Murder in a mill town (14 page)

“Ah, yes—always thinking of Lady Viola.”

“Because four years ago, she thought of me,” Nell said with feeling. “She plucked me out of my humble existence on Cape Cod and brought me here and gave me the life I have now. To say I’m indebted to her would be an understatement.”

Will looked away, his jaw set.

Gentling her tone, Nell said, “Will, I understand why you feel as you do, although I wish you’d learn to see it as water under the bridge. But for my part...she’s been so good to me, so kind and giving. And she’s seen so much heartache. If she had to face the truth about Harry, it would kill her.”

He laughed shortly. “She’s far tougher than that, I assure you.”

“It wasn’t just her I was thinking of,” Nell confessed. “It was myself, too. If I’d brought charges against Harry, I would surely have lost my job.”

“And Gracie.”

Nell nodded, looked down. That Will had sired the child whom she had come to think of as her own seemed to bind them together in some curious alliance that had no name.

And no rules.

“So you just walked out of Harry’s house that day,” Will asked, “leaving him tied to a dining chair, and put the entire unpleasant episode out of your mind?”

She winced, remembering. “Oh, God, a man saw me leaving the house, all...undone, and with my hair loose and no hat.”

“You left the house that way?” he asked through a gust of laughter.

“All I could think about was getting out of there. I forgot about my...my
state
until I was halfway down the front walk, and then I ducked back onto the front stoop to right myself. It was still somewhat light out. I was so embarrassed, thinking someone might have seen me, and sure enough, there was a man leaning against a tree on the esplanade that runs down the middle of Commonwealth, watching me button myself back up and tidy my hair.”

“Oh, no,” Will said, but he still looked pretty amused.

“He was some sort of laborer or workman or the like, judging from his clothes,” she said. “You know—a leather cap, old reefer jacket, hemp trousers. God knows what he thought.”

“He probably thought whoever lived in that house was a very lucky man.”

Nell glanced at Will, wondering how he’d meant that—as a compliment? A tease? He reached into the coat pocket in which he kept his cigarettes, frowned distractedly, withdrew his hand without them. He must have decided the quarters were too tight, with the two of them huddled together in this intimate little refuge from the rain, for him to light up. Indeed, they stood as close as if they were dancing, her skirts rustling around his legs, their arms occasionally brushing.

It was as if they were surrounded by one of those glass domes, like the one in Mr. Hewitt’s library that held a stuffed owl. Breathing in a heady fusion of Bay Rum, wet wool and rainwater, Nell allowed herself to imagine that the world outside their little dome—except, of course, for Gracie—had simply dissolved away in the rain.

“This man who was watching you,” Will said, “he didn’t...say anything to you, or...”

“No, he was too far away, but I could tell from his expression that he thought he knew why I was so disheveled. Ever since that day, I’ve had this dread of being watched. I find myself thinking he’s back, following me, lurking in the shadows.”

“The same man?”

She shrugged. “It’s just an absurd fancy, but yes, I suppose I think of him as being the same man. It’s usually just some dark, anonymous figure I see out of the corner of my eye, some man about the same size. Perhaps I should ask Dr. Drummond for a nerve tonic.”

“Given the way you turned the tables on Harry, I shouldn’t think your nerves need bolstering. That was a remarkable accomplishment, Nell. You really showed your mettle.”

She mumbled her thanks and looked away, heat blooming in her face until it felt like a box stove. Will followed her line of sight to Gracie, spinning and giggling. In her peripheral vision, Nell saw his expression soften as he gazed at this wondrous little creature who’d sprung so unexpectedly from one isolated act of comfort and need with a near stranger.

Her gaze still trained on Gracie, Nell saw Will turn to study her in that quietly intense way of his. He looked away, looked back, opened his mouth to say something, sighed. “I don’t know what I would have...” He shook his head, a faint pink smudge streaking each cheekbone. “I mean, if Harry...if he’d managed to...”

