The Scottish Companion

by Karen Ranney

  “Did you hate him enough to countenance the murder of his children? To hide the identity of their murderer? To plot against me?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Dr. Fenton. He killed my brothers.”

  This time she looked shocked. Her hand went to her throat, as if to measure the pounding of her heartbeat. “He could not have.”

  “Why are you protecting him even now?’

  “Protecting him? What are you talking about?”

  “It would have been easy enough for him to poison Andrew and then James. He was their doctor.”

  She sat back and regarded him steadily.

  Finally she spoke. “Why would he hurt me so very much? Especially when he went to such an effort to shield me?”

  Now he was the one confused.

  Before he could question her, she stood, putting some distance between them. She didn’t face him, but stared at the painting on the wall, as if the bouquet of flowers held some answer for her.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “I know you don’t,” she said, sighing.

  She turned and faced him, a queenly presence in her black dress.

  “I tried to keep you from knowing what kind of monster your father was, but I failed. But I succeeded rather well in keeping you from knowing what I’d become, didn’t I?”

  He walked to the window and stared outside. It was past midnight, and raining. He could almost feel the moisture seep past his skin and into his vitals. A perfect night for death. A perfect night to talk about that night so long ago.

  “Your father had a penchant for little girls,” she said, the revulsion evident in her voice.

  “My father had a penchant for children,” he corrected. “The gender didn’t matter.”

  He’d gone to the palace the night of his father’s death, never expecting to find room upon room of unspeakable horror: children arranged for the delectation of a man without morals or scruples or decency.

  He’d been beyond repulsed by what he’d discovered.

  “Fool that I was,” the countess said, “I was still in love with your father. I’d attempted to entice him to my bed, not realizing that I was much too old to interest him.”

  Grant held up his hand to forestall any further comments, but either she didn’t see or didn’t care, because she went on with her story. “I went to the palace that night to seduce my own husband. I didn’t know what kind of games he and his friends from Edinburgh played, but I was determined to interrupt them.”

  “Didn’t he forbid you to enter the palace?”

  “Of course. It was the first time I ever disobeyed him. The last time, too.”

  He turned to look at her. He was concerned about her color. She looked pale, and suddenly old. He went to her side, led her back to the chair, and sat on the ottoman opposite her. He reached for her hands, holding them between his.

  “You needn’t continue, Mother.”

  “Oh, I must. It’s a story I had no intention of ever telling you, Grant, but perhaps it’s about time I did so.”

  He nodded, focusing on her hands. She wasn’t wearing her wedding ring, and he wondered how long it had been since she’d worn it, and why he’d not noticed until now.

  “When I found what the palace was truly being used for, I was horrified. Horrified doesn’t seem to be a strong enough word,” she said, her voice harsh. “I don’t think there is a word to describe what I felt. I entered the front door and was allowed to pass without comment from one room to another looking for your father. Not one person attempted to stop me. It’s as if they wanted to shock me, wanted me to know. I eventually found your father and I will never forget that sight as long as I live.”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. He thought her story done, but she grabbed his hands and held them tightly. “I returned to Rosemoor and found the dueling pistols that had belonged to your grandfather. He was always so proud of them, and their history, and since he had no sons, I was the one who learned to clean them and prime them periodically. I took both of them and returned to the palace. And I shot your father. In the head. Right between the eyes,” she added very matter-of-factly, as if she were discussing the color of the parlor curtains.

  “I’ve seen mice scurry just like the men your father brought from Edinburgh. When they were gone, I summoned Dr. Fenton.” She looked at him. “He was new to the area, and young and scared, but he was as horrified as I to discover what the palace was being used for. The children were all orphans, did you know?”

  “No,” he said, “I didn’t.”

  “We never talked about your father’s death. The world thought him a suicide, but I think Ezra always knew. All I cared about was getting rid of the horror.”

  She pulled back, leaned her head against the back of the chair.

  “I didn’t care how much of the Roberson fortune I used to find homes for those poor children. To finance their education and provide some type of future for them. I prayed they could forget what had happened to them.”

  “Did Dr. Fenton help you find homes for them as well?”

  “He did more than that,” she said, her voice dull. She looked directly at him. “He adopted one of the children. A little girl. A little girl named Arabella.”

  His gaze flew to hers.

  “Isn’t it odd, but I didn’t know until yesterday. I suspected. I wondered, but I didn’t have the courage to confront Ezra until yesterday. He finally admitted Arabella’s past.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Would it have made a difference? Would her past have changed what you feel for her?”

  He stood. “I would have understood her,” he said, events abruptly sharpening into focus. “I would have known.”

  The countess frowned. “Known what?” He headed for the door. “Where are you going?” “To find Arabella.”

  And stop a killer.

  Chapter 26

  Even thought it was the middle of the night, Gillian busied herself with tasks in the laboratory, feeling every moment tick by on a sluggish clock. A quarter hour had passed, and Grant was still not with her. Her heart ached for him, and for Lorenzo, never to be reunited with his beloved Elise.

