Dangerous to Kiss (37 page)

“Sir?” intoned Mr. Jervis.

Gray put a finger to his lips, silencing the tutor. “You look done in, man.” He spoke quietly, so as not to disturb Quentin. “Go down to the library and pour yourself a stiff measure of brandy, several if you like. I shall be down directly.” When the tutor hesitated, Gray pointed to the door. “Go!”

The door closed softly at Jervis’s exit. Gray crossed to Deborah, offering her his hand. She carried it to her face and turned her cheek into it.

“Oh Gray,” she said in a shaken voice, “I was never more glad to see anyone in my life.”

The expression on Gray’s face as he looked down at Deborah would have shocked family and friends alike if they had been there to see it. It was warm and sweet, devastatingly sweet, the same look that Lady Helena had surprised on his face at his mother’s soiree.

“Tell me about Quentin,” he said.

“I wasn’t there when it happened. I heard the commotion and ran out of my room. Mr. Jervis was carrying Quentin up the stairs.” She couldn’t voice the next thought, that at sight of Quentin’s still, white face, she had feared he was dead. “Quentin had fainted. When he came to himself, he thought at first that he and I were still in Paris, running from his father’s murderer. He’s had a bad shock, and that brought on an attack of asthma. I thought he was growing out of it. And now this!”

Gray kept his voice neutral. “I thought you said that Quentin had no memory of anything connected with his father’s death?”

“That’s true. But later, I told him what had happened. He must have been thinking of that.”

Gray did not respond to this, except to squeeze her shoulder. This was not the time or place to say more.

A movement from the bed put an end to their conversation. Quentin stirred, wheezed, and turned on his side toward them. “I’m thirsty,” he murmured drowsily. “And I don’t want that barley water of yours, Deb. I want a real drink. Tea or ale.”

Gray laughed, but Quentin’s words produced a different effect on Deborah. She sniffed, felt in her pocket for a handkerchief, and blew her nose.

“Go on down, Deb,” said Gray, “and find him something to drink. Tell Hart to join me here in ten minutes. I’ll take over for now. You’ll find my mother and sisters in the breakfast room. Wait for me there.”

She would have argued with him but his attention was not on her. He was helping prop Quentin up against the pillows, and they were both joking about sherry and how Uncle Gray would know where to look if any of his decanters were ever to go missing again. There was a smile on her face when she left the room.

For the first few minutes, Gray spoke gently about the shooting and how fortunate it was that it was grouse the hunters were after and not deer, for their guns were pointing up. By degrees, he gently led Quentin to describe what had happened.

Gray listened in silence, and though Quentin wheezed and coughed from time to time, he let him go on until all the facts were known to him. Quentin’s account was approximately the same as Hart’s.

“I suppose,” said Quentin, “Jason and everyone is laughing at me? I suppose they think I’m a baby?”

“Why should they think that? Jason was shocked, too, when all those guns went off at once. He was frozen to the spot. You bolted. Only a stupid person would carry on as if nothing had happened. Why, even at this moment, your tutor, Mr. Jervis, is helping himself to your Uncle Hart’s best brandy just to steady his nerves. And Uncle Hart doesn’t begrudge him one drop.”

“Truly, Uncle Gray?”

“Truly.” Gray kept his voice light and easy. “Besides, we both know that you had far more reason to be
frightened than either Jason or Mr. Jervis. They have never been chased by a murderer before.”

If Quentin had betrayed horror or agitation, Gray told himself he would go no further. But Quentin seemed relieved to have the chance to explain himself.

“When I heard the guns go off, I was sure my father’s murderer was trying to kill me. I was running to find Deb, and when Mr. Jervis caught me, I thought he was someone else, you know, the murderer.”

“Deb seems to think that you thought you were back in France?”

“In France?” Quentin squinted up at Gray. “Why would she think that?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it was something you said. She must have made a mistake.”

Quentin’s fingers began to work at the coverlet. “You are never going to find out who murdered my father, are you, Uncle Gray?”

“If your memory comes back to you, we shall know who he is.”

