In the Brief Eternal Silence

by Rebecca Melvin

  “Is. . . that all?”

  “He fell asleep very quickly, milord—Dante. He was overwrought and exhausted.” Which was not the same as answering him yes or no, but would have to do for she did not wish to outright lie to him. Although she had always been a staunch believer that lying by omission was only one step below lying outright.

  “Did he tell. . . you his father. . . is dead?”

  Her hand trembled, for his tone was too flat, too emotionless, and she had the first foreboding that there was something terribly, terribly wrong with the scene she had in her mind of what had happened. She forced the needle through, for she was on the very last stitch, and some part of her commanded that she finish what had to be done before she answered him, before he again spoke. She tied off the last stitch, snipped the thread from the needle, and then said in a small whisper, “Yes.” Then she lifted her head to find his eyes were no longer focused on his inner mind but on her.

  “Did he tell. . . you. . . how his father died?”

  And sudden bile rose in Miss Murdock's throat and her eyes became large and pleading in her face. Don't tell me! But you are already telling me, aren't you. Your eyes! My God, do not look at me with eyes like that. She couldn't speak but only slowly shook her head.

  But he did not look down, did not spare her the bright gleam of his gold gaze that beaconed out and impaled her. And she could not look down, could not deny him that access to her, even when she knew it was about to cause her an unspeakable pain.

  “I. . . killed him.”

  Still she held his gaze. But he seemed to shrink in her eyes, for her vision began to encompass not just his eyes, but his pale, pain-harshened face, the white pillow he lay upon with his mat of dark hair the only border between white linen and white face. The bed posts reached high above him and the bed stretched out long beneath him. The room itself shrank until she saw the flickering flames of the lamps, the secretary in one corner and one of three, high, wide highboys in the other corner. The sideboard with all of his many bottles and decanters of various liquors. The fireplace still putting out fumes of burned blood and velvet. The various dressers and tables, and even though it was to her back, she was aware of the door, and yet in the center of all of this were his two gold eyes, his expression unfathomable to her, mayhaps unfathomable to himself.

  And then she closed her eyes and all she could see was Steven's face. His young, much too young, shocked, bewildered and grieving face. Whose blood is it, Steven? Me father's. . . and St. James'. Victim's and Victor's mingled together in some unholy alliance. One dead, one nearly dead. And all for what? For what? For something that happened twenty-three years ago and could never be righted! No matter how many people died.

  And when she at last spoke, opening her eyes, she had only a feeling of coldness. “How does vengeance feel, milord? Will you look at the scar when you heal, thanks to my stitches, and feel satisfaction?”

  He held her eyes steady, but he did not defend himself, and somewhere in her brain, she knew this could not be right. He was lying there, injured. He had been attacked, hadn't he? Why wasn't he pointing this out to her? She needed it pointed out to her, needed something to counteract Steven's face in her mind's eye. “And what of when you look at Steven now, without a father. Is that going to bring you pleasure?”

  And she could not stem the cold fury that poured from her. He should be stemming it. She needed him to stem it. She needed for him to at least flinch, to feel something. But despite her brutal words, he only lay there, injured, weak, pale and helpless, and took it.

  “Oh, damn it! Why don't you say something?” and she broke, ashamed of her words, and at the same time, ashamed to be crying over him, St. James, when all she could see was Steven's face. “Why don't you tell me you had no choice! Why don't you tell me you didn't know it was Steven's father!” He still didn't answer her, and she wanted to pound on his chest, wanted to rip at her hair, wanted to claw those eyes out of his face. “Oh, damn it! Did you have any choice? Did you know it was Steven's father?”

