Moonlight Lover (33 page)

"I don't have to know him. You don't have to sample every piece of mutton to know if your portion is excellent or not." A look that completely mystified Sin-Jin entered her eyes. He could only say that she had an air about her of a woman preparing to defend what was hers. "And it's wanting to be present I do in case the witch recognizes her mistake."

He laughed and shook his head as the carriage arrived at the entrance. "Not Vanessa." Too late he had learned. "Title is all she cares about."

Rachel glanced at Sin-Jin. Men were so simple when it came to the ways of women. Vanessa had made her choice ten years ago. Ten years brought change. And wisdom.

"A woman's been known to change her mind," Rachel reminded him. After all, she had changed hers about him and it had been ten months, not ten years.

The driver shifted, waiting for instruction. Sin-Jin climbed down, then turned toward Rachel. He grasped her waist and lifted her down.

"Thank you, that'll be all," he said to the thin, gangly young man in dark livery.

With scarcely a nod, the driver turned the carriage around and retraced his path to the near-by town of Cornish.

"Master Sin-Jin, is it really you?"

Sin-Jin turned at the sound of the old, reedy voice that sounded like the wind passing through the pipes of a church organ. A gnarled old man stood in the doorway, his tall, thin body swaying to and fro as if vibrating with the last bit of life left within him. The man was eighty if he was a day.

"Burns!" Sin-Jin laughed as he clasped both of the man's cold hands in his. Malcolm Burns had seemed ancient to him twenty-five years ago. Now he only looked worn and old. "Burns," he repeated as if savoring the very name, "how are you?"

The wrinkle encrusted leathery face creased in a wreath of smiles and the butler's watery eyes almost disappeared entirely.

"Well, oh well, sir." He beamed like a man meeting his maker. "Now that I've seen you." Though Rachel stood beside him, Burns only had eyes for the young master he had served so faithfully. The only master he had ever favored. He inclined his head, the wispy white hairs dancing in the wind like tiny puffs of clouds. "You've heard, then?"

Sin-Jin wasn't certain what Burns was referring to.

"Heard what? I've only just arrived in England."

Burns drew closer, as if he was imparting a secret rather than something that was public knowledge. "Master Alfred, sir, he's very ill. The doctor isn't sure if he will live or not."

So it was as serious as Vanessa had said. He had thought perhaps it had been a ploy. There was little Vanessa wasn't capable of. "Master Alfred's wife wrote to me of it," Sin-Jin told him.

Burns nodded knowingly. "I rather thought she'd send for you. She always did favor you, Master Sin-Jin. As did we all."

Sin-Jin waved away the words. He wasn't here to undermine Alfred, but to mend what had once been broken. "Tell me everything."

"There isn't much to tell. Much that I can tell." He looked around to see if they were alone. They were, but still every word was measured. The walls did have ears. "Master Alfred caught a chill last November."

"But it's nearly July," Sin-Jin said incredulously as they entered the manor.

It was dim and dank in the hall. Light seemed to linger outside behind them, as if it wasn't welcomed within the ancient dwelling. Rachel felt a chill go through her and settle into her bones.

"Aye." The old head bobbed up and down. "And he's been getting worse and worse."

It seemed hardly possible
, Rachel thought.
Ill all this time
? She laid a hand on the bony shoulder, stopping him before he could lead them any further into the manor. "What's being done for him?"

Burns turned to look at her and she could almost hear his very bones creaking as he did so. His old eyes were full of questions that would never pass his lips, but he wondered if Master Sin-Jin had gotten married. She looked to be a good deal livelier than the mistress. And kinder, too if he didn't miss his guess.

"They're bleeding him, Miss."

Rachel shivered involuntarily as she stared at the old steward. "Leeches?"

Burns nodded once more. Neither approval or disapproval was evident. "Aye."

Rachel fisted her hands on her hips and all but snorted her annoyance.

"Well, for heavens sakes, no wonder the man is lying in his bed, unable to get well," she cried in disgust, her voice echoing down the long hall as it was passed from stone to stone. "He's got no blood left in his tired body to help him."

