Sacrament

by Susan Squires

  "She is resting in her room, I believe."

  Sarah sighed in relief. "Show him in, Jasco." She would be forced to do her duty now. She pretended to be reading as her servant announced Mr. Ned Snelling. She glanced up to see a mustard-colored waistcoat glaring at her.

  "You!" she exclaimed involuntarily, as she saw the dreaded face once more, now itself screwed up in surprise. "You cannot be a Bow Street Runner!"

  "Yer servant, Yer Ladyship." Mr. Snelling nodded with a speculative look in his eye.

  "The forces of justice are hiring riffraff these days, I see." She let her distaste show.

  "The better to catch the riffraff of the world, ye might say," Mr. Snelling observed.

  "I cannot possibly have anything to say to you."

  "Ye can't know that until ye know my business. I am a dooly sworn minion of the law." He stood implacably in her study and waited.

  "Well, what do you want?" How could she rid herself of him without arousing suspicion?

  "Well, now that I see yerself in person, Lady Clevancy, I remembers me that it was none other than yerself were mighty friendly like with that Davinoff cove what I'm lookin' fer. That Delmont Countess says you was the one what talked to 'im most in town, aside from someone called"—here he pulled out a worn notebook and fumbled through its pages—"Nandalay."

  "What do you want with Mr. Davinoff?" Sarah asked. Let him tell her his evidence.

  "They's been murders, 'orrible murders, miss, in London. They put the runners out with a pi'ture of the cove they thinks as done 'em." He pulled out of his coat the much-folded drawing that might have been anyone, but might be Davinoff, and waved it in front of her face. Sarah deigned to glance at it, keeping her expression neutral.

  "That picture could be anyone," she said, trying to convey little interest.

  Mr. Snelling folded the paper carefully and put it back in his coat pocket. "I was on me way to Plymouth on another case when I bumped into you an 'im. Didn't think nothin' of it till about two weeks later when I got back and seen the pi'ture." He watched Sarah with those shrewd little eyes of his. "Took me quite a to-do to go back to Marlborough and ask about 'im. Then I checked each little town on the way. Everybody who sees 'im remembers 'im."

  "Well, you know that he was staying at the Christopher here in Bath then," Sarah said brusquely. "What do you want of me?"

  "That's the rub. 'E ain't at the Christopher, and don't nobody know where 'e's gone."

  Sarah hardly even had to decide. Whether Davinoff had done the deeds was one question, one she could not answer for certain. However, whether she would give him up to the man in the mustard-colored waistcoat was another matter altogether. Of that she was very sure.

  "You cannot think I know where he may be," she said sharply.

  "I does think jes' that, Yer Ladyship." Snelling's voice was coarse, his eyes knowing.

  How she could get this man to take no for an answer? She looked up at him, noticing the wrinkled cravat and the dirt under his nails. She made her eyes go frightened for a moment. "I can see you are an implacable foe." She sighed. "I suppose it is no use to defend him." She took her lips between her teeth and appeared to be thinking. "He will get a fair trial?" she asked hesitantly.

  "Fair as the magistrates can make it," Snelling said, his eyes filling with avarice. Sarah remembered the reward offered for knowledge of Davinoff's whereabouts.

  "He posted off to Brighton several days ago, I believe." How easily the lie sprang to her lips.

  "Go on, Yer Ladyship." Snelling took out a stubby pencil to scribble on the dirty paper.

  "He said he had business with Prinny, so I expect you will find him somewhere about the Marine Pavilion." Sarah managed to look as though she might begin to cry. "Have I betrayed him?"

  There was a gleam in Snelling's eyes. "Ye've been cooperatin' with the law, that's all."

  "But what if he isn't guilty?" she asked, distress lacing her voice.

  "Then 'e'll have nothin' to fear." Snelling displayed the leer Sarah remembered so well, then made his exit.

  She watched from the front window as he mounted his horse and rode off toward Pultney Bridge. That should do it. The next portion of her resolution was less pleasant. Someone had to warn Davinoff. What if he is guilty? part of her cried as she dashed upstairs for her cape and gloves. But a man who wouldn't shed innocent blood in a duel couldn't commit such a grisly string of murders. She looked in the mirror as she put on her hat, and gazed into her own green eyes.

