Band Sinister

by KJ Charles

  He let out a sigh. “If you’re seeking entertainment, look elsewhere.”

  “Dear boy, I would, but David’s disinclined, the Street-Salcombes are devoted, and nobody in his right mind would step between George and his devil’s fiddler. If you want company of any sort I am entirely available.” He batted his eyelashes, for all the world as though it were a proposition instead of Corvin-parlay for Are you really all right? Do you need to be held?

  “I’m very well,” Philip said, answering the spoken and unspoken questions at once. “Go to bed. We’ll get out of here tomorrow and go for a ride or some such. I can’t tolerate this deathb—this sickbed atmosphere.”

  “Indeed not.” Corvin brushed Philip’s fingers with his lips. “Goodnight, my dear.”

  Philip stayed a few minutes longer, thinking about things of no worth, and took up a candle to retire. As the night before, he slipped along the corridor to the Blue Drawing-room first. David had said that fevers worsened at night and had cursed their failure to find a nurse willing to attend the Hall. Philip took a mordant pleasure in the reputation he and Corvin had built for themselves, which confirmed all his beliefs about human nature, but it had its drawbacks.

  The sickroom door was open again: David always insisted on fresh air for patients. Philip could hear a low, fretful sound, which he supposed was Amanda Frisby, and a soft voice.

  “No, don’t, Mandy-may. Your leg’s splinted, that’s why you can’t turn over. I know it’s horrible. I know the cloth is cold and I’m sure it hurts but please try not to move. You’ve an awfully good doctor and he’s promised you’ll get well soon, and Mrs. Harbottle will be here tomorrow to look after you. Maybe she might make her chicken broth? If you can drink anything but this wretched willowbark. Oh God.”

  A brief silence.

  “Anyway I was telling you about the house. You’ll be so cross you missed it all. Serves you right. Everyone’s being so kind and generous and helpful. Dr. Bewdley came to see you and he—he sends his good wishes, but we’ve agreed Dr. Martelo will be in charge. He’s awfully kind. He’s a Jew, did I say? I don’t think he’s what I would have imagined, but then I’m not sure what I would have imagined, so I suppose he wouldn’t be. And he’s Portuguese, though he’s lived here for years. He’s travelled to any number of places, you know; you have to get better, so you can talk to him. And he’s got a lot to say about medicine, but you needn’t worry about that now. No, no, Manda, don’t move, please. Please. If you thrash about you’ll hurt your leg, and if you do that— Oh dear God,” Frisby whispered. “Please get better. Please. I can’t do without you and you’ve got so much more to do, and I know it’s been—not marvellous for you but we’ve been happy enough, haven’t we? And we can do more. I’ll be braver, I swear, and you’ll put all the nonsense behind you. You’re so brave and so marvellous and so clever, and you aren’t going to let a stupid broken leg stop you, are you? Oh God, Christ, anyone, someone help us. Let her get better. Please.”

  Philip’s candle had only been a stub. It guttered now, and went out in a soft sigh, and he stood in the darkness, listening to a sick woman moaning, while her brother wept because he loved her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Amanda’s fever raged on. Guy sat by her bedside talking endlessly in the hope that she’d hear. He helped tend to her bodily needs and slept fitfully during the daytime, and obediently went for rides because Martelo and Rookwood insisted on fresh air and sunshine. He went home for clean clothes on the fourth day and discovered that a box had arrived for Amanda. It was The Secret of Darkdown, her book. He took a copy with him, praying she’d one day see it, even hoping that authorial pride might call her back.

  He was sitting with her the next morning, exhausted. He hadn’t woken Martelo to ask for help; he’d become reasonably expert at giving her the decoction by now and he no longer panicked as her fever worsened in the night. Or, rather, he had become so used to living in constant panic that it felt almost like calm. Martelo was looking fairly grey himself, after the days and nights wrestling with Amanda’s illness, and Guy needed him to be well because he’d pinned his fading hope on the dark, intense man, and he didn’t know what he’d do otherwise. He didn’t want to think about speaking to Dr. Bewdley again after offending him so deeply, and was thinking of exactly that in a distant, exhausted way when he heard a hoarse voice whisper, “Guy?”

