The Companion (27 page)

He nodded, a puddle growing, unnoticed, at his feet. “Well, I hope I never do it again.”

“What did you feel?” she could not help asking in her turn.

He searched her face, his blue-eyed gaze turned inward. “Life singing along my veins. Strength. I felt as though I was not alone.” He blinked. “It felt . . . wonderful.”

Neither of them thought that was necessarily a good sign. Beth nodded, trying to keep her face from betraying any astonishment, let alone disapproval.
He is just different
, she kept reminding herself.
Did you not want to know the mystery?

“I intend to go to my cabin and try to stay there,” Rufford growled. “I suggest you do the same, Miss Rochewell.” He turned away and stalked toward his cabin door.

Beth watched him go. Their research into his nature had not proved a comfort to him. Rather the opposite. And for her? The mystery was greater than she had imagined.

Rufford discouraged further research into the scrolls as they beat up against the winds in the Channel, making for Portsmouth in the days that ensued. He did not mention again what had happened that night. He seemed to withdraw into some kind of austere acceptance of his condition that put up a barrier between them. Yet every night saw him leaning on the rail at the leeward side of the quarterdeck, willing the frigate on toward England with yearning in his eyes.

Beth pored over her scrolls in daylight, alone. But no more revelations came to light. As much as Rufford ached for England, so she dreaded its approach. Her father had been at her side whenever she returned to this strangest of lands since her school days. He had been her anchor, the
source of her confidence, her friend. More than that, he was her protection against a society that disapproved of her life. Now she had no one. The emptiness was beguiled for a while by her fascination with the mystery of Rufford. But once the
Beltrane
anchored in Portsmouth, Rufford would vanish. That knowledge brought a stab of pain she had not expected.
It is only that his companionship beat back loneliness
, she told herself. The practical consequences of her father’s death came home to her. She had still never cried for him. But her devastation was no less complete for being dry-eyed. The empty feeling of regret was echoed, though fainter, in the distance that Rufford now kept. He was afraid of what he had become and ashamed of all he had admitted to her. When she tried to discuss it, he simply shook his head.

“There is nothing for it but to see if a doctor can cure me,” he had said when she asked him how he did. And he would say no more. Indeed, his expression was so closed and glowering she dared not question him or try to give him solace. The ability to disappear seemed to have horrified him all over again.

Still, the night before the
Beltrane
docked, he came out to where Beth played chess, black against white, a very sterile occupation. She heard his door open, felt him standing behind her.

“Well?” she asked, not turning to him, all the stiffness of his distance these last days and all her fear of the loneliness ahead in her voice.

“We dock tomorrow, or so the Captain seems to think.”

“Yes.” She moved the black rook.

“You will go ashore in the morning, no doubt.”

“Yes.”

“I . . . I wanted to thank you for your . . . understanding.”

“There is nothing for which to thank me.”

“I know of no one else who would overlook a deep wrong against her person and keep so objective an attitude about my . . . proclivities. I am fully sensible of my debt.”

“You owe me nothing.” She meant it as a kindness. Yet
that was not how it came out, somehow. She glanced behind her to see him bow his head and turn back into his cabin. That was all that was needed to sink whatever spirit remained to her. She had not meant it to end so.

This might be the last time she would ever see him. It was another loss, along with Africa, along with her father. She was surprised it hurt so badly.

Thirteen

The hackney coach stopped in front of number 27 Curzon Street. Beth looked up at the imposing stone front of the house, her emotions wound tight in her chest. Her nerves were still a-jangle from a day and a half on the Mail Coach with Mrs. Pargutter up from Portsmouth. She wondered how she would have supported the voyage had that lady not succumbed to seasickness. She’d been relieved to part company. Yet now that she had reached her destination, her mind was even more agitated. Had her letter arrived to inform Lady Celia Rangle of her coming? Would her aunt welcome her or view her as some sad trial? Was she even in London? Beth heaved a breath and let it out. The door to the coach opened. The driver handed her down. She stood uncertainly on the walk in front of the door as he unstrapped her trunks and piled them in a heap. The knocker was on the door, so her aunt was at home. Best get on with it. She could not stand forever in the street without attracting attention. Indeed, several people passing had looked at her with disapproval. She was already feeling out of place.

