Sea of Secrets: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense (33 page)

For a few minutes I thought that Charles might have been called away by a false alarm, for no smell of smoke had yet reached me; had he been misled, or were his senses so much better than mine? But then, gradually, the smell of smoke began to permeate the room. Running footsteps came—probably servants, alerted by Charles; voices raised in questions indicated that the hallway was beginning to fill with curious bystanders.

I eased the door open a cautious sliver. Smoke was curling from an open doorway down the hall, and sounds of men stamping on flames emanated from the room. As I watched, Charles and Herron emerged in the same instant. Charles was half supporting his cousin, who shook with coughing. He was in night clothes, and must have been sound asleep—would have been asleep still, I thought in shock, if Charles had not noticed something awry and gone in after him.

“They need more help in there,” Charles commanded, and several men obligingly rushed into the chamber. There were more calls for water, and some of the ladies emerged with jugs and basins slopping over in the anxiety of their errand.

“What is this disturbance about?” came a peremptory voice that I recognized as my father’s. Immaculate in a ruby-colored dressing gown, he gazed with distaste at the two disheveled men, rescuer and rescued.

“A fire started in Herron’s room. Don’t worry, he’s unharmed, and the fire is only a small one.” Charles eased Herron into a sitting position on the floor, with his back propped against the wall. My father curled his lip at the spectacle.

“No doubt you were smoking in bed and fell asleep,” he said. “A dangerous habit, as you nearly discovered to your cost.”

Herron glanced at him with what was, under the circumstances, forgivable resentment. I knew he did not smoke. He tried to speak, but his voice was choked from the smoke he had breathed; he went into spasms of coughing again.

Charles handed him a glass of water and stood over him so that he would drink it. “It would be more constructive to help solve the immediate problem, Mr. Pembroke, rather than indulging in futile speculation as to its cause. Will you lend Herron your dressing gown? He needs to be kept warm after the shock he has suffered.”

“I’ve never heard of anything so absurd,” my father huffed. “You suggest that I give up my dressing gown and subject myself to all the perils of a draughty hall in the middle of the night for the sake of this young idiot who could have burnt us all to death in our beds?”

Charles stared at him for a moment, then shrugged.

“I’m sure Herron would rather contract pneumonia than put you at risk of a head cold,” he said drily. “If you won’t make yourself useful, will you kindly get out of the way so others can? Here, Montrose, hand me that blanket.”

After Charles had wrapped Herron in the blanket and gone back into the chamber to see what more he could do, my father hovered over Herron, looking down his nose at the hunched, smoke-stained figure. “It seems you’ve been smoked out of your hole, my boy,” he said, and I wondered if I imagined the dislike in his voice. “You won’t be able to go to earth as you have been.”

Herron, after one glowering look, turned his head away. He did not answer.

The fire was out, but the house could not settle down immediately. Herron had to be provided with a place to sleep, and he steadfastly refused to share a room with any of the other gentlemen; in the end a divan was moved into the music room for him. Fortunately, the duchess and Lord Claude had not been roused by the commotion, but everyone else wanted to linger in the hall and discuss the cause of the blaze and their own narrow escape from a fiery death. My father seemed to enjoy simply loitering about and making a nuisance of himself. In the end, though, Charles and Lord Montrose managed to restore order. Not until everyone had cleared out of the hall did Charles return to his room, and to me.

“I’m sorry to have left you for so long,” he said when he had shut the door. “It couldn’t be helped.”

“I know.” The smell of smoke clung about him overpoweringly, and soot had left smudges on his face and shirt. His eyes were startlingly bright in his dirtied face. “Will everything be all right now?” I asked.

“Yes, there’s nothing to worry about. Herron will be fine.”

I would not have blamed him if he had spoken ironically, but he did not. I felt a strange strangled feeling in my heart. But “How did the fire start?” was all I could think to say.

“It seems to have started in the bed curtains, but I don’t know how.” He raked his hair back from his forehead with a grimy hand, and I knew he must be almost too weary to stand, but he was too much of a gentleman to ask me to leave, no matter how tired. I should go, I knew; it wasn’t kind of me to stay and keep him from his rest.

“Is it safe for me to leave now?”

