Jonathan Barrett Gentleman Vampire (20 page)

“Are you unhappy only about your studies?”

“Of course not! I hope you don’t think—”

“No, Jonathan,” she said gravely “I know you better than that.”

“I don’t understand why.”

“From what you’ve told me of your father he would be most reluctant to have you break off your education here . . . unless they really need you as he says.”

“Our home is hardly in the thick of things. As far as anyone’s concerned all the turmoil is in Boston, Philadelphia, and Virginia. We’re miles and miles from those places, surrounded by British troops and other Tories, why should they need me?”

“It might be a case of want, rather than need,” she gently pointed out. “I think that your father is afraid.”

A bitter retort to gainsay that almost burst from me, but died when I saw her sad look. I took back the letter and read it again. The truth, as seen from this view, seemed to jump out and strike me right in the heart. I hadn’t wanted to see it before.

“But I can’t leave you, Nora,” I said, tears creeping into my own voice now. “I couldn’t bear it.”

“Hush,” was all she said. She pulled me close, until my head rested on her breast, and wrapped her arms around me, comforting and warm. Part of me wanted to weep, but I did not. What would be the use?

* * *

I all but crawled back to my room some hours later, dejected and hopeless and with no idea of how to avoid my duty to my father. I’d asked Nora if she’d be willing to come to Long Island with me, but she would not give an answer. That had hurt, for I’d wanted her to immediately say yes. She was honest, though. She did not know what to tell me.

“There is so much to think about,” she said. “Give me the time to think it.”

Pressing her for a decision would be importune. All I could do was accept and await. At least she’d not given a flat-out refusal.

The last person I wanted to see was Tony Warburton, but there he was lolling in his chair in the sitting room we shared, apparently waiting for me. Two empty wine bottles stood on the table next to him and he was in the process of draining away a third as I walked in. Nora’s intervention had only postponed the inevitable. Somehow, I would have to resolve things with him in a way that would not result in a duel.

“Barrett,” he said. He looked embarrassed and shy and his gaze did not quite meet mine. His anger was gone.

I hadn’t known what to expect: a challenge, censure, insults—anything but remorse. My own anger magically evaporated. I was sorry for him, but did not feel up to more talk, especially since he was drunk. I made to go past to my own room, but he lurched from his chair to head me off.

“Please . . . Barrett, please hear me out. I just wanted to apologize.” His words were slurred, but sincere. A drunkard’s sincerity, I thought. Oh, well, forgiveness was easy enough to find in my present mood. I had other things on my mind now.

“It’s all right. I shouldn’t worry about it anymore if I were you.”

His slack jaw waggled a bit. “Oh, I say, you are such a decent man. I’m . . .I’ve been so wretched since . . . I said a lot that I don’t mean, and I’m truly sorry.”

“Yes, well, it’s past, don’t worry about it.”

“But I—”

“Get some sleep, Warburton.”

“No, I need . . . I
must
apologize to Nora as well. I was too horrible to her. I won’t ask her to forgive me, but I will apologize. I only want to do that and then I shan’t bother her again. On my honor.” He spread his hand over his heart.

“Tomorrow, then.”

“Tonight! It must be tonight.”

“No, you’re much too . . . tired.” I nearly said “drunk.”

“Tonight,” he insisted and pushed away from me. He found his cloak and dragged it over his shoulders. “You must come. She won’t see me unless you’re there.”

I thought of trying again to persuade him to sleep, but knew it wouldn’t work. He’d had just enough to be unreasonable and need watching, but not so much as to be incapable. He would go, with or without me, and in his condition he’d probably fall and drown in a gutter. Perhaps the cold air would clear his head and I could talk him out of it for the moment. I hoped Nora would understand if I could not.

The weather hadn’t improved; we were soaked when we reached her house. Warburton had forgotten his stick, so I lent him mine to steady his steps. He leaned on it and bleated on about what a thoughtless oaf he was. I shivered and silently agreed with him as we tottered over the last few yards.

“At least knock first,” I admonished, but he opened the door himself and walked right in.

