“I hope you had enough sense to ask him a few questions and
did not merely kill him outright in a blind rage.”
A bitter laugh. “No. Circumstances went rather beyond my control, with Steven, my messenger lad, wrestling with the man on the ground in the dark. He nearly got stabbed for his trouble. I saw the knife flash and I had a final clear shot, though damned if I know how I hit him, for I was nearly unconscious at that point, and lying on the ground myself.”
Miss Murdock, in the midst of hearing this speech, choked on her coffee and had a hard time of it to keep from making a great deal of noise. She put her napkin over her mouth and for a moment her eyes were very large from the effort.
“Which is a damnedable thing,” St. James continued, “for I had gained from him that he was involved with the murder of my parents—”
And Miss Murdock's eyes grew larger and she rose from her chair and went to the corner of the room, choking mightily now and doing everything in her power to stifle it.
“—and was contacted apparently by the same person for both jobs.”
“To be so goddamned close!” Bertie exclaimed. “What confounded luck. Of course you would have killed him at any rate, I imagine, after hearing that, but it would have been nice to gain some knowledge of who your true enemy is.”
Before St. James could reply, Miss Murdock heard his lordship's bedroom door from the hallway open and then close, and Effington said, “I can not find it, milord, and I fairly tore your study apart looking for it.”
“Damn it,” St. James said. There was a long silence after that, when Bertie and Effington seemed to be waiting for his next move, and he was evidently busy pondering it.
Miss Murdock, with no distraction, heard only two things in her mind: St. James telling her ‘but’ early that morning and Bertie's off hand summation that St. James would have killed the man at any rate! But that man had been Steven's father! Surely, if St. James had been aware of that and had had any choice, surely he would not have—!
“Then I have no choice but to go to this assignation I have been invited to,” St. James' voice broke into her thoughts, and she whirled from the corner and stared at the door between them, her mouth gaping and her brows drawn together in great consternation.
“You can not be serious, St. James,” Bertie told him. “It is for tonight, and frankly, you look like hell! I can't imagine you leaving your bed, let alone your house.”
“I was going to have to be about tonight, at any rate, Bertie, for I already have another pressing matter to take care of. And as Tyler and Andrew are busy looking for my errant messenger boy, I can not ask either of them to do it for me.”
Miss Murdock, who expected Steven to be even now somewhere on the premises, and Tyler and Andrew enjoying rest from their activities (as she, now feeling guilty, had) was shocked that he had somehow turned missing, and she walked over to the door and stood in the shadow beyond the slight crack to listen more closely.
Bertie sounded a good deal puzzled. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “Errant messenger boy? Tyler and Andrew searching for him? You must be delirious, St. James, for the object of my visiting you today was to tell you that Earl Larrimer and Miss Murdock eloped last night!”
Miss Murdock, standing just beyond their sight, let out such an exclamation that had St. James not been speaking at the same time, she would have surely been heard.
“What fool tale is this?” he demanded.
“I tell you, St. James! Ryan went over this morning to invite Miss Murdock for a ride in the park, and the house was in an uproar. He had it from Lady Lydia herself that Miss Murdock and your cousin had snuck off together in the middle of the night and she could put no other connotation upon it than that they were eloping!”
St. James began to laugh and, as Bertie must have been looking at him very strangely at this odd reaction, he managed to say, “But Bertie, Miss Murdock is even now sleeping in my sitting room.”
“The devil she is!” Bertie sputtered. “Have you lost your mind, St. James?”
But Miss Murdock, perceiving that St. James had no worry in allowing Bertie into his confidence of her presence, and ashamed of herself for eavesdropping, reached for the door handle and swung the door back and took a timid step into the room. “I fear it is true, Bertie,” she said, a great deal embarrassed. “For I was the one that stitched St. James up last night.”
And Lord Tempton turned his portly figure around in his chair and gaped at her.
Miss Murdock looked past him to St. James, who was propped up on several pillows in his bed.