  He looked down. Amanda looked up. Not the blank creature of pain and fever, but Amanda, with recognition in her eyes.

  “Manda?”

  “I feel...” She swallowed. “Awful.”

  “Oh God. Oh, Manda. Just—just stay there.” He rang the bell frantically, and turned back to take her hand. It felt noticeably cooler, and so did her head. “Manda.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “Nothing. I was just fretting a little, you know how I do. No, don’t try to move. You broke your leg, do you remember?”

  “It hurts.”

  “I bet it does.” A servant poked his head in. Guy rapped, “Dr. Martelo, quick!” for all the world as though it were his house. “You had a bad break and a very nasty fever and, uh...we’re in Rookwood Hall.”

  Amanda blinked at that, her mouth moving slightly. It ought to have been a delighted shriek. “I’ll tell you everything as soon as you feel more the thing,” Guy assured her. “You need to rest now, and have some of your medicine.”

  He got her to sip the drink. She made protesting noises at its bitterness, for which Guy couldn’t blame her, and at which he was unspeakably relieved. He’d tasted the vile stuff and the fact that she’d swallowed without noisy complaint had been one of the more unsettling features of her illness.

  Rapid steps rattled down the hall, and Martelo burst into the room like an unkempt hurricane. “Frisby? What is it?”

  Guy swallowed. “The fever. I think it might have broken.”

  The doctor brushed past him without ceremony, but he took Amanda’s wrist with all the delicacy of a gentleman handling a duchess. “Well, now. Well. Good morning, Miss Frisby. My name is David Martelo, your physician. You’ve given us all a fine scare.”

  Jane arrived a little later, slipping into the room with an alarmed look, and giving a great sob when she saw Amanda’s improved state. By then Dr. Martelo had satisfied himself and Guy that the fever had passed, the swelling in her leg was markedly reduced, and Amanda, though weak and in need of sustenance, was unquestionably on the mend. Guy hovered, smiling through tears of happiness and exhaustion, until Martelo turned and clapped him on the arm. “Go to bed, man. She’s going to recover, I’ll stake my life on it, and you’re burned to the socket. I don’t want to see you again until the afternoon. Out.”

  Guy emerged into the corridor. He ought to have breakfast, he supposed, but he was drained beyond speech with relief and the backwash of days of pent-up fear, and all he wanted was sleep. He made his way into the hall and came up against the entirety of the Murder, the whole gaggle of them standing in the hall, talking in hushed voices.

  Guy stopped, abruptly aware of his bedraggled state and tear-stained cheeks. Rookwood met his eyes and strode forward, face tense. “Frisby. What’s happened? Is it—? Is there anything at all I can do?”

  Guy blinked, and then realised what he meant. “No! I mean, no, it’s not, she’s not— The fever broke. She’s looking better. I think she’s going to recover.”

  Rookwood took that in, and then he smiled. It was extraordinary. Guy hadn’t really paid much attention to his appearance, beyond fair hair and an expression that suggested supercilious boredom or mockery most of the time. Now a huge, broad, entirely real smile took over and transformed his face, and suddenly he looked wonderful.

  Rookwood grabbed his shoulders. Guy thought for a second he would be pulled into a hug, and wouldn’t even have cared. “Excellent. Excellent. Oh, well done, the Frisbys.”

  And then there were men all round him, the short round-faced one yelping with glee, Mr. Raven shaking his hand, Lord Corvin en
thusiastically proclaiming Dr. Martelo’s virtues—in fact the lot of them rejoicing at Amanda’s deliverance with as much honest pleasure as though they weren’t a notorious hellfire club at all.

  THAT AFTERNOON, GUY emerged from a sleep so deep it was more like unconsciousness. He lay in bed blinking his way back to full awareness, and remembered. Amanda’s fever had broken. It was—surely, maybe?—going to be all right. Though there was still her leg to mend, and the chance of her walking with a limp all her life, probably an ugly scar. And Dr. Bewdley would have to be propitiated since Guy had sorely wounded his vanity, and they had now to think about their sojourn at Rookwood Hall among a group of men who might not be quite as bad as everyone said, but that wouldn’t count for anything if everyone went on saying so, and then there was Aunt Beatrice. If she heard that Guy and Amanda were here, the consequences would be unspeakable. Guy could perhaps write to her and explain, but she was not very easy to explain things to, especially where Amanda was concerned. Guy could very easily imagine her descending on them to insist Amanda was moved right away; he found it less easy to imagine himself standing his ground to resist her. It was quite hard to stand up to someone who held your existence in the palm of her hand.

