In the Brief Eternal Silence (39 page)

I remain sincerely and loyally at your
service.

St. James sat for several long moments
stunned and deliberating.

He shuffled through the remaining reports in
the envelope, determined that there were two more yet to be read,
but for now, he thought he had quite enough to study upon just in
what had been written in the first one.

“If your recommendations were made known,”
St. James murmured to himself, “then I am sure you made your share
of enemies overnight.”

For as his father had pointed out in his
missive to a young and somewhat uncertain, at that point, Queen
Victoria, there was a great deal of money at stake. And Dante's
father's advice had been to throw profits to the wind and for
people to possibly lose their initial investment also. Including
his own.

But would someone have been enraged and
threatened by bankruptcy enough to kill not only Dante's father,
but his mother and her unborn child as well? And Dante if he had
been in that coach as he was supposed to have been?

Also, St. James tapped his thumb on the
report in front of him, these papers were highly confidential, from
his father's pen to the Queen's eyes. Who else had gained knowledge
of what his father had been recommending the Queen to do? Who had
discovered that the Queen had at least seriously considered it, for
if she had not been swayed by his father's arguments, then his
arguments would have not been a threat. Had there been, possibly
still was, a mole in the Queen's trusted inner circle? One who had
been threatened by the loss of his fortune, or had he been a tool
for someone else?

St. James picked up his glass, saw that
during his reading he had finished the second drink as efficiently
as he had finished the first. His plate of dinner, quite cold, sat
untouched by his side, but he did not feel like eating. Instead, in
a rare show of hopelessness, he laid his head in his arms on his
father's report and thought now that he was making some progress,
that he may in fact be unequal to the task after all of avenging
his parents' deaths.

He did not have the luxury of lying there
long, for there was a tap on the door, and raising his head from
off his wine velvet sleeves he called, “Enter.”

Applegate opened the door. “Milord, it is
time for you to be leaving.”

“Thank you, Applegate,” but he did not move
to get up as Applegate withdrew. He unlocked his top drawer, moved
his father's reports into it and locked it again, but his mind was
very far away as he did so. It had turned not to what had been
written, but to the picture he had gained of his father. His memory
of that man was not dim, for he had very clear and haunting
memories of him, if rather few, for it had seemed that he rarely
saw him as he was always on one assignment or another for the
crown.

The picture he had gained of his father
suggested someone not at all hard or cynical but someone earnest,
dedicated and trustworthy. A man more concerned about human
suffering than riches. A man untouched by dark thoughts and dark
deeds.

And perhaps that hurt the most, because St.
James had a glimpse of what he may have been, was meant to have
become, if he had not been twisted at the young age of ten by a
need to avenge.

His father had been the epitome of
respectability. Not only a lord but a gentleman. If he were to know
St. James as he had grown to be, he would have held him and his
actions in abhorrence.

His father had never fought a duel, for he
would not have been in company of anyone that would offend or be
easily or ridiculously offended. He would not have ever played in a
gaming hell worse than Whites or Boodles, and infrequently at
those. He would have never walked the gin streets of London in
search of assassins, and more rewarding in the way of information,
women of assassins. He would not have set out to seduce young
females of quality who were willing to bring him documents from
their fathers' desks, unread and unaware. He would have never
become involved with his peers' wives and opened dusty closet doors
of their minds, asking questions of their husbands' business
affairs that their husbands would have been shocked to know they
even knew about.

And his father would have never proposed to
elope with a girl he did not know or care for with the hopes of
impregnating her and then springing her on society as only his
fiancé with the grave possibility that he would not even be alive
when the child was born to take care of either of them in any way
but monetary.

And although Miss Murdock would have been
protected by his name when after his death, his barrister would
have produced the marriage certificate, her life would still have
been a living hell.

He snapped from his inactivity. He rose from
his seat, delayed long enough to go again to the sideboard, pour
another brandy and downed it. His resolve, which had seemed
wavering there for those few minutes as he examined all that his
father had been, all that he should have been, returned to a
strength that made him dizzy.