  Was she fooling herself? He was a cynic. He believed the worst of people. But he had a self-awareness that did not match the madness that must lurk in one who could commit those murders. She was right. She could feel it. That would be enough for now. It was time to meet straight on what she had run away from. She would go to Chambroke to face Corina and warn Davinoff.

  Chapter Eleven

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  Sarah was in a foul mood by the time she got to Chambroke. She imagined Davinoff lounging by the fire drinking brandy while Corina engaged him with vivacious tales. It was a distasteful prospect until she remembered that she no longer cared about him and his dalliance with her friend. Why had she come? A man like Davinoff probably wouldn't care that Bow Street was after him. She would look naive for the thousandth time.

  When Lansing ushered her into Corina's boudoir, Sarah stopped short. She had never seen this Corina who paced the carpet like a caged animal. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her complexion blotchy, her hair in disarray. Even when she had been listless, her friend had never seemed so brittle. Sarah was shocked. This was not what she had expected at all.

  Corina seemed not to notice the opening of the door. "What shall I do?" she whispered fiercely to herself. "What shall I do? How dare that dreadful woman quit without notice? And Pembly is insubordinate, the wretch."

  "Lady Clevancy is here to see you," Lansing announced with surprising gentleness.

  Corina turned with wild eyes. "Sarah? I can't see Sarah, not until I know what to do." She glanced furtively toward her bedroom as though she might dash for refuge.

  "Well, perhaps we can discover what to do together," Sarah said with all the calm she could muster. She sat in one of the room's delicate mauve silk-covered chairs. Davinoff has left her. She was not proud of the tiny glimmer of satisfaction she felt.

  "I don't want anyone to know," Corina said slowly, appearing to gather herself together. "Lansing, I told you not to bring her up."

  "Well, you won't take my advice, Madame," Lansing observed. "And we have to do something. Maybe Her Ladyship can help."

  Sarah had never trusted the maid. She looked at Corina's haggard face, and said, "Lansing, send to Mrs. Derwent for a cup of tea."

  "Mrs. Derwent is gone." Lansing let herself out.

  Corina looked wildly about, so Sarah drew another chair close. She patted it, "Come and sit, Corina. You make me nervous pacing about. Sit down and we will decide what to do." Perhaps using her friend's own words would penetrate her anxiety.

  Corina looked doubtfully at Sarah, but she sat. "That's better," Sarah declared. "Now let's talk about what to do. I'll help, you know." She considered with some disgust that she was likely to be pulled into some new plot to win back Davinoff's attention.

  Corina searched her face. "You will, won't you?" she asked in a small voice. Some of the wildness went out of her eyes. She fell silent as she struggled for control, until Sarah thought she had forgotten her presence altogether.

  Finally, Corina gave her winningest smile. Warning bells pealed in Sarah's brain. "Well, you know, Sarah, it began that day when you sent the note that Davinoff was coming out here. I hardly expected him to press his suit so ardently after what had happened at the masquerade." A shadow crossed her face, and her mouth was mobile with emotion for a moment. She got control with a broken laugh and continued. "Of course, I should have known. He was mad about me, kneeling before me, begging me to return his regard." Hysteria kited just below the surface of her voice. The conten
t of this speech did not comfort Sarah. It was not the Davinoff she remembered in Henrietta Park.

  "He got quite out of control," Corina continued, warming to her subject. "He pressed himself upon me, and handled me quite roughly. He was an animal, I vow. I screamed for Reece, of course, but Davinoff attacked him. He quite deserved what he received," she ended, her mouth a petulant frown.

  "What happened?" As Sarah examined the blonde's glowing face, doubt assailed her.

  Corina glanced at her out of the corners of her eyes. "Reece subdued him." There was a long pause, during which Sarah held her breath. "And we locked him in the cellar."

  "You what?" Sarah blurted.

  "We had to do it, Sarah," Corina declared. "We had no other choice. He was mad for me and violent. He pushed Reece down. Shooting him was self-defense, no more."

  Sarah gasped. "You shot him?"

  "Reece shot him," Corina corrected. "It wasn't bad. He's fine." She giggled, then looked horror-struck for a single fluid moment before she went on. "But there is a problem."