  Slowly, very slowly, he shook his head, but the knot between his eyes grew, and his mouth took on a shape that a man who is about to amputate his own leg would take on. And he said a single word that terrified her, “But—”

  “No! No buts! You didn't know and that is the end of it! Do you hear me, Dante! That is the end of it!” And sobbing and wild, she put her hand to his lips to keep him from speaking whatever damning words were in his mind. His right hand came up to her hand, and his eyes took on a sudden weary resignation that made him seem all the more helpless. He kissed her palm with his blood on it, pulled her hand away from his lips and held it in his hand. “For. . . now. I haven't. . . the strength.”

  He gave a weak tug at her hand and Lizzie collapsed more than sat on the bed, crying. She was aware that he had just done something for her, something he had never done for anyone else, but she refused to acknowledge it, for to acknowledge it would be to acknowledge those unspoken words that she did not want to hear. But—!

  His arm fell to his side, and her hand in his fell with it, so that she was stretched across his bare torso. His eyes closed, and although his breathing was still shallow, it seemed more even and she dared to lay her head upon his chest feeling near to despair.

  She lay like that for a long time, him sleeping and she worrying. Then his chest moved and he spoke. And his words told her that he had not been sleeping at all even though every law of nature demanded that he should be, but had been burrowed inside his own psyche. “Jesus, what. . . have you done to me? In four. . . short days. What. . . have you done to me?”

  And Lizzie, in a man's bedchamber, lying across his nude chest, and shedding tears, heard the same question echoing in her heart.

  He was silent after that and Lizzie, still resting her head on his chest, was certain that he slept, but she could not sleep, despite how very exhausted she was. At some point she began to realize a sudden change in the house. She heard no noise, the night was still thick and dark against the glass, but there was that elusive quality that comes just before dawn that makes itself known more by instinct than by senses, and she raised her head.

  Oh, God, it was nearly morning! She glanced at the clock, ticking and impassive upon the fireplace mantel. Where were Andrew and Tyler with Steven? It could not be long before the house began to stir.

  With her worry she moved from the bed. She checked his stitches, very much exposed, but they had held and she went to the wash basin, poured cold water into it, splashed her face until she was certain there were no tear tracks left. She neatened her hair, straightened her dress, and feeling a deal better, selected fresh linens and began the tedious job of wrapping his lordship's chest. It took some maneuvering, for if he were not unconscious, he was at least deeply asleep, and so was of no help. She lifted one side of his torso as much as she could, slid the bulk of the folded sheet beneath him, then ran around the bed to lift his other side and snagged the sheet through. She did this as many times as necessary, pulling it snug each time, and then pinned it off.

  She still had his arm to look at, but although there was blood on its bandage, it did not seem to be spreading, indicating that it had stopped bleeding, so instead, she left the room and went into the darkened house in search of Effington. She found he had progressed all the way to the servants entrance, where he even now had the door open as he scrubbed smears from the door frame. He glanced up a little startled at her appearance, but only asked upon seeing it was her, “Have you finished then?”

  Miss Murdock nodded. “Yes, although I still need to look at his arm. Can I help? It will be dawn soon.”

  “No, Miss. If I am discovered, I will think up some excuse for my activity and any blood I may have not cleaned yet. If you are discovered—”

  “Yes. You're quite right of course,” Lizzie said. “Have Andrew and Tyler arrived?”

  “No, Miss,” he admitted. “But you had better go up all the same. I will be sending Earl Larrimer up
as soon as he arrives and assisting Tyler with the carriage, for it will not do to have speculation on what the duke's cousin is doing in his lordship's stables so very early in the morning.”

  “Yes, thank you, Effington. St. James is very lucky to have you.”

  There was a moment when Effington stopped his scrubbing completely as though weighing her words. “Yes, Miss, but I certainly did not think it would be for my skills as a scullery maid,” he said resentfully, and she smiled.

  Miss Murdock returned to his lordship's chambers, and although she hated to disturb him, she set about cutting the bandages from his upper left arm. She need not have feared, for he seemed beyond waking for now, and even her gentle maneuvering of his arm and close examination of the flesh wound there brought nothing but a little catch in his breathing.

