And through out all of this interview in St. James' study, with Tyler, Earl Larrimer, Lord Tempton and Effington, Dante had paced with unsteadiness about the room, flexing his left arm in a constant testing of how much pressure and movement it could take so that he would be aware to a certainty to what degree he could count upon it.
“And grandmother?” Andrew asked, anxious. “She must be out of her mind with worry.”
“More likely with vexation,” St. James returned, “for I do not think she would swallow such a tale out of hand. Especially when it is Aunt Lydia who has surmised it. No insult intended against your mother, Andrew,” he added.
“You needn't tell me that she has the most damnedably insane notions at times,” Andrew replied. “But they are at least usually harmless. For something to possess her to take this idea into her head, and then apparently speak of it without compunction to who ever happened to be on hand, is even more irresponsible of her than normal. And I needn't tell you, that for her to be in any way damaging my snowy white reputation nearly boggles my mind, for she has always held it as near holy to be respectable! It is quite, quite unlike her.”
He sounded a great deal bewildered as well as tired, and St. James had spared him a wry grin. “Do not fret, Andrew. I have already had Bertie post the banns of my and Miss Murdock's engagement and they should be in the morning's paper. That will certainly throw some doubt on the story your mother has told. And the females, I imagine, will look upon you as very dangerous indeed to have tried eloping with your cousin's fiancé.”
“Yes,” Bertie agreed as Andrew expressed surprise that St. James had in fact, offered for Miss Murdock. “None of them will feel safe in your presence, and so they shall find being in your presence all that more desirable.”
The clock on the mantel had then struck ten times, interrupting their laughter and Andrew's demands for explanation, for he had not thought that St. James had progressed to a point where he desired engagement (and especially to a female he had only met some four days before!).
But St. James had not enlightened him in the least, the tolling of the clock seeming to drive all but the most immediate matters from his mind. He nodded at Effington, his face losing its brief look of diversion and he now appeared very grim indeed.
Effington left the room. St. James reminded Bertie, “No later than midnight, Bertie, mind you. Earlier if she is ready before. Tyler will have the horses in readiness for you.”
“I understand, St. James. Needn't badger me.”
But St. James was busy taking down a second weapon from where it hung, an intimidating decoration, amongst many others on the wall. There was still no sign of his missing dueling pistol, and he regretted very much not having it, but he only selected another to take the place of the one that was lost. He checked it with expertise before lying it with his remaining dueling pistol upon his desk. Then, with a little difficulty, he shrugged into his great coat that Effington had before brought down to him, and secured his pistols into his waist band beneath it. He tested his left cross draw, wincing as he did so, but nodded with resignation if not satisfaction. He was capable with it, although lamentably slower than normal.
Andrew interrupted all of this activity by asking once again, “But what about grandmother, St. James? You know as well as I that she will positively grill me!”
“She'll see the banns. Stick with your story. Miss Murdock is safely at her home in Chestershire, which by the time you speak to grandmother, such will be the truth. You needn't add that her arrival there was delayed by a full twenty-four hours. I know you dislike misleading her, but it will only upset her further if she is aware of any of this, and as, I believe, her main concern is whether I am to marry the chit or not, she will be mollified.”
Then without further delay, he made a little motion of goodbye and turned to the door to take his leave. His eyes were bright beneath their half closed lids and there was a strange half-smile upon his features that rather than comforting any of those that were left, only made them feel a good deal more concerned. Then he was gone, the door clicking behind him, and in that second they perhaps all understood how completely content he was to be, in fact, alone. It made them all feel quite useless.
Now he directed his horse onto a little used path into Hyde Park, and was swallowed into the night as he left the street lamps behind. He rode a little off the trail, his mount's feet slipping in the wet grass. But the rain had stopped and all that was left was an increasing fog spreading upon the ground. He found this ideal, for it muffled the sound of his horse's movements.
