Dangerous to Kiss (44 page)

“Father,” she cried out. “I’ll do anything you say,
anything
, if only you will help us. Someone is after us, a murderer. He’ll be here at any moment. You
must
help us, you must.”

“Help you?” He didn’t believe her, but the words he spoke came straight from his heart. “I’d as soon shake the hand of the man who made away with you.”

Her glance jerked over the earl’s shoulder. She saw the figure of a man in the shadows, just outside the French doors, and she cried out. When the earl turned to
see what had provoked her reaction, she reached for Quentin and gathered him in her arms. Every nerve in her body was poised for flight, but as the figure advanced into the room and became recognizable, she went limp with relief.

Gray’s secretary looked so ordinary, so solid and unthreatening, that she would have given in to hysteria, except she knew they were not out of danger yet.

“Philip,” said Deborah, and she sobbed, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.”

The earl took a step forward. “I don’t know what game Kendal is playing, but—”

“Don’t move,” said Standish. “Don’t anyone move.” From the folds of his coat, he brought up a pistol.

Deborah looked at the pistol in his hand, his right hand, and it emboldened her to say, “Please. You don’t understand. Nick is after us, and he has an accomplice.”

He seemed to be staring at them as if he were in a trance, and Deborah said urgently, “We must get away from here, all of us, before it’s too late.”

“I never meant to hurt anyone,” said Standish. “I never meant it to go this far.”

Quentin’s hand was clasped in Deborah’s. It trembled, then tightened convulsively. “It’s him,” he whispered. “He’s the man who shot my father.”

The gun came up so suddenly that everyone stood stock-still.

“I thought I was safe,” said Standish. His eyes were on Deborah. “I knew I had nothing to fear from you. We met at the boy’s picnic but you did not raise the alarm after I killed Lord Barrington. Why?”

“I didn’t see you clearly,” she whispered, not knowing that she had spoken aloud.

“That’s what I thought. What a pity, though, that the boy’s memory came back to him. They told me it never would.”

The earl’s mind was beginning to thaw, and he was shaking his head, backing away from Standish. The candelabra was held high in his right hand. Through the fog in his brain, it was beginning to dawn that Deborah had told the truth and that he stood in mortal peril of
his life. “You want her and the boy?” His voice shook. “I give them to you. They mean nothing to me. I don’t know you. I never saw you before in my life. And when I leave this room, I will forget we ever met. Don’t you understand? I hate her too.”

Deborah did not flinch from the hate-filled words. It was no more than she expected from her father. Her eyes were fixed on Standish, watching and weighing, every sense alive to each small change in his expression.

“I never hated anyone in my life.” He was so sincere it was terrifying. “I was taught to love my fellow man.”

Horror welled up in Deborah. He was the son of a vicar. He was practically a member of Gray’s family. They had
trusted
him. “You were the traitor,” she said. “Philip,
you
, of all people!” Those were the very words Lord Barrington had used before he was shot. Standish was the last person anyone would have suspected.

“If only he had not seen me with Talleyrand. But he did see me, and I had to do something about it. Surely you see that? I was supposed to be in Rouen. What could I say to Lord Kendal if he questioned me? He would know I was the informer, and I would be disgraced.”

She couldn’t help herself. The words came automatically. “Philip, have pity. Let the boy go. Lord Kendal knows we are here. He will come for us at any moment.”

It was all so familiar, and she saw from his expression that he was remembering too. She knew what would happen next. Gray had explained it to her. There were three of them. First, he would kill the one who was the greatest threat to him, then he would turn on the others.

Her mind was numb with fear. There was something of great moment she wanted to say to her father, something that would wash out the past and put everything right between them. “Father, I wish—”

“Don’t speak to me! I don’t know you!” her father screamed. And to Standish, “This is so unjust. I have nothing to do with this. I don’t even know what’s going on.”

“I’m sorry,” said Standish. “I’m so sorry.” And leveling the pistol, he shot the earl in the chest.

Belvidere’s eyes registered his shock a moment before he went stumbling back. Deborah screamed, then cried out, “Quentin, run! Hide yourself.”

