by P. N. Elrod
“Then he killed another man or missed.”
“But he was absolutely certain, boasted about there being blood everywhere.”
“Perhaps you’d care to bring your friend ’round here for a debate,” suggested Summerhill dryly, catching Arthur’s reluctant attention. “I got him for you. What do you want done with him?”
This induced a lively discussion. Of all the people who might have paid a call on Edmond, I was the last person they expected. Arthur continued to gnaw on about how I couldn’t have possibly escaped getting murdered at Mandy Winkle’s; Clarinda cared naught for such details, however, being concerned with present problems over past failures.
“What in God’s name is he doing here?” she wanted to know.
“Come to visit Edmond about your brat, I expect,” said Arthur, having provisionally accepted the undeniable. He continued to stare at me as though I might vanish and pop up again elsewhere to plague him. Oh, would that I could. “Unless it’s about Thomas.”
“How could that be?”
“You were closest to him,” she reminded. “They’re neither of them fools. They’d expect you to know best who would have—”
“Nevermind that,” he said sharply, his face going dark as he glanced at Summerhill. “The good captain has asked what’s to be done about Barrett and time is passing.”
Clarinda looked me right in the eye, as coldly appraising as a butcher considering the best way to chop up a carcass. “Can’t leave him alive,” she concluded. “He knows who tried to kill him now.”
Arthur nodded. “Very well. I’ll see to it, and this time it’ll be done right. Have you found that chest yet? Then get on with it. Captain, would you be so kind as to assist her?”
This last was addressed to Summerhill. My fancy must have been right. He probably was a smuggler, but come from his ship not with illicit cargo, but to convey two important passengers off to a safe port. He’d coolly stood to one side, listening, but not interfering with their talk. He offered no comment one way or another at Clarinda’s suggestion to kill me and bowed slightly in polite acquiescence to Arthur’s request.
Husbanding my strength, I continued to remain quiet until Clarinda and Summerhill were gone. They hurried up the right-hand hall where I could yet discern faint cries for help.
“And tell those wenches to stop that bloody row!” Arthur called after them. A moment later I heard Summerhill gruffly rumble something in a threatening tone, and the cries abruptly ceased.
“W—where’s Edmond?” I croaked, having summoned enough of myself together to do so.
Arthur hadn’t expected me to speak. His gaze fixed on me, half-contemptuous, half-incredulous, and, to me, wholly frightening with pending ominous intent. He looked pale yet from our previous encounter and used his walking stick as though he needed it for balance, not affectation. “He’s none of your concern.”
“Where is he?”
His answer was a jolting jab to my ribs with one toe. His riding boots, I discovered, were made of a sturdy type of leather. I grunted unhappily. The sudden jar reminded me all too sharply of my bursting head. Overcome, I could do nothing for the moment. I’d just have to wait until the worst of it passed away; if I could delay his plans then might I be able to settle things between us more to my satisfaction.
Arthur eased down on one knee. His expression was wary, but with curiosity rapidly overwhelming his caution. “Who was it that Royce killed in the brothel?” he demanded.
“He killed no one. He missed,” I said through my teeth. It would do no harm to repeat the story and might just undermine any confidence Arthur may have had for his Mohock lackeys.
“But Litton had been so sure.”
How good to know the names of two of my attackers. Litton and Royce. Shouldn’t be hard to find the third one once I spoke to either of the others.
If I got out of this. “He lied to you or was drunk. Does Clarinda know you killed Ridley?”
His face went stony, but he might as well have grinned and nodded affirmation.
“Of course. It was her idea.”
I had wondered if she’d arranged it and should not have been surprised, but was; I should not have been sickened, but felt a twist in my vitals nonetheless. “How could you murder your own cousin?”
He snorted. “Oh, he was a useful ox, good for some kinds of work, but in the way for others.”
“But Clarinda was going to marry him.”
He laughed. “He thought so, too. She had him well convinced that a woman like her would settle for a brainless brute like himself. When pigs fly—perhaps.”
“But she was locked up . . . how . . . ?”
“Edmond’s servants aren’t that loyal or rich. It’s amazing how much a few shillings can buy from the right person. Why did you come here?”
“Your cousin was murdered, your friends tried to kill me, then you ran away—or appeared to—Clarinda was the handiest one to question.”
“You’d have got nothing from her. How did you know I’d run away? “
“Went by your house last night. Your butler told me everything.”
“Couldn’t have been much or you wouldn’t have walked in here as you did. What a great bleating fool you are, Barrett.”
Indeed, I thought with vast self-disgust for having turned my back on the ingenuous-seeming Summerhill. My head fairly burned along one side where he’d struck. I wanted more than anything to vanish and heal, but instinctively knew it was too soon. A little more rest, or even better, fresh blood would ease me. It wasn’t as bad as the last time this had happened; I was sure the bone hadn’t been cracked like an egg, but it was quite bad enough. I had to keep Arthur talking, postponing whatever he planned to do until I was able to deal with him and the others. “Your loyal retainers are gone,” I said. “They picked your place clean.”
He made a casting-away gesture. “I expected as much, but it suits me. Because of it they’ll not be talking to the magistrates for fear of hanging as thieves. I took what I needed and left them to it. Now, I can quietly disappear.”