The dark irises of his gold eyes enlarged as his glance probed about. He remained beneath a row of trees, his horse moving with unhurried ease, until he came at last to near the center of the empty park and a large monument rose out of the darkness twenty yards in front of him. Instead of going to it, he dismounted beneath the cover of the trees, scanned the area, then turned his horse into the shadows and secured it to a low branch. He took the bit from its mouth, which would slow him if he needed to be off quickly, but he did not wish it snorting or nickering either, and the best way he knew to keep it occupied was to allow it enough rein for it to access the still plentiful grass.
Its soft biting off of those blades was its only sound as he turned and left it there, and an occasional muted stomp of one of its feet.
St. James judged it to be eleven of the clock, and as his letter had stated the hour of midnight for the meeting, he was in fact an hour early. He moved in a wide circle around the monument, keeping to tree and shrub, pausing often to listen, searching for any sign of another horse or person. At last, satisfied that he was, as of now, alone, he settled in to watch the south side of the monument, as he had been instructed for the meeting to take place there, to see who might arrive.
The longer he waited, the more he was convinced that the writer of the letter was rather inexperienced in intrigue, otherwise, St. James expected, they would have been there early as well, and waiting under cover for milord to appear, rather than the other way around. But it was near the appointed hour of midnight before he saw any sign of movement.
The fog across the monument from him stirred first, a little announcement that was as significant as it was silent. He rose from his half crouch and leaned his back against the tree. His right hand went to beneath his open coat, but it remained there, relaxed, on the butt of one gun, and he was still.
Then from the fog, he saw the sudden appearance of a figure.
Swirling, faded gray cloak mixed with the mystical grayness of the fog, so it seemed that the person was born from the fog rather than walking out of it. Beneath the knee length of the cloak was a colorless ankle length of skirt, damp at the hem, and it confirmed to him his rather startling conclusion that his letter writer was female.
She came to just in front of the monument, pushed back the hood of her cloak away from her face and turned in a complete circle upon one heel. Her face was ghostly white in the dark, and he had only one quick glimpse of rather large and frightened gray eyes before she was turned with her back to him, staring into the muted white wall of dark in the opposite direction.
He stepped forward, his attention divested into every direction at once, but it appeared as if she had come in fact alone, and he was but a few feet from her when she whirled with a little gasp and faced him.
Her clothing was clean but oft mended. Her hair was braided into a long, somewhat thin plait that hung over one shoulder. Her face was lined and very thin and her body was frail. She had a haggardness about her that bespoke of struggle and work and premature aging and it was easy for him to believe that she had indeed written the letter, for she did not look well educated. And when she spoke, although she strove for a certain dignity, her whispered speech confirmed it.
“Yer t'duke?” she asked, her voice breathless.
And St. James with narrowed eyes, nodded.
“Of St. James?” she asked, as if she were expecting any number of Dukes to be lollygaggi
ng about Hyde Park at midnight.
“Of St. James,” he reassured her.
She stood clutching and unclutching at the folds of her cloak, which, he noticed, had only a single pin holding it together and no buttons at all. Her eyes seemed familiar to him, and his mind dug with unrelenting quickness as to where he should have seen her before, and if he had seen her before, why it was that her face was not recognizable. “Please,” he began, indicating a bench a little distance from the monument and beneath the shadowy overhang of a tree. “Won't you be seated?”
She glanced at him, uncertain, and he added, “I have come alone as you asked. If I am willing to trust you to that degree, surely you will trust me to sit upon a bench with you without harming you.”
And she gave a nervous smile, revealing stained and spaced teeth in her fleshless face. “Aye, milord,” she said, “and it's havin' me on, you are, for even if that were what I were 'fraid of, I well know that you are promised to another.”
