Martha Schroeder (18 page)

“Do you mind telling me what this is all about?” She hesitated to question him, his temper seemed on a very short leash, and she had no right to delve into his life. “You and the captain were friends, I thought. And he is in the grip of a high fever. Yet you seemed so angry with him.”

“Yes, I am angry. That young man has pretended to be my friend, and now I find he has knowledge of my family— knowledge he has withheld from me—” He turned away from her, took a few quick steps, then turned back. He found her standing quietly, her hands folded at her waist, looking neither avid nor expectant.

He could speak or not as he chose. He sighed. “I told you about my family. About my nephew, Francis.”

Jane did not speak, she only nodded.

“That song that Falconer was humming upstairs. That song—”  He stepped up to her and took her by her arms. “My sister-in-law wrote that song, Jane. She wrote it for Francis. She never wrote it down, and no one else ever sang it. No one.”

Jane stared into the colonel’s furious hazel eyes and said, “I don’t understand, Richard. What do you think it could mean?”

“I don’t know, but I damn well mean to find out! How in the hell did Gideon Falconer learn that song? He must have encountered Francis somewhere in his dirty gypsy past. And he had better not die until I find out where!” He released Jane’s arms so suddenly, she had to take a step backward to regain her balance.

“After that,” he finished as he stalked back into the house, “if he doesn’t die of his wounds, I may kill him myself.”

Chapter Fourteen

Jane followed him back inside, grateful for the cheerful fire that burned on the library’s hearth. She went to stand facing Sir Richard across the expanse of the fireplace.

Of all the questions that filled her mind and despite her worry about her patient, she wanted to know only one thing. “I thought you were friends. That you despised the prejudice about Gideon’s origins that kept so many doors shut against him.” She could not hide the disappointment she felt. “I thought you felt as Amelia and I do.”

As all right-thinking people do.
He heard the words as clearly as if she had spoken them.

Distractedly Richard ran his hand through his already disordered hair. Where was the cool, sardonic humor that kept the world and its emotions at bay? Gone, with the sound of a child’s lullaby.

“It is not that,” he murmured. “Not quite that. But why is he alive and Francis not? Why has he never spoken to me of Francis?”

“Richard, do but think,” Jane said. She closed me space between them and took his hands in hers. “Gideon is delirious. He has no idea of what he is saying.”

“But he knows that song. He heard it somewhere. It did not just spring into his head when he was shot.”

“He heard it sometime in the past, but it may be a memory he will not recall when he is awake. I have encountered many such cases in treating fevers and head wounds.” Jane looked up at him earnestly. Her glowing topaz eyes entreated his understanding.

“You mean he may never be able to recall where he learned it?” Disappointment swept through him. Once again, his every path to his family was blocked. He longed to put his sister-in-law’s torment to rest, and his father’s. Sir Richard knew himself to be an unsatisfactory heir, but in some fashion he felt he would redeem himself if he could produce an explanation for Francis’s disappearance.

“I mean, we will have to wait until he has recovered to ask him.”

“But if you are right and he does not remember when he is awake, then we should ask him now. Find out now, while he can still remember.” It was an exciting idea—perhaps now was the very time.

“Sir Richard longed for action, and this was something he could do immediately. He was still holding Jane’s hands. Now he pressed them in an attempt to convey his urgency. “Please let us try. If it disturbs him, I promise I will stop questioning him.”

Jane looked at him with doubt clear in her eyes. “I should return to him now in any case. Come with me, and we will see.”

Sir Richard bent and would have kissed Jane’s hands, but she pulled them away and hurried out of the room ahead of him.

Amelia had not moved since they had left her alone with Gideon. She still sat on the side of the bed and stroked his hair. He lay as if unconscious, his chest barely registering breath.

“Has he awakened at all?” Jane moved to the bed and laid a hand on Gideon’s brow.

“Briefly. He still seemed to think he is with his mother.” Amelia blinked tears from her eyes.

Her heart had been cracked open with love and pity when she heard that childish voice coming from her intrepid Gideon. This, she was sure, was the memory of his life “before,” when he had been warm and loved. Whoever and wherever his mother was, Gideon still loved her. And the memory of her love for him was still alive, although it had been buried for years.

“I need to talk to him, Lady Amelia.” Sir Richard stood leaning over her, frowning down at the figure in the bed.

