots with a heel to be higher than me, milord,” Miss Murdock returned with dryness. “Evidently whoever you have spent the evening calling upon is taller than I.”

  “Let us just say of a loftier stature than either of us, Miss Murdock, and leave it at that, shall we?” His tone was light and bantering, but he seemed very preoccupied all the same, and she fell silent despite wanting to press her own concerns on him and be allowed to go home.

  He turned, so that he was at her side, and of mutual accord they began to stroll toward the carriage. “By the by, how is your hand, Miss Murdock?”

  “My hand?” she asked. “Oh, the burn. Of course it does not pain me any longer.”

  “I am relieved to hear it,” and as he said so, he took her hand in his and raised the back of it to his lips. “Shall we go for a drive, Miss Murdock?”

  She did not answer for that swift, careless gesture he had made toward her had her quite speechless. They were still several feet from the coach and he stopped, waiting for her answer. “I—I'm not properly dressed for a drive, milord,” she managed.

  His answer was gentle, “Neither are you properly dressed to be standing here with me for anyone passing by to see, Miss Murdock. Which is my fault, as usual, you may point out, but I had a wish, a need, to talk with you tonight.”

  Of course he was right. The fact that she had been slow in realizing the possible consequences of remaining in the mew with him for anyone to see, she could only account for as the result of her hand's tingling where he had kissed the back of it, and the unexpected rushing of blood to her head. She had the sudden certainty that if she allowed him to draw her forward and into the coach, that he meant to seduce her. Which was a ridiculous thought, for if she had been feeling somewhat attractive earlier that night, she was in no way attractive now, she reminded herself.

  That sobering reflection brought her more to her senses instead of standing in the light of the moon feeling a little moon struck herself, and she nodded. “It is rather chilly out here.”

  “Good lass,” he told her, and the
y crossed the few feet to the coach.

  Tyler was there, standing next to the conveyance, and he nodded and pulled his cap, said around his ever present wad of chewing tobacco, “Evening, Miss,” as though it were not at all uncommon to see a young lady of quality in her night clothes with only a robe and cloak to make her closer to (but still a far cry from) decent.

  “And to you, Tyler,” she returned, the very normalcy of it comforting her and making any remaining thought of seduction fade away.

  The boy, Steven, hurried to open the door for them and sketched a half nod, half bow while pulling his forelock in a confusion of motion. Tyler clambered up to join the groom that was already above minding the horses. St. James climbed into the conveyance after her and Steven shut the door and ran around to the back.

  St. James unfolded one of the rugs stored beneath the seats and spread it over her lap. “Warm enough?” he asked her from his half kneeling position, his gold eyes disquieting in their nearness.

  “Indeed, yes. Thank you,” Miss Murdock replied, a little breathless. He settled into the seat opposite her. The carriage began moving at a lazy pace and in the dim interior, he was silent.

  It occurred to Miss Murdock as she watched the Duchess' house slip from her view and other houses take its place outside the carriage window that it was somehow very peaceful. Not a word she would have thought to associate with her companion. But tonight his preoccupation with his thoughts did not disturb her, but rather as a person observes a dog when it has caught the scent of something, and raises its head to more closely examine this scent, she merely observed him and wondered what conclusions he was coming to, knowing she would be alerted if said conclusions were anything to alarm her.

  “You are very quiet tonight, Miss Murdock,” he said at last.

  “It is just very peaceful and I am loathe to interrupt it. Or you in your musings.”

  “You've interrupted them quite regularly today.”

  “Oh,” she said, and then, feeling a little foolish, “I'm so sorry.”

  His lips quirked but he did not go so far as to laugh at her. “I did need to see you tonight, Miss Murdock, and I very much regret being unable to keep my earlier appointment.”

  “Your grandmother was very disappointed, you know. She has gotten the wild notion in her head, I believe, that we should suit. Of course, you are to blame for that, because of your ill-advised announcement upon my arrival last night. No,” she shook her head in warning, “I have not forgotten that, nor forgiven you.”

  He did chuckle at that. “Ah, the Airing of Grievances. Have you a scorecard, Miss Murdock?”

  “No, I do not. But I am fast believing that I shall need one, for before I can voice my displeasure at one of your antics, you are already set upon another, usually worse one. And,” she continued, “your grandmother spends all of her considerable energy defending you, when I can not see in the least where you deserve it.”

  Although she was doing no more than lightly upbraiding him, he frowned as though her words had reminded him of something. “My grandmother, yes. Tell me, Miss Murdock, how much did she pry from you of my motives?” She hesitated and he added, “Come now, you may tell me for I will not blame you. I know how wily she can be when she has a mind, and you were not up to your best the night of our arrival.”

  Despite his reassurance, Miss Murdock felt as though she were being called on the carpet. “In retrospect, milord, I am sure I could have been more discreet, but as she was pressing quite determinedly for an explanation, I am afraid that I told her. . .” and she ducked her head down in a guilty little motion of confession, “that you had offered for me in order to obtain my horse.”

  To which he laughed, a very relieved note in his voice.

  “Well, it is not a lie, is it?” Miss Murdock asked. “And I had to come up with some kind of explanation for your ridiculous behavior. I apologize that you did not come out looking well, but it hardly made me seem any better. Quite pitiful, I think, it made me.”