Effington had managed to shave him and wash him, tie his hair back and wrap him into a dressing gown. Except for the pallid paleness of his face, and the rather rigid way he was sitting, one would not even know that he were injured.
And if her initial reaction was a bit of self-congratulations that she had attended him so well, she should naturally be forgiven, for he had not been the easiest of patients to work upon. “Miss Murdock,” his lips twitched in a great deal of amusement at sight of her standing shame-faced in the door. “You are looking very well today.”
“Oh, botheration!” she said, annoyed with him already. “Do not try to divert me with your foolishness, milord, for I very well know I look the contrary. What is this of Steven missing? And if you think you are going anywhere this night, you are quite mistaken!”
But St. James was laughing. “Shame, shame, Miss Murdock, for listening at key-holes.”
“The door was not latched,” she said in weak defense, “and I could hardly burst in here and tell you I had awakened when I did not know if you could fully trust Bertie. Sorry, Lord Tempton, I am not implying that you can not be trusted,” she hastened to add.
“Indeed!” Bertie reassured her. “If you had burst in, I am sure I would have had an apoplexy, so I am most grateful. I thought I was beyond being shocked at St. James' activities, but I did not dream of this in my wildest imaginings.”
“Neither did I,” St. James said with perfect dryness and Miss Murdock flushed, because of course, for once, he had had nothing to do with her being so improper, and it had, in fact, been her idea.
“Steven?” she asked, refusing to allow herself to be distracted. Effington pulled a chair forward for her, and she gave him a grateful look as she sat, but then her eyes returned to the duke.
St. James delayed in answering her by saying to his valet instead, “Effington, see if you can not rattle up a change of clothes for Miss Murdock. Something dark, mind you, and suitable for riding. And a cloak that will not draw attention to her either.”
Effington left to do this, and Miss Murdock had a second's wondering wherever he should find these items, and to whence she should be riding, but then she turned her attention back to St. James and he answered her with quiet concern. “I do not know, Miss Murdock. Andrew and Tyler are even now searching, and have orders not to return without him. I gather that he was not in your room when they returned to fetch him.”
Bertie said, “I shan't ask what your messenger boy was doing in Miss Murdock's room, by the by.”
“I would be grateful if you did not!” St. James returned. “But what is this business of Miss Murdock and Andrew's elopement?” he asked. “For that is what interests me greatly. Surely, Miss Murdock, you and Andrew did not intentionally lead my aunt to believe you had eloped?”
“Certainly not!” Miss Murdock said, very much affronted. “Though on retrospect, I should have guessed that she would leap to such a ridiculous conclusion. We left a note in my room saying that I was quite disgusted with your behavior last night,” and she paused, letting that sink in, which he infuriated her by only grinning, “and that I was returning to my father. Andrew, of course worried about my safety, was accompanying me, after trying valiantly to change my mind, to no avail.”
“Well, that all seems very simple,” Bertie admitted. “Ryan did say that Lady Lydia had told him that there was a note left indicating
they were going to Miss Murdock's home, but she was certain it was only a red herring and that the true destination had been Gretna Green.”
“Oh, for Heaven's sake!” Miss Murdock exclaimed, very much irritated by Lady Lydia's penchant for the dramatic. “I only hope that she is not busy spreading this ludicrous tale to anyone else she comes into contact with today.”
St. James seemed to be pondering this same possibility and with more than the mild annoyance that Miss Murdock felt if the frown between his brows were any indication. “That confounded, foolish woman. She may very well have put such an iron in the spokes—! But what else am I to believe? For Ryan can scarcely be designated as an intimate of hers, and she saw fit to tell him—”
But Bertie's exclamation interrupted the rest of his thought. “Ryan, yes! Egads, St. James, but he rode out just before noon with his destination being Miss Murdock's home. He hoped to find Earl Larrimer and Miss Murdock there and warn them of what Lady Lydia had concluded. It was he who suggested that I should let you know for he feared very much that you would cause trouble and did not want you going after them yourself, telling me to assure you he had it all well in hand.”