He could not change what had happened, he had
accepted that fact long ago, and he reminded himself of it now.

Mayhaps his father would have held him in
abhorrence if he were to be acquainted with him now. But if his
father had walked with the dead as St. James for so long had, his
father would not have fallen so easily at the whim of another and
St. James would have been afforded the luxury of believing his
world was safe.

He intended that luxury for his son, and damn
it, he intended it for his soon to be wife. And if it meant being
as he was, then that was the way he would be.

But of course, he had known that for many
years now.

Only with the death of another could he in
turn live. If it meant sacrificing his life in the effort, he did
not feel that it was an unfair trade. As long as his objective was
met.

“I have let her delay long enough,” he mused.
“Mayhaps, too long.” He turned on his heel and strode from the
room, a good deal of his anticipation for a pleasant evening
provoking Miss Murdock drained from him. He had wasted too much
time indulging his affection for her and he reminded himself that
affection had no place in his plans.

By fair means or foul, he had to get her down
the marriage aisle.

The longer he delayed, the more likely he
would not be alive to see the nuptials.

And at odds with all that he had just read
was still the gut instinct that his foe could tolerate him being
alive, but would not tolerate his producing an heir. If it were so
very important to his enemy that he did not produce an heir, then
it was equally important to St. James that he should, and with some
haste.

He went from the room, very aware of the
lateness of the hour. And Miss Murdock was waiting.

Inside the drawer, trapped between the
reports, was the other, smaller envelope that St. James had set
aside for his perusal that evening. But with three drinks, no
dinner, and a great deal on his mind, he had forgotten its
existence.

Chapter Sixteen

“You look enchanting, Lizzie,” Andrew told
her. Ashton had just closed the door of the drawing room behind her
and she smiled up at Earl Larrimer as she came across the room

“I do not believe you, you know, but I still
appreciate the sentiment.”

“No, I am quite serious. The pale yellow of
that gown brings out just how refreshingly different you are. You
make everyone I know seem too tall and too pale.”

She blushed, still only half attending him,
for she was so full of trepidation she was nearly sick with it.
“Yes, but in all their powdered paleness, they appear so cool,
where as I am afraid I merely look as I am: flustered, and I fear,
a little sweaty.”

He laughed the easy, boyish laugh that came
so easily to him and that was infectious to anyone that heard it.
“You do not look sweaty,” he reassured her. “At most, just
pleasantly glowing. Dewy fresh.”

She smiled at his description which made her
sound, she thought, like some manner of fruit. “I will ask your
opinion again when we reach the assembly rooms and I am quite
drenched with nervousness.”

“Whatever do you have to be nervous about?”
he asked. “You realize that all the others being launched are
several years younger than yourself, so you are sure to look
gratifyingly self-possessed compared to them.”

“Oh, you are reassuring me immensely by
reminding me that I am an aging spinster,” she teased. He gave her
a half-humorous, half-hurt look that she seemed to be forever
rebuffing his admiration for her, and she continued with more
seriousness. “But I am afraid they have the advantage on me as they
are fresh out of dancing class, and I, well the only tutor I had
was my father,” she admitted.

“Really?” Andrew asked, quite diverted at
this revelation. “You never had a proper dance instructor?”

“No, not at all,” Miss Murdock responded,
thinking there had been no money to even have a maid, let alone
tutors. But of course, Andrew had no clear understanding of this.
She had the sudden vision of him being in place of St. James on
that ill-fated night when the duke had arrived. Andrew following
her to the kitchens. Good God, Miss Murdock, where are all your
servants? He could not realize yet that there would be times when
one merely did what needed to be done, for there was nothing else
for it. “But I must say that for as portly as my father is, and, of
course before his gout was quite as bad as it is, he was
exceptionally light on his feet. I only fear that the dances he
taught me are now so outdated that they will be useless.”

