Moth to the Flame (25 page)

‘You never attended the inquest into your brother's death did you, Davina?' he said.

‘No,' she said. She hadn't been able to.

‘So you don't know the findings of the inquest?'

‘No,' she admitted, looking at him levelly. ‘Are you telling me they didn't bring it in as suicide?'

‘Oh, no, they brought it in as suicide all right,' Gareth concurred. ‘But suicide whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed by the brain tumour the M. E. had discovered during the autopsy.'

Davina felt the room around her dip, recede, darken. A few moments later she was aware that she was staring down at her feet. A warm hand was pressed against the back of her neck, holding her bent over. She took several, long, deep breaths. Then, slowly, gingerly, she leaned back in the chair. Gareth, who'd been
kneeling
down in front of her, got up and walked to the small kitchen cubby hole, returning with a glass of cold water. He handed it to her and watched her sip it, thankful to see her white cheeks gain a little colour. His heart was racing uncomfortably. He moved back to his chair, waiting for her to give him the sign that she was ready to go on.

At last, Davina put down the glass and turned to look at him. ‘Let's finish it,' she whispered bitterly.

Gareth sighed. ‘For the last two terms your brother was here, he became prone to mood swings. He lost his friends, because he started to accuse them of things. Trying to steal his girlfriend. Searching his room when he was out. That kind of thing. His work went downhill—his essays became unfocused. Shoddy. His moral tutor tried to get him to see a therapist, but he flatly refused. I tried to get him to tell me what was wrong, but the more I asked, the more certain he became that I was persecuting him. And then came the Prelims. He was caught cheating by the Monitor at Schools, and it was out of my hands. Sin-Jun had no choice but to send him down.'

Davina leaned her head back against the headrest of the chair. ‘So he was . . . ill,' she said flatly. She didn't, for one instant, suspect that Gareth was lying to her.

‘There's more,' Gareth warned.

‘It's going to hurt, isn't it?' she said softly.

Gareth
looked up at her. And nodded. ‘Yes,' he said softly. ‘I'm afraid it is.'

‘Tell me.'

Gareth took a deep breath. ‘At the inquest, the coroner and jury concluded that he couldn't have known about the tumour. His GP testified that he'd never come to him about it.'

Davina frowned.

‘So . . .'

Gareth glanced once more at the paper. Then, wordlessly, he handed the letter over. As he did so, he knew that he was taking a chance. He was handing her fresh ammunition that she could use against him. Withholding information from a coroner was enough to ruin him every bit as effectively as the exam-papers-for-money scandal she'd thought up. But he knew she would never use it against him. Not now. Now he would trust her with his life. Why not? He already trusted her with his heart, his body, his soul. Davina took the paper, instantly recognising her brother's handwriting.

She took a deep, ragged breath, and began to read.

Dear Dr Lacey,

I thought I'd write this letter to you whilst I still can. I don't really know how to begin though. Last Michaelmas Term I started having headaches, but then they seemed to go away. Or rather. . . I think, now, that I just forgot that I'd
had
them. I began to lose time, you see. I'd start to write an essay, and then suddenly find I'd written four pages. But not remembering a word until I read my own handwriting, to see what I'd put down.

So I went up north, to a private clinic. Of course, they found something nasty on the old brain. But then I knew they would. They tried to be kind, I know. Talked about drugs, and therapy, and homes. But what it amounted to, was the fact that I was going to die, stark raving mad in some hospital somewhere. And I thought . . . well—bugger that!

So I bought the aspirins. Anyway, there's something I meant to tell you. I know I've done something. . . weird. Told someone, I think, that what happened to me was all your fault. I remember writing. But I can't think to whom.

I don't want you to feel guilty. Oh, one other thing. Please don't tell anyone that I know about the tumour. I don't want Mum knowing that I knew. It'd break her heart.

I think that's the lot. I always liked you—I don't know whether I ever told you that. Anyway.

All the best, David.'

Davina slowly lowered the rambling letter to the table top. Tears flooded out of her eyes. ‘Oh David,' she gulped. She cried bitterly then, for a long, long time. Gareth watched her helplessly, tears in his own eyes. Finally, when she'd stopped, he silently handed her his handkerchief then picked up the letter and put
it
back in the folder.

