Seduced by a Stranger (13 page)

She was about to turn from the window when St. Aubyn exited the front of the house and strode across the drive. The two men shook hands and spoke. The doctor’s pinched expression was clear to her, illuminated by the carriage light, but she could see only a bit of the side of St. Aubyn’s face, not enough to gather anything his features might betray.

Of course, in all likelihood, he would betray nothing at all. He never did…except earlier that afternoon, when his expression had betrayed his lust. That recollection made her uneasy.

Her gaze slid to the place she had seen the unidentified watcher at the edge of the woods. There was no one there now. But as she had done once before, she made mental measure of the distance, and felt certain that St. Aubyn could not have traversed it in time to be at the front door now, nor could he have crossed the open space unseen.

Which left her with a puzzle.

Angled toward each other, deep in conversation, the two men stood by the carriage for a few moments. Then St. Aubyn nodded at something the doctor said and both turned their faces toward Madeline’s window. Of course, it was perfectly reasonable for them to be discussing Madeline. The doctor had come specifically to see her, after all.

Yet Catherine could not help but feel suspicious of exactly what it was they discussed.

The doctor turned away, but St. Aubyn stared up for a moment more. He saw her there. She had no doubt of it. He spoke in reply to the doctor’s words, but his gaze remained fixed upon her where she stood framed by the heavy drapery, backlit by the light of the fire and the candle flame that writhed and jumped.

A step to the side and she was shielded by the curtain, unseen from below but able to continue watching the two of them, unobserved. St. Aubyn stared at the place she had stood for a slow count of ten, then he spoke to the doctor once more and together they walked toward the front door.

Turning from the window, Catherine found that Madeline was awake. She had levered herself to a sitting position and her eyes were fever bright.

“Do not let him hurt me,” she pleaded, though her tone suggested that she believed nothing could save her from that.

“No, I will let no one hurt you,” Catherine reassured her again.

“You will not leave me?”

“Not for a moment.”

Masculine voices echoed from the hallway moments later. A knock sounded on the door and Catherine opened it to find that both the doctor and St. Aubyn waited there.

“May we?” St. Aubyn asked.

She drew the door fully open and stepped aside to let them enter. Her nose twitched as Dr. Graves passed. He smelled of sweat and camphor, and she saw that his hands were not clean.

“Here is Dr. Graves,” St. Aubyn said, though it was apparent that Madeline knew very well who he was and had no need for this introduction.

Dr. Graves made a short bow, first to Madeline, then to Catherine. He set his black case on the small table beside the bed, and Madeline turned her head to stare at it, her blue eyes shimmering with horror and fear.

The doctor reached out and made to take her wrist in his hand, but she flinched away. He froze with arm outstretched, exchanging a glance with St. Aubyn.

“Will you be so kind as to afford us a little privacy?” the doctor asked. His tone was clipped, his voice rough. Impatience hung on every syllable.

Catherine was not certain if the doctor spoke to her, to St. Aubyn, or to the both of them, but she moved only as far as the foot of the bed while St. Aubyn inclined his head and went to stand by the open door.

Dr. Graves looked at her with a startled expression. “If you please…”

“I do not please,” Catherine replied. “Madeline has requested my presence. I am a comfort to her. I shall remain exactly where I am.”

The doctor blinked and cast a look at St. Aubyn, who was half turned toward them, watching. His expression was as bland as boiled custard, but his eyes glittered with interest. His gaze slid to Catherine’s and he raised a straight, tawny brow.

“I must object,” the doctor blustered.

“I must insist,” St. Aubyn interjected, darkly soft. “Please, proceed, but I will stay here and Miss Weston will stay there and there will be no discussion about it.”

The unflinching assertion should have been a comfort. Instead, it sent horror crawling along Catherine’s spine.
No discussion
. Of course. St. Aubyn could do almost anything he wished with Madeline, and no one would gainsay him. There was no one to protect her, just as there had been no one to protect Catherine when she was similarly ensconced in a powerful and autocratic man’s home. A home that had once been her own.

The similarities were chilling.

Dr. Graves altered his expression then, molding it into a parody of kindness and concern, one that rang purely false. Catherine did not trust him, did not believe the persona he projected, but she made no indication of that by gesture or expression, wary of unsettling Madeline who watched her with frightened eyes.

“Now,” said Dr. Graves, putting down the sheet enough that he could grasp Madeline’s wrist and hold it. She let him do it, though her muscles were rigid beneath her skin, and her jaw set tense and hard. “Your cousin says you are not eating, and that you sleep poorly. Is that so?”

