Martha Schroeder (17 page)

“Amelia, you must come downstairs and deal with this imbroglio,” Jane told her without roundaboutation. “Your cousin has attempted to murder Captain Falconer. Do you want him bound over to the magistrate? Would the trial be in the House of Lords? You cannot ask Sir Richard to make decisions like this, and nothing can be done about that moneylender until the question of Eustace—”

Roused from her intense concentration on Gideon, Amelia felt the world rush back in with the strength of a spring flood. Of course she had duties to fulfill, decisions to make. She took a deep breath, then got slowly to her feet and shook the wrinkles out of her simple blue day dress.

“You are right, of course, Jane. I’ll go down now. Sir Richard must wonder where my wits have gone to leave him alone like this.” She gave Jane a perfunctory smile that did not banish the shadows from her eyes and hurried down to the library, where Sir Richard had established his command post.

“Lady Amelia,” the colonel said as he rose to his feet to greet her. “I hope you do not mind that I have usurped your room and even your desk.”

Amelia went over to him and took his hands. “I cannot thank you enough for what you have done today, Sir Richard.

For coming to the rescue and taking charge white I was— preoccupied.” She smiled slightly.

He returned her smile with an ironic one of his own. “Escaping from murderous kidnappers does tend to drive other concerns from one’s mind. Captain Falconer and I had a similar situation in Portugal.” He led her carefully around the desk and seated her in the armchair that flanked it. “How is he? Jane— that is, Miss Forrester, said that he was doing well.”

“Fever has set in.” Amelia’s hands twisted together in her lap.

“That is to be expected. Miss Forrester has some herbal concoction that she says will help.” He frowned at her, but she did not see.

Amelia could not look up from her hands until she was sure that her eyes were not going to overflow. Tears were not going to help. She had decisions to make, so she firmed her voice and said, “You wanted to see me about Eustace?”

“Yes. You have some difficult decisions to make. Do you wish to lay charges against him?”

Amelia looked at him at last. Thinking about something other than the chance that Gideon might die gave her something to hang on to. “What would that entail? A trial? Jane said something about the House of Lords. And then what? Prison?”

Sir Richard shook his head. “You will have to consult a lawyer to get all those answers. There will be a trial, certainly.”

“The trial of a peer for attempted murder and kidnapping-there are bound to be articles in the papers, are there not? Caricatures in the shops? Gossip.” She knew her voice was calm, almost disinterested. In truth, she was not very concerned about Eustace. Whatever happened to him he had earned.

“Almost certainly.”

“Gideon would have to testify? And I as well ?”

“Falconer almost certainly. You might be spared by the court, Lady Amelia. Gently bred females often are.”

She thought for a moment. It was not a difficult decision. She had only to do what her father would have wanted. “No trial. Perhaps he can go abroad. I know he does not have any money.” She tapped a fingernail against her teeth for a moment while she weighed her options. “I am willing to give him a small allowance and to assume all responsibility for maintaining the property if he will agree never to return to England. Do you think that will answer?”

Sir Richard looked at her with undisguised admiration. He had wondered if Lady Amelia could possibly be intelligent and strong enough to take charge of the late duke’s many properties and businesses. Now he knew. After all she had been through, she could still think, and think clearly.

“I believe that I can convince him to leave.” Actually, he had no doubt about it whatsoever. And if convincing the sniveling little coward took physical force, so much the better. “But what about Blakeley? He was the mastermind of the scheme, I assume. He could be brought to book. And he should be. By God, kidnapping you and shooting Falconer—

“No, Sir Richard.” Amelia knew Blakeley far better than Sir Richard could. She knew what he would do if he were faced with the certainty of prison. “He is a truly evil man, I believe.” The thought of that false humor and those dead eyes made her shudder. “But if there is a trial, he will lay the blame, very convincingly, on Eustace. Then my family’s name will be muddied as certainly as it would if Eustace himself were to be tried and convicted. My father detested Eustace—that may have been partly because he was such a beastly little boy. Papa had very little patience with cowardice and less with whining—but he would not want our name dragged through that kind of a trial.”

“Yet we cannot allow the man to simply go free,” Sir Richard argued.