“With Clarinda?”
“And Edmond’s money.”
“Tired of living on a quarterly allowance from your parents?” I hazarded, getting a sneer for a reply. “Or perhaps you hoped to take the whole Fonteyn fortune if Clarinda had gotten her way with things the first time.”
“I’ll settle for Edmond’s money chest, if the damned vixen can find it. He peered down the hall, where she’d gone with Summerhill.
“You sure you can trust them together? Clarinda has a way with men, you know, especially the ones most useful to her.”
“I can trust Summerhill well enough. He keeps to his business.”
“Best to watch him close once they find the money, eh? Both of ’em.”
Arthur snorted, but I got the impression he’d already thought of that possibility.
“Why not ask Edmond about it? Where is he?” I demanded.
But Arthur made no answer, seeming to enjoy withholding the information.
What in God’s name had they done with Edmond? My heart sank, weighed down by the most dreadful of conclusions. “What about Ridley?” I asked, hoping a change of subject might draw him out. “There was no need to kill him.”
“That depends on your need. That fool Thomas was no good to us anymore; he’d suddenly lost all belly for the task at hand and became completely useless as well as an inconvenient witness. He’d have raised a row about Clarinda running off with me, too. But to have him dead and you getting the blame was sweet. Why should you care for him? He tried his best to kill you.”
He waited in vain for a reply. If he couldn’t understand my horror, I’d never be able to explain it to him.
After a moment he shrugged slightly. “Thought you’d have been taken into custody by now, anyway. Who did you bribe?”
“No
one. I found the letter about me in his pocket.”
His eyes flashed wide. “Did you, now? Very mettlesome of you, I’m sure, pawing through a dead man’s clothes.”
“Better than cutting throats. You tricked him into writing it, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t hard. When Litton and the others found him first and bolted after you as the culprit, I thought it wouldn’t be necessary Pity that you’ve more lives than a cat. Where is the letter?”
“Burned,” I said truthfully.
He snorted disgust. “Pity. Such a clever bit of business to put you out of the way and disgrace Edmond’s precious family. Too bad for you that you did find it, else you’d be safe in a cell right now instead of here.”
That sounded ominous, and I was still in a poor state for winning a physical contest.
He grabbed my right arm. I could offer no resistance. He pushed back my coat and shirtsleeve, exposing the skin, eyeing it closely. “I know I caught you there with my blade,” he muttered through his teeth. “I felt it. You bled like a pig. Where is the wound?”
“You dreamed it,” I said, hardly putting breath to the words.
“Dreamed? No, not that. You were half dead when . . . thought you were dead, then you came out of the mausoleum and . . . and. . . .” His face crimped as he tried to remember, but he’d been safely unconscious when necessity forced me to take his blood that night. The temptation to do it again rose in me, but I wasn’t quite able to act upon it.
“Dream,” I murmured.
“Dream indeed, and one of your making. You tried to make it seem so in my mind, to change things.” Arthur leaned close, his voice dropping to a whisper. “What did you do to Thomas?”
I’d have shaken my head pretending not to take his meaning, but knew better than to try. He’d not have believed me, and it would have hurt too much to move. Instead, I stared hard at him, trying to summon enough will to influence. Our gazes locked for a little time. I felt him wavering as I pushed, but the struggle went awry. Even as his eyes began to go flat and blank, an appalling pain knifed through my head. The harder I tried to exert my will, the more deeply it carved into my brain until I could stand it no longer. On the edge of passing out, I broke off with a sob of frustration and agony.
Released so abruptly, Arthur wrenched away, then clumsily scrambled to his feet. He was much paler than before, sweating and panting like an animal.
“Trying to do it again? You damned bastard!” He raised his cane and gave me a vicious stab in the stomach with the base end. My breath hissed out, and I twisted onto my side, curling nearly double. I waited in dreadful apprehension for another blow to fall, but he held back. Not out of mercy, I thought when I next dared to look, but from weariness. He’d gone gray-faced and labored hard for his breath. I likely shared his appearance, but without the desperate need for air. Even so, I wasn’t able to move much, not yet.
“What is that?” he snarled. “You must have done it to Thomas, and I know you used it on me after the funeral.”
Indeed. And why hadn’t it worked on him?
“Is that what you did to turn him on us? Is it?”
Arthur’s blood loss keeping him muddled, the laudanum they’d given him—either might account for my failure to successfully influence him.
That or he was mad. I should have foreseen this; I should have attended to him sooner and not let myself get distracted.
“What are you?” he demanded, voice rising.
A vampire, I thought. And a damned tired one. I wished Nora here. She could take care of this lout without effort.
“What ARE you?”
He looked ready to kill me there and then. The mix of terror and malevolence on his drawn face was an awful sight, the force of his emotions striking me almost as solidly as his cane. All I could hope for now was one good chance to somehow seize and drag him down to a more primitive level of conflict. Even in this injured state, I was still stronger than most men. Out of pure desperation I might manage, but he’d backed well out of reach, cursing me.
