Think of England (24 page)

He had propped a painting over the mirror and the hole in the wall. He wondered if he would ever trust a mirror again.

Eight of Vaizey’s men had arrived, all armed, along with his formidable uncle, and had swept Daniel up in a burst of activity from which everyone else was firmly excluded. The bodies of the Armstrongs had been retrieved, along with March. He and Wesley were maintaining a sullen silence, and had not tried mounting counter-accusations against Curtis and Daniel. They both fell back on doing what the master said and knowing nowt.

The Graylings had departed in a shocked and bewildered hurry. Lambdon would require medical attention for a fractured skull. It seemed that Fen had passed his wife a couple of telling pictures, whereupon the drab Mrs. Lambdon had brained her husband with a table lamp.

There was a quiet knock on the door. Curtis hadn’t heard anyone come along the passage, and his heart leapt at the realisation.

“Come in.”

Silent as ever, Daniel slipped in and closed the door. He had washed, shaved and changed, Curtis realised. He looked presentable, and exhausted, and beautiful.

“You found your case, then?”

“Yes, they had my things in the service corridor. Thank goodness. An entire new wardrobe would be an unwelcome expense.” Daniel gave him a glancing look that slipped away almost at once.

“Daniel…”

“You should be safe.” Daniel spoke hurriedly. “Any accusations will seem obvious spite, but in any case I don’t think anyone’s going to admit they know anything more than they have to. The responsibility is going on the dead, where it belongs. Keep your head and you’ll keep everything.” He hesitated a fraction. “I’m glad. You’ve your life back.”

“If I do, it’s thanks to you. You saved me, Daniel.”

“I’m quite sure that was the other way around.”

“Then we saved each other. Do you have time now?”

“Ten minutes, if that.” Daniel gave a little, miserable smile. “Long enough to say goodbye.”

Curtis brushed a thumb gently over his lips, and frowned as Daniel turned his face away. “I don’t want to say goodbye.”

“You will. Back in London, in your world. You know it’s true. I’d rather part friends now than have you embarrassed to be seen with me, or looking for ways to tell me it’s done with. I’d rather end it now. While I can.”

“What? No. You promised. You had my promise—two weeks and all that—and I’ve yours. I’m damned if I’ll let you go back on that.”

Daniel sagged against the wall. “I wish you’d listen. This is not going to work.”

“That’s what you said this morning about the photographs.”

“Yes, and how many miracles do you think we’re entitled to?”

“What are you frightened of?” Curtis demanded.

“Frightened?” Daniel’s mouth twisted. “I’m frightened that I’ll hurt you, you idiot. That you’ll be hurt through me. You’ve no idea what it is to be sneered at for what you are. To have people cut you dead, or look at you with contempt, or have your friends and family turn their backs— You don’t know what that’s like. I don’t
want
you to know what that’s like. God damn it, I saw your face when you thought your uncles would get those bloody photographs!”

“Daniel—”

“No. I can’t do that to you. To see you look like that, because of me—I couldn’t bear it.”

Curtis reached out and cupped Daniel’s face, feeling the freshly shaven skin smooth against his palm. “Enough about me. What are
you
frightened of?”

Daniel shut his eyes. He said, very quietly, “I don’t want to be hurt either. And I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who could hurt me as much as you.”

“I don’t intend to hurt you.”

“I know you don’t.” He took a deep breath. “I think you will.”

“No. Daniel—”

“It’s very easy to be swept away when you’re getting your cock sucked.” That nasty bite was back in Daniel’s voice. “But I assure you the appeal will diminish when the whispers start.”

Curtis’s fingers bit into Daniel’s chin, forcing it up. “Look at me. I am not that bastard at Cambridge. I’m ten years older—”

“And have about five years less experience than he did then.”

“Experience of this, perhaps. I’ve plenty of experience facing things a damn sight more dangerous than a gross indecency charge.”

