Lady Killer (36 page)

Miles tried a different approach. “What made you decide to come out tonight?”

“Why, I was following him.”

“Who?” Miles and Clio said in unison.

“The whistling man. I thought I had him, too.”

“Whistling man?” Miles repeated, pronouncing the words carefully.

“Yes. Man who stands outside my window whistling all night. Well, he wasn’t there last night, but every other night. And I could not figure it out, because Doctor LaForge said he never heard him. But you will agree with me, Viscount, that is simply not possible, what with his window and my window being almost the same window, and on the same side of the house, won’t you?”

Miles took a moment to recollect the placement of the rooms and had to agree that anything Sir Edwin heard, Doctor LaForge would also have to hear. “Yes.”

“So, I said to myself, this is very curious. And then it comes to me. Doctor LaForge doesn’t hear the whistling man because he
is
the whistling man. So I came out here tonight to follow him and see if he whistles at anyone else’s windows. And when I catch him, I’ll say ‘hey!’ and make him stop.”

“You were following Doctor LaForge,” Clio asked. It was the longest and most coherent speech she had ever heard from her uncle, but it made almost no sense.

“Exactly. Following Doctor LaForge.”

“And was it a success? Did you catch him whistling.”

Sir Edwin shook his head. “Not once. Singing, yes, singing aplenty. And in that high voice. Don’t know what he was thinking of. But whistling? No. Not once.”

“So you followed Doctor LaForge from Dearbourn Hall,” Miles began.

“And then we went to that place, that Cat place. And he goes and talks to about half the women, chatting them up, but doesn’t do anything. Then, wouldn’t you know, just as I settled into a bit of ale—not bad, neither. You’d think at a place like that they’d water it down, but not a bit, I tell you. Not that I get to drink that much ale, what with Mother watching me all the time and—where was I?”

“Ale,” Miles reminded him. “You were drinking at the Curious Cat.”

“Right. I’d taken only one sip before that LaForge fellow goes and leaves.” Sir Edwin reached up and scratched his chin. “I wonder if I paid for that tankard. My, it was delicious. Anyhow, off he goes and off I go after him, and we go here and there and in a big bold circle and then I follow him into that house, but it’s so dark inside I get myself mixed up and by the time I’ve put myself right, he’s gone and then, out of nowhere, comes you two. I was so startled, I began to laugh like you heard.”

“Where did you get the gardenia?” Clio, who had moved to stand next to and just behind Miles, asked.

Sir Edwin looked down at the flower and a childlike smile covered his lips. “I found it on the ground. In that room Mariana decorated with all the feathers. Someone just dropped it, I reckon.” He held it out toward Miles and Clio. “Isn’t it beautiful? Smells like angels, I swear it does.”

There was an awkward pause, and then Miles said, “Would I be wrong in guessing that this was not your first attempt to rid yourself of the whistling man?”

“No, sir, you would not. I tried more direct measures—”

“Such as?” Miles interjected.

“Such as pelting him with rocks. Yes I did, for three nights. But then I lost the key to my desk and couldn’t get at ’em. Not that it made much difference—when I did use the pebbles, they didn’t work at all. He just kept right on whistling.”

“
The pebbles
,” Clio murmured and Miles nodded. “That is what they were for. Not souvenirs.” She paused. “Then uncle Edwin is not the vampire.”

“No,” Miles agreed, “it certainly looks like he is not.”

“But you said you were sure it was him,” Clio reminded Miles.

“What I meant was that I was sure whomever led us to the Curious Cat was the vampire.”

“Which means, if Uncle Edwin was following Doctor LaForge—”

“Exactly.”

“Then we should find him. He must still be here. Somewhere.”

Miles gestured widely at the thickening mist. “Two people do not stand a chance against him, especially since I am fairly sure he knows we’ll be looking for him.”

“Why? How could he know we are here?”

“Above and beyond the fact that he could be listening in the shadows right now, I think he knew we were behind him the entire time.” Clio opened her mouth to ask him another question but Miles went on without seeming to notice. “I think our best bet would be to find a member of the Watch and have him call out constables to patrol this area. While they are doing that, I will go to the Curious Cat and find out who LaForge was speaking to and if he left with anyone.”

“I’ll go with you,” Sir Edwin, whose head had been rotating from one to the other as they spoke, volunteered happily. “Tell you the truth, I’ve got a fancy for another tankard of that ale afore I go home.” He hesitated for a moment, as if on the brink of speaking, then blurted, “You won’t tell Mother will you?”

They accompanied Sir Edwin back to the Curious Cat, alerting a watchman to the presence of a prowler in the neighborhood along the way. Giving Clio stiff instructions to wait for him outside, Miles entered the tavern accompanied by Sir Edwin. As soon as their backs had disappeared through the door, Clio followed him through. She was not in the mood to take orders from anyone.

She stepped across the threshold and found herself in a long, skinny, but otherwise perfectly ordinary tavern. There was nothing about it to explain its strange fascination for the vampire, or its dangerous effect on Miles. She was just about to stop one of the hostesses and ask if perhaps there wasn’t another area devoted to something more exciting than drinking, when she felt Miles’s eyes on her.

She was stunned by his reaction. She had just raised her hand to wave at him when he crossed the tavern in three great strides, took her wrist in his hand, and dragged her out.

In the street she could see that he was breathing quickly, and that his lips were pressed into a single tight line, but even when she tried she could not get him to stop walking.

“Where are we going?” Clio asked after they had careened down the street for a minute.

“Dearbourn Hall.” His mouth barely moved as he formed the words, and he increased his pace, dragging Clio behind him faster.

“Don’t you think we should stay here and assist in the search for Doctor LaForge,” Clio ventured.

“No,” came the reply.

