Come Near Me (34 page)

“They’re slightly better, in some cases, and
worse in others,” Burnell replied, pouring more brandy for the both
of them. “Just as vain, just as venal, just as greedy. But at least
they’re prettier, eh, Daventry?”

“Sherry’s more than pretty,” Adam said,
slumping forward, to lay his head on his folded arms as he all but
collapsed on the table. His crown toppled free, clanked on the
tabletop. “She’s sweet, and loving, and pure.” He looked at
Burnell. “And she detests me. I’d do anything, anything at all, to
get her to love me again.”

He flung himself backwards in his chair,
glaring at Burnell. “I’d sell my soul to the Devil to have her back
again.”

“There is always that, isn’t there?” Burnell
said, a small smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “But
how would one go about doing such a thing?”

Adam sat forward, jammed the crown back on
his head, then grabbed at his snifter once more. He suddenly knew
why Burnell had sent along these particular costumes, why he had
chosen them. They had been meant as a reminder. “Good question,
Burnell. Damn good question.”

“It was?” Burnell pulled a comically confused
face, frowned. “Good. Very nice. What did I ask?”

Adam spread his arms wide, waved them
drunkenly. “There it was, Edmund, my friend.
Camelot.
A
small Eden. Everything there, everything perfect. Everything happy.
But how do you hold on to the perfect, Burnell? I couldn’t do it.
Arthur couldn’t do it, and he was a king. How
does
anyone do
that? Is it—is it because of what you said? That we always muck it
up, no matter how we try?”

“I have no idea. Are you hungry?”

“Hungry? Me?” Adam shook his head, staring at
the contents of his snifter. “I don’t know. Maybe a plum?”

“Done and done, Daventry,” Burnell said, and
Adam looked up to see a bowl of luscious, ripe plums sitting in the
middle of the table.

“How—how’d you do that?” he asked, reaching
for one of the plums. “I don’t understand. How’d you do that?”

Edmund leaned his elbows on the table, leaned
toward Adam. “What would you say if I told you that I’m the Devil,
Daventry? What would you say if I told you I could help you,
miserable, ruined sot that you are? Get your bloody Camelot back
for you? What would you say to that?”

Adam sat very still, staring at Edmund
Burnell. None of this had been what he’d expected, but it had been
what he’d feared. Deep inside himself, it had been what he’d
feared. Now he had to get the hell—yes, the
hell—
out of this
room. “I’d say... I’d say,” he dropped the half-eaten fruit to the
floor, very obviously belched. “I’d say plums and brandy don’t mix
well.”

“Why I waste my time...” Burnell grumbled
half under his breath, shaking his head. “Very well, Daventry.
We’ll continue this tomorrow, all right?”

“Continue what?” Adam asked, frowning. “Can
you do anything else? My father, I remember now, used to pull gold
crowns out from behind m’ears. Never figured out how he did it.
Magic, I mean. Damn, Edmund, but I feel sick. Think I’ll go home
now. So sorry.”

“And tomorrow? I could stop by, oh, around
two? I think we have a lot to talk about, Daventry.”

Adam blinked several times, burped again,
then nodded. And then he stood, clapped both hands over his mouth,
and staggered from the room, knowing he had to find Sherry at once,
get her out of the ballroom, take her home, tell her the
unbelievable.

Edmund Burnell’s laughter followed him. The
Devil’s laughter followed him.

After...

Here in this world he changed his life.

— Sir Thomas Malory,
Morte
d’Arthur

“H
e’s the Devil,
Chollie,” Adam gritted out quietly, pulling his friend into a small
window embrasure as Sherry stood with Lady Winslow, saying her
goodnights.

“Which one are you talking about, boyo?”
Chollie asked in a whisper. “Burnell, or that Brimley fellow? He
disappeared on me, you know. I followed him through the gardens
after he left Sherry, and he disappeared on me.”

He pulled out a handkerchief and lifted the
bottom of his beard, dabbing at his wet mouth. “And I don’t mean he
outran me, neither, boyo. He was just there, and then he was just
gone. Poof! Right in front of my eyes, and making sure I was
watching him while he did it. Lady Jasper’s right. He’s the Old
Boy, Old Nick. The Devil, boyo—” he whispered hoarsely, leaning
closer. “The
Devil.”

“I know,” Adam said under his breath, looking
toward Sherry, more frightened for her than he could ever put into
words.