“And when he arrives there, and finds no Andrew and no Miss Murdock, he will assume the worst. Damn it!”
“Not to mention—my father!” Miss Murdock added, beginning to feel upset. “Oh, Lord,” she fretted. “Whatever will he think? I leave supposedly engaged to one man and elope less than a week later with his cousin. Oh, I shall die!”
St. James glanced at her with compassion. “Indeed, Miss Murdock, I hate to point this out to you, but your father will not be the only one in a state of outraged shock at this apparent activity on your part.” He lay his head back on the top of the pillows and looked at the ceiling. “I can not fathom what Tyler and Andrew were thinking of to involve you.”
“It was Steven that involved me, milord, and I ran quite roughshod over Andrew and Tyler's objections, so do not blame them. And if I had not, I remind you, you would be in a good deal worse shape than you are now.”
He raised his head to give her a brief grin and said, “I know that very well, Miss Murdock! But it does not change the fact that you are in an incredible jam, far worse than I ever intended by my little show at Almacks. And in the same fell stroke, my aunt has managed to remove all the pressure that I had been placing on my adversary, for they will scarcely believe that I am about to propose to you when you have apparently already eloped with my cousin!”
“Oh my! I had not thought of that!” she admitted. And if she had thought his tactics deplorable, she could still very well understand his frustration at having his plans wrecked by a feather-headed gossip.
He swore and said, “Well, there is nothing for it, Miss Murdock. I already knew I must get you out of my rooms tonight, for I can not hide you here forever, however titillating it may be for me to try,” he added.
She flushed. “Hush, milord! I haven't time for your games now.”
“Neither do I, Miss Murdock, which I very much regret,” he told her. “The only thing that had been worrying me was where to then stash you.” He turned his eyes to Lord Tempton. “Bertie, are you up to smuggling a smallish female from my rooms tonight?”
“Of a certainty, St. James. Must admit though, never expected to
be smuggling one out!”
To which St. James gave him a quelling look.
“You intend for me to return home, then?” Miss Murdock asked, trying to catch up with St. James' mind and think of where he would logically wish her to be.
“Precisely. You are very quick, Miss Murdock,” he said with a pleased smile. “If you are where you stated you intended to be, and of course, neither Andrew nor Ryan will dispute the fact that you were not there all along, it will dispel some of Lady Lydia's tale-mongering. Assuming we can either catch Ryan at your home or intercept him on his return to London. I only pray he does not get it in his head to chase your phantoms all the way to Gretna Green.
“But I fear,” he continued, looking at her with a good deal of concern on his face that warned her she was not going to like what he was about to add, “that in the end, it is not going to do very much good at all, for it will be surmised that you had attempted to elope and that one or the other of you turned coward and that you are now merely trying to cover your tracks.”
“Then I can see no reason for me to even return there,” she answered. “As if my reputation is any reason to begin with.”
He gave her a very odd, somewhat exasperated look. “Miss Murdock,” he reminded her, “I seem to recall several conversations with you in which you did nothing but demand to be returned home immediately.”
“Oh, do not throw that up in my face, milord,” she told him with impatience, much to Bertie's amusement. “For I was trying to keep from becoming involved with. . . all of this! Now, it is just a little too late for such squeamishness, obviously.”
“And if you had just done as I asked, you wretched lass, you would have been entirely oblivious and unmoved by. . . all of this,” and he paused, “and instead would be enjoying a very luxurious lifestyle without a care in the world.”
“Be that as it may,” she countered, her words becoming fast and desperate, “being oblivious and unmoved is now an impossibility, as it was very much an impossibility when you offered me your ridiculous proposal, I may add, and what we face now behooves me to be in London. I can not go to Chestershire when we have no idea what has become of Steven and when you have some wild plan of going out on an assignation tonight that may very well end in your assassination!”
