Dawn Thompson (8 page)

“Is anything broken?” he asked, a close eye upon Bates’s contorted features.

The butler shook his head. “Doesn’t matter,” he murmured. “He’s done for me. My old heart’s tired, sir. ’Tis my time ta go now.”

“Not yet, old friend,” Joss said, gripping the butler’s shoulder. “Remember that talk we were supposed to have? We need to have it now if I am to fight this here.” The butler stared through glazed eyes. “Who am I, Bates?” he said, his voice quavering. “
What
am I?”

The butler stared through rheumy eyes, his blue lips quivering. “Your good parents often wondered what you would be when grown, sir,” he said.

“Do you know where they’ve gone?”

Bates shook his head. “Only . . . why,” he said.

“Why, then?”

“They do not age, sir. Neither will you . . . if you are like them. They cannot stay long and watch while their friends and neighbors grow old and they remain the same. If you are like them . . . you will not age either, and one day, you, too, will need to leave your friends and loved ones behind. Talc in the hair, skill with arsenic and kohl—powder and paint can only disguise for a time.”

“Is anyone else in the house aware—Grace . . . Parker?”

Again Bates shook his head. “No, sir, not to my knowledge. Only myself,” he said. “They trusted me with their secret, your parents . . . and I have failed them.”

“You have not failed, Bates. If I know what I am, I can face it, deal with it. It is the uncertainty that cripples me now. I have been able to take the shape of a wolf for as long as I can recall. We used to make a game of it, remember?
Now, there is . . . something more. You say the coachman was bleeding.” He thumped his chest. “
I
drew his blood with fangs that I could not control.”

The butler’s eyes slid closed, then came open again, staring vacantly. A thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of the man’s mouth, and he lay still, his glazed eyes staring off into nothingness.

“Bates?” Joss said, jogging the butler’s shoulder. “
Bates!
My God, don’t leave me now. Not
now
.”

Joss hadn’t shed real tears since a child, but he shed them now, for Bates, and for himself left to fend on his own. But there were too many urgencies among the living to grieve long for the dead, and so he closed the butler’s eyes. Staggering to his feet, he unbolted the salon door.

Grace entered. Inconsolable, she shuffled to her husband’s side, leaning upon Amy’s arm until Joss arrested the maid.

“Take her below as soon as you can and stay with her,” Joss said. “Have Cook fix her an herbal tisane. She will want to prepare the body, but not until she is calmed.” He turned to the footman. “Go out to the stables and fetch Otis,” he said. “There’s a broken window in the yellow suite that must be boarded up at once. Then one of you go ’round to the village and alert the undertaker.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Parker will take charge below for the time being,” Joss went on, speaking to the footman. “You will have to take his duties now, Rodgers, when I am in need of him in his valet’s capacity. We shall all have to wear more than one hat here now. We are understaffed to begin with, and I cannot hire more help until this odd business
is resolved. Well, what are you waiting for? Run on and do as I’ve said.”

Without a second glance, Joss stalked back into the hall and scaled the stairs two at a stride. It still remained to deal with Miss Cora Applegate. How much should he tell her?
Hah! How much will she believe? Certainly not the truth entire.
Joss scarcely believed it himself.

He reached his suite, squared his posture and entered to find Cora seated upon a rolled-arm lounge conversing with Parker, who was sitting on the edge of a wing chair opposite in a most awkward attitude, his spine ramrod rigid. “You have naught to fear from young master, miss,” the valet was saying. “He is a gentleman of the first order.”

“Yes, well, so I have been told of other gentlemen who turned out to be otherwise.”

“Perhaps so, but I have served this house for over forty years, and in all that time, I cannot cite one instance in which young master or his father before him ever failed in that respect.”

“Yes, well,” Joss said, bringing them both to their feet, “you may as well save your breath, Parker. After tonight, the archbishop himself couldn’t convince Miss Applegate of that, I fear. Dear lady, you are compromised, and there is nothing for it. My butler has died, and all the other servants are too occupied with the press of that to see to your needs. That duty has fallen to Parker . . . and me.”

The valet gave a start, and Cora gasped. “What happened to him?” she said.

