Scandal in the Night (34 page)

“No.” She shook her head.

She had kept her long, silent bargain for so many years. Too many. Because now other children had been threatened. And Catriona could no longer reconcile sacrificing Mariah, or any of the Jellicoe children, to keep a promise made so long ago.

“Who did you promise, Cat?” His voice was insistent, uncompromising.

“Whom,” she corrected automatically. “To whom did I promise.” But the time for promises was over. Birkstead was already here, lurking somewhere just out of reach beyond the manor walls, watching and waiting, and she knew better than anyone what he was capable of. The depth to which he would so easily and instantly sink for no other reason than to salvage his savage pride. “I promised the dowager Duchess of Westing.”

“That scolding old sow?” Viscount Jeffrey pulled a rude face.

“James!” his viscountess chided. “That is not helpful.”

“My point is that
I
shouldn’t like to cross the dowager duchess,” the viscount clarified. “She’s an imperious, first-rate warship of the old school. Always makes me feel as though I’ve just been caught out doing something terribly ghastly. And I’m a grown man with children of my own to scold, so I see why Miss Cates—Miss Rowan—shouldn’t like to defy her.”

Thomas was still there, still insistent. “Duchess or no, you need to tell us what happened, Cat.”

He was right. It had gone on too long. Too many secrets. Too much sacrificed for others. “She said she didn’t want any more trouble for her grandchildren—my cousins, Arthur, Alice, Charlotte, and George, the children of Lord and Lady Summers.”

Catriona remembered the dowager’s exact words.
I don’t want my son’s or my grandchildren’s names dragged through the mud. I don’t want them so much as mentioned in a broadsheet. They have suffered enough.

They
had
suffered enough. And so had she.

“You took the four Summers children to the dowager after you escaped from India?” Thomas again, with his sharp intellect, figuring it all out. Adding it all up.

“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“Yes,” Thomas agreed. “I need you to go back to the beginning. What happened at the residency, Cat? Start with the fire. That was the last time I saw you. You running into that godawful fire.”

“It wasn’t all the way on fire, the residency, only the upper floors, at the back of the house. But the children’s rooms were on the top floor, although in a different wing from the fire. But they were my main concern, so I went there.”

Catriona closed her eyes, but she could see it now as if she were still in the residency—the long dark floorboards of the corridor, the tight, narrow confines of the stairwell, the high white ceilings filling with smoke.

She didn’t quite know where to begin. Every memory brought fresh pain, and the return of the helplessness, the feeling that she had absolutely no control. “I had gone up the service stairs.”

She had bypassed by the huge central stairwell with its massive drafts of air that would feed the fire she could hear beginning to roar from above, and headed to the north side of the house, to the children’s wing, where the narrower servants’ stairwell had doors and segregated landings that might keep the draft of fresh air from fueling the spread of the fire into that part of the house.

“By the time I got upstairs, Arthur had Charlotte and George, and a young amah—the nursery maid—at the door of the nursery.” She would never forget the look of Arthur’s face—ashen, ravaged by doubt and fear, and by a horrible knowledge that had made him look older by years instead of hours. “I showed them the way to go. Led them down the same stair I had just come up, and then across the back landing at the first floor, to the upper veranda.”

“Yes.” Thomas was nodding. “I saw them on the lawn, when they came out.”

“But Alice wasn’t with them. Arthur said they heard my aunt and uncle arguing. The whole house heard, I should think, since it woke the younger children up. That was probably when Arthur sent Namita for me,” she said as an aside to Thomas. “But later, when Arthur smelled the smoke, he immediately went to get his brother and sisters—oh, thank God he did. Thank God he was such a brave, calm, and courageous lad. I hate to think of what might have happened if he had not. But Alice wasn’t there with Charlotte and George. He thought she must have gone to see her mama.”

“But you
did
get them, Miss Cates,” the viscountess assured her gently, as Lord Jeffrey corrected, “Miss Rowan,” behind her. Lady Jeffrey nodded, but continued. “You were calm and courageous as well, and made sure they escaped.”

“Yes. Thank you.” The thought was only the smallest comfort. Though the children were alive and well, they were as lost to her as if she had not found them. But that was a small price to pay to keep them safe.

Cat had left them at the exterior doorway, and plunged back up the stairs two at a time to the first floor, where she had headed toward the back of the house, to her aunt’s suite of rooms overlooking the gardens.