  She was stacking the metal discs in the Volta apparatus when she heard the noise, easily recognizing the sound as the great carved doors of the palace being opened. In moments, Grant would be with her. She finished her task and washed her hands carefully, ridding them of any of the copper sulfate solution. After drying them, she straightened her skirts, adjusted her bodice, and felt to make sure her hair was still in place. Now was not the time to be vain, but still, she wished there was a mirror in the laboratory.

  But it wasn’t Grant who stood in the doorway. Arabella stood there, her face pale, her lips nearly bloodless, and her blond hair sodden. She dropped her rain-drenched shawl on the floor, looking wild and terrified.

  Gillian forgot her own concerns and walked toward the younger girl. “Arabella? What is it?”

  “I hate this place,” Arabella said softly, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I told myself I would never come here again. But you made me come back. Not once but twice.”

  Arabella turned, staring out at the darkened corridors of the palace. A moment later she stepped into the shadows.

  Gillian followed cautiously, uncertain of Arabella’s mood.

  “Have you no idea what this place used to be, Gillian?”

  Before she could answer, Arabella spoke again. “It used to be hell.” She turned and faced her. “When I was a little girl, I knew this was hell, just as I knew all the demons in residence. I even met Satan. I was his favorite.”

  “Arabella?’

  “He liked my hair. Did you know that I kept cutting off my blond hair because that’s why I was chosen? They said I looked like an angel, and what sort of man wouldn’t want an angel? So they dressed me in white and brushed my long blond hair and sent me off to consort with the devil. No matter ho
w I cried, and no matter how I promised I would be good, I was his darling over and over again.”

  Her voice was soft and barely audible, but the rotunda echoed sound, enlarging her whisper until it seemed to carry through the entire building.

  Gillian lit one of the gas sconces on the wall, and only then did she see Arabella, standing on the top of the curved steps.

  If anything, the girl was paler than before, and now she was trembling, her hands stretched out and pointing at empty spots along the wall.

  “Grant’s father used to have parties here,” Arabella said. She descended the steps and stood in the middle, throwing out her arms and twirling slowly in the darkness. There was no moonlight, nothing but the faint patter of rain. She stopped and looked up at Gillian.

  “He held his orgies here. Orgy, a word I learned much later. The Pleasure Palace, where all the little boys and the little girls he found lived.”

  Suddenly, she didn’t want Arabella to say any more. Gillian wanted to silence the girl, send her far from here, banish the look on her face, and the residue of horror in her eyes. She didn’t want to know.

  Arabella tilted back her head and surveyed the roof of the cupola. “I promised my father that I would never tell anyone.”

  She looked at Gillian. “I had nightmares for years, Gillian, and when I woke from them, I was always told that it was nothing more than a bad dream, that I was safe. It took years for me to realize that I would never be safe until there was no longer a Roberson left alive.”

  Gillian had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Arabella, what have you done?”

  “What a very stupid question, Gillian. How silly of you. You know exactly what I’ve done. I studied for years, Gillian. I studied and studied until I figured out exactly how.”

  “Where is Grant?”

  “You really should not have eaten his lunch, Gillian. It was meant for him. How can I succeed in killing him if you’re always about?”

  Gillian took a step backward, but Arabella only smiled. Of course, Bella didn’t stand for beautiful. Lorenzo had meant Arabella. He’d known.

  “You killed him. You killed Lorenzo.”

  “Of course I did. He saw my book.”

  Horror vied with compassion. Gillian wanted to wrap her arms around the younger girl and hold her tight. “I’m so very sorry, Arabella,” she said.

  “Are you, Gillian?”

  “I am.”

  Arabella shook her head. “You aren’t, not really. If you were, you would never be here with Grant. I tried to warn you, but you stayed here with him. Once evil touches you, it scars you, Gillian.”

  She slowly began to mount the steps out of the sunken circle, heading toward Gillian. Her smile was otherworldly, the expression in her eyes calm acceptance.

  “It isn’t that I mind, Gillian, you must understand. If you loved him, that would be fine with me. If he loved you as well, I wouldn’t care. If he were anyone other than who he is. But he has to die, because he is the Earl of Straithern.”

  “He isn’t anything like his father, Arabella. He would never do such a horrible, horrible thing.”

  “He is a Roberson. He has evil blood. The world cannot afford any more devils.”

  “Is that why you’ve come here? To kill him? He isn’t here, Arabella.”

  “No,” the girl said amicably enough. “He isn’t here, but you are.”

  Up until now, Gillian hadn’t felt in danger, but looking into Arabella’s eyes, she was suddenly, terribly afraid. If there was madness in her look, there was reason enough for it. That knowledge, however, didn’t make Arabella less terrifying.

  “You’ve had relations with Grant, have you not?”

  “Is that what you think?”

  Gillian took a cautionary step backward, and then slowly turned her head, measuring the distance between the rotunda and a door with a lock.

  “Even now, you might be with child. You might be spreading the bloodline. Creating demons in a world where there should only be angels.”

  Arabella didn’t halt, but came steadily closer. “Father wanted us to be like sisters. He wanted you to be someone I could tell about the palace. I never did, though, did I, Gillian?”

  “No wonder you didn’t want to come to Rosemoor,” Gillian said, her fingers pleating the fabric of her skirt.