“Now, I know you don’t believe me, boyo,”
Chollie went on hurriedly. “I know you think he just got away from
me, as if any
mortal
being could when I’m hotfoot on the
trail, and it’s sure I am that I wouldn’t be so fast to swallow any
of this if it were
me
the Old Boy was after, and not you,
but—what did you say?”

“I said, Chollie, I know. Brimley’s the
Devil. Burnell’s the Devil, too, for that matter. Or one of his
infernal helpers, or whatever it says in that book. Not a club of
devil worshipers, not just a twisted game played by bored men. The
Devil is in this one, Chollie. The Devil is here.”

“How? How did you come to believe Burnell’s
the devil? I mean Brimley. Damn it all, who do I mean, boyo?”

Adam couldn’t resist a ghost of a smile. It
was all so bizarre, so totally unbelievable. Especially, as Chollie
had pointed out, when the person the Devil was after happened to be
you.
He’d rather any of a dozen other explanations, but this
one, sadly, was the only one that fit. “I mean Burnell, Chollie. He
produced a bowl of plums for me. Not one plum. A bowl of them. Then
he sort of sat back and waited for me to ask him for something
else.”

“A bowl of plums?”

“A bowl of plums,” Adam repeated. “A very
large, golden bowl, Chollie, with at least eight or nine fat plums
in it.”

“Could be magic. A trick?”

“Can
you
produce a bowl of plums out
of thin air at the drop of a suggestion, without knowing beforehand
that plums would be what I’d want? Can you do that trick?”

Chollie hung his head. “No, that I can’t,
boyo, that I can’t.” He gestured toward Sherry through the crush of
guests crowding the anteroom as the masquerade slowly dissolved
into sad-looking, drooped feathers and sawdust-padded legs in
ripping hose. She was just then being helped on with her cloak. “We
have to tell her, boyo. You know that, don’t you?”

Adam shook his head. “We have to tell her, do
we? And how do you propose we go about doing that, Chollie? Tell
her Brimley went
poof?
Tell her Burnell made a bowl of plums
appear? Oh, yes, I can see how that’s going to work, how readily
she’ll believe us.” He squeezed one hand around the hilt of his
sword. “Besides, I don’t intend for Sherry to be a part of this
anymore. I put her in danger tonight, more than I could have
believed possible. She’s out of this, Chollie, you understand, as
of this moment. You are, too, if you want to be. I wouldn’t blame
you?’

“Me? I could be knocking you down for that
insult, you know.” He pushed his spectacles back up the length of
his nose. “Now come on, let’s get ourselves back to Grosvenor
Square and talk about this some more. Burnell must have done more
than make a few plums appear. I want to know what he said.
Everything he said.”

Adam put a hand on Chollie’s shoulder. “Thank
you, Merlin,” he said lightly, to hide the fact that he was very
close to being unmanned, thanks to his friend’s loyalty in the face
of such idiocy, such unimaginable terror. “The real Arthur, if
there ever was one, never had a more loyal friend.”

Chollie gave him a quick slap on the back as
they went to join Sherry, Adam remembering to stagger a bit as he
reminded himself he was supposed to look three-parts castaway.
“Well, now, boyo, about this Arthur of yours. As I told you before,
we tell it all a little differently in Ireland...”

~ ~ ~

Sherry was quiet all the way back to
Grosvenor Square, pretending to doze off, but watching from her
corner of the coach as Adam and Chollie exchanged whispers and more
than a few meaningful glances. They’d already spoken at some length
while Sherry had sat on a velvet bench in the reception area,
waiting for their cloaks and while she said good night to their
hostess, and their expressions had been hard, their hand gestures
quick and sharp, like generals plotting a course of battle.

She let them have at it, both at Lady
Winslow’s and in the coach, too tired, too frightened, to
participate.

But once they’d arrived, and Adam tried to
convince her to go off upstairs with Mrs. Clement, she brushed past
him and into the drawing room, plunking herself down with every
intention of staying.

“Darling, please,” Adam said, walking over to
her. He held out his hand to help her rise, and she immediately
tucked both hands under her arms, shaking her head. He unclasped
the cloak at his neck and threw the thing onto a nearby chair,
following it with the smaller girdle and sword. “God, I couldn’t
wait to be shod of that nonsense. Sherry. Enough. You’ve done what
you could do, but now we have to think about the baby.”

