Rules of Murder (27 page)

Hadn’t even the disciples in the presence of the Lord himself said there was nowhere else to go for the words of life? Drew took a hard breath and lowered his head again.

“Dominus illuminatio mea,” he said, and a tear slipped down his cheek, only to be swallowed up by the widening puddle that surrounded him. “Oh, God, be my light. Show me something, anything to cling to. Lord Jesus—”

He lifted his head, abruptly breaking the prayer. There was a tapping at his door. He scrambled to his feet and grabbed one of the thick towels that had been warming at the radiator. He scrubbed the water from his face, and then, wrapping the towel around his hips, he hurried to the door.

“Yes? Who is it?”

“It’s me.” She hesitated for a moment. “It’s Madeline.”

“Madeline!” He reached for the doorknob and then stopped himself. “Is everything all right?”

“I need to talk to you.” Her voice was soft and urgent.

“Uh, I’ll just be a moment.”

He snatched the towel from around his hips and used it to blot the water from his hair. He then toweled off his arms and legs and chest. Once he had thrown on his robe and thrust his feet into his slippers, he opened the door.

“Oh, I didn’t . . .” Madeline felt the heat rise in her face. “I was hoping you hadn’t gone to bed already.”

“Bath, actually,” he said with a pale imitation of his usual smile, and she wished he could have somehow been in his typical breezy mood. It would make everything else so much easier.

“I suppose I should wait until tomorrow.”

“If you’d like,” he said. “It would be a bit more conventional. Or if you’d rather, you can wait just a bit in my study while I put on something a little more suited for a lady’s company.”

She nodded, and he opened the door wide enough to admit her. In another moment he had her settled on the tufted settee under his window.

“I’d ring for some coffee or something, but no use scandalizing Denny this time of the night.”

“I don’t want any coffee.” She shouldn’t have come. It would be too easy now to lose her resolve, to say and do things she didn’t mean or at least that she shouldn’t mean. “I’ll just wait for you.”

He smiled again. “Won’t be a tick.”

In less than five minutes he returned to her, wearing dark trousers and a white shirt, socks but no shoes. He hadn’t taken the time to put in cuff links or button his shirt at the neck. He hadn’t taken much time to dry himself either, judging by the way his thin shirt clung to his back and how it had turned transparent enough in places to reveal the undershirt beneath.

He patted his slicked-back hair and sat beside her. “Bit of an improvement, what?”

“I sort of liked it the way it was,” she admitted.

“Anything to please,” he said, and with both hands he ruffled his hair into a spiky mess. “Better?”

She laughed, but she couldn’t help the tears that sprang to her eyes.

He took her hand, cradling it in both of his. “What is it?”

“I’m going home.”

“But I don’t want you to go.”

He said it as if that should be enough, and for a moment it was. No, she’d have to be strong now. She’d have to be strong.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said again, and he brought her hand to his lips.

How could she resist those lips and those eyes? She tried to pull away, but he clung to her hand. Then he pulled her into his arms.

“I need you,” he breathed, and his breath was warm against her neck. “I need you as surely as I need food and drink and sleep to sustain my life. Truly. Madeline, don’t go.”

She hesitated, afraid. What men would say in the cold loneliness of night was often very different from what they claim to have said come morning. She reminded herself that deceit could come as easily from handsome lips as plain ones and tried once more to pull away from him.

Abruptly he knelt before her and took her hand once more. “Marry me, Madeline. I love you terribly.”

She shook her head. “You can’t mean that. We barely know each other. We—”

“I mean it. I know it’s insane, but I also know what I feel.” He pressed her hand with a passionate kiss. “I need you. I love you.”

Her heart pounded, but she knew what she had to do. She managed an indulgent, half-cynical smile, and brought his hand to her heart. “And I love you.” Her voice was husky and heavily accented, another imitation of Garbo. “Our souls are but two halves of one whole.”

He took his hand from her and got to his feet. “It’s cruel to tease.”

His voice was soft and wounded. Ashamed, she stood and touched his cheek. “I only said that because . . .” She closed her eyes to keep them from spilling over tears. They were melting the last bit of her resolve. “I should never have said it, but I meant it truly. Every bit of it.” She opened her eyes to see an eager, answering light in his own.

“You did?”

With a shy little nod, she ducked her head against his shoulder,
breathing in the clean scent of him, of sun-dried linen and fresh soap.

He kissed her lips, tender and sweet, and then held her wrapped in his arms.

“I love you,” she whispered, leaning up to kiss the corner of his jaw. “But I have to go.”

He stepped back from her, and his eyes lost the pleading softness that had made them so hard to resist. “You’re still angry with me.”

She shook her head. “Not angry. Not anymore. Not really. I’m just sad and disappointed. I thought if no one else would champion Uncle Mason, you would. Instead you leave him forever branded a murderer and a thief. It’s not right. I know—”

“You think you know, but people aren’t always what they seem. I was very sure about my father, too.” For a moment he didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry about Mason. Truly I am.” He looked down. “I guess I loved the old boy, too.”

“But he would never have—”

“Look here, Madeline, I love your stubborn loyalty, your belief even in the face of hard evidence, but there has to be a time when you let it go. No matter how lovely the fantasy, we eventually have to grow up and see the truth.”

She released his arm and faced him, her mouth set in a firm line. “And sometimes it’s not the belief that is wrong, just the interpretation of the evidence.”