  It might be better not to write at all, and hope she never found out. Rookwood clearly understood Amanda’s invidious position, and there was no reason the news should spread. But if she did find out and he hadn’t told her...

  He was fretting. Stop it, he told himself. Amanda is going to get better. Enjoy not worrying for five minutes, can’t you?

  Someone had left a jug outside his room, the water still warm enough for him to wash and shave in reasonable comfort. Guy dressed with care, for the first time in several days. He assessed himself in the mirror, ruefully aware that his complexion was rather ashy and the dark smears of exhaustion under his eyes all too visible. Still, he was presentable.

  He gave his cravat a last tweak, headed out of the bedroom with a confident stride, and promptly got lost.

  It wasn’t entirely his fault. The old Jacobean house was a maze; getting from his remote bedroom to the main stair involved four turnings; and he had no recollection of the last few days beyond the constant blurring hum of panic. Nevertheless he’d been up and down to and from this room multiple times. He ought to have known the way, but he hadn’t actually paid attention to his feet in the glow of relief. He’d somehow taken the wrong dark, narrow corridor, and now he had no idea where he was.

  Well, the house couldn’t be that big. Surely walking would bring him to a stair of some kind. He went on past a row of mediocre oil paintings of stocky men with large chins and found himself faced with a narrow spiral stair going up and down, or a corridor off to the left. One room had an open door, and he heard a voice coming from behind it.

  He decided he’d poke his head round the door and ask for guidance. It made more sense than wandering, and in any case he was starving hungry and disinclined to waste more time. He went up to the door, hand poised to knock politely, and his intended Excuse me stuck in his throat.

  Rookwood and Corvin were there. Corvin was leaning back, one knee on a couch, and Rookwood was standing over him, very close, far too close. He had one hand cupping the back of Corvin’s head. The other, Guy saw numbly, was unfastening his own breeches.

  Corvin was looking up at Rookwood with a truly Satanic grin—the Devil’s Lord, they called him, and that grin was all the reason anyone needed—and as Guy stared, unnoticed, he said, “I’ve missed your cock, my lovely.”

  “That must make a change,” Rookwood said. “After all, you haven’t missed many.”

  Corvin laughed, open and unashamed. “I adore you.”

  Rookwood leaned down and kissed him. It was a deep kiss, open-mouthed but very tender, and then he straightened, gave Corvin a gentle but authoritative shove to the shoulder, and pulled the front flap of his breeches open and down. “Right. Let’s have you.”

  Guy stepped back, away, managing somehow to remember not to make a noise, not to run, not to panic. If they thought he was spying, that he’d seen—seen—

  What had he seen?

  He wasn’t entirely ignorant. He read the newspapers with their breathless denunciations of abominable offences and he read Greek and Latin literature, a lot of it, in his unexpurgated editions, carefully obtained without thinking too much about why it was important they should be unexpurgated. He knew his Petronius and Suetonius, his Catullus and Lucretius and Martial, very well indeed. But that was printed words, the pictures only in one’s head. It wasn’t two flesh and blood men smiling into one another’s eyes, kissing, planning to do heaven knew what in the filthiest language.

  He’d thought the hellfire club’s reputation was a nonsense. How wrong had he been? How could he not have even noticed that he found himself amid such... Depravity, his mind supplied, and that must be the word, except for that kiss.

  My lovely. I adore you.

  Guy wanted to leave the house. He wanted to wipe it all from his mind. He wanted not to be aware of the uncomfortable, squirmy feeling in his gut and the heat in his face and the fact that he hadn’t walked away at once, or raised the roof in moral outrage. The fact that he’d been momentarily transfixed.

  Startled, he told himself. He’d been startled. Of course he had. Anyone would be.

