In the Brief Eternal Silence (62 page)

“Milord?” Effington asked from behind him,
and for once there was not the usual affront in his voice that was
there when he felt as if he were being ill-used.

St. James raised a brow at this unexpected
ease of disposition,

but only said, “Have you that missive I gave
to you earlier?”

“The one for a messenger of the Queen?”

“Yes.” St. James pulled on his breeches, his
chest twinging in protest at his rapid activity.

Effington watched him without bemoaning his
lordship's lack of helplessness. He pulled the sealed envelope from
the inside pocket of his starched uniform. “I have it, of
course.”

“Very good,” St. James replied, and he took
the envelope from Effington and tore it across. He walked over to
the fireplace and threw it into the flames.

Effington observed this activity, and then
seeing that his lordship had every intention of continuing with
putting on his shirt, advised him, “You need a shave, milord.”

“Haven't time, Effington.”

“I assure you I can shave you in the little
amount of time that you can explain to me what I am to tell the
Queen's man when he arrives.”

And St. James threw down his shirt, struggled
into his high, gleaming leather boots instead, stamped his feet
into them and said as he did so, “You've got two minutes, and you
shall have to endeavor to do it while I compose a new message.”

Effington poured water into the basin. “And
one also for your grandmother, as I am sure she is worried?” he
asked.

“Yes. Damn it. One to my grandmother as I am
sure she is worried.”

Effington gathered towel, basin and razor as
he followed his employer who went bare-chested to the secretary in
his room. “If you can wait just one second, milord, I will get the
shaving cup.”

But St. James was pawing through his
stationery. “No, I'll do without, Effington, for I have little care
if it is not close or if you nick me. Just do not do me fatal
injury is all I ask,” and he opened a bottle of ink, dipped his pen
and began writing.

And if Effington had a difficult time of it
shaving his lordship, especially along his throat, as St. James
only tilted his head first in one direction and then the other, and
would not at any time forgo his writing to give his valet more
access, he did not complain, but only did the job with as much
efficiency as he could muster.

St. James muttered as he paused in thought.
“I no longer know who I can trust, damn it! Years of eliminating
possible culprits and I am back at the beginning, where every face
could be a murderer.”

Effington said, “And you trust me with a
razor to your throat, milord?”

“Yes. God damn it! I trust you with a razor
to my throat. Now do be quiet for you are distracting me.”

“And I am sure you can trust Miss Murdock,”
Effington continued despite orders to the contrary.

And St. James gave him a lethal look from his
heavy gold eyes. “Yes. I am sure that I may. Unfortunately,” he
continued, going back to his writings, “I very much fear she should
not have trusted me. Damn it!”

“And Lord Tempton?”

“If Bertie were going to kill me, he has had
his chances.”

“And Tyler?”

“With my life,” St. James returned. But he
appeared to be gaining a degree of lesser agitation and Effington
persisted.

“Your grandmother?”

St. James hesitated in his writing. Then
said, “Too old and too vulnerable. Too without knowledge of my
actions and my suspicions, of which I am at fault. I can not trust
her to not make a decision that although well-meaning, may be all
the same fatal. And I worry all the more for I fear that if she
gets wind of this, she will act rather than trust me to finish
it.”

Effington struggled to follow his lordship's
movements without cutting him. “Young Mister Tempton?” he
asked.

“No,” St. James returned. “Too young, too
impetuous, too impressionable.”

“Earl Larrimer?”

And St. James paused again in brief and
searching thought. “No. Too ruled by emotion,” and then in a
scouring undertone, “as I am myself at this late date. Damn it,
Effington! Finish! And when you are done, pack me a bag, for I will
be leaving in short order to fetch Miss Murdock.” He put a sudden
weary hand to his eyes, frustrating Effington's efforts all the
more. “And whatever I am to do with her, I do not know!”

“Milord, you will have to remove your
hand.”

St. James moved his hand and read over his
missives, then addressed the envelopes for them and folded them
inside.

