The Prince of Midnight (47 page)

"Put his right hand in the water bucket," she told the girl, and went
striding into the darkness.

It was just the sort of autocratic demand that one of Chilton's converts had
been trained to obey without question. The girl took S.T.'s wrist and plunged
his hand in the water.

"Lord!" He sucked his breath at the frigid bath. The water must have come
straight out of the ice-covered river. But she held his hand down, and after a
moment the burning in his palm subsided to a dull throb.

Leigh returned, carrying a branch that appeared to have been hacked right off
the nearest bush. With his stiletto, she began to strip the bark and toss it
into the bucket.

"What's that?" he asked suspiciously.

"Alder bush. I'll make a poultice after it soaks. Do you sit down,
Monseigneur—you've been heroic enough for today. Standing up only proves you a
blockhead."

He smiled, a painful process. "My sweet Sunshine."

"Don't talk, either, if you please. The smoke will have burned your lungs."
She took the water pail from the other girl. "Bring a link for me."

S.T. shook his head as the lass trotted away. "No torch. Don't make such a
fuss. Just—"

"I need light," she interrupted. "I want to examine your leg."

"And put me to bed and brew a posset, after which you'll pour invigorating
broth down my throat? It won't be necessary. I don't think I'll linger here
overlong, Sunshine."

She looked up abruptly.

S.T. pulled his burned hand from the water and shook it. He tilted his head,
nodding toward the crowd that gathered downhill. "M'thinks I recognize a justice
of the peace, if a decade of dodging the breed gives me any aptitude."

Leigh turned around. Below, a sturdy squire who had arrived on horseback was
gesturing and yelling instructions.

"Mr. MacWhorter," she said. She blew a puff of frost, as if the name annoyed
her. "You're right; he's one of the magistrates." Then suddenly her body
stiffened. She looked from the squire to the retreating back of the girl in the
pale cap. "Where's Chilton?" she asked sharply.

S.T. reached out with his unburned hand. He caught her shoulder and turned
her toward a limp body that lay a few yards off from the tumult. No one attended
it—there was just a black cloak thrown casually over the head and shoulders.

Leigh stood still at the sight. S.T. kept his hand on her shoulder.

She stared at Chilton's body, and then up at Silvering. The bucket brigade
flung their puny offerings at the house, trying to wet down what had not yet
caught fire, but smoke poured from the open front door. The windows of every
downstairs room glowed angry orange and yellow.

S.T. saw the truth of it hit her. All the horror held in check by their
struggle to escape, all the reality of what had happened—it came to her in that
silent moment. She stood immobile, ignoring his touch, ignoring the shouts, just
gazing at her home as it burned.

So here is it is
, S.T. thought.
Revenge
.

"Sunshine," he said, his voice low and hoarse. He pressed her shoulder, half
expecting her to whirl away from him as she always did, rejecting any human
comfort. But she didn't. She closed her eyes and leaned against his hand. When
he drew her back, she turned her face into his chest as if he could hide her.

He held her close, in spite of the pain of her body compressed so tightly to
his burns. He wanted to hurt; he deserved to smolder in hell for what he'd done.

He couldn't have Leigh. He knew it; he'd known it from the beginning.

His moment was over now.

Au revoir, ma belle
. . .
the time has come for us to part.
. .

Same verse as always. Same song, same ending. He had to leave. He could not
stay.

He thought:
she was right.
She'd called him a liar, looked ahead and
seen this culmination, faced what he had not brought himself to confront. It
came too soon, this farewell; he'd thought there would be more time. It crept in
the background and then materialized, like death, denied and denied and still
inevitable.

"How did you do it?" she asked dully, and for an instant he didn't understand
the question.

Then she lifted her head and looked toward Chilton's body.

"I didn't." S.T. took a deep breath into his burned lungs. "Another killed
him."

But 'tis I who'll be accused.

He didn't say it. He just stared grimly past her at this honest country
squire, all these upright people who hadn't stood against Chilton for her. They
were fatal to him. He'd shown himself here, and now he had to go, as he always
did, before the excitement died down and law-abiding people began to talk. Began
to piece things together.

