Curse of the Nandi (Society for Paranormals Book 5) (17 page)

“Perhaps it would be more appropriate for you to refer to me as Tiberius,” Mr. Elkhart or, as I should now call him, Tiberius murmured into my hair.

“Don’t just stand there, people,” Gideon shouted as best he could in his ghost voice. “Do something.”

While Lilly could neither see nor hear Gideon, a delighted cry burst forth from her cherub lips, breaking the stillness and setting everyone in motion. A happy confusion erupted as Lilly embraced me while Mr. Timmons offered a congratulatory handshake and a brusque apology to Mr. Elkhart. Gideon meanwhile pirouetted about us as if he was the one who had found a long-lost brother.

“My word, what a commotion,” came a gentle voice from the doorway.

“Father,” Mr. Elkhart said and then paused. He glanced at me and in that moment, the awkward truth of the situation settled upon us, for I was a child created out of wedlock.

This realization touched the others, for the hubbub died instantly, and all that could be heard was Lilly drawing the curtains so that Uncle James could join us in the room.

“Father,” Mr. Elkhart repeated with great solemnity, and passed the piece of notepaper to the vampire.

Anticipation and anguish wrestled within my turbulent heart. How could I have so easily forgotten the strictures and norms of civilized society? My mother had maintained this secret and married a man she did not love. She’d done all that to protect me from censure and ridicule, from being labeled a bastard child, unworthy of mention. Yet here I had in a few moments of excitement undone all her sacrifice.

I didn’t dare look upon Mr. Timmons, for what sensations must he be experiencing, now that he was privy to this most terrible secret? That it hadn’t been known to me previously mattered not a jot. Would he demand an annulment? I felt the color drain from my face and from my heart.

I was startled when someone pulled me away from my brother and embraced me. Mr. Timmons’ gruff voice rumbled against my ear as he divined the source of my agitation and reassured me, “We are beyond the trivialities of so-called civilized people, my beloved. What they might think is irrelevant, especially here of all places. I’m delighted you have found your family, for now they are mine too.”

“I have a daughter?” Uncle James breathed out and then louder, “I have a daughter!” Once again I was swept away from one embrace into another. Uncle James swung me about as he informed the room with an almost fierce declaration, “I have a daughter.”

The spell broke, and we all spoke and laughed and cried at once. And I reflected that if my half-African Popobawa brother, my vampire father, my deceased husband’s ghost and my very much alive, identity thief of a husband had such little regard for the social prejudices of England, then why should I place such importance on them myself? Even Lilly, the former socialite, had renounced such concerns, for her face was beaming as she hugged all of us in turn.

“What now?” Lilly asked, somewhat out of breath from all the uproar.

“We celebrate,” Uncle James, my father, said firmly, my right hand gripped firmly in his cool grip.

“Isn’t that what we just did?” I pointed out, although the delicious notion that there could be more joy and laughter to be had left me nearly delirious.

“No, we have to invite Lord and Lady Hardinge to join us,” he replied.

“As much as I love a party, you’d best be returning to your house, Beatrice,” Gideon suggested as he floated down from the ceiling. “If I do recall correctly, there’s a vampire firefly waiting there for your return.”

“What nonsense is this? You left Yao in our home?” Mr. Timmons growled, his energy snapping about him, and I had no doubt he was preparing to march over to our cabin and demolish the Adze by draining every spark of life.

Still giddy from laughing and crying, I giggled. “Oh, that. I wouldn’t get too fussed, Simon. Yao was very well behaved, at least when I last saw him.”

Before any of us could decide what to do next — celebrate or squash the bloodsucking firefly — Nurse Manton rushed into the room, all a-fluster, her frizzy hair a halo about her head. She curtsied, before blurting out, “Apologies for the interruption, but it’s Cilla, poor dear. She’s come down with something terrible. Lord preserve us, but I do believe it’s the Plague!”

Chapter 21

If we had been normal, or at least rational, we would have quarantined the patient, summoned the doctor and waited upon his diagnosis. Given that none of us were remotely normal, and we were all in an emotional uproar that muddled the senses, we did exactly what we shouldn’t: leaving Nurse Manton wringing her hands and bemoaning the girl’s fate, we rushed down the hall, flung open the door to the guest wing and barged toward Cilla’s room.

Crowded around the doorway, we peered at Cilla, who lay upon her bed in a faint, her round face red with fever, her hair slick against her head from sweat.

Mr. Timmons pushed through us and went to his niece’s side. He plucked up her hand and felt her wrist.

“Perhaps,” Mr. Elkhart suggested, looking at his wife, “it would be best if you wait outside, darling. If she does have the Plague…”

Lilly started to scoff at the notion that she should take care in the face of a deadly disease but hesitated, her hands fluttering over her midsection. Meanwhile, Uncle James (I still didn’t dare refer to him as Father) drifted to the bed.

“Whatever she might have, it’s not the Plague,” he announced after a mere glance at the patient.

We all made various noises of doubt and hope, at which he held up a hand to shush us. “I’ve seen enough of the Plague through the long years of my life to know the indications. She has naught but a touch of swamp fever, combined with exhaustion and perhaps a case of weary nerves. Many of the settlers get the fever at some point, or so I’ve heard. She’ll be fine in a few days, with rest and a lot of liquids.”

With such a reassurance that none of us were in danger, Lilly departed to summon Nurse Manton. Upon realizing that there wasn’t likely to be any further commotions or entertainment, Gideon faded away, while Mr. Timmons, his fears thus assuaged, went with Mr. Elkhart to remove Yao from our cottage.

