Shadows in Scarlet (41 page)

Amanda didn't dare look toward Malcolm. She opened and shut the fan so fast part of its binding broke and one slat dangled loose.

Wayne shriveled, shoulders curling, head hanging. “My most humble apologies, cousin, if I have offended you. You are, as in all other respects, quite correct in your estimation of my abilities. I know nothing of womanhood—nay, I insult the very presence of a lady with my clumsiness.” Either the strange bluish light or his own fear made his jowls look green.

James smiled. Amanda flinched—she'd seen that smile the night before, up close and personal. “James,” she cooed, “my dearest, I yearn for the strength of your arms. Please, he is not worth your troubling yourself, return to me."

James ignored her. The sword hissed from the scabbard—it couldn't fit in the real one, and yet the undamaged scabbard wasn't real, so how could it hiss.... That didn't matter now.

Light flowed down the blade as James moved it back and forth in front of Wayne's bulging eyes, a hypnotist waving a gold watch in front of his victim's face. “Shall we have it out, then, cousin? Shall we carry it to the grave, and then beyond? It is too late for the apology. Much too late."

He spat the last words. His eyes blazed. He lunged.

Amanda leaped forward. The seams of her dress ripped open. Wayne dived to the side and fell down hard. His wig went flying.

Malcolm stopped tiptoeing and ran.

James raised the sword over Wayne's cowering form. Wayne yelped and scrabbled backwards like an upended turtle. A pewter goblet came flying from the shadows behind the sideboard, skimmed so close to James's face he jerked back, then clanged against the wall and onto the floor.

"Sorry,” Malcolm said, and shoved Amanda so hard she went sprawling. A dull iron gleam darted horizontally above her head. The concave side of the axe head connected with the scabbard at James's side and knocked it clattering away. As the blade passed through his insubstantial body, James himself shredded into streamers of scarlet and tartan, then formed again. Wayne scrambled to his feet.

James glanced around at Malcolm, his handsome face contorting into something less recognizable as human than his skull, and turned back to Wayne. “So, Archibald, this is a trick! Such as I would expect of you, not man enough to fight face to face, honorably, but enlisting this scurvy dog to do your work!” The sword flashed.

But Wayne was already scuttling toward the door, gasping, “I beg of you, the quality of mercy is not strained, to be or not to be, a name by any other rose...."

James leaped after him, then stopped dead and spun around.

Too late. Grasping the shaft of the axe in his right hand, Malcolm scooped up the scabbard with his left. He sprinted for the fireplace and with an echoing clank he threw the scabbard onto the stone hearth. “Here it is, James! Come and get it!"

"No!” James shouted.

Malcolm raised the axe and with the sharp crack of metal on stone brought it down on the scabbard. Amanda thought of James's great-grandfather Simon Fraser meeting his maker on Tower Hill, going to his reward on the blade of an axe.

The scabbard was in two pieces. Malcolm hit it again. Three.

Strong hands—Norah's—heaved Amanda to her feet. Black spots swam before her eyes and another set of seams gave way.
The bellows!
She shook Norah away and raced toward the hearth. “Throw it in the fire, Malcolm!"

Malcolm threw the pieces of the scabbard into the depths of the flames.

"No!” James shouted again, on a higher, more desperate note. He ran toward the fireplace, sword raised.

Malcolm spun around, parrying James's blow with the long handle of the axe.

Amanda seized the bellows and started pumping for all she was worth, her wheezing lungs filling with smoke, her eyes running, her face burning hot. The flames leaped, chasing shadows up the stone walls. The acrid smell of hot metal filled the air. In the scarlet heart of the fire the pieces of the scabbard darkened, blacker and blacker, until they took on a color deeper than red—scarlet, crimson, dried blood.

James shrieked in mortal pain, the cry he'd never had a chance to make at the moment of his death. Amanda glanced over her shoulder. The sword licked up and down, slower now, like it was getting heavier or James's hand weaker.... Their plan was working.

Malcolm danced aside, the axe handle horizontal between his hands, just far enough to deflect the blows, not far enough to leave Amanda's back unprotected.

Wayne slipped along the mantelpiece behind Malcolm. Picking up the poker, he smashed it again and again onto the chunks of metal that had been the scabbard, sending up clouds of sparks and soot. The dull thuds reverberated from the high ceiling.

