Come Near Me (29 page)

Rimmon’s dark eyes narrowed into slits.
“Lincolnshire, my lady. With his ailing sister.”

Sherry sat down, spread her skirts around
her. She was thinking clearly now, more clearly than she had in
months. A trickle of sweat running down the side of Rimmon’s cheek
lent her even more bravery. “Ah, yes, I remember now. His sister.
She took ill quite suddenly, didn’t she?” She lifted her head,
stared straight at the butler. “How much did that lie cost Richard
Brimley, Rimmon? What price did Hoggs put on his loyalty to my
husband?”

“My lady isn’t making sense,” Rimmon said,
turning to look toward the hallway, as if measuring the space
between his current position and safety. “I’ll call Mrs.
Clement.”

“No, Rimmon, don’t bother. I’m sure my
husband will be asking you the same questions shortly. Perhaps
you’ll be more able to remember when
he
asks you,” Sherry
said, holding her hands together in her lap, so that they wouldn’t
betray her with their trembling. “You may go for now, and send Mr.
Burnell to me.”

Rimmon looked ready to say something else,
then merely bowed and withdrew. A few moments later, Edmund Burnell
entered the drawing room.

“Well now, dearest lady, what have you been
up to?” he asked, tossing his hat and gloves onto a chair. “That
butler of yours came running down the stairs as if the hounds of
Hell were after him, his face as white as chalk, and told me to
find my own way up the stairs. Bolted straight past me, out the
door. Left me to carry my hat and gloves up with me as well. Did
you discover him sliding silver spoons into his pockets?”

“Something like that, Edmund,” she said,
indicating that he should use the bellpull to summon someone from
belowstairs who might then bring them refreshments. “Thank you, you
did that well,” she said, as he sat down in a chair near her. “I
should ask to engage you to replace Rimmon, if you’d be so kind as
to furnish me with several letters of reference?”

“What? You’d need more than my handsome face?
My winning ways? I’m crushed, Sherry,” Edmund said, his expression
so sad she couldn’t suppress a small giggle.

“Ah, Edmund, thank you. I had begun to think
I might never laugh again. Are you here to see Adam? He and Chollie
went off somewhere about a half hour ago, I’m afraid.”

Edmund looked at her curiously. “You’ve
argued, haven’t you? You and Adam?”

Sherry looked at her hands, noticing that she
was turning her emerald-and-diamond wedding ring round and round
her finger. “No,” she said, looking up at Edmund, “Adam and I
haven’t argued. Not that you should have asked such a
question.”

“How can I not?” he asked, rising from his
chair and coming to sit beside her on the striped satin couch,
taking her hands in his. “A man would have to be blind not to know
that the two of you are unhappy, even as I’d have to be blind not
to know that you’re very much in love with each other. Oh, I know
I’m speaking of things you believe to be none of my concern, but I
can’t help myself. I like Adam, very much. I like you, my most
sweet Miss Giddy-up. Even in the short time we all know each other,
I feel that we could be great friends. And so, as a friend, is
there anything I can do to help? Anything, Sherry. Anything at all.
You’ve only to ask.”

Sherry wet her suddenly dry lips with the tip
of her tongue. She was tempted, so very tempted. Tempted to rest
her aching head on Edmund’s strong shoulder, pour out her heart to
him, tell him all about Emma, and the dead roses, and the clerk who
looked so much like Dickie, about how much she loved Adam even as
she feared he would turn from her again—all of it.

But Richard Brimley had done his work well.
Just as Adam had said, it was now difficult for Sherry to trust her
fellowman. Dickie had betrayed them. Hoggs had betrayed them. Where
once she looked at the world and saw friends, allies, she now saw
distrust, lies, the possibility of being hurt. Once again, being
hurt.

And then she remembered something. Remembered
someone. A person who seemed, somehow, connected both to her and to
Edmund Burnell.

“Tell me about the duchess of Westbrook,
Edmund,” she heard herself say as she politely withdrew her hands
from his warm clasp, and watched a measure of her own shock at her
words register on his face.

“Melinda?” Edmund rallied quickly, smiling
and wagging a finger in her face. “Naughty puss, I thought we were
going to pretend that moment at my aunt’s house never took
place.”

