In the Brief Eternal Silence (49 page)

So everyone was a great deal out of sorts by
the time we reached your grandmother's house, for your aunt had
stirred it all back up most lamentably. I retired, and even though
I thought I would be unable to sleep, I did almost immediately
until I heard Steven tapping on—

“Steven!”

Miss Murdock's fingers faltered and she had
to think what she had just been saying for she had been only
partially aware of it, the greater part of her mind on sewing his
lordship back together. “Yes. Steven.” Then her voice rose, for he
was struggling to sit up. “What are you doing!” But he neither
heeded nor answered her. “You must lie still, milord, for I am not
done yet!” She rose from her knees once again and bent over
him.

He fell back from his half-rise, panting. She
was nearly in tears at the thought of her stitches tearing. “Oh,
can't you lie still! I assure you Steven is as well as can be
expected.”

His eyes closed again, and his face was so
pale that she feared he had really done it and would be unconscious
again in short order, which at this moment, she would not
necessarily look upon as something bad. “Where?” he ground out, and
the word turned into a groan, which he bit off between his
teeth.

“In my bedchamber at your grandmother's,” and
as his eyes snapped open again at this pronouncement, she hurried
to soothe him as best she could. “He is sleeping, milord, and no
one knows of his presence, and even now Tyler and Andrew are about
getting him out and bringing him here.” She did not add that they
were also about removing Steven's father's body from the mew, for
she did not know if St. James were aware of that loss of life and
she would not upset him further.

His panting subsided and he half raised his
head again. “Damn it!

I am. . . too bloody weak!”

“Yes, milord,” she told him. “And you will
only get weaker instead of stronger if you do not let me
finish!”

“You should. . . not be here.”

“Yes, yes, milord. And I will go as soon as I
am done,” she soothed, although she had no intention of leaving.
“So please lie still and I will finish in short order, I promise
you.”

“Tell me what. . . Steven said.”

“While I work. I will tell you all I know
while I work.”

He did lie still, but his eyes did not shut
as before but were dark and brooding. Lizzie knelt and picked up
the needle once again, settled herself to resume her work. Her
hands were shaking, and so there was a moment when she did nothing
but try to calm herself. She expected him to be impatient, but a
glance at him showed he was so preoccupied with his thoughts that
she was loathe to interrupt him when she did begin to speak. “He
came to my window, as he had the night before. And he had—had blood
on him and was very upset.”

His face was immobile and even his pain
seemed to be set aside to the immediacy of his contemplation. She
was not even sure he were listening to her, but at her hesitation,
for she was trying to think ahead and, yes, edit her tale for she
did not wish to upset him any further than he already was, he
prompted her.

“Go on.”

“So I—I brought him in the window and asked
him what had happened and he. . . he said you were injured and
here.”

“Is. . . that all?”

“He fell asleep very quickly, milord—Dante.
He was overwrought and exhausted.” Which was not the same as
answering him yes or no, but would have to do for she did not wish
to outright lie to him. Although she had always been a staunch
believer that lying by omission was only one step below lying
outright.

“Did he tell. . . you his father. . . is
dead?”

Her hand trembled, for his tone was too flat,
too emotionless, and she had the first foreboding that there was
something terribly, terribly wrong with the scene she had in her
mind of what had happened. She forced the needle through, for she
was on the very last stitch, and some part of her commanded that
she finish what had to be done before she answered him, before he
again spoke. She tied off the last stitch, snipped the thread from
the needle, and then said in a small whisper, “Yes.” Then she
lifted her head to find his eyes were no longer focused on his
inner mind but on her.

“Did he tell. . . you. . . how his father
died?”

And sudden bile rose in Miss Murdock's throat
and her eyes became large and pleading in her face. Don't tell me!
But you are already telling me, aren't you. Your eyes! My God, do
not look at me with eyes like that. She couldn't speak but only
slowly shook her head.