Madeline said nothing, merely stared straight ahead, small shudders racking her frame.

“She was in fine health for the full week after I arrived,” Catherine said, drawing the doctor’s attention. Her gaze flicked to St. Aubyn. “Then she began to decline the week after that until she has come to this point.”

The doctor frowned. “Does she eat in your presence?”

“She did. But now she does not.”

“I see,” Dr. Graves said and nodded, as though the information was of great import. Again, he and St. Aubyn exchanged a look. “Well, she must be eating at some time, for she is well fleshed.” He reached up and dragged the neck of her nightrail a bit to one side, baring her collarbone. “Her cheeks are not sunken, and her clavicles do not protrude.”

Instinctively, Catherine stepped forward as Madeline flinched from the doctor’s touch. But she saw the point he made: Madeline was pale and wan, but she did not appear malnourished, for there was some flesh on her bones. Catherine was glad of it.

“She ate well while”—she cast a glance at St. Aubyn—“Sir Gabriel was away.”

“Hmm.” Dr. Graves turned to his bag and withdrew a black box. Catherine regarded it in distaste. A scarificator. Inside the box were dozens of sharp blades that would cut Madeline’s skin and make her bleed. With an involuntary movement, Catherine’s hand shifted to her own arm where she yet wore the faint marks of her experience with that particular instrument of torture. Reaching into the bag once more, the doctor removed a shallow glass cup.

“I’ll need the fire stoked,” he said. “The cup must be warmed to draw out the blood.”

Catherine’s gaze jerked to Madeline’s face. She lay there, eyes closed, lips taut and white. Unable to fathom the benefit of cutting and bleeding her, Catherine stepped forward, intent on arguing with the doctor. To her shock, St. Aubyn was there first.

“No,” he said, his tone brooking no argument. His expression was as cool and blank as ever she had seen it, but somehow, though she could see no evidence of it, she sensed his fury.

The doctor glanced up at him, pausing in his preparations. “I beg your pardon?”

“I do not wish you to bleed my cousin. Only give her something to help her sleep.”

“She must be bled, Sir Gabriel. If it is the scarificator you object to, I shall use the lancet or the leech.”

“You will use none of them. I abhor this ridiculous process, and I will not allow it in my home,” St. Aubyn murmured, the very softness of his tone bolstering the words with steel. He did not need to bluster and shout. A whisper from his lips was effective enough. The doctor took a step back.

Catherine wondered if St. Aubyn would simply reach over and snap the man’s fingers if he refused to acquiesce. She did not doubt that St. Aubyn would have his way by whatever means necessary. The thought ought to horrify. And, to a degree, it did. But there was comfort, too, in the knowledge that he would stick to his word and not allow the doctor free rein in Madeline’s care.

“Why did you summon me if you do not intend to let me treat her?” Dr. Graves asked peevishly.

“I intend to let you treat her. I do not intend to let you bleed her or otherwise perpetrate quackery upon her person.”

“Quackery!” Dr. Graves drew himself to his full height, two spots of color burning in his pasty cheeks.

A long moment passed where neither man spoke, and then with a sound that was somewhere between a grunt and an oath, the doctor dropped all he had removed back into the bag. He delved deep to draw out a brown bottle, and set it on the table with a definite thud.

“A few drops in a glass of water or wine is enough,” he said through tight lips. “More than that and she may sleep entirely too long. Sleep her life away. I have seen it often enough.”

“Thank you,” St. Aubyn said. “I shall see you out.”

They left without any further conversation, the doctor’s posture stiff and unyielding, fury sparking in his gaze.

Catherine watched them go and listened until the sound of their footsteps faded away. Then she stepped close to the bed and brushed Madeline’s hair back from her forehead. Her skin was clammy.

“I was afraid.” Madeline shuddered. “I hate to be bled. I hate the sight of it dripping into the bowl. I hate the smell of it, like old pennies.” She shuddered again. “I thought he would let Dr. Graves do it. He has let him before.”

Catherine stared at her a moment, noting that her words conflicted with the story St. Aubyn had offered. According to Madeline, he had let her be bled. But according to what he had said earlier in the day, it was Mrs. Bell who had summoned the doctor while St. Aubyn was away.

Crossing to the washstand, Catherine pondered the contradiction. She poured water into the bowl and carried it to the bed, along with a small towel. She dipped the cloth and wrung it out, then smoothed it across Madeline’s brow.