“He . . . took a fall,” Joss said, choosing his words carefully. It would not be easy to dupe this little spitfire. “He was on in years, and well loved in this household.
He will be sorely missed.” As straightforward as he was trying to be, he couldn’t keep his voice from quavering.

“I’m . . . sorry,” she murmured.

“As a result,” Joss went on, “we are at sixes and sevens here now, and will be for some time. You, miss, are snowed in until the roads are passable. They are far from that at present, for which I can vouch, having just been out trying to find them under the snow. It was nearly impossible, even with the sledge. You are welcome, of course, to stay as long as needs must.”

“How long do you expect that to be, sir?” Cora snapped.

The gel would benefit from a good spanking, Joss decided, though no trace of that sentiment came through in his speech. “Until Mother Nature permits, and not a second longer,” he said. “You are
her
prisoner here, not mine, I assure you. This time of year, one storm often follows on the heels of another here in the North Country. That is what is happening now, I’m afraid. When such occurs, traveling the tor becomes impossible. We shall just have to bide our time.”

“So, what is to be done?” she said. “Where is Amy? Am I not to have her now?”

“Amy is needed below,” Joss said. “Grace is distraught and unwell besides. She needs Amy’s care now else I have two bodies to bury when the snow melts. Amy will return to you once her duties permit. Until then, we must make do, commencing now.” He turned to the valet. “Parker, you are needed in the yellow suite to help Otis and Rodgers board up a broken window. I shall remain here with Miss Applegate until you have done so. I will occupy that suite for the rest of her stay, and she will remain here . . . in mine. Proprieties will be observed
whenever possible, but when needs must, like now, they will have to be waived. I am sorry, but there it is.”

“I shall go at once, sir,” said the valet, starting toward the door. He turned at the threshold. “Eh . . . where shall I go afterward, sir?” he said. “I was just about to retire. If young miss is to keep your apartments . . .”

“I have no idea,” said Joss. “I shall meet with you in the yellow suite once I’ve spoken privately with Miss Applegate.”

As the valet shuffled off through the wide-flung door, wagging his head, Joss faced Cora, arms akimbo. “Now then,” he said, “What am I to do with you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I cannot leave you alone, and I cannot stay with you. That presents somewhat of a problem, since at the moment I have no suitable person to look after you properly.”

“I am well able to take care of myself, sir,” Cora said, tossing her long chestnut mane.

“Not . . . in this,” said Joss. “I wasn’t entirely truthful with Parker before. We have a serious problem here. I was going to keep it to myself so as not to distress you, but I can see by your very demeanor that it’s best that you are made aware. Please sit. There is no need to brace yourself for battle, at least not with me. You look as if you think I have arranged all this just to compromise you, which couldn’t be farther from the truth.” He swept his arm toward the wing chair. “Please.”

Cora sank into the chair, spine rigid, her tiny hands folded in her lap. How beautiful she was, even now, lost in yards of sumptuous brocade, her hands having disappeared inside his dressing gown sleeves in the manner of a Chinese potentate. She presented such a comical image he would have chuckled if the situation weren’t
so grave. Instead, he went on quickly, while her hands were out of sight and disinclined to hurl some inanimate object at his head again, at least for the moment.

“My butler has not merely died. That coachman has killed him,” Joss said.

Cora gasped.

He nodded. “The bounder threw him down on the hard terrazzo floor downstairs. He was an old man, and he died of his injuries. That criminal seems to have his sights set upon you for some reason. Twice now he has gained access to your apartments, and I have no doubt that he will try again. Now do you begin to see the necessity of taking precautions and realize the dilemma I find myself in? I dare not leave you alone, and I have none to tend you. It is personal only in the regard that I have never permitted—nor will I ever permit—a lady to come to harm in my presence, much less my keeping.”

“Who was that man?” Cora demanded, “And what does he want with me?”

“That is what I am hoping you can tell me.”

“How me? I have never set eyes upon that object before this very night, sir.”

“Then I need to know what went on in that coach before it bogged down in the snow . . . and after. I know recalling will be painful, but I beg you to indulge me. Lives could well depend upon the conversation that takes place in these apartments tonight—yours and mine among them.”

