by Karen Ranney
While the men were dressed somewhat normally, both women were wearing tunics of buckskin, which smelled as if they hadn’t been cured properly. On the top of Mary Kate’s head a large bonnet perched, into which at least two dozen crushed feathers had been sewn. Add to that enough silver necklaces to supply a small jewelry establishment. She looked like a living amulet.
It was, all in all, an odd group, rendered even more bizarre by the ritual in which they were currently participating. Bernie had prepared the room by muttering in Latin, a language none of the rest of them knew, except for those obscure passages taken from liturgical text. Requiescat in pace seemed hardly appropriate for this meeting. Or perhaps it was, since the purpose of it was to help Alice St. John rest in peace.
In the middle of the table, upon a silver salver, was a Chinese figurine of a very portly man. In his hands smoked three wands of incense so aromatic that Mary Kate’s eyes were watering.
After the purification ceremony, Bernie had had the notion of calling upon the ancient Egyptian wizards, making a pyramid of her hands, which she held above her as she uttered some unintelligible words. She was into Greek oracles when Archer arrived.
“I don’t bloody well believe this.” The voice was filled with icy contempt.
It had the power to freeze all four occupants of Bernie’s bedchamber.
“I chase all over England looking for the two of you, only to find you engaging in this…” Words seemed to fail Archer at that point. He simply waved his hands in the air as if pointing at the various accoutrements necessary to such a scene.
“You,” he said, pointing one long finger at Harrellson, “get to your quarters.” It took a moment for his butler to steady his feet, if not his balance. It was not so much the effect of the ceremony as it was the port.
“You are dismissed.” These words were addressed to the underfootman. Mary Kate was not certain if Archer meant forever or just this occasion.
“As to you,” he said, glancing at Mary Kate, “get to your chamber: I’ll attend to you later.” Where once those words might have instilled in her some anticipation, at this particular moment they rang with warning.
Mary Kate did not bother to protest his rather highhanded dictate. She had not wanted to be included in this foolishness, but she’d discovered that Archer’s mother had a single-minded determination that rivaled his. Was it something that ran in the St. John blood? She did not delay in absenting herself from Bernie’s room.
“What the hell are you about, Mother?” He turned on his mother the minute the room was cleared.
She ignored him, bent over the circular table, extinguished the remaining candles, then straightened and stared back at him.
“Do you have any idea of how preposterous you look? And what the hell did you do to Mary Kate? Did you give her that damn headdress?”
“Yes, Archer, I gave her the spirit headdress. And the beads, and the moccasins, and the yin and yang coins to hold. I have inculcated many cultures into this ceremony.”
“Which is for which purpose, exactly?”
“We are following an ectoplasmic trail, Archer. A transmogrification of souls meeting at midnight.”
“What?”
“We’re talking to the dead.”
“Sometimes, Bernie, I think you’re a candle whose wick has long since burned out.”
“And sometimes, Archer, I think you a man who cannot see.”
“What is there to see, Bernie?” One hand extended toward the table where the joss sticks still smoked. “This? Do you honestly believe you’re going to accomplish anything here?”
“At least I am trying, Archer. I but wished to aid Mary Kate, my dear son. I should think you would applaud such motives.”
“How, by tossing amulets into the air? By drinking yourself into a stupor to better convince yourself that you hear a visitor from a spirit world?”
There was a silence in which she stared at him, betraying nothing by her gaze or her movements. It was, he thought, a singularly uncomfortable look, one that reminded him of his youth and her interminable lectures about the karma of justice.
“You don’t believe her, do you? You truly do not.”
“What is there to believe, Mother? That my wife is a ghost, instead of a faithless spouse? Or the most ridiculous idiocy of them all, that Alice cared for me with such deep devotion that she sent Mary Kate Bennett to watch over me? Which of these unbelievable things would you have me believe? One? Two? Or am I to put all my credulity into a handbasket, toss it out the window, and believe it all?”
“So instead, you choose to believe nothing. When did you become such a cynic, Archer?”
“About the same time you became so gullible, Mother.”
“Does Mary Kate know?”
“Of course she knows. Did you think I had to cozen her into my bed? Or perhaps pay her to be there?”
It was, Archer thought, a rather unique thing to render his mother speechless. “You look like a mother is supposed to look right now, with your mouth all pursed in disapproval. It won’t wash, Bernie. All these years you’ve taken such great pride in scandalizing the world, in taking the St. John money and creating your own, highly rarefied existence, in behaving in ways designed to shock. I remember your advising me to take my pleasures where I may, because the world was an uncertain place and life itself tenuous.”
“You were thirteen and home from school and pining for a friend’s sister,” she said, removing her turban and fluffing up her hair.
“And what is so different about your advice now?”
“If you do not know the answer to that question, Archer, I am truly disappointed in you.”
“That statement is a tactic women have devised since time began. ‘If you don’t know…’ The poor hapless fool is left dangling and ready to confess to a myriad of sins simply to prevent himself from twisting upon a noose of confusion. It doesn’t work with me.”
