Judith Ivory (37 page)

“Christina—” He held his hands out in supplication.

She hit him squarely with a book, followed by a water pitcher. “Get out!”

Even as he backed down the stairs, she followed, continuing to sail whatever was available at him. A vase of flowers. The small table that had held them. “You filthy, dirty—Get out of this house!”

He stopped at the front door, staring at her; his face full of shame, defiance, anger. His hair had come out of its queue. His shirt was out, his pants unbuttoned. He conveyed a dumb, confounded confusion; a man undone. Without any hope of repair. He frowned deeply at her, then turned and fled.

Christina crumpled on the last stair. She put her head on her knees. Why couldn’t she trust him? He was her friend….

The housekeeper and butler found her murmuring this over and over. “He was my friend.” They found her crying there softly at the foot of the stairs. Barefoot, freezing. Sobbing into her knees, muffling the sounds of her grief in her folded arms.

Samuel Rolfeman came down the stairs of his London house wearing a nightshirt and a blanket he had jerked from the foot of the bed.

“Who in damnation,” he muttered, “can be banging on a man’s door at this hour?”

The answer to this question stunned him. Christina Hunt stood before him, wrapped against the night winds and misting rain.

“Sam—” Her voice broke.

Her face was white as a sheet. Her eyes were red and swollen. Sam had seen enough grieving women in the course of his last years in France to know the signs. The first thing he thought was that, at last, there had been definite confirmation. Adrien was dead. And the woman who had given all of herself into loving him, into finding him alive, would now go to pieces.

“Won’t you come in?”

She hesitated, turned. In the street was her coach.
Her driver and footman were hunched at their posts, damp and cold. Sam motioned them to go down into the kitchen. “Wake them up downstairs,” he called. “They’ll get you something to drink.”

Sam drew Adrien’s widow inside.

But she wouldn’t be taken any farther than the inside hallway. She spoke again, in a strained voice he had never heard before. “Sam—I need your help.” She looked around her. As if she had no idea where she was. “Desperately,” she added.

From above, a voice called. “Samuel?”

They both looked up. Didier, Sam’s new “companion” stared down at them from the first landing.

“It’s all right,” Sam told him. “Go back to bed. It’s the wife of an old friend.”

Didier did as he was told, but Sam saw the look cross Christina Hunt’s face. The distaste. The hint of contempt. It was something that had never crossed Adrien’s face. Adrien had never been judgmental. Not of anyone. Over anything. Except perhaps toward himself. Sam felt a sudden, surprising stab of loss. Well, then, he thought, he would have his own mourning to do. So much for the “mature acceptance” he had credited himself with weeks ago over the loss of his friend.

“Come sit down.” He tried to lead Christina into the sitting room.

“No. We haven’t much time.” She drew a breath.

God, she looked harried. Half-mad, he thought.

“Thomas left my house half an hour ago. He knows where Adrien is and, I’m sure, has gone to find him. He’s going to kill him, Samuel.”

Sam drew back, trying hard not to show surprise or disbelief. “Christina, I’m sure…If you’ll just come in and have a drink—”

She pulled on his arm. “Sam—” Her eyes filled with tears. She gave his arm another pull; strong, as if she might lead him out the door in his nightshirt. “I know
we’ve never been the best of friends. But I beg of you, listen to me. We found the wrong body in the grave today.” Sam had already heard of this mix-up. “And Thomas spoke, or kind of spoke, to the doctor—the one who took the musket balls out of Adrien’s living, breathing body. And Thomas
knows.
If he knows, then you must. Surely—”

“You’re confused, Christina. Just come sit—”

“No, damn you.” She hit his chest with her fist. “Thomas came to me. He told me. And he hates him, Samuel. He
hates
him. He’s going to kill him if we don’t stop him!”

“I know Thomas was not too fond of Adrien recently. I believe I’m the one who tried to explain this to you. But I hardly think Thomas—”

She leveled her eyes at him. “He tried to rape me tonight.” She said this without hysteria. It was a quiet, insistent voice that demanded to be believed.

Sam was shocked. But she had, he realized, said something that was plausible. For some reason, he believed her. It explained her appearance and manner, considering the graveside facts, better than grief-stricken insanity.

“Thomas knows Adrien is alive,” Christina continued. “And he knows where he is. If we don’t come up with a very good guess as to just where Claybourne could be keeping Adrien, Thomas has an absolutely clear path to him. Don’t you understand? Adrien will trust him. Thomas can get as close as he needs. There will be no mistakes this time, no guessing, no trying to keep him alive. Thomas will walk up to him and take his life.