“It had gotten hotter, and harder to see. Smoke was filtering into the air, sliding along the ceiling above my head, roiling down the corridors like inky thunderclouds.” She had crouched down, instinctively trying to stay away from the smoke, putting her sleeve over her mouth, and trying to hold the terror that sped her heart, and made her pant for breath, at bay. She had to find Alice.

She had acted on instinct, guessing that Alice would have crept down the back service corridor to her mother’s dressing room, just as she had often done to watch Lady Summers dress her hair, and put on her jewels in the evenings. Alice had often come back to the nursery with fingers scented from the perfume from her mother’s precious bottles of attar of roses and gardenia scent.

“I could hear a low sort of crying. It was hard to tell, because of the fire. But it wasn’t just the fire.” It had been the terror, for Alice, and for herself.

Catriona’s stomach cramped into a tight fist at the memory. “I felt my way down the dark tiles of the servants’ passage behind my aunt’s dressing room, only to find the slatted door locked. So I climbed through the passage’s outer window, out onto the veranda, to get some air and to try and go in from the other way. That’s when I saw that one of the heavy slatted shutters on the window of the dressing room was ajar. And I thought perhaps Alice might have crept in over the windowsill.”

She had been right. Catriona had pushed the heavy, louvered shutter open, and after a moment of letting her eyes adjust to the dim, smoky interior, she could see Alice, crouched on the floor with her eyes wide and dark with fright, peering in fascinated horror through the thin ribbon of light coming from the room next door.

“I heard noises coming from the bedchamber next door—Lieutenant Birkstead was there, in the other room. ‘Christ, Lettice,’ I heard him say. His voice was tight and tamped down with pain and disbelief.” Even Birkstead had sounded shocked.

“I spoke to Alice quietly, so Birkstead wouldn’t hear me.”

Catriona had whispered, “Alice dear” as she laid her hand on the child’s shoulder. But at Catriona’s touch, a high, thin keening sound startled out of Alice, who turned to her with eyes dark and a face blanched white with terror. “I put my hand over her mouth, so he wouldn’t hear us, but when I pulled her away, without her holding it closed, the heavy, teak double door began to slowly swing open.”

The line of light widened gradually, and Catriona scrambled backward, pulling the child in her lap into the narrow, shadowed stairwell that led up to the perch reserved for the punkah wallah, the servant who would have sat in the tiny balcony alcove above, pulling the string to keep the long banner of the hinged fan moving to cool her aunt’s rooms.

“Birkstead must have seen the door slowly opening. Because he said, ‘Who’s there?’ and then I heard his footfalls on the floor.”

“I dragged Alice backward, but she was clinging to me, almost too heavy in my arms, stiff and awkward in her complete terror.”

“How old was she?” Lady Jeffrey asked gently.

Catriona was grateful for the respite. “Eight years old, my lady.” Too young to have been exposed to such horror.

But Thomas was impatient for her testimony—her evidence of Jonathan Birkstead’s guilt. “So you were on a staircase?”

“Yes.” Catriona drew her mind back to the narration. “The little narrow staircase at the back of the dressing room, that led to the small clerestory balcony where a servant would have sat to pull the ceiling fans.”

“So you were between the first floor and the second?” Thomas asked. “Higher up?”

“Yes. Up there, it had already begun filling up with smoke rolling down from the ceiling.” Catriona had scrambled backward up the stair, into the clerestory space filled with obscuring smoke, as below, she could hear Birkstead push his way into the dressing room.

“And because I couldn’t carry her and keep my hand over her mouth, Alice said, ‘He killed her. He killed Mama.’ I couldn’t stop her. And he heard her. Because he said again, ‘Who’s there? I can hear you.’”

Catriona could still hear the shocked disbelief in Birkstead’s voice, and feel the answering rise of hysteria in herself.

“He came nearer, down below, somewhere near the bottom of the stairs, while we were choking on the smoke, but trying not to make any noise.

Catriona had kept pushing backward, as far away from him as possible, until she hit a wall at her back. The smoke grew thick, curling down at them like ghosts from hell. She had dragged her skirt up over her mouth, and put her face down next to Alice’s to cover her mouth, as well. In her arms, Alice was shaking with shock and terror, holding herself in a tight little ball. The child had her eyes scrunched, shut tight, as if she could stop the events from happening just by closing her eyes. If she didn’t see it it couldn’t be. But she did speak.

“That was when Alice said, ‘It was Mama who shot Papa. Mama did it. To be with the
Badmash
. She said she would go away with him, and leave us. And that’s when he shot her. And then he started the fire.’”

