In the Brief Eternal Silence (55 page)

The dark irises of his gold eyes enlarged as
his glance probed about. He remained beneath a row of trees, his
horse moving with unhurried ease, until he came at last to near the
center of the empty park and a large monument rose out of the
darkness twenty yards in front of him. Instead of going to it, he
dismounted beneath the cover of the trees, scanned the area, then
turned his horse into the shadows and secured it to a low branch.
He took the bit from its mouth, which would slow him if he needed
to be off quickly, but he did not wish it snorting or nickering
either, and the best way he knew to keep it occupied was to allow
it enough rein for it to access the still plentiful grass.

Its soft biting off of those blades was its
only sound as he turned and left it there, and an occasional muted
stomp of one of its feet.

St. James judged it to be eleven of the
clock, and as his letter had stated the hour of midnight for the
meeting, he was in fact an hour early. He moved in a wide circle
around the monument, keeping to tree and shrub, pausing often to
listen, searching for any sign of another horse or person. At last,
satisfied that he was, as of now, alone, he settled in to watch the
south side of the monument, as he had been instructed for the
meeting to take place there, to see who might arrive.

The longer he waited, the more he was
convinced that the writer of the letter was rather inexperienced in
intrigue, otherwise, St. James expected, they would have been there
early as well, and waiting under cover for milord to appear, rather
than the other way around. But it was near the appointed hour of
midnight before he saw any sign of movement.

The fog across the monument from him stirred
first, a little announcement that was as significant as it was
silent. He rose from his half crouch and leaned his back against
the tree. His right hand went to beneath his open coat, but it
remained there, relaxed, on the butt of one gun, and he was
still.

Then from the fog, he saw the sudden
appearance of a figure.

Swirling, faded gray cloak mixed with the
mystical grayness of the fog, so it seemed that the person was born
from the fog rather than walking out of it. Beneath the knee length
of the cloak was a colorless ankle length of skirt, damp at the
hem, and it confirmed to him his rather startling conclusion that
his letter writer was female.

She came to just in front of the monument,
pushed back the hood of her cloak away from her face and turned in
a complete circle upon one heel. Her face was ghostly white in the
dark, and he had only one quick glimpse of rather large and
frightened gray eyes before she was turned with her back to him,
staring into the muted white wall of dark in the opposite
direction.

He stepped forward, his attention divested
into every direction at once, but it appeared as if she had come in
fact alone, and he was but a few feet from her when she whirled
with a little gasp and faced him.

Her clothing was clean but oft mended. Her
hair was braided into a long, somewhat thin plait that hung over
one shoulder. Her face was lined and very thin and her body was
frail. She had a haggardness about her that bespoke of struggle and
work and premature aging and it was easy for him to believe that
she had indeed written the letter, for she did not look well
educated. And when she spoke, although she strove for a certain
dignity, her whispered speech confirmed it.

“Yer t'duke?” she asked, her voice
breathless.

And St. James with narrowed eyes, nodded.

“Of St. James?” she asked, as if she were
expecting any number of Dukes to be lollygagging about Hyde Park at
midnight.

“Of St. James,” he reassured her.

She stood clutching and unclutching at the
folds of her cloak, which, he noticed, had only a single pin
holding it together and no buttons at all. Her eyes seemed familiar
to him, and his mind dug with unrelenting quickness as to where he
should have seen her before, and if he had seen her before, why it
was that her face was not recognizable. “Please,” he began,
indicating a bench a little distance from the monument and beneath
the shadowy overhang of a tree. “Won't you be seated?”

She glanced at him, uncertain, and he added,
“I have come alone as you asked. If I am willing to trust you to
that degree, surely you will trust me to sit upon a bench with you
without harming you.”

And she gave a nervous smile, revealing
stained and spaced teeth in her fleshless face. “Aye, milord,” she
said, “and it's havin' me on, you are, for even if that were what I
were 'fraid of, I well know that you are promised to another.”

