In the Brief Eternal Silence (56 page)

St. James felt a sudden surging of anger at
these words, and he grabbed one of her small, claw-like hands,
forcing her to look at him. “No. It was not his fault. It's whoever
put him up to this, and misled him twenty-three years ago into
being in on a crime that was much worse than they led him to
believe. You have to help me find this person, as much for his
revenge as for my own.”

And she blinked, her grief overridden by the
force of the dreadful savageness of his voice. And perhaps she had
the sudden insight that he believed he had wronged her and her
family, and that he very much disliked that feeling.

Realizing that he had her complete attention,
he asked her, “How did he get the message? Where did he go? Who did
he see? Or did someone come to him?”

And she answered him with sudden certainty.
“Red's Pub. On t'banks of t'Thames' pool where t'dockworkers drink.
He went tharn Tuesday eve, and when he returned, I ken somethin'
diff'rent 'bout him then. It was a bad diff'rence, like he aged ten
years in that couple hours. Someone approached him there about it
then, I'm sure of it.”

St. James nodded, said, “I owe you a great
deal. And now you are a widow, and since I am the one that made you
so, you are my responsibility. If I give you an address, can you go
there tomorrow afternoon?”

She nodded, a little hesitant, and he pulled
back the flap of his great coat. If she saw the handles of the two
pistols sticking up from his waistband, she did not flinch, just
followed his movement of digging into his coat pocket with rather
dead eyes, and he pulled out a small notepad and a lead pencil. He
wrote down the address, folded it and handed it to her. “Now, will
you be all right going home?

Do you need me to take you?”

But she shook her head. “Nay. Nay, m'lord,”
and she sniffled. “T'wouldn't do for me to be seen. . . As I said,
there are t'others, m'lord. At least four, I s'pect.” And with
sudden fury, she added, “An' I hope's you get 'em. I hope's you get
every one of 'em, and who's behind 'em, for they killed me husband
just as sure as you did, m'lord. I don't ask that you do anythin'
for me, other than find me son, and kill the bastards.”

And St. James with a great deal of
steadiness, told her, “You will have both. And more. I promise
you,” and he hesitated.

“Lucy Crockner, m'lord.”

He nodded, repeated, “I promise you, Mrs.
Crockner, that it shall be as I said, or I will die in the
trying.”

And then he moved from the bench before she
could make any reply and disappeared into the surrounding fog and
she was left quite alone.

He made his way to his horse, still grazing,
and slipped the bit back into its mouth, unloosed the reins and
mounted. Then he circled around and watched as Steven's mother rose
from the bench, looked around with the back of her hand to her thin
cheek, and then walked the same path by which she had arrived. And
like a ghost, he followed along behind her for a full hour as she
headed east, met up with the northern loop of the Thames and
continued down the mean streets of the waterfront until she at last
turned aside and into a small shanty of a house along a long row of
many such houses. The sudden glow of a lamp told him that she had
arrived in her own home and appeared to be in fact safe.

It was only then that he allowed himself to
think of all that she had said, a particular point of interest her
words that the assassins involved that night had been instructed to
retrieve a case of paperwork from the coach for whomever had hired
them. He turned his horse and went down the waterfront street. It
was dirty and dark and stank of garbage and more than just horse
urine and droppings, as well as the sultry smell of the river. It
was a very rough section of town and it had its share of ribald
laughter floating out from unsavory pubs. There were numerous
drunks on the street and their glazed eyes watched him ride by as
though he were some strange apparition produced by their gin soaked
minds.

He studied each door that looked as though it
led into a bar as he passed, but there were virtually no placards
to show what establishment was what, and he could not discern if
any of them were 'Red's Pub', or if in fact, he were even in the
correct neighborhood. But he could not think that the man he had
killed the night before would have frequented an establishment very
far from his own home, and as his wife had not hesitated on naming
the Pub it indicated to him that he was a regular at the place.

