Silent In The Grave (12 page)

“Not at all bad. Better than the dishwater you used to serve, my pet.”

“I’ve given over the ordering of the wine to Aquinas. He has a better nose for wine than Edward did.”

“Hmm.” He took another sip. “Most agreeable. But this,” he said, waving my own letter at me, “was not. What the devil did you mean writing this to Griggs?”

I spread my hands innocently. “I meant what I said—I was upset. I thought that Doctor Griggs could ease my mind.”

He looked at me shrewdly from under his thick white brows. “Ye gods, girl, if you think I am going to believe that, you are dafter than any child of mine ought to be. Now, if it is a private business, tell me so, and we will not speak of it. I’ve no wish to press a confidence you do not wish to make.”

I thought for a long moment, then shook my head. “No, it is just as well. I could use your advice.”

I told him, as briefly as I could without losing any relevant detail, what Brisbane and I were about. When I finished, he whistled sharply.

“So that is your game. Well, I cannot say I am entirely disappointed. No, I cannot say that at all.”

Far from looking disappointed, he was happier than I had seen him in an age. His colour was high and his eyes were gleaming.

“You are enjoying this!”

He shrugged, looking only very slightly guilty. “Edward has been gone a year. There is little enough chance of you getting yourself into any real danger. Edward’s murderer, if there is such a person, is probably long gone from the scene. This entire exercise is largely academic. It is you I am enjoying, my girl.”

“Me? I am as I ever was. I have only cut my hair and bought some new clothes.”

He shook his head. “No, it is more than that. You’ve finally done something daring enough to deserve the family name. You have begun to live up to the family motto.”

“
Quod habeo habeo?
‘What I have I hold?’”

Father rolled his eyes. “Not that one. The other.”

Audeo.
“I dare.” It had been our informal motto since the seventh Earl March had married an illegitimate daughter of Charles II, thus linking our family with the royal house of Stuart. Family legend claims that he adopted the motto with an eye to putting his wife on the throne someday, until Monmouth’s unsavory end warned him off of his kingly ambitions. It was one of the favorite family stories, although when I was seven I had remarked that the seventh earl had not really dared very much at all. It was the only time I was ever sent to bed without supper. After that I never really warmed to the motto. It had always seemed like a good excuse for irresponsible and reprehensible behavior. I had long thought we would be a far more respectable family if our motto had been “I sit quietly in the corner and mind my own business.”

Father would not be put off. “There is more to it than lopping off your curls and buying some new dresses. I always worried about you as a child, Julia. You took your mother’s death very hard, you know.” He paused, his expression dreamy. “I wonder, do you even remember her?”

I thought hard. “I remember someone who used to hold me, very tightly. Someone who smelled of violet. And I think I remember a yellow gown. The silk rustled under my fingers.”

He shook his head, regretful. “Ah, I thought you would have remembered more. That was her with the violet scent. I am glad you wear it now. Sometimes you move through the room and I could almost imagine she has been walking there.”

He paused and I think his throat may have been as thick as mine. But he went on, and he was smiling. “The yellow silk was her favorite gown that last summer, when she was expecting Valerius. She wore it almost every day, I think. You stopped talking for just a bit after she died, do you remember that?”

“No.” But I did. I remembered the long silences, the feeling that if I spoke, if I moved on, she would never come back. The certainty that I had to stay just as I was if I wanted her to return. I practiced stillness, rarely moving, trying to force myself not to grow without her.

“Of course, you hated Valerius,” Father was saying. “Blamed him, I imagine. Most of you children did. I did so myself for a while, although it wasn’t the boy’s fault. Ten children in sixteen years—too much for her. But she wanted you all. She wanted you so very much.”

His voice trailed off, and I knew he was seeing her. She had been beautiful; I had seen the portraits. I had impressions of her, but no true memories. He was right. I had been six when she died. I should have remembered more.

“You are very like her,” he said suddenly. “More than any of the others. She was gentle and good, much more respectable than the scapegrace Marches she married into,” he said with a chuckle. “She would have understood you with your quiet little places, your desperate need to be normal. Yes, you are very like her.” He leaned forward, his eyes bright green in the lamplight. “But she knew how to take a chance, my pet. After all, she married me. You have her blood, Julia, but you are a March as well. There are seven centuries’ worth of adventure and risk and audacity in your blood. I always knew it would come out eventually.”

I smiled. “I always thought Bellmont must be quite a bit like Mother.”

“No. He is the biggest rebel of the lot. That’s why he runs Tory.”

“And you think I am beginning to live up to the March legacy?”

He gave a satisfied sigh. “I do. This murder business may be just what you need. Although, best to let sleeping dogs lie, I always think.”

I snorted at him. “You have never let a sleeping dog lie in your entire life, Father. And surely you are not condoning letting a murderer walk free?”

He shrugged. “You have not found a murderer yet. You may not even have a murder. Perhaps poor Edward ought to lie where we buried him.”

I did think about it. It was tempting, the idea of sweeping this bit of possible nastiness under the carpet and getting on with my life. But I knew I could not. I would not be able to sleep nights if I thought that Edward had been murdered and I had done nothing to right that wrong. I smiled at the irony that undertaking this investigation might actually be the one thing in my life that satisfied both my sense of duty and my very secret, very small desire for adventure. I looked at Father and shook my head. “I cannot. It is my duty. If there is any chance that Edward was murdered, then I must do all that I can to bring him justice.”

He finished his port. “All right, then,” he said, rising. “Do what you must. And I will not ask you what that Brisbane fellow was doing leaving here at such an hour,” he said, chucking me under the chin.

My face grew hot. “We were discussing the investigation,” I told him quickly. “He was here a quarter of an hour at the most.”