  She was satisfied that he would not need stitches, and settled with dusting the wound with Borax powder and rewrapping it. With the finish of that job, she was left feeling at loose ends. And the first blush of dawn could be seen outside the windows.

  She moved the table she had pushed over back to where she had found it, replaced all the supplies that Tyler had brought up into the wicker basket, wrapped the bloody, used bandages in a ball to be disposed of later and took an inventory of the remaining linens Effington had brought in. The basins of stained water needed poured out and washed, but she didn't dare leave St. James' rooms again to do so, settled with combining what was left of the water into one and stacking the now empty one beneath it.

  Throughout all this busy work she was aware that with the coming of dawn, her decision to stay was irrevocable. There could be no sudden change of heart and sneaking back to her room at Dante's grandmother's home.

  With a last lingering look at St. James, she went through the connecting door into his sitting room, and spying his chaise lounge, settled onto it. She was tired in every bone of her body and her last thought before drifting off into sleep was that she had not had a full night's rest since he had first banged on her door in the wee hours of the morning.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Damn it all to Hell and back!” St. James' voice pierced through the crack of the connecting door and into Miss Murdock's sleeping mind. “When did this arrive, Effington!”

  Effington's voice, an unflappable, if rather tired, drone: “In the morning's post, milord. I delayed on bringing it up as you were sleeping and I could not see disturbing you.”

  Miss Murdock, trying to make some sense of why she should be hearing a conversation between St. James and his valet in the room next to her bedchamber, opened her eyes. It was not her bedchamber, she realized, it was, in fact, St. James' sitting room and she was lying on his chaise lounge. She sat up, her head groggy, and took in her surroundings, noticing that she was in her old, worn, brown dress, and that it had a good deal of dried blood smeared across it.

  Then of course, she remember it all: Steven, St. James' injury, the furtive activities of (this morning?) earlier.

  She looked out the window, saw that it was a rainy, dreary day and quite impossible to tell whether it was morning or evening or whether she had slept one hour or ten.

  “Whatever is going on now, St. James?” a third voice asked. It did not belong to Tyler or Andrew, she was sure, and she could not place it, although it did sound familiar. “I've never known you to be so indisposed by drink that you were still in bed at this hour of the day. I was quite surprised to have your man bring me up here.”

  “It's not from drink. I was shot last night,” but even through the crack of the connecting door, Miss Murdock heard the preoccupation in St. James' voice, and recalling his oaths that had wakened her, she wondered what, oh what, possibly more could have gone wrong!

  “The devil you were! When did this happen?”

  “Last night obviously,” St. James answered. “But hush, Bertie. Look at this handwriting. Why does it look familiar to me?”

  Miss Murdock, relaxing somewhat with St. James' visitor being identified as Lord Tempton, quietly stood, stretched, smoothed her rumpled brown dress into some semblance of order, and then took an interest in a covered tray she spied upon one table, complete with coffee (now cold), napkin and silver. Evidently some considerate soul, probably Effington, had brought it some time while she was sleeping.

  She went to it, lifted the lid. She did not like to be eavesdropping, but she could not latch the door for fear of alerting Bertie to her presence. Leaving the sitting room by the door to the hall was out of the question. So, she decided, she would try to keep herself quietly occupied and let their words only become a background noise, and pay as little attention to them as possible.

  All the same, when Effington spoke, she was aware of it, and when St. James answered, she found herself guilty of attending.

  “I beg pardon, milord,” Effington offered, “but I seem to recall you receiving an envelope yesterday with the address written in the same, rather uneducated fist.”

  “Blast it, Effington, but you are right!” St. James swore.

  Miss Murdock imagined Effington was not surprised in the least to discover that he was correct.

  Bertie's voice interrupted, “This is serious, St. James. Whoever wrote this letter is telling you quite plainly to watch your back.”