  “No, no, Miss Murdock. You did precisely right, I assure you,” he protested. “I feared much worse, believe me, for the missive I got from her this morning demanding my audience led me to believe that you had spilled the whole to her, promptly and completely.”

  “Well, that would have hardly been wise, would it?” Miss Murdock returned. “For despite her great energy and will, she is quite old and, I think, rather soft-hearted. I am certainly not going to tell her the extent of your foolishness and send her into some sort of apoplectic attack.” And she flounced a little in her seat, very much annoyed that he should think she could be so dense.

  “Of course not,” he agreed, and it charmed her somehow, to see that she could make his voice shake with laughter. “I should have realized that you would not. It would have saved me at least one worry all of today.”

  Miss Murdock sobered. “But she is very upset with you for not coming this evening.”

  St. James grimaced. “I knew she would be, but I could not avoid it.” His gold eyes pierced over to her in the dimness of the carriage. “And you, Miss Murdock? Were you upset that I did not come earlier?”

  Miss Murdock drew in a steadying breath. “Indeed, I was, milord! I had something I most expressly wished to speak with you about.”

  He leaned forward and the beam of the moon from the carriage window found the pale plains of his cheeks and his high pale brow. “Go on. You have in essence answered one of my concerns.”

  She was suddenly loathe to continue. How pleasant it could be to just let him carry her along to where he would. But she had such a dread in her heart of the final outcome that she could not merely sit back and allow it. “You, of course, will not be surprised to learn that I have not changed my views on this arrangement?”

  His cheek ticked. “No. That does not come as a surprise to me.”

  “And I fear now that your grandmother has become involved that the longer I delay in returning home, the more she will be. . . disappointed in the end.”

  “So do not disappoint her,” he told her, still sitting forward in his seat. “Do not disappoint me.”

  “Surely you see that I must?” Miss Murdock nearly wailed. “I had not wanted to—to actively go contrary to your plans, but after reflection, I can see no other way. My mere presence in your grandmother's home gives her a false sense of hope that we are to be,” and she blushed, which she did not think helped her cause at all, “married.”

  “But we are to be married, Miss Murdock,” he told her with quiet conviction. “If I had not acquiesced to your wishes we would be married already. I have spent much of my day doing a great deal of maneuvering and it all hinges on my marrying you.” He paused for the briefest of seconds, whether for effect or because he deliberated telling her something further, she could not determine, but when he continued, he only finished by saying, “I can only reassure you that you will be well taken care of, whatever the outcome of my endeavor.”

  “Reassure me?” she asked in a querulous voice. “You think I could be reassured by the knowledge that I will be well taken care of in the likely event of your death?” She made a motion with her hands, as though shoving his suggestion and, in essence, him also, from her.

  As if in accordance to her unspoken wish, he sat back abruptly, frowning, as usual.

  She felt brief dismay that there was no longer laughter in his voice when he spoke. “Damn it, Miss Murdock! What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing,” she cried. “I want nothing but to go home. I can not deter you from this path you have chosen, but I do not have to be here to see it.”

  “You innocent child,” he said, and his tone was so close to pity that it made her cringe. “You merely need to set aside your illusions of what marriage is, and you will find that I ask no great hardship of you.”

  “You are the one suffering illusions, milord,” she returned. “The illusion that you can control anyone you wish to serve your own purposes. Then you feel profoundly dis-illusioned when the
y do not fall neatly in with your plans.”

  “If you would but serve my purposes, I assure you, I would serve yours to a degree of fulfillment that I doubt you can even imagine,” he suggested, his voice low and dangerous.

  “Forgive me, milord, if I feel more threatened by that statement then titillated,” she said between her clenched teeth. She was shaking and her hands clutched in her lap. “I think I can say with certainty that you have absolutely no concept what I seek in the way of fulfillment.”

  “And I say,” he countered, “that you underestimate me most profoundly.”

  “Be that as it may, milord,” she choked, close to tears and wanting very much to be done with this interview. “I am not asking your permission to return home. I am merely informing you out of courtesy so that you may adjust your plans accordingly.”

  “How very thoughtful of you,” he returned. “And when, may I ask, do you plan to return?”

  More steadily, Miss Murdock answered, “The end of the week. I had not intended as long as that, but I fear your grandmother was quite adamant that I go to Almacks tomorrow as it is the first ball of the season, and your aunt is planning a dinner party, and Andrew— Earl Larrimer has expressed a wish to show me a few sights in Town before I leave. Between the three of them, and in light of the expense of the clothing procured for me. . .” She trailed off, because the man across from her was bearing that expense, and she dug her nails into her palms and called herself a fool and vowed that in some manner, she would repay him every pence, but of course, to say so now would only be so many words.

  He gave a long and profound sigh. “You are exhausting me

  again, Miss Murdock,” he warned her.

  “I am sorry, but I see no way to avoid it.”

  “We could avoid it if you would merely stop being so aggravating, you wretched lass.” He scrutinized her as though she were a perplexing problem to be solved. “Oh, Miss Murdock, what am I to do with you?”