She planted her hands on her hips and faced him. “Then let me illuminate the situation for you, Archer, since you are so determined not to see it. A young woman has had her life disrupted, her very sanity questioned, her health jeopardized, her reputation ruined, for the sake of one man. You. She sees things in dreams both awake and asleep, but when a voice whispers to her of danger, what does she do? She attempts to protect the object of her concern. And what do you give her in response? You ridicule her and then seduce her.”
“Not that it is any of your business, Mother, because it is not, but the seduction was mutual.” The solicitation of a kiss, the eagerness with which they both entered into their current relationship. Hardly fodder for conversation. It was, he was not altogether surprised to note, something about which he felt intensely personal and private. “Don’t interfere in my life. Despite the love I bear you, I will not tolerate it. You are a woman of the world. You know as well as I what happened here.”
She waved her hands in the air. “Do not try to convince me it’s some sort of droit du seigneur, Archer, or that Mary Kate surrendered her reputation without a struggle. Even servant girls have to protect themselves in this world ruled by men.”
“And why do I think most men should protect themselves from you?”
“Do not change the subject, Archer.” There was a flash of anger in her eyes.
“Very well, I shall not change the subject. I simply will not address it with you. My life, my actions, my purpose, are not for comment, not even from you.”
“And Mary Kate?”
“Nor her.”
“And your seduction of her?”
At his silence, she frowned. “So you’ll keep taking advantage of her.”
“She’s hardly an innocent, Bernie. She’s a woman grown.”
“Who is unaccustomed to such wealth as Sanderhurst boasts. Do you not think that to have some attraction for her?”
“You never stoop to flattery, do you?” His smile was sardonic. “Could it be me, and not my gold, perhaps?”
“Only you ca
n answer that question, Archer. What, exactly, does she want? Has she not cozened herself to gain admittance to your life? Does she perhaps not have a nefarious object in mind? I’m surprised you do not send her packing, a jade like that.”
“She could be telling the truth, Mother.”
She rounded on him, her gaze as sharp as Toledo steel. “Exactly, Archer. She could be telling the truth.”
He was a man besieged by contradictions. Perhaps that was why he asked the question of Mary Kate, later, in her chamber. “Why do you think it is Alice who speaks to you?”
“Why do you want to know now, Archer?”
She was still attired in that ridiculous garment. She should have looked absurd in it. Yet she did not, nor did she sound like a dairymaid, or resemble any of the servant girls he’d ever caused to be hired at Sanderhurst. She perplexed him and vexed him and caused him to question all those things he’d once thought true and proper and right about his world. And made that world stop with the sheer joy of touching her and listening to her laugh.
“Tell me, Mary Kate.”
“How easily you demand, Archer. Speak, Mary Kate, and I’m to divulge everything so that you might ridicule me again.”
“Have I? Lately?”
“The price of sharing your bed, Archer?” Her smile was rueful. He found himself wanting to touch her, reassure her through his fingers, lips, embrace, that he would not mock her.
“Please,” he said softly, and maybe it was that, only that one word that released her from her silence.
She turned from the window, walked to the fireplace, placed one hand against the mantle. It was a curiously pensive pose, he thought, arrested by the way the light from the fire shone around her, granting her a nimbus of radiance.
“Do you know the feeling you get when you’ve done something wrong, and that voice inside reminds you of it?”
“Your conscience?” He smiled slightly. “Some more active than others.”
She didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge his remark. He had the oddest feeling that this was difficult for her.
“At times it is no louder than the hiss from a teakettle. At others, it feels like a shout.” A finger trailed along the edge of the ormolu clock, touched the corner of the marble, smoothed over the carving of grapes, apples, pomegranates. A miniature column was fashioned in gold, the edges of the pediment carving delicate, almost fragile. “Like a reminder, only more insistent. A feeling of danger and a compulsion to ensure that such a feeling is not realized.”
“Intuition, then?”
“Are you still attempting to find something rational about this, Archer?” Her eyes flashed irritation. “Do you think I have not tried?”
It was, he thought, a question he’d not pondered. “And how do you know it’s Alice?”
“I’ve seen her.”
“You’ve seen her?”
“In my early dreams, I looked into a pool and saw her face, or a mirror and spied her reflection.”
“And you know she is telling you I’m in danger.”
She turned and looked at him. It was a direct look, filled with the strangest sort of compassion. “No, Archer, I was wrong. I don’t think Alice wants me to protect you at all.”
A silence fell, laced not with the strange contentment their silences had been of late, but with emotion bubbling and brewing beneath the surface.
“Another vision, dearest?”
She only nodded.
Archer wasn’t quite certain at that moment what he felt. It was such a maelstrom of thoughts that he could barely sort them out, let alone frame a coherent sentence. Above all of the mental clamor was a sense of berayal so foul he was surprised the air was not tinged with it.
“It is not an original trick, you know,” he said, in quite a prosaic tone, he thought. She looked startled at his statement, but then he was learning, in lessons drilled into him by ice-bound moments, that he should not trust even her most innocent expression.
“It’s played out quite well on the hunting field. The fox changes direction and circles back around, confusing the pack until they’re ready to bay at their own mothers. I suppose that is your aim, is it not? To confuse me until I cry off entirely and accept anything you have to say, for the sheer joy of your delectable body?”