“I do,” Clio told him, almost running to catch up. “And you still have not told me why you are so certain that whomever led us to the Curious Cat is the vampire.”

“I will tell you when we get to Dearbourn Hall,” Miles muttered. They stalked the rest of the way home in silence, Clio acutely aware that something was wrong. Despite their speed, the house was almost entirely dark by the time they reached it. They entered through the stable yard, and instead of taking the servant’s stairs up to his wing, Miles stopped in the large, stone kitchen, in front of the smoldering cooking fire. All the servants had gone to bed and they had the cavernous chamber to themselves.

“Sit down and stay there. I will be right back,” he said to Clio, pointing her toward a stool at the wide wooden table alongside the fire, and there was something in his tone that made her comply. He disappeared for about five minutes, and when he returned he stood studying the remains of the fire, so that as he spoke she saw only his back. “You asked how I knew it was the vampire who took us to the Curious Cat tonight,” he began without prompting. “I knew, because that is where he found Beatrice three years ago.”

“Wh—?” Clio began to ask, but Miles cut her off.

“After I found Bea dead, I retraced her steps. She had gone to the Curious Cat. I learned that after she left there a man asked questions about her, and seemed ready to follow her. That man was the vampire.”

Miles’s tone was horribly devoid of emotion, and Clio tried to keep hers equally colorless. “I see. That is why you think he knew we were following him, because he led us there. Do you think he intended it as another sign, another challenge, like the one he left in the
Compendium?
”

Miles did not reply, merely shrugged and continued to study the fire. A clock nearby clicked monotonously, once, twice, three times, until the silence stretched to five minutes. Unable to stand the palpable distance between them, Clio rose and reached out to touch Miles’s arm.

He reacted as if he had been stung. He brushed her fingers away, and rounded on her. “Don’t do that,” he said in a low, almost menacing voice.

“Do not push me away, Miles,” Clio urged. “I can tell that you are still upset about what happened to Beatrice, but maybe I can help you.”

“No one can help. No one can change what happened. Only I could have. But I didn’t.”

Clio struggled with a pang of pure jealousy. What would it be like to have been loved as much as Miles loved Beatrice, to be missed as much as he obviously missed her, she asked herself. “Beatrice’s death was not your fault, Miles.”

“Wasn’t it?” Miles demanded fiercely, facing towards her.

“How could it have been? She went to the Curious Cat on her own. How were you to know the vampire would see her there and follow her?”

“If it wasn’t for me, she would never have gone to the Curious Cat.”

“You sent her there?” Clio asked, confused. “You sent your mistress to a tavern?”

Miles pined her with his eyes. “Beatrice was not my mistress, Clio. She was my sister. My illegitimate sister. I learned about her only after my parents’ deaths, when I saw provisions for her support in my father’s will.”

“But everyone said she was your mistress. Everyone thought—”

Miles waved her words away with an impatient hand. “People believe what they see. Everybody just assumed she was my mistress because we spent all our time together, and neither of us thought it was important to dispel that. It meant people left us alone. And we had so much catching up to do. There was so much—” Miles broke off, and his eyes got a faraway look in them. “My father had not treated Beatrice and her mother well. He had not told her mother that he was married when he seduced her. When she became pregnant, he promised to leave my mother, promised to get a divorce, promised to marry, promised a host of things he never did. Never had any intention of doing, apparently. He left Bea a modest income but nothing else—no family, no name. Her mother’s family, an old Devonshire clan, threw them out when Bea was born because of the shame they brought. Bea always felt like her mother blamed her for wrecking her life.”

When her confusion at the information that Beatrice was not Miles’s mistress cleared, Clio saw that her being his sister made everything far worse. “I am so sorry, Miles. You must have loved her very much.”

Miles’s eyes refocused on Clio and he nodded. “You should have seen her, Clio. You would have liked her. She was lovely. And sweet. And she had the nicest voice. But she also had a terrible temper. Her governess, who raised her after her mother died, warned me about Bea’s temper. Said she thought deep down there was anger inside of Beatrice, anger at her father and her mother, anger at everyone for abandoning her, and that sometimes a little of it leaked out. But I saw no sign of it, at least not for the first six months we were together. Then, one night, I came home and found our apartments destroyed. She had pulled down the window hangings and cut open the couches and shredded her dresses. And she sat in the middle of this mess she had made, sobbing. I tried to hold her, comfort her, but she flinched away. When I asked her what was wrong, she said she was miserable. She said that she no longer knew who she was. She couldn’t be a simple country girl anymore, not with all I had shown her and given her, but she also felt she could never really fit into aristocratic society because everyone would know about her, about her being illegitimate. She said that by giving her all these things, showing her another way to live, I had destroyed any chance she had at happiness. She said I ruined her, ruined her life, the same way that my father had ruined her mother. She said I was just like our father.”

Miles stopped and looked down at his hands. His fingers were clenched into tight fists, and he willed himself to open them. “She said that I had promised to make her happy but that I had lied, that she was unhappy, desperately unhappy. Just like my father had made her mother. She said she wished I had never found her, that I would just leave, just leave her alone. So I did. I left. Even though I knew I should stay.”

“Miles, there was—” Clio broke in, but he silenced her.

“She followed me, Clio. When her rage cooled she went to all the taverns she could find, went into each of them, looking for me. Only, she did not find me. But the vampire found her. And then, the next day, so did I—dead. Do you know what else I found?”

Clio shook her head mutely.

“I found notes. In every one of the taverns she visited. Notes she left. Apologizing to me for what she had said and begging me to come back.” Miles stood very still, his face a shadowy mask. “If I had not failed, Clio, if I had not failed to make her happy, to protect her, she would still be alive.”

“That is not true, Miles.”

“You would not understand,” Miles told her coldly.