In the Brief Eternal Silence (31 page)

The coach stopped and Miss Murdock blinked
her brown eyes, feeling as confused as if the earth had suddenly
quit turning. A voice came to her from outside in the sudden
stillness: “But his lordship said t'was my job tonight!” Young,
boyish. Miss Murdock remembered that it must be Steven, he who had
tapped for entrance upon her window.

She started up, frantic. “Would you leave go
of my hand?” she asked in hushed urgency.

“Tsk, Miss Murdock,” St. James replied more
evenly as he released her hand in lazy gesture. “I am sure even a
lad of Steven's age has seen hand-holding and wrist-kissing.”

She blushed furiously at his easy summation
of what they had been doing, and his words made it seem a good deal
less significant than it had been, for her at any rate. The thought
that it could be, in fact, of so little significance to him
mortified her, but the ease in which he had accomplished it seemed
to confirm this conclusion.

As these thoughts whirled in her brain, she
heard Tyler saying to Steven outside, “I'll attend to the door,
lad, I'm sure his lordship would prefer it.”

That Tyler should have so clear an inkling of
what had been progressing in the coach, and seemed to be quite at
home with the discretion it called for from him (evidenced by his
not throwing open the door as would have been customary and as
Steven, no doubt, had been about to do, but by tapping with
diffidence upon it) brought her scattered emotions together in such
a fury, that before she knew what she was about, she whirled on St.
James and slapped him with force across his cheek.

His head whipped back at the impact, and she
saw her handprint, a white branding, on his cheek. She burst into
very unladylike tears.

“Take a walk, Tyler!” St. James ordered less
than graciously.

The implications the groom must be arriving
at by this announcement upset her all the more. “Damn you!” she
said through her crying. “That was entirely beyond all bounds of
fairness.”

“So is slapping, Miss Murdock, but you do not
see me bewailing the sudden lack of rules.”

“You deserved it.”

“I did.”

“I should box your ears also.”

“If it will make you stop crying, you may do
so.”

“Oh, you are a bloody fiend.”

He dug in his pocket and held out a
handkerchief to her. “I have never denied it.”

She took his handkerchief, a delicate affair,
dabbed her eyes with it, and then, rather defiantly, blew her nose
into it with less than ladylike restraint.

St. James took the abused garment back when
she handed it to him, stared at it for a thoughtful second, and
then unlatched the door and threw it out into the gutter.

Despite herself, Miss Murdock gave a
snuffling giggle. “Sorry,” she said.

“Miss Murdock, I assure you I have a dozen,
and for no other reason than that distressed young ladies may blow
their dainty noses in them with great bellowing honks.” He gave a
twisted smile and she saw with dismay that her hand print was
already welting on his cheek in flamboyant color.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “I am not apologizing,
mind you, but I do rather wish I had not slapped you quite so
hard.”

“It is but a small matter, Miss Murdock. I am
sure society will merely mark up my injury as another tasty on dit
to add to my rakish reputation.” He ran a finger along his cheek as
he spoke and then gave a nearly imperceptible shrug. “If you are
feeling better now?” he asked.

She nodded, feeling crushed at how badly
everything had turned out. He kicked the door that was still ajar
from his disposing of his handkerchief further open and called out
softly into the night, “Tyler?”

That man appeared out of the shadows not far
from them. St. James nodded. “Thought you would have not gone
far.”

“Aye, milord. Wouldn't think it prudent for
several reasons.” He squinted for a closer look at his lordship's
countenance. “By gaw, worry for Miss Murdock didn't need t'be one
of them, I see!” he exclaimed with more pleasure in his voice than
Miss Murdock could readily find reason for.

“I fear I needed more protection than she,”
St. James admitted stepping down from the carriage. He turned then
and Lizzie took his hand as he helped her out.

“Just so the point is well taken, milord!”
she told him.

He retained her hand for a thoughtful moment.
“But one has to weigh the pleasure against the consequence to
decide if the action was worth it, does one not?”