It was happening already. The capped girl who'd brought the bucket reached
MacWhorter's stirrup. She spoke to him far longer than a mere request for a
torch required. As S.T. watched, the squire dismounted. She pointed, and
MacWhorter grabbed a lamp to light the way. He began to climb the hill toward
S.T. and Leigh.

S.T. shoved himself off the tree, standing straight. He kept his arm around
Leigh, but she instantly moved back, looking over her shoulder. A shout rose up,
and the firefighters shrank away as two windows imploded and the flames shot
out, licking up the stone walls.

His grip on her tightened. He wouldn't leave her yet. Not now, when she
needed him. Not this way, like some sneak thief, running from a solemn-faced,
beak-nosed, backwater magistrate.

Even from a distance, S.T. could see the man's expression change in the
torchlight as he recognized Leigh. The squire stared at her, and then handed the
lantern to the girl and put out his hands, striding forward.

"My lady!" he shouted above the sound of the fire. "Lady Leigh, good God—this
is extraordinary!" He plowed up the hill. "We'd no notion you'd come home, and
that chit says you were
inside—"
He reached them, shook Leigh by the
shoulders and pulled her against him. "Child, child, oh my God, what are you
doing? What's happening?"

Leigh endured his embrace for a moment and pressed herself free. "Can they
save the house?"

He wet his lips and glanced away. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. There'll not be
much chance."

" 'Tis all gone then. Everything." She looked at S.T. with a sudden
intensity.

He didn't understand that look. There was no blame in it. She seemed almost
expectant, as if he could say something that would change it all. He met her
steady gaze and thought that if the magic words existed that would turn time
back and let him do it all differently, he would have sold his soul to buy them.

She was still watching him. Abruptly she put up her hand and touched his
blistered face. "Your poor eyebrows," she said. "With the devil's curl all
burned away."

MacWhorter looked at her as if she were mad. "Milady, come away from here.
You've had a terrible shock. I'll send you home to Mrs. Mac, where you can be
made comfortable."

Leigh didn't take here eyes off of S.T. 's face. "He saved me, Mr.
MacWhorter," she said. "He searched the house until he found me."

For the first time, S.T. received a direct look from the squire, an
uncomfortable glower, as if it were a trifle inconvenient to be introduced to
this particular hero. "We owe you our deepest gratitude, then, sir."

S.T. bowed slightly. His leg ached and stung, but he stood stiffly, with his
weight on it.

"Mr. Chilton is dead," Leigh said.

MacWhorter cleared his throat. "Yes. I—uh—examined that." He raised his voice
above the noise. "Unfortunate man. Shot." He looked at S.T. again, a narrow
assessment.

S.T. stared back.

"'Twill be necessary to ask some questions," the squire said loudly.

"Will it?" Even amid the popping roar, the acid in Leigh's voice came clear.
"You never asked them before."

MacWhorter scowled. "We'll convene a jury."

"Do that," S.T. said in a grating voice. " 'Tis safe enough now, I expect."

MacWhorter answered that with his chin jutting. "I'm afraid I must ask your
name, sir—and what your situation may be."

"Samuel Bartlett. I'm putting up with the landlady at the Twice Brewed Ale."

"And your business?"

S.T. smiled crookedly. "Beyond rescuing the odd damsel ... I'm touring."

"The law does not appreciate levity, Mr. Bartlett." MacWhorter gave him a
cold eye. "I've had reports of disturbance in the past several weeks—suspicious
characters at the Twice Brewed."

"Did you investigate?" Leigh enquired in a mocking tone. "Find it necessary
to ask questions?"

"I was on the point of it, indeed I was."

S.T. put his hand on the tree trunk, surreptitiously supporting himself. "The
man you want is George Atwood. Lord Luton. He shot Chilton."

"And how is this?" The squire lifted his eyebrows and tucked his chin. "Do
you say you saw it?"

S.T. looked toward the burning building. "Aye, I saw it."

"A lord, you charge! I'm to think some lord just happened by and shot the
man? What for?"

"Ask the girls," S.T. said. "I left them at that ruin by the river, where the
Roman bridge used to be."

"Witnesses to the murder?"

