In the Brief Eternal Silence (6 page)

“My Lizzie marry you?” the Squire asked
again, with seeming growing disbelief instead of lessening.

“Yes. Yes. Your Lizzie to me. Come. Do not
say that you had no hope of such in mind.”

“Indeed, I did not,” the Squire answered with
florid face. “Not bloody likely with you at any rate!”

St. James let out a brief chuckle.

Becoming aware of Ryan's look of shock, the
Squire hastened to explain. “It was possible, I thought, that
Lizzie could be attractive to someone with a common interest.” He
paused and then continued in impatience. “They would've been thrown
together a good deal. Stranger things have happened. And she is
likable. A regular wit and sensible as the day is long.”

The Squire halted as he took in their silent
faces. Then to St. James he said, “Marriage, damn you. I'll have
nothing less for her and my circumstances can be hanged.”

“I assure you, Squire, it will be
marriage.”

“And whatever filth you're into, you are to
keep well away from her!”

That brought a tight-lipped smile from St.
James. “Indeed, there is a great deal of filth. I have no intention
of allowing her to know of any of it.”

The Squire gave him a hard stare then he
dropped his head to rest in one hand, his gray hair glinting in the
lamp light.

St. James appeared unmoved at this pitiful
sight. “Squire,” he insisted. “Do I have your permission to wed
your daughter?”

The Squire did not lift his head, but
murmured, “Proper amount of time. . . Proper placing of banns. . .
Several months down the road. . .”

“No. No, no. That will not do at all,” St.
James mused. “Tonight, I think. The border is not all that far from
here. If I start out now, we should make it by tomorrow eve.”

The Squire hunched further in his chair and
let out a small groan.

“St. James!” Ryan gasped. “You can not be
serious! Think of the girl involved if you can not think of
anything else. You can not go and haul her from bed in the middle
of the night and take her to Gretna Green with you. She has no
chaperone for one, and, and— Well! It is just not done. It is not
civilized!”

“By tomorrow night it will not matter if we
are chaperoned or not,” St. James replied and he pulled the brandy
bottle up to his mouth, drank deeply from the lip of it, as though
to show just how uncivilized he could be.

“Why?” young Ryan asked incredulously when
the older man replaced the bottle, the level of its contents quite
a bit depleted. “Can you just tell us why, for God's sake, you have
taken this notion into your head?”

“Of course, young Ryan. I like the horse.
Very much,” he added with a tight smile. “That's reason enough,
don't you think?”

Ryan could only shake his head, feeling quite
a bit disillusioned. “I always thought. . .” he trailed off.

More gently, the duke asked, “What, Ryan?
What have you always thought?”

With defiance, Ryan raised his head. “That
the tales about you were exaggerated, that you were not. . . were
not as bad as all that—”

His words were cut off by a great laugh from
St. James. “Oh, but they are true!” he said, wiping his eyes with
his sleeve. “They are all true. I am that bad and much, much worse,
young Ryan. So, enjoy my company, but never forget the
entertainment I provide is usually the shocking sort. I'm bad
enough to take a young girl from her bed in the middle of the night
and haul her unchaperoned to Scotland at my whim.” He reached his
hand out for the Squire. “Come, Squire Murdock. T'is time for me to
collect your daughter, and I would rather you were there to smooth
the way.”

Ryan turned to Bertie. “Aren't you going to
stop him?” he asked a little desperately.

“No,” Bertie replied, refilling his glass.
“For I have never been able to stop St. James once he has taken a
notion into his head. And if it is not her tonight, it will just be
another on another night. Let him be, Ryan. This is what he wishes
to do.”

“And you agree with him?” Ryan asked,
incredulous.

“Agree with him? No. Not at all. But I know
from experience there will be no changing his mind.”

The Squire rose to his feet. He was drunk and
more than a little confused. But, by God, Lizzie would have a
husband. He may not be all that he should be, but at least he was
well-set for blunt. And if Lizzie could not stomach him, she could
come home again, and bring his damned money with her.

St. James eyed his large, swaying form.
“Well, I shall certainly have suitable company, in any event,” he
commented. He walked to the door, opened it, barked out a single
call into the dark of the inn's hallway. “Tyler! Damn it, Tyler. I
have need of you. Now!”

