Lady Julia Grey Bundle

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  I stared at the photograph for a long time, feeling oddly light, as if my head was stuffed with cotton wool. I had known Brisbane loathed the Allenbys. He had even told me himself that he had been in Egypt, masquerading as an Egyptologist. Why had I not connected the points sooner? Brisbane had been the instrument of Redwall Allenby's disgrace and destruction.

  Sickened, I closed the journal, shutting Brisbane's clever, calculating face away. I turned onto my side, thinking hard. The feud between their families was an old one. Sir Alfred Allenby had been responsible for seeing Brisbane's mother put into gaol where she died. Did Brisbane hold the rest of the Allenbys accountable for what one of them had done?

  He must have, I thought fiercely. He had insisted upon Lord Salisbury purchasing Grimsgrave Hall for him when a dozen other properties might have done just as well if not better. Properties in excellent condition, near to his business interests in London, properties with no ghosts or scores to settle. But Brisbane had chosen none of them. He had insisted upon having Grimsgrave, knowing the Allenby women would be at his mercy, dependent upon him as completely as Mariah Young had been upon the clemency of Sir Alfred Allenby.

  And because Sir Alfred had shown no mercy to her, none would be given to the Allenbys, I realised with horror. Brisbane had marked his time, dangling the promise of a snug, pretty cottage in front of them, but forcing them to live under his roof, beholden to him. Until from frustration or anger or thwarted pride, Lady Allenby had attempted his life, giving him the perfect pretext to send her away. That he had not had her hanged ought to have given me a flicker of hope, but it did not. Brisbane was a subtle and clever man with a fair measure of hot Gypsy blood. He had been schooled in blood feuds since childhood. If he wanted an enemy to suffer, a quick snap of the hangman's noose would be too quick, too easy. How much more terrible to be immured in the stone walls of a convent, knowing nothing more of the outside world, but remembering every day that one's child and one's beloved home were still in the hands of a sworn enemy.

  The very notion turned my stomach to water, and I was glad I had not eaten dinner. I relived every moment I had spent with Brisbane since I had arrived at Grimsgrave, every anguished glance he had given me, every time he had demanded my return to London. He did not want me to witness what he had become, to know what monstrousness he was capable of. How many times had he warned me he was bedevilled? And fool that I was, I had not listened. I had believed the passionate kisses, the warm, demanding hand in mine, and I had not believed him capable of real evil. But then, the poets tell us love is blind, I thought bitterly, and for all his sins, I loved him.

  And as soon as I had constructed the case against him, I demolished it. "No," I told myself firmly, "it is not possible. He is no monster." I had known Brisbane in many and varied circumstances, and even though I knew him to be clever and dispassionate enough to be the architect of a revenge scheme, he was not vicious. I would not believe, even if I heard it from his own lips, that he would truly harm the Allenby women for the sins of their kinsmen.

  But I had to know precisely what his intentions were toward Ailith and Hilda, and the only way to bring an end to the matter was to clear away all of the mysteries in that gloomy house. There was a legacy of pain and treachery in that place, and there would be no future for any of us if I did not expose it at last.

  I closed the cage on Grim and hurried out of the room. The door to Ailith's room was closed and I tapped on it, shifting my weight impatiently. She called for me to come in, her voice serene as ever.

  She was sitting on the floor, arranging dolls in her dolls' house. I went to her and knelt, startling her.

  "Ailith, I wanted to talk to you, about Redwall and Brisbane—"

  I broke off as I looked at the dolls in her hands. A pair of babies, tightly swaddled, with identical shocks of golden hair, hair identical to that shorn from the mummified babies in the study.

  I rocked back on my heels, thinking hard. "They were yours," I said flatly. "The babies were yours."

  She did not look at me. She merely continued to fuss over the tiny dolls, stroking their silken locks. "Yes. They were taken away from me as soon as they were born. I never even held them."

  She laid them into the pair of cradles in the nursery she had so lovingly prepared. I felt a rush of horror and sympathy for her. She had given birth to children she had never even been permitted to hold. I thought of Lady Allenby and her flinty pride, Redwall and his horrible experiments.