“Are you certain it was Sir Gabriel who allowed the doctor to bleed you on his last visit? It was my understanding that Mrs. Bell summoned him that day.”

Madeline only stared at her, a wounded look in her eyes, as though Catherine’s questions somehow breached her trust.

After a moment and some consideration, Catherine tried a different tack. “Dr. Graves appears to be a man who is used to taking charge. I suspect he is unaccustomed to being gainsaid.”

Madeline continued to stare at her, guileless blue eyes, wide and clear. “He is my cousin’s minion. As is the housekeeper and the groundskeeper and the head groom. They watch me. They keep me here against my will. They torment me at every turn.” Closing her eyes, she was quiet for a moment, then she said in a whisper, “One day they will kill me. If not by poison then by some other means.”

The certainty in her tone made Catherine wary. Not because she necessarily believed such a thing, but because Madeline clearly believed it.

“Madeline, I am here now. I will let no one harm you.” She paused, formulating the questions in her mind, wishing to pose them in a way that would do the least harm. At length, she asked, “Why do you think such a thing? Why would your cousin do you harm? What benefit to him?”

“Why would he do me harm?” The words came low and hard, and Madeline panted sharply as though struggling for control. Then one side of her mouth quirked in an unpleasant smirk. “Revenge for what I did to him. And as to the benefit…Cairncroft Abbey is entailed and so it is his, but the fortune is not. He has funds only because he is trustee of what is
mine
. My cousin is poor as a church mouse and, though I despise lending voice to such crass truth, I am rich, Catherine. What better reason for murder than greed?” Her tone was calm, matter-of-fact, making her assertions all the more dreadful. Catherine searched for some words of comfort, a way to convince Madeline that surely she was mistaken, but a part of her could not completely discount the possibility that she was not mistaken at all.

Was it only a form of madness talking?

“He only bides his time,” Madeline continued, her gaze never wavering, “and waits for the perfect opportunity, one that will paint my death in a believable and credulous light.”

Her eyes were clear, her words lucid, and in that moment, Catherine thought Madeline perfectly sane.

Alone in her chamber at last, Catherine set her candle on the table. Troubling thoughts gnawed at her. Madeline’s assertions. The doctor’s visit. The way St. Aubyn had looked at her with something primitive alive in his gaze—unveiled lust. The recollection made her shiver even now. What was she to do with that, and with the answering call she felt singing in her blood? She was not such a fool as to repeat the mistakes of her past, to allow a man, any man, such power over her ever again. Least of all a man who was so shrouded in mystery that she could not hope to see clearly through the fog.

Madeline’s accusations against him, her assertions that he would commit murder to gain a fortune, were distressing in the extreme. There were many people who would do exactly that. Kill for money. Kill for pleasure. Kill for revenge.

People killed for any number of reasons. She knew that only too well. But were Madeline’s accusations true, or the fancies of a troubled mind?

At the moment, Catherine had no way to know with any confidence. And what sort of creature did it make her that she was attracted to such a man? Fascinated by him?

Seeking to divert her thoughts, she opened the cover of the book where she had secreted Mrs. Northrop’s neglected letter. It was the volume of
Frankenstein
that St. Aubyn had lent her. The letter from Mrs. Northrop lay there, innocuous and inoffensive. But only because it was as yet unopened. Catherine had no doubt that the contents would be far from dull, for what purpose could such a venomous woman have in writing to her, other than to cause some sort of distress?

Should she open it now, or wait for morning?

The thought made a short huff of laughter erupt. As if she could find it in herself to wait. Perhaps the contents would provide a necessary diversion and keep her from spending the night tossing and turning and pursuing avenues of contemplation that invariably led back to her enigmatic host.

Lifting the letter, she flipped it over and traced the tip of her index finger along the flowing script of Mrs. Northrop’s name and direction, stark against the pale paper. Their acrimonious parting had been accompanied by Mrs. Northrop’s insistence that if she never saw Catherine again, it would be a fine thing. She had refused to provide a reference and had only grudgingly provided the last of Catherine’s wages. There was no imaginable reason for her to send a correspondence. Which left only an unimaginable one.

With a shudder, Catherine set the letter down, then reached over and drew back the curtains, letting the moonlight come through the panes. She stepped around the small table, unlatched the window, and pushed it open a hair, enough to let the fresh night air kiss her skin. The maids thought her preference for open windows to be exceedingly odd. The bravest one had warned her that outdoor air carried miasma and evil humors that would only make her ill. Catherine disdained the possibility. She could not see how it was perfectly acceptable to walk outdoors, but not acceptable to allow a bit of the outdoors in.