Levering herself on his shoulder, Amanda stood up. She squinted dizzily through the dim blue-tinted light of the room. James's form thinned and swayed. Through his transparent chest and the silver thistle of the 71st regiment the door made a rectangular shape like a coffin. Still he held the sword upright, but his thrusts at Malcolm were slow and weak.

The thuds of the poker stopped. Amanda's breath rasped. James, gasping for his own ephemeral breath, backed off and lowered the sword. His scowl faded, leaving his face blank with exhaustion, lips parted, eyes half-closed. He raised his free hand. His voice was a wisp of sound. “Madame, whoever you may be, do not cast me out!"

Since when had it been up to her? Amanda bit her lip, hard. She saw him sitting wearily on the staircase. She saw him peeling off layer after layer of his uniform beside her bed. She saw him smiling at her, his sword at her breast, while she cowered on the windowsill.

Pulling away her cap and curls and dumping them on the floor, she dredged her memory—"Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayers."

From the far corner of the room rose a woman's voice, singing, “An ciaradh m'fheasgair mo bheath’ air claoidh, mo rosg air dunadh's a’ bhas gun chli...” The words swelled up and out, twining about the beams of the ceiling, making the flags and the tapestries shiver.
O westwards take me, and quietly lay me, in Aignish graveyard above the sea.

Malcolm grounded the butt of the axe. “Sorry, cousin, but Dundreggan graveyard above the Moriston will have to do."

"Amanda,” said James, his face twisting in agony, “Amanda, my sweet, I am confounded.... “In the scarlet mist that was his body only his eyes were distinct, his eyes and the length of the sword. Slowly, with terrible effort, he extended the sword, hilt first, toward her.

She stepped forward, shaking off first Wayne's, then Malcolm's hands. She took the icy hilt of the sword just as James's hand thinned into nothingness. For a long moment she held his eyes, two anguished blue gleams against the blue-tinted shadows. Then they, too, faded away. A long moan, part groan, part sigh, filled the room and then slowly, achingly, ebbed into nothingness.

He was gone. “Rest in peace,” Amanda whispered.

From the corner Norah said, “Amen."

The lights shone out so brightly she winced. The song stopped. After a pause another began, a soft instrumental piece filled with the sounds of dusk and rain.

The sword was heavy. Her knees were trembling. The room was spinning. Amanda sat down hard, fabric billowing. The sword thumped onto the floor beside her. She mopped at her sooty eyes but they got even wetter, until the tears spilled over and ran in cool rivulets down her scorched cheeks.

"He's gone now,” Norah said, kneeling at Amanda's side. “He can rest."

I sure hope so,
her mind hiccuped.

Malcolm's arms closed around her and drew her into his chest, safe. “My heroine,” he said into her ear.

She got hold of herself with a gulp. “Sorry."

"Dinna worry yoursel'. We've had the blood and the sweat, we're needin’ a few tears as well."

Norah pressed a handkerchief into her hand and stood. “That was good acting, Wayne. Thank you."

"I wasn't acting. I was scared.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you for throwing that mug. Great arm. You ought to try out for the Orioles."

"I captained a cricket side at school, but it's been donkey's years since I bowled a game. Nothing like sheer terror to concentrate one's faculties."

"Oh aye,” said Malcolm.

Tell me about it,
Amanda thought.

Wayne picked up the sword and balanced it in his hand. “It worked. I don't believe it. But I guess the man had to be tired after two hundred years of holding a grudge."

"Yes, I should expect so,” Norah said.

It's over.... No it's not. James is over is all.
Amanda leaned against Malcolm's chest and mopped her face. The rest of her brain was logging back on. Coherent thought, what a concept. Feeling, ditto.

Two nights in a row she'd sat there hanging out of her bodice right in front of Malcolm's face—not that his face was exactly turned away in disgust or apathy or anything, but it wasn't the way these things were supposed to go.

So how were you supposed to fall in love? she asked herself, and answered, by any means that worked. And this whole—comedy, tragedy, historical pageant—had definitely worked.

Wayne brandished the sword, thrust his fist into the air, and shouted, “Yes!” Then he looked around, startled, like it was someone else who'd shouted. He tiptoed to the sideboard and laid the sword down.