Medicine was always something that confounded Sin-Jin. He left that to physicians. Sin-Jin placed a gentling hand on her arm. "Rachel, it is an acceptable method—"

She rounded on him, disappointed that he could resign
himself to something so heinous so placidly. "Acceptable
to who, I'd like to know. Barbarians?" She looked from one man to the other, searching for enlightenment in their eyes. She found only tolerance. "You don't give blood away to bugs," Rachel insisted heatedly. "How's a man going to have enough to live?"

"If the bad blood isn't taken from him, then he'll surely die."

Burns stiffened noticeably and turned along with Sin-Jin and Rachel at the sound of a low, commanding voice that came down to them from the top of the stairs.

This had to be Vanessa. Unconsciously Rachel braced her shoulders.

For a moment, the woman stood as still as a statue, regarding them the way a goddess on Olympus would look down at the mortals she had created for her amusement. Then, slowly, she descended.

Countess Vanessa Lawrence was a beautiful woman of regal bearing. A bloodless woman, Rachel thought, who looked like a painting come to life. Hair as dark as midnight was piled high upon her head like a crown. Vanessa had always been vain about her hair. Her personal maid often dreamt of cutting it off at the roots, for the young girl had been beaten on several occasions because Vanessa had disapproved of the way she had fashioned it.

As she drew closer, Sin-Jin saw that Vanessa's figure was fuller only at the breast. Her waist was as small and delicate as ever. Her skin was still as perfect as the first fallen snow and her eyes gleamed like two sapphires in a perfect setting.

"Sin-Jin." Vanessa uttered his name as if it was an answer to a prayer. She extended long, elegantly bejeweled hands as she crossed to him. "Oh Sin-Jin, you've returned as I asked."

Now was the time to correct her before any misunderstanding escalated. "I've come on a visit to see my brother."

Vanessa was even more beautiful than she had been when he left. More seductive, more worldly. And yet, there was nothing, he realized. He felt nothing for her. Nothing at all. She was like a piece of cold, marble sculpture for him, perfect to look at, but with no heart, no soul. How could he have once thought himself in love with her?

Sin-Jin withdrew his hands from hers and laced his fingers with Rachel's.

Vanessa's smile froze a little, but remained in place. "And this is your wife?" There was a slight edge in her voice. The dark blue gaze was cold in its appraisal. Her mouth curved and she laughed, giving Sin-Jin her opinion of the match.

It was instant hate on first sight, even if the woman hadn't once been the recipient of Sin-Jin's affections. Rachel raised her chin, a blatant challenge issued in her flashing green eyes.

"No. I'm Rachel O'Roarke." She stood where she was, refusing even the merest of curtseys. No queen looking upon a peasant could have looked more disdainful.

The Irish lilt in her voice was thick enough to slice, Sin-Jin thought, not bothering to hide his amusement. Burns, he noted, had retreated to the shadows, as silent a witness as he had always been.

"It's come I have," Rachel continued proudly, "with Benjamin Franklin to witness the peace treaty being drawn up and signed in France."

Her hand flew to her breast as Vanessa turned, shocked, toward Sin-Jin. "You've brought a traitor with you? How could you?"

No, there was nothing in this woman that he could have ever loved. It was all a huge mistake. "If she is one, then so am I."

Vanessa frowned. What was this gibberish? "Explain yourself."

He exchanged a look with Rachel. "I'm an American now, Vanessa."

He couldn't have surprised her more than if he had proclaimed himself to be one of those red savages that the colonies were full of.

"You've lost your mind." Vanessa's disgust was palatable.

People like Vanessa, bound up in the empty trappings that they surrounded themselves with, could never understand. "No, on the contrary, I've found it. And my life." Sin-Jin smiled at Rachel as if to underscore his point. "Across the sea."

Vanessa shook her head, clearly appalled and mystified by what she took to be Sin-Jin's insanity. But he would come around, she thought with determination, catching a glimpse of her own reflection in a suit of armor. She would see to it.

She smiled again as she looked at him. "Would you like to see Alfred?"

"That's the only reason I've come, Vanessa." He stated it deliberately once again, lest she twist things to her own liking.

It was a moment before Vanessa could suppress the glare that entered her eyes when she saw Sin-Jin reach for the hand of the wretched chit next to him.

With a haughty swish of her skirt, Vanessa turned.
 

Sin-Jin didn't want her with him when he met with his brother. It would be painful enough as it was. He caught the taller woman's arm to stop her. "I know my way around, Vanessa. Where is he?"