  This whole story was a product of Corina's overactive imagination. It must be. They had fought, of course. That was inevitable. He'd left her and that had overbalanced her mind. That was it, Sarah told herself, panic welling into her throat. "What is the problem, Corina?" she managed.

  "Well," Corina confided, "I don't know how to get rid of him."

  Sarah breathed out, afraid she would faint. He was still down there, she thought numbly, weeks later. How could she be sitting in Corina's boudoir thinking that Corina had kidnapped a man and put him in her cellar? Her surroundings turned grotesque, with patterns that danced on the damask before her eyes and flowers wavering upon the carpet.

  Corina was already racing on. "You see my problem, Sarah. What can I do with him? I can't just let him go. Reece would have helped me, but when the devil was trying to escape, he killed him." Sarah's gaze snapped to Corina's face; her hand rose to her mouth.

  Corina got up and paced the floor. "Pembly won't help me. He says Davinoff is too dangerous. He actually threatened to go to the beadles until I paid him an exorbitant sum."

  Sarah's senses reeled. Corina actually appeared to believe that some fabricated advances on Davinoff's part could justify such crimes against him. And what of Davinoff? Had he killed Reece? She had to keep Corina talking. "What about Lansing?" she managed.

  "She keeps him drugged," Corina admitted. "But she says she is not strong enough to get him out of the cellar. Mrs. Derwent is gone, but she was never any use with this sort of thing, and Pembly won't help," Corina repeated in outrage.

  "Drugs, Corina," Sarah gasped. "You never drugged him!"

  "How else was I to get him down to the cellar?" She sat up and ran her fingers through her disheveled hair. "Sarah, you aren't any help at all."

  Why? Sarah wanted to scream. But that might push her friend over the edge. Corina's mind looked very fragile. Besides, she knew why. Because Corina hated Davinoff for humiliating her at the masquerade. And Sarah herself had delivered Davinoff into her hands.

  Corina babbled on. "All the trouble that Lansing and I had dragging Reece out in the middle of the night to the hole Pembly dug behind the stables. My dress was ruined." Corina squeezed her eyes shut. "I shouldn't think about that."

  Sarah came slowly out of her shock. Murder had been committed here, and kidnapping, and who knew what worse? She would have to report the crime, of course. Davinoff would end in prison for murder and Corina for kidnapping. There would be a dreadful scandal. These thoughts tumbled over one another inside her. And it was her fault! She knew Corina. Why had she never guessed what could happen if she thrust Davinoff out to Chambroke just when Corina seemed unbalanced? Sarah found she was twisting the strings of her reticule into hopeless knots.

  Wait! She almost laughed. It probably wasn't even true. How like Corina to wish for revenge and then pretend she had taken it. "Show me where you keep him, Corina. Then I shall know what to do," she said.

  "I can't go down there," the girl said with difficulty. She rose and strode to the fireplace, then spun to face Sarah. "I don't go down there anymore."

  "Can Lansing show me?" Sarah pressed. Corina nodded slowly. "I'll just ring the bell."

  "Lansing," Sarah whispered to the woman who appeared at the door. "Is it true?"

  "It's true, all right," the maid returned grimly.

  Sarah examined Lansing's sour face, then glanced to Corina, now sunk in a chair. True? "You must take me to him." Perhaps Corina needed only to dispose of the body. "Is he alive?"

  "Well, he was this morning," Lansing said.

  "Promise me you will help me, Sarah," Corina pleaded.

  "I promise," Sarah replied with more assurance than she felt. Her help might well consist in calling the authorities.

  Lansing led the way down to the ancient wooden door. Sarah crept behind her. She tried to suppress her dread of what she would find in Corina's cellars. Her heart was thrumming in her chest and her mouth was dry. When they got to the bottom, at first she could see nothing. Lansing lit a lamp and then another. Sarah picked out his form, slumped in the corner on the stone floor.

  "My God, Lansing! What has she done to him?" She ran to kneel beside the man. Lansing kept her distance.