“By God!” Bertie interrupted. “I wager even you could not say all of that three times very quickly, St. James.”
“Oh, do shut up, Bertie,” St. James said, but his eyes did not leave Miss Murdock's as they seemed to be locked in some contest of wills.
Then St. James began to speak, and where Miss Murdock's words had been very fast, his were slow and succinct. “This rumor that you have eloped with my cousin needs to be dispelled, and if you have no care for your reputation, I do.”
“After that display last night, milord! I doubt it.”
“That display was to show the extent of my total besottedness in regards to you, Miss Murdock, and was to lead up quite nicely to our announced engagement—”
“Which I have not agreed to, and can not foresee myself agreeing to—”
“Even if you do not, it would hardly be as damning to you as your perceived elopement, and more damningly, an elopement that has gone awry.” And he paused before adding in a dangerous tone, “Unless you and my cousin decide at some point to continue that particular charade indefinitely, which for my cousin's sake, I would heartily advise you against doing so.”
She had no quick response to this, only sat back in her chair feeling a good deal out of breath.
“Now,” he said, “you may rest assured that we will find Steven, and as for this meeting I have been invited to, I will be better prepared than I was last night.”
But she was close to tears and could not resist interrupting again to say, “With stitches not even twenty-four hours old, milord? And alone?”
He sighed wearily at that, earning a sympathetic look from Bertie, before continuing with a beleaguered air, “All of which is of no concern of yours, Miss Murdock, as I have tried to point out to you repeatedly.”
“And I have tried to point out to you, milord, that if you see fit to involve me, then you will suffer the consequences of my involvement.”
“I never intended you to be involved to this degree, you aggravating child, and Bertie, do me a kindness and pour me a drink, for I swear I am ready to strangle her.”
“Milord!” Miss Murdock fumed. “You have no call to be drinking with those stitches in your chest.”
“Certainly, I do, Miss Murdock, for I shall tear them out, I am sure, if I lay hands on you, which I am tempted to do. Bertie, damn it! Are you going to listen to me or to her?”
&nbs
p; Bertie still appeared to be hesitating, and St. James tore his gold eyes away from where they had been challenging Miss Murdock and pinned them upon his old friend. “Really, St. James,” that man cried in defense. “You are bedridden and she is not.”
“But she,” St. James explained with a great deal of condescension, “does not have a pistol beneath her pillow.”
“Ah,” Bertie said. “I quite see your point.” He lumbered up from his seat and went to the sideboard. “I only hope that you are willing to defend me as quickly as you are willing to threaten me, for I have every expectation of her throwing herself at my throat.”
And indeed, Miss Murdock was glowering at him most intimidatingly. “You are a coward to let him frighten you, Bertie, you know,” she told that man without mercy. “If you would but not fetch it for him, he would be cured by the time he were able to reach it himself.”
“Tut, Miss Murdock! St. James without his drink is like a baby without his sugar-tit. And whoever wishes to hear all that crying?” he asked, and he poured into not just one glass but two, and handed one to St. James and kept the other for himself. Before drinking, his twinkling blue eyes met hers and he asked with perfect gentlemanliness, “Care to join us, Miss Murdock?”
“Indeed, I do not!” she told him. But she shook her head a little in exasperation and only ended by saying, “You are both quite abominable, you know.”
St. James drank from his glass with every appearance of relief, and then setting the remainder of it aside, said more calmly, “Now, Miss Murdock, you must see that it is quite impossible for you to remain, so please do not continue to argue with me.”
“But my letter states quite clearly from the start that I was going no where but my father's!” Miss Murdock pointed out. “When Andrew appears and reassures Lady Lydia that I am there, whether I am or not, surely she will tell everyone else as well that she was mistaken, and it should not matter.”
“It will matter, I fear, Miss Murdock,” St. James took pains to explain to her. “For once a scandal is begun, it takes on a life of its own and nothing will kill it.”
In the Brief Eternal Silence Page 38