In the Brief Eternal Silence

Rebecca Melvin

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Double Edge Press - Smashwords Edition
ebook

Ebook edition ISBN
978-1-4524-2716-4

In the Brief Eternal Silence Copyright © 2006
Rebecca Melvin

Cover Artwork: David Shuck © 2007 Double Edge
Press

All rights reserved. Except for use in any
review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in
part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is
forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Double
Edge Press, 72 Ellview Road, Scenery Hill, PA 15360

This novel is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author
or publisher.

For Jesus Christ

Acknowledgments:

I wish I had a long list of people that
helped me in my endeavor, but I really don’t. I have the obvious,
but incredibly important: my family.

To my mother and Tom, thank you for the
encouragement.

To my brothers, Mike, Andy and Jerry, same
goes.

To my children, Garrett, Austin, Coleman and
Shelby, thank you for your patience, your love, and for not minding
having dinner late so many nights. Thank you for being mine.

To my husband, Neal, thank you for being you.
Without you, it couldn’t have happened.

My greatest acknowledgment goes to Christ. He
was there when that long list of people wasn’t. Without You, Lord,
I am nothing. Without You, my words would only be so many splatters
on the page. Thank You for the words to write, the patience to
endure, and for two important lessons (among many others):

I have judged myself in my own eyes
and found myself unworthy,

but in the eyes of the Lord, I am
perfect,
for I am cleansed with the Blood of the Lamb.

And:

I am a woman of great blessing,
for I am a woman of great faith,
and the greatest blessing of all is faith.

Thank You for covering my imperfections.
Thank You for blessing me with faith. Thank You for saving me, not
just once, but every day I exist.

It’s been a long, hard road.

In Christ,

~
Rebecca
Melvin

Rebecca Melvin

Between the striking of the Lightning

and the rolling of the Thunder

There is a brief, eternal Silence

Between the firing of a Bullet

and the crack of the Shot

There is a brief, eternal Silence

And between actions taken

and consequences paid

There is a brief, eternal Silence

PROLOGUE

December, 1839

The ten year old boy sat in the finely
upholstered seat of the coach. He was wrapped in an expensive coat
of navy blue, tailored to fit his small shoulders, and a matching
blue silk scarf was wrapped about his neck and tucked neatly into
the collar of the coat. He idly twirled at one of the many gold
buttons down the front of the coat as he waited, his oddly colored
hazel eyes glinting nearly as gold as the buttons in the dim light
of the coach.

The door was opened from the outside, letting
in more light from one of the torches that was lit, and the soft
rustle of skirts told him that it was his mother just outside the
door. “Is his Grace nearly ready, then?” he heard his mother asking
the coachman. “Tell him that we await him in the coach and to try
not to be long,” and then she was climbing into the coach to sit
next to him, her cheeks colored from the cold night air. She
settled in, straightening her skirts and turned to him.

“Dante, darling. Does mummy look pretty
tonight?” she asked.

“Yes, mummy,” he agreed readily. “You look
beautiful tonight.” His ten year old face shone with adoration,
which inspired her to pinch his small cheek.

“And you, son, shall be the terror of all the
ladies in another year or two,” she said with pride. Then, “Why,
what’s the matter? You look as though you are about to choke on
something.” His eyes had lost their adoration and showed an inner,
preoccupied look and his face turned a blotchy red.

For answer, he began to cough; two small
wheezes followed by a great wrenching bark. He was aware enough of
his mother to see her expression change from good natured
indulgence to quick annoyance, but all he could do was wrench out a
stream of coughs that sounded as though he were a dog, and which
tore at his throat in painful intensity.

“Oh, heaven,” his mother said with
irritation. “The croup. Dante, you can not possibly have the croup.
You haven’t had that for ages.” She paused, as though expecting him
to admit to some joke on his part. But he only looked at her
helplessly, his little hands at his throat, and coughed again.

With that, his mother rapped upon the window
of the coach door, her knuckles pounding out a demanding tattoo.
The door was immediately opened. “Take my son back into the house,”
she told the coachman dismissingly. “And have Mrs. Herriot attend
to him. He has the croup.”

“What is this?” Dante heard his father from
outside ask. He peered into the open door. “Are you not well,
son?”

Dante attempted to speak, “Just a cough—” and
he wrenched out another bark, “Father. I’m sure it will pass in a
moment.”

But his father was shaking his head. “Alas,
no, son. We can not take any risk that your mother should catch it
in her condition,” and he said the last words with a tender pride.
“Come now, up into the house as your mother has bid. You do not
wish your new baby brother or sister to become sick before they are
even born, do you?”

Dante could not argue. He had been in a
perfect transport of joy at the news that he would soon become a
brother when it had been announced at the family dinner table just
three nights ago. He climbed from the coach. His mother
followed.