“Danger.” Daniel’s voice was scathing. “You’re rich, your uncle’s Sir Maurice Vaizey, you’d have to bugger the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Woolsack to get yourself gaoled. We both know you could get out of that sort of trouble. It’s the gossip and the giggles, the cold shoulders and the awful talks with your uncles, and the
looks
— God damn it, you can’t even begin to understand, can you? If you had the imagination to feel what you’re blithely letting yourself in for, you’d be thanking me for saving you from it before we both get hurt.”

“Well, I don’t, so I’m not. I told you before, I’m not hiding behind you. I’ve a say in this.”

“Yes, and so do I, and I’m telling you now, it’s done with.” Daniel’s face was very pale. “You may not call on me, and I don’t want to see you, and I am not going to be instrumental in your ruin, and you will not blame me for it. That’s an end to it. Don’t look at me like that.”

“I had your promise,” Curtis said. An awful, hollow sense was growing in his chest that Daniel meant it, that he would not be persuaded. “You gave me your word—”

“That’s dagos for you,” Daniel bit out. “Can’t trust them.”

“Archie!” The voice came from the corridor, a stentorian bellow. Sir Maurice, his uncle.

“Hell’s teeth. Daniel—”

Daniel was already moving away, staring out of the window.

“Archie!”

“Here, sir,” Curtis managed to call.

Sir Maurice Vaizey slammed into the room, glancing from his man to his nephew, thick brows set in their habitual scowl. “Da Silva? I thought you were resting. What the devil are you lolling about in here for?”

“I am quite rejuvenated.” Daniel arched a brow at his chief. “Your charming nephew and I have been having a
delightful
tête-à-tête.”

Incredibly, he had adopted his most effete, drawling manner. Curtis glanced at his uncle with apprehension, waiting for the explosion, but Sir Maurice appeared unmoved.

“Stop playing the fool. What are you up to?”

“Discussing the coroner’s inquest, dear sir. I felt we should get our stories straight on poor James.”

“You won’t be giving evidence,” Sir Maurice told him. “Any self-respecting jury would hang you on sight and I shouldn’t blame them. Go on, get out, make yourself useful, if you’re capable of it. I need to speak to Archie.”

“Charmed as ever. Sir. Curtis.” Daniel left, without a backward glance, and with a pronounced sway in his hips.

“Bloody pansy,” Sir Maurice said, with an astonishing lack of heat. “You’d hardly believe he was one of my better men. Well, I wouldn’t, after the mess he’s made of this.”

“That was my fault, sir,” Curtis said. “I got in his way.”

“Yes, you did. Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning, boy, before heading up here like a lone crusader?”

“Lafayette said he’d already been to see you, sir. He said you didn’t believe him.”

“He did, and I didn’t.” Sir Maurice snorted. “More fool me. Well, we’ve three corpses—or four; is Mr. Holt’s body likely to turn up?”

Curtis shut his suitcase. “No, sir.”

“Good. Three corpses and a cabinet full of treachery, sodomy and adultery. I’m going to need your silence on this, Archie.”

“Good God, sir, as if you need to ask.”

Sir Maurice nodded. “You’ll have to stay up for the coroner’s inquest on James Armstrong, we can’t have you committed for trial. I’m going to get da Silva out of the way, and we’ll give you a story that doesn’t feature him.”

“He’d be perfectly capable of making a good impression on a jury,” Curtis said. “You must know he puts that manner on.”

His uncle gave him a look that blended a moderate amount of affection with a great deal of irritation. “You don’t need to be chivalrous, my boy, he’s not actually a woman. I need him out of this because I have a damned sight more work for him to do, and I don’t want his name bruited about too widely in association with this business.”

“Work? Good Lord, sir, he was almost killed not two days ago—”

“That’s his job. Yours, at the moment, is to tell me everything you know. Now, pay attention.”

Sir Maurice’s debriefing was thorough to the point of madness; his instructions on dealing with the inevitable inquest so detailed that Curtis was tempted to plead guilty and ask for gaol. He was closeted with his uncle for four hours, and when he finally emerged, it was to learn that Daniel had left for London. There was no message.

Chapter Sixteen

It was eleven days before he returned to London.