Paying the coachman, she stepped forward and raised the knocker. It sounded dreadfully importuning as it banged
against the plate. The butler who answered it looked down at her from a height well above six feet, his mouth dour. He was an older man, his shoulders slightly stooped, one of those retainers who had been with Lady Rangle so long that he felt proprietary about her time and attention. Beth searched for a name. She had seen him several times.

“Edwards, is my aunt at home?” Did he remember her?

Recognition dawned in his eyes, followed close on by disapproval. He could hardly deny someone with a direct relationship, but he could frown his censure of luggage heaped in the street. “She is resting, Miss Elizabeth.” He paused to emphasize his coming generosity. “However, I will have the underfootman take your things up to the blue bedroom.” He stepped aside to let her in with great condescension. “You may wait in the drawing room.”

She was expected, or taking her luggage to a bedroom would be out of the question. Beth stripped off her tan leather gloves and unbuttoned her russet pelisse as she looked about her. The town house was furnished in the latest style, always. Lady Rangle refurbished it continually to be slap up to the echo of fashion. Just now, with all the interest in the French exploration of Egyptian antiquities, that meant the entry hall and indeed what Beth could see of the front saloon were crowded with faux Egyptian pieces. Crouching cats held up the table upon which visiting cards were scattered. A most uncomfortable-looking pair of wooden chairs on U-shaped legs flanked a trio of ceremonial lances striped with lapis lazuli. She half-expected to see a mummy laid out upon the sofa in the large room where Edwards led her. She wandered about the room comparing the reproductions to her memories of the real treasures of Egypt. Lady Rangle could afford the best, but their very newness made them tawdry. She smiled to herself to think that what was lacking for verisimilitude must surely be the ever-present grit of the desert.

That humorous perspective was still floating about Beth when her aunt drifted into the room. Lady Rangle always seemed to drift. She was long past youth, yet her frame was
willowy, her complexion pale and skin fragile. Her faded beauty (and she had been a great beauty in her day) was framed by ethereal curls helped to their palest shade of blonde by a much more delicate hand than Mrs. Pargutter used. There was not a hint of brass. Her morning dress was lustring faintly striped with lavender. Slippers of delicate lilac kid peeped from under her hem. Over her elbows, a shawl of Norwich silk draped negligently. A beaded reticule hung from one wrist even indoors, so her smelling salts were always close at hand in case her sensibilities were assaulted in any way. A magnifying glass hung around her neck by a ribbon, since she was very myopic and disdained the use of spectacles.

“Lizzy,” she breathed. Her voice was always either languid or breathy. “How good it is to see you.” Beth wondered if she meant it. She wafted forward and pecked Beth on each cheek.

“I hope my letter was not too inconvenient, Aunt—” Beth’s anxiety banished her wry perspective. She did not even correct her aunt’s use of a diminutive of Elizabeth she hated.

“Of course, dear Lizzy. And who should you come to in such shocking circumstances but your only relative?” She draped her figure on a pale satin chaise designed for comfort, not an Egyptian pedigree. “Do sit down, my dear. You always were such a dreadfully active child.”

Beth perched on the edge of a sofa whose arms were inlaid with an ibis pattern.

“Now, let me look at you.” Lady Rangle raised her glass. Her pale blue eye grew monstrous and distorted to Beth’s view. It was all Beth could do not to squirm under that unblinking gaze. “Well,” she said at last, letting the glass fall and looking world-weary. “It could be worse. You don’t squint. And I detect no spots of any kind. I suppose your complexion can’t be helped, or those eyes. Your mother gets the blame for them. You could hardly be shorter. But I don’t despair of bringing you off creditably. We can’t look too high, of course. You would never do for the fashionable set. But I’m sure there are some widowers of reasonable means
who might not expect better. Old Marksby is in town just now to call in at Harley Street about his gout. Or there is always the City.”

Beth’s flush rose during this speech along with her indignation. She pressed her lips together against her first retort. After a moment she said with some constraint, “If you think I have cast myself upon you to arrange a marriage for me, Aunt, you do me no credit.”