“Perhaps losing the money Eustace owes him, and if we could also somehow end his moneylending—” Amelia found herself without another idea in her head. Like a horse who has run as far as he can, she could do no more. Her body ached from all its unfamiliar exertions. She was tired and hungry and most of all worried about Gideon.

“I have exhausted you,” Sir Richard said with remorse. She was so intelligent and had such iron control over herself that he had forgotten this was a slip of a girl, not a hardened soldier. She had been through an ordeal that would make many a Peninsular veteran give out. “Why do you not get some rest. I will watch Falconer for you, and promise to wake you should there be any change in his condition.”

Amelia felt herself sinking into a kind of mindless lethargy. She could do no more. “Thank you,” she murmured. “I am tired, I think. I will look in on Gideon, and then perhaps I will nap for an hour. You have been so kind, Sir Richard, to shoulder my responsibilities. I cannot tell you how much I—”

He waved away her thanks. “Please go up and sleep before you drop and I have to get one of the footmen to carry you.” He gave her his sardonic half smile again as she rose and left the room.

The housekeeper sent up a tray of tea and buttered toast. Amelia finished it quickly, then slipped off her shoes and pulled the quilt over herself. She was asleep almost before she closed her eyes.

When she awoke, the moon was riding low in the sky, shining directly through her uncurtained window. With a low cry of distress at having slept so long, she quickly sat up and reached her toes around to find her shoes. Within minutes she had straightened her crumpled dress, dragged a comb through her hair, and splashed cold water on her face from the ewer a maid must have brought while she was asleep.

Gideon,
she thought as she moved swiftly down the hall to the duke’s bedroom,
how is Gideon?
As soon as she entered the room, she knew he was worse. Jane was leaning over the restless figure in the bed, a cloth in her hand. Sir Richard was bending over the bed, trying to still the thrashing limbs.

Amelia said nothing, simply hurried over to stand with her friends, trying to draw strength from their concern. She looked down. Gideon’s eyes were open and staring, bright with fever. She reached over to take one of his hands in hers, but with the strength of delirium he pulled her down on top of him.

“So, Blakeley, you think to kill me yet?” he growled as his hands reached around her throat.

“Gideon, no! It’s—” She tried to tell him who she was, but he shook her as if she were a rat in a terrier’s jaws.

“Damn you! Kill Amy will you? I’ll see you in hell!”

Amelia felt darkness grow at the edge of her vision. “Gideon!”

He stilled suddenly, looking around with unseeing eyes. His hands, so painfully strong, gentled and began to stroke her face. “Amy?” he said, his cracked voice a caress. “Is it you? Are you all right?”

“Yes, it is I, and I am—”

“You should have seen your father! He was mad as fire that we took the curricle out. He knows it was me.” A youthful grin spread over his face. “You should have heard him! Called me a hell-born babe! But he is going to send me to school, Amy, not back to the street.”

She knew instantly where he thought he was, or rather when he thought he was. “Yes, Gideon, of course you’ll be going to school. He would never send you back. And that’s fine for you, but what about me?”

His expression sobered. “I’m sorry you can’t come. You’re cleverer than any of them. It is stupid that girls cannot go to Eton. I told your father so.” His eyes still focused on some faraway scene, he grimaced.

Amy’s heart melted. It was one of her fondest memories— Gideon standing up for her right to learn. Her father had listened, too. As a result, she had continued her studies with the vicar for another five years. “I am sure Father will let me study with Mr. Collins, Gideon. And I will have you to thank for my fine education.”

But Gideon no longer heard her. His eyes had closed, and his hands fell to his sides. He gave a low groan, and his breathing grew labored. Jane thrust Amelia aside and placed her hand on his forehead.

“The fever is higher,” Jane said. “Help me raise him, Richard, please.” As Sir Richard lifted his inert body, Gideon stiffened and began to speak once again. This time his voice was higher, lighter, the voice of a young child.

“Mama? Mama! Where are you? Where have you gone? Why won’t you sing to me, Mama?” His head thrashed about, and he all but dashed the cup of medicinal tea from Jane’s hand.

“You must take your medicine, Gideon,” Jane said firmly.