But he did not look down, did not spare her
the bright gleam of his gold gaze that beaconed out and impaled
her. And she could not look down, could not deny him that access to
her, even when she knew it was about to cause her an unspeakable
pain.

“I. . . killed him.”

Still she held his gaze. But he seemed to
shrink in her eyes, for her vision began to encompass not just his
eyes, but his pale, pain-harshened face, the white pillow he lay
upon with his mat of dark hair the only border between white linen
and white face. The bed posts reached high above him and the bed
stretched out long beneath him. The room itself shrank until she
saw the flickering flames of the lamps, the secretary in one corner
and one of three, high, wide highboys in the other corner. The
sideboard with all of his many bottles and decanters of various
liquors. The fireplace still putting out fumes of burned blood and
velvet. The various dressers and tables, and even though it was to
her back, she was aware of the door, and yet in the center of all
of this were his two gold eyes, his expression unfathomable to her,
mayhaps unfathomable to himself.

And then she closed her eyes and all she
could see was Steven's face. His young, much too young, shocked,
bewildered and grieving face. Whose blood is it, Steven? Me
father's. . . and St. James'. Victim's and Victor's mingled
together in some unholy alliance. One dead, one nearly dead. And
all for what? For what? For something that happened twenty-three
years ago and could never be righted! No matter how many people
died.

And when she at last spoke, opening her eyes,
she had only a feeling of coldness. “How does vengeance feel,
milord? Will you look at the scar when you heal, thanks to my
stitches, and feel satisfaction?”

He held her eyes steady, but he did not
defend himself, and somewhere in her brain, she knew this could not
be right. He was lying there, injured. He had been attacked, hadn't
he? Why wasn't he pointing this out to her? She needed it pointed
out to her, needed something to counteract Steven's face in her
mind's eye. “And what of when you look at Steven now, without a
father. Is that going to bring you pleasure?”

And she could not stem the cold fury that
poured from her. He should be stemming it. She needed him to stem
it. She needed for him to at least flinch, to feel something. But
despite her brutal words, he only lay there, injured, weak, pale
and helpless, and took it.

“Oh, damn it! Why don't you say something?”
and she broke, ashamed of her words, and at the same time, ashamed
to be crying over him, St. James, when all she could see was
Steven's face. “Why don't you tell me you had no choice! Why don't
you tell me you didn't know it was Steven's father!” He still
didn't answer her, and she wanted to pound on his chest, wanted to
rip at her hair, wanted to claw those eyes out of his face. “Oh,
damn it! Did you have any choice? Did you know it was Steven's
father?”

Slowly, very slowly, he shook his head, but
the knot between his eyes grew, and his mouth took on a shape that
a man who is about to amputate his own leg would take on. And he
said a single word that terrified her, “But—”

“No! No buts! You didn't know and that is the
end of it! Do you hear me, Dante! That is the end of it!” And
sobbing and wild, she put her hand to his lips to keep him from
speaking whatever damning words were in his mind. His right hand
came up to her hand, and his eyes took on a sudden weary
resignation that made him seem all the more helpless. He kissed her
palm with his blood on it, pulled her hand away from his lips and
held it in his hand. “For. . . now. I haven't. . . the
strength.”

He gave a weak tug at her hand and Lizzie
collapsed more than sat on the bed, crying. She was aware that he
had just done something for her, something he had never done for
anyone else, but she refused to acknowledge it, for to acknowledge
it would be to acknowledge those unspoken words that she did not
want to hear. But—!

His arm fell to his side, and her hand in his
fell with it, so that she was stretched across his bare torso. His
eyes closed, and although his breathing was still shallow, it
seemed more even and she dared to lay her head upon his chest
feeling near to despair.

She lay like that for a long time, him
sleeping and she worrying. Then his chest moved and he spoke. And
his words told her that he had not been sleeping at all even though
every law of nature demanded that he should be, but had been
burrowed inside his own psyche. “Jesus, what. . . have you done to
me? In four. . . short days. What. . . have you done to me?”