He stiffened at her easy revelation of this
knowledge, thinking that for an engagement that had yet to be
announced, a precious many seemed to know of it already, but he
only said, “Then you should rest easy. Come, let us be more
comfortable, and you may tell me all that you wish to tell me.” He
led her to the bench. She seated herself without fuss, but her back
was very straight and stiff. He did not sit himself, but paced
about the bench in reflective vigil. She watched him with wariness.
His gold eyes flickered over to her and he said, “You may begin.
What brings you here? I will not ask your name unless you wish to
reveal it.”

She hugged her cape closer and seemed more
relieved than otherwise when his eyes left her to again probe about
the silent, fog filled darkness of the night. “Nay, milord. I
willn't tell ya me name, for I very much fear what'd happen if it
were found out I t'was here. With you.”

“No one else knows of this meeting,
then?”

She shook her head, and he had to glance
again at her to see this response. “Do you know me in some manner?”
he asked. “You spoke in your letter of warning me. Why do you risk
yourself to contact me, to come here?”

She swallowed. “T'is not for you, milord,
forgive me, but for—for another.”

He turned at her words, moved along the bench
until he leaned over the back of it. “Tell me. Do not hesitate. I
have no care that it is for another. Simply tell me what you know
and that you wish me to know.”

Her humble composure failed her under the
intent gaze of his eyes. “I can not tell you more than to be on
your guard. For I know there to be several that are. . . hired t'do
you in, milord. All t'same as did yer parents in before you those
many years ago.”

She paused and then her eyes closed and she
raised both hands to her face to muffle her own sudden outpouring
of words. “And I'm afraid! Not just for you but one of these men
has changed in these twenty-three years! I do not 'spect you
t'understand, or even t'care,” she cried, “but I wouldn't be here
if t'weren't for him. I tried. I begged. I told him, t'is in the
past, and t'let it lie there and t'was not his concern anymore. If
you had some enemy, t'was not for him t'be involved again! Not
after all these years. Not after all the strugglin' we done to be
right and tight and honest when we see's those dishonest livin'
easier.”

And St. James asked, “It is your man you are
afraid for?”

She dropped her hands to look at him with
great woebegone eyes. “Aye, milord,” she whimpered. “I know you
cans't think of him but badly after what he was involved in those
years ago, but he changed, milord. He become a straight and true
man and I never thought I'd see him to turn back, 'til he got's the
message three days ago. And I couldn'st understand why they should
be back at him to get him to go their way after so many years. Then
I came to understand, t'was the same job! After all these years,
t'was the same job.

“And Gawd help me, I was gonna stay outta it,
cause he flat told me not to interfere, nor to pry, but let him be
about his business and not worry, and then I realized you t'were
the same duke that—” and she clamped her mouth closed, putting the
back of one hand to it and began to sob with her eyes closed and
her shoulders shaking.

St. James bowed his head, his arms crossed
along the back of the bench, and then with half intuition, half
deduction, he filled in the missing words. “Steven, your son, is
working for me.”

The woman cried harder, but she nodded her
head. “Gawd! But now ya know it! And he bein' so proud in his new
finery, and tellin' me tales of what a soft touch you are, not at
all likes the way ever'one hears of ya. And here to find out, his
own Da is bein' sent ta kill ya—! Oh, Gawd forgive me, but I
could'na bare it. And now I haven't seen me man for one full round
the clock, nor Steven neither, and I am afraid!”

St. James let out a rather sharp curse that
made her cower, as though he were about to beat her, and he moved
around the bench to sit next to her. He dug beneath his coat,
pulled out one of his endless supply of hanky's, made a brief,
bitter, mental note to himself that this time, no matter how abused
the garment became, to not throw it with disregard on the ground,
and pulled her hand down from her face far enough for him to wipe
her tears.

At the same time he asked her, “Did your man
not know that Steven was working for me?”

And she shook her head. “Nay. For he'd have
been most angry and told me to make him stop. But the first day me
lad met you, he brought me home a crown, and milord, forgive me,
but we need'dit sorely! And he tol' me t'was honest come by. And I
had no idea as of yet, 'bout. . . 'bout the rest.”