“I
am
thinking about our baby, Adam,”
she protested, looking up at him imploringly. “He’ll need a father,
and I believe that right now that father needs all the help he can
get. Which is why I’m staying right here. Now, what are we going to
do?”

“She’s got you there, boyo.” Chollie pulled
off his wig and beard, sputtering a time or two because a few hairs
had gotten caught in his mouth. “We at least need her to tell us a
little of what happened, Adam, out there on the balcony.” He looked
meaningfully at Sherry, peering at her over the top of his glasses.
“Only what Brimley said, you know, before he disappeared.”

“Absolutely, Chollie!” Sherry agreed quickly,
and not failing to understand the hidden message in his words. She
turned back to Adam. “He asked me, Adam. He asked me if there was
anything he could do to
help
me. Just as you said he might.
Actually, you said Edmund might, but Dickie did. I fobbed him off
with a promise to meet with him, here, tomorrow at two.”

“Well, that should prove interesting. Edmund
is meeting me here at the same time.” Adam held out his hand once
more. “Now, that’s definitely enough for tonight. Go to bed,
darling. Chollie and I want to talk about a few more things before
we call it an evening. Right, Chollie?”

Sherry looked to Chollie. “Could you please
leave us for a few minutes, Chollie?” she asked, smiling
imploringly. “That is, there’s something I have to speak to Adam
about—privately.”

“Are you sure you need to be doing that,
darlin’?” Chollie turned to Adam, who nodded his agreement. “Very
well, then. I’ll just go on off down to your study, friend, and
find my way to some wine.”

“I’ll join you there,” Adam said, then sat
down beside Sherry as Chollie walked out of the room, looking back
over his shoulder a time or two, clearly reluctant to go. “Now,
darling, what is it? Chollie said you were fine when he saw you,
and that you told him later you’d had more trouble shedding
yourself of Lady Jasper than you did with Brimley, who only had you
to himself for less than five minutes.”

Sherry nodded her head, bit her bottom lip.
“Chollie—Chollie’s protecting me, Adam,” she said, looking at him,
silently praying he’d understand what she had to tell him. “He
kissed me, and Chollie saw him do it,” she whispered. “Dickie
kissed me. And I very nearly kissed him back. I probably did kiss
him back. Just for a moment.”

When Adam didn’t speak, she rushed on, her
words nearly tumbling over themselves. “He’s mean, and he’s evil,
and he’s everything I despise, and yet—and yet he
attracts
me in some way. I don’t understand it, Adam. I
hate
him. As
much as I love you, Adam—
that’s
how much I hate him.” She
pulled the ornamental dagger from its sheath and brandished it in
front of her husband. “I wanted to kill him. With this. Dickie
laughed, as if he found that to be highly amusing... and then he
kissed me.”

She opened her hand and let Adam take the
dagger from her, then slumped back against the cushions. “Then
Chollie came, and saved me, and then Lady Jasper—”

Adam took her hand, lifted it to his cheek.
“Yes, Lady Jasper. She had at you as well? Ah, darling. You have
had a terrible night of it, haven’t you?”

“You’re not angry with me? Disgusted with
me?”

“About Richard Brimley?” Adam shook his head.
“No, darling. And I’ll tell you why, someday. Just know that it
wasn’t your fault. Not at Daventry Court, and not tonight. I should
never have included you in this scheme, but at the same time I felt
sure you’d be the one who could draw Brimley out, into the open. I
couldn’t believe he was here all along, even if I do now. Now, tell
me about Lady Jasper.”

Sherry didn’t understand much of what Adam
said, only that he forgave her. That was enough, and her nerves,
never so jangled as at the moment she realized that she’d allowed
Dickie to kiss her again, finally relaxed. She could think clearly
again.

“The woman’s insane, Adam,” she told him,
smiling a little as he turned her hand over, placed a kiss in her
palm. “She came at me just as Chollie was chasing after Dickie,
demanding to speak with me, talking wild, saying impossible things.
Edmund’s the Devil, you know, to hear Lady Jasper tell it.”

“He
is
the Devil.”

Both Adam and Sherry looked to the doorway to
find that Chollie had returned upstairs, probably to check on
Sherry, make sure she was all right after confessing to Adam about
the kiss he’d seen on the balcony. “Chollie...” Adam began in
warning, but the Irishman cut him off.