“I shall just speak to the Dowager,” she
explained to her husband, “so that she shall know that Dante is to
return to London with her at the end of her holiday.”

“You should stay also,” he urged.

“La—no,” she answered. “I can not take
another day here, William, I swear I can not. Between your mother
and our new sister-in-law, Lydia,” she shook her head. “I will be
much happier in Town.”

“But in your condition and traveling at
night? I do not like it. It is not necessary, you know. You should
stay and come up with my mother when she returns.”

“Now we have been all through this already,”
she admonished. “We had planned on trying to be more of a family,
and because Dante can no longer go does not mean that I cannot.
Now, allow me to speak with your mother so that we may leave. You
have pressing business, remember?”

Dante heard no more, for he went through the
manor door, miserable that he would not be traveling with his
father and mother. He was miserable as Mrs. Herriott was called for
and he was shooed up into bed by that indomitable housekeeper. By
the time his father came into the room, there was a bedwarmer
beneath the blankets at his feet and a poultice wrapped about his
throat.

“There you are, snug and warm,” his father
said as he came to his side.

“I’m much better, now, Father. Mayn’t I
go?”

“No. The cold night air would only set you
off again, I should fear. You remain here where your grandmother
may send for a doctor should the coughing return and be worse.”

“It is just that I have hardly spent any time
with you at all. Or mother,” Dante sighed.

“I know, son,” his father said and rumpled
his hair. “I know that it is hard on you, but some day when you are
older, you shall understand. There are things that must be done
that are bigger than ourselves and even our loved ones. The Queen
is counting on me and there are many lives at stake. I must advise
her to the best of my ability so that she has good, accurate
information to make her decisions on. And she must be very close to
making a decision for her to have called me so abruptly over this
holiday time. We would not get to spend much time together, other
than the journey, at any rate I fear. You shall be much better off
remaining out your holiday here with your grandmother.”

Dante only nodded, his eyes clenching shut in
order to squeeze back any unmanly tears. “I understand, Father,” he
coughed.

His father nodded, looking relieved. “Now, I
must gather my attaché and go. You shall look after your
grandmother, shall you?”

“Yes, Father, if you shall look after
Mother.”

“I will do that,” his father told him
seriously. “Better than I have before. Of that, I promise you.”

And although Dante did not know what that
meant, it was enough for him to close his eyes without trouble as
his father quietly left the room.

It was not until nearly noon the next morning
that he was fetched from his room by Mrs. Herriott at the bidding
of his grandmother. He had eaten breakfast from a tray and been
permitted to move about quietly, but he had not been allowed far
from his bed. Now the housekeeper knocked lightly and then opened
the door. “Young master,” she choked, her face blotchy and her eyes
red, which alarmed the boy. “The Dowager asks for your presence in
the study.”

The study! Dante was over-awed at the thought
of going through those doors into a room that was reserved strictly
for adults and the conducting of adult business. But he was
distracted by the agitated movements of the housekeeper, and her
face which looked as though it had been weeping, and at the same
time, bravely trying to staunch it. “Whatever is the matter, Mrs.
Herriott?” he asked in his small, boy’s voice as he went to the
door which she held open.

“Your grandmother must speak with you,” she
whispered, and would say no more.

He left the room. The halls that were so
familiar to him now seemed echoing. The huge clock at the head of
the steps seemed to tick all the louder in the hush of the house.
The pattern of the rug of the stairs, deep red with gold triangles,
was impressed forever on his memory, so that when he thought about
that day, years hence, he would see that pattern over and over in
his head, the endless walk down those stairs, when he knew not what
was coming, but was certain in his little boy’s heart that
something had happened that would change his life forever. Finally,
along the main hall of the first floor, to the double doors of the
study, which were opened for him by the butler of the house. “Your
Grace,” the butler said as he passed through that portal. Your
Grace. He was never referred to as ‘your Grace’. That was the title
reserved for his father, the Duke of St. James.

“Dante,” his grandmother bade from where she
sat in a large wing-backed chair. Her voice trembled as she spoke.
“Come and sit down, here, next to me. And try to be very
brave.”

Twenty-three years later
November, 1863

Chapter One

Sunday Afternoon

Miss Sara Elizabeth Murdock stroked the wet
neck of the horse she was astride. It was a dun color that even the
grey of the day could not mute. It shifted in eagerness but Miss
Murdock's father at its head held it with expertise and it settled
into walking again. “Do you think she'll be bothered by the slop?”
Lizzie asked. “We've never had her on the track in the rain
before.”

The training track was just ahead of them, a
level area not far from the stables that Lizzie's grandfather had
cleared many years ago.

Her father seemed to consider his answer
before saying, “I can't rightly say. Be cautious, but don't hold
her in too much, Lizzie, love.” He turned to look at her. “We need
a good showing in this.”