Silence of Scandal (11 page)

Alexander scanned the gardens quickly.

“I’ve not seen it while on my way here. It must be somewhere close still. Have you told the household to stay inside while we make a good search?”

“Sarah and the Mistress’s new maid went into town first thing this morning after they brought your fresh clothes. They took the cart so that only leaves Her Grace, Grady, cook, Beth and me. The Curnow lads are out over in long meadow but they took one of the horses so will be able to avoid the creature if necessary.”

Alexander took one more look about the immediate vicinity. There were too many shrubs and hedges to get a clear view.

“I’ll go and grab my guns. We’ll have to trap it between us. I’ll make sure Grady knows to keep everyone inside too. It’s a damned nuisance especially as the day is so beautiful. We could have done with airing a few of the ground floor rooms,” he coughed into his hand and fiddled with and invisible thread on his cuff. “Do you happen to know where the Duchess is at present?”

Geoffrey grinned up at him, the rabid beast momentarily forgotten as Alexander’s face flushed beneath his post binge pallor.

“Ha! Come home to eat humble pie have you? She’s a beautiful woman that’s for sure, not that I’ve been anywhere near her of course but I did see her in the ballroom yesterday as they were arranging fresh flowers. Her maid was with her and shooed me away from the window. You had probably best go and apologize while the dragon is out. I wouldn’t bet much on your chances of getting near your wife while she’s around.”

Alexander rolled his eyes for what felt like the fifth time that morning and dug his heels into Midnight’s sides. He took off at a trot and tied the horse near the front door. Grady stood inside the hall. All signs of the wedding ball had been removed and he strode through the hall into the gun room. He picked up two of his father’s muskets, grabbed up shot and powder, before he loaded his own pistol and dropped it into his coat pocket. He heard familiar shuffling behind him and glanced over his shoulder.

“Grady, have you seen my wife?” 

Grady stepped back and looked horrified as Alexander marched out of the gunroom with a musket in each hand.

“Dear God Sir, she’s not as bad as all that. Give her a chance I beg of you, you’ll see that she’s not really mad, she’s only…” Grady began stammering.

Alexander stopped and bellowed with laughter.

“I’m not going to shoot her, you fool. I know that it’s only a speech impediment. I want to see her and apologize for my appalling behaviour before I spend the rest of the day searching for this damned rabid dog. I can’t leave the situation with her as it is a moment longer.”

Grady beamed in obvious relief.

“Well thank God for that. I had visions of the magistrate taking you away for murder. She’s in the long salon looking at sketches if I remember rightly. She found a box of those ones your brother used to draw when he was inventing stuff. They were in the library. I had no idea that we’d kept them. She seems to like them though.”

Alexander was rather alarmed that Grady thought it more worrying that Alexander be arrested than a woman be shot but he let that go as he pondered what else the man had said.

“I didn’t know Phillip had kept them either,” but then he remembered that his brother was a meticulous cataloguer. He couldn’t think what had caught Elizabeth’s attention with them though. As far as he remembered the drawings of steam driven carriages and flying machines all became rather ridiculous after the blown up barn incident. His father had confiscated the drawings and he had thought that they were destroyed but apparently not. He wondered for a moment if there was the plan of the steam carriage amongst them. He sincerely hoped not. The thought that anyone would ever try to make such an ill thought out machine again brought a shudder to his frame.

He sighed as he always did after remembering that day. He would always remember the dark eyed, curly haired child who had died in the explosion. It had been a terrible accident and one for which he had felt guilty for many years, though strictly speaking the incident hadn’t been his fault but he always wished that he hadn’t avoided the little girl that morning. If she’d been sat on the straw bales with him instead of hiding at the back of the barn Phillip would probably have saved her too. Instead she’d been blown through the wall like so much of the rubble and had died in her father’s arms a few days later.

“I don’t know that those drawings are suitable for a young woman to be looking at. Phillip had some rather outlandish ideas in his youth.”

Grady sniffed.