‘You could sense him struggling to keep his mind on what he was doing,' Davina said at last, her voice so faint it was almost a whisper. She closed her eyes briefly. Oh David!

But it wasn't his fault. None of this was his fault.

Slowly she opened her eyes again. ‘David's gone now,' she said simply. ‘Now I know the truth. I've just said goodbye to him. Now, this minute. I should have said goodbye at his funeral, but I didn't. I couldn't. Not while I thought he was there because of you.' Her voice was sweet again. Simple. Honest.

Gareth turned and looked at her. ‘I know,' he said simply. ‘Believe me. I understand.'

Davina took a deep breath. She got up, her legs feeling as weak as water. She walked towards him, one hand held out uncertainly, and he watched her, his eyes shuttered. He had no idea what she was going to do next. Only knew that, whatever it was, it would decide their destiny.

‘Gareth,' she said forlornly. ‘I'm so sorry. About Gavin Brock. About not trusting you. I should have listened to my instincts, but I didn't.'

Gareth shook his head. What did he matter? What was past was over and done with. It was the future that mattered.

‘Oh Gareth,' she said sadly. ‘What are we going to do now?'

Gareth
looked at her bleakly. ‘Why ask me?' he laughed. ‘I don't know. It's up to you.'

‘Do you hate me?' Davina asked.

‘No.'

‘You should. You have the right.'

‘Fine,' he said wearily. ‘So I have the right to hate you. I'll bear that in mind, in the future.'

Davina's cat-green eyes flashed. ‘Future? What future? You don't really think we have a future do you?'

And suddenly, with that returning flash of spirit, he felt his heart leap. He laughed. He couldn't help it. Davina was back! Everything was going to be all right. He couldn't have said why, exactly, he was so certain. He only knew that he was.

‘Why not?' he demanded. ‘The future's ours to do what we like with. It always has been.' And suddenly he reached for her. Davina had time only to give a quick, surprised squeak, and then she was in his arms. His head swooped, and their lips met in a kiss that rocked them both. His tongue pushed her lips apart, invading her, demanding and receiving the honeyed sweetness of her mouth.

His arms locked into a vice. For the first time since he'd met her, she was his. All his. And he was never going to let her go. When he lifted his head, his eyes were dancing. ‘I've been waiting to do that for a long time.'

‘Do what?' she gasped, bewildered.

‘Kiss
you.'

‘You've kissed me before.'

‘Not like that.'

And Davina suddenly understood what he meant. The truth that surpassed all other truths. That was their first kiss as equals. Not as hunter and hunted. But as real, true, lovers.

‘Do you mean . . .' she breathed, hardly daring to hope. ‘Do you mean you want us to try again?'

‘Yes,' Gareth said, no doubt whatsoever in his voice. Others might think he was mad, but what did they matter to Davina and himself? They were Moth and Flame. A whole world in themselves. They lived by their own rules. ‘Davina, I love you,' he said simply.

‘But . . .'

‘Do you love me?' he demanded quietly.

‘Yes. Oh yes!'

‘Do you believe that I love you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, there you are then.'

It was hardly poetical. But they were the sweetest words Davina had ever heard.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Jared rose and stretched, feeling relaxed and happy. His body seemed to glow with the remembrance of their love-making, and as he
pulled
on his shirt and jeans, he was smiling. He'd have to take her home to meet his mum and dad.

He'd have to buy a ring! Right now he didn't even have any idea what sort of stone she'd like. He'd have to ask her. Still humming to himself, he left his rooms and casually jogged down the stairs.

*          *          *

Alicia glanced out of the window and sighed. It was not a sad sigh, but one of utter contentment. Her life was her own, at last. Hers and Jared's. She too contemplated her family's reaction to her engagement. She doubted it would be one of joy, but they'd get used to it. They'd have to.

She heard a tap on the door, and, without any presentiment of fear whatsoever, opened it.

*          *          *

Emily, lying on her bed in the room next door, turned the page of the medical textbook she was reading and groaned out loud. Bowel parasites. Charming!