And Lizzie, in a man's bedchamber, lying
across his nude chest, and shedding tears, heard the same question
echoing in her heart.

He was silent after that and Lizzie, still
resting her head on his chest, was certain that he slept, but she
could not sleep, despite how very exhausted she was. At some point
she began to realize a sudden change in the house. She heard no
noise, the night was still thick and dark against the glass, but
there was that elusive quality that comes just before dawn that
makes itself known more by instinct than by senses, and she raised
her head.

Oh, God, it was nearly morning! She glanced
at the clock, ticking and impassive upon the fireplace mantel.
Where were Andrew and Tyler with Steven? It could not be long
before the house began to stir.

With her worry she moved from the bed. She
checked his stitches, very much exposed, but they had held and she
went to the wash basin, poured cold water into it, splashed her
face until she was certain there were no tear tracks left. She
neatened her hair, straightened her dress, and feeling a deal
better, selected fresh linens and began the tedious job of wrapping
his lordship's chest. It took some maneuvering, for if he were not
unconscious, he was at least deeply asleep, and so was of no help.
She lifted one side of his torso as much as she could, slid the
bulk of the folded sheet beneath him, then ran around the bed to
lift his other side and snagged the sheet through. She did this as
many times as necessary, pulling it snug each time, and then pinned
it off.

She still had his arm to look at, but
although there was blood on its bandage, it did not seem to be
spreading, indicating that it had stopped bleeding, so instead, she
left the room and went into the darkened house in search of
Effington. She found he had progressed all the way to the servants
entrance, where he even now had the door open as he scrubbed smears
from the door frame. He glanced up a little startled at her
appearance, but only asked upon seeing it was her, “Have you
finished then?”

Miss Murdock nodded. “Yes, although I still
need to look at his arm. Can I help? It will be dawn soon.”

“No, Miss. If I am discovered, I will think
up some excuse for my activity and any blood I may have not cleaned
yet. If you are discovered—”

“Yes. You're quite right of course,” Lizzie
said. “Have Andrew and Tyler arrived?”

“No, Miss,” he admitted. “But you had better
go up all the same. I will be sending Earl Larrimer up as soon as
he arrives and assisting Tyler with the carriage, for it will not
do to have speculation on what the duke's cousin is doing in his
lordship's stables so very early in the morning.”

“Yes, thank you, Effington. St. James is very
lucky to have you.”

There was a moment when Effington stopped his
scrubbing completely as though weighing her words. “Yes, Miss, but
I certainly did not think it would be for my skills as a scullery
maid,” he said resentfully, and she smiled.

Miss Murdock returned to his lordship's
chambers, and although she hated to disturb him, she set about
cutting the bandages from his upper left arm. She need not have
feared, for he seemed beyond waking for now, and even her gentle
maneuvering of his arm and close examination of the flesh wound
there brought nothing but a little catch in his breathing.

She was satisfied that he would not need
stitches, and settled with dusting the wound with Borax powder and
rewrapping it. With the finish of that job, she was left feeling at
loose ends. And the first blush of dawn could be seen outside the
windows.

She moved the table she had pushed over back
to where she had found it, replaced all the supplies that Tyler had
brought up into the wicker basket, wrapped the bloody, used
bandages in a ball to be disposed of later and took an inventory of
the remaining linens Effington had brought in. The basins of
stained water needed poured out and washed, but she didn't dare
leave St. James' rooms again to do so, settled with combining what
was left of the water into one and stacking the now empty one
beneath it.

Throughout all this busy work she was aware
that with the coming of dawn, her decision to stay was irrevocable.
There could be no sudden change of heart and sneaking back to her
room at Dante's grandmother's home.

With a last lingering look at St. James, she
went through the connecting door into his sitting room, and spying
his chaise lounge, settled onto it. She was tired in every bone of
her body and her last thought before drifting off into sleep was
that she had not had a full night's rest since he had first banged
on her door in the wee hours of the morning.