“Think, Samuel! You must have some idea if Thomas does! Where could Edward Claybourne hold a man he had decided to keep as—as a private prisoner—no—” she changed her mind, “as a pet.” She looked up at him. Her pale face, her liquid, radiant eyes were filled
with the conviction, the look of divine revelation, that might come over a saint, a visionary. “Where could Edward Claybourne keep a man he wanted to keep forever, a man he hated and loved, a man he wanted both to beat and fondle? Like a kennel hound?”

Edward Claybourne went down the cellar stairs carefully. One or two boards were loose. It was beginning to get dark. As he took hold of the banister, he noticed he was trembling. Horror. Delight. He knew he didn’t want to kill Adrien Hunt. He wanted to keep him; to touch him and hurt him indefinitely. But he knew now there was no choice but to kill him, and that brought its own excitement. It would be the final proof, Edward told himself, of his ultimate control over this interesting wayward man.

Gregory, behind him, stumbled on a loose step. Edward gripped the banister and pulled to the wall for fear he would be tumbled over and sent to the bottom of the stairs. He hated large men, he thought. Always bumbling around; never so graceful as his own small figure. In fact, the only large man he had ever felt something for was the one in the room at the foot of the stairs.

They came to the cellar door. Gregory had the keys. Edward stood back to let the giant find the right one. There was not a sound from within. But Edward knew
Adrien was there. He could feel it. The presence of his wonderful prize. The ritual of opening this door was like opening a glass showcase, a vitrine where one kept some rare collectible. A leather-bound first edition. A bright South American orchid. An unusual butterfly. Owning the clever, handsome earl was like owning all these things; it made Edward special, cultured, learned; discriminating beyond the ordinary man. It made life hum.

Especially this evening. Tonight, Edward told himself, he planned to do things—things to remember. He would prove how much he loved and respected Adrien by doing for him what he had never done for anyone else before: He was going to save Adrien from the most awful, filthy humiliation of death—

For a minute, as the door swung open, the room looked empty. Then Edward released his breath. Adrien was only lying down. The faint, fading light from the window revealed one leg and a shoe. Edward frowned. His prisoner, his “guest” was lying on the floor.

“Adrien?”

No response.

Edward scowled. “Get the lantern,” he said peevishly to Gregory. He backed up a step, into the doorway; cautious. Still, the figure on the floor didn’t move. “What the devil does he think he’s doing?”

Gregory returned, a minute later, with the lantern. He was hustling, trying to keep Edward happy. His eagerness to please made him awkward with the flint. For some seconds, there was just that sound; Gregory scraping, scratching flint on metal. Everything else was quiet. Nothing moved. The light flickered, then blazed. The damp room opened up. Adrien was lying facedown in the dirt of the floor. There was something white, white scraps of paper, all around him.

Edward picked one up. It took several moments to
comprehend. “Oh, my God,” he murmured. “Where did he get all this?”

He caught a glimpse of something at the window. More white. He went to investigate. “Sweet God.” The man had been caching, in the high window bed, all the opium they had been giving him, for who knew how long. Saving it, judging by all the papers, for this one stupendous gesture. The imbecile—

Edward bent down to the still body. What to do? he wondered. He felt for a pulse. The man was still living, breathing. Edward stood erect suddenly, and backed away. If the scoundrel had been faking before this….

“Gregory. Break his finger.”

The oaf grunted dully in response.

“His finger. Reach down and break one.”

“Don’ seem right,” Gregory said in his slow, low voice, “a man lyin’ there like that—”

Edward pushed him out of the way. One long-fingered hand lay relaxed on the floor by Adrien’s head. Edward took his heel and stomped on it. Hard.

The man stirred, but that was all. Not much of a reaction.

Edward did it again. A different finger.

The reaction was less. The inert body didn’t respond to pain.

Edward sighed and sat down heavily on the bed. He had had so many nice plans—He had wanted to tell Adrien about them—before administering the lethal dose, then helping him, as it took hold, to clean himself and prepare….

“Well,” he said at last. He looked up at Gregory. “He’s still breathing, at least. We’ll just do what we were planning, then drag the body out that hole. There’s no point in lugging him up the stairs. You have the key to the kennel door, don’t you?”

