In the Brief Eternal Silence (45 page)

“He was alive the last I saw, but I do not
know if he shall live,” Steven sniffled. “But me father, me da—he's
dead,” and his tears intensified in proportion to the knot growing
in Miss Murdock's stomach.

“Where is he now?” Miss Murdock asked in
desperation.

“Lying in the middle of an alley for someone
to find in the morning,” Steven sobbed.

Miss Murdock gave a sound of pure horror.
“No! Do not tell me that you left St. James to bleed to death in
the middle of an alley?”

But he shook his head. “No, miss. Tyler was
taking milord home. Me father, he's the one lying dead in the
mew.”

“Oh, thank—” but Miss Murdock had the
presence of mind to leave that exclamation unfinished. Instead she
asked, “Can you sit here by yourself for just one moment? I will
return directly, I assure you. You won't leave, will you?” she
asked in sudden panic.

“No. I have no place t'go, for I don't know
how I am t'tell me mother,” he told her.

“Oh, Lord help us,” Miss Murdock breathed,
then she was up from her crouch in front of him and hurrying to the
door without even pausing for slippers. She opened the door, went
into the hall and ran down it in her bare feet. She stopped in
front of the door she knew to be Andrew's and tapped on it, biting
her lip in fear that she would awaken anyone else. He did not
answer, and with a little burst of impatience, she turned the knob
and entered.

From the hallway, she thought she heard the
soft click of another door's closing, but she was in no mood to
debate within herself whether it was in fact what she had heard.
Instead, she went to Andrew's bed and felt up by his pillow until
she found his head, and then patted down a few inches to his
shoulder, which was bare, and she gave it a fierce shake. “Andrew,”
she hissed. “Andrew, do wake up!”

He sat up in his bed, nearly hitting her with
the top of his head. “What? Who's there?” he asked more loudly than
she would have liked.

“Shh! It's Lizzie.”

“Lizzie!”

There were so many things she could have read
into his voice that she did not even want to begin. “Yes. I fear
your cousin has been injured in some way. Possibly,” and she
swallowed, “possibly grievously.”

“St. James?” he asked. He swung his legs over
the side of the bed. She was grateful for the darkness in the room,
for she had no way of knowing in what manner he slept and had no
desire to find out now. She stepped back from the bed. “When did
this happen!” he demanded.

“I—I don't know. Tonight, obviously. Oh,
Andrew, you must ride 'round immediately to see what has
happened!”

“I intend to,” he said with a new grimness in
his voice. Then he frightened her completely by saying, “I should
have been with him!”

“No!” she begged, but he was already pushing
her to the door.

“Out,” he said.

And she understood that of course he wished
to get dressed.

“Send me word, Andrew, as quickly as you
can.”

“I will,” he promised and shoved her out of
his room. She ran back to her own rooms, breathless and pale with
apprehension, but slowed before entering, not wishing to burst in
on Steven and upset him any more than he already was. She slipped
through the door, and was relieved to find him still upon the
chaise lounge, slumped on his side along the length of it, his feet
hanging down.

“Steven?” she whispered after shutting the
door and he had not stirred. She had the sudden thought that he had
been injured after all and that in all his grief, he had not
noticed it, but when she went to him, she saw that he was sleeping,
his eyes darkly circled and his young face sagging.

“Oh, Steven,” she murmured. She removed his
shoes, which were very worn, and tucked his feet up onto the lounge
and pulled the blanket further around him. His pants were ragged,
she noticed, and she remembered that he had been dressed much
smarter the night before, so she found this dress of his rather
odd. But her mind was so filled that it was not working at all. She
pulled the chair in her room up to the open window to wait and sat
staring out at the moon, her mind skittering around nervous
edges.

Presently, she heard the sound of a horse's
nicker through her opened window, and then the fast beat of hooves
that were pulled to a sharp halt. Andrew's muttered curse floated
up to her. “What the devil!”