Amelia rose and glared at him. “You may not speak to anyone in my house in the kind of language you used before toward him. If you cannot keep your bigotry under control, I will have to ask you to leave.”

He gave her a pained half smile. “I am sorry, ma’am. I forgot myself. It is just that he clearly has some knowledge that he has never shared with me.”

For the first time Amelia truly focused on what he was saying. “Knowledge? What kind of knowledge?”

“About my family. He knows something of my nephew.” Sir Richard looked at her squarely. “It is of the utmost importance to me and to my sister-in-law that I discover what Falconer knows. And how he knows it.”

Amelia began to speak then paused, struck by Sir Richard’s words. “What do you think Gideon knows. Sir Richard?”

Impatiently Sir Richard said, “That song he was singing. It is one my sister-in-law wrote for Francis—my nephew. I need to know how Falconer knows it.”

Amelia stared at him for a moment, trying to understand. Gideon was ill, wounded, and Sir Richard wanted to wake him up to ask about a
song!
“You cannot be serious. Jane, tell him that Gideon needs rest, not to be questioned about some song!”

“It is very important to Sir Richard, Amelia, and the captain may not remember when he awakes.”

“And that is more important than making sure he
does
awake? I begin to think you are as mad as Sir Richard.” Amelia felt herself begin to shake with anger. Was she the only person here concerned about Gideon and not some aristocratic nephew of the heir to a marquessate? It was intolerable!

“It
will not harm him, Amy,” Jane said, placing a soothing hand on her friend’s arm. “You know I would not risk it if I thought there was danger. If Sir Richard upsets him, I will not allow him to continue.”

“It is monstrous! I cannot think what has come over you both. Who cares about a song? Gideon risked his life for me today as he has for you more than once, Sir Richard. And now you will chance his recovery for a little useless information?”

She sat back down on the edge of the bed and took Gideon’s hand, which was curled up clutching something, in both of hers. “Very well. Ask your questions.” She glared up at Sir Richard, feeling like a lioness guarding her wounded mate.
Jackal,
her gaze said,
do your worst.

Sir Richard once again leaned over the bed. He could not get too near Gideon because Amelia sat squarely in the way. Nevertheless, he was close enough to see any expression in the captain’s eyes once they were open.

“Falconer,” he said, his voice low but commanding, “look at me. It is Colonel Sinclair. Open your eyes.”

Gideon groaned, and Amelia’s gaze flew to Sir Richard’s, all but ordering him silently to stop the questioning before it began. He ignored her.

“Falconer, it is time to wake.” The tone was insistent, and Gideon tossed on the pillow but then slowly opened his eyes and stared at his superior officer.

“Sir,” he said, his voice a croak. “Do we ride?”

“Not yet. First I need to ask you something.”

“Yes, sir.” It was the response of a wounded officer, who was still under orders, though he might be dying. Amelia clutched his hand harder.

“You were singing. A lullaby.”

“A lullaby, sir?” Gideon’s frown was puzzled, Then his face cleared, and once again wore the look of childlike peace Amelia found so unbearably touching. “My mama’s lullaby?”

A spasm of pain crossed Sir Richard’s face for a moment. “Did your mother teach it to you?”

“Yes, sir.” Again that puzzled frown. “I think so. It was long ago.”

“Did your mother tell you where she learned that song?” Sir Richard leaned forward. Amelia thought he was willing Gideon to answer.

“She did not learn it,” Gideon responded.

Sir Richard looked angry. “What do you mean she didn’t—”

“How did she know the lullaby, then?” It was Jane’s calm, nurse’s voice that asked the question. She laid her hand on Sir Richard’s sleeve, and he responded by folding his lips into a tight line and saying nothing.

“She made it up,” Gideon said simply, and closed his eyes again.

“That is impossible,” Sir Richard said. He turned away from the bed and went to stand by the window. “His mother must have lied to him and told him that. She may have heard it somehow. There were gypsies camped somewhere nearby that summer, and they were everywhere. One of them could have heard the song, I suppose.” He shrugged and put a hand on the cold windowpane. “It is always like this. We get what we think are solid clues, and they turn out to be as insubstantial as smoke.”

Amelia sat as if turned to stone. “Clues to what, Sir Richard?”

“It is a family mystery, Lady Amelia. One I do not talk about.”