Sherry felt hot color run into her cheeks.
For all that she was trying to be a sleuth, she certainly lacked a
good deal of sophistication. Which didn’t mean she hadn’t learned
how to lie without giving herself away. She’d learned a lot in the
past four and twenty hours, none of it making her happy, all of it
putting her on her guard, lending her the strength to be devious,
even duplicitous, if she could save Adam from more hurt.

“No, I’m not talking about that, Edmund,” she
said with a wave of her hand. “I understand
that
. I was just
wondering how you met, if you met her through mutual acquaintances,
for instance. She’s, um, Her Grace is quite good friends with
Richard Brimley. Do you know the man?”

“Brimley?” Edmund looked quite blank as he
seemed to search his brain for Richard’s name. “No,” he said at
last. “I don’t think I’ve ever been introduced to him. Melinda and
I met through my aunt. Lady J knows my needs, you understand, and
my tastes. There, now we’ve both been horribly frank and possibly
naughty. And here’s the tea tray, just in time to save us both from
more embarrassing truths.”

“I’m sorry, Edmund,” Sherry said once the
footman had put down the tray and disappeared. “I can’t imagine
what has gotten into me, really I can’t.”

“You’re unhappy, Sherry,” he told her as if
he had the answer to every problem in the world. “And, since you
won’t let me help you, I can only look forward to the masquerade
tonight, at which time I should at least be able to entertain you.
Don’t you think I shall make a dashing Sir Lancelot to your
Guinevere?”

“Yes, I can imagine we’ll all be quite
dashing.”

Sherry smiled weakly and took a sip of tea,
the hot liquid burning her tongue. She closed her eyes and wondered
where Adam was at that precise moment.

~ ~ ~

Lady Gytha Jasper wasn’t looking well, not
that she had ever been a beauty, even in her youth. But her smile
was strained as Adam and Chollie entered the room after being
announced, especially as her butler, speaking in stern rather than
affectionate tones, reminded her that she wasn’t to tire herself
with a visit longer than fifteen minutes.

“Don’t push at me, Midgard, I’m not dead
yet,” she barked at the man, then waved him out of the room before
holding a finger to her lips as she looked at Adam. “Don’t talk,
don’t say anything,” she warned in a whisper.

Chollie turned to Adam, spoke quietly.
“Wanting a square, ain’t she?”

“Quiet, Chollie,” Adam warned as Lady Jasper
rose from her seat and tiptoed to the double doors to the hallway,
then threw them open wide. Midgard, who was standing just outside,
his body bent as he appeared to have been listening at the keyhole,
pulled himself up stiffly and walked away. Lady Jasper cackled,
then slammed both doors shut and locked them, pocketing the key in
her bodice. “Now that’s interesting.”

“How so? He’s her keeper, that’s all. She
needs one. I tell you, boyo, she’s dotty in the head, and it isn’t
today or yesterday that it happened to her. Wasting our time,
that’s what we’re doing.”

“About time you got here, Daventry,” Lady
Jasper said once she’d come back to the couch, sat down once more.
“Drinks for us all first, then we’ll talk.”

“First sane thing the woman’s said.” Chollie
moved sprightly, heading for the drinks table. “I wouldn’t be sorry
to get a glass of wine. Adam?”

Adam nodded, then split his coattails and sat
down on the couch opposite Lady Jasper, looking at her assessingly.
She had a story to tell, that much was obvious. But was she insane
or simply frightened? “You say you’ve been expecting me, Lady
Jasper? Why?”

“Why, the fool asks,” she said, all but
grabbing the wineglass out of Chollie’s hand, then downing its
contents in one long gulp. “Fill it again, boy,” she demanded,
holding the glass out to Chollie. “This is going to be dry
work.”

“Adam?”

“Just do it, Chollie, all right,” Adam said,
putting his own drink, untouched, on the table between Lady Jasper
and himself. She immediately helped herself to it. “Lady J? Where
do you want to start?”

She cackled again, so that Adam wouldn’t have
been surprised if she soon laid an egg. “That’s not it, Daventry.
It’s where I want to start
over.
Did you ever want to do
that? Go back, start over? I’d bet a monkey you do.”

Adam’s jaw tightened. “Yes, Lady Jasper. I
know the feeling. Tell me about Edmund, please. Tell me about your
nephew.”

“Nephew! Bah! That’s a rare joke, isn’t it?
He’s no nephew of mine. He’s the
Devil.
Haven’t you figured
that one out for yourself yet? I thought even an idiot could have
figured that out by now.”