Gregory responded in the affirmative.

Then, suddenly realizing Gregory was only holding
the light, Edward stood up, angry. “Where’s the enema can?” he asked.

The giant flinched.

“My God, can’t you do anything right?” Edward made a huff; he would get it himself. When a man died, his body lost all control of his muscles, including those of his bowels—he must move quickly, before his dear Adrien shat himself. Edward began up the stairs. “You must have left it up here,” he told Gregory, “when you went to get the lantern.”

Adrien didn’t wait. He gave the giant’s leg a hard jerk. The man lost his balance—he was heavier than Adrien had imagined. But a second yank brought Gregory down. Adrien shoved him hard—backward. The giant’s head hit the wall. He didn’t move.

Adrien climbed to his feet. He was a little unsteady. He had hidden most of the opium in a pile, in the nether shadows of the far side of the cellar. But a large quantity of it was in him: He had guessed that Claybourne would try something to verify his comatose state. He wasn’t comatose now. Not yet. He was only beginning to feel the rise. Luckily, though, there was enough opium in him—and will power—to smother the pain inflicted on innocent fingers lying on the ground.

Adrien cursed under his breath, putting his fingers to his mouth. Then he gave a shudder. Enema can? God, he needed to get out of here.

Quickly, he went over the giant’s clothes for the keys. There was the possibility of a pistol upstairs, as well as Claybourne’s appliance for his bizarre call to personal hygiene. Adrien preferred to go out the kennel door—is that what he’d called it?—than confront the Old Man upstairs.

Adrien found the keys and took them to the far side of the cellar. He began rolling, tossing the rocks away
from the door, as fast as he could. He could hear Claybourne overhead, walking across the floorboards, clanking with something. Then, at the top of the cellar steps, the upstairs door opened.

“Gregory? Is everything all right? I thought I would also bring down the warm water, while I’m up here—”

The last rock moved away. But which damn key?

The fourth turned the tumbler; the lock fell open. Adrien slid the wood bolt.

“Gregory? What’s all that noise?”

Claybourne was coming down.

Adrien scooted on his stomach through the opening; it was barely large enough to accommodate a man. He slid out onto the other side. It was the outside of the building. He felt a wave of relief. Then he saw.

“Oh, bloody fine.”

A kennel. Of course. He hadn’t been kept in a cellar, but in a dog pound. It was the Rice estate. Gone to rack and ruin. Dog breeders, long back; William Rice dead, the heirs without money, the dogs long escaped.

But the wire fences—on all sides and above—still existed. Within this, Adrien could see the distant housing; bitch housing where the foxhounds bore and nursed their young. It was the selfsame, dilapidated manor house where he had met Claybourne months ago. The day of the greenhouse; the day the note had come, with Charles and Thomas and Sam standing around gawking as Christina came in—

Adrien leaned back against the cold brick wall. He had escaped into a cage; a labyrinth of fenced-in, narrow corridors. The dog runs.

When Edward Claybourne came out, Adrien Hunt was nowhere to be seen.

The sun had set. The moon was out. Just a sliver. Soon, it would be totally dark.

“You’re out here!” Edward called. He laughed and
waved the pistol he’d brought from the house—his flag of triumph. He would kill this man yet. “You’re out here,” he declared, “because there’s nowhere else to go.

Edward began to walk leisurely down the first stretch of dog run. How clever, he thought; this had been used to exercise pedigreed hounds. Now he would exercise his pedigreed earl. Gregory was unconscious on the cellar floor. But this didn’t bother him. He had the pistol. A small, elegant gun. It made him physically Adrien’s equal. And, of course, the other part—that was the fun; he would match wits with clever Adrien and beat him again. Fatally, this time. Edward laughed and turned toward the small housing for the female dogs. There was no other place he could be.

The opium was affecting Adrien more and more. He gave a shake to his head, trying to clear it. Trying to concentrate.

He watched Claybourne. Slowly, the old minister was winding his way through the paths which, just moments before, Adrien had come through on a dead run. What then? Adrien wondered; when the Old Man got to him, when he got to the blockade of dog houses? He could play a game of hiding, around and around; seeing to it that he was always one corner away from a straight shot. But, eventually, Gregory would get up. The two of them could fox that game; one going to one side, one to the other. Adrien had to find a way out.