Far, far away a telephone started ringing. It was, after all, the twenty-first century. It was a Monday night at the end of July. So maybe Irene and Calum were calling to see if it was safe to come home. Or Lindley Duncan, making his rounds. Or Denny Gibson, checking in with people who mattered to him. Each of them would have his or her own take on James's story. Fine. The important part was that each of them would believe it.

Smiling, Norah went off to answer the phone. A black and white face peered quizzically through the doorway. Wayne called the dog and bent over him, scratching his ears. “Scared you, huh? Well that makes two of us."

Malcolm settled himself more comfortably on the floor, keeping firm hold of Amanda. “So you'll be goin’ back to Virginia the Thursday?"

She blew her nose. “Yeah. I have my job, and my thesis, and the book about—about James—and maybe I should call or e-mail or something and let Carrie know I'm still alive."

"She'll no be wonderin’ one way or the other, will she?"

"No."

"But you could be askin’ her for course information and internships and the lot. You'll no be here long enough for a proper lesson in—ah, historic property management—I suppose I'll just have to be goin’ to Virginia masel', doin’ a bit o’ hands-on research, eh?"

"You'd better,” she said into the slightly smoky odor of his throat. “Just promise me one thing."

"Anything."

"Don't ever call me ‘sweet.’”

Malcolm laughed.

Amanda felt a similar laugh welling up. The whole thing had been so stupid, and so ridiculous, and so right. She gave in to the laugh, and drifted easily away with the flow.

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Amanda snugged her robe around her naked body and peered out the window. Beyond Melrose's lawns a shimmering curtain of mist hung over the river. A few remaining yellow and orange leaves looked like confetti pasted to the black limbs of the trees. Pumpkins and Indian corn decorated the walkways.

The tile of the bathroom floor was icy beneath her feet. Funny—when she'd moved in last June she hadn't checked out Melrose's heating system, an old-fashioned furnace that gave up the ghost on a cold morning.

The word “ghost” wasn't ever going to sound the same again. And yet if she'd never met James she'd never have met Malcolm. Fate, she guessed. Or whatever it was she'd said to Wayne that time, about Mr. Right sneaking up on you when you weren't looking.

A gleam of sun sliced through the mist, laying a bright path across the lawn and into the window. Amanda raised her left hand to it. The diamond in her ring flashed and sparked.
Wow,
she thought with something between a grimace and a grin.

The ring was an antique, appropriately enough, its Celtic interlace design worn smooth, its tiny stone scratched. Malcolm had sent her a photo of it a month ago—maybe she didn't want his grandmother's ring, maybe she'd rather have a new one—maybe she'd rather not have one at all. But Amanda had no problem with the traditional public announcement:
Hey, we're serious about this!

The evening before she left Dundreggan, in the middle of yet another clinch, Malcolm had whispered in her ear, “You're expectin’ me to come to your room the night?"

Oh yeah,
she thought. They needed to lose the clothes, no doubt about it....
Oh. Wayne.
Getting it on right across the hall from his room just didn't cut it. And she wasn't sure she'd worked it all out about James yet. More than the clothes, what they needed to lose were the issues.

"It's too soon, is it?” Malcolm asked with a smile.

"Wayne's been so cool with everything, it just wouldn't be fair to get into his face. And James only—left—a couple of days ago. So yeah, it's too soon.” She moved her hands from the back pockets of his jeans to the front pockets of his shirt, neutral territory. “But I'll be expecting you in my bedroom at Melrose. Soon."

"I'll be there,” he'd told her, actually taking
not yet
for an answer.

She'd wondered every now and then as summer segued into fall if she'd been stupid to pass up the chance. But no, her eyes were wide open this time around. This guy was there for the backstretch.

And the wait had been worth it. So what if her thighs were so sore this morning she could hardly walk?

Dumping her robe, Amanda tiptoed out of the bathroom into the shadowed bedroom. On the nightstand sat two glasses and a bottle of Glenmoriston single malt. She hadn't needed Malcolm's joking quote about drink provoking the desire but taking away the performance to keep her from downing more than a symbolic sip or two last night. Not that anything less than anesthesia would've taken away either their desire or their performance, not when everything—means, motive, opportunity—had come together at last.