She flushed again, a colorful accompaniment to the glare she shot him. Once, a lifetime ago, a moment ago, he would have trusted her. Or at least wanted to. He would have told her that it was quite easy to guess at her thoughts, they were so quickly mirrored in her eyes and in the constant rosiness of her blsuh. Now, he didn’t believe the anger and discounted the embarrassment.
“So, I am not to be considered worth saving. Will I be deprived of your company, sweet, while you traipse around England attempting to find yet another gull for your tricks?”
“Don’t do this, Archer.”
“Don’t do what, Mary Kate? Not accept your idiotic story? Again? Who said I ever did?” There, that sounded plausible. Enough to cause a paleness where there had been only blush. She believed him, at least. “Who are you in wait for, sweetling? Who is the next idiot on your agenda? Whose bed, pretending I believe you, does dear, darling Alice want you to warm now?”
He smiled at her silence.
“Come now, Mary Kate, don’t tell me you’ve grown reticent after all this.” He stepped closer, a stalking motion he recognized even as he measured off the list of emotions warring inside him. Betrayal, remorse, sadness, some strange feeling that made him want to scream at her and shake her and make her cry so that she couldn’t tell where her tears ended and his began.
“All I’ve ever wanted to do was to find my family.”
“Tell me, damn you.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.” He speared a hand through his hair, stared at her, then shook his head. “I should truly have become used to it, you know. But somehow, you still manage to astound me. Am I such a gullible fool, I wonder? Do I look the part? Did Alice tell you I was capable of being gulled? More fool she, if she believed that. My complicity in her adultery was not by choice, not by a long shot. But I’ve discovered it’s hard to make a marriage when your wife cannot stand the sight of you.”
She stepped away from the mantle, placing more distance between them. He wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter; all of England could stand between him and her and if he wanted her, he would have her. Conversely, she could stand naked before him and he’d refuse to touch her if he willed it to be so.
“And you, Archer? How long before you grew to hate Alice?” How quickly her voice had turned from warmth to ice. Her eyes seemed as cold. Frozen ponds of green. A world of ice.
“You are never content to let something alone, are you, Mary Kate? You’ll worry at it until it unravels, until all the pieces are broken down, until you have a sobbing wretch at your feet. Yes, I suppose I did grow to hate her. Is that confession enough for you?”
She gave him a look, as if he were a slow-witted child. It had the effect of mitigating his hunger, his acute and unwelcome longing, freeing the brunt of his anger.
However, this surprising woman with the flame red hair and flamboyantly extravagant breasts was not content with raising his temper. She voiced the one question no one in the world had the courage to ask to his face.
“Did you kill her?”
A heartbeat in the silence. A few odd and stilted moments in which he closed his eyes, unable to look at her. A moment later, he opened them again, focused his gaze on the roaring fire. How odd that the words felt like glass leaving his mouth, as if ground fine by the effort of passing through his throat. “By God, not even you should have the audacity to ask me that question.” Why had she said it? Had she believed it all this time? “It is time for Alice to come home, don’t you think? I grow tired of being accused of the murder of a woman we both know is alive.”
“You sound so certain, Archer. While I am more sure than ever that she is not.”
“If you be
lieve that, then you evidently believe me capable of her murder. I’m surprised you could bear to let me touch you, Mary Kate. Did I soil you in some way?” He strove for a tone of sardonic humor, heard the flatness of his own words. He sounded pitiable. Poor wretch. Betrayed again.
“I am sorry, Archer, the words were improvident.”
He glanced at her. “Do not look so contrite now, madam,” he said formally, one corner of his lip turning up as if amused. It was nearly a superhuman effort on his part. “You have only said what half the world believes, in any event. I congratulate you on your courage.”
“Nonsense. You could not have killed her. I did not mean to say it.” She stepped forward, would have touched him, but he moved then.
“How adroit you are. First you accuse and within moments, you pardon. I could only wish that my neighbors and erstwhile friends had taken a page from your book. But then, they do not have the knowledge you and I share, of your complicitous relationship with my errant wife.”
She reached out one hand, but it was too late. Because he had left her.
She’d barely been in bed and adjusted her cap before the door opened again and then was shut again as quickly.
Bernie frowned at her guest, whipped off the cap and fluffed up her hair, wishing that she had had the good sense to wear one of her silk peignoirs instead of this damn muslin gown. There wasn’t even a bit of lace upon the sleeves, nothing but a rolled French hem.
Damn the man’s arrogance. From the look of his smile, it was just exactly what he wanted. She slitted her eyes at him and contemplated throwing the novel she was reading at him. No, bad waste of a good book.
“Well, you’ve taken your bloody time about it,” she said, hearing the surliness of her own voice and recognizing that she wasn’t as irritated as she let on. The idiot had led her a merry chase these weeks, always smiling as if he knew something about her, brushing her a kiss when she’d entered or left a carriage. Taming her, he’d even whispered one day, and when she’d nearly thrust her umbrella into his stomach, he’d only neatly sidestepped and grinned that devil’s grin.