“All right, nanny.” He opened his mouth and swallowed the tea, making a face at its bitter taste. “Ugh. Nasty.”

“I know, but it will make you better.”

Gideon smiled, a happy, innocent smile, one no one in the room had ever seen on his face before. Wherever Gideon’s mind had journeyed, had he gone too far away to return to them?

Amelia stared at him, at Gideon as he must once have been. She was sure that she was hearing him as a young child, in the happy years before she had ever known him. In the grip of fever, he seemed to have returned to those days he could not remember when awake.

Still smiling, he turned on his side and tucked his hand under his chin. It was an oddly appealing gesture in such a big, dark man. “Sing to me, Mama,” he said again.

Amelia seated herself on the bed and stroked his head softly as she sang the “Coventry Carol,” the only lullaby she could think of.

“No, not that one. Mine. Sing my song,” he ordered.

Amelia looked around helplessly. “He said his mother had a special song she sang to him, but he could not remember what it was,” she whispered to Sir Richard and Jane, who stood watching her, mesmerized.

“You know,” Gideon said. “You know it. Sing it!” His voice had risen, and Amelia feared that he might have an adult-size temper tantrum if she could not think of some song.

To her surprise, he smiled that childlike, seraphic smile again. “You forgot, Mama,” he said. Then he began to hum in that same cracked but childish voice. It was a simple melody, but one Amelia had never heard before. When he began to hum it again, she joined in a little hesitantly, wanting him to have the comfort his delusion of his mother singing him a special song seemed to give him.

Caught up as she was in Gideon’s world, she was taken by surprise when she felt Sir Richard’s hand clamp around her arm. She was raised to her feet and set aside between one breath and the next. Stunned, she looked at the colonel.

He was leaning over Gideon, a grim expression on his face that Amelia could not read but that rendered him all but unrecognizable. “Where did you hear that song? Where? How do you know that song?” His voice was a harsh, accusing whisper. “Tell me, you damn gypsy brat!”

Amelia stood paralyzed for a moment, staring at this man she had thought she knew as Gideon’s friend. Then she took hold of his arm and tried to pull him away from Gideon. She might as well have tried to pull a tree away from where it was rooted with her bare hands.

Jane was more ruthless. She slapped the colonel smartly across the cheek. “Richard! Stop it! Gideon is delirious! He can tell you nothing. Get hold of yourself!”

He shook his head as if awakening from a heavy sleep and looked at Jane. His expression changed and cleared. “I—I am sorry. I did not mean to—” He broke off as Gideon again began to hum the little melody. “I am sorry. I think I badly need some air.” With that, he strode out of the room.

Jane looked after him for a moment then shrugged and turned back to her patient, though she spoke to Amelia. “The colonel has been under a severe strain for the past several days. It is the only explanation I can give for that outburst.” She took Gideon’s wrist in her fingers. “His pulse is a little quieter. It is a good sign. Whatever its effect on Richard, that queer little lullaby seems to make Gideon feel calmer.”

For a few moments the two women stood looking down at the peacefully sleeping captain. Then Jane turned worried eyes to the door. “If you can stay with him for a few minutes, I would like to speak to the colonel. He may need a little laudanum, or perhaps some brandy and milk.”

“Of course.” Amelia had no intention of leaving the room until she was sure that Gideon was out of danger. She seated herself once again on the edge of the bed and began to stroke his thick black hair as Jane hurried out of the room.

Jane found Sir Richard, not in the library where she had thought he would be, but on the terrace just outside. He stood bathed in the cold moonlight, with nothing but a light coat on against the icy chill. A cigar glowed once or twice as he drew on it. Jane stood by the open French doors and hesitated. Despite their desperate flight to the Abbey and the confidences they had shared on the way, she did not know this man very well. He might not welcome her company at this time. He might—

“I know you are there. Come out and join me, Jane.”

Did his voice hold a smile? She didn’t know, but he wanted her with him so she stepped out into the darkness. “I cannot stay long. A fever this high is very dangerous.”

“He had better not die until he has told me what I want to know.” Richard threw his cigar away half smoked. It arched through the darkness in a trail of insubstantial sparks.