  "Bring the lamp," Sarah ordered. She was afraid to touch him. The shreds of his shirt did not conceal his injuries. In the dim light, she saw crusted blood on the newer wounds, swollen infection in the older ones. Her eyes filled. Revulsion pressed up into her throat with bile. No doubt Corina had gotten pleasure from inflicting these wounds. Memories of Sienna flashed inside her, along with all her years of doubt, all her dread at what she might have done, had Corina allowed it. But as she was confronted with a man who had really been tortured, all her doubts receded. Looking inside, she found not a shred of titillation at his pain, only a shuddering disgust for Corina, pity for her victim, and a deep guilt that she had delivered him thus. She took a breath. As she exhaled, more was released than air from her lungs.

  Pity was not enough. She owed for her role in his torture, i inadvertent as it was. Action was what was required. Resolve seeped into her spine and she steadied herself. Slowly she lifted his head from his breast. He blinked sluggishly. He was alive at least. But the eyes that had been so full of power they had frightened her were now glazed and dead. Sarah bit her lip. "What did you give him?"

  "Laudanum," Lansing replied uncomfortably.

  Sarah wanted to scream at the old woman for what she had helped do to this man, but that would not help. She had to get him medical treatment. Though that was definitely not what Lansing and Corina had in mind. She thought quickly. "She wants to get him out of here without being able to trace him to Chambroke, doesn't she?"

  "I knew you would help her, Your Ladyship. I knew she could trust you with the truth."

  "And the story of him attacking her?" Lansing's look of surprise was all Sarah needed. She imagined weeks of vengeful torture and drugs. I made it easy for her. "I've an idea. I'll go explain it to Mrs. Nandalay," she said briskly, standing up. "You go get a gig—not the one I came in—and meet me here."

  "I'll bring one of Pembly's driving capes to wrap him in. The servants will be in for dinner. No one will notice if we slip out the door into the yard, Your Ladyship."

  "Hurry," Sarah commanded, and rushed up the stairs without looking back.

  "All right," she said, returning to find Corina picking through a box of chocolates. She had refined her plan on the way up from the cellar. "You want him taken away, don't you?"

  Corina nodded, anticipation gleaming in her eyes.

  "You cannot dispose of him anywhere close. He should be taken to an asylum on the Continent, where no one can identify him. It will cost you, but you can buy their silence. I suspect you will not have to support him long."

  "Excellent, Sarah," Corina exclaimed, her relief evident. "I was going to leave him on the downs. But no one inquires about inmates in asylums."

  Sara
h did not bother to tell Corina that leaving him on the downs in his current state would be murder; she would not care. "I will need one of Chambroke's gigs. Lansing can return the one I hired so no one comes looking for it. I also need a supply of laudanum, enough to last two weeks. Will that serve?" Sarah looked at her with new distaste.

  The blonde came with arms extended to embrace Sarah, friend no longer, though she could not yet know it. "I knew I could count on you, in spite of all Lansing said."

  Another lie, Sarah thought, as she untangled herself from Corina's embrace. She wanted only to escape, and to make good Davinoff's escape as well. She had to get him to a doctor.

  "You will need money, Sarah," Corina remarked. "I will prepare the drafts."

  Sarah resolved to tear up those drafts at the first opportunity. "Yes, Corina." She turned to Lansing, who had come to stand inside the door. "Where are his trunks?"

  The maid looked uncomfortable. "I left his trunk at the Christopher with directions for the Crown and Cushion in Shepton Mallet when I paid his shot."

  "Well enough. They would have kept it, expecting its owner to arrive. Have Pembly pick it up and deliver it to Jasco at Laura Place. His horses and his carriage?"

  "Tattersall's," Lansing said shortly. They had sold his pair and Quixote! Sarah's stomach turned again. It was another symbol of his violation.

  At the door, Sarah turned to see Corina open her gilded box and pause over the difficult process of selecting a chocolate. Her problem was solved, her distress forgotten. "Someday, Corina, your account will come due. I hope you have credit enough to pay it."

  She looked up, puzzled, as Sarah shut the door firmly after herself.

  The next events took place in a whirl of fear and haste that left no time for Sarah to think. She and Lansing again made their way down to the cellar, while Lansing warned her how dangerous Davinoff was. Sarah pressed her lips together against a reply. The creature she had seen hurt and drugged in the cellar was not a threat. These two were the dangerous ones.

  Lansing produced a key and released the long chain from the ring in the wall. Sarah knelt beside him, in spite of the maid's warning. She raised his head and looked into those dead eyes.