“Well, she seems to like them and I didn’t have the heart to take them from her when it appears that she’s not interested in any of the books and you were not here to keep your bride entertained.” The admonishment was clear in the old man’s tone

Alexander rolled his eyes yet again. He drew in an ashamed breath as he placed the two muskets on the hall table and went in search of his wife. He really couldn’t fault Grady’s treatment of the woman but Phillip’s old pictures were hardly riveting. He wondered why she hadn’t gone to the library to choose a decent book. Not all of them were dusty old tomes the like of which his father loved. There were several shelves that his mother had collected throughout the years and he had even noticed what must have been a few of Lady Anne’s more modern novels. He thought that Elizabeth would be more interested in those. Perhaps she hadn’t found them yet. It pleased him that he would have something to show her and he strode forwards towards the salon with renewed purpose.

He hesitated as he neared the salon. A dreadful tuneless sound reached his ears. His head thumped furiously and his face blanched as he realized that the noise was someone attempting to sing. He had the awful suspicion that he knew who it would be. He pressed the door open and stood on the threshold of the big room.

The first thing he noticed was his beautiful wife sitting on the floor in a pool of mint silk surrounded by scraps of paper that were covered with intricate drawings. Her gleaming hair sat piled on top of her head with front sections loose and curled over her milky shoulders. The noise she was making belied the picture she made. His headache lurched to the fore again and he forced himself to keep his hands at his sides and not cover his ears.

The next thing he noticed was that her beautiful raven curls lifted in the breeze drifting in the floor to ceiling windows which had been flung open to let in the early summer warmth. It teased the tendrils of his wife’s hair that lay on her swan like neck.

The scent of fresh flowers caught in air and his mind blocked out the awful singing as he gazed entranced at the woman sitting on the floor. She was completely beautiful, stunned all of his senses and he felt his heart give a violent throb. He was about to move forwards to greet her with his abject apology while begging her forgiveness for being a prize clod when a slight and unwelcome movement in his periphery vision caught his attention.

He lifted his eyes to look away from the gorgeous pale neck that demanded his kisses and froze as he at last noticed the huge, mangy dog standing on the terrace outside one of the tall windows. It looked to be some type of wolfhound; it was certainly big enough, standing almost waist height to a man. Its matted grey fur tufted out at all angles and patches of bare, festering skin were visible along its sides. Apart from obviously being in some pain the animal appeared to be annoyed at the dreadful noise his wife was making. The dog snarled and shook his huge head. Thick, foaming drool trailed from its slathering jaws and sprayed trails across the terrace.

Alexander nearly passed out as Elizabeth remained sitting there, her head bowed, her exposed neck looking invitingly delicious as the dog took an ominous step forwards.

Alexander reached into his jacket pocket and quietly picked out his pistol.

The dog took another two steps and passed the threshold of the room. It growled menacingly at Elizabeth who sat there with her back to the beast, apparently completely unaware of the danger she was in. The dog growled louder as its hackles rose and its red rimmed eyes gleamed greedily. It let out a low, fierce bark and still Elizabeth sang tunelessly on as she sifted through the papers.

It took Alexander a whole three seconds to realize why his wife wasn’t terrified and fainting on the floor. He gulped down his fear as it struck him with the force of a charging bull.

Dear God alive! She doesn’t only have a speech impediment, you great fool…The poor woman is stone deaf
!

No wonder her voice sounded so odd and no wonder she had not replied once to his questions three days earlier. It all became startlingly clear. She could lip read when he faced her as she had when he had asked her to remove her veil but if she didn’t have a view of your mouth she couldn’t know that anyone had spoken. She hadn’t heard a damned thing he’d said most of the time and she certainly couldn’t hear the murderous creature that now stood feasting its hungry eyes on her tantalizing neck from only a few feet away.

Alexander raised his pistol and stepped a careful pace closer to his unsuspecting wife. The dog sank into a low crouch and gathered its hindquarters, ready to spring at the beautiful creature who was sending it mad with the dreadful noise. Foaming strands of yellow, drool dripped from its gaping mouth as its lips quivered back and its bared teeth formed a vicious snarl.