“
Shh
,” he said, finger to his lips. “Don’t want to wake anyone. Only Nora, but she’ll be awake. Keeps late hours, y’know. Very, very late hours.” He broke off in a sodden grin.

“What is this?” Nora emerged from the drawing room where I’d left her. “Jonathan, what is going on?”

I felt supremely foolish standing there holding Warburton up. “He wanted to apologize. I couldn’t stop him and thought it better to come along.”

Her exasperation never quite developed. She saw Warburton’s condition and how things stood. Or wobbled. “Very well.”

Oblivious to us, Warburton broke away from me to plow into the drawing room, muttering about the brandy there.

“One more drink and he’ll have to be carried home,” I said. “I’m sorry, Nora.”

She dismissed my contrition with a smile and a shake of her head. “Go take care of him. I’ll see if there’s hot tea or coffee left in the kitchen.”

As expected, Warburton poured brandy for himself. He looked up as I came in. “Where’s the beauteous Miss Jones?”

“She’ll be back.”

“No. I want her here. She must be here.” His sentimental repentance was rapidly vanishing, threatening to turn into belligerence.

I sighed. The tea would have to wait. “I’ll fetch her.”

He brightened. “You’re a true friend, Barrett.”

A patient one
, I thought, turning away. Calling for Nora at the door, I only just caught her murmured acknowledgment from down the hall. Behind me, I heard two quick steps, but there was no time to look back to see what he was doing.

Something went
crack
. The room was engulfed in a dull white sheet and my legs collapsed. I didn’t see so much as feel the floor coming up.

When the white leached away I became acutely aware of a hideous knot of agony on the back of my head and my inability to move. I could breathe and suffer pain. That was all.

And see. Yes. That was Tony Warburton standing over me. Holding my stick. His movements were in control and quite steady. His face was no longer slack from drink.

His face . . .

Dear God
.

“A true
friend
, Barrett,” he whispered.

I tried to speak. Nothing happened. Too much pain was in the way. Holding the cane in both hands, he gave it a twist. I’d shown him and others the trick of it during practice at the fencing gallery. The handle came free and out slid a yard of Spanish steel, sharp as a razor.

No
. . .

I must have made some sound; he raised one booted foot above my belly and shoved down hard with all his weight. Air vomited from my lungs. No breath, no movement, no way to warn Nora—who was just coming in the door—but he was ready for that and whipped around in time with the blade level and his arm went straight and all she could do was give a little wondering gasp as the steel vanished into her breast.

She seemed to hang frozen in the air, held up by the thin blade alone. Her quivering hands hovered around it as though seeking a way to take hold and pull it out. Her eyes flashed first shock, pain, and more pain as she realized his betrayal. They flickered at me, fearful. I was able to open my hand toward her. Nothing more.

Blood appeared on the ivory satin of her bodice. Over her heart.

Warburton made a soft exhalation, like a laugh.

Nora swayed to one side and fell heavily against the wall, flinging her arms out for balance. Warburton, still holding the sword-stick, followed her movement as though they were dancers.

Within my mind, I howled.

Without, silence.

Silence . . . until Nora slipped to the floor with a whisper of fabric and her lips forming a sound halfway between a sob and a moan. Her wide skirts floated around her like flower petals. She stared at him the whole time, eyes brimming with anguish and anger and sorrow and loathing; stared until her eyes became fixed and empty and all motion and feeling drained away.

Only then did Warburton draw the blade from her body. He swept it clear with savage efficiency. Drops of her blood spattered the flowered wallpaper.

He turned. Looked from her to me. He loomed tall as a giant and swung the sword so that the point lightly tapped, tapped, tapped just below my chin. He smiled at me. Cheerful, bright, interested, and utterly normal—the same smile I’d seen the day I first met him. The smile of a sane man who is not sane.

He reached down to tear open my neckcloth, the easier to draw the sword across, from ear to ear. Better to remove the impediment than to cut through it. It flashed through my mind that things might look as though I’d killed Nora and then myself. He couldn’t know about my letter from home, but it would inspire an explanation for this slaughter.

