In the Brief Eternal Silence (50 page)

Chapter Twenty

“Damn it all to Hell and back!” St. James'
voice pierced through the crack of the connecting door and into
Miss Murdock's sleeping mind. “When did this arrive,
Effington!”

Effington's voice, an unflappable, if rather
tired, drone: “In the morning's post, milord. I delayed on bringing
it up as you were sleeping and I could not see disturbing you.”

Miss Murdock, trying to make some sense of
why she should be hearing a conversation between St. James and his
valet in the room next to her bedchamber, opened her eyes. It was
not her bedchamber, she realized, it was, in fact, St. James'
sitting room and she was lying on his chaise lounge. She sat up,
her head groggy, and took in her surroundings, noticing that she
was in her old, worn, brown dress, and that it had a good deal of
dried blood smeared across it.

Then of course, she remember it all: Steven,
St. James' injury, the furtive activities of (this morning?)
earlier.

She looked out the window, saw that it was a
rainy, dreary day and quite impossible to tell whether it was
morning or evening or whether she had slept one hour or ten.

“Whatever is going on now, St. James?” a
third voice asked. It did not belong to Tyler or Andrew, she was
sure, and she could not place it, although it did sound familiar.
“I've never known you to be so indisposed by drink that you were
still in bed at this hour of the day. I was quite surprised to have
your man bring me up here.”

“It's not from drink. I was shot last night,”
but even through the crack of the connecting door, Miss Murdock
heard the preoccupation in St. James' voice, and recalling his
oaths that had wakened her, she wondered what, oh what, possibly
more could have gone wrong!

“The devil you were! When did this
happen?”

“Last night obviously,” St. James answered.
“But hush, Bertie. Look at this handwriting. Why does it look
familiar to me?”

Miss Murdock, relaxing somewhat with St.
James' visitor being identified as Lord Tempton, quietly stood,
stretched, smoothed her rumpled brown dress into some semblance of
order, and then took an interest in a covered tray she spied upon
one table, complete with coffee (now cold), napkin and silver.
Evidently some considerate soul, probably Effington, had brought it
some time while she was sleeping.

She went to it, lifted the lid. She did not
like to be eavesdropping, but she could not latch the door for fear
of alerting Bertie to her presence. Leaving the sitting room by the
door to the hall was out of the question. So, she decided, she
would try to keep herself quietly occupied and let their words only
become a background noise, and pay as little attention to them as
possible.

All the same, when Effington spoke, she was
aware of it, and when St. James answered, she found herself guilty
of attending.

“I beg pardon, milord,” Effington offered,
“but I seem to recall you receiving an envelope yesterday with the
address written in the same, rather uneducated fist.”

“Blast it, Effington, but you are right!” St.
James swore.

Miss Murdock imagined Effington was not
surprised in the least to discover that he was correct.

Bertie's voice interrupted, “This is serious,
St. James. Whoever wrote this letter is telling you quite plainly
to watch your back.”

“Yes. And if I had read the one sent
yesterday, I may have been more prepared, damn it! It's the second
time I've been careless, and I do so hate to be caught out. Bad
enough yesterday that Miss Murdock was made extremely uncomfortable
for my mistake. . .”

“But somewhat worse this time, milord, when
it nearly cost you your life,” Effington finished.

“Quite,” St. James agreed. “Run down to my
study. The other letter must still be on my desk, and I will be
very interested in what it has to say.”

Miss Murdock heard the bedroom's hall door
opening and then closing. She had given up on eating, but she
sipped at the cold coffee gratefully and watched the rain coming
down the window pane and wondered if the mysterious letters that
St. James was discussing were good or bad. If someone had seen fit
to warn him of his danger, then certainly they must be good,
mustn't they?

She was in no position to judge, only knew
that for someone who had always been calm and sensible that she had
a bad case of the nerves now. That he could sit in there only
cursing his carelessness, she found annoying, for she felt like
screaming in vexation. Why hadn't he read this other letter
yesterday? And what further danger was he in that this second
letter should arrive today? Oh, damn it, she wanted to march in
there and snatch the letter for herself and read it.