*          *          *

Alicia bit back a small cry of nervous surprise
as
Rupert smiled down at her. ‘Hello darling. Can I come in?'

Alicia managed a brief smile and stood back. ‘Of course.' She rubbed her hands nervously across her thighs, and tried to keep her tone easy and light.

She watched him walk slowly into the room, looking around him with open interest. Of course, he'd never been here before, she realised. Rupert hesitated over a poster on one wall—a vivid sunset, with a verse from Shelley at the bottom. ‘Beautiful,' he said softly. And fingered the sharp silver knife in his pocket.

Alicia frowned. She wished she didn't feel so helpless. So guilty. Rupert came back towards her, where she was still standing more or less in the middle of the floor. Something about the way he looked scared her. His face had a kind of . . . dreamy . . . out of it all . . . expression that instantly had the hackles on her neck rising.

*          *          *

Jared shivered as a blast of cold wind suddenly buffeted him, and glanced up at the sky and hurried across Wallace Quad, towards Webster. And Alicia.

*          *          *

‘So, are you thinking of signing up for any
more
amateur dramatics?' Alicia asked desperately, aware that her voice was squeaking. She was backing away from him now, heading towards the window, where there would be a desk between them.

All right, so he wasn't saying anything. All right, so he was looking at her as if he wanted to devour her with eyes. All right, so he kept putting his hand in his overcoat pocket and caressing something in there. That didn't mean . . .

Rupert put his hand in his coat pocket and drew out the knife. It glinted in silvery, icy, fire in the waning, stormy light. ‘It's time, Alicia,' he said softly. ‘Isn't it?'

*          *          *

Jared pushed open the door to Webster's hall and began to take the steps two at a time. Sapphires perhaps? Hell, he was just a man. What did he know about stones? She might surprise him and say she wanted a . . . bloodstone, or opal, or something.

*          *          *

Alicia stared at the knife, forcing her brain to believe what her eyes were seeing. But it was so hard.

Things like this couldn't happen . . .

He moved towards her, not fast, not sneaky,
but
still with that slow, dreamy, almost hypnotised smile on his face.

Alicia shook her head, grappling with the feeling of unreality. Keep him talking, a voice piped up from somewhere in the back of her head.

‘What do you mean, Rupert?' her voice came out in a dry croak. She backed away another step, her eyes glued to the knife. This was crazy . . .

*          *          *

Jared got to the top of the stairs and began to whistle slowly under his breath. It was the Wedding March.

*          *          *

‘Rupert,' Alicia tried again. ‘What do you want that knife for?'

‘Knife?' Rupert asked vaguely. He glanced at the knife in his hand, then back to her. His eyes wore a puzzled frown. ‘Well, it's for you, silly,' he said, his voice light and teasing now. ‘Just like you wanted.'

Alicia shook her head. ‘I don't want a knife, Rupert. I think you'd better take it back to the Butler.'

Rupert hesitated, surprised. ‘You don't want it?' He frowned. Had he got it wrong? No, she was just nervous, now that he was here at last.
It
was only to be expected.

He smiled. ‘It'll be really sweet, Alicia, I promise,' he said softly. ‘Do you want me to kill myself, too, after-wards, or do you want me to live and suffer?'

Alicia blinked. He's gone, she thought bleakly. Oh Rupert! Her heart ached, for a single moment overriding her fear, drowning out every other emotion in a wave of tender pity. Oh Rupert! I'm so sorry. Her eyes filled with tears. She shook her head.

Rupert cocked his head to one side, puzzled. Then realised—she was leaving it up to him what he did afterwards. He nodded and raised his hand. The knife blade caught a gleam of dull light from the window, and it glinted, glacier-like, in the darkening room.

Alicia wasn't even aware of thinking. Barely felt herself move, even. But, the next instant, the chair was in her hands. And she was turning, lifting it up in front of her. Rupert was lunging forward, surprised by her sudden movement, hideously aware that something was not right. She shouldn't be doing this. That's not how their final scene was supposed to be at all. But he was already lunging forward, too late to stop the impetus of the knife-strike.