Cora hesitated, moistening her lips. How he wished she hadn’t done that. Since he’d first set eyes upon her he’d been fantasizing about what those pouty lips would feel like beneath his own. The image of his fangs killed that air dream, but not the arousal it caused. He was hard against the seam.

“The painful memory goes back beyond that dreadful day,” she said absently, “but you need not be privy to that. . . .”

“As you wish,” Joss said. “Whatever you are inclined to impart will be met with the utmost appreciation. I am trying to discover when it was that this man entered your entourage. Are you certain you had not seen him somewhere before—at a coaching inn perhaps, or a changing station?”

Cora hesitated. “My father was most anxious to reach Gretna Green before the snow. We stopped but twice to change horses, trying to outrun the storm. I only left the coach once. No, I don’t recall seeing the man.”

“The young man in the carriage was your intended, then?”

She nodded.

“And the other gentleman?”

“Clive Clement, Albert’s father.”

“Both fathers in attendance?” Joss prompted. “Is that usual?”

“No, it is not usual, sir,” Cora snapped. “Suffice it to say that they were giving us . . . safe conduct.”

“That’s rather ironic given the outcome, don’t you think?”

“The outcome would have been an answer to prayer, if it had not ended in death, sir.”

“I see.”

She did not soften. “You do not ‘see,’ sir, but you do not need to see. It has no bearing upon the situation at hand, and it is personal—something private, the painful details of which I do not choose to share with a virtual stranger. However, if I have come to this pass from observing proprieties, whatever next, alone with you here without them? It seems I have a genuine penchant for
being compromised.” She surged to her feet. “Oh, pishposh!” she said. “You may as well have it. I am a ruined woman, sir, through no fault of my own, and proprieties no longer signify except in my mind—though in that quarter I am as pure as the driven snow outside, and mean to stay so. You would do well to take that to heart. I may be only twenty summers, but life has singled me out for knowledge far beyond my years, and taught me how to use it, I assure you, so beware.”

Joss’s eyebrow inched up a notch. So, it was to be a forced union at Gretna Green? He had surmised such was the case when she’d shown no remorse at news of her betrothed’s demise. Was it merely that she had been compromised for the lack of a proper chaperon, or was it something more? He longed to ask:
How ruined?
but thought better of it, recalling his all too recent bout with a certain porcelain pitcher. Instead, he offered a deep, respectful bow, and changed the subject.

“How did you become bogged down in the snow?” he said, aiming for neutral ground.

“The storm worsened,” she said, “and I tried to persuade Father and the others to stop at an inn until it passed over, but they would have none of it, not when we were so close to the border. The drifts grew too deep for the carriage to pass through. The horses were laboring, and Mr. Sikes, the real coachman, couldn’t see a foot ahead for the blowing snow. Finally, the wheels slowed, then stopped turning altogether. Mr. Sikes was getting the worst of it. He looked like a snowman, and there wasn’t room for him to take shelter in the carriage. Then he saw lights and went off to bring help—so he said. We tried to convince him to unhitch the horses and ride for help, but he said it would be too much trouble to hitch them up again in such a blizzard, and
he set out afoot, insisting it was but a short distance. He never returned.”

“Who opened the carriage door?”

“Albert did. He had a terror of close confinement. He feared the snow would bury us and prevent the door from opening; only one would open as it was.”

“His phobia cost him and the others their lives. That is how the wolf that savaged them got in.”

“Wolf, sir? There are no wolves in England any longer. A dog, surely.”

Joss hesitated. He hadn’t meant to say wolf. Should he throw caution to the winds and tell the whole truth? Not quite yet. It was too soon for that, and with any luck there wouldn’t be a need.

“That is what the animal looked like,” he said. “The same beast tried to savage me out there just now. How long were you waiting for Sikes to return?”

“Hours, I think. I can’t remember. I must have passed out, it’s all so vague.”

“When I found you, you were at the bottom of a mountain of bodies. I do believe that is what saved you. The press of those bodies kept you from freezing. Those bruises there on your temple . . . and your cheek, are they related to what happened in that carriage?”