Footsteps. Summerhill’s long stride. Clarinda’s quick pace. Damn, damn, damnation to them all.
Clarinda paused in the hall doorway. “What’s the matter?” she asked of Arthur.
“Nothing,” he snapped, straightening with a visible effort. “Where’s the chest?”
“I found it, but it’s empty. My bastard of a husband hid his money elsewhere.”
“What!” This was a grievous blow for Arthur, worse than any I might have given him. He fairly fell against one wall, needing its support.
“It could be anywhere in this house,” she went on. “We could look all night and not find it or my jewels. He might have taken it to his bankers or even hidden it at Fonteyn House or with that dunce Oliver—”
Arthur started to rant to the best of his limited ability, but Clarinda forcefully interrupted.
“Don’t break a blood vessel, you fool! I’ve thought of a way around it!”
“Have you now? And what will you do, raise your damned husband from the dead and ask him nicely if you please?”
“That’s no fault of mine. If you hadn’t been so impatient to be rid of him—”
“If he hadn’t tried to shoot me—”
Edmond. . . oh, God.
“A moment, if you please,” said Summerhill calmly with a tilt of his head. Such was his air of command that the two of them stopped bickering long enough to glare at him. “Very good. Now, sir, Mrs. Fonteyn anticipated something like this might happen and prepared for it. It is to your advantage to hear her out.”
“What is it, then?” Arthur barked at her.
His temper did not sit well with sweet Clarinda. She closed her lips tight.
Summerhill intervened once more. “I believe there was a cabinet full of spirits in one of the downstairs rooms. Mr. Tyne looks in need of a restorative, and it may put him in a better mood to listen, dear lady.”
The practicality of the suggestion won their grudging agreement to act upon it. Arthur, leaning heavily on the banister, began his descent. Clarinda followed a moment later, picking up her skirts as she delicately stepped around me.
“Where’s Edmond?” I asked Summerhill when they’d gone. Damnation, but I sounded pathetically weak. My effort to influence Arthur had drained me to the dregs.
He glanced down. “Away behind the house. Not to worry, someone’s bound to sniff him out after the spring thaw. We’d put you in the same spot, but that would look just a little too suspicious. Once might be thought an accident, but twice. . . .” He lifted a hand, palm out.
“Killing me will only put you into more trouble,” I whispered.
“Really?”
“I’ve no proof against Arthur about Ridley, so I’m no danger to any of you.”
“I’m in no danger anyway, not with a dozen of my lads willing to swear themselves blue in the face on a Bible on my behalf.”
His ship’s crew? I’d speculate later. “Leaving me won’t harm you. Tyne’s just running off with another man’s wife; no one will pay mind to that. But kill me and people will blame him or Clarinda or both with you as an accomplice. You can’t afford the hue and cry of murder to be following you everywhere.”
“No one will blame any of us for your death, because it will really be just a tragic accident. Two in one night might cause some comment, but I think we can take that chance—or rather they will, since I’m not officially here.”
“Smuggler?”
“I prefer to be known as a gentleman who advocates the practice of free trade between nations.”
“Especially if it profits you.”
“Particularly when it profits me.”
“I’ll double whatever they’re paying you.”
His eyebrows went up. “That would be a princely sum, but I’m a man of my word and I have given it to—
”
“Triple.”
He blinked, then shook his head. “Tempting, Mr. Barrett, but if all goes well, even that ransom will seem but a trifle to the bounty we’ll collect from the whole of your family”
“What are you planning?”
“Not I, but the redoubtable Mrs. Fonteyn. Quite a remarkable female she is, to be sure. I’ve seen more mercy in the most villainous of pirates. It’s too bad for you that you crossed her.”
“What are—”
“Soothe yourself, sir. It’s nothing you ever need worry about. Now say a prayer for your soul like a good chap while you yet have the time.” He quickly stooped and caught hold of my ankles, dragging me toward the edge of the stairs. “Mrs. Fonteyn thought Mr. Tyne might not be up to the labor of it yet—he’s still feeling thin—so she asked me to see to things. I’ve no personal grudge against you; this is just business, y’know”
Realizing what he had in mind, panic seized me. I kicked and struggled, putting up enough fight to inconvenience him. He let go, and with a deft move, gave me another bitter tap on the side of my head with his cane. Lights flashed behind my eyes. I heard myself pant out a last breath. My body went utterly limp.
He got a strong grip under my arms and with a great heave hauled me upright. I was maddeningly helpless. The room lurched. Sickness clawed my belly, threatening to turn it inside out. I couldn’t even gulp to hold back the rising vomit.
My legs were useless; my arms dangled loose. I had a hideous, dizzying view of the steep stairs and the entry hall miles below
“There now,” said Summerhill comfortingly into my ear as he swung me into place. “At least it’ll be quick, and that’s more than most of us get.” He planted a firm hand in the small of my back and pushed for all he was worth.
I was flying in open space for an instant, almost like those times when I floated.
The room tumbled madly, almost like my games with Richard.
Then something struck me lethally hard over my shoulders and back, like a hundred Summerhills attacking not with mere canes but with thick clubs. I heard thuds and thumps, a pain-filled cry, cut short. . . then nothing at all.