  “I was nearly ill when I saw the building. And every day, you looked toward the palace with such yearning in your eyes. Poor Gillian, you never saw the evil.”

  “And you saw too much.”

  Gillian took two more steps backward. The action seemed to halt Arabella’s advance. She smiled, and for a flash of an instant, Gillian could see the beauty of the child she’d been.

  “Arabella, please. You can’t do this.”

  “I have to,” Arabella said reasonably. “Don’t you see? I have to kill you, and then I will kill Grant. And then my task will be done. There was a reason I was brought here as a child. At first, I didn’t understand,” she said, shaking her head gently. “But then it came to me. I was the one who had to avenge all those poor children.”

  “James and Andrew? They never did anything to you, Arabella,” said Gillian as she took another step backward. She needed to reach the bedroom on the other side of the laboratory. There was a lock there, and Arabella wasn’t strong enough to go through a metal lock.

  “They were Robersons. That was enough. Can’t you see that, Gillian?” she asked impatiently.

  Gillian turned and began to run, hearing Arabella’s footsteps directly behind her. She raced through the laboratory, and was attempting to lock the door when Arabella threw herself against it.

  She managed to clamp the door against the younger girl’s arm, but Arabella pushed against the door with all her strength and threw it against the wall. Gillian didn’t remain in the bedchamber but escaped into the laboratory again, tossing items at Arabella to halt her advance.

  Nothing seemed to stop her.

  She grabbed a bottle from the table, and threw it at the younger girl. The bottle shattered, liquid splashing on Arabella’s arms. Only when the younger girl began to scream did Gillian realize that she’d thrown the sulfuric acid.

  Arabella came at her with her hands outstretched, fingers formed into claws. The girl was screaming, incoherent curses Gillian couldn’t understand. All she knew was that Arabella wouldn’t be stopped and that she suddenly had a knife, the same knife Grant used to trim the wire for the Volta apparatus. Arabella must have grabbed it as she raced around the table.

  Gillian started to run again. Arabella grabbed her skirt as she rounded the end of the table. Gillian fell to her knees, grabbing at the windowsill for support. Arabella kicked her hard on her thigh. Pain streaked through her as she landed on her back, lashing out with her uninjured leg. When her foot connected with Arabella’s knee, the other woman grunted in pain and seized Gillian’s ankle with one hand. She raised the knife and lunged forward.

  Gillian felt the blade enter her thigh and screamed.

  She wasn’t going to die this way, not at the hands of a madwoman. Not when she’d just begun to live again.

  One of the wires had come loose from the Volta apparatus and dangled from the edge of the table. Gillian scurried beneath the table, out of Arabella’s reach, and pulled at it with all her strength. The machine was made of iron and filled with bronze and silver discs, and for a horrifying moment Gillian didn’t think it would budge. No, it was moving; she could hear it slide across the wooden table.

  Arabella bent and began to crawl toward Gillian, a calm and reasoned expression on her face. Her eyes, however, were lit with a fierce brightness, and there was a strange amused smile on her face. She raised the hand holding the bloody knife, and struck at Gillian again. She was so intent on murder that she wasn’t paying any attention to Gillian’s actions, and didn’t see the Volta apparatus until it fell on top of her, pinning her legs.

  Her howls of pain filled the room.

  Arabella rolled
over, pushing at the apparatus. The wire at the end of the fully charged machine sparked, and then curled as if it were alive. Arabella flinched when the wire met her skin, trying to draw away.

  The floorboards began to smoke, a plume growing not far from the other woman. Arabella’s chemical-soaked skirts burst into flames. Gillian realized, in horror, what was happening. She’d thrown the bottle of acid at the other woman, and now Arabella was acting as a conductor. Arabella screamed, pushing at the machine again, but it was too heavy to dislodge.

  Gillian scrambled on her hands and knees to the head of the table, reaching for the buckets of sand stored there. But before she could reach her, Arabella was completely engulfed in a pillar of orange and yellow fire.

  She threw the sand on top of Arabella, deliberately trying not to hear the horrible sounds emerging from the young woman. She was crying, but not in a recognizable voice. Arabella sounded like a little girl, a frightened and terrorized child.

  The flames would not go out. Gillian grabbed the second bucket and a third and then raced into the other room to see if there was anything she could do. She pulled the curtains from around the bed and returned to Arabella’s side. There was no sound. Only the crackle of the flames spreading along the floor where the acid and copper sulfate had spilled.

  “Gillian!”

  She heard her name being called and wondered if Arabella had somehow learned to speak in a male voice. She turned to see Grant standing there. Suddenly he was pulling at her, dragging her from the room.

  He was there, really there, solid and sane, touched not by wickedness or evil but intelligence, kindness, and concern. A generous man, a man she loved with her whole heart.

  “She’s going to die,” she said. She tried to turn back to Arabella, but he lifted her into his arms and carried her through the door. “We must help her.” Her last sight was a strange, isolated fire, yellow and gold flames, and Arabella’s shape somehow melting inside it.

  “It’s too late, Gillian,” he said in the kindest of voices.

  “Your laboratory is going to burn.”

  “It’s going to explode,” he corrected.