“It should be. I think everyone has gone back to their rooms.”

“Good night, then.” Still I felt that I wanted to say something more; but this was probably not the time, even had I been able to think of it.

He did not move as I stepped past him. “Good night, golden one,” he said quietly, and I closed the door on the sight of him standing there.

By now it was late, but all the excitement of that evening had made me more wakeful than ever. And I wanted to sleep. My meeting with Charles had aroused too many ideas, most of them disturbing; I did not want to confront all the implications of that unexpectedly sweet encounter. There was also the mystery of the fire. So sudden a blaze, with no discernible cause, and after all the other strange occurrences—it was a puzzle that nagged at me tiresomely.

For once I wanted not to have to think. I was beginning to feel as Herron must, trapped in the maelstrom of his own mind, slipping farther away from anything outside of it, and so that I might have a few hours’ respite I took out the bottle of laudanum my father had procured for me. I measured out the proper number of drops into a glass of water and drank it down. At least I might be able to ease my too-active brain for tonight and find some peace in sleep.

But even if my waking mind was lulled by the drug, I found I could not escape so easily. Perhaps because of the laudanum I found myself trapped in endless, frenzied dreams.

I did not often dream. I had never been subject to the kinds of nightmares that made Herron thrash and mutter in his sleep; nor had the increasingly dramatic events of my new life played themselves out in scenes before my sleeping self. But tonight I dreamed.

I was watching Herron and the duchess confront each other again on the night of the tableaus, only this time it was I wearing the duchess’s evening dress and diamonds, and it was I Herron was berating.

“Not enough that you should be a harlot, running to the arms of any man who beckons,” he was snarling at me. “Not enough that you can change your attachments as some women change their gown. No, you must add to your wantonness folly as well. Can you not see what he is about? Why should he care for you? No man would willingly open his arms to a woman who has passed through those of another man, without good reason of his own.”

Then, horribly, Herron’s figure shifted and wavered, melting into another familiar form, and now it was my father who loomed over me and castigated me for my behavior.

“I was right to think you a dunce,” he boomed. “You haven’t even the wits to see that he is wooing you to save his own skin. You’re so besotted with him now that you will never cry murder against him or his father. They are safe from you now, and all it took was a few honeyed lies, a quick cuddle in a dark room—you sell your silence cheaply, my girl. How does it feel to be kissed by a killer?”

With a huge effort I jerked myself awake. The silence of the room greeted me like a friend, but I dared not sleep again. I rose and walked the floor of my room until daybreak; but it was not so easy to outpace the accusations that still rang in my ears.

The next forty-eight hours were to be among the strangest of my life.

When I went downstairs next morning the first thing I saw was a clutter of trunks in the great hall. The last remaining guests had been routed by last night’s fire, and were departing. I was disappointed to see that my father’s luggage was not among that in the hall. So we were not yet rid of him.

The house was very quiet that day, from the absence not only of guests but of some of the family as well: Aminta and her family, taking Felicity and Miss Yates with them, had gone to spend a few days with friends. Even Charles, while not accompanying them, had made himself scarce, perhaps so that I would not feel compelled by his presence to give him an answer to his proposal—an answer I could not yet give.

Herron was more in evidence than usual, now that he could not retreat to his rooms for refuge as he had been doing, but of course his company was not something I courted. The duchess and Lord Claude had been shocked when told of the events of the night before, and the duchess fluttered around her son with pillows, rugs, and cups of broth, as if he had been suffering from a chill. Herron did not brush her attentions off, as I had expected; he suffered them quietly, if not gladly, although I noticed that when his mother’s back was turned he poured the broth into a potted palm. I would have smiled at this childish gesture if he had not looked so grim; his air of constant wariness had not diminished, even though he looked so tired and hollow-eyed that my heart twisted when I saw him.

By dinner that night it was plain that something was in the air. While the duchess was even more vivacious than usual out of her relief at her son’s narrow escape, a strange moodiness seemed to afflict the rest of the company: Charles was unusually silent, as was my father, who seemed to be brooding. His glowering presence at the table, however, had the effect of making Lord Claude nervous. For the hundredth time I wished I knew the nature of the strange link between them.

