The Runaway McBride (23 page)

But she wasn’t able to look after herself, as was soon evident when he helped her mount the stairs. She clutched his arm convulsively. He looked at her intently and noted the colorless complexion and the way she pressed her lips together. He sensed, then, that she was reliving the moment when she had entered the boathouse and fallen headlong over Danvers’s body.

“I didn’t know who he was,” she whispered. “I thought that he was a vagrant who had taken shelter from the rain. He was so cold. I thought if we got him a blanket, he would soon warm up.”

He said something soothing, he didn’t know what, then one of the maids with a coat serving as a dressing robe over her nightclothes was there to take care of Faith. He entered the room first, lit the gas lamp above the mantel, and put a match to the kindling in the grate.

To the maid he said, “Keep the fire going, and make sure Miss McBride is warm and dry. I’ll be back in a little while to see that she is all right.”

When the maid nodded, James said to Faith, “I’ll be back in a little while; then we’ll talk.”

It took him no more than ten minutes to change his own clothes, then five minutes to fetch the brandy decanter and two glasses before he was back at Faith’s door. When he entered, Faith was huddled in a chair close to the fire, but there was no sign of the maid.

“I sent Millie to bed,” she said. “Do you know that she has to get up at five in the morning to light the boiler? She should have been in bed hours ago but stayed up waiting for me to come home, but her eyes wouldn’t stay open so . . .” Her voice trailed away. “I’m talking too much. Is that the result of shock? ”

He crossed to her and poured brandy into one of the glasses. “It is,” he said, “and this is the cure for it.”

She accepted the glass and put her lips to the rim. After one choking gulp, she said tremulously, “After they separated us at the Hugheses’, the police took me back to the boathouse to look at the body. I was the one who said he was Robert Danvers. I shall never forget the look on his face or the blood. It’s on my gown but didn’t show up right away because my gown is practically the same color as dried blood.”

He was appalled. No one had told him that the police had taken her back to the boathouse. He’d already identified Danvers. There was no need for Faith to do the same. It was a trick, one of those nasty sleights of hand employed by the police to unnerve a suspect and get him or her to talk. A savage rage gripped his throat. No wonder she was in shock.

He poured himself a brandy, bolted it in one gulp, and set the decanter and his glass aside. As gently as he could manage, he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know the police had taken you back to the boathouse.”

“There’s something else, something I didn’t tell the police. It’s probably all in my imagination anyway.”

When she fell silent, he gently prompted, “What is it, Faith?”

Her shoulders lifted as she drew in a long breath. “I thought someone else was there on the path ahead of me. I thought it was Alastair until he turned aside and hid in the shrubbery. The thing is, I’m not sure. Anyway, he couldn’t have killed Robert, because the doctor said that Robert had been dead for an hour at least and probably longer.”

That she had been waiting for Alastair Dobbin to join her was, in the light of the night’s events, a small point. That someone had followed her out or been lying in wait for her was far more serious.

He wasn’t going to belabor the point. She’d been through enough for one night.

Keeping his voice easy, he said, “It was probably a groundsman. Mr. and Mrs. Hughes employ an army of servants. I suppose some of them were directed to keep the lamps lit.”

“That was my thought, too.” She took another choking gulp of brandy, coughed, then went on. “The lamp outside the boathouse wasn’t lit. In fact, many of the lamps had gone out. That’s why it was so dark.”

“Don’t think about it.”

She went on as though she hadn’t heard him. “I don’t think I shall ever forget that moment. Waking or dreaming, I shall never forget it.” She looked up at him with huge, fragile eyes. “It’s all of a piece, isn’t it? My life was uneventful until I put that advertisement in the paper. We were attacked, and now Robert is dead. If only I had not found that photograph of my mother . . .”

He went down on his haunches and took Faith’s hand. Her skin was ice-cold, and her teeth were chattering. His dark eyes held hers. “What happened to Robert is not your fault. And it might not have had anything to do with the advertisement you placed in the paper.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences—leastways, not that kind of coincidence.”

Neither did he, but this was not the time to discuss it. “What you need,” he said gently, “is a good night’s rest.”

She looked at the glass of brandy in her hand and put it down. “I won’t sleep.” A shiver passed over her. “I don’t know if I want to sleep.”

He helped her to her feet. “Then don’t sleep. Just go to bed.”

“And where will you be?”

He pointed to the fire. “Right here, reading a book, watching over you.”

She didn’t remove her dressing gown but simply slipped beneath the eiderdown with a heartfelt sigh and rested her head on the pillow. Her eyes stayed wide open, and she watched him as he chose a book from the small table in front of the window.

“Charles Dickens’s
Tale of Two Cities
,” he said and settled himself in the chair by the fire.

He pretended to read, but his mind was completely focused on Faith. It took a long time, but finally, he felt her eyelashes grow heavy and knew the exact moment she slipped into sleep. Only then did he give up the pretense of reading. Rising, he stretched his cramped muscles and took a turn around the room. Danvers’s murder wasn’t the only thing that worried him. He wondered about the man who had either followed Faith into the garden or whom she had come upon by chance.

If the man who had frightened her was ahead of her on the path, then he hadn’t followed her out. And if he had been lying in wait for her, then he wouldn’t have been on the path. That meant that Faith had come upon him by chance.

Then what was he up to? Why skulk in the bushes?

He could come up with a score of innocent explanations, none of which satisfied him.

When Faith made a sound, he crossed to the bed. She might be sleeping, but it was not a restful sleep. Her limbs jerked from time to time, and he could hear the little sobbing breaths she took.