She blushed and dropped her gaze but Tyler
came to her rescue by saying, “That will be enough, milord! I
shan't have you frightening her more than you have already and
having to put up with your foul mood for weeks to come when she
refuses to have anything to do with you,” and he spat tobacco at
the end of his words as if to punctuate them.

“See her to the door, would you, Tyler,” St.
James directed. “And where, by the by, has the lad gone to?”

“I sent him to make sure the front door was
still unlocked. Didn't want anything unseemly spilling out of the
coach in front of his young eyes.” He tugged his cap in Miss
Murdock's direction. “Pardon me for saying so, Miss, no reflection
on you, of course. It's just I know how the lordship can be.”

“So I have already gathered, Tyler, so no
offense taken,” she answered, her voice bleak.

St. James frowned at his groom. “If you are
finished disparaging my character now, Tyler?”

“I won't send a lamb off with a wolf and tell
her it's her dear, sweet grandmother, milord, if that is what you
are getting at,” the groom returned unperturbed. “If you are ready,
Miss?”

“I am!”

She took his arm and Tyler led her around to
the front of the house where Steven waited for them. The door was
indeed unlocked, and as Miss Murdock bid them quiet good night and
slipped through it, she was overcome with such profound relief that
she could have wept.

Her room when she reached it was as she had
left it, even to the window that still remained open, like an
accusation of her ill-advised activities. It had brought quite a
chill to her room and she went to close it and again draw the
curtains even before taking off her cloak. She must have been in a
state indeed to forget that simple task, and she had to wonder at
herself, for it was something so automatic to her that she could
scarce credit that she had forgotten it.

But the window was open, so she must
have.

She disrobed back down to her sleeping gown,
and when she crawled into bed, she lay awake for a long time,
although she was very tired, and consoled herself that she need
only avoid him for the remainder of the week before she returned
home.

Which did not quite answer the question of
how she would return home, but she was certain that she would
procure the funds somewhere. In the midst of these comforting and
distracting thoughts, she dozed off, and slipped finally, into deep
sleep.

In the morning she was awakened by Jeannie,
who handed her a cup of hot chocolate and opened the curtains to
let the morning light pour into the room. She was chattering as she
did so, most of her words and their meaning going quite past Miss
Murdock as she was too engrossed upon trying to decide if all that
had happened the night before had been real or merely a very
compelling dream.

However, when Jeannie threw open the door to
Miss Murdock's bedchamber and began directing two maids (of the
housekeeping variety) to bring in the parcels, Miss Murdock
perceived that Jeannie's happy chatter had been that the first of
Miss's new clothing had arrived that morning. Jeannie seemed to be
in perfect ecstasy as she began opening the many boxes that were
piled onto the foot of the bed with little ceremony. “Oh, Miss,”
she exclaimed as she pulled out the first dress, a ball gown of
buttermilk yellow, “I have been in an agony wondering what had been
procured for you. And so quickly!” Her green eyes met Miss
Murdock's now attending ones. “You will look so beautiful in this
and when your hair is redone. And to think, I shall be the one
getting you ready this evening.”

Miss Murdock choked. “This evening?”

“Why, yes, Miss! Almacks' first ball of the
season is tonight and I had word from the Duchess that you are
attending, along with herself and Lady Lydia and Earl Larrimer
also. Do you think, Miss,” she asked in a whisper, “that they may
be matchmaking the two of you?”

Miss Murdock, regaining her equilibrium, said
rather shortly, “No.”

“Oh,” Jeannie sighed, apparently very much
disappointed. “It is just that he is so handsome and an Earl.”

“And a mere boy only out of University less
than a year ago,” Miss Murdock pointed out, totally ignoring the
fact that this made him three years older than herself.

“Oh, but that is nothing to look upon as a
deficiency, miss,” Jeannie returned, “for I believe it is better to
get them when they are still young before they become old and
dissipated like his cousin the Duke of St. James.” She busied
herself hanging up the ball gown, but she put it on the door of the
wardrobe so that it would be within easy reach for later that day.
“Do you know,” she asked Miss Murdock as she turned to open the
next box, “that I have heard that the Duke cannot even get vouchers
for Almacks? Have you ever heard of such a thing, miss? A Duke
unwelcome at Almacks?”