Father smiled at me sadly. “My dear girl, if you don’t know what mischief can be gotten up to in a quarter of an hour, you are no child of mine. Come to supper on Thursday next. Hermia is having an oratory contest and I mean to sleep through it.”

He was gone with a wave over his head, leaving me dumbstruck. Surely my own father was not advocating an illicit affair with Brisbane? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that was exactly what he was doing. It did not bear thinking about. Well, truthfully, I did think about it quite a lot. At least until Valerius came home covered in blood.

“Valerius! Whatever is the matter? I want to speak to you. Father was here this evening—Val? What is it?”

He was hunched over, facing the door, his coat folded over his arm. He was not wearing his waistcoat.

“Are you ill?” I put a hand to his shoulder to turn him, but he threw me off.

“I am well, please.” He edged away, but I followed.

“Julia, leave me.”

“Valerius, stop being tiresome. Turn around and face me this instant.” He went very still, probably weighing the odds that I would go away and leave him in peace. He must have realized how slim they were, for when I reached out for him again he turned. His face was ghastly, pale and lined with fatigue, but it was his shirt that made me gasp. The pure white linen of his shirtfront was dark crimson, crusted with dried blood. I put out my hand.

“Val—you’re hurt! My God, what happened to you?”

He brushed my hand away. “I am well. The blood—it isn’t mine.”

“Whose, then?” I put myself between him and the door and he sighed, knowing he was going to have to tell me the entire story.

“There was a fight outside the theatre. It was quite vicious. A man, set upon by ruffians. They got out his tooth and cut him rather badly about the head.”

I raised a finger toward the wide crimson stain.

“Careful,” he said, edging away. “There are still some spots that are wet.”

I shook my head in astonishment.

“But so much blood, you must have been quite close to him.”

He nodded, his face rather grey at the memory of what he had seen. “I sat with him and tried to stop the bleeding while his brother went for their carriage.”

“How ghastly for you! What were they about, these ruffians? Did they mean to rob him?”

Val passed a hand over his face. “I do not know. Some private quarrel, I think. But I am out of it now. I want only to change my clothes and get into bed.”

I gestured toward his fouled shirt. “Give me the shirt. It must be put to soak or it will be spoilt.”

He hesitated, then nodded and slipped into his room. I heard the raven
quorking
at him irritably. After several minutes, he opened the door just enough to thrust the soiled shirt into my hands.

“Thank you,” he said shortly. He shut the door before I could question him further. I shrugged. I had no doubt the fight would be detailed in the morning papers. And very likely an enterprising reporter had obtained more details than Valerius had.

Holding the crusted shirt at arm’s length, I made my way down the stairs, through the hall belowstairs, past the kitchens and into the laundry. Aquinas was finishing his rounds of the windows and doors, his locking-up ritual for the night. He always carried a lamp with him and extinguished the last of the house lights as he went. The front of the house was in darkness and I could hear him securing the bolts on the garden doors.

I moved quietly, feeling unaccountably timid about explaining Val’s gory shirt. If Aquinas saw it he would insist upon soaking it himself and he would doubtless find some fault with Magda’s methods of keeping the laundry, his own standards being far more exacting than hers. The absence of a housekeeper at Grey House, though unorthodox, was perfectly adequate in most circumstances. With Magda, it sometimes proved a liability. For the most part she kept to herself, and on the rare occasions when discipline was required, Aquinas was man enough for the task. But Magda seldom went along easily with his corrections, preferring to rage or sulk, depending upon which approach seemed likeliest to garner my support. The two of them were entirely capable of waging a war of attrition that would last for days. Rather than facing a staff row, it seemed far simpler to deal with Val’s nasty shirt myself.

Although, I should have brought a lamp or at least a candle, I realized as I barked my shin on the pressing table in the laundry. By all rights I should have summoned Magda to take the shirt herself, but I was far too tired to even contemplate tackling Magda. There was still the question of her appalling behavior toward Brisbane to address, and I was unwilling to speak to her tonight. It was late now, and I was more than ready for my own bed. All I wanted was to dispose of Val’s unspeakable garment and put the whole evening’s bizarre events behind me.

With any luck, the stains would have soaked out by morning and there would be little trace of Val’s adventure at the theatre. Magda always kept a bucket of cold water at hand for the soaking, and I knew she liked it to be stood below the front windows, those that overlooked the area. It gave her good light, even on overcast days, and a chance to see passersby—if only from the ankle down.

I had just reached the bucket and lifted the lid when I heard voices. I started, thinking I was not alone in the laundry. But as they went on, I realized they were coming from the area above me. The pair had taken refuge behind the potted trees to the side of the front door and were speaking in low, harsh voices. I recognized them at once.

“I will give you one last chance to let go of my sleeve before I break your fingers.” To my astonishment, I realized that this was Brisbane. His voice was iron, cold as I had never heard it, and I had little doubt that he meant his threat, though I could not imagine what he was doing there, of all places. He had left Grey House an hour before.

Magda’s laugh echoed mirthlessly.

“Oh, I think not. You will not hurt me. There are still some of us who remember Mariah Young.”

These last words were a hiss, and they must have struck Brisbane like a lash, for I heard a scrape, like a quick footstep, and her sharp intake of breath. There was a little moan of pain.

“Do not interfere with me,” he told her. “I will ruin you if you dare.”

“Others have tried,” she spat back. “But you remember that I know who Mariah Young was—
and I know how she died.
”

He must have released her then, for there was a sharp clang against the railing and the sound of booted footsteps moving quickly away in the dark. And following him into the night was Magda’s laugh, low and throaty, like the rasping call of a raven.