Chollie, who had been sitting pretty much at
his ease on the couch beside Adam, leapt to his feet, his face as
red as fire. “Bad manners to you, woman!” he shouted. “Is it after
making fools of us you are? Come on, Adam, we’ve better things to
do than sit and listen to such moonshine. Tempts fate, it does,
talking wild like this.”

“Oh, sit down, you bloody Irisher,” Lady
Jasper commanded wearily. “Pull out your beads and count them, or
shove them in your mouth—but be quiet. This is serious business,
and I haven’t much time before the bastard comes back and Midgard
greets him at the door to say I’ve been skulking around behind his
back. That’s the only trump card we hold, you know. Edmund doesn’t
know what’s happening until sometime
after
it happens, and
he gets to see it from a distance. Regular storehouse of knowledge
about things that have been and knowing how to use them for his own
ends, but with no real control over what’s happening, what will
happen. Irks the fellow no end, especially now that I’ve figured it
out. Took me a lot of years, but I figured it out.”

Adam, who agreed that Lady Jasper was as
bat-filled as a belfry, nodded as if he understood. “That would
explain why Edmund—why the
Devil,”
he corrected as Lady J
looked ready to interrupt, “found a way to insert two spies into my
house. Emma Oxton, and Rimmon, our butler. Interesting.”

Lady Jasper’s hawklike face rearranged itself
into a sneer. “Don’t laugh at me, boy, or I’ll leave you to swing
on your own. Except I can’t, can I, and still save myself? I need
you, curse my luck. Those weren’t spies, you dull sot, they’re the
Devil’s own helpers.”

“Wine isn’t going to do it for me, boyo,”
Chollie said, rising, heading for the drinks table. “Would you be
wanting some brandy before I gulp down the whole decanter?”

“Stop right where you are, Irisher,” Lady
Jasper commanded, then handed him a small black book she had pulled
from her pocket “Open this to the place I’ve marked, and read the
page for me. You do read, don’t you, Irisher?”

Chollie took the book, turned it over in his
hands, looked to Adam. “I don’t like to say this, but the geese are
waltzing again, boyo.”

He then opened the book to the place Lady
Jasper had marked, and began to read aloud. “‘Mankind is beset by
many minor devils, lesser demons. Fear them, do not call them
forth, for only the Devil himself can control them once they are
loosed. They are his servants, not ours, brethren, and it is best
you should know this. Believing that you can call them forth for
your own purposes is the height of folly, and a sure road to
disaster. They are the Devil’s own. Furthermore, only a master of
magic would ever dare to call on the Devil himself, for—’”

Chollie slapped the book shut. “Well, that
was lovely, wasn’t it?” he said, pressing a hand against his vest
pocket. “Now can I be getting that brandy, do you think?”

“Open it again, you dolt, and read the
names.”

“Names?” Chollie choked out the word. “I’d
rather not, actually. Never can know just who’s listening, don’t
you know.”

“Give me the book, Chollie,” Adam said
wearily, and his friend quickly complied. Adam opened it to the
marked page, his eyebrows lifting as he saw that the book had been
handwritten, the pages yellow with age and looking to have been
much handled. He read the passage Chollie had just recited, then
ran his fingers down the column of names listed as being “infernal
names.” He began to read some of them aloud:

“‘Abaddon... Astaroth... Balaam... Beherit...
Dagon... Diabolus... Emma O... Gorgo...’” He stopped, looked at
Lady Jasper.

“Yes, yes. Emma O. Go on,” she prompted,
casting a quick glance toward the locked doors.

Adam ran his finger along the page, quickly
turned it over to the next one. Where he found Midgard, found
Rimmon. He tossed the book onto the table. “That proves nothing,
Lady Jasper,” he said, with all the conviction he could muster.
“London gentlemen—idiots all—have been playing at devil worship for
decades. There was the Hell-fire Club, for one, and about a dozen
more. Dabblers in the black arts, fools with nothing better to do
with themselves than to scare themselves to death—and find excuses
for wearing masks and bedding women. It’s as I’ve said all along. A
game. What we came here to learn, Lady J, are the rules. The
motive. The hoped-for prize. So, again, my lady, tell me about your
nephew. Tell me about Edmund Burnell.”

He took a deep breath, hoped he would gain
some reaction from the old woman with the next name he mentioned.
“Tell me about Richard Brimley.”