S.T. moved his hand impatiently. "They didn't see Chilton shot. They can tell
you about Lord Luton, not that you'll ever catch him now. He'll be long gone
away from this place."

"It seems to me passing strange that this Lord Luton should appear and
disappear so conveniently," MacWhorter said. "What is your piece in the affair,
Mr. Bartlett? How come you to be here at such an hour?"

"I was taking the air, Mr. MacWhorter," S.T. said huskily. "Why else should I
be here?"

The magistrate's Roman nose flared in contempt. "Taking the air. Mounted upon
a black horse, perhaps. I'm told there's one such tethered behind the last
cottage, with a black-and-white mask in the saddlebag."

Another set of windows shattered, sending shouts and flames into the sky. The
fire set MacWhorter in lurid silhouette as he leaned toward S.T.

"D'you think to slip away from justice yourself, Mr. Bartlett? There have
been rumors of you and what you are. 'Tis my belief that I could ask a few more
questions to the point. 'Tis my belief that you just might be the man who shot
him yourself, sir."

"I would have been," S.T. said, his voice grinding, "but Luton got there
first."

Leigh touched his arm, as if to silence him.

S.T. raised her hand and kissed it, held it tight in his. "Nay, shall we
forgo all this ingenuous posturing? You know what happened here, MacWhorter—you
know all about it. One green girl has done what you and your fellows were afraid
to do, and contrived to break the spell that held this place." His voice grew
hoarser as it rose. "You're safe now, you and your family.
You're
safe—and you stand here while this house burns and have the brass to speak of
juries and justice." His lip curled. "Aye, hold me for questions, you cowering
bastard, if you think you'll sleep better at night for hanging somebody."

The squire's mouth was tight. He glared at S.T., breathing heavily through
his nose. "I can guess what you are, sir. A common outlaw!"

"And I know what you are," S.T. said. "I don't have to guess."

MacWhorter looked away, toward the milling crowd of the bucket brigade. The
heat from the fire glistened on his forehead. His jaw twitched.

"Get you gone," he said savagely. "Get out of sight, then; leave my
district." With a brusque move, he turned away, and then looked back. "Take your
sword and that mask. You're safe 'till the morning, before I mount a posse to
hunt you down on charges of murder and thievery."

The light from his lantern swung wildly as he stalked downhill.

S.T. leaned his head back against the tree, closing his eyes. The sound of
the fire whooshed and crackled in his good ear, black smoke dominating taste and
smell. He hurt all over; even his eyes felt swollen and gritty.

"I'll bind your hand," Leigh said.

He opened his eyes and saw her reaching into the dancing shadows at their
feet, collecting the strips of bark from the bucket. When she straightened up,
he caught her wrist. He couldn't really see her face: it was she, now, cast in
shadow against the background of the blaze. The bright flame haloed her hair,
caught the curve of her cheek. He pulled her toward him with no intention but to
put off going, to pretend he could hold her forever, his face pressed into the
curve of her shoulder where smoky scent and pain and the reality of her filled
up all his senses.

"I don't want to leave you," he said harshly, and then gave a tortured laugh,
muffled in her coat. "Oh, God—that's one of them, isn't it? One of the things
I've always said. 'I don't want to leave; I love you; I'll be back' . . ." He
held her tighter. "Jesus, Leigh—what have I done?"

She turned her head, pressing her cheek against his. Her skin felt cool on
his blistered face.

He couldn't say more.
I need you, I'll never forget you.
Every word
that came to him, every promise and vow that rose to his lips seemed worthless,
turned to dust because he'd said it all before. Had he ever meant them, those
pledges to return? Even once, had he ever found leaving harder than staying?

He held her close and reckoned wildly, trying to find some way out, some
chance that his arrest wouldn't lead straight to the gallows. He might elude the
murder charge—there was evidence enough to cloud that... but all of his past
ensnared him. Once caught, he was finished. He'd crimes enough awaiting payment.

It was Leigh who ended the embrace, ever-practical, pushing away to search
for his burned palm and make her poultice of bark and torn cloth. He stroked her
hair with his free hand, watching her work by the light of her blazing home.

"The alder should be boiled," she said. "But this is better than nothing."