“But why can’t I remember? I’ve tried and tried, and I still can’t remember what happened. I
want
to remember, but—” He broke off, looked down at his hands and smoothed out the lumps he had made of the coverlet.

“I promise you,” said Gray, “I’m going to find the man who shot your father, whether your memory returns or not. Ah, here is the maid with—good Lord—it’s a tankard of ale! Now that should prove to you no one considers you a baby. Here let me help you with it.”

“Watered-down ale,” complained Quentin after the first sip.

“Well, what did you expect from Deborah?” said Gray, and they exchanged a man-to-man look, then laughed.

Gray hid his disappointment. He had hoped for so much more. It seemed to him that Quentin
was
beginning to remember, but only at the periphery of things, and only when he was frightened. It would take something extraordinary to get him to remember everything, and Gray did not wish that upon the boy.

Not for the first time, Gray was thinking that until
the murderer was caught, Quentin’s life would always be in danger. This could not go on. For Quentin’s sake, he had to do something about it.

When Hart came to relieve him, his half-formed resolve began to harden into a solid determination. This was no life for the boy. There would not always be people around to guard him. In another month, he was due to start the new term at Eton. Deb could not go with him, nor could his tutor. Moreover, boys could be cruel if they detected a weakness in another boy. He could well imagine some of the tricks they would play on Quentin if it became known that he panicked when surprised by a loud noise and that he was afraid of the dark. They would make his life miserable.

He had known all this months ago, had known that if he failed to unmask the traitor, there was only one way to lay Quentin’s fears to rest. Against his better judgment, he had allowed Deborah to persuade him to let sleeping dogs lie. But Deborah was wrong. If he could not make her see it, he would act without taking her into his confidence.

He spent the next few hours questioning anyone who was anywhere near the scene of the shooting, going so far as to interview Matthew Derwent and his friends. As he expected, there was nothing sinister in what had happened. It was exactly as Hart had described. In a last desperate effort to avoid a course of action he knew would set Deborah against him, he borrowed Hart’s library and sent for her.

She saw the gravity in his face, sensed the seriousness of his purpose, and this made her sit up straighter. He remained standing, and she waited for him to begin.

He smiled and said, “Poor Quentin. You know, this would not have happened if we had caught his father’s murderer. Quentin would know that he had nothing to fear.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” she said, surprising him.

“Have you? And what do you suggest we do?”

“What I’ve said all along.” She looked earnestly into his eyes. “Since you haven’t caught your traitor, I think
Quentin should go to his uncle in the West Indies, oh, not forever, you understand, but to give him time to get over what happened in Paris. He’ll feel safe with his uncle, knowing that he has put miles of ocean between himself and the man who wishes to harm him. In another year or two, when he is over it, he could return here and take up his life again. By that time, he might even have recovered his memory.”

“Or we could try some other way to find out who the murderer is,” said Gray. She stiffened, quite visibly, and Gray knew he could never persuade her to agree to the plan that was forming in his mind.

He moved on to something else. “You know,” he said, “I’m not convinced that you have told me all that you remember of that night. Perhaps you saw more than you think you saw. What I propose, if you are up to it, is that we go through the events of that night step by step.”

The breath that she was holding was exhaled on a rush. She’d been afraid he would suggest using Quentin as bait to trap the murderer, and his words relieved her worst fears.

“I’ll do anything if it will help Quentin,” she said simply.

It soon became clear that he meant to do more than put a few questions to her. It was to be a reenactment. He made her stand by the door, and on her advice, positioned the desk exactly as she remembered it in Lord Barrington’s library.

“How many candles were lit?” he asked.

She had to think about that. “Two. There was one on the desk and one on the mantelpiece.”

“Where was the mantelpiece?”

“Over there, facing the door. Weren’t you ever in the house?”

“No. I preferred meeting Gil on neutral territory.”

“What does that mean?”

“Sophie,” he replied succinctly. “She is a born coquette. It made things awkward between Gil and me. However, on the night of our appointment, I was sure
Sophie had already left Paris. I’d no idea you and Quentin were still there.”

As he spoke he positioned a small table to represent the fireplace in Lord Barrington’s library. Having done that, he set a candle on it.