  He hadn’t even noticed where he was going as he hurried away, cursing Corvin and Rookwood and their outrageous, immoral, unforgivable leaving-open of doors, and it seemed a cruel irony that he found himself at the main stair without even trying.

  He wanted to go back to his room and hide, but there was Amanda. He came downstairs in a rush and went straight to the sickroom. She was awake, with Jane in the corner, sewing, and the short one of the Murder sitting by the bedside, reading aloud from a book.

  “‘The cold of the flagstones seeped through her thin shoes, but it was nothing to the chill at her heart. For that night, Araminta had seen evil.’ Hello, Mr. Frisby.” The man put a paper in the book to mark the place, as Guy gaped in horror. “I was just reading to your sister. I’m not sure we’ve been introduced? Sheridan Street.”

  “Guy Frisby,” Guy said numbly. “Uh, that book...”

  “It’s awfully good.” Street was a few inches below Guy’s height, with very boyish looks and a beardless chin. “I’m dying to know What Araminta Saw.” He emphasised the capitals dramatically.

  “You can borrow it,” Amanda whispered. “If you like. I’ve read it.”

  Guy turned to her, pleasure at hearing her voice warring with a desire to scream. “I’m really not sure—”

  “He brought you something you’d read before? Brothers,” Street said with contempt. “Don’t worry, I’ve got the new Mrs. Swann with me. I’ll leave you to it,” he added to Guy. “I just popped in to say good afternoon.”

  Guy looked after him as he left, then turned to Amanda. She gave him a weak smile. “Hello, you.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Awful. My leg hurts and my head hurts and the medicine is vile.” Amanda sounded petulant; it reminded Guy of his father, once the drink had weakened his constitution past repair. He’d spent months dying at home, in such a querulous, fretful way that the house had felt like a conspiracy after his death in the shared guilt of relief.

  He shook off the thought. At least the self-absorption of the invalid meant Amanda hadn’t read any distress on his face. She was cursedly acute in good health.

  Guy rang for something to eat and drink, and settled down to sit with her, chatting lightly until she slept again. She was still incurious as to their company. He doubted that would last.

  It was past four once he’d had tea, bread and butter, and cake. He went out, intending to take the fresh air and exercise on which Dr. Martelo insisted, and bumped into Sir Philip Rookwood.

  “Ah, Frisby. Congratulations again on your sister’s improvement.” Rookwood looked more relaxed than usual: satisfied, even, and Guy was not going to think of what
sort of satisfaction he’d found at Corvin’s hands. “I trust her health continues to improve?”

  “Uh,” Guy managed. He couldn’t look Rookwood in the face; he didn’t want to look any lower. He fixed his eyes on the man’s neck instead. He was casually dressed, his cravat in a loose knot—or, perhaps, pulled loose from its original arrangement, revealing a bit more of his throat than usual. He was well shaved, not as smoothly as Street, but without a hint of stubble. His lips were curved. He was smiling. He was smiling at Guy, with a slightly puzzled air.

  “Frisby?”

  “Yes. Thank you. Sorry, sorry, I mean—”

  “Good Lord, stop. I only asked how she was.”

  “Yes. I mean, well. I was just going for a walk.”

  “Right,” Rookwood said. “I’ll just come with you, shall I? Wouldn’t want you to get lost in the grounds. Still less to step in a rabbit hole and break your leg; we’ve had enough of that.”

  Guy should have refused. He should probably have turned from Rookwood with disdain, except he’d been accepting the man’s hospitality for days, and also that casual reference to getting lost sent him into a flurry of panic over whether Rookwood knew he’d been lost in the house. By the time he’d realised that didn’t make sense, he was walking down the drive with his host, who’d been kissing Viscount Corvin and doubtless worse not an hour earlier.

  “Are you interested in the history of the Hall?” Rookwood asked. “I ask with the reservation that it has none of note, and no architectural merit either. And also that I know nothing about it. Other than that I’m sure I could speak fascinatingly on the topic.”

  “You must know about your own house,” Guy protested, without thinking.

  “It wasn’t meant to be mine,” Rookwood said. “As you probably remember.”