  "Were they stillborn?" I asked her, keeping my voice low and gentle.

  She shook her head, her golden hair falling free. It was the first time I had seen her without it bound tightly into a coronet. She looked younger, and terribly vulnerable.

  "No. They were alive when they were taken from me. I heard them cry."

  "Who took them?" I asked, although I thought I knew the answer.

  Her head came up then, her eyes flashing with anger even after all the years that had passed. "She took them. Godwin knows. He was there."

  She ducked her head again and busied herself with tidying the little nursery of make-believe. I could not quite take it all in. It had been Godwin after all who was the villain. Father to illegitimate children, doubtless goaded by Lady Allenby, he had been a party to giving them to Redwall to be immured forever, burying their secrets and shame with the bodies. Little wonder he had behaved so strangely when I had confronted him with the ram amulet. It must have been like seeing the very ghosts of his children resurrected. I wondered what would become of Ailith should the truth be revealed. I knew Brisbane would not deliberately harm her, but I could not say with perfect certainty that he would help her either. Perhaps the enmity between their families ran too deeply for that. No, it would be left to me to save her if I could.

  I put an arm around her, noting that she had lost weight. She felt little more than skin and bones. My pendant slid out from my neckline and her eyes fixed on it, watching it swing back and forth, like a sleepy child watching a candle flame.

  "That is Medusa, is it not?" she asked, putting out a finger to touch it.

  I tucked it away and gave her a patient smile.

  "Ailith, I wonder if you would not like a little rest. Perhaps we could go away. A trip to the seaside. Would you like that? I have a fancy to see Whitby. It would be such fun if you came as well. And Hilda and Portia. We could invite them, and make it a little party of hens, what do you say to that?"

  Ailith shook her head. "There is no money for such trifles," she said sadly. "There is no money at all."

  "Oh, do not mind about that. I will make all the arrangements. You must come as my guest. Would you like to visit the seaside?"

  She nodded slowly. "Someone will have to mind Hilda's chickens. You will tell her to find someone to mind the chickens, won't you?"

  Her gaze was flat and childlike. I coaxed her toward the bed. "Of course. Why don't you lie down now, and I will settle everything. Have a nice rest, and we can be gone in the morning. I will even have Minna pack for you. You need do nothing at all."

  She climbed onto the bed and lay atop the coverlet. Her eyelids drooped, but then flared open. She put out a hand to mine.

  "You are so very kind, Lady Julia," she murmured.

  "It is nothing," I told her. "Rest now, and do not worry about anything."

  She nodded and turned onto her side, curling into the pillow. In one hand she clutched the little pair of dolls with the bright gold curls.

  * * *

  I hurried from her room to the poultry yard. Hilda was pouring out fresh water for the chickens who were clucking irritably at her feet.

  "Oh, be quiet, you bloody monsters. Can't you see I am doing you a favour?" she muttered.

  "Miss Hilda, I should like a word," I told her.

  She flicked a glance up at me but did not pause in her labours. "If it is about the proposal I have had from Valerius, it is none of your concern."

  I smoothed my skirts. "Your impertinence notwithstanding, I
quite agree. I have made my feelings known to Valerius. What he chooses to do is entirely his own affair."

  She straightened, her thin upper lip curled. "Hardly an enthusiastic endorsement."

  I spread my hands. "Did you expect me to feel differently? You have scarcely uttered a civil word to me the entire time I have been here, and you have made your intentions to marry another man quite clear. Naturally I am concerned if the lady my brother plans to wed is motivated solely by mercenary interests."

  "Mercenary?" She threw the pail to the ground. "Oh, I like that. Val has told me something of your past. Tell me, would you have married Edward Grey if he hadn't had tuppence to rub together?" she demanded.

  "Of course not," I told her. Her expression of triumph faded to one of astonishment. "I married Edward because we were friends, because I wanted an establishment of my own, because I was tired of being a spinster and a laughingstock. If he had not had money, our paths would never have crossed. I moved then in rather more exclusive circles," I finished apologetically.

