Captives of the Night (7 page)

"Gad, I shall become as deranged as Francis," she muttered. "Just from living with him, probably."

There was a thump and a crash from down the hall. "That's right, you poor sod," she said, glancing up from the smeared painting. "Knock over the furniture. Throw things about. Maybe that's from living with
me
."

She righted the easel, set the canvas back upon it, dug out fresh supplies of paint from the cupboard, retrieved her brushes from various parts of the room, and resolutely set to work.

Her mind — if not her heart — cleansed by the recent tempest, she eventually succeeded in obliterating every trace of the Comte d'Esmond's provoking countenance.

While she worked, she told herself she
could
leave Francis. She could go away from England and change her name. Again. She could paint anywhere. She was only seven and twenty. That wasn't too old to begin again. But she'd think it over later, when she was calmer. She'd talk to Andrew. Though no longer her guardian, he was still her solicitor. He'd advise and help her.

Hand and mind occupied, she didn't notice the time passing. Not until she'd finished the painting and begun cleaning up did she glance at the clock on the mantel. Then she discovered it was past teatime. She'd been working for hours in rare, blessedly uninterrupted quiet. But where the devil was her tea?

She was about to yank the bell rope when Mrs. Dempton came to the open studio door bearing a heap of bed linens.

As the servant glanced into the wrecked studio, her jowly countenance tightened with disapproval.

Leila ignored it. Obviously, she and Francis were not ideal employers. They'd been through three different sets of servants in ten months. All had disapproved of her.

"When will tea be ready?" Leila asked.

"In a trice, mum. I was only hoping to get in to change Mr. Beaumont's bedding first — but the door's still shut tight."

And Mrs. Dempton knew better than to knock. When Francis' door was closed, he was not to be disturbed unless the house was on fire. Today Mrs. Dempton had surely heard for herself what had happened when the master's wife had troubled his rest.

"Then I suppose he'll have to wait until tomorrow for clean sheets," said Leila.

"Yes, mum, only he did ask particular, and told Mr. Dempton he'd have a bath, and now the water's near boiled away, because I told Mr. D. not to haul it up until that door was open. The last time — "

"Yes, Mrs. Dempton. I quite understand."

"And Mr. Beaumont asked for scones for his tea, which I was happy to make, I'm sure, as he don't eat enough to keep a mouse alive, but there they are, turning stone cold in the kitchen and the water boiled away and you looking for your tea, and the bedding not even changed." The disapproving expression sharpened into accusation.

She thought it was all Leila's fault, obviously. Leila had quarreled with her husband and he'd locked himself in his room to sulk, inconveniencing the servants.

But surely he'd given the orders after the quarrel, and so he could not have been sulking then — or intending to sleep so long. Leila frowned. Laudanum, of course. He'd complained of a headache. He must have taken laudanum and fallen asleep. There was nothing new in that.

Nonetheless, she felt a prickle of uneasiness.

"I had better look in on him," she said. "He may have an engagement. He'll be vexed if he sleeps through it."

She left the studio and moved quickly down the hall to his bedroom. She rapped at the door. "Francis?" He didn't answer. She gave a harder rap and called to him more sharply. No response. "Francis!" she shouted, pounding on the door.

Silence.

Cautiously she opened the door and looked in.

Her heart skidded to a stop.

He lay on the carpet by the bed, his hand wrapped about the leg of the toppled nightstand.

"Francis!" Even as she cried out, she knew he couldn't hear her, couldn't be roused, ever again.

Mrs. Dempton came running at the sound, stopped short at the doorway, and let out an ear-splitting shriek.

"Murder!" she screamed, scuttling back from the door. "God help us! Oh, Tom, for the love of heaven! She's killed him!"

Leila didn't heed her. She moved stiffly to her husband's too-still form and, kneeling beside him, touched his wrist, his neck. His flesh was cool, too cool. No pulse. No breath. Nothing. Gone.

She heard Mrs. Dempton screeching in the hall, heard Tom's heavy footsteps as he hurried up the stairs, but it was mere noise in some other world far away.

Dazedly, Leila looked down.

Broken glass. Shards from the water glass, smooth and clear, and the etched glass of the laudanum bottle. Puzzle pieces of blue and white porcelain… the water pitcher.

"Missus?"

She looked up into Tom Dempton's narrow, leathery face. "He — he's… Please. Get the doctor. And — and Mr. Herriard. Quickly, please. Hurry, you must hurry."

He knelt beside her, checked for signs of life as she had, then shook his head. "Doctor won't do him no good, missus. I'm sorry. He's — "

"I know." She understood what had happened, though it didn't make sense, either. Yet the doctor had warned him. Francis himself knew. He'd told her: the wrong dosage was poison. She wanted to scream.

"You must go," she told Dempton. "The doctor must come and — and…"

Sign the death certificate. Papers. Life went away and left papers, life went away and you put what was once alive into a box. Into the ground. Only a few hours ago he'd stood shouting at her.

She shuddered. "Get the doctor. And Mr. Herriard. I'll stay with — with my husband."

"You're all a-tremble," said Dempton. He offered his hand. "Best come away. Mrs. D. will stay with him."

She could hear Mrs. Dempton weeping loudly in the hall beyond. "Your wife is the one who needs looking after," Leila said, fighting to keep her voice level. "Try to calm her, please — but do fetch the doctor. And Mr. Herriard."