Herron himself seemed to have been sobered by his experience. He ate little, and when I bent down to retrieve my dropped napkin I saw that he was passing his food down to Zeus, who sat waiting by his chair. He watched his stepfather with a fixed concentration that seemed even more marked than usual. Lord Claude was not unaware of this scrutiny, and by the time the last course was served he seemed to have made up his mind to try to lighten the atmosphere.

“I have something special for you tonight, Herron,” he announced, with a geniality that did not seem wholly genuine, when the dessert plates were being set out. “I know how fond you are of that particular type of Chartreuse, so I ordered a bottle for your birthday. Of course, it’s almost a fortnight yet until the great day, but I thought you might like to open it tonight—to celebrate your lucky escape.”

“Thank you,” said Herron, but his voice gave no indication as to his feelings. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Yes, darling, what a generous thought.” The duchess smiled at her husband. I was certain she was encouraged by the fact that Lord Claude and Herron could find some common ground, even if it was only a bottle of liqueur. “And we must toast Charles as well, as Herron’s rescuer.”

“There’s no need, Aunt Gwendolyn. I’m just glad that I smelled the fire in time.”

“Indeed, it was fortunate for him that you did,” my father observed, but there was a dry undertone in the words that the duchess seized upon.

“Well, of course it was fortunate!” she exclaimed. “A few minutes more, and Herron might have been—oh, I cannot even think of it. Charles, how glad I am you were there!”

As Jenkins opened the bottle, one of the footmen placed a liqueur glass before Herron. No one else received a glass. “You’ll join me, I hope, Uncle?” said Herron. It sounded more like a challenge than an invitation, but his uncle smiled comfortably.

“I’ll not be so selfish as to ask you to share your favorite, my boy; I bought it for you. I’ll have the port, Jenkins.”

The other two men chose port as well. I was content not to be offered the drink; the strange color of the liqueur did not appeal to me, but “I shall have some” proclaimed the duchess, and beckoned for a glass. “If we are observing Herron’s birthday early, then I certainly want to join my son in a toast.”

“But, Gwendolyn,” objected Lord Claude, and I was surprised at the urgency in his voice. “You detest Chartreuse.”

She laughed. “I am not yet so old, I hope, that I cannot acquire a new taste. If my son wishes to have Chartreuse, I shall learn to like it.” She watched approvingly as the glasses were filled; her husband, in contrast, seemed distressed. I saw him pass a finger around the inside of his collar.

“Gwendolyn, I really do think you have had enough spirits this evening,” he said. “Thomas, take Her Grace’s glass.”

But she waved the footman away. “Really, Claude, don’t be stuffy. Why shouldn’t I have a glass of liqueur?”

“Why not, indeed?” Herron agreed, and his eyes were narrowly watching his uncle. “Is there some reason no one will share my birthday drink? I must say it’s a bit hard that my own stepfather won’t drink to my health, even if—I admit it—I have not been a model son of late.” This dignified admission won an approving smile from his mother, and he continued with a humility I had never seen in him. “I would be glad if you would have a glass with me, uncle, to show that you forgive my recent behavior.”

There was utter silence. The duchess was beaming at this unexpected gesture, but Lord Claude’s face had gone a pasty grey. He did not look as gratified as he should have at hearing his rebellious new son capitulate. His hesitation was so marked that his wife felt the need to prod him.

“Come, Claude, you must have a glass with him now. A toast to mark a new beginning for our family!”

“Yes, Claude,” said my father, smiling as if amused. “You can scarcely refuse now.”

With a sudden, decisive movement Lord Claude pushed his chair back from the table. “No, Herron, I will not drink with you. I cannot so easily overlook your misconduct. You have caused great embarrassment to your mother and me, to the Reginald family name itself, and I will not simply sweep the matter under the rug when it pleases you.”

He might have said more, but his wife was watching him with her lips thinned in an expression that boded him no good. “I am sorry you are so unforgiving, Claude,” she said shortly. “Herron, I hope you will forgive your stepfather his stubbornness. I am certain he will come to see there is no good in such obstinacy.” The look she sent her husband promised that she would personally enforce this change of heart if necessary. “Until then, my dear, I raise my glass to you.”