“Indeed, I have never heard such a thing,”
Miss Murdock replied. She sat up more fully in bed, and tried to
decide whether she was relieved or disappointed that the
possibility of seeing St. James that night at Almacks was clearly
out of the question. If nothing else, she conceded, it would all
probably be a little flat without him.

“Ah, all the proper undergarments, miss,”
Jeannie was saying as she laid out countless silk intimates. “I ask
your pardon, but I was quite worried about that, you know. Not
proper for a miss such as yourself to be wearing cotton
underthings. And the fact that you had no crinoline—!” She shook
her head at her remembered dismay at discovering her new charge had
lacked that essential.

For the first time, Miss Murdock paid
attention to the amount of clothing that was being laid out on her
bed below her feet that Jeannie was carefully sorting, refolding or
hanging. Not only were there countless chemises and intimates and
stockings and no less than three crinolines, but as Jeannie opened
the next box, an assortment of hats, reticules and gloves spilled
out of it, and the next box contained no less than a dozen pair of
shoes: slippers with heels, walking slippers, dancing slippers. .
.

“Good Lord!” Miss Murdock interrupted the
ongoing inventory. “I do not remember ordering any of this. Or even
looking at the half of it!”

“Oh, but miss,” Jeannie hurried to say. “You
must realize that for every dress you ordered the proper shoes and
reticule and hat and gloves had to be ordered also? And as they
have only delivered the very beginning of your order, there will be
many more coming tomorrow, and the next day also, I expect. And
once you go to Almacks tonight and see what every one else is
wearing, I am sure that the Duchess will have you down at the shops
again tomorrow to order any of those things that are the rage and
that you simply must have.”

Miss Murdock was left quite speechless and
could only put her cup aside and put a hand to her forehead as she
watched the countless items being so efficiently unpacked,
appreciated, sorted and stowed. The room she was in was fast taking
on the quality of a resident's room rather than a visitor's, and
Miss Murdock watched it all with a sick feeling in her stomach.

The amount of money that was being spent upon
all of this. And she to be here only to the end of the week! If St.
James had received the bill for this yesterday, he more than likely
would have strangled her last night instead of—Nevermind! she told
herself sharply.

Oh, God help her, how was she to repay all of
this? How could she ever! Even if she had some sort of employment,
there was probably over a year's salary sitting in her room at this
moment, and as Jeannie had pointed out, there would be more coming.
And it was too late to cancel, for although she was not certain how
these things worked, common sense told her that once the cloth had
been cut to fit her, they could not simply use it for someone else.
Payment would be demanded and if the intended wearer of the outfits
disappeared, it was not the shopkeeper's problem.

Jeannie interrupted her quiet, sick dismay.
“Oh, miss, this apple green morning gown will be just the thing for
this morning, do you not think so? If you are ready, I will help
you dress now.”

Miss Murdock threw back the blankets that
still covered her legs and said with rather less enthusiasm than
Jeannie was obviously expecting. “I suppose so, Jeannie.”

Jeannie helped her to bathe and dress. The
green gown was becoming on her, Miss Murdock noticed. It had a high
collar and many buttons down the front of it that matched the
material and the crinoline fluffed it out from her small waist to
fall in a graceful, subdued bell of material that, when Miss
Murdock slipped into the matching slippers, fell to just above the
floor.

Jeannie, after a quick search through the
boxes that she had not yet unpacked, made an exclamation of
satisfaction upon finding a matching green ribbon, and she tied
Miss Murdock's hair up into a graceful, thick knot on top of the
back of her head. It was not as elegant as the hairstyle of the
night before, Jeannie pointed out, but it was appropriate for
morning wear, and she was sure Alphonse would be back this evening
to do miss's hair again for going to Almack's and Jeannie would no
doubt be instructed on how to do it properly from then on.

“Oh, dear,” Miss Murdock said, wondering just
what Jeannie was to do when she returned home, for she could not
afford to take her with her, and here the lady's maid was taking so
many pains to learn how to do everything in the way Miss Murdock
needed it done.