“Well, St. James, you had better tell me the
whole of it,” Bertie was saying. “Were you confronted?”

“Hmm? Oh, the shooting. No. He shot at me
from the dark mouth of the mew to the side of Almacks. I can scarce
believe no one was aware of it.”

“Outside Almacks!” Bertie cried. “I've no
need to tell you— extremely bad ton that, old boy, to have the
effrontery to be shot outside Almacks.” St. James laughed and
Bertie joined him before pointing out, “I fear if it is discovered
your voucher will be revoked again.”

“Yes, and a great pity, that, for I
understand from Miss Murdock that my grandmother was reduced to
'buying off' one of the board members to regain my welcome
status.”

Bertie laughed with glee. “She did not! Oh,
she is a card, Dante. I have often said if I could find a woman as
your grandmother must have been in her day, I would marry with no
regrets.”

“Quite,” St. James returned in a musing
voice.

“But as to why no one heard the shot, must
tell you, the place was in a stir. In fact,” Bertie added, “I would
not be surprised if your assailant were not someone seeking to
protect Miss Murdock from you after your display. She proved to be
quite popular, you know, after you left. And you should well know
also that if she were not in London under only your family's
protection, you most certainly would have been called out after
your behavior of last night. Not at all the thing, St. James,” he
concluded, “to be responsible for protecting the girl and
perversely also the one she needs protecting from.”

“You manage to make me feel more of an ogre
than I already am convinced I must be to do that to that poor
child. But I've reached a point where I can not turn back, and Miss
Murdock is still being aggravatingly reluctant to accept my
suit.”

“Do you really think it matters?” Bertie
asked. “I understand that you have managed to stir someone,
clearly, from their complacency of your being alive. But as last
night was your first public display of interest in Miss Murdock, I
can not see how they would have had time to observe it, digest it,
feel threatened by it, for Lord knows what reason, and be in
position to then do you some harm as you walked out the door of the
place!”

“Obviously, they were somehow already aware
of it,” St. James replied. “And as the man who shot me last night
was a hired assassin, they had been aware of it long enough to make
some very thorough plans for my demise. And now, equally as obvious
with the delivery of this letter, someone else has become aware of
these plans and is trying to warn me. For what purpose, though, is
what is bothering me,” he added in a baffled voice. “I can not help
but think that even this is some sort of trap. You notice it asks I
come alone?”

“Then they could not know that you were even
now laid up in bed, wounded,” Bertie pointed out. “So they can not
be all that intimate with whoever is laying these plans.”

“Ah, but they can not know for sure if I have
been wounded or not, since their assassin never made it back to
them, can they?” St. James asked.

“You mean—?”

“Of course. You did not think that I would
take kindly to getting shot, did you? Quite ruined my best red
velvet suit, of which Effington, I am sure, is heartbroken. Where
is he, by-the-by? He

should have been back by now.”

“Any clue to the identity of the
bastard?”

“Yes. I know his identity. And he is quite
dead.”

“I hope you had enough sense to ask him a few
questions and

did not merely kill him outright in a blind
rage.”

A bitter laugh. “No. Circumstances went
rather beyond my control, with Steven, my messenger lad, wrestling
with the man on the ground in the dark. He nearly got stabbed for
his trouble. I saw the knife flash and I had a final clear shot,
though damned if I know how I hit him, for I was nearly unconscious
at that point, and lying on the ground myself.”

Miss Murdock, in the midst of hearing this
speech, choked on her coffee and had a hard time of it to keep from
making a great deal of noise. She put her napkin over her mouth and
for a moment her eyes were very large from the effort.

“Which is a damnedable thing,” St. James
continued, “for I had gained from him that he was involved with the
murder of my parents—”

And Miss Murdock's eyes grew larger and she
rose from her chair and went to the corner of the room, choking
mightily now and doing everything in her power to stifle it.

“—and was contacted apparently by the same
person for both jobs.”