As he seemed to be making no progress, he at
last directed his horse along a street away from the river. But
instead of going, yet, back to his own home, he made his way once
again to Hyde park by a circumspect route, and once there, he again
dismounted and took the time to do what he would have done earlier
if he had not been otherwise occupied on ensuring his informant's
safe return to her home. He crept around in a similar circle as he
had done upon first arriving for the mysterious meeting, again
searching for any sign of someone else's presence. And he was not
surprised when he found a set of footprints in the grass and the
mud that were not his previously made ones. They led up to a little
grouping of shrubbery within sight of where he and Lucy Crockner
had sat upon the bench and talked. He judged it to be within
earshot distance as well, and he was very disturbed to think that
they had been overheard, but he dared not discount it.

The one thing that did surprise him was the
fact that the footprints were less than man-sized, indicating yet
another woman watching them, or possibly. . . a lad. St. James'
eyes glimmered out into the dark and he had a very strong feeling
that his sought-for messenger boy had been very close at hand
indeed.

Chapter Twenty-two

At about the same time as St. James was
waiting in the fog of Hyde Park for his informant to appear, his
cousin, Earl Andrew Larrimer, arrived home at the Dowager Duchess's
house.

He headed first toward the drawing room for a
nightcap and with the expectation that his mother and grandmother
should still be up and would be there. As he walked toward the
room, he tried to prepare himself mentally for the interview with
his grandmother. He had debated on waiting until morning, but with
the lateness of the hour, he had hopes that if she were still
awake, that she would be tired, and hence a little less sharp than
usual.

And, he had decided, the quicker it was made
known that he had returned, the more obvious it would be to them
that a disreputable trip to Gretna Green and back was quite beyond
the time span that he had been gone. Indeed, he had every intention
of riding through the park in the morning, for as most people he
were likely to meet there had seen both he and Miss Murdock at
Almacks only the night before, even they would see that it would be
quite impossible to make the trip all the way to the Scotland
border and return less than twenty-four hours later.

That was all very easily taken care of. And
his mother, he expected, as he hesitated at the door, would be as
easily chastised for her silly indiscretion. But his grandmother
was quite another story, and it was in anticipation of seeing that
inquisitive and not to be denied old lady that had him going over
the points of his story a final time with a fine-toothed comb in
search of any loose particle that may trip him up.

Feeling at last prepared, he turned the knob
and entered the drawing room, was surprised to see the room empty
and Ashton not in attendance. With a little shrug, he went to the
sideboard, found the customary tray of evening snacks and glasses
already removed. He checked his pocket watch a little perplexed; it
was not overly late, for he and his mother at least. The Duchess
did on occasion turn in earlier.

A discreet cough came from the door, and he
turned to find Ashton, his grandmother's butler, looking at him
with some surprise and a little reproach. “Milord,” he said, “I
apologize, but we were not aware that you had returned.”

“Indeed, I apologize, Ashton. It is only that
I should think my mother would still be up. Although it is close to
grandmother's normal hour.”

Ashton cleared his throat, a habit most
unlike him, and said with a strained voice, “I fear your
grandmother left early this afternoon. For Chestershire.”

Andrew looked heavenward for a brief, muted
curse of a second and then asked Ashton, “Indeed? Is my mother,
perhaps, still in residence, or has she seen it necessary to make a
sudden sojourn also?”

“She's asked for a late tray in her room,
milord,” Ashton told him, and then coughed again. “I imagine she
will be most. . . surprised to see you.”

“Thank you, Ashton,” Andrew said, and without
further delay, left the room to go above stairs and tap upon his
mother's sitting room door.

She bade entrance and he opened the door to
find her sitting in her dressing gown upon the chaise lounge. The
early edition of the next morning's London paper was raised in her
hands and she was staring with such intensity at it that she did
not look up as he entered, and he had a moment to see that she was
not only intent upon reading it, but that her face had such a stark
look of open fury that he was taken aback by it. “Mother?” he
asked.

At his voice, she dropped the paper to her
lap. Her blue eyes, so much like his own, flew to his face.
“Andrew! For heaven's sake, what ever are you doing here?” and she
seemed beyond startled, she somehow seemed culpable to
something.