“Stay where you are!” Standish had withdrawn another pistol from his pocket and it was aimed at Quentin. “You see,” he said, “I learned my lesson from the last time. This time I have come prepared.”

Quentin made a sound, and Deborah drew him to her. Her eyes were fastened on her father. His body lay in a boneless heap, and a dark stain was spreading across the front of his jacket. The candelabra he had been holding was entangled in the silk drapes.

Her head swam and she sagged against the desk. Her hand brushed against something smooth and hard, and when she straightened, her fingers were curled around an onyx paperweight.

There was a whoosh, and tongues of fire swept the curtains from floor to ceiling. Deborah and Quentin clung together. Standish barely looked at them. Nothing seemed to excite him. He had just murdered a man. The room was going up in flames. Sparks were flying, fanned by the breeze from the open French doors. And he looked at them without blinking an eyelash.

“I have to kill you,” he said. “And the boy too. You must see that.”

To her surprise, her voice was quite calm. “It won’t do you any good. Gray knows that you are the murderer.” It was a lie, but she told it convincingly. If she could only make him believe that it was too late to escape Gray’s wrath, he might let them go. His next words shattered that illusion.

“It doesn’t matter if Lord Kendal knows. Without you and the boy, he will never prove it. Without proof, my father will never believe him. That’s as much as I can hope for now.”

“Don’t you understand?” she cried out. “If anything happens to us, Gray will kill you, with or without proof.”

He smiled gently. “It’s you who doesn’t understand, Miss Weyman. I don’t care what happens to me.”

He had made up his mind to die, but not before he had silenced the witnesses who could identify him. In a convoluted, bizarre way that made perfect sense to her, she saw that he was doing it for his father.

“Your father would never sanction this,” she cried.

He looked shamed. “No.”

“Why?” She really wanted to know. “What was worth all this?” One hand gestured, taking in the prone figure of the earl, and the blazing drapes.

“I did it for money,” he said. “A secretary’s income is not adequate for the expenses involved in keeping up with Lord Kendal’s friends. And this time, I was determined to become one of them.”

“This time?”

Her mind was working on two levels at once. She wanted to keep him talking. Unseen by Mr. Standish, the wall paneling behind him was blistering. Soon, it would go up like the drapes. When it did, she would be ready to act.

He shrugged. “Most of us were at university together. I was always the odd one out. I had no money, you see, and couldn’t keep up with the others.”

“I know how you feel.” She was hardly aware of what she was saying. She was talking to delay him. Why wasn’t the paneling bursting into flames? “Governesses are often made to feel like the poor relation.”

Her eyes strayed to her father. She didn’t know why she felt like weeping. She couldn’t remember a time when he had said a kind word to her. He wasn’t like Quentin’s father. He wasn’t even like Mr. Standish’s father. Then why so much regret?

He went on. “I was almost sure that Lord Kendal was setting a trap for me. It didn’t matter, just as long as I got to the boy. I knew you would lead me to him eventually. You must see that my one aim now is to spare my father pain. He would die of shame if any of this got out. I didn’t mean it to go so far.” A pleading note had crept into his voice, as if he were begging for her understanding. “It started from such small beginnings.
No one really cared about the information I passed on. It wasn’t a matter of life and death.”

“But it became a matter of life and death when Lord Barrington threatened to expose you.”

He frowned at her ugly tone. “As you say,” he said. “Forgive me,” and he took a step toward her, then another.

She could almost feel the vibrations of the pistol shot, taste the acrid smell of burned powder, just like that other time. She had to do something, say something before it was too late. “But you were left-handed,” she cried out.

“No. I had burned my right hand with sealing wax. It was bandaged. Quentin must have missed that.”

“But that’s just it, Philip, you see Quentin—”

She heard a roar and the whole of one wall burst into flames. In the moment that his attention was distracted, Deborah pushed Quentin toward the door. “Run, Quentin,” she shouted, and drawing back her arm, she launched the paperweight at Standish, catching him on the shoulder. He dropped the pistol but he retrieved it before she could get to it. Deborah scrambled away and bolted for the door. In the hall, she could hear someone shouting. Somewhere close by, a window shattered. Help was at hand. She had to find Quentin.