Her brow rose in annoyance, then settled again. "In the east wing. Your father's bedroom."

His father had died in that room. Vanessa was preparing Alfred to die, Sin-Jin thought.

Rachel hesitated for a moment. Perhaps he was better off alone at a time like this. "Will you be wanting me to come with you?"

"To the ends of the world and back," Sin-Jin assured her. "In this case," he lowered his voice as he glanced at Vanessa's retreating back, "to the very gates of hell."

Rachel laughed and the small stab of jealousy she had experienced upon first seeing Vanessa vanished like leaves blowing away in the autumn wind.

Chapter Thirty-four

The room was airless and enshrouded in near-darkness, its heavy purple portieres drawn against the sun. It was a room to die in, Sin-Jin thought. A room that had been drained of hope.

Sin-Jin hesitated in the doorway, uncertain whether to venture further, not wanting to confront the inevitable that lay waiting for him. But there was no time for wavering. Time, he knew, was in very precious supply.

Bracing himself for the worst, Sin-Jin approached the wide canopied bed slowly. His eyes grew accustomed to the oppressive darkness.

The form that lay in the bed looked shrunken and worn, as if the man who still inhabited the pitiful body had lived three score and more. The width and breadth of the bed seemed to diminish the man even further. He appeared to be fading before Sin-Jin's very eyes.

It was difficult to remember that Alfred was only four years his senior.

Rachel reached for Sin-Jin's hand and laced her fingers
through his. The offer of support was unspoken but understood.

"Alfred?" Sin-Jin whispered the name as if to deny what he saw in front of him.

When he had left, Alfred had been a large, robust man.
His physical features had echoed their father's, while Sin-Jin had inherited his mother's more refined, delicate looks. Loud, boisterous, Alfred had always seemed larger than life. The man who lay in the bed
before Sin-Jin bore no resemblance to the brother that he
had known.

Sin-Jin felt heartsick and ashamed of the bad blood that had passed between them.

"Alfred?" This time he said the name louder.

The sparse lashes fluttered like a butterfly reaching
the end of its season and then closed again as if they were
far too heavy to lift.

Sin-Jin took Alfred's hand in his. It felt damp and limp,
as if Alfred had already more than half completed his journey across the River Styx. "Alfred, it's me, Sin-Jin. Open your eyes."

Rachel moved to the other side of the bed. She knew what Sin-Jin was feeling, knew the helplessness of watching someone approaching death. It made her heart ache just to see him go through this agony.

This time the eyes opened, watery and unseeing at first. "Sin-Jin?" It was barely a whisper.

Sin-Jin sat down beside the shriveled form that had once been such a hale and hearty man and lowered his head so that he might be able to hear.

"Alfred, what's happened to you?" As children, Alfred had always been the healthy one, never ill more than a day at a time. And those occasions were few and far between. To see him like this was devastating.

Alfred hardly had enough strength to raise his hand to urge Sin-Jin closer still. It fell, like a virgin swooning, to his side. He sighed with the effort. After a moment, his
lips moved, but no words came. Alfred drew a long breath
and tried again.

"Sick. 'Nessa has them bleed me. Every day. Maybe more."

Sin-Jin exchanged looks with Rachel. She pressed her lips together and slowly shook her head. "He can't be fighting it if he has no strength," she insisted. "He needs nourishment, not leeches."

After seeing his brother like this, Sin-Jin was in complete agreement. He nodded vigorously and began to rise. "I'll go tell the cook to make him some broth."

But Rachel laid her hand on Sin-Jin's shoulder. "Sit. I'll do the going. You'll be doing better to stay here with your brother and talk to him. I'd wager that the man hasn't heard a kind voice in a long while. It'll be doing
him as much good as the food to be hearing that someone
cares about him."

She smiled and pulled back the curtains. The room needed light and so did Alfred. It streamed in, bringing a measure of hope with it. "There's such a thing as nurturing the soul, you know."

Sin-Jin knew she was right. He wavered. "You don't know where the kitchen is," he pointed out.

She waved a hand at him carelessly, as if his protest was far too feeble to even acknowledge. "I'll just follow my nose. I've been in enough kitchens in my time to know what one looks like, Master Lawrence."