“I can quite understand,” he soothed. “And
you have not seen Steven since before last night?”

She shook her head again, but she seemed a
deal calmer, and he pressed the handkerchief into her shaking hand,
for he very much feared she was going to need it again in another
minute. But although he was honest, he had never said that he was
not ruthless, so he set out to get as many answers from her as
possible before telling her that he had killed her husband the
night before, seeing as how that revelation may be inclined to make
her somewhat uncooperative.

“Tell me what you know,” he pleaded. “I have
had men searching for Steven, for I am worried for him also, and I
promise you that we will find him, but it will help if you tell me
what you know. How many other men involved besides your husband? Do
you know who hired them?”

She gave a helpless shrug. “If they are all
t'same as afore then there are four others. For there were five the
night of t'murders. But I don't know who or why. I doubts that even
me man knows of t'at. Me man was only told t'was to be a robbery of
some rich mucketymuck an' his wife. An easy mark as they was
travelin' at night with only a driver and a footman 'n' a lad. He
was told they could keep whate'er jewelry and money they's got but
that there'd be a leather case, not a luggage case, but t'kind the
swells keep their impo'tant doc'ments 'n' t'like in. They was t'get
it as well, and take it t'whoever had hired 'em.

“My husband, he didna know about no murder'n
'til t'shots were gettin' fired. Said he hadn't seen no trouble,
but all t'sudden two of t'men he was with was shootin' and then he
knew everythin' was gone in a bad way, and that if t'were ever
known he'd been there, it'd be the hangman's noose for him for
sure. He said he hadn't hired on for no murderin', m'lord. And he
wanted nothin' t'do with the jewel's they took offen that poor
woman. He wasn't even sure who it were 'til all the papers was
screamin' 'bloody murder' of t'duke and duchess of St. James.”

And she choked to a halt, perhaps realizing
anew that it was the victims' son that she was confiding to.

And St. James muttered, “And so perhaps the
one man that could have in fact helped me, I have already killed,”
and his eyes raised to meet hers.

She shuddered once, as though a cold wind had
swept down her back, and what emotion she could be feeling to
realize that she were looking into the eyes of the man that had
killed her husband was unreadable to him. Then she seemed to break,
so that he had a sudden sense of every bone in her body splintering
inside of her, and her thin back bent forward as she hugged her
face into her knees and cried without any withholding of herself or
her grief.

St. James, in a torment, gathered her thin
and hopeless body to him, so that she cried into his lap, and he
could not tell her any of the circumstances, for not only would it
only upset her more to find that her son had nearly been killed by
his own father, and then had witnessed his father's death, he could
not in truth defend his killing of her husband.

For as Bertie had said, of course he would
have killed him at any rate.

And St. James swallowed that knowledge with
dread, for he well remembered the raging blackness that had coursed
through his veins at the discovery that the man had been there the
night of his parents' murders, and he very much feared that even
had an angel of God stood before him and pleaded the man's case,
that he could not have turned back the fury inside him that had
sought to bring that man down.

So he did not speak of his own injury, nor
the true manner in which her husband had died, for to do so would
be unjust in leading her to believe that had circumstances been
different, her husband would have been spared. Instead all he could
say above her weeping head was, “He is even now being made ready
for burial. I can give you the address so that you may see him, and
you may tell me where you wish him to lie.”

And she nodded, raised her head as far as his
chest. “I can not blame you, m'lord,” she choked. “For I well know
what his intent was, but I hope you will not blame me if I wish—”
and her voice cracked, “if I wish it were he here this minute and
your burial being discussed.”

Then she drew back from him, wiping at her
eyes. “He oft said t'was a nightmare of his, that t'wicked duke
twould one day find him out. He oft said, too,” and she shook her
head in weary hopelessness, “that he could'na blame ya, for t'were
as much 'is fault as t'anyone's that you were the way you
t'were.”