He placed the sword’s edge against my throat. I felt its hot pressure. Part of me would welcome what was to come for I would be with Nora, another part raged against it, denied it, fought it—

And could do nothing,
nothing
, to stop him. He batted my feeble hands away with no effort.

Useless. Useless.

If heaven were not my destination, then hell could offer no worse than the absolute helplessness I felt.

The blade pressed upon my naked skin. It was stained with her blood. He made that soft laughing sound again. All I could manage was a groan as his arm flexed to drive—

Something seized his wrist like a striking snake. The sword jerked up and away from my throat.

Astonishment froze Warburton for an instant. He stared, incredulous, before reason returned and told him that what he saw simply could not be possible. She had to be—must be—dead. The blood was yet there on her dress . . . God in heaven, I could
smell
it. No one could survive such an awful wound. . . .
No one human
, I wailed.

Almost as though my thought had leaped into his head, Warburton flinched and backed from her, but she held fast to his arm, using his impetus to regain her feet. He tried to shake off her grip. Failed. Desperately, he clouted her head with his free hand. She didn’t seem to feel it. Their natural difference in size and strength should have worked in his favor but it was as though none existed, and he was suddenly aware of it.

There was a dull snap, Warburton cried out, and the sword-stick dropped from his nerveless fingers. Gasping, I was just able to crawl toward it, take it up.

But Nora did not need my help.

Her eyes burned with something beyond fury. She was still beautiful, but the hellfire blazing in those eyes had transformed her from goddess to Gorgon; to look upon her now was to see your own death . . . or something worse.

And Warburton looked.

His jaw sagged as though for a scream. No sound came forth. I glimpsed in his face a reflection of the horror he saw and that was enough. No shriek or howl or cry flung up from the depths of hell could have possibly expressed it.

Silence, dark and heavy and alive and hungry. Silence, like an eternity of midnights condensed into a single moment, ready to burst forth and engulf the universe. Silence, except for my own pained breath and the hard laboring of my heart.

No one moved. Warburton was like a man of stone, frozen in place by terror like a sparrow before a serpent: aware of what was to come, but unable to fly from it. Only his face changed, the sane insanity evaporated, exposing the pitiful, raw anguish beneath.

Then Nora whispered, “No,” and released him, soul and body. There was a thump and thud as he toppled to the floor.

She stood over him, hands loose at her sides. He cowered away until stopped by a wall, then curled his legs up to his chest, arms wrapping tightly around his head. He choked convulsively once, twice, then began to weep like a heartbroken child, long keenings of pure despair.

I wanted to weep as well, but for another reason. Dragging myself up, I stumbled toward her.

* * *

It was an hour
before I stopped trembling. The churning in my guts never quite settled, and the back of my head put forth lances of pain whenever I moved too fast. Nora wrapped a piece of ice from the buttery in a cloth for me to hold over the spot. She said the skin was broken, but would not need to be stitched.

Her manner was as smooth and cool as the ice. Her gaze roved everywhere, never quite meeting mine. She’d withdrawn from me without leaving the room. When I put my hand out to her, she would only touch it briefly and then find some other task to distract her away. At first I thought it had to do with me, until I perceived that her mind was turned inward, and what ran through it was not pleasant.

The sad drone of Warburton’s crying finally ceased and after a bout of prosaic sniffing and snuffling, he’d fallen asleep. We left him on the floor where he’d dropped and kept our distance as though he carried pestilence.

“Shall I take him home?” I asked.

“What?” She stirred sluggishly, having lingered over the lighting of a candle. Dozens of them burned throughout the room except for a dim patch around Warburton.

“It will cause less notice if I’m the one to take him home.”

“What will you tell Oliver?”

“I’ll think of something.”

“Lies, Jonathan?”

“Better than the truth. More discreet.”

I’d meant this to bring her comfort. Her lips thinned as she chose a more ironic interpretation.

“Everything will be all right,” I told her, hoping she would believe it.

She shook her head once, then looked past me toward Warburton. “He tried to murder us, Jonathan. I can forgive him for myself, but not for what he nearly did to you. I was the cause of that.”