  "Well, at least you are honest," she said, deflating a little.

  "One ought to be, when speaking of such things," I replied. "And in perfect honesty, I do not wish you to marry my brother because I think you cannot make him happy, and I believe he would fail you as well. His intentions are of the very best sort, but he is a somewhat unhappy young man because he has no proper occupation for his time. Until he is settled within himself, he will be no sort of husband. That is my opinion, but I meant what I said. I have spoken to Val, and now I have spoken to you. I will say nothing further on the matter, and if you choose to marry, I will welcome you as a sister."

  She curled her lip again, a singularly unattractive expression, and I longed to tell her so.

  "Very well, believe me or don't. I do not care. I am more concerned about Miss Ailith."

  Her eyes widened, but her gaze slid from mine. "Why?"

  "I believe she is quite fragile at present," I said slowly. I did not know how much Hilda knew of her sister's ordeal, but it was not my place to disclose it. I must tread warily. "She has been in low spirits since your brother died. I think the departure of your mother has had a dampening effect upon her, and I detect signs of melancholia. I proposed to her a rest cure at the seaside. I would like you to come as well, as my guests, of course," I finished hastily lest she refuse on monetary grounds.

  She stooped to retrieve her pail. "That is good of you," she said grudgingly. "But I think not. It would be best if Ailith stays here."

  She drew an apple core from her pocket and tossed it to the hens, clucking softly at them.

  "Hilda, I must disagree. Your sister seems changed, childlike. She must be looked after."

  Hilda turned then and fixed me with a pitying stare. "Looked after? Ailith is more capable of looking after herself than anyone I have ever known. The devil himself could not stand against her."

  I blinked. "You do not understand. I am not at liberty to reveal everything, but I can say that your sister suffered a tragedy when your brother was lost, and the recent upheavals in your family have not helped in her recovery. She needs gentle treatment and a rest cure if she is to be restored."

  Hilda's little hands fisted at her sides. "The only treatment my sister needs is a hangman's noose."

  She clamped her mouth shut as if to bite back the words. I moved toward her.

  "What do you mean?"

  She dropped her head, but I took her shoulders in my hands and shook her hard. "What do you mean?" I demanded again.

  Hilda wrenched her arms from my grasp. "She was the one who attempted Brisbane's life, not Mama. She was the one who put the mushrooms onto his plate. She took a toadstool from the wood and sliced it up and mixed it with the mushrooms Mama bottled last year."

  Blackness crept into the edge of my vision and I blinked it away. I felt terribly cold, as if I had just swum in a lake of icy black water.

  "Why?" I whispered.

  She shook her head, her expression mutinous. "I have said too much already. But you must go. Leave this place and make Brisbane go with you." Her voice broke on a sob. "I know I cannot marry Valerius. You will not want to have your brother connected to a murderess. I know her for what she is. I have always known her. She will not harm me, but she hates Brisbane. And you as well. I beg you, leave."

  I pressed my temples to stop the roaring inside my head. "I cannot believe this. I thought her vulnerable—"

  Hilda gave a ragged sob then, and to my surprise, she permitted me to embrace her. She cried like a child, great gasps of emotion that tore at my heart. There was so much raw feeling under that brusque exterior, it was like holding some newborn, quite awkward thing.

  I held her until she stopped. She pulled back suddenly, wiping the moist places of her face on her sleeve.

  "I am sorry," she said finally. "I do not know what came over me. I am not usually such a blubberboots."

  "I don't imagine you give way to emotion very often," I ventured.

  "Not unless it is anger," she agreed. "It is so much easier that way. I am so tired, you see. So tired of being here, year after year of my life just unrolling behind me with nothing to show for it. I've no education, no career, no family or home of my own. Nothing to show that I have ever set foot on this earth. When I am gone, there will only be a stone to mark that I was here, and even that will crumble in time."

  There was no pity for herself in her voice, only the flatness of resignation, and I realised she and Valerius shared precisely the same affliction. They both wanted desperately to matter in a world that took no notice of them. Perhaps they were better suited than I had thought.