He stiffened at her easy revelation of this knowledge, thinking that for an engagement that had yet to be announced, a precious many seemed to know of it already, but he only said, “Then you should rest easy. Come, let us be more comfortable, and you may tell me all that you wish to tell me.” He led her to the bench. She seated herself without fuss, but her back was very straight and stiff. He did not sit himself, but paced about the bench in reflective vigil. She watched him with wariness. His gold eyes flickered over to her and he said, “You may begin. What brings you here? I will not ask your name unless you wish to reveal it.”
She hugged her cape closer and seemed more relieved than otherwise when his eyes left her to again probe about the silent, fog filled darkness of the night. “Nay, milord. I willn't tell ya me name, for I very much fear what'd happen if it were found out I t'was here. With you.”
“No one else knows of this meeting, then?”
She shook her head, and he had to glance again at her to see this response. “Do you know me in some manner?” he asked. “You spoke in your letter of warning me. Why do you risk yourself to contact me, to come here?”
She swallowed. “T'is not for you, milord, forgive me, but for—for another.”
He turned at her words, moved along the bench until he leaned over the back of it. “Tell me. Do not hesitate. I have no care that it is for another. Simply tell me what you know and that you wish me to know.”
Her humble composure failed her under the intent gaze of his eyes. “I can not tell you more than to be on your guard. For I know there to be several that are. . . hired t'do you in, milord. All t'same as did yer parents in before you those many years ago.”
She paused and then her eyes closed and she raised both hands to her face to muffle her own sudden outpouring of words. “And I'm afraid! Not just for you but one of these men has changed in these twenty-three years! I do not 'spect you t'understand, or even t'care,” she cried, “but I wouldn't be here if t'weren't for him. I tried. I begged. I told him, t'is in the past, and t'let it lie there and t'was not his concern anymore. If you had some enemy, t'was not for him t'be involved again! Not after all these years. Not after all the strugglin' we done to be right and tight and honest when we see's those dishonest livin' easier.”
And St. James asked, “It is your man you are afraid for?”
She dropped her hands to look at him with great woebegone eyes. “Aye, milord,” she whimpered. “I know you cans't think of him but badly after what he was involved in those years ago, but he changed, milord. He become a straight and true man and I never thought I'd see him to turn back, 'til he got's the message three days ago. And I couldn'st understand why they should be back at him to get him to go their way after so many years. Then I came to understand, t'was the same job! After all these years, t'was the same job.
“And Gawd help me, I was gonna stay outta it, cause he flat told me not to interfere, nor to pry, but let him be about his business and not worry, and then I realized you t'were the same duke that—” and she clamped her mouth closed, putting the back of one hand to it and began to sob with her eyes closed and her shoulders shaking.
St. James bowed his head, his arms crossed along the back of the bench, and then with half intuition, half deduction, he filled in the missing words. “Steven, your son, is working for me.”
The woman cried harder, but she nodded her head. “Gawd! But now ya know it! And he bein' so proud in his new finery, and tellin' me tales of what a soft touch you are, not at all likes the way ever'one hears of ya. And here to find out, his own Da is bein' sent ta kill ya—! Oh, Gawd forgive me, but I could'na bare it. And now I haven't seen me man for one full round the clock, nor Steven neither, and I am afraid!”
St. James let out a rather sharp curse that made her cower, as though he were about to beat her, and he moved around the bench to sit next to her. He dug beneath his coat, pulled out one of his endless supply of hanky's, made a brief, bitter, mental note to himself that this time, no matter how abused the garment became, to not throw it with disregard on the ground, and pulled her hand down from her face far enough for him to wipe her tears.
At the same time he asked her, “Did your man not know that Steven was working for me?”
And she shook her head. “Nay. For he'd have been most angry and told me to make him stop. But the first day me lad met you, he brought me home a crown, and milord, forgive me, but we need'dit sorely! And he tol' me t'was honest come by. And I had no idea as of yet, 'bout. . . 'bout the rest.”
“I can quite understand,” he soothed. “And you have not seen Steven since before last night?”