Effington put the razor aside, picked up a
towel. St. James took the towel from him, gave his face and neck
two swift swipes as he rose from his chair, and then flung the
towel onto the chair he had just vacated.

“I will not be back up,” he told his valet.
“So, if you would, take my bag down to the stables. I will be
taking the curricle and you may deposit my bag there.” St. James
put on his shirt as he spoke, buttoned his cuffs and flipped the
lace down over his pale wrists. “Go, man,” he said, his voice
softer as Effington seemed to be hesitating, torn between packing a
bag as asked and his natural instinct to do up the buttons of
milord's shirt and to tie the lace of his cravat.

Effington stirred into action and as he
hurried to the wardrobe he observed St. James tucking his unmatched
pistols into his waistband. “Luck to you, milord,” he said.

And St. James replied with bitterness, “And I
shall need it, Effington, for I have been very stupid about this,
chasing a phantom culprit and a complicated motive when it has all
been quite simple and clear from the very beginning.”

With those words, he gathered his great coat
and put it on. And the tight wrap of his fresh bandages that
Effington had changed earlier that morning constricted him to a
degree. But as he moved his left hand in a quick motion of testing
his ability to the butt of one hidden gun, he was satisfied that he
could draw it with effectiveness and would probably tear out no
more than one or two stitches in the true effort.

Then he gathered up the two sealed envelopes,
entrusted one to Effington, and the other he placed in his pocket.
He left the bedchamber and if the thought crossed his mind that at
this point, he had no idea how he was to do what had to be done,
and still endeavor to walk back through that portal, he did not
entertain it.

He only knew that first and foremost, he must
fetch Miss Murdock and the rest of it would have to come to him as
he went along.

And he was quite unawares that Effington's
singular thought was that St. James, for once, had not started his
day with a drink.

“Tyler?” St. James called into the dimness of
the stables once he had entered. As he had expected, Tyler had
found chores needing done to the fore of the stable and his answer
was immediate.

“Aye, milord.” He appeared out of a stall but
a brief ways down the center aisle. “It's barely ten but I figured
you'd be 'long shortly at any rate.”

“I've slept too damned long as it is,” St.
James said and Tyler narrowed his eyes at the tone of his
lordship's voice.

“You've found somethin' then?” he asked.

“Something that has been in front of my face
for far too long. And which has been pointed out to me twice in as
many days. And still I was too blind to pick up on it!”

Tyler spat with force into the gutter.
“You'll have to 'splain it to me then, milord, for I haven't
t'clue.”

St. James moved forward with purpose. “We'll
talk while tacking up, for I have need of you to go to my
grandmother's and give her this,” and he handed Tyler the envelope
he had brought down with him.

Tyler pocketed it. “Aye.”

“And you shall need to speak with her also,
and tell her that you need a bag made up for Miss Murdock with
several changes of clothing and whatever items her lady's maid
deems necessary, but it must be done quietly and without fuss.”

“And her lady's maid also?” Tyler asked.

“No.”

“Damn it, milord! Your grandmother will not
have it. You 'spect me to persuade her to readyin' Miss Murdock for
some unknown journey, undoubtedly with you, and not have her lady's
maid present?”

St. James turned upon his groom and his words
came out as nearly a snarl, “I have little care how you accomplish
it, Tyler! I don't care if you allow that the maid is coming and
then you pitch her in the gutter along your route of return. Just
see that you have the bag and no maid!”

Tyler shifted his cud of tobacco. “Aye.”

St. James strode further down the aisle then
opened the stall door there. He paused as he caught the horse
inside. Tyler moved to gather saddle and St. James had the horse
out of the stall when he returned. Tyler tossed him the bridle and
began the saddling. And they each moved as though they had worked
together in this manner many times before. “After you complete that
little duty,” St. James continued, “I will need you to go to the
same undertaker that you took Steven's father to. You'll be meeting
with his mother there.”

Tyler said, “Bloody hell, I will! When and
how did she come to be in to this mess? Is Steven with her?”