Miss Murdock rose from her seat, shoved her
head out the window and looked below just in time to catch Andrew's
eye as he looked up. He had caught the reins of a cob, a beastly
looking thing that was as ugly as it was small. Even from this
distance she could see the dark stains of blood soaked into the
worn saddle leather, and the dark sheen of it smeared upon the
horse's flanks. On impulse, she said, “Wait! I'm coming also!”

“Lizzie!” he hissed. “I haven't time!”

“Well, you can't leave that horse there at
any rate,” she argued. “It'll be much quicker if you wait just one
moment!” and she ducked her head back inside, forestalling any
further argument. But then she faced another problem, for to get
into her riding habit would be time consuming and pointless at any
rate as the horse below had no sidesaddle. Then she glanced down at
Steven still sleeping deeply.

A very few minutes later, she let herself out
the front door as she had the night before and Andrew, having
evidently anticipated her way of exit, was there waiting. “Hurry!”
he ordered, not at all happy to be taking her along, and full of
questions as to what a strange horse was doing below her window at
any rate.

She had pulled on a cloak, and stuffed a
wadded bundle partway down her sleeve so that her arm stuck out
from her side, but as he started to slide down to assist her in
mounting, she forestalled him by jumping into the saddle and
landing astride. Her cloak floated to settle around her. Andrew
raised his eyebrows a good deal at this maneuver, and she pulled
her cloak back to reveal a pair of tattered breeches tucked into
her fashionable riding boots.

“Where—?”

“Oh, Andrew, not now!” she exclaimed, and put
her heels to the horse, which lumbered into as fast a pace as it
could manage after its long and tiring night.

Andrew caught her in an instant, his
temperamental colt overtaking the older cob with ease, and he held
his gloved hand out to restrain Miss Murdock's reins. “Slowly,” he
cautioned. “We need not draw attention to ourselves. Not with you
along, at any rate,” he added, “for if it had just been myself, I
could have adequately covered.”

Lizzie agreed, a little contrite, and kept
her horse to a trot, which was not an uncommon gate in Town. Her
hood had fallen back and she brought it up once again over her
head, wishing that it was anything but mint green in color. “You
are right, of course, Andrew. I fully appreciate that no
respectable female should be out this time of the night, and alone
with a man.”

“And wearing men's breeches and riding
astride,” he finished sounding irritated. Miss Murdock found that
riding more slowly was not at all to her liking, for not only was
she anxious to get to St. James, it also gave Andrew opportunity to
begin asking questions. “You may also like to tell me how it came
about that you had a horse beneath your window.” He glanced over at
her, his blue eyes in his otherwise similar to the duke's face
annoyed. “And where you got those breeches, also! They certainly
are not a pair of mine, which is the only logical explanation I
could come up with.”

“Well,” Miss Murdock replied with impatience,
“it should be

obvious that there is someone visiting in my
room.”

Andrew pulled his mount up short. “The devil
there is!”

“A boy, Andrew,” Miss Murdock explained. “St.
James' messenger

boy.”

He relaxed somewhat. “And that is how you are
aware that St. James has been injured,” he said, kicking his horse
again into a trot. Miss Murdock coaxed the cob back into keeping
pace, for it had stopped of its own accord when his horse had.

“Yes. But he is quite overwrought and I could
not get more out of him than that his lordship was badly injured,
and his own father is even now lying dead in some alley. I can only
surmise that his father must have been employed by St. James in
some capacity also, and was killed trying to aid his lordship.”

Andrew let out a curse. “But you have no idea
what came about.

. .?”

Lizzie shook her head.

Andrew, with a sudden thought, struck his
forehead lightly with his gloved hand. “The boy. Is he still in
your room?”

“Yes. But he is sleeping soundly on the
chaise lounge. All the same, we shall have to figure out what to do
with him when we return, for it will not do for Jeannie to come in
with my chocolate in the morning and find him there.”

“I should say not,” Andrew agreed. “Boy or
no, there would be more questions than we would ever manage to
answer! Turn left here, Lizzie, and it is just up the street.”

Lizzie only nodded, too tense now to even
speak. She feared finding St. James on his death bed and Andrew's
questions had at least enabled her to squash them back some, but
now she was trembling.