Besides, she had spent enough time as a prisoner in a locked room, working the window latches until her nails tore and her fingers bled. She had never succeeded in getting them open, for they had been painted shut with exactly that purpose in mind.

She cringed away from the memory, and the tumult of other, darker recollections that would tumble free if she let them. The experience had left her with a distinct aversion to closed doors, closed windows, heavy draperies, and stale air—which was why it had made it so easy to recognize the same aversion in Gabriel St. Aubyn. Had she not known the signs so well, she likely would have missed them.

Settling in a chair, she moved the candle so it was away from the draft, then opened the letter from Mrs. Northrop, noticing that a newspaper clipping had been included. She unfolded the single page, revealing script that was clear and precise, if slightly slanted.

Dear Miss Weston,

Our parting was less than convivial, yet I do not have the temperament to carry a grudge.

 

Only one sentence in, and already a lie. During the term of her employment, Catherine had been subjected to Mrs. Northrop’s endless list of grievances against all those who had wronged her since childhood. It was fascinating how often people saw themselves completely in opposition to how others saw them.

For some reason, that thought made an image of Gabriel St. Aubyn fill her mind. Did he see himself as she saw him, cold, aloof, his secrets hidden beneath layers of rigid control? And why did such a man appeal to her so? Perhaps because the only man she had ever believed she loved had been prone to fits of passion and terrifying, deadly rage.

Memories broke over her like a crashing, storm-stirred surf. She wrapped her arms about herself, holding the waves at bay, her determination a dam against the flood. After a moment, she made a conscious effort to relax her shoulders and the rigid muscles of her back, to uncoil her arms and force her attention to the page once more.

I forgive you your impertinence and poor judgment, and as a gesture of goodwill, I write you with news that must surely be of interest. Please do not trouble yourself to reply.

Martha Grimsby is dead. She was murdered.

 

“Wha—?” Catherine read the sentences a second time and a third, the letters like little black bugs on the page. Martha? Dead?

No. Surely it could not be true. She had seen Martha shortly before she had departed London.

The letter fluttered as her hand trembled, horror sinking its talons bone deep. She felt ill, shaken and clammy, nausea roiling in her belly. What ugly game did Mrs. Northrop play at? Why would she write such a foul thing?

Heart hammering, Catherine reread that line a fourth time, then continued on, searching for some indication that the assertion was a macabre joke.

Martha Grimsby is dead. She was murdered
.

There, I have said it outright. The quickest cut is the kindest. Do you not think so? I recall having a rather horrid Affliction of the skin as a child, a vile, weeping Carbuncle. Dr. Marks was quite decisive in his action and his insistence that the lancing be done with all haste and precision. I never forgot that lesson, and consider it one of great value. Hence, I share it with you
.

I have taken the clipping from the
Times
and included it herein
.

Cordially,
Agnes Northrop

 

Catherine swallowed convulsively, her throat tight, her chest twisted in a knot. She could not breathe. Could not think. Martha dead. Murdered. Why? How?

It took a moment for her to realize that the low, plaintive moan she heard was coming from her own lips, that she had crumpled the letter into a little ball in her fist. With meticulous care, she smoothed the hated paper flat on the table, her palm stroking the creases until it lay before her like a dried leaf, the edges curled and bent.

She took the newspaper clipping and unfolded it, her hands shaking as though she were struck by a palsy. Almost did she tear the paper, so jerky were her movements. She glanced at the date—March 29, 1828—and the headline—
WATERSIDE MURDER
. With her vision blurred by tears, she read the whole of it, blinking again and again as the letters swam before her eyes.

Henry Day, Deputy Coroner, opened an inquiry respecting the death of one Martha Grimsby, the woman who was discovered on Friday last, at the London Docks, Wapping, with multiple stabs to her body.

 

Catherine jerked as though a knife had been stabbed in her own breast. In that moment, she saw Martha as a child, laughing as she and Catherine ran through the garden a lifetime past, when Martha’s father had been a groom at Catherine’s father’s estate.

Closing her eyes against the pain that twisted inside her like a wrung-out rag, Catherine struggled to make sense of this horrific news. Was it not enough that Martha’s life had carried her to St. Giles, to poverty and desperation, by day running a school for the local children in a dingy room, at night facing the need to sell her body to survive? Did she have to die like this?

Like
this
?