St. James paused in his bridling of the
horse, and it lipped his shoulder softly. “I do not know where
Steven is. As of last night, neither did she.”

Tyler looked at him with disbelief but his
hands never paused in the sure working of saddle straps. “She be
t'letter writer, then?”

“Yes. And I spent a damned uncomfortable time
with her, for it is not at all pleasant to tell someone that is
worried about their husband that they need not worry any longer for
he is dead. And that I killed him.”

“Bloody goddamned mess,” Tyler muttered and
brought down the stirrup iron as he finished his task. “Shoulda
ne'er told her, milord! Any information ye got from her can only be
suspect now, for I dare say she'd dearly love to see ye in
difficulty.”

St. James examined this remark, his eyes
brooding, then he said, “I think not. T'is a long story and I won't
go into it now. And the damning revelation is one that I had
already had told to me, by her husband before he died.”

“That bein'?” Tyler asked. He mounted and
leaned from the saddle.

“They were told before hand that there would
be three occupants riding in the coach that night.”

Tyler looked at him in momentary
incomprehension, then his face tightened and his eyes became very
hard. “No one t'would have known that, milord, except for someone
inside Morningside.”

St. James nodded, said with a cold twist to
his mouth, “You are so right, Tyler. For if it had been someone
outside the household, they could not have anticipated anything but
my father traveling alone, as he was expected to be traveling
lightly and quickly and through the night. Only someone at
Morningside could have known that my mother would not be put off
and was returning with him and that they were taking their son as
well.”

“Do you know who—?”

“I have a very good idea.” St. James stepped
back from the horse. “If you return before I, wait for me. I will
be taking the curricle and going for a brief visit to my
barrister's, for there is something else I need to investigate and
if it is as I suspect, then it is the final nail in the coffin. All
I need figure out then is how to go about it, and damn it, there
are all sorts of complications upon that head.” And his frown was
deep and dark. Tyler held in his mount and with concern watched
him, and St. James finished by saying, “And all sorts of
complications upon what to do with Miss Murdock.” He raised his
eyes with sudden savageness and added, “for I fear that she is no
longer an innocent bystander in this and that she will be a target
as well.”

Tyler nodded, said with sudden grave
understanding, “The hanky's what did it then?”

“Yes. One damned, careless mistake on my
part, and it has turned all of this totally upside down. I have no
need to tell you, Tyler, that I had planned to elope with her
immediately and secretly, get her with child if God had been
willing and then hide all of this circumstance by launching her and
courting her. In that manner she would have been perfectly safe. If
I had died, I'd still have an heir and both of them would have
lived very comfortably indeed with her in control of my estates. At
the same time, I would have been putting pressure on who I wished
to put pressure upon without any fear of endangering her, for they
would have thought her no more than my betrothed.”

“I'd figured that was what went on in your
mind,” Tyler said.

“Now,” St. James said with an embittered,
tight smile, “I fear that I have not married her, and that my
little indiscretion with her that night in the carriage will lead
someone to believe that possibly God may have blessed us at any
rate. And I ask you, Tyler, if you were to stand to gain by my
death, would you leave her alive long enough for me to marry her
and make a possibly coming babe a legitimate heir?”

“Yer dealin' with someone who has gone to
great lengths already,” Tyler agreed. “Much easier to be rid of
t'one afore t'marriage an take no chances, than to wait 'til after
and it be born and then need to be rid of two!”

And St. James said with uncompromising fury
in his voice, “After all, my mother was with child at the time of
her death. So I should say the precedent is there.” He stepped back
from the side of Tyler's mount. “Go,” he said. “We waste time.”

Tyler put his heels to his horse and trotted
from the stables. St. James turned and bellowed into the depths of
the stables. “Groom!” A younger one came half-running from far down
the aisle. St. James moved toward him. He stopped outside the two
stalls that held his bays, told the undergroom, “I'll be needing my
curricle, lad, without delay. Get someone to help you, for if I am
not out of this stables in five minutes, I shall flay you and your
co-hort.”