“To be so goddamned close!” Bertie exclaimed.
“What confounded luck. Of course you would have killed him at any
rate, I imagine, after hearing that, but it would have been nice to
gain some knowledge of who your true enemy is.”

Before St. James could reply, Miss Murdock
heard his lordship's bedroom door from the hallway open and then
close, and Effington said, “I can not find it, milord, and I fairly
tore your study apart looking for it.”

“Damn it,” St. James said. There was a long
silence after that, when Bertie and Effington seemed to be waiting
for his next move, and he was evidently busy pondering it.

Miss Murdock, with no distraction, heard only
two things in her mind: St. James telling her ‘but’ early that
morning and Bertie's off hand summation that St. James would have
killed the man at any rate! But that man had been Steven's father!
Surely, if St. James had been aware of that and had had any choice,
surely he would not have—!

“Then I have no choice but to go to this
assignation I have been invited to,” St. James' voice broke into
her thoughts, and she whirled from the corner and stared at the
door between them, her mouth gaping and her brows drawn together in
great consternation.

“You can not be serious, St. James,” Bertie
told him. “It is for tonight, and frankly, you look like hell! I
can't imagine you leaving your bed, let alone your house.”

“I was going to have to be about tonight, at
any rate, Bertie, for I already have another pressing matter to
take care of. And as Tyler and Andrew are busy looking for my
errant messenger boy, I can not ask either of them to do it for
me.”

Miss Murdock, who expected Steven to be even
now somewhere on the premises, and Tyler and Andrew enjoying rest
from their activities (as she, now feeling guilty, had) was shocked
that he had somehow turned missing, and she walked over to the door
and stood in the shadow beyond the slight crack to listen more
closely.

Bertie sounded a good deal puzzled. “What are
you talking about?” he asked. “Errant messenger boy? Tyler and
Andrew searching for him? You must be delirious, St. James, for the
object of my visiting you today was to tell you that Earl Larrimer
and Miss Murdock eloped last night!”

Miss Murdock, standing just beyond their
sight, let out such an exclamation that had St. James not been
speaking at the same time, she would have surely been heard.

“What fool tale is this?” he demanded.

“I tell you, St. James! Ryan went over this
morning to invite Miss Murdock for a ride in the park, and the
house was in an uproar. He had it from Lady Lydia herself that Miss
Murdock and your cousin had snuck off together in the middle of the
night and she could put no other connotation upon it than that they
were eloping!”

St. James began to laugh and, as Bertie must
have been looking at him very strangely at this odd reaction, he
managed to say, “But Bertie, Miss Murdock is even now sleeping in
my sitting room.”

“The devil she is!” Bertie sputtered. “Have
you lost your mind, St. James?”

But Miss Murdock, perceiving that St. James
had no worry in allowing Bertie into his confidence of her
presence, and ashamed of herself for eavesdropping, reached for the
door handle and swung the door back and took a timid step into the
room. “I fear it is true, Bertie,” she said, a great deal
embarrassed. “For I was the one that stitched St. James up last
night.”

And Lord Tempton turned his portly figure
around in his chair and gaped at her.

Miss Murdock looked past him to St. James,
who was propped up on several pillows in his bed.

Effington had managed to shave him and wash
him, tie his hair back and wrap him into a dressing gown. Except
for the pallid paleness of his face, and the rather rigid way he
was sitting, one would not even know that he were injured.

And if her initial reaction was a bit of
self-congratulations that she had attended him so well, she should
naturally be forgiven, for he had not been the easiest of patients
to work upon. “Miss Murdock,” his lips twitched in a great deal of
amusement at sight of her standing shame-faced in the door. “You
are looking very well today.”

“Oh, botheration!” she said, annoyed with him
already. “Do not try to divert me with your foolishness, milord,
for I very well know I look the contrary. What is this of Steven
missing? And if you think you are going anywhere this night, you
are quite mistaken!”

But St. James was laughing. “Shame, shame,
Miss Murdock, for listening at key-holes.”