Never Call It Love (12 page)

Nevertheless,
before she went to bed she made sure that all the downstairs doors to the
outside were locked, and all the ground-floor windows latched.

The
next day dawned cloudy but much milder. Giant icicles hanging from the eaves
began to drip, and then crashed to the ground. On the hillsides, rapidly
spreading patches of winter-brown grass appeared in the thin snow cover. Early
in the afternoon, beside a cedar tree at the foot of the garden, Elizabeth
found a harbinger of early spring, a cluster of snowdrops.

Just
as she had known she would, she began to enjoy her solitude. It was pleasant to
work in the garden with no sense of her mother watching from the house, her
face reflecting her discontent that her daughter should be performing tasks
proper only to servants. It was pleasant to take meals whenever she chose, and
to go to bed as early or as late as she felt sleepy.

On
the third morning after her return from London, she still had received no
message from Christopher. In a way, that was a good sign. It probably meant
that he had gone aboard some ship immediately before sailing, with no time to
write and post a letter.

There
were letters, though, from both her mother and Donald. Mrs. Montlow was feeling
much stronger, she wrote. Dr. Quill had said that she could go home in another
week. But in the meantime, she was frantic to learn if there had been any word
from Christopher.

Donald's
letter included an account of his running argument with his uncle over
Berkeley's theory. "The old gentleman still challenges me to refute his
argument that I
cannot prove the existence of anything outside my own mind. I think he is
hoping that I, like Hume, will howl, "Thus I refute it!' and kick a large
stone. But since I know that I would accomplish nothing except to acquire a
sore toe, I shall not oblige my uncle.

"I
long to see you, and will do so within three or four days after you receive
this letter."

Elizabeth
wrote her replies, and walked to the village to post them. Because she knew
that she had only a few days more in which to enjoy the freedom of utter
solitude, she loitered on the way back, stopping to watch white clouds move
slowly across the pale blue sky, or to look at swelling buds on a roadside
maple tree. When she reached the house, she went into the small library
opposite the side parlor and took down
Tristam Shandy
from among her
father's books. Glad that she did not have to answer her mother's questions as
to whether the book was a suitable one for a young woman, she carried it
outside to a sun-warmed bench against the rear wall of the house, and sat
reading until almost dusk. After supper she read several more chapters, and
then, pleasantly tired, went to bed.

***

Afterward
she never knew at what hour of the night her ordeal began. She only knew that
she came awake in the darkness, rigid with the knowledge that she was no longer
alone in the room.

The
drain, she thought numbly. Someone had climbed up the heavy drainpipe that ran
past her window to the gutter along the roof's edge.

Heart
hammering now, she called out, "Who's there?"

For
several seconds there was silence. Then: "You had best strike a light,
Miss Montlow." The voice, cold and deep, was one she had last heard
speaking from the witness stand at Old Bailey.

Her
icy hands groped on the bedside stand for the flint
box. After
several fumbling attempts, she managed to light the candle in its holder. The
small flame showed her that he stood, wearing a dark coat and breeches, a few
feet inside the open window. If he'd had a cloak and hat, he must have left
them on the ground before he began his climb. The candlelight gleamed dully on
the leveled pistol in his hand. But the weapon frightened her far less than the
cold resolution in his dark face.

She
asked, from a dry throat, "What do you want?"

"Christopher
Montlow, of course. Where is he?"

"Get
out of here! If you don't, I will scream. There is a pistol downstairs. My
servant—"

"What
servant? You are alone here. I have watched this house for hours today, and
seen no one but you."

Watched.
He must have been up in that hillside copse, gaze fixed upon her as she sat
reading in the afternoon sunlight

"Now,
where is your brother?"

"I
don't know."

He
ignored that "In Southampton yesterday morning I learned that seven ships
had sailed in the last few days, two merchantmen for Calais, another
merchantman for Brussels, and one for the West Indies, and a troopship and two
supply ships for the American colonies. On which of those ships did you arrange
passage for your brother?"

So
he had not reached Southampton until yesterday. That must mean that, as she had
hoped, he had gone to Dover first, and vainly searched the docks and inns and
grog shops for people who remembered a youth of Christopher's description. But
in her fear she could take no satisfaction in the success of her stratagem.

"Which
ship did that unspeakable degenerate take, Miss Montlow?"

"I
don't know."

"You
must have arranged for the carriage in which he
sneaked away. I cannot imagine
your mother doing it, or your servant. Or was it Weymouth's doing?"

Donald!
This man was quite capable of killing him. But surely he would not kill her, a
woman. She said swiftly and truthfully, "I hired the carriage. But I have
no idea what ship my brother took."

The
dark eyes studied her. "If you are lying, you had best reconsider and tell
me where I must go to look for him. Someone is going to pay for murdering my
ward. Better that it be him than you."

Her
mind tried to tell her that he would not carry out such a threat. But her body,
under the thin nightshift, seemed to shrink in upon itself, as if sure that
soon a pistol ball would smash through flesh and nerve and bone.

Perhaps,
she thought desperately, if she could get out of bed and stand facing him, she
would feel less terrified, less at an overwhelming disadvantage. She said,
"Please, Sir Patrick. Would you mind turning your back for a few
moments?"

"Turn
my back, when perhaps you have a pistol or a knife in the drawer of that
nightstand? You see, Miss Montlow, I have learned not to underestimate
you."

"Then...
then will you toss my robe to me? It is there on the chair back."

He
moved to the chair near the foot of the bed, gathered up the blue woolen robe
with his left hand, and threw it to her. Aware that he watched her every
movement, she thrust her arms into the robe's sleeves, got out of bed, and
knotted the sash around her waist. On legs that trembled, but with a gaze she
tried to make direct and calm, she stood facing him.

