“The Scare-Fire”
Idid not announce myself. I had taken care no one else would be about, and I slipped in quietly, hoping to catch him unawares. I do not know why, except that I wanted to watch him one last time, before this thing came between us. I wanted to see if his eyes were still innocent, those eyes that had looked into mine, closing just as he had kissed me, a kiss that I could feel on my lips still. It would brand me, I thought a little hysterically, this murderer’s kiss. No matter how many others should kiss me in my life, I would remember his lips on mine.
It was a moment or two before he looked up and saw me there, motionless in the doorway. He smiled and I marveled. He did not know, still did not realize that I saw him for what he was. My heart turned within me at his smile and I faltered. I could not do this. I could not say what must be said. I made up my mind then to be silent, to make no accusation, but leave him alone with the knowledge of what he had done. It would be so easy, simply to smile back and ask him how he had been. I could make some pretext for coming to him now and he would not know, not entirely, that I had ever suspected him. It might lie between us, but not for long. Perhaps I could pretend.
But in the end, I could not. I stood there and simply held out the sketch to him. He stared at it, and for a moment, I wondered if he was going to lie about it, hoping that I had not read the inscription, that condemnation written in his own hand. He might yet have bluffed, taken the chance that I had not put the pieces together. But he read my face swiftly, and clever and destructive as he was, he was too tired of it all to pretend with me. I think he felt in that moment that I would understand him, and so he confided. I suppose it was a sort of compliment, but perhaps it was not. Perhaps he simply wanted to tell it to anyone, after all this time.
“So you know,” he said softly. “Come and sit down. No, do not linger there in the doorway. You are perfectly safe with me. You forget, I have kissed you,” he said with a seductive smile. “I have tasted your lips on mine, Julia. I could not destroy you, although I think the memory of it may well destroy you in any case.” His laugh was mirthless. I sat as he bade me.
He looked at me awhile, his eyes searching my face. “Yes, you do know, I see it there. So much knowledge, so much bewilderment. You cannot understand it, can you? Even now, you cannot imagine why?”
I shrugged. “You were lovers and he betrayed you. You loved him, but he fell in love with someone else. It is simple enough. A story as old as time, is it not?”
His smile was wolfish. “How very progressive of you, my dear. You make it all sound so conventional. I might almost believe you approved of our sort.”
His eyes were lively, snapping and bright with some private malice. He might claim to savor the taste of my kiss, but he wanted to hurt me, that much I could sense, as a hind senses a wolf in the wood.
“Your sort is not my concern. I merely supplied you with your motive as you asked.”
His smile deepened, but I saw the lines of cruelty about the mouth and eyes that I had never noticed before. I had spent so much time with him; how could I have not seen it?
“Sweet, innocent Julia. I often thought it might be fun to tell you, to take you into our confidence. I suggested it once, but he got quite angry. A pity that my tastes do not extend to women….” He broke off a moment, and I looked down at my hands, feeling sick. “Oh, yes, we might have made quite a game of it. Or at least that is what I used to tell him. The truth is, I don’t think I could have borne sharing him, not even with you. But Edward could be tiresome in his misguided loyalties—and shortsighted, you know. He wanted to protect you. And the boy. I warned him about the boy, you know, but he did not listen.”
“You killed him because of Desmond.”
The predatory eyes sharpened. “I warned him. He could toy with others, but he loved me—only me. I even permitted him to marry you because I knew he did not love you, not really, not in the ways that mattered. I warned him he was getting too close to the boy, but he did not hear me. So I simply crafted a little test.”
“The condoms,” I said flatly. The eyes danced a little.
“Oh, she knows the word! Imagine that, the earl’s little Dresden china daughter, knowing about such things!” He laughed but did not move near me. I thanked God for that. I could not have borne it if he had touched me. “Yes, just like the knightly contests of old. If he was worthy and faithful, as he promised, he would not die. But if he failed me, if he was not worthy, if he were faithless, his own treachery would be his undoing. An elegant little solution, I thought.”
His mask of savagery slipped a little then, and I knew what he had suffered when Edward died. Knowledge not only of his own guilt, but of his lover’s infidelity.
“Oh, Julia,” he said, with his sly, beautiful smile, “have you never known me?”
“I begin to think not. You have kept yourself well guarded. I did not suspect what you were until this very evening.”
I knew it was a mistake as soon as the words were spoken. But I could not bring them back. If I hesitated now, he would spring some trap of his own devising, something I had not been clever enough to foresee. I had no choice but to go forward, but carefully.
His voice was silky. “You have not discussed your suspicions with anyone? Not even the clever Aquinas?”
“No,” I said truthfully. I did not believe that he would hurt me, not even then.
He smiled again, those white, wolfy teeth gleaming in the dim light.
“Julia, do you trust me so well? And do you regret it now? How delicious to have you here at last, as if…ah, sweet mouse Julia has wandered into the tomcat’s lair…whatever shall we do with her?”
It was difficult to believe I had ever seen a sign of ill health on this man. His voice was strong and alive, his eyes fairly glowing with pleasure. He radiated strength and vitality, and I think he might have been capable of anything in that moment.
With some great effort, I kept my voice level. “You will not harm me. You are sick, that is all. It is your illness that speaks so. This is not you. You have cared about me. I know it. Perhaps you even loved me. You will not harm me,” I repeated, as much for my own sake as his.
He reached a hand out to take up a box of matches. He said nothing while he struck one, lighting a lamp. It flared, then settled to a warm glow, bathing us both in soft light.
“That is better,” he said, settling himself comfortably even as he scrutinized my face. “You have changed through all of this,” he said at length. “You have grown up. You have me to thank for that. You were so delightfully appealing in your innocence. I wanted to take you in hand, you know. I wanted to educate you, to strip the scales from your eyes. Perhaps that would have been a better revenge on Edward than killing him,” he said thoughtfully, tilting his head to eye me better. “Yes, I think it would have been. I could have given him an infidelity to match his own. And it would have hurt him, you know. He did love you—or at least he tried. But I could not bear touching you any more than he could.”
“What makes you think I would have complied?”
He gave a short laugh, but it had no power. I suddenly realized that the newfound strength and vitality, the awesome glitter in those savage eyes, was due to some drug. He had dosed himself, perhaps to assuage his ailment. Or perhaps he had grown accustomed to needing it simply to survive. But he had not taken enough, or had taken it too soon. It was wearing off, and soon he would be weak and puny with the aftereffects of it.