“He didn’t.”

Will nodded in a preoccupied way. “I worry about...next time.”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“I’d like to think so, but if his absinthe consumption continues at this pace—”

“No, I meant I won’t give him another chance. I’ve no intention of ever being alone with him again. I must tell you, though—I’m not so sure it’s the absinthe so much as, well, Harry himself.”

“If I’d been through what you’ve been through, I’m sure I’d feel exactly as you do. In any event, it gives me some measure of comfort to know that you’re so savvy, so adept at defending yourself.”

“Savvy?” She shook her head. “If I were savvy, I wouldn’t have
had
to defend myself. I would have seen what was coming long before Harry made his move, and gotten out of there before he’d had the chance to act. You’d think, after what happened with Duncan, I’d have learned to anticipate something like that.”

“The signs aren’t always so obvious,” Will said. “Sometimes it’s just a look, a comment, a hunch. Something seems out of place, something
smells
different, the little hairs at the nape of your neck start tickling. It’s a matter of analyzing that which others don’t even notice, not consciously, but as a matter of course. That way, if trouble is lurking just up ahead, you might be able to sidestep it before it trips you up.”

“I suppose it was at Andersonville that you cultivated this instinct,” she said.

“More so those places where the predators are a bit less obvious, but no less lethal. Certain quarters in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Paris, San Francisco, New York, New Orleans... Any place where there’s gambling, money and whiskey—or, of course, opium. One learns to be ever watchful for that flicker of steel in the dark.”

“Are you telling me you can avoid trouble every single time if you’re just vigilant enough?” she asked.

Will laughed. “If only that were possible. No, but I’ve learned how to deal with it when it arises.”

“How to fight your way out of it, you mean?”

“How to keep a cool head so that I
can
fight my way out of it.”

“Fisticuffs, or...?” She thought about that little folding bistoury from his pocket surgery kit, the one with which he was presumed to have slashed Ernest Tulley’s throat last winter.

Evidently sensing the direction of her thoughts, he said, “I rarely used the bistoury as a weapon—not that I didn’t waved it about to good effect from time to time, but I’ve found that one or two well-aimed punches are generally quite sufficient, and a good deal tidier.”

“Just one or two?” Nell teased. “I must say I’m disappointed, Dr. Hewitt. I wouldn’t have thought you were the type to brag.”

He grinned down at her. “And I wouldn’t have thought you were the type to grace me with such a delightfully coquettish smile, Miss Sweeney—but I won’t pretend to be disappointed.”

Cheeks warming yet again—Will really knew how to get to her—Nell rolled her eyes and looked toward the big pin oak to check on Gracie, who was practicing her curtseys.

“There was a sort of unofficial boxing club at Oxford,” Will said, “where I discovered that an eighty-four inch reach tends to put one at something of an advantage.”

“An eighty-four inch...?”

“Long arms—rather embarrassingly simian, actually. Makes me think Darwin is on to something. Over the past few years, I’ve found them to be as handy on the streets as in the ring.”

Nell hated the image that materialized in her mind’s eye: Will squaring off against some knife-wielding assailant in some dismal back alley halfway across the world. Redirecting the conversation, she said, “I utterly panicked, that day with Harry. All I could think about was what Duncan had done to me, and that it was about to happen all over again.”

“You got hold of yourself in time,” Will said.

“Only just. It was a narrow squeak.”

“Best to take command of oneself right from the very beginning,” he said. “When you’re in danger, your heart starts racing. You tremble, perspire, grow breathless. The trick is in transcending your body’s panic reflex, rising above it. Remove your mind from what’s happening to you. Think outside of yourself—ideally, even before the threat is real.”

“Think outside of yourself,” she repeated dubiously.

“It’s difficult to articulate, but that’s how I think of it, almost as if I were an onlooker in the situation, rather than a participant. It helps me to think clearly, anticipate my opponent’s moves, land the best punches.”