“Well, you have talked about it now and have accused Gideon of being somehow involved. I think you had better tell us the rest.”

Sir Richard ran a distracted hand through his hair. “Jane already knows the rest.”

“And I do not. Pray enlighten me. I have a reason to inquire.”

A chief judge could not have sounded more compelling. Richard believed her. “I had a nephew who died at a very early age. My sister-in-law has never accepted his death, and as a result I have attempted to track down any hint of a connection with Francis. I hope to find confirmation of his death.”

“Tell me, Sir Richard, if he had lived, would your nephew be your father’s heir?” She was frowning at him, a look that might have been distrust in her eyes.

“Yes. He was the son of my older brother, Lionel.”

“Who also died?”

“Yes.”

“Accidentally?”

“Yes.”

A decisive nod. Lady Amelia rose, laying Gideon’s hand tenderly on the coverlet. “I would be obliged if you would leave now, Sir Richard. When Gideon has recovered, you may talk to him again, but in his present state you have him at a disadvantage.”

Amelia hoped she sounded convincing. Sir Richard’s anger at Gideon, his insistence that Gideon knew something about the death of his nephew years before, frightened her. There was a mystery here, hut she was afraid Sir Richard was trying to tie Gideon to it for his own reasons.

“I only wish to get answers to a few questions, that is all. If Falconer has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear from me.”

Jane, who had been following the conversation almost as if it were a game of battledore and shuttlecock, looked closely at Gideon. “I believe he will sleep for a while. Richard, perhaps you would be good enough to wait for us in the library.”

“Jane, I do not believe I deserve to be treated as if I were a criminal simply because I asked Falconer some questions. If Lady Amelia would explain exactly what—”

“Wait for us, Richard.” Jane’s look was beseeching, but her tone was adamant.

“Very well.” He left with visible reluctance.

“Now, Amelia,” Jane said as the door closed behind him, “you had better tell me what is on your mind. You looked at Sir Richard as if you thought he was a murderer.”

Amelia bit her lip. “While we were prisoners, Gideon talked a bit about his childhood. The time before he was apprenticed to the sweep. He seems to remember a time when he was not with the gypsies. I did not question him about it. Just thinking of that time made him unhappy. But he remembers a large house, and a woman who sang to him. Who sang that song.”

“That is remarkable. We must tell Richard. It could be that Gideon isn’t a gypsy, that he is the son of a servant or even a tenant on the estate.”

“Oh, Jane, perhaps that is it, but I must think for a moment!” In her agitation Amelia began to pace across the room, back and forth in front of the fireplace and foot of the huge four-poster bed that faced it. Perhaps if she told Jane some of the thoughts that rioted in her brain, they would come clear. “Sir Richard’s nephew dies. Then his brother meets with a fatal accident. Now he is his father’s heir.”

“What in the world are you implying, Amelia?” Jane was clearly horrified. “That Richard wants to be a marquess? You are quite out there, you know. He dreads the thought.”

“And you know that because—” Amelia stopped in front of Jane and broke off her thought, wanting the truth to come out of Jane’s own mouth.

“He told me so. We talked a great deal about his family on the way here.”

“But that was only today. And he is the only one to swear he has always had that attitude.” Amelia was growing colder by the minute. What was she thinking? That Sir Richard had somehow contrived his brother’s and his nephew’s deaths so that he would become the marquess when his father died? Surely not. And that now he was going to try to tie Gideon to his nephew’s death somehow? Why? To avert suspicion? To lay the question of the little boy’s death to rest at last?

Whatever the reason, if it was true that Sir Richard was trying to blame Gideon for something to do with his nephew’s death, Amelia was going to fight to preserve Gideon’s good name. He had earned it entirely by himself, and no one was going to take it away from him while he lay helpless. Not if she could prevent it.

She looked down at him as he slept, his hand still curled up under his chin. Smiling, she smoothed back his thick, dark hair. The petticoat bandage they had contrived for his head had been replaced by Jane’s neat white square. Love for him swelled her heart. He had endured so much in his life and had come through it all with his gallantry and, she was sure, his honor intact. How could Sir Richard, or anyone who knew Gideon think for a moment that he would hurt anyone intentionally? That was the reason he had run away from the man who made him fight— Gideon could no longer go on fighting other homeless boys just like himself.