Shadow of Dawn (32 page)

Miranda had been out most of the day; Andrew
had told her the news on her return. Her shriek of horror filled
the house, then in a moment Catherine heard her go puffing by to
her room. She recovered sufficiently, however, to go down for
supper and later to talk with her usual gusto to anyone who would
listen.

A heavy silence fell around ten o’clock, and
Catherine surmised that everyone had retired. Feeling a pang of
hunger, she remembered she hadn’t eaten supper and decided to go
down to the kitchen to see what she could find to nibble on.

She tiptoed down the stairs in her nightgown
and slippers, wishing she had worn a wrapper, for the house had
already turned cold. It seemed very still and so dark that the
little candle she held barely illuminated her path, as though the
thickness of the air were trying to absorb the light.

Something creaked behind her and she stopped.
A shiver went over her. She cast an apprehensive glance over her
shoulder, half expecting to be faced with some dreadful
apparition—perhaps the ghost of Bart Ingram, a compliment ready for
her on his grinning lips. It was, after all, a house of death.

Don’t be silly, she told herself firmly. The
dead don’t come back.

Except Andrew had.

She swallowed hard and walked slowly through
the dining room, aware of the towering china cabinet whose glass
dimly reflected the flame of her candle. The huge sideboard reared
up to her right. She had seen that sideboard almost every day for
over three years, but now it looked strange and forbidding. Nothing
seemed familiar. The door to the kitchen loomed uninvitingly before
her.

Suddenly she was no longer hungry. She only
wanted to go back to her room, crawl into bed, and draw the covers
over her head.

Before she could move, the candle fell out of
her hand and rolled onto the floor, extinguishing itself. Catherine
stood completely still for a moment. Why, she thought, someone
knocked that out of my hand.

A swift, stealthy movement came out of the
darkness, something brushed against her hair, and a crushing
pressure closed around her neck. She could not make a sound. The
pressure increased. She reached back instinctively with her hands
and encountered two sleeves, which she clawed in desperation. She
kicked out with her feet, striking the kitchen door. It flung open
to bang against the wall.

At once the deadly pressure stopped.
Catherine sank to the floor, gasping for breath, her heart pounding
hurtfully in her chest. She thought she heard someone running, then
the kitchen door swung open again and someone charged through the
doorway. She heard Ephraim’s voice.

“Who is it? Who’s there?” “It’s me,” she
croaked. “Help me. Wait a minute, there’s a candle.”

She groped on the floor for the candle and
couldn’t find it. In a moment a match flared and Ephraim lit a lamp
on the sideboard. Catherine saw as through a fog that he was in his
nightshirt, his white hair practically standing on end.

“Miss Catherine, what in the world are you
doing there on the floor?” He helped her up, but her knees wouldn’t
support her. She flopped into one of the dining room chairs.

“Somebody tried to strangle me.” She could
hardly believe what she was saying, yet the pain in her throat
assured her she had not imagined it.

Ephraim took her arm in one hand and the lamp
in the other. “Come to the kitchen, Miss Catherine.”

She stood up on wobbly legs and let Ephraim
lead her into the kitchen, where she immediately sat down again. He
poured a glass of water from a pitcher.

“Drink this now.”

She tried to drink, choked, and then managed
to swallow some of the water. Her hands shook so that Ephraim had
to steady the glass for her.

“Who, Miss Catherine?” he asked. “Who did
it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t
see anything.”

“Must be somebody in the house…a robber. I’ll
get Mr. Martin. You go on in Jessie’s room and wait.”

The kitchen door opened suddenly, startling
them both. Andrew rushed into the room, his face red with exertion.
“Catherine! I heard a crash all the way upstairs. What’s
happened?”

Ephraim replied, “Somebody attacked her, Mr.
Andrew. I reckon we need to search the house.”

Andrew knelt beside her, his hands closing
around her upper arms. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, then unexpectedly burst into
tears. Andrew put his arms around her and pulled her head onto his
shoulder.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart. I won’t let anything
happen to you. Ephraim, go get Mr. Henderson—though I’m sure
whoever it was has gone by now.”

The entire house was roused. The women
gathered in the parlor while Andrew, Martin, Tad and Joseph
searched the house, inside and out. Ephraim, who had donned
trousers and suspenders over his nightshirt, remained with the
women. Sallie sat unmoving, her wide blue eyes traveling from
Catherine to the doorway. Miranda sank down on the sofa, wrapped in
a blanket she’d brought from her room, her face like a
blancmange.

They found no one. The men entered the parlor
with grave expressions.

Andrew said, “I found this on the floor in
the dining room.”

It was a woman’s white stocking, perhaps her
own, wrinkled and stretched out of shape. Obviously it had been
pulled taut by someone’s hands; Catherine felt again the clamp on
her throat.

“Anybody could have taken that,” Ephraim
said. “Jessie hangs them on the rack by the kitchen stove after she
does the washing.”

Miranda’s face flushed suddenly with
excitement. “Oh!” she cried. “Are you certain there’s nobody here,
hiding?”

“We’re certain,” Martin answered. “I think
it’s obvious this was an attempt at robbery. Probably he meant to
take the silver in the dining room. Catherine came in and surprised
him. Perhaps he’d already picked up the stocking in case he was
discovered.”

“There are a lot of strangers in town,”
Andrew said, with a thoughtful frown. “Thieves, pickpockets…”

“Oh!” Miranda cried again, waving her hands.
“What if it was that man? The man who pretended to be you,
Cousin!”

Andrew darted a glance at Catherine. She only
shook her head.