“Have you at least learned to waltz, Lizzie?
For it is very popular, you know, although Almacks in all its
'wisdom' will only allow one per assembly.”

Miss Murdock looked more relieved than
crestfallen to have her fears of inadequacy confirmed. “No, I have
not, for my father says such a dance was not at all allowed when he
was a young man.”

And Andrew with undeniable enthusiasm, said,
“Well, then I must teach you immediately.” Before she could demur,
he caught her hand, held it out from them in the correct position
and quite took her breath away by wrapping an arm around her waist
and pulling her to the proper distance from him.

“But there is no music,” Miss Murdock hedged
with desperation.

“I shall hum,” Andrew told her grandly.

He did begin to hum, and Miss Murdock
laughed, and he went slowly at first until she caught the steps. He
interrupted his impromptu music to tell her, “Hand on my shoulder,
Miss Murdock, and three quarter time! One, two, three. One, two,
three. Splendid! Now we shall speed up a bit, shall we?”

He swooped her in ever widening circles about
the room until the large hoop of her buttermilk ball gown swayed
about her like a bell being tolled. Despite herself she was
enchanted, her face flushing as his humming became more exuberant
and he swirled her ever faster, she clinging to his shoulder and he
holding to her waist. Lizzie was laughing and breathless, and he
was laughing and humming between his laughs, his face
delighted.

Then in the midst of all this lightness, he
dropped his hand from holding hers and released her waist also, so
that, surprised and dizzy, she nearly fell. Andrew cupped her face
in both his hands and kissed her with quick warmth.

She did not reject him, perhaps a little too
stunned to even gather her wits. He was a handsome young man and
reminded her most painfully of his cousin, but where St. James'
mere kisses upon her wrist had induced her to slap him, when Andrew
released her, she only had a sudden, lamentable fit of the
giggles.

Which perhaps was not the reaction Andrew had
been looking for.

“That is not at all kind, Lizzie,” he
admonished her, frowning in real perplexity. “Has no one told you
that when a man makes improper advances toward you, you are to
promptly swoon from the thrill and danger of it?”

“Oh,” she managed through her giggles, which
had redoubled at his chastisement, and said, “I have come up
lacking again!”

“Well, since you have, you may as well tell
me what is so funny. I was quite serious you know, for you are the
grandest, if I may also say the damnedest, female I ever met.”

“Oh, now you are getting cross,” she said. “I
am sorry,” but she continued to laugh. She put a hand on his
shoulder. “It is only that I did not realize you were so thorough.
You have taught me the art of flattery, waltzing, and now kissing.
I am only afraid of what you will next deem necessary for me to
learn.”

“That is not at all in the spirit that I
meant it, Lizzie, as I believe you know perfectly well,” he told
her, and she could see that she was trying him sorely, for although
he was by nature amiable, even he had his limits to being a good
sport.

“Yes, Andrew,” she told him, growing sober,
“but I think it is best if that is the spirit in which I accept it,
for it would not do otherwise, you know.”

“I do not know that at all,” he persisted, a
little petulant.

“Oh, do not be upset, for I was having such a
lovely time before this,” she begged. “It is only that I care very
much for you as things are and I do not wish to change them and
have everything end in a great deal of unpleasantness.”

“Ah,” he said, brightening, “you have
forgotten that I intend to be the epitome of respectability to
redeem the Larrimer name that my cousin has so inadvertently
besmirched, not that I blame him in any way. So do not get it in
your head that I am merely dallying with you.”

Miss Murdock, with rashness, but with no
other inspiration at hand to soothe him and at the same time
discourage his behavior, told him, “I did not think you would,
Andrew. It is rather myself that I am afraid of, for I fear you
quite turned my head, and I do not wish to take advantage of what I
am sure are honorable intentions, only to hurt you in the end. For
although I find your company very exhilarating, I can not foresee
my heart becoming involved and it would not do for me to pretend
more than a passion for you in order to only gain my own ends.”