“Yes, well, with any luck, I’ll never find myself in such a situation again.”

“If you rely on luck, you probably will.”

“You know I don’t intend to trust my fate to luck,” she said. “I’ve told you I’m going to avoid being alone with Harry.”

Will gazed off toward Gracie, rubbed the back of his neck. “I know what you think of him, and with good reason, but if you’d known him before the war, when he was just this young, carefree lad... He was high-spirited, yes, but not a bad sort, not really. He took Robbie’s death hard. It changed him—made him not just self-involved, but self-destructive. The absinthe he keeps pouring down his throat, it may as well be arsenic, or a noose that he’s slowly tightening...”

“If you’re asking me to feel sorry for him after what he—”

“God, no! What he did to you was inexcusable.”

“And yet,” she said, “here you are making excuses.”

Will stared at her as rain beat against the taut black silk overhead. He slowly smiled. “I meant it last night, when I said I’d missed you.”

Did you miss
me
?
Not wanting him to ask it again,
because
she didn’t want to have to answer it, Nell said, “The entire world makes excuses for Harry. He’ll never have to answer for his sins.”

“I wouldn’t put money on that if I were you.” Before she could ask him what he meant by that, he said, “Harry’s got his share of misdeeds under his belt, but I can’t imagine he had anything to do with Bridie Sullivan’s disappearance.”

“Only because you’re blinded by fraternal allegiance. She was blackmailing him, and she intended to keep doing so indefinitely. Once Harry found out about Virgil, he wasn’t about to play along...but he wasn’t about to let her tattle to your father, either, and end up disinherited.”

“What is it you think Harry did to her?”

“I don’t know that he did anything, but I can’t simply ignore the possibility because he’s your brother. I know you think he’s just misguided, or muddled by absinthe, but I happen to believe that evil exists in this world, and that some people harbor it in their souls, and that one of those people is Harry. The fact that he’s an absinthe fiend only makes it more likely that he’s guilty. I’m sorry, Will, but I owe it to your mother, and to Bridie’s mother—and to Bridie herself, for that matter—to sort this thing out.”

“Curious,” Will said, “that you feel you owe it to my mother to prove that her son was responsible for Bridie’s disappearance, yet she mustn’t find out that he tried to rape you.”

Rape.
There it was, the blunt, sordid word, spoken right out loud in this far too small refuge from the storm. Swamped with a sudden, bewildering rush of shame—unwarranted, perhaps, but no less real—Nell didn’t know where to look, what to say.

Will cupped her chin to lift her face. “Nell...”

Her eyes stung at the tenderness in his voice, his touch. She shut them, swallowing hard against a spasm in her throat.

Softly he said, “It
was
inexcusable, what he did, and I know it was a nightmare for you—which makes it all the more impressive that you were able to get the upper hand.”

She opened her eyes to find him leaning close. The rain had diminished to a whispery drizzle.

“Are you certain, though,” he asked, “that your reason for suspecting Harry in the Bridie Sullivan thing has nothing to do with...what he tried to do to you?”

“You think I’m trying to punish him for one savage act by implicating him in another?”

“Not consciously, but perhaps—”

“No. No, Will. I suspect him because of who and what he is, not because of what he did to me. And as far as protecting your mother...” Nell drew a deep breath. “It’s one thing to withhold the fact that her son gives such vent to his lechery, quite another to essentially cover up for...for whatever it was that happened to Bridie.”

“Assuming she didn’t just run off with—”

“Assuming she didn’t just run off with Virgil Hines. Yes, it would break your mother’s heart if she found out he’d done something to Bridie. But if he did, she deserves to know—and he deserves to be punished. There’s only so far I’ll go to spare her feelings. There’s only so far she would want me to go.”

 Will turned to look at Gracie, who had stepped out from beneath the huge, dripping oak to gaze upward at the sky. The rain had let up at last, and a gleam of late-afternoon sunshine was trying to insinuate itself between the clouds.