  But this was no time to worry about their romantic prospects. I needed to talk to Brisbane, and the sooner the better.

  "I will go and find Brisbane," I told her. "He will know how to get to the bottom of—" I broke off as something in the tail of my eye caught my attention. "He must be out on the moor. I will find him. Go and close the door before the chickens get out." The door in the stone wall that led to the moor path was slowly swinging open in the wind.

  Hilda went white to the lips. "I shut it myself. Someone has been listening to us."

  She looked at me in horror. "Ailith," she whispered. "Julia, she will kill him. She means to, and now that she knows I have told you, she will stop at nothing." Her eyes rounded and she clutched at me. "Valerius is out on the moor. He went for a walk. If he thwarts her…"

  I gave her no time to finish the thought. I was through the door and on the moor path before she finished speaking. She was hard behind me, urging me faster.

  We broke into a run, and I cursed my stays as they bit into my sides. But every minute counted now, and I was determined to keep pace with Hilda as we raced over the moor, mindful of the boggy mud and the low thorny bushes snatching at our skirts. She led the way, hurtling along like a modern Atalanta.

  From time to time as we ran I looked up toward Thorn Crag, but I could see no one. I thought I saw a flash of movement just once, but it might have been a trick of the light. The clouds were lowering over the moor, weather that Yorkshire folk call wuthering. A moor mist was rising, and I blessed it, for if it shrouded the top of Thorn Crag, it hid our approach as well. We climbed as quickly as we dared, hoping the descending fog would muffle our movements.

  It was very dark now, the afternoon sun blotted out by the thunderous black mass of cloud that hung low and threatening. The rain started to fall as we ascended the crag, making the rocks slippery and dangerous and more than once we fell heavily. Hilda was bleeding from her hands and I from a particularly nasty cut above my cheek, but we did not stop, nor did we slacken our pace. We forged on, wiping blood and rain from our faces. We climbed on our hands and knees in some places, clinging to the steep path only through force of will.

  I smothered a scream when I put out my hand and felt a face. It was Valerius, unconscious, his complexion deathly pale, bleeding freely from a wound to his temple. There was a rock next
to him, jagged and blood-stained.

  "You must stay with him," I told Hilda. "Bind the wound, and hold it fast."

  It is to her everlasting credit that she did not argue. She knelt swiftly as I stepped past him, sending up a desperate, incoherent prayer as I did so. He was in God's hands now, and Hilda's, and there was nothing more I could do for him.

  I looked up the path, dashing the rain from my face. There was one more ledge to climb, and I did so, peering around the last boulder, steeling myself for what I would find when I reached the top.

  It was unthinkable. Ailith was perched on the very edge of the crag, her cloak whipping behind her on the wind. She was sobbing, her hair streaming wildly, like a maenad's, and she clutched a dagger in her hand, the obsidian blade of the Egyptian embalmer, taken from her brother's collection, doubtless snatched up before she left Grimsgrave. Brisbane was perhaps ten paces from her, his back safely to the rock, his hand held out in front of him as if to push her. Blood was streaming from a cut to his brow, and I realised she must have landed at least one blow with her blade.

  "You are a monster," she shrieked, her voice carrying on the wind. "You deserve to die for what you have done," she cried, edging farther away from him. She trembled on the very rim of the drop now. "Do not come closer!"

  Brisbane advanced purposefully, stealthy as a lion. He put out his hand. "I want to watch you die, Ailith," he said, in a voice I had never heard him use before, cold and commanding. I had underestimated his hatred for the Allenbys, I realised. Here before me was the proof of it, Ailith pleading for her life and Brisbane, coolly preparing to deprive her of it.

  At that moment I stepped from behind the rock. Brisbane's head jerked toward me, his eyes locked with mine. He said nothing, but I understood him perfectly. In the space of a heartbeat, I made my choice.

  I rushed at Ailith, throwing wide my arms to embrace her and twisting as we fell so that we landed hard upon the ledge.

  As we fell, we rolled, so that Ailith was on top of me, the tip of her knife wedged firmly into my stays. She pushed herself up slowly, her eyes burning with rage.