Her Ladyship's Companion (24 page)

“Turn around, Harold. I’m right behind you,” the voice invited. There was a thump and scrape and movement in the bushes behind the path. But there was no one there. Under the glare of the noon sun there was no one at all in the woods.

And
was
that Giles? The sound of the voice was muffled, echoing weirdly up and down the cliffs. There was an almost inhuman quality to it, as if it were strained beyond some breaking point.

Harold froze. His face blanched. He no longer saw Melissa cowering before him. He whirled around, the gun thrust out before him in both hands. There was no one behind him.

“Not there, Harold,” the voice mocked. “Over here.”

Pines twisted and beaten by the force of the wind swished as if something unseen had crawled through them, then were still.

“Like to see if you can put another bullet in me?” came the half whisper, but this time from farther away to the left.

Melissa strained her eyes. Was it Giles? But Giles was dead. Harold had killed him. Hadn’t he said that?

It was the final shock. Her knees gave way underneath her. The ground swung up to meet her hands. Green grass filled her face. At the last minute she grabbed the turf and saved herself from rolling over the edge of the cliff.

She peered up through a curtain of haze. The edge of the world went fuzzy, and what she could see had a way of swimming curiously back and forth across her line of vision.

Far to the right the bushes rustled. Harold spun, pointing the gun in that direction.

“That’s not right either, Harold.” The voice drifted from the woods. Curiously disembodied, it floated out over the noise of the sea. It might have been the ocean itself talking, or sea gulls crying.

Melissa shook her head to clear it, but dark shapes spun across her vision. There seemed to be a blackness on the path leading to the sea. She blinked rapidly, trying to banish the vision, but the black shape didn’t go away.

There was a groan. Did it come from the woods or from that formless blackness moving on the path? She looked away and saw Harold’s face in ravaged profile. His eyes bulged out of their sockets with fear. The gun wavered back and forth in his hands, now searching the woods, now pointed at the path.

“You’re dead!” Harold screamed, his voice cracking terribly on a high note. “I saw you go over the cliffs. I shot you. You’re dead! Dead! Dead!”

The voice didn’t answer. There was no noise or movement in the woods. Weakly Melissa rested her head on her hands. When she looked up again, her vision was clearer and there was nothing whatever in the woods, only green trees serene under the sunlight.

“The dead don’t walk,” Harold was crooning to himself.

Without warning he fired the gun wildly into the woods. Melissa heard the shot snick through leaves and branches and hit something solid. “You’re dead.” Harold’s voice was shattered, and his lips moved almost without sound. “You’ve got to stay dead, Helena. I saw your body at the bottom of the cliff. You can’t come back again.”

Melissa, huddled close to the ground, began to crawl away from the cliff edge.

Harold pointed the empty gun and pulled the trigger again and again. “No, Helena, no. Don’t do this to me.” The words splattered from his mouth like spittle. “You’re dead. I’m sorry, Helena. You wouldn’t believe me. You were asking too many questions. You have to stay dead. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.”

Melissa thought his wild eyes seemed almost to focus on some unseen figure in the middle distance, as if he could see something invisible,

Harold began to retreat from the woods, step by step. His face was distorted and ashen. “You’re dead. You’re dead,” he whispered over and over.

He was still whispering when having backed to the edge of the rocks, he lost his foot and fell backward.

Melissa clung to the earth, feeling every foot of the fall with him. Her eyes were tightly closed. The scream stopped abruptly. She had no strength to rise. She lay there in a small heap on the ground while the sky wheeled above her.

Someone touched her shoulder gently. She looked up.

“Are you hurt?” Giles asked. Melissa shook her head wordlessly. Giles himself could hardly stand, and his voice was weak. His clothes were filthy and soaked and torn. A scrap of shirt was wrapped around his arm. From beneath it Melissa saw blood slowly dripping. His right hand clutched the wound, but blood squeezed out between his fingers.

“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, starting up and catching him under the arms. “You’re hurt. He said he’d killed you. And you just stood there and let him shoot at you again. What an incredibly
stupid
thing to do.”

There was real amusement as well as the red haze of pain in his eyes. His undamaged arm caught her across her shoulder, perhaps for support. He pulled her close to him. “He missed, though. The shot went wild. It worked.”

“You just stood there and let him shoot at you!” Melissa said again, outraged.