Uncle James, still with a smile on his face, embraced me again, and whispered with supreme contentment, “My daughter.” He then drew back, his hands clasped on my shoulders. “I hope you will call me Father? It would delight this old man’s heart. We’ll celebrate tonight with the Hardinge family. Until then, please excuse me. I’m not accustomed to so much daytime activity.”

It was then I noticed the weariness about his eyes, and I had to remind myself he was after all a European vampire. “Of course.” Then I added with a hint of hesitation, “Father.”

His entire countenance lit up and his smile was beatific. With slight bow, he retreated to his own quarters, leaving me alone with Cilla.

I sat on the side of the bed and clasped her limp hand in mine. “Oh Cilla, I’m so sorry you’re unwell. And you missed the most wonderful moment,” I said in a restrained whisper. “Today, I discovered that I have not one but two brothers, and also a father. Isn’t that the most marvelous of news? Good grief, I’m beginning to sound like you, with all my gushing and heightened emotionality.”

Cilla stirred and her eyelids fluttered open. “Bee?” she gasped.

I squeezed her hand, and fervently hoped Uncle James – Father – was correct in his diagnosis, for I couldn’t bear to lose Cilla. There was so much I wanted to share with her, for my family was now hers.

“You’ll be all right,” I said with a stern tone, as if I could command her disability to leave.

“It’s not,” she whispered. “I’m not…”

Nurse Manton stomped into the room, bearing a tray with a pitcher of water and two glasses. “Here you are, miss,” she said as she lowered the tray onto a side table, her gaze flicking over Cilla as if searching for the Plague-induced buboes. “Will there be anything else?”

I dismissed her with a shake of my head and a small frown, for which I silently chastised myself. Fear was a perfectly understandable reaction on her part, for Cilla’s symptoms were remarkably similar to the initial signs of the Plague: chills, malaise, and high fever. Still, I couldn’t fully quell my displeasure at her reluctance to further assist us.

Once the door closed after the stocky woman, I offered Cilla water and wondered when Dr. Ribeiro would arrive.

“I’m not like you, Bee,” Cilla murmured, her lips barely moving.

“Of course not,” I said, a tad too sharply. I sighed, wondering if I would ever be able to adopt a soothing, maternal tone as Lilly had with me when I was recovering from my lost hand. “Of course you’re not, my dearest Cilla. You’re you.”

“I’m not normal,” she sniffed.

That induced a laugh from me. “Good grief, I should hope not! And how could you be with all this lot about you? At best, you could only be abnormal.”

Her pale lips lifted in a smile before they quivered. “Where’s Drew?”

“He’ll be along shortly,” I reassured her, making a mental note to track him down and smack him upside the head with my walking stick. Perhaps that would knock some sense into him, or some wildness out. “You mustn’t fuss.”

Her eyes opened fully, and she gazed up at me with a shocking intensity. “But that’s just it, Bee. I never fuss. I so desperately want everyone to be happy and for everything to be positive, and I’m sure everyone believes me to be a naïve child. But it’s because there’s so much sadness around and I don't want to add to it.” At that, she eased to her side and began to sob with quiet gasps of desperation that she smothered into her pillow.

I glanced about the room, desperate for assistance. Where did everyone disappear to, just when I needed them most? Why did Mr. Timmons insist on accompanying me in tracking down the Kerit but abandoned me when his niece had an emotional meltdown?

“Look at me,” I muttered. “If you think you’re not normal, what am I? I’m incapable of managing myself appropriately.”

I thought about what Lilly would do, marveled that I now relied on her as a role model, and reached out my hand tentatively to stroke Cilla’s hair. At least, I hoped that would be as soothing for her as it had been for me.

“None of us is really normal,” I said, not certain if that would make her feel better or not, but I couldn’t lie either. “Still, we’re together in our not-normalness.”

I frowned at my use of a noun that I was certain didn’t exist prior to my uttering it, but there was nothing to be done about it now. The word had been created: not-normalness.

Cilla sniffed deeply as if trying to retract her tears and stuff them back into the abyss from which they came. In the course of our conversation thus far, it had become apparent to me that my cherished friend was inconsolable, yet I couldn’t fathom the source of her despair.

As if discerning my perturbation, Cilla coughed and whispered, “I am in a most pitiable state, am I not?”

My body, wearied by the contrariety of emotions the day had thus far elicited from me, sagged somewhat and it was all I could do to summon the energy to sit upright.

“This will surely pass,” I said as I sought to reassure her. “I’ve heard it stated that as many as one half of all Europeans who venture to these lands succumb at some point or other to the difficult air. Soon you’ll be your chipper self.”

With some effort, her lips quivering with the strain of our discourse, Cilla pushed herself up against the headboard, her sunken eyes observing me with a sense of age that belied her fair skin.

“Oh, Beatrice, your faith in me is utterly misplaced,” she spoke in a constrained manner. “For so long, I’ve sought to keep my uncle’s spirits buoyed, despite whatever darkness he believes possesses him. Now he has you, and he smiles with less effort; he laughs more often. Do not mistake me, for I am delighted. In you he has discovered a very amiable companion.”

A cough wracked her frame. “As for you, I’ve never needed to assist you, for you are a towering pillar of strength and determination, so unlike most of us that I can only stand back and admire.”

I clucked my tongue in consternation, for if only I could admit my flaws so easily, she would know how shaky the pillar truly was.

“It’s true,” she insisted. “You cannot deny it. Here, in this wild land, your strength is highlighted, while mine is diminished. For what use are my efforts to bring hope and cheer when in truth an ability to survive is of far greater import? Not even Drew needs me here, where he is free to roam as he pleases in whatever form he fancies.”