Something must have caught Elizabeth’s attention because she looked up from the scattered drawings. She smiled widely as she noticed Alexander only yards from her and then her smile froze on her face as she saw that her husband was not smiling back at her but standing there, pistol in hand, aiming it directly towards her head. Her smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared and he saw her swallow visibly as her hands flew to her chest.

“Don’t move.” Alexander cautioned her and his heart broke as he saw a big tear run down her cheek but then she did the most extraordinary thing. She dropped her hands to her lap and lifted her chin as she closed her beautiful dark eyes.

Alexander felt his legs were about to buckle beneath him as he realized what she was doing. She thought he wanted to kill her and was giving him permission to shoot. Even though the creature was only feet away from her she had no idea that a rabid dog was about to ravage her beautiful throat.

The beast sprang at the same time as Alexander fired his one shot. The dog yelped in pain and twisted in mid air as rabid foam and saliva sprayed across Elizabeth shoulders and hair. Blood spattered down her mint coloured dress and the dog dropped into a heap only a hairsbreadth behind her.

Alexander charged forwards and grabbed a stunned Elizabeth up from the floor. He immediately lugged off his cravat and wiped her shoulders and hair of drool before he turned her in his arms and dragged her into his chest. She struggled for a moment and he let her go just far enough that she could see the huge dog that lay twitching and drawing in its last on the rug a mere few inches away from where she had been sitting.

Alexander felt a deep shudder run through her whole body. The blood drained from her beautiful face as her legs collapsed under her. He scooped her trembling form into his arms as he began yelling for Grady. The old man was at the door in moments. Horror registered on his face as he saw her blood spattered dress and the huge animal lying on the rug only a few feet away.

“Heaven help her! Is she harmed?”

Alexander held her even tighter. His arms contracted in a vice like grip and he knew that he could ever let her go ever again. He forced his words from between terrified lips.

“No, she’s only shocked. She hadn’t heard the dog. She thought I was about to shoot her.” Pain lanced through his hear at the very thought. “I’m taking your Mistress to my rooms. Fill my bath and bring an old sheet. I need the water as hot as you can make it and I need a lot of it. Bring your Mistress’s soap and other bathing accoutrements too. Her maid is out and I will attend her. I’ll need a bath too when I’ve cleared this mess. Don’t you or anyone else touch a thing in here; there is no need for others to take any risks. I’ll need Geoff to make a fire so that we can burn everything that damned beast’s drool touched.” He was about to issue more orders when pounding footsteps skidded to a halt on the terrace and a breathless Geoffrey appeared at the window. The sound of the shot had brought him running from the other side of the garden and he looked aghast at the dog lying bleeding on the rug. He fell against the window frame as he stared at the fainting woman in Alexander’s arms.

“Dear God! Did it bite her?” The dread in his voice was undeniable.

Alexander shook his head quickly to reassure his friend.

“No, she’s fine, but it was a near thing. She fainted when she saw how close she had come to being savaged. I came in here to look for her and tell her I was home. I was going to ask her to see me when we had finished our search for the beast but it was coming through the window as I arrived here. The damned thing must have doubled back after you trailed it earlier.” He dropped his gaze to the beautiful woman in his arms and gathered her even closer to him. He looked back up at his steward. “She’s completely deaf, Geoff, and didn’t hear the thing when it snarled at her. I nearly died of fright when it sprang at her throat. It didn’t bite her but its saliva and blood sprayed everywhere.” Alexander paled at the thought of what might have happened if he had been any later in coming home. He shook himself mentally as he looked down again at the woman cradled in his arms. “I’m going to take her to bathe now. Wrap the beast in the rug and burn the lot. I’ll bring down our clothes to burn too. I’ll need buckets of hot water in here and soap too. The floor must be scrubbed but don’t you touch anything. I am already contaminated though at no danger. I would rather not have anyone else put at risk. If her Grace’s maid should arrive please send her to my room as soon as you can. I have a feeling that her mistress will be in need of her.”