"I
know, Sir Patrick, how you must feel...."

"Do
you? Do you know what I felt when I looked down at Anne Reardon in a stinking
hospital ward and watched her die? Do you know what I felt as I heard you tell
your lies on the witness stand?"

"They
were not lies!"

"Stop
that!" he said harshly. "It was plain in your face that you lied. It
was plain, too, that you realized I knew you were lying. Your brother was
nowhere near this house that Wednesday. It was Thursday evening when I saw him
sneaking up to a side door from the carriage house, where he'd been hiding....
For how long, Miss Montlow? How many hours did it take your brother, after Anne
Reardon landed in that areaway, to reach your carriage house?"

Guilt
and terror were clouding her mind. Several seconds passed before she thought to
say, "If you were watching this place, if you did see Christopher come out
of the carriage house, why didn't you tell the court about it?"

"Because
even though I am sure it was your brother I saw, I had no proof to offer.
Besides, I was sure he would be convicted. It did not occur to me that those
mutton-headed jurymen would fail to see that all three of you women were lying.
Now, admit that you lied."

Perhaps
it was a trick of the candlelight, but it seemed to her that his forefinger had
tightened on the trigger. Best to admit she had lied. Perhaps the confession
would appease at least some of his fury.

"Very
well. Christopher was not here that Wednesday night. But neither was... was he
at our house in town. He spent that night with a Mrs.
Frazier-Fitzsimmons."

"Peggy
Frazier-Fitzsimmons? He told you that?"

"She
herself did, also."

"I
wonder how much he paid her to say it You see, I know Peggy."

Before
she could check herself, she said, "No doubt"

He
smiled. "There is one thing I admire about you. Your spirit." His
smile vanished. "But if you chose to take that harlot's word, it was only
as a sop to your conscience. You knew it was not true."

She
remembered the terrible moment on the witness stand when she had become
convinced that she had been tricked, and that her brother, standing pale and
tense in the dock, had caused an innocent young girl's death. The memory must
have shown in her face, because Patrick Stanford said, in a flat voice,
"Yes, you know he is guilty. And you know that in shielding him from the
death he deserves, you become guilty of that poor girl's murder, too. Now,
which ship did he take? And don't tell me again that you don't know."

She
stood silent, mind working furiously. If there was some way she could distract
his attention, grapple with him for the pistol... She could not hope to wrest
it from him. But perhaps she could cause it to discharge harmlessly into the
floor. And then she would have at least a chance to flee down the hall to the
room that had been her father's and lock herself in. There was a brace of
pistols hanging on the wall in that room, and powder and shot in a cabinet
drawer....

He
said, "Which ship, Miss Montlow?"

Giving
a slight start, she looked past his shoulder to the window, her eyes widening
in an expression of surprised joy.

He
turned swiftly to follow the direction of her gaze. Instantly she launched
herself at him, and with both hands grasped his right wrist.

For
a moment the pistol pointed floorward. Then, seemingly without effort, he tore
his wrist from her grasp. Before she could step back from him, his left arm
encircled her body and arms and pulled her close against him, fingers biting
into her upper arm. Sick with disappointment and heightened fear, she looked up
into his face.

He
said, "You are full of tricks, aren't you?"

Then,
with the pulse beating like a caged wild thing in the hollow of her throat, she
saw his face change. He looked down at her for several seconds more before his
mouth came down
on hers, savage and bruising. His other arm went around her, slanting down
across her hips, pressing the entire length of her body tightly to his. She
struggled, dimly aware that her movements only excited him the more, and yet
frantic to break free.

He
released her, so abruptly that she staggered, and stepped back from her. With
the pistol leveled at her body, he said in a thickened voice, "Take off
that robe and shift."

She
stood motionless.

He
said, "You will be getting off lightly. At least you will be still alive,
not like Anne Reardon."

Still
she did not move.

"I
can knock you onto the bed, you know, and rip those garments off you. But in
that case, I might not be content just to rape you. I might choose to have you
found as Anne was found, at the foot of a long drop from a window."

The
words "Death before dishonor" flitted grotesquely through Elizabeth's
mind. Whoever wrote those words had not been a woman, seeing both death and
dishonor looking at her from a man's face, a face flushed with murderous anger
as well as lust.

With
numb fingers she undid the sash of her robe, then drew the garment from her
shoulders and let it fall to the floor. Despite the pounding of her blood in her
ears, she tried to think clearly. Best not to add more fuel to his rage. Best
to submit completely. That way, it would be over sooner. And that way she might
live to see daylight.

She
loosened the drawstring at the neck of her night-shift and let the garment
slide off her shoulder to the floor. Head drooping, she stood there, feeling
his gaze move over her body.

He
stepped past her and with one sweep of his arm flung the upper sheet and the
eiderdown quilts to the foot of the bed. "Lie down."

Not
looking at him, she obeyed. Eyes closed, arms at her sides, she had a sense of
waking nightmare. She heard a metallic click, and knew that he had placed the
pistol on the bureau. After that, rustling sounds told her that he was
undressing.

The
mattress gave slightly under his weight He was sitting on the bed's edge. Don't
fight him, she warned herself, don't fight him. Still with her eyes tightly
closed, she felt his fingers seize a handful of her hair outspread on the
pillow. Not moving, she endured the bruising pressure of his mouth upon hers.
But when she felt his naked weight on her breast, felt his legs trying to
thrust her legs apart, her body forgot her mind's command to submit. She
fought, trying to free her arms to strike him, trying to turn her head so as to
sink her teeth into his bare shoulder.