A door was heard opening and then closing
further down the hall, and then a large man loomed in the doorway,
dwarfing his employer.

“Aye, milord,” he said, rubbing the sleep
from his square, craggy face. “What's your pleasure?” and his voice
sounded of resignation, as though he had been summoned from his
sleep many times before at the request of the duke.

“I'll need my curricle brought around, if you
please.”

The groom tugged on his cap and without any
further answer retreated back down the hallway to make his way to
the stables.

There was a brief silence in the room as they
waited. St. James picked up the Squire's coat, threw it to him.
Then he put on his own, lurching a bit at the task and the booze
awash inside of him. Still, he stood straight, and if his face was
haggard and paler than usual beneath his dark hair, it only served
to make his eyes seem all the more poignant in his dissipated
face.

It seemed a very short period of time before
the groom came back, announcing that all was ready, and the duke
took the Squire's thick arm into his hand. Just before they passed
through the door, he turned to look at young Ryan, whose worried
eyes were following his every move. “Don't forget, either, young
Ryan, that I have my reasons,” St. James told him, and then the
door was closed behind them.

Ryan turned to his brother. “What reason
could he possibly have for this?” he asked, feeling very much
indeed, young and wet behind the ears.

For answer, Bertie pushed the remaining
bottle of brandy toward his brother. “I fear I know what his
reasons are. I pray to God I am wrong,” he said. Then he let out a
long stream of curses that was very much at odds with his usual
boisterous banter and finished with, “God help him.”

“God help her, you mean,” Ryan said.

“No,” Bertie replied. “Whatever else happens,
she'll be taken well care of, lucky lass. No. God help him.”

“Milord,” Tyler began. “Slow down, or
t'bloody fool you've carted along will be splattered all over
t'road!” He was perched on the back of the curricle as was the
norm, but instead of holding onto the frame with both hands, he was
trying to hold the drunken Squire in the vehicle.

“Good God, Tyler, complaining again, are
you?” St. James asked. He slowed the horses from the gallop they
had been in to a hard trot. As there was only a half moon to light
the road before them, Tyler was relieved for more than the Squire's
sake. “Out cold, is he?” St. James asked.

Tyler gave the Squire a shake, got only a
half-snore, half-grunt as response. “Aye. Right out of it, he is,
milord. Nearly made me swallow me chaw when I saw him listing
half-way out of t'curricle on that last turn. Grabbed him in just a
nick of time.”

“Well, would never do to kill my future
father-in-law before the nuptials even take place.”

Tyler made a gagging noise and began to
cough. When he gained his breath and his composure, he said, “Now,
I have swallowed it, thanks t'you! Are you trying t'kill me?”

St. James threw him a look, half laughing,
half concerned. “I apologize, Tyler. Didn't mean to shock you like
that. But you should know it's the only logical next move. I've
tried everything else to no avail, and lately, I have come to think
this is the only way to flush the bastard, whoever he is, out.”

Tyler thought hard on this for a moment, and
then said quietly, but with enough force to be heard over the
horses' hooves, “I hope you're wrong, milord. T'is possible, you
know, that t'fiend is dead, and that is why everything we have
tried t'learn his identity has come t'naught.”

“It is possible,” his lordship said, “that he
is dead. It has been twenty-three years. But I can't believe that
after all we have done, that we would not find some trace of him.
No, Tyler. I think whoever we seek is alive and well and continues
to make sure that we find no clue to his identity.”

“But, to marry. Forgive me, milord, but that
implies. . .”

“I know what it implies. I've always been
reluctant to look in that direction, but I have hit so many dead
ends that I am left with no option, God help me. I pray that I hit
another dead end with this, but God help whoever it is if I do
not.”

They drove on in silence for another mile,
only the Squire's snoring interrupting them, before Tyler broke the
quiet by saying, “Your grandmother will be happy, I dare say,
milord. If you are serious.”