He remembered how Granny McEcheran used to comfort him when he was a little boy and afraid of the monsters that waited for him in his dreams. All that was needed was the weight of a warm body close to his, someone to hold on to for dear life when the monsters appeared. He could almost hear the sound of his granny’s voice soothing his fears.

That was what Faith needed.

He climbed on top of the bed and stretched out beside her.

“I’m here. Go to sleep. I won’t let anything harm you.”

Those were the words his grandmother used to say. He remembered other things: how she would pat his shoulder and hold his hand. He went through the motions he remembered, but when he linked his fingers with Faith’s, he felt a sudden surge of energy, like a jolt of electricity, pass between them, and he had one heart-stopping moment of clarity before he was caught in a whirlwind of brilliant light and sucked into Faith’s dream . . .

“Thank God you’re here,” Faith said, clinging tightly to his hand.

They were in the Hugheses’ house at the start of the evening, and all the guests had taken on a sinister appearance. They looked like vultures, though well-dressed vultures to be sure. They were crowding Faith, pecking at her, and James could sense the panic rise in her throat. That’s when he flexed his newfound muscles and gave himself the aspect of a ravening wolf. The vultures retreated in disorder, and Faith let out a pent-up breath.

So this,
thought James,
is how Granny got me through my nightmares.
Some grannies sang lullabies. His granny slew dragons. To each his own.

Before he could explore all the possibilities of this new twist, the scene changed. They were going through the terrace doors, and he had been displaced by a sinister, indistinct figure. There was no sign of Dobbin. Faith was bracing herself for the awful moment when she would push into the boathouse and trip over Danvers’s body. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, her mind was numb with terror.

James knew what he had to do next. He had to turn her thoughts from finding Danvers’s body and direct her into a safe harbor. To his utter horror, he discovered that he was woefully unprepared. He tried to drag her away, but her hand became transparent, and he could no longer grasp it. He shouted her name, but she paid no attention. Her mind was fixed on Robert Danvers’s sightless eyes. Her hand was on the door, ready to push it open.

As he hesitated, wondering what to do next, the unthinkable happened, and he and Faith were sucked into his worst nightmare.

The big, wrought-iron gates of the ruined mansion loomed out of the fog, then the house, like a ghost of its former self. He could hear the crunch of his boots on gravel as he pushed between the gates. Water dripped from the trees, and the earth, warmed by the heat of the sun, converted the rain into a fine, lacy mist.

He’d had this dream so many times he knew it by heart. He entered the marble foyer with its cantilevered staircase rising to the floors above. He knew that Faith was here somewhere in fear of her life. Someone was waiting for her in the shadows, someone with hatred in his heart and murder on his mind.

His own heart beat a frantic path to his throat. Blood thundered in his ears. He tried to clear his mind of the panic that held him frozen. There was a way to find Faith and keep her safe. That was why he’d been given this premonition. The future could be changed.

A terrible scream rent his mind and he knew he was too late.

He wasn’t too late. He wasn’t too late. The future could be changed. The litany rang inside his head as he began to run. “Faith,” he yelled. “Faith!”

One long corridor turned into another long corridor, then another. This wasn’t a house, it was a labyrinth. Faith was here somewhere. He had to find her. “Faith!” he shouted. “Faith!”

A small sound reached him. A woman’s moan. Something. He was reaching for her, reaching . . .

The labyrinth disintegrated before his eyes, and the mist came in like a whirlwind. “No!” he yelled. “No!”

He was shaking. Heart pounding, throat tight with fear, he opened his eyes. Faith was kneeling on the bed. Her cheeks were wet with tears, her hands were on his shoulders, shaking him awake.

 

 

The ugly pictures in her mind faded a little when she saw that
he was awake. “I couldn’t find you,” she said. “I thought I had lost you.”

He was still gasping for air as though he really had sprinted up and down all those corridors looking for her. “It was the same for me,” he got out. His hands cupped her face. “I’m all right. Don’t take on so. It was only a dream.”

She set the palm of her hand against his cheek. His skin was warm to her touch. Their eyes met and held, then she slowly lowered her head and brushed her lips against his. The kiss was whisper-soft and comforting, but it could not blot out the raw emotions that threatened to break her.

“It seemed so real,” she whimpered.

“I know. For me, too.”

Faith’s shoulders began to heave as snatches of the nightmare came back to her. When she struggled to draw air into her lungs, James spoke soft, soothing words in her ear, and his hand swept up her back then stroked her hair. She pressed closer to the warm shield of his body and kissed his throat.

Pulling back a little to see his face, she said hoarsely, “I was in this wreck of a house. There was a maze of corridors. I was trying to find you, but you kept moving away.”

“I was there, too. I was having the same dream.”

He didn’t tell her that her dream was a foretaste of what was to come. She wasn’t nearly ready to hear that. All that mattered was the knowledge that she was safe.

But for how long?
a small inner voice demanded.

Until I change the future!
he answered fiercely.

The possibility of failure haunted him still, and his arms tightened around Faith’s slight frame as though he could shelter her from all harm by absorbing her into himself. For a man who took appalling risks in the world of business and could win or lose a fortune without turning a hair, when it came to the person who mattered most to him, he was a monumental coward.

“Faith,” he said, and he kissed her with a desperation he could not control.

Faith felt his tremors and instinctively tried to soothe his fears, as he’d soothed hers. His nearness and strength helped to keep the horror at bay, but her emotions were still tearing her apart. All the heartache that she’d suffered in the past was as nothing to what she’d experienced when she’d thought she had lost him. It didn’t matter how many times she told herself it was only a bad dream. It didn’t feel like a dream but more like a memory.