“But you must be married, child.” Her aunt smiled kindly. “What else is there for you?”

“I am perfectly capable of independence, I assure you. And I might also say that it is my firm intention never to marry except where there may be love on both sides. In lieu of finding that, I shall do fine on my own.” She saw her aunt’s dubious look turn to amusement. “I shall call on my father’s bankers at Drummond’s tomorrow.”

“A young female cannot simply set up house for herself,” her aunt protested, chuckling. “Why, no one would receive you. I doubt the shops would sell you an ell of cloth. As for love, girls say they must have a love match as though that existed in real life. Many of us grow very fond of our husbands, however. Why, I positively doted on Rangle.”

Doted? From what Beth remembered of her aunt’s relationship with the stout and stern man who talked incessantly of sporting ventures, she was sure Lady Rangle confused “doted on” with “ignored.” She schooled her countenance to polite reserve. “I would simply like to feel doting before I marry. I might seem distrustful, but I have no desire to buy a pig in a poke.”

Lady Rangle reached out a hand and Beth came to stand in front of her. “My poor, dear Lizzy, raised in barbarian lands far from civilization. What was Edwin about? My foolish brother! It is no wonder you do not know how to go on. But you will be invited to the best houses, though town is thin of company until after the holidays. My name is not nothing. It opens many doors.”

Lady Rangle meant to be kind. Beth knew that. And for
someone so languid to take upon herself the task of steering an ignorant girl through the shoals of London society was an act heroic in and of itself. Especially when the girl thrust upon her doorstep was nearly unknown to her and of questionable experience. So Beth did not say she had no desire to have doors opened or that she had no ambition to a knowledge of society. She did not reassert her determination to set up for herself even if it meant a lonely life. Instead, she cleared her throat. “You are very good, Aunt. And I am very sorry to put you to so much trouble, foisting myself upon you.”

“I shall enjoy the dressing of you, my dear, and you must strive to do me credit. Of course, you will put off your blacks. No one would offer for a girl in mourning. Edwin has interfered quite enough in your life already.”

Beth was about to protest, but instead managed a weak smile, feeling adrift in unfamiliar territory. Her father would not care if she wore black or not. She realized her aunt had never even asked her about her journey or commiserated on her father’s death.

Ian waited in the comfortable drawing room outside Dr. James Blundell’s consultation chamber in Harley Street, excitement and dread beating in his breast. All his hopes were pinned upon what would happen in the next hour. He had been in London three days, having posted up from Portsmouth with all haste. But Blundell was not easy to see, being so renowned a practitioner when it came to diseases of the blood, and Ian required an appointment in the evening, which occasioned several notes back and forth with the great doctor’s secretary. However, that gave Ian time to read Blundell’s treatise on transferring blood from one patient to another. The doctor had started as an obstetrician, perhaps not a sterling recommendation in the present case. His drive to perfect transfusion arose out of the terrible hemorrhages he had seen in childbirth, and he had since concentrated almost solely on researches in blood. The man was without doubt
on the edge of some new and fascinating discoveries. If anyone could help, he could.

Ian had struggled with how to describe his symptoms in order to avoid being clapped up in Bedlam, chained in dirty straw, and beaten twice a day. He must never talk about compulsion or disappearing. Yet he had to interest the great man in his case. He dared not talk about needing to take human blood, did he? Yet was that not the crux of the matter?

One by one, the patients who shared the drawing room were called in. A frail man, supported by a servant, then a portly gentleman with a florid face, all disappeared, not to return. There must be another exit by which they were let out. They had eyed him most strangely. Indeed, he had been attracting attention everywhere he went in London. He had only to walk into the lobby of the Clarendon Hotel and everyone stopped what they were doing. They moved out of his way as though he had the plague, which, in fact, he did. But strangers could not know that, could they? There was no trace of his change in the mirror that he could see, except perhaps a certain vibrancy. And it was not quite fear he felt in those around him. There seemed to be an air of awe about them. Ian couldn’t understand it. But the effect had been growing.