Her Ladyship's Companion (21 page)

“I’ve no wish to see you end up before a magistrate for either poaching or attempted murder,” Giles replied coolly. “But don’t mistake me. My care for your carcass is slight indeed. Take your money and be content with it.” There was the chink of coins hitting wood. “Remember, I’m buying not merely your silence but your absence and that of your friend. I suggest you emigrate.”

“Thet we will, Guv’nor. Ye been more ‘n gen’rous, all considering. Ye’ve no need to vear we’ll talk. We put our necks in the noose if we do. Money’s no good if yer dead.”

“Continue to think so. I point out to you that blackmail is an unhealthy occupation. Do not attempt it again.”

“I’ve no doubt yer right. It’s a good zum of money. We won’t be greedy ver more.” The husky voice went on ingratiatingly. “We was only staying ver the money we was promised. We knew we only had te threaten te open our traps up te get what we deserved.”

“What you deserve is cold death, Turner, if only for your stupidity,” Giles said with deadly lack of emphasis. “Take your money and run for your life. There’s been one death already in this house. You wouldn’t even be missed. Get out of here. I have no further use for you. And see that you’re cleared out of that pigsty you infest within the day. Go back the way you came, and see that nobody else spots you.”

Melissa heard chairs scrape against the floor and the library door close. She wondered if she should raise an alarm, try to stop the man before he got away. She heard him walking in the hall outside. She was afraid to move, terrified lest he notice the light under the door and investigate. Everyone else was asleep, far away upstairs or in the servants’ hall. She stayed huddled by the window, scarcely daring to breathe.

After a little silence came Sir Adrian’s drawl, drifting in through the rain. “I hardly think he can be trusted to stay quiet, Shall I follow him and make certain?”

“No need. Within a day or two I should have this business cleared up. Then let them talk themselves into a noose if they choose. No one will believe them.”

“Still, I hate to see good money wasted.”

“It won’t be wasted. It’s enough to send them off to London and keep them drunk for the better part of next month. After that they can go to the devil any way they choose. They’ll be of no more concern to me.”

“Lucky I spotted him among the searchers. We might have been weeks finding them if they hadn’t been dragged along here by that innkeeper.”

“They would have surfaced eventually. They couldn’t expect payment after botching the job. But blackmail was too irresistible for them. I’m known to be a rich man.”

“Thus catching more flies with honey, as was ever your way. You do end up with a disgusting collection of flies. Repellent.” There was the scrape of a chair again. Then Sir Adrian went on, his voice light and cool. “So the plan foundered because of some chance resemblance to a cottager’s boy. I can’t say I’m surprised. Damned poor tools for such a plot.”

“If you say so.”

“But the direct approach had already failed. That fire. Bad planning that. It should have been hours later. Too many people around. Someone was bound to interfere.”

“That was the only time Miss Coburn could be gotten out of the way. Surely you see that.” Giles’s voice came calmly to Melissa. She covered her eyes with her hands and moaned silently.

“Still poor planning,” Adrian noted. “Then she had to be gotten out of the way. Permanently. She was the only one who knew why Robbie had been left alone. A single word from her... You see why I call it bad planning.”

Giles grunted.

“I can’t say I think much of that ploy out at the summerhouse either. The boy could easily have escaped totally unharmed. Sheer luck he was injured at all.”

“We don’t all have your experience in these matters, Adrian,” Giles said politely.

“Allow the voice of experience, then, to comment.
Experto crede,
believe the expert. This attempt with the laudanum with which you seem so impressed wasn’t up to standard at all. Poison is a clumsy weapon, popular with women. Only a medical man can gauge the proper dose. Too much does no more good than too little. The victim vomits it up, often as not.”

“Deadly anyway.”

“Amateurish!” Adrian snapped. “Attend me. The other attempts were made to look like accidents. That at least shows a modicum of foresight and planning. But this business with the opium! I think, yes, I really do believe, that that was just an impulse of panic, sheer Opportunism.”

“It nearly succeeded.”

“It didn’t come close. Remember, always, murder is an affair that should be approached dispassionately. Desperation is the enemy of precision.”

Melissa was amazed at how easily and calmly the two men chatted, as if they were discussing ordinary business transactions, not the attempted murder of a young boy.