“Lord Barrington thought you were late for your appointment that night. He was waiting up for you.”

He turned to look at her. “Poor Gil.”

She swallowed and nodded.

He moved around the room extinguishing candles till there were only two left. “And the windows? Where were they?”

Goose bumps were coming out on her skin. She moistened her lips. “They were just where the windows are now, behind the desk.”

“Were the curtains open or drawn?”

“Drawn.” She frowned. “They were drawn. I never remembered that till now. And that was unusual, because Lord Barrington never bothered to draw the curtains. But Quentin did. It was one of his favorite tricks, hiding behind curtains, then springing out at me. I’ll bet he hid in the library, knowing I would come after him.”

“How could he know that?”

“There was a storm that night. I never sleep through storms, and Quentin knows it. If he did not come to my room, I would go to his.” She made a helpless gesture with her hands. “I don’t like to be alone during a lightning storm, that’s all. Quentin would also know that if I found his bed empty, I would search the house till I found him. Why are you frowning?”

“It seems odd to me that a boy would play tricks on his governess in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, Quentin is full of tricks. Did you think he was all sweetness and light? Oh no! There was more to it than that, though. He was afraid of storms, too, but he didn’t want anyone to know it. I thought he was showing off, you know, as boys do, proving that he wasn’t afraid of anything.”

“I see. Let’s begin then, when you found Quentin’s bed empty. What were you thinking?”

“I remember that very well. I was annoyed. Quentin
was just getting over a fever. If he was hiding from me, I was going to give him the sharp edge of my tongue. Apart from anything else, I thought he might be running around in his bare feet. At the same time, I was annoyed because I had no candle. I had to feel my way down the stairs in the dark.”

“How did you know to go to the library?”

“There was light shining under the door.”

“Yes, go on. You were feeling your way down the stairs. You saw the light shining under the library door. What then?”

She inhaled a long, slow breath. “I called out Quentin’s name, not enough to waken the house, but enough to show him that I was not well pleased. There was no answer, and I went on down.” Her eyes were wide with shock. “Do you know, I had forgotten that too? On the landing, I called Quentin’s name. Do you think they heard me in the library, Gray?”

He answered her carefully. “What do you think?”

“I … I can’t say. I’m not sure.”

“Let’s not think of that now. You approached the library door, ready to pounce on Quentin. What happened then?”

She frowned in concentration. “I heard voices. I told you that before.”

“Gil’s voice?”

“Yes.”

“Who else was there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could it have been one of the servants?”

She shook her head. “No. The servants spoke French. They were speaking in English.”

“A woman’s voice, then?” He gave her no time to pause, no time to think. “Yes or no, Deborah?”

“No.”

“A stranger’s voice?”

“Yes. No. That is, oh Gray, I don’t know.”

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s go on to something else. Tell me Gil’s exact words.”

“I can’t remember them exactly. As near as I can remember, he said something like, ‘Let the boy go! You,
of all people! Have pity. Kendal, Lord Kendal, don’t harm him!’ Then he shouted, ‘Quentin, run for it!’”

They were both white, both shaken as they stared at each other. Deb swallowed and whispered, “I heard a thud, then the gun went off, and I threw the door wide.”

Gray said hoarsely, “You are, beyond doubt, the bravest, most resourceful female of my acquaintance. Even a grown man would have quailed before opening that door.”

She smiled weakly. “I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t thinking. I acted out of sheer instinct.”

He was trembling, just thinking of Gil’s last desperate moments, and of how close both Deborah and Quentin had come to being killed as well. Suppressing these harrowing thoughts, he straightened and took a step toward Deborah. “Don’t think of Gil,” he said. “Let’s concentrate on his attacker. Now close your eyes. You’ve just heard the shot and you throw the door wide. I am the attacker. I’ve just shot Gil. Open your eyes, Deborah. Am I in the right position?”

“No. You’re too close to the desk. Take a step back and turn to face me.”

When he did as she asked, she said, “That’s better.”

“Deb,” he said softly, “look at me. Can you see my face?”