Feeling as though a hard blow had been struck to the center of her back and all the air driven from her lungs, she opened her eyes and forced herself to read on.

Alfred Barrett, waterside laborer, came upon the place when he went to seek for work. He passed the spot even as George Reese arrived and the two found the deceased, lying on her back in a shallow grave, the soil of which had been washed away in a particularly violent downpour. Both men believe they would not have noticed her there save for the fact that early in the morning, a load of timber was moved unexpectedly, baring the place she lay to passersby. There was no blood, that they could see. Frightened, they did not examine her but instead immediately gave notice to the police. The witnesses saw no footmarks in the mud, nor did they find any weapon.

Dr. J.R. Cuddy, of 73, House-lane, said that he was called to the deceased, and found her dead. Her clothes had been cut away from the torso, and the chest and abdominal cavities opened with a sharp instrument, without precision. On postmortem examination of the body, he found the lungs, liver, stomach, and intestine removed, again, without precision. The heart was untouched. Dr. Cuddy thought these wounds had not been inflicted during life.

 

Catherine forced herself to inhale against the oppressive weight that bore down on her. The wounds had not been inflicted during life. Martha had suffered so much, but she had not been alive to feel her organs sliced from her body.

That was Catherine’s one comfort, that her friend’s body had been mutilated only
after
her death. Cold comfort it was.

Tears welled over, trickling down her cheeks, dripping onto the backs of her hands. She stared down at them, aghast, knowing the battle was lost even as she fought to hold back the torrent, to remain composed. Her efforts were to no avail.

Grief swelled beyond the confines she imposed, oozing through cracks in her façade, and for the first time in six long years, Catherine allowed herself to cry. Not only for Martha, but for the child Catherine had borne and never allowed herself to mourn. And for the man she had killed because he had killed her son.

In the dark hallway, Gabriel stood outside Catherine’s door. She was crying. The sounds were muffled, as though she struggled to suffocate them into silence. Something inside him shifted and turned, an unpleasant and wholly uncharacteristic instinct of chivalry that insisted he step inside and offer comfort of some sort.

He had no idea how.

What did one offer in the face of another’s pain? Here was a lesson he had failed to learn…no…a lesson he had never been taught. In the place where he had grown from boy to young man, there had been only lessons in survival. Hide behind an emotionless mask. Evade. Lie. Show only what they expected. The level of his suffering had been determined by his ability to guess exactly what they wished to see and hear. If he was right, they left him alone. If he was wrong, there were all manner of tortures and deprivation. He had striven to be right more often than wrong.

The sound of Catherine’s sobs confused him. He wanted to comfort her as much as he wanted to avoid the necessity of doing so.

Almost did he turn and walk away. She would never be the wiser, never know he had heard her private sorrow. But some intangible force drew him to stay. His knock went unanswered, and so he went beyond any acceptable boundary of propriety, turned the knob and opened the door, freezing in place at the sight that greeted him.

Catherine sat in a chair by the window, her back hunched, her head resting in her bent arms, supported by a small table. A single candle sent shadows dipping and swaying along the walls. Through the open curtains streamed a cool, pale swath of moonlight that fell across her upper body, leaving the rest of her in shadow. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed, her grief curling her fingers against the tabletop, straining her muscles, carving her in stark, tense lines.

He crossed the room until he stood behind her, his hand outstretched, palm down. He hesitated, not touching, and finally simply rested his hand on her nape.

She jerked and snuffled and raised her head, gasping to see him looming over her. In this moment, she was not beautiful. Her nose was red, her eyes and lips puffy, her cheeks wet with her tears. In this moment, her mask did not slip. It was ripped away, leaving her naked and bare.

In her wide, shimmering eyes, he saw all the unfettered emotions he would never know in himself—grief, horror, desperation, myriad sentiments, vast as the stars—and he was fascinated, both attracted and repelled. He had thought her exactly like him. Damaged. Flawed. Unable to feel.

But she was not. He could see now that she was not.

She was something far more intriguing than that, for she obviously experienced emotion on a deep, visceral level, but somehow managed to control it to an outstanding degree.

In contrast, what little he felt was like a world viewed through sheer fabric. Fear, joy, sadness…all were tempered by the walls he erected. He knew such emotions existed. He knew they could be felt, saw the expressions on the faces of others, recognized the situations that summoned specific responses. He analyzed them, but he did not
feel
them, not to any significant degree. His emotions were not buried, not hidden; they had never had the opportunity to evolve. The feelings he saw in others were not part of what he was.