And Cat knew that even with her eyes shut and sealed as tight as a tomb, the girl would see nothing behind her eyelids but the image of her father, and then her mother, being shot before her eyes. No matter if she blocked her ears, she would hear nothing but the sharp belch of the gun. No matter that Cat was holding her tight, she would feel nothing but cold, hatred, and fear.

“I was feeling my way along the wall, trying to find the window—there were these ornamental lotus-shaped stained-glass windows in the transoms over the doors, and up in the clerestories, too. And I could hear him below, throwing furniture about, overturning tables to find her. ‘It will be your word against mine, Alice darling,’ Birkstead said. ‘And who do you think they’ll believe? Just come out and I can help you.’”

Catriona had shut her eyes against the stinging soot the way Alice had, as if she, too, might shut out the sound of the jackal’s lies. “And that was when I found the latch on the window, and I was trying to push it open with one hand—it was on a central pivot.” She made a rolling motion with her hands by way of explanation. “And I was trying to keep my skirt over Alice’s mouth with the other, and there was another sound below—of furniture being jostled or crashed about. But mostly all I could hear was the awful, greedy whistle and hiss of the smoke and flames. And then, just when I got the window open far enough to push Alice through, this huge concussion knocked us flat, and we both almost jumped out of our skin from the shock.”

“The report of a gun?” Thomas’s voice again, quiet next to her ear.

Catriona kept her eyes clenched closed. “Yes. The report of a gun,” she echoed, “fired near the bottom of the stairs. I suppose it was the vibrating concussion of the shot that echoed up the stairwell. I remember it hitting my face like a hard slap. And then another blast roared out.” Another crack of death and destruction. But at that point it hadn’t even shocked her. It had sounded inevitable. It sounded right, as if she had been waiting to hear the inevitable knell of destruction.

“I folded myself, my body, around Alice. I held her tight against my chest, covering her ears, and pressing her into me so she wouldn’t hear it.”

Its meaning was unmistakable—Birkstead was trying to kill Alice, just as he had her parents, who lay dead on the smoldering carpets.

“And despite everything I did to muffle the sound, Alice knew. The poor child let out a sound that was a piercing cry of savage pain. High. Raw. Anguished. And terrified. I thought she had been hit. And Birkstead heard it, too. He said, ‘Alice? Alice, is that you? Where are you? Show me where you are.’ I could hear him at the bottom of the stairs. So I shoveled Alice out the window onto the flat part of the roof that covered the first-floor veranda, pushing her away hard to make room. And she was sobbing, and my heart was just pounding in my ears and in my chest, and I was crawling through, scraping against the edges of the window frame because I was so much bigger, scrambling to try and squeeze through. And I could hear him behind me, his boots on the steps, coming up the stair.”

“‘Alice,’ he said. ‘How long have you been there spying? Alice?’ And he said, ‘You can’t hide from me. I’ll find you.’ And I could hear him better, so I knew he was nearly there, and I whispered, ‘Go,’ to Alice. ‘Go!’ And because the latch to the window was on the inside, I jammed my foot against the bottom of the window, so he couldn’t swing it out. And I had to hope that the smoke would fill up the clerestory again, and that he wouldn’t be able to see me through the colored glass of the window. And the window did rattle against my foot, just once, and then I heard him yell, ‘Do you hear me? You’re going to burn to death in here, Alice. You’re going to burn.’

“He may have said something more, but the roof was growing hotter, and Alice hadn’t gone. She was still balled up in a little heap. So I left the window, just hoping that Birkstead couldn’t fit through, or didn’t have another gun to shoot at us, but we had to go. The roof felt so hot I thought…” Catriona couldn’t really remember what she had
thought
. She had been overwhelmed by the simple animal instinct to run, to move as fast as she could. “I dragged Alice up, and hauled her down the length of the balcony. No. Actually, I think we were on the roof of Lettice’s veranda. The tiles felt hot through the soles of my shoes. And I thought I just had to concentrate hard, and will myself to keep walking, like those fakirs who walk over coals without being burned. And—” Catriona took a deep breath. “I don’t remember exactly how we got down. We went from one roof to another, moving downward, and I was pulling and pushing and carrying Alice. God, poor Alice. And then we were out on the north lawn, where some of the servants gathered in clusters, gazing back at the building as the flames gathered strength and broke through the upper-story walls. And we found Arthur. And Charlotte and George.”