“I'm serious. And I expect you're right. She
will be happy. But she can't know the reason for this marriage,
Tyler. Not that I couldn't trust her to play the game to perfection
if I were to ask her to do so, but for obvious reasons, it would
hurt her too much if she knew what I was really about. No. She must
think I came down here, met this Miss Murdock, and fell madly in
love with her. And if there is a guilty party among those I hold
closest to us, they must believe the same. Only if they believe it
is a natural and unplanned occurrence will they mayhaps slip off
their guard and, hopefully, make a rash move.”

“They may very well make an attempt on your
life, milord.”

St. James gave him a single glance from
drunken gold eyes. “I certainly hope they shall, otherwise this is
all so much waste.” He turned back to his driving. “Now, we shall
collect my future wife, and we shall see if this last ploy puts the
proper pressure on the proper person.” St. James shook off a sudden
weariness that came across him. “Damn me to hell for drinking so
much,” he muttered. “I am so foggy I am not the least bit sure how
to go about this. I would have done myself a good deal better if I
had allowed myself to retain a clear head.”

“Aye, milord. Expect no sympathy from me.
I've told you many a time before that no one need make a move on
you for they merely need to sit back and wait for you to do
yourself in. If not from the drinking, then from the dueling. And
if not from the dueling, then from the womanizing. You'll get a pox
one of these days, of that I am certain. And if not from that, then
from your trips to the sorry side of town. I know you have your
reasons, but you must have a care, milord.”

“There will be no care in me until I have put
an end to this. I dare not even try to live until I am assured that
the culprit is dead, and by my hand! And you, of all people, should
know that every stunt I've ever pulled was in the pursuit of
finding that knave. So let me hear no more of care and caution from
you. For if I do stir them from their hiding place with this
marriage, then the last thing I need to be feeling is some fear for
my life, for if I am afraid, he has won already, for it will keep
me from doing what musts be done with the single determination that
I have always pursued it.”

“That, I suppose, is why you have chosen a
lass you do not know and do not care for?”

“Precisely, Tyler. I can not go into marriage
believing I am building something for the future, for it may very
well be a future that I will never see. And I don't wish to leave a
grieving widow in my wake, in any event. Someone with a good head
on her shoulders, who can care for my estates and my child, if we
are lucky enough for her to conceive before I am killed.”

“And if you are not killed, but succeed?”

“Then I will make do with whatever pathetic
lot I have saddled myself with, and count myself fortunate.” He
pulled up on the horses, and they skidded to a halt so quickly that
the Squire would have been thrown from the curricle if it had not
been for Tyler holding him. “Was that a lane there, Tyler, on your
right?”

Tyler peered into the dark. “Aye. And a sorry
looking, over-grown one t'is, too.”

“That's the one we want,” St. James nodded.
He backed the horses, chirped them around, and then started at
nearly the same ill-advised speed that he had traversed the main
road.

Chapter Four

Monday Morning

Lizzie was roused from her sleep by a
determined knocking on the front door. She peered, confused, from
between the heavy, closed drapes of her bed, noticing first the
still solid darkness beyond her window. It was not dawn, looked to
be several hours from it, at least.

The knocking came again, proving it had not
been a dream. As she was alone in the house, it was up to her to
fling back the bed-drapes, wrap herself in her robe, thrust her
feet into her heavy wool slippers, and go below to answer the
pounding summons on the door, which was still repeating itself
after every few seconds.

She hurried from her room and down the long
hallway to the top of the stairs that pitched rather sharply down
to the front of the house and ended a few yards from the front
entrance. In the dark, for she carried neither lamp nor candle,
they seemed more prone to awkwardness than even what they normally
did, and she caught herself once against the wall peeling of paint.
Miss Murdock paused at the bottom stair, then turned and went into
the parlor, pulled the drape back from the window to allow her to
see who was demanding entrance in the wee small hours of the
morning.

A high curricle stood in the drive, looking
skeletal in the wan moonlight of the night. The team of horses at
its front were lathered and blowing, showing they had been driven
hard. A tall figure was to its side, his cap indicating him to be a
groom, and a portly silhouette of a man was pitched far to one side
on the seat, the groom attempting to help him down. Lizzie
recognized this indisposed man as her father, even in the darkness,
and with a little groan of exasperation, she delayed no longer but
went again to the hallway and to the front door, of which the
pounding had returned with a vigor.