Andrew slowed his horse to a walk and Miss
Murdock did the same. “We'll go to the stables first, for we shall
have to put the horses up at any rate,” he whispered as they turned
into the narrow mew to the side of a very large and imposing home.
“Mayhaps Tyler will be there, and will have some knowledge of what
is going on.”

“Of course!” Miss Murdock said, suddenly
heartened.

“Otherwise,” Andrew worried, “I am not sure
how we will ever gain admittance without disturbing the
household.”

“It is very quiet,” Miss Murdock observed,
having expected to see some sort of frantic activity, and a
doctor's carriage outside the home. The mew ended in front of the
stables' entrance, and to both of their surprise, the doors were
open and St. James' carriage stood half in and half out of the
entrance, his black horses still harnessed, but there was no one
about to be seen at all.

Earl Larrimer dismounted and Lizzie, after a
brief second of feeling a great deal of queasiness in her stomach
at this somehow foreboding sight, followed suit. They led their
mounts single file along the side of the carriage, for it blocked
the most of the doorway and there was only just enough room for
them to be able to get the horses through. Andrew paused beside the
door of it. “Look,” he said and pointed to the ground. There was a
trail of blood coming from the now closed door and puddled half on
the cobblestones of the drive and half soaked in where it lay on
the floorboards of the stables.

Then he took his horse on through and Lizzie
followed him. They found an empty stall for each, and only loosened
the girths of the saddles and removed the bits from their mouths
before closing them into their confines. In the next stall, a fine,
coal black filly stuck her head over the door, her ears twitching
forward as she observed what had wakened her.

Miss Murdock spared her a pat, no more able
to walk past a fine horse without petting it than a doting parent
could go past their child without ruffling its hair. “You are a
fine lass, are you not?” she said, then dropped her hand as Andrew
came out of the stall. They went back to the carriage, and Andrew
opened the door. Together they peered in. One leather seat was
covered with a dark, still sticky wet, stain. The rug on the floor
was soaked with blood, and somehow most alarming to Lizzie was a
bloody hand print half smeared on the side window.

Andrew closed the door. “This carriage will
have to be cleaned,” he said. “And before morning.”

“Oh, Andrew,” she said, her voice quavering.
“That is too much blood!”

“C'mon. Let us see if we can gain entrance
somehow.”

They went first to the back servants'
entrance, as it was closest, and it seemed only perfunctory to try
it, though they each had their doubts that it could be so easy. But
Andrew tried the handle and to each of their amazement, it swung
readily in. Then they looked down, saw the trail of blood over the
doorstep, and it was apparent that whoever had brought St. James in
had had his hands just a bit too full to be able to be throwing
home the bolts.

“Where now?” Miss Murdock whispered as Andrew
closed the door behind them and they hurried as quietly as possible
through the kitchens. “They wouldn't attempt to haul him up the
stairs, would they?”

But just then, they came upon the back
servants stairs and there was a trail of blood going up them and
disappearing around the abrupt twist they made halfway up. And from
above them, they heard the soft, furtive sounds of a scrub brush
being used with hasty diligence. The dim, very dim glow of a lamp
shone forth from above. Andrew took her arm and they moved
together, squeaking a step here and there, and when they went
around the twist, they observed Tyler on his knees, a low burning
lamp by his side. His shirt was covered with blood, his cap off and
his gray hair mussed considerably, with a great deal of red streaks
in it. He was working hard and fast with the brush while at the
same time trying to do it as silently as possible, and it was
obvious from the degree of red in his bucket of water that he had
been at it for some time.

They had only a second to observe all this,
for he looked up, nearly overturning his bucket, and his hand did a
little dance toward his waist as someone who were used to keeping
some weapon in his belt would do. Then his eyes narrowed and his
brows rose, and from his knees, he exclaimed in a whisper, “Bloody
Hell, Miss Murdock, is that you and Earl Larrimer?”

“Yes. Do not be alarmed,” she said in hushed
tones back. “I would ask if his lordship were injured as we had
heard, but I believe it is rather evident that he has been.”