“Threw rocks. Made noise in the woods. He didn’t know where I was. I didn’t think he’d hit me at that range anyway.” His voice rasped raw with exhaustion. “What was that nonsense he was saying at the end, something about Helena?”

“He said he’d killed her. He said he’d killed you, too.” Not for the world would she have told him about the shadow she’d seen under the noon sun in the woods. She’d been out of her head ... imagined it.

Giles laughed unsteadily. “He made a good try. But instead of turning me over to make sure, like a sensible man, he just stood over me and talked a blue streak while I was busily bleeding to death. Funny time to tell his life story.” He daubed ineffectually at his bleeding arm. “I took the bullet in here. Not bad at all. It was getting up those damned cliffs ... Passed out for a while.” He swayed against her, and she managed to support his weight. Far away Melissa heard a shout and the sound of running feet,

“Over here!” she called. “Come quickly.”

An instant later Sir Adrian burst through the trees. In contrast with his usual debonair appearance, he was gasping for breath and his clothes were filthy. Even his necktie was askew. Giles gave a rather ghastly grin.

“I heard a shot,” Sir Adrian said calmly, his sharp eyes taking in the situation in a moment. He unwrapped his neckcloth even as he spoke and wound it into a rough compress over Giles’s wound. “So this is what you get yourself into when I turn my back for a minute.”

Giles yelped in annoyance as Adrian pulled the cloth tight over the wound. Grunting loudly, Adrian hoisted the wounded man across his shoulder till he was half carrying, half leading him. They went down the path toward Vinton Manor.

“Fool,” Adrian addressed Giles sternly. “Your man told me you’d gone out with Harold this morning. You should have known something like this would come of it. That’s no way to keep an eye on him. I had to find you to tell you that one of your dueling pistols is gone from the gun room. But I see I come late with the news.”

Giles was too concerned keeping his footing to answer. Adrian turned to Melissa. “Where’s that rummy cousin of his? Fellow’s run mad, looks like.”

Melissa wordlessly pointed over the cliff. Sir Adrian’s eyes followed her direction, taking in the view. But he made no attempt to go nearer to see if any remains of the tragedy rested below. “Like that, eh?” he said. “Probably all for the best.” He half led, half dragged the semiconscious Giles up the path. “Did you push him or did he?” he inquired politely of Melissa.

“He fell,” Melissa said briefly. Sir Adrian raised a quizzical eyebrow and looked skeptical but said no more, concentrating on keeping Giles upright.

“Have a care there,” Giles snarled between clenched teeth. “As someone once remarked to me, you’re not hauling a sack of meal, you know.”

“Damn idiot,” Adrian returned cheerfully. “You’ve started to bleed again. Don’t blame me if you join your illustrious ancestors before your time. There’s the fine fellow, over this little hill here and we’re home.”

“Damn you, I know the grounds.”

“Not saying you don’t, old boy, but you’re not seeing things so very clearly right now, are you?”

Giles gave an unintelligible curse and subsided, allowing Adrian to manhandle him along the path. Melissa followed, feeling useless and watching the blood drip from Giles’s arm onto the path.

She felt even more useless when they reached the house and a horde of servants took him out of her sight, up the stairs, away from her. Maids ran amok with bandages and boiling water. Lady Dorothy’s strident voice directed the proceedings. But the hired companion had no place. There was no need of another weeping female on the stairs.

Melissa was waiting in the yellow parlor, her face pale and stony calm, when Lady Dorothy joined her.

“Sir Adrian sends to tell you that Giles is in no immediate danger,” Lady Dorothy reassured her at once. “He’s taken the ball out, and the bone isn’t touched. Adrian’s competent in some things at least. He even says there’s not much blood lost, but I’ve no opinion of his opinion, if you follow me.” The dowager studied Melissa’s disordered hair and rumpled dress without much severity. “You, my girl,” she said, “are fine. I’ve assured Giles of it, and you’re not to make a liar of me, you hear? Sir Adrian will join us as soon as he’s restrained Giles,” she went on. “We can’t have him rushing about out of bed. He’s trying to do all kinds of impractical things, but he can safely leave them in my hands.

“So I see no reason to wait for Adrian. You may start your explanations at once, Miss Rivenwood. The time has come to tell me exactly what has been going on. Nobody,” Lady Dorothy concluded in disgust, “ever tells me anything. I have to be a nosy old woman and find out for myself.”