“I think,” Andrew said, “that is rather
unlikely.”

“Catherine, I’m glad you weren’t seriously
hurt. I’m going back to bed.” Sallie rose and marched from the
room.

“I’ll report this to the authorities
tomorrow,” Martin said wearily.

He bent and kissed Catherine’s cheek. “Thank
God you’re all right,” he said, and followed his wife. Miranda
scurried after him.

The servants drifted back to their rooms,
with Ephraim lingering behind. Andrew said, “I’ll see to her.”
Ephraim glanced at Catherine. She nodded and he, too, left the
room.

“Come, Catherine.” Andrew took her hand. She
walked beside him, still trembling. In the hallway he bent and
lifted her in his arms and carried her up the stairs. He put her
down on the bed. “I’m staying with you tonight.”

“Oh, no, really—” She stopped, staring at the
bedroom window.

“What is it?” he asked quickly.

“The window! I’m sure it was closed when I
left the room.”

The glass of the window had been shoved
almost halfway up. The room was icy cold.

Andrew walked over to the window, leaning
forward to put his head out. He looked all around.

“He could have come in this way, after you
left the room. It would be hard to get up here, but he could have
climbed that tree. I suppose it could be done by a very athletic
person.”

Catherine’s hand went automatically to her
throat. Andrew stood up and closed the window, locking it. He
dropped another large log on the smoldering fire.

“Get into bed now.”

Catherine simply stared at him. He had not
yet undressed for bed. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar
and his sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, revealing muscular,
powerful-looking forearms. When she did not move, he went to her,
made her lie back, and pulled the covers over her.

“I’m staying here.” He reached around her and
seized the other pillow, then went to one of the large chairs and
settled himself into it, putting up his booted feet on the
footstool. He reached for the lamp on the table beside him and
turned down the wick. The room plunged into darkness.

Somehow she slept, but it was a troubled
sleep. She heard Andrew get up at one point and stir the fire. She
began to dream; she walked in darkness and there was something in
that darkness, treacherous and hidden; she felt hands on her throat
and cried out. Suddenly there were hands on her, shaking her
shoulders urgently. She bolted up and Andrew sat beside her, the
moon shining in and turning his hair to silver.

“You’re having a nightmare, Catherine.”

She grew calmer at once but wondered uneasily
how to convince him to leave the room. He leaned forward and his
lips touched hers, softly and then with increasing force. Her neck
cramped. She tried to turn her face away but he took both sides of
it in his hands and kissed her more deeply. She began to struggle
against him.

He released her, his breath coming rapidly.
He looked at her for a moment, then closed his eyes and shook his
head. “No,” he said harshly. “I won’t take advantage of you
tonight.”

He got up and stood by the window, staring
out for a long time. “Catherine,” he said, his voice now under
control, “I’ve been thinking. Bart was murdered. Tonight there was
an attempt to kill you. Murder doesn’t often strike twice in the
same family, unless the incidents are related.”

“What are you saying?”

“Only that it seems to me that, maybe, the
same person who killed Bart tried to kill you tonight.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know.” He turned to face her. “Is
there anything you know of Bart or his activities? He always struck
me as a nefarious sort.”

She hesitated a long time before answering.
“I’m sure he must have been involved in something. But how could I
know anything about it? You mean you don’t think it was a thief
tonight? You really think that someone wanted to—murder me?”

Her voice sounded incredulous. But she
believed it. She had not thought of it until Andrew’s questioning,
but it had to be true. Someone believed she knew something about
Bart’s murder.

There
had
been someone listening
behind the door the day she talked to Ephraim! That would mean,
then, that her would-be murderer was someone in the house. Martin,
Sallie, Andrew himself, Miranda, one of the servants. Wait—there
was the open window to consider.

It seemed that the world she knew rocked and
split apart.

“Sweetheart,” Andrew said, moving toward her
swiftly. He went down on one knee beside the bed. “Don’t look like
that. I’m sure whoever killed Bart will be caught soon. In the
meantime, we’ll see that you’re well protected. I don’t think
anyone would be foolish enough to try something a second time.”

“Andrew, please.” Catherine drew up her
knees, put her folded arms on them and laid her head on her arms.
“Please, I just want to be alone. You can lock the door. You have
the key, don’t you?”

“Yes, I have the key. Catherine, look at
me.”

She raised her head. He put his hand under
her chin.

“I’ll do as you ask. But you must learn to
trust me.”

He placed a kiss on her forehead, then rose
to a standing position. He returned her pillow to the bed and left
the room. Catherine heard the click of the lock.

She opened the drawer of the bedside table
and took out the pistol Clayton had told her to put there. She
checked it to make sure it was still loaded, then slid it under the
extra pillow, pointing away from her.

She did not sleep for the rest of the
night.

B
art’s service took
place at the graveside the following day. The snow had all but
disappeared, leaving the ground sodden and covered in patches with
brown slush. Catherine’s black dress (with its high neckline
covering the bruises on her throat) kept her warm, but already the
hem was ruined and her shoes kept sticking in the mud.

She stood with the other family members as
the minister read the service. He was, she thought, having a hard
time with the eulogy. Bart had rarely attended church and no one
knew much about him. Sallie had supplied his birth date and a few
personal comments to the effect that he had been a good and devoted
brother. The minister made mention of that, then immediately began
reading from his book of funeral sermons.

“I am the resurrection and the life.…” She
listened to the familiar words from the Bible and felt a strong
sense of the tragedy of Bart’s death. He had not been ready to die;
she felt sure he had not made his peace with God. She wished, now,
that she had been nicer to him.