“You make this study an art, Adrian. I don’t feel that way. This is a special and important instance to me,” Giles replied.

“You are, so to speak, right in the heart of things, Giles. You can’t be expected to see clearly. Emotion clouds the intellect. Why else did you call me in to solve this little difficulty for you? Let the expert do his work,” Adrian directed. “Your estimable aunt will see that the boy is watched over day and night until he recovers. It looks as if nothing can be attempted in the schoolroom. You agree?”

“Yes.”

“Naturally we’ll check the kitchen to see if any avenues exist through his food. Some modification of the laudanum plot might yet be attempted, I believe. Still, it appears we’ve a little time for dealing with the loose ends. For instance, you’re sure your aunt doesn’t suspect?”

“Yes,” Giles said dispassionately. “She’s hardly taciturn. I’d be the first to hear any suspicions in that quarter.”

“And your, oh, so charming cousin Anna?” Sir Adrian offered. “She’s really quite bright in some ways. And she’s hand in glove with Harold. Of all people, we must avoid alarming friend Harold.”

“Most certainly. If I could find another relation to take her off my hands, I’d send her away. But she’s still living down some minor notoriety involving a dancing master in Bath.”

“We will cope. So finally we come to the ever admirable Miss Rivenwood. Lovely Miss Rivenwood ... can we safely assume that she is also without suspicion?”

“Devil a bit, we can’t. Damn it. She had some nebulous notion that the robbery attempt was fishy. Then Robbie must needs drag out that blasted key to the schoolroom and show it to her after I’d ordered him not to.”

“Someday Robbie will obey an order and the sun will stand still at noontime. Hmm. A key argues a locked door during the fire. That must have been an embarrassing encounter. How did you explain it away?”

“Some tale of servants trysting in the nursery. As if there weren’t empty bedrooms aplenty in this barracks of a house. You see it throws an unsavory light on my claim that the door was only jammed shut.”

“It does indeed.”

“Worst of all, tonight she saw the bottle of laudanum before I pocketed it. Only a matter of time before she realizes half the bottle was gone. I was maladroit.”

“Pity.” Chairs scraped again, and Melissa heard the sound of footsteps on carpet. She could imagine Adrian striding up and down on the red rug in the library while Giles sat at the desk, grave as a judge, with templed fingers. Sir Adrian’s voice faded, then came more clearly. She heard him say, “Still, we all make mistakes. You filled the bottle up again?”

“And put it back. Whether it will fool her, I don’t know.”

“Couldn’t you send her away? The woman’s much too acute for comfort. We don’t want any well-intentioned interference or any awkward questions about all this ... afterward.”

“There will be none, Adrian. I intend to settle with Miss Rivenwood once and for all. Do you imagine any lesser business than Robbie’s murder would make me delay in securing a prize like Melissa? Not with a plausible rogue like you about.”

“Esteemed rival, anyone under your protection is to me as an aged spinster aunt. Do you think me utterly without morals?”

“Yes.”

“I’m flattered, of course. But even I have had moments of weakness, lapses into conventionality. I have even done good deeds.”

“I must remind you to tell me about them someday.”

“When I have a few minutes free. Your plans for Melissa.. .you realize there may be objections?”

“I’m in the habit of getting what I want. I don’t give a damn what people think.”

“I congratulate you on your choice, a spirited, intelligent lady and a delight to the eye. But she possesses some inconvenient knowledge.”

There was the sound of movement and the tinkling of glasses on a silver tray. “I’ll deal with my lady when the time comes. For now, Robbie claims precedence. Have you any plan?”

“Only the germ of one. Deuced awkward, its being your family and all. You must have some feelings about it.”

“None at all, strangely. I just want to dispose of him in the most expeditious way. Any ideas?”

Adrian sighed. “Ah, skullduggery, skullduggery ... where are you now that I need you? I must be subtle. There’ll be a hell of a scandal if any of this comes out.”

“I have great faith in your inherent craftiness. You’ll come about in time.”

“Is our field clear? Besides Melissa, does anyone else suspect?”

Giles’s voice was indifferent. “Only Robbie. His knowledge can neither make nor mar the situation. Look how easily he fell into the trap on the bridge.”

“You know, this is a hell of a way for a gentleman to make a living, helping folk dispose of troublesome relatives. I believe after this I’ll retire to the country and grow turnips. Really, I will.”