“Quentin!” she screamed.

His voice drifted down the well of the circular staircase in a ghostly whisper. “Up here, Deb.”

She sobbed in horror. This was something out of her worst nightmares. This was time playing tricks on her. This was how she had run from Albert. “Oh God,” she sobbed.

The library door opened, and she went haring across the hall and up the stairs, expecting at any moment to be felled by a bullet. On the first floor up, she came to a gallery with long corridors leading off in every direction. “Quentin!” she called out.

“Up here!”

Her heart sank.
Not there, Quentin. Oh, not there.
The gallery at the top of the stairs was purely decorative, and there was no exit except the stairs down.

“Come down to me!”

There was no answer, but she could hear him wheezing. Then she heard the tread of footsteps behind her, and she took the last flight of stairs. Above her, there was a great glass dome through which she could see the moon and the stars. On every side there were alcoves with marble statues, flanking windows with views over London and the Thames. There was no candle, but there was enough light from the windows to pick out shapes and objects. Events were moving so fast that she dared not take time to comfort Quentin. Ignoring him for the moment, she tried one window after another. None of them would open, and even if they had, there was only a ledge, and no way down. She had done this once before.

She went down on her knees and put her arms around Quentin. He wasn’t panicked; he wasn’t crying. His dark eyes were great pools of trust. That look moved inside her like the sharp edge of a blade.

“Deb, I remember everything,
everything,”
he wheezed out.

“I know, I know, darling.” She grabbed him by the shoulders to get his attention. “Listen carefully. You must keep your wits about you, and when you see your chance, you must get out of the house as fast as you can. You mustn’t look back. You mustn’t stop for anything. Do you understand?”

His bottom lip trembled. “Where will you be?”

“I shall be right behind you, but you mustn’t wait for me.”

“No, Deb. I want you to come with me.”

“Think of your father. He would want you to do as I say. It’s just like that other time, and we are going to escape—”

She had run out of time. A sound on the stairs warned her of Standish’s approach. She led Quentin to one of the alcoves and pushed him down behind the statue. Then she moved along the gallery, where she hoped to lure Mr. Standish away from Quentin.

She heard wheezing, and her heart stopped, fearing Quentin would be discovered. Then Standish stepped onto the gallery and she realized he was the one who
was wheezing. She should have
known
, remembering that night in Paris when the murderer came after them. He was fighting for breath just like Quentin.

“You can’t escape me,” said Standish, not threateningly, not viciously, but as though they were talking about the weather. “Can’t you smell the smoke? Don’t you know what’s happening? The fire is spreading rapidly. There is no escape for any of us.”

As if in answer to his words, there was a roar, then an explosion. Smoke billowed up the well of the staircase and great tongues of fire were reflected in the glass dome, then bounced grotesquely from window to window. The fires of hell could not have been more terrifying.

She spoke desperately. “You’ve lost, Mr. Standish. I led you on a false trail. As you can see, Quentin isn’t here. He will tell the world all that he remembers, and everyone will know that you murdered Lord Barrington.”

He was blocking the one exit. All she wanted him to do was take a few steps toward her. Then she would launch herself at him, and the way would be cleared for Quentin to escape. Why didn’t the man move?

“Quentin,” he said, “if you don’t come out of your hiding place at once, I shall put a bullet through Miss Weyman’s brain.”

It was the smoke that betrayed him. Quentin began to cough, and Standish smiled. “Come out, Quentin,” he said. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

When Quentin stumbled from his hiding place, Standish grabbed him. “I mean to keep my word,” he told Deborah. “I won’t hurt either of you. We shall just wait here quietly, and allow the fire to do its work.”

She was helpless. Even if she launched herself at Standish now, Quentin would never escape. He didn’t know the house, and with the ground floor burning, he would not know which way to turn.

Smoke blinded her, and she reached for the balustrade to steady herself. At the same moment, something smashed into the great glass dome above, shattering it. Her head jerked up and when she turned to see what
had caused it, she saw Gray slowly ascending the stairs with a smoking pistol in his hand.