She turned on her heel and started toward the door, but he grabbed her hand and turned her back to him.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “I tried. I wanted to believe he was innocent. I wanted to believe everything you believe. Do you know I even . . .” His mouth turned up in a little smirk. “I even prayed. I even . . .” He swiped the back of his hand over his eyes. “I got down on my knees like a schoolboy and begged God
to show me, somehow, if there was some other explanation for all this. If Mason really was the man we all thought for so long that he was. If He was even there listening. And I thought you were my answer.” He grimaced. “I must have looked quite the fool.”

“Drew, no,” she murmured, her eyes brimming with tears, and she squeezed his hand. “You can’t—”

“I can.”

He slipped his hand out of hers and went to the door, opening it to show her out, but she took his hand again.

He stood looking at her, that wounded disappointment in his gray eyes, in every vulnerable line of his face.

The tears spilled down her cheeks, and she reached up to caress his face. “I . . .” She smiled a little. “I think we should make a bargain.”

He laughed half under his breath. “A bargain?”

“You asked God to show you if there was another explanation for all this, if Uncle Mason was innocent.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve asked Him to show me if I was being foolish to believe Uncle Mason wasn’t guilty in the face of all the evidence.”

“And?”

“Well, one of us has to be right. We’ll just have to both pray that He’ll show us which one it is.” Again she stroked his cheek. “But we can’t give up.”

He laughed softly and wrapped her again in his arms. “You will drive me mad, you know that. But it will be the loveliest, most wonderful madness ever to overwhelm a man.”

She couldn’t help herself. She started sobbing against his shoulder. “How can you be so wonderful and so horrible all at the same time?”

“Sorry,” he said. “But you won’t go?”

Again she couldn’t help herself. She started giggling, giggling
and crying and clinging to him. “I won’t say I’ll marry you, but I won’t go. Not yet.”

“Darling,” he breathed, and he kissed her once again, sweet at first, but then with more and more intensity, dizzying her with kisses until he finally pulled away from her.

“Perhaps you’d better go, after all,” he said, and her heart dropped.

“You want me to?”

“Just back to your room, darling.” He took an unsteady breath. “You’re far too tempting.”

“And you’re not?” She laughed and touched her fingers to his lips. “I can’t believe we’ve known each other only a few days.”

“Eleven.”

“You’re sweet to keep count.” She touched his lips once more, aching for another taste of them, and then she looked away. “And sweet to not try to take advantage.”

There was a hint of wry wistfulness in his smile. “We’re both a bit too cut up just now to reason clearly, don’t you think? I guess we could both use some comforting, but I don’t want there to be any regrets between us. Not ever.”

Tears again filled her eyes. He was only making her want him more. “I love you for that.”

“I want you to keep on loving me.” He wrapped her again in his arms, warm and tight, and then kissed her hair. “Come, darling. Time you got some sleep.”

After he took Madeline to her room, stealing just one more kiss at her door, Drew walked back down the long hallway, his steps slow and deliberate.

“Which is it?” he whispered. “If you’re there, if you’re listening, give me a clue here.”

“. . . thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.”

That one Scripture gnawed at him still. Why wouldn’t it leave him alone?

“She says Mason’s innocent. But the evidence says he’s not. Well, which is it? Which of us is right? If it wasn’t Mason, then who—?”

Something moved at the edge of his vision and then disappeared. Lincoln?

Drew sprinted after the apparition, a figure in black moving soundlessly into the darkness of the hallway that led to the other wing of the house, and with a final burst of speed, Drew caught it by the shoulders and spun it to face him.

“Rushford!”

The old man sagged against the wall with a whimpering cry, and Drew was forced to hold him up.

“Steady on, sir. I
am
sorry. I thought perhaps I’d nabbed Lincoln at last.”

Rushford was white to the lips, but he managed a faint laugh. “And I thought for certain he had me.” He pressed his hand to his heart, over the brocade bathrobe that was not actually black, merely a deep plum. “Oh, my word, young man, you should make your presence known.”

“Sorry about that. Why in the world didn’t you put on the lights?”

“It’s rather late, you know. I hated to disturb anyone. I thought I’d have a bath to relax and found I was out of soap, so I just nipped downstairs for some.”

“You look as if you’d already bathed,” Drew said, seeing the man’s hair, what he had of it, was wet.

“Yes, well.” Rushford smoothed one hand over his head. “I had already gotten into the bath when I realized about the soap.”

“You should have rung for someone. Shall I call your man?”

“I sent him back home earlier this evening actually. To see to some things for me.” They had reached Rushford’s room by then, and the old man put one hand on the doorknob. “You might like to know I’ll be leaving tomorrow. Time we all got back to something like a normal life.”

“I suppose you’re right, sir. Though you’re more than welcome to stay here as long as you like.”

“You’re very kind, but I’m leaving England.”

“Leaving?”

“The chief inspector said I needn’t stay until Lincoln’s caught. They’ll call me back over when he’s brought to trial.”

“Where will you go?”

“Back to Canada. I put my house up with an estate agent today and booked passage on a ship sailing tomorrow.”

“That’s a bit sudden, isn’t it, sir?”

“Perhaps so, but I want to be somewhere out of Lincoln’s reach. It’s far enough, isn’t it? And the police will keep us safe tonight, won’t they?” He looked at Drew with tired, pleading eyes and grasped his sleeve. “I know I’m a coward. But I just can’t live this way any longer. I have to have some peace, don’t you see?”