“What ever are you reading to make you look
as though you had murder in your eye?” he asked in mild question.
Then glancing and seeing that the paper was open to the social
pages, he said, “Oh. Is St. James' announcement in there already,
then?”

“Indeed, it is!” she huffed. And for
emphasis, she knocked the paper onto the floor in a pout. “And I
could scarce believe it when I happen to know that you eloped with
Miss Murdock just last night!”

And it all became clear to him. His mother
had developed an unexpected affection for Miss Murdock, and her
silly conclusion had only been so much wishful thinking upon her
part that the two of them had made a match of it. He smiled with
indulgence down upon her as he stepped further into the room and
closed the door behind him. “Oh, darling mother,” he said, and she
glanced up at him with hurt in her eyes. “Did you really wish that
I should marry her that badly then?”

As though he had touched the very center of
her ache, she began to cry, and he knelt to comfort her as she said
between her delicate sobs, “Oh, I am such a foolish mother, Andrew.
I thought that you had developed a tendress for the girl. I did see
you kissing her in the drawing room, you know, so it is not all my
fault!” she added in her defense.

“Oh, I am so sorry, mama. That was just a bit
of foolish fancy on my part and really did not. . . did not mean
anything.” And he swallowed as he rubbed her back to soothe her.
“But I never dreamed you would jump to such a conclusion. Oh, my
poor dear. No wonder you thought we had eloped.”

But instead of comforting her, his words only
seemed to make her cry the harder. “Oh, but I wish you had married
her,” she choked out.

“Of course, you do, darling. But I really do
have plenty of time, and there will be other young females that
will catch my eye—”

“No. No,” she choked. She drew her head back
enough to let him see her watery eyes. “You don't understand. St.
James is going to ruin her!”

“Ruin—! Why, no, mama, it's right there in
the paper, you see. You were just looking at it. He's posted the
banns and—”

But she would not listen. “I fear he already
has ruined her, oh that poor, sweet child!” she wailed. “For do you
know that he came and drove her in a hired carriage in the middle
of the night? And if that is not enough to ruin her, I do not know
what is!”

And Andrew, despite himself, was a little
intrigued by this notion. “Surely you are mistaken,” he said.

“Indeed, I am not! For I saw him with my own
eyes, returning her here in the dead of night, and her in nothing
but her sleeping costume with a cloak thrown over it. Did you not
wonder when he received that slap on his face, if it were from her,
as he made it clear in Almacks that it certainly was?”

He was feeling just a little bit flummoxed,
for he had not even thought of the fact that to his knowledge, Miss
Murdock had never (up until last night at least) spent two minutes
alone with his cousin, let alone been driving about with him in the
middle of the night. A little less surely, he said, “But it little
matters, mama. The banns are posted and—”

“Yes. Yes. Posted. But no date set! He will
cry off and he will ruin her. I know he shall, for there is no
reason for him to marry her now that he has so obviously already
Had His Way With Her!”

“Mother!” Andrew said a great deal shocked.
“I am sure that St. James, even being St. James, would take into
consid—”

But his mother would not be mollified in the
least, but began to shake her head. “Oh, it just goes to show how
very young you still are. And you laugh at me behind my back for
being so careful of your reputation, but I have seen how these
things work. He will no more marry her than the next man now that
he has compromised her, for why should he? And as bad as that may
seem for me to believe it, I would rather believe that than to
believe that he really is going to marry her for a far more
terrible—” and she stopped and bit her lip and her eyes were wide,
and blue, and terrified.

“What, mother?” Andrew asked her with growing
alarm. “What are you afraid of? What reason could he have to marry
her that terrifies you as it does?”

“Oh,” she cried. “Do not make me tell you for
it is probably only a very foolish and I dare say paranoid notion
upon my part,” and she hesitated. The way she looked up at Andrew
with such helplessness made him realize that his mother was getting
up in years, and that he was of age that he should be taking
responsibility for all of her troubles instead of having her hiding
them from him as if he were still a mere, helpless boy.