  “Yes. And if I had read the one sent yesterday, I may have been more prepared, damn it! It's the second time I've been careless, and I do so hate to be caught out. Bad enough yesterday that Miss Murdock was made extremely uncomfortable for my mistake. . .”

  “But somewhat worse this time, milord, when it nearly cost you your life,” Effington finished.

  “Quite,” St. James agreed. “Run down to my study. The other letter must still be on my desk, and I will be very interested in what it has to say.”

  Miss Murdock heard the bedroom's hall door opening and then closing. She had given up on eating, but she sipped at the cold coffee gratefully and watched the rain coming down the window pane and wondered if the mysterious letters that St. James was discussing were good or bad. If someone had seen fit to warn him of his danger, then certainly they must be good, mustn't they?

  She was in no position to judge, only knew that for someone who had always been calm and sensible that she had a bad case of the nerves now. That he could sit in there only cursing his carelessness, she found annoying, for she felt like screaming in vexation. Why hadn't he read this other letter yesterday? And what further danger was he in that this second letter should arrive today? Oh, damn it, she wanted to march in there and snatch the letter for herself and read it.

  “Well, St. James, you had better tell me the whole of it,” Bertie was saying. “Were you confronted?”

  “Hmm? Oh, the shooting. No. He shot at me from the dark mouth of the mew to the side of Almacks. I can scarce believe no one was aware of it.”

  “Outside Almacks!” Bertie cried. “I've no need to tell you— extremely bad ton that, old boy, to have the effrontery to be shot outside Almacks.” St. James laughed and Bertie joined him before pointing out, “I fear if it is discovered your voucher will be revoked again.”

  “Yes, and a great pity, that, for I understand from Miss Murdock that my grandmother was reduced to 'buying off' one of the board members to regain my welcome status.”

  Bertie laughed with glee. “She did not! Oh, she is a card, Dante. I have often said if I could find a woman as your grandmother must have been in her day, I would marry with no regrets.”

  “Quite,” St. James returned in a musing voice.

  “But as to why no one heard the shot, must tell you, the place was in a stir. In fact,” Bertie added, “I would not be surprised if your assailant were not someone seeking to protect Miss Murdock from you after your display. She proved to be quite popular, you know, after you left. And you should well know also that if she were not in London under only your family's protection, you most certainly would have been called out after your behavior of last night. Not at all the thing, St. James,” he concluded, “t
o be responsible for protecting the girl and perversely also the one she needs protecting from.”

  “You manage to make me feel more of an ogre than I already am convinced I must be to do that to that poor child. But I've reached a point where I can not turn back, and Miss Murdock is still being aggravatingly reluctant to accept my suit.”

  “Do you really think it matters?” Bertie asked. “I understand that you have managed to stir someone, clearly, from their complacency of your being alive. But as last night was your first public display of interest in Miss Murdock, I can not see how they would have had time to observe it, digest it, feel threatened by it, for Lord knows what reason, and be in position to then do you some harm as you walked out the door of the place!”

  “Obviously, they were somehow already aware of it,” St. James replied. “And as the man who shot me last night was a hired assassin, they had been aware of it long enough to make some very thorough plans for my demise. And now, equally as obvious with the delivery of this letter, someone else has become aware of these plans and is trying to warn me. For what purpose, though, is what is bothering me,” he added in a baffled voice. “I can not help but think that even this is some sort of trap. You notice it asks I come alone?”

  “Then they could not know that you were even now laid up in bed, wounded,” Bertie pointed out. “So they can not be all that intimate with whoever is laying these plans.”

  “Ah, but they can not know for sure if I have been wounded or not, since their assassin never made it back to them, can they?” St. James asked.

  “You mean—?”

  “Of course. You did not think that I would take kindly to getting shot, did you? Quite ruined my best red velvet suit, of which Effington, I am sure, is heartbroken. Where is he, by-the-by? He

  should have been back by now.”

  “Any clue to the identity of the bastard?”

  “Yes. I know his identity. And he is quite dead.”