Reluctantly, Tom Dempton left. Leila heard his wife trailing after him down the stairs.

"She killed him, Tom," came the strident voice. "You heard her screaming at him, telling him to die. Told him to roast in hell, she did. I knew it would come to this."

Leila heard Dempton mutter some impatient response, then the slam of the door. Mrs. Dempton's cries subsided somewhat, but she didn't quiet altogether, and she didn't come back upstairs. Death was there, and she left Leila to look upon it alone.

"I'm here," she whispered. "Oh, Francis, you poor… Oh, God forgive you. Forgive me. You shouldn't have gone alone. I would have held your hand. I would. You were kind once. For that… Oh, you poor
fool
."

Tears trickling down her face, she bent to close his eyes. It was then she became aware of the odd scent. Odd… and wrong. She looked at the broken laudanum bottle, its contents soaking the carpet near his head. But it wasn't laudanum. This smelled like… ink.

She sniffed, and drew back, chilled. There was water and laudanum. Nothing else. No cologne. But she knew this odor.

She sat back on her heels, her eyes darting about the room. She'd heard the noise. The crash and the thump. He'd knocked over the nightstand, and pitcher, bottle, and drinking glass had crashed down with it. He'd fallen. But not another sound. No cry for help, no curses. Just the noise for an instant, then silence.

Had he died in that instant?

She made herself bend close and sniff again. It was on his breath and in the air about him. So very faint, but there: bitter almonds. Why had she thought of ink?

Her mind didn't want to think but she made it. Ink. The doctor. In Paris. Long ago, yes, telling her to keep the windows open. He'd taken up a bottle of blue ink. Prussian blue. Even the fumes could make her very ill, he'd told her. "Artists, they are so careless," he'd said. "Yet it is they who spend their lives amid poisons of the most deadly kind. Do you know what this is made of? Prussic acid, child."

Prussic acid. The symptoms began in seconds. It killed in minutes. The heart slowed… convulsions… asphyxiation. A teaspoon of the commercial variety could kill you. It was one of the deadliest of poisons, because it was so quick, the doctor had said. It was also hard to detect. But there was the bitter almonds odor.

That was what she smelled.

Someone had poisoned Francis with prussic acid.

She shut her eyes. Poisoned. Murdered. And she had been quarreling with him, loudly, bitterly.

She's killed him. You heard her… Told him to roast in hell.

English juries… they've hanged plenty
—
even the pretty ones
.

A jury. A trial. They'd find out. About Papa.

Like papa, like daughter.

Her heart raced. She'd never have a chance. They'd all believe she was guilty, that evil was in her blood.

No. No, she would not hang.

She rose on shaky limbs. "It was an accident," she said under her breath. "God forgive me, but it must be an accident."

She had to think. Coldly. Calmly. Prussic acid. Bitter almonds. Yes. The ink.

She crept noiselessly from the room, looked down the stairs. She could hear Mrs. Dempton sobbing and talking to herself, but she was out of sight. Her voice was coming from the vestibule, where she was waiting for her husband to return with the doctor. They'd be here any moment.

Leila hurried to the studio, snatched up a bottle of Prussian blue and was back in Francis' bedroom in seconds.

Her hands trembling, she unstopped the bottle and laid it on its side amid the shards of the laudanum bottle. The ink trickled from the bottle onto the carpet, and the potent fumes rose.

The fumes. She must not remain here and inhale them. The doctor had said even that could make one ill.

She rose and retreated only as far as the threshold, though she wanted to run as fast and as far away as possible. She wanted to faint, to be sick, to be anything but fully conscious. She made herself stay. She mustn't run. She mustn't leave Francis alone, and she mustn't be sick or swoon. She must think, prepare herself.

She focused all her will on that. There were sounds below, but she shut them out. She must make herself very calm. No tears. She couldn't risk even that small loss of control. She needed all her will.

She heard the footsteps upon the stairs, but didn't look round. She couldn't. She wasn't ready. She couldn't command her muscles.

The footsteps neared. "Madame." It was a soft I voice, a whisper so low she wasn't sure she heard it. The entire house seemed to be whispering. Murder.

Like papa like daughter.

Hang the pretty ones
.

"Madame."

Her head turned slowly, jerkily… to inhumanly blue eyes and a crown of spun gold hair. She didn't understand why he was there. She wasn't sure he truly was there. She couldn't think about that or anything. Tears were burning her eyes and she mustn't cry, mustn't move. She would shatter like the glass, the bottle, the pitcher. Broken… puzzle pieces.

"I c-can't," she mumbled. "I must…" "Yes, madame."

She swayed, and he caught her in his arms. She shattered then and, pressing her face to his coat, she wept.

It was Fate that had driven him here, Ismal thought, and Fate that sent Leila Beaumont into his arms.

Fate, evidently, was in a vicious humor.

Ismal was aware of her soft, untidy hair tickling his chin and of the lush ripeness of the body pressed tautly to his. With the awareness came a hunger so fierce that it darkened his reason. But he dragged his mind back from the darkness to take in the room beyond, for he was all too aware of what lay there as well.

He'd turned her back to the scene when he caught her, and now he studied it over her head: the corpse, the overturned nightstand, the broken glass and crockery… and one unbroken bottle of ink. The hysterical woman servant below had babbled of murder. His instincts told him the same.