Melissa stayed silent, not knowing how to answer. Lady Dorothy examined her shrewdly. “Wondering if my heart can stand it, are you?” she said. “So. I’m tougher than I look. I’ll get it all out of someone sooner or later. It might as well be you. Adrian is upstairs, mewing something about a hunting accident. I’m not such a ninny as to fall for that.” Lady Dorothy sat down and patted Melissa’s hand emphatically. “No lies now.”

Melissa took a deep breath and plunged in. There was no way to avoid it. Some things, at least, she would have to know. “Harold is dead,” she stated simply.

Lady Dorothy frowned at the tabletop. “Then it was he,” she said in a pensive voice. “Those accidents to Robbie. Incompetence and childish malice. I was afraid of something like that. Did Giles kill him?”

She was taking it very calmly.

“No, he fell. We were ... he slipped and went over the cliff. It was an accident.”

Lady Dorothy nodded approvingly. “Yes. That’s the best thing to say. Is there a bullet hole in him, too?”

“No. He just fell.”

“Good. Then that part won’t need much explaining.” Lady Dorothy meditated on the problem. “I rather think he died trying to climb down the cliff to help Giles after Giles had the stupid accident with his pistol. What was Giles doing out with a pistol? I wonder. I suppose I’ll think of something later. Wise of you not to use a bullet.”

“Lady Dorothy ...” Melissa was protesting when they were interrupted by Sir Adrian.

He must have moved with lightning speed because he’d restored himself to his usual faultless appearance. No matter the emergency, there was always time for a civilized man to don his neckcloth.

“Your servant, Lady Dorothy, Miss Rivenwood.” With Lady Dorothy’s nod of permission he sighed in relief and threw himself into a chair and raised his thin legs to an ottoman. “Lord, I never saw such a fellow for being active at inopportune moments. I practically had to tie him down to the bed. I’ve got his secretary, excellent fellow, up there watching him.” He cocked an eyebrow at Melissa. “I am to assure myself that you are in good health. It’s affecting his mind somewhat.”

“He’ll be all right then?”

“Oh, yes, Miss Rivenwood. No problem with that. I’ve seen him take worse than this and fight the next day in a major engagement.” He grinned wickedly. “So I suppose he can do it again.”

“Good,” Lady Dorothy pronounced. “If no other harm comes of this, then I’d say we escaped lucky.”

Sir Adrian regarded Melissa sapiently. “Have you told her?”

“Harold’s death?” the dowager’s lips tightened. “Don’t try to tell me it’s not the best solution. It’s just as well Giles disposed of him right away. It’s certainly to no one’s benefit to have Harold locked up for the rest of his life, and that was the only alternative.” She sounded relieved. “It’s a great weight off my mind, actually.”

Melissa was a little appalled at such a cold-blooded attitude. “Lady Dorothy, doesn’t it mean anything more to you than that? After all, he was your own—” She stopped, aghast at what she’d been saying.

“Son. Yes. He was my son. Oh, don’t blush like that, gel. You’ve not let out any state secrets. There may be some Hottentot or Eskimo somewhere that doesn’t know all about it, but certainly no one in London society. And you needn’t try to look so noncommittal, Adrian. I’m sure you, at any rate, know the whole story. You’ve a mind for scandal like any old biddy.”

“You do me too much honor,” Sir Adrian said sarcastically. “If you’d like me to leave ...”

“Stay,” she commanded. “I never said you couldn’t keep your mouth closed when it suited you.” She glared impartially at both of them. “You’re a worthless fop, Adrian, but Giles wouldn’t have brought you into this business if you weren’t completely trustworthy. You needn’t play these airs off on me.”

“I am much maligned,” Adrian said, and subsided.

“You don’t need to tell me anything,” Melissa began.

“You’ve a right to know,” Lady Dorothy said grimly. “From what Giles said, you’ve come close to death on account of a forty-year-old folly of mine. You’ve a right to know the reasons.”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, shut up. It’s nothing I’m ashamed of.” Lady Dorothy scowled fiercely. “If I’ve kept silent, it’s not my own advantage I was thinking of. Harold deserved his chance. If the real story had been known, he would have been destroyed. I even put it about, without ever saying, that he was Harforth’s son. An earl’s bastard is more acceptable than your run-of-the-mill variety somehow.”