“When have I heard that before?”

“After a bottle or two I’ll even tell you all about sheep. Handy things, sheep. Another bottle and ... though not, perhaps, this particular bottle.”

“You’re right. This is vile stuff. Can’t imagine why I’m drinking it.”

“True. I hadn’t wished to say anything, courtesy to the host’s brandy and all that, noblesse oblige something or other. But one could almost believe someone had paid duty on this lot.”

“Must be my old cousin’s choice. My brother never laid this sheep dip down, nor my father. Well, I won’t ring for Bedford. Keep our plotting secret, I think. Will you join me in a little trek to the cellar, Adrian? I believe I know just what we want. Unless things have altered drastically since my boyhood, I know just where the butler hides it, too.”

“I’m game if you are.” There was the shifting of chairs, and their voices grew fainter as they proceeded across the library, away from the corner window and the housekeeper’s room where Melissa shivered and listened. “This bloody ancestral mansion of yours is dark at night, isn’t it?” Adrian was saying plaintively.

Melissa heard the library door close. Very slowly she clasped the casement window and pulled it firmly closed. Deliberately she locked it. Then she slumped on the window seat in the dim room and buried her head in her hands. No tears came. Instead, she stared wide-eyed into the little cup of darkness she’d created. So that was what evil was like. It was a man who could kiss his nephew good night and then, an hour or two later, turn him over to a professional killer. It was a man who could laugh and stroke her cheek and promise to make no more improper proposals one day and the next ... what was it he had said? That he would ... secure her? That was it. What kind of man was he?

Was he so certain he could make her his mistress? How could he be so sure she would never trouble him with any awkward questions? The heavy curtains were soaking wet, and they hung leadenly across her shoulders. Melissa shuddered with more than cold.

She whispered aloud, “What in the world am I going to do?” Her first impulse, a strong one, was to pack her bags and run into the night, to get away from whatever Giles and that monster Sir Adrian were planning. She’d go to the nearest magistrate. There was one in Minbrite, she thought.

But that was impossible. It was only a cowardly desire to save herself. There wasn’t the remotest chance she’d be believed. Who would take her at her bare word when she arrived, dripping and incoherent, out of the night? And worse still, who would protect Robbie?

Melissa raked her nails through her tumbled, damp hair and pulled hard. Get a grip on yourself, she berated herself mentally. Of course, you can’t run away. You have to tell Lady Dorothy. She’ll put a stop to this. Whether Lady Dorothy believed her or not didn’t matter. Giles would never dare harm Robbie if Lady Dorothy were watching and suspicious.

Melissa seized the candle. She was at the door with her hand on the knob when she stopped. Lady Dorothy’s heart condition wasn’t the fancy of some elderly hypochondriac; it was real. If she went to the old lady and told her that her favorite nephew was a killer ... Melissa’s hand dropped helplessly to her side.

There’s always an answer, she told herself. Always. All you have to do is find it.

Tell the servants? Could mere rumor protect Robbie? Or would Giles simply move Robbie to another place? They couldn’t watch him night and day. They couldn’t remove him from his guardian’s grasp.

Riddle? The lawyer. He must be a—what do you call them?—a trustee. But the little lawyer was far away in London. And even if she reached him, she could picture the scene. No, she thought, he’d listen very sympathetically for ten minutes and then go tell Giles.

As soon as she told anyone she would be done for. She would be the one in need of protection. Miss Coburn had spoken, and she was dead. There was still a great silent ocean right on the doorstep.

Melissa sat down again on the hard bench in the housekeeper’s room. She wrapped her arms around her knees for comfort as much as for warmth and rocked back and forth. If only her head didn’t feel so heavy and fuzzy. If only she weren’t so tired. She couldn’t think straight at all.

At last she settled reluctantly on Harold. Poor Harold. He was a far cry from the splendid champion she needed. But Giles, at least, had seemed to fear him. “Harold,” he’d said, “mustn’t know,” or something like that.

She was certain of Harold’s sympathy and almost certain that he’d believe her. Whether he could help her or not was another thing. Tenuous as his relation to the boy was, he must have some rights. Or better yet, he’d know whom to go to. There must be some other Tarsin cousin somewhere who could take the boy.