He looked around him. He couldn’t go over the damn fencing; it was roofed—more ingenious wire to keep the jumpers from getting out. He couldn’t go through the fencing; the wire was too thick, made out of steel. But, from experience, he knew that in every pack there were always one or two foxhounds who were aggravatingly good at digging
under
fences. All traces of the dogs were gone. They had surely escaped.
Somewhere, there ought to be a hole, somewhere along the outer periphery of fencing.

“Adrien! Can you hear me?”

Claybourne was at the far corner of the dog houses.

No time like the present, Adrien thought. Adrien poised himself to run, then didn’t. He had to brace his hand on the building. His head swam for a second. And his eyesight had narrowed, he realized: one of the effects of the opium. The pupils of his eyes, at the peak of the first rush, always contracted. His vision dimmed. If there was an opening, he thought irritably, he wasn’t going to be able to see it.

After a second, he was able to move. He broke away from the building, in a perpendicular direction, using the dog houses for a screen. He ran for the fence.

“Why don’t you come in, like a good little lamb?” Claybourne continued to call. “We’ll make new terms. I don’t really want to kill you, anyway….”

Adrien moved, quick and low, along the fence. He was feeling for an upturned piece, a hole in the ground. But all he could feel was solid fencing; they had buried it in the ground on heavy posts. The fence ran yards and yards, around the whole circumference of the pound. It was going to take forever, he thought, to check every foot of it.

A noise near the house made him turn for a second. Gregory, he thought; dear God—Then, in front of him, worse. A dead end. The corridor he’d been running along ended suddenly in a wire wall. He could see the next run, the next stretch that walled off the outside and freedom, but he couldn’t get to it. He would have to go back through the maze if he wanted to continue to search—

“You can stop right there.” Fifty feet off, Claybourne had come around the dog houses. And Claybourne’s vision was good; he aimed the pistol directly at Adrien.

A shot rang out, just as Adrien dived for the earth.
He went flat. A ball whizzed over his head. He leaped up, thinking he had time while the Old Man reloaded. Then, another unpleasant surprise. A second pistol ball nearly grazed him.

“What the—” He realized. The Old Man was using a double-barreled flintlock—small balls, but the gun held two charges.

Claybourne bent over the gun to quickly reprime. Adrien turned; he would charge him in the interval. But he caught a glimpse of a figure coming—running—from the house. Gregory? It didn’t seem large enough for Gregory. But Adrien couldn’t get to Claybourne and subdue him in time to find out. He turned back; he would play the maze instead. Poor, dim Gregory would be no help there.

Adrien darted through two quick turns in the tracking, then down a long corridor. It took a U-bend before he was back along the outside fence. He continued running, bent low, pulling at the fence now, hoping for a loose piece, a weak spot; anything.

Another voice called out. “Claybourne!”

It was Thomas! Adrien almost tripped in relief. Help. And none too soon.

“Watch out, Thomas!” Adrien called. “He’s just reloaded the pistol!”

But Thomas was on him.

“Get out of here—” he heard Claybourne yell, “don’t meddle—”

There was a struggle, then a sharp thud. Adrien crouched, not sure what had happened, who had won.

“It’s all right, Adrien.” Thomas’s voice called through the night. “I’ve knocked him out.”

“God, am I glad you are here.” Adrien stood up.

Thomas was winding his way toward him.

“There’s another one,” Adrien called to him, “unconscious in the cellar.”

“I saw him,” Thomas said.

Adrien wanted to laugh, to cry for joy. “How the blazes did you find me?”

“I remembered the note. I remembered Claybourne had used this place once before—”

Distantly, horses could be heard. More riders. More company. Adrien welcomed the sound. People at last; God, the wonderful sound of horses and people.

Then Thomas rounded the last bend to face Adrien. He was holding Claybourne’s pistol. Adrien stopped, not ten feet away; once more, the gun was pointed at him.

Adrien was dumbfounded. Thomas didn’t look like himself. His clothes were a mess, his hair a tangle. He was unsteady; either drunk or crazy or both. “What’s wrong with you, Thomas? Point that gun down. It’s going to hurt someone.”

“It damn well is.” He took a deep, addled breath. “God, Adrien. Look at you. Six musket balls. Enough blood lost to bathe the whole ship’s deck in red. And there you stand. Are you bloody human?”

Adrien held out his hand. “Give me the gun, Thomas. It doesn’t matter. I know you told him. And I understand why—”

“Do you? Do you understand what it’s like to live in the shadow of someone who has everything? Who does everything perfectly!”