She shook her head again, but she seemed a deal calmer, and he pressed the handkerchief into her shaking hand, for he very much feared she was going to need it again in another minute. But although he was honest, he had never said that he was not ruthless, so he set out to get as many answers from her as possible before telling her that he had killed her husband the night before, seeing as how that revelation may be inclined to make her somewhat uncooperative.
“Tell me what you know,” he pleaded. “I have had men searching for Steven, for I am worried for him also, and I promise you that we will find him, but it will help if you tell me what you know. How many other men involved besides your husband? Do you know who hired them?”
She gave a helpless shrug. “If they are all t'same as afore then there are four others. For there were five the night of t'murders. But I don't know who or why. I doubts that even me man knows of t'at. Me man was only told t'was to be a robbery of some rich mucketymuck an' his wife. An easy mark as they was travelin' at night with only a driver and a footman 'n' a lad. He was told they could keep whate'er jewelry and money they's got but that there'd be a leather case, not a luggage case, but t'kind the swells keep their impo'tant doc'ments 'n' t'like in. They was t'get it as well, and take it t'whoever had hired 'em.
“My husband, he didna know about no murder'n 'til t'shots were gettin' fired. Said he hadn't seen no trouble, but all t'sudden two of t'men he was with was shootin' and then he knew everythin' was gone in a bad way, and that if t'were ever known he'd been there, it'd be the hangman's noose for him for sure. He said he hadn't hired on for no murderin', m'lord. And he wanted nothin' t'do with the jewel's they took offen that poor woman. He wasn't even sure who it were 'til all the papers was screamin' 'bloody murder' of t'duke and duchess of St. James.”
And she choked to a halt, perhaps realizing anew that it was the victims' son that she was confiding to.
And St. James muttered, “And so perhaps the one man that could have in fact helped me, I have already killed,” and his eyes raised to meet hers.
She shuddered once, as though a cold wind had swept down her back, and what emotion she could be feeling to realize that she were looking into the eyes of the man that had killed her husband was unreadable to him. Then she seemed to break, so that he had a sudden sense of every bone in her body splintering inside of her, and her thin back bent forward as she hugged her face
into her knees and cried without any withholding of herself or her grief.
St. James, in a torment, gathered her thin and hopeless body to him, so that she cried into his lap, and he could not tell her any of the circumstances, for not only would it only upset her more to find that her son had nearly been killed by his own father, and then had witnessed his father's death, he could not in truth defend his killing of her husband.
For as Bertie had said, of course he would have killed him at any rate.
And St. James swallowed that knowledge with dread, for he well remembered the raging blackness that had coursed through his veins at the discovery that the man had been there the night of his parents' murders, and he very much feared that even had an angel of God stood before him and pleaded the man's case, that he could not have turned back the fury inside him that had sought to bring that man down.
So he did not speak of his own injury, nor the true manner in which her husband had died, for to do so would be unjust in leading her to believe that had circumstances been different, her husband would have been spared. Instead all he could say above her weeping head was, “He is even now being made ready for burial. I can give you the address so that you may see him, and you may tell me where you wish him to lie.”
And she nodded, raised her head as far as his chest. “I can not blame you, m'lord,” she choked. “For I well know what his intent was, but I hope you will not blame me if I wish—” and her voice cracked, “if I wish it were he here this minute and your burial being discussed.”
Then she drew back from him, wiping at her eyes. “He oft said t'was a nightmare of his, that t'wicked duke twould one day find him out. He oft said, too,” and she shook her head in weary hopelessness, “that he could'na blame ya, for t'were as much 'is fault as t'anyone's that you were the way you t'were.”
St. James felt a sudden surging of anger at these words, and he grabbed one of her small, claw-like hands, forcing her to look at him. “No. It was not his fault. It's whoever put him up to this, and misled him twenty-three years ago into being in on a crime that was much worse than they led him to believe. You have to help me find this person, as much for his revenge as for my own.”
In the Brief Eternal Silence Page 41