The inquest had been relatively plain sailing. He, Miss Carruth and Miss Merton all testified that James Armstrong had been drinking too much and distressed about his friend’s departure. Curtis’s account, uncontested, told how a drunken James Armstrong had sprayed the empty folly with bullets, then shot his stepmother, how he had shot James, just too late to prevent murder, and how Sir Hubert had turned the gun on himself. March did not appear in his account, or at the inquest.

The Graylings were in attendance, tight-lipped and miserable, but were not called. The Lambdons did not appear. Mr. Lambdon had not recovered from his head injury, it was said; his wife was receiving care in a sanatorium.

Daniel da Silva was mentioned in passing as a guest who had left the house long before the terrible events. James’s mental collapse was linked to his friend Mr. Holt’s abrupt departure, but to the coroner’s annoyance, Mr. Holt could not be found. He had testy words to say about that.

There was a brief difficulty over why Curtis had gone out for a morning stroll with a loaded revolver, but Vaizey had briefed him well. He held up his right hand and explained that he was trying to accustom himself to his disability; and if anyone felt that a one-handed man using wildlife for target practice seemed dangerously eccentric, that was outweighed by natural respect for a wounded war hero, which the coroner expressed throughout in glowing terms. The whole thing was thoroughly embarrassing.

Worse came after. Vaizey had left him in the company of an agent named Cannon, who explained that he couldn’t return to London till the nine days’ wonder over a rich man’s familial murder and suicide had died down, and who then proceeded to interrogate him for every scrap of information he could recall, on Holt, on the Armstrongs, on Lambdon, over and over. Cannon informed him, sourly, that he’d had his eye on Holt for some time; the man’s untimely death had lost their best chance at discovering the extent of the blackmail network and the channels through which information was flowing to the Continent. He went so far as to suggest that England would have been better served with Holt alive and Daniel dead, at which point Curtis had stopped cooperating and started expressing his desire to go home in forceful terms.

Eleven days. If Daniel had kept his promise, Curtis would have been counting them off, waiting to see his lover.

He had thought of it all, endlessly, over long walks and angry, solitary nights. He had thought about the possibility of social disgrace, about disappointing his uncles, about what he would do with the rest of his life. He had thought of Daniel, who didn’t back down for Sir Maurice Vaizey, walking away from him.

Now he was back in London, at last, in a small, stuffy room in a nondescript building somewhere off Whitehall, facing his uncle across a table.

“It seemed to go well,” Sir Maurice said. “No repercussions so far. There’s been some fluttering in the dovecotes here, but less than one might have expected. Have you heard about Armstrong’s will?”

“Yes.”

“That’s rather a stroke of luck—”

“No.”

Sir Maurice eyed him thoughtfully. “It’s a fair sum, my boy, and you can hardly refuse it without raising questions that I’m afraid I don’t want you to raise.”

“I will not take his money.”

Armstrong’s will had left the majority of his estate to his son and wife, with the residue to be split between the dependents of the men who died at Jacobsdal and the wounded survivors. The idea of Armstrong writing that, believing that doling out a little cash would somehow absolve him, had put Curtis into a rage that had led to him splitting a knuckle on a wall.

Of course, it wasn’t a little cash. Since son and wife had predeceased him, Sir Hubert’s bequest was now the bulk of his fortune, whatever might be left when the debts were paid. It was filthy, tainted money, but if the other mutilated men, the widows and orphans, didn’t know that, they could take it as some compensation for their losses. Curtis couldn’t.

“Don’t be too fastidious, my boy,” Sir Maurice said. “You wouldn’t want to put anyone else off claiming their share, now, would you?”

“I’m putting my share back in the pot for the others. Nobody will think twice, sir. I’m a wealthy man.”

Sir Maurice sighed pointedly. Curtis was a wealthy man in large part because his uncle had managed his inheritance since he had been orphaned at the age of two months. “I take a proprietorial interest in your prosperity, Archie. And at such time as you decide to meet a nice young lady and settle down, you will thank me.”