“They told me they’d had distressing news. I thought-from their faces, I thought they’d been informed of your death. And so I left, to be out of the way. Robert Douglas took me to Tonbridge.”
“There was money in the doctor’s pocket. I used it for the train, and I walked here from the station.” He gave me a twisted smile. “I’d tied a bandage around my head, so that people would help me. I didn’t remember how to take a train, much less how to reach London. But there wasn’t enough money for food.”
“They’ll trace you to the train. It won’t be long before they come looking for you.”
“Not in this direction. I bought a ticket to Dover when I reached Rochester. Then I asked a woman if she would purchase my ticket to London for me. I told her I couldn’t see well enough to know if I was being charged the correct amount. She took pity on me and told me her brother was in France.”
He could pass for a wounded soldier-he hadn’t fully recovered from the pneumonia, his eyes sunken, his face pale from long years in the asylum.
“They’ll be looking for a man with a head wound.”
“Not at first. I expect you’re wondering what to do with me.”
“You can’t stay here-others live here. They’ll be back soon.”
“Yes. Elayne. It was her bed I slept in. She’s still in France, I expect.”
The letter.
“Still, Mrs. Hennessey is prying. She’s never allowed men up here. She’ll hear you, and report to my father that there’s a man in my flat. He won’t like it.”
“I don’t intend for Mrs. Hennessey to hear me. And I’ve no more money, I have nowhere else to go.”
“But what brought you here? To London, I mean? You could have disappeared in Canterbury or Dover just as easily.”
“I came to London to relive what happened to me.” The timbre of his voice had changed. There was a harshness now that worried me.
I couldn’t stop an indrawn breath.
He laughed bitterly. “Not in that way. I was fourteen, frightened out of my wits. I saw things that I can’t remember except in my dreams.”
To distract him, I asked, “How did you unlock the flat door?”
“Your friend Elayne hadn’t locked it in her haste to leave. If I’d had to, I’d have found a way to persuade the dragon at the gate to let me in. I could hardly sleep on the landing.”
“You must go. I’ve done you no harm, I did my best to save your life. You have no reason to hurt me.”
“I’ve told you. I’m here for reasons of my own. Look, lying there in a bed I haven’t slept in for nearly ten years, my mind was playing tricks on me. I expect it was the fever, but that doesn’t matter. I need to know-certain things. I’ll spare you the details. They aren’t pretty. Help me, and I’ll either go back to the asylum or put an end to an already wretched life. Your only fault was in nursing me too well. For that sin, you must put up with me for a day or so longer.”
“You can’t stay here! My father-”
He had started the second sandwich, and I could see he was stronger-I’d missed my chance.
He said, his gaze holding mine, “I have a pistol with me. Jonathan’s war souvenir. It only has four bullets in the clip, but I’ll use them if I’m forced to.”
My shock must have shown in my face. “You can’t have-you were barely able to stand, much less rove through the house looking for a weapon-and Jonathan will know it’s missing. You’ll be considered armed, mentally unstable, and you’ll be shot on sight!”
“That’s my worry, not yours. Go back to bed. Lock your door if you wish, but I won’t do you any harm.” He laughed, a grim laugh that frightened me. “I couldn’t lift a finger if I had to. Still, I’m going to bring bedding out here. You can’t leave without stepping on me. Remember the pistol, and don’t try.”
The door of my room didn’t lock. I’d never given that a thought until now. Colder than the cold of the flat, I turned and went back to my bed, shoving a chair under the knob of the door. I huddled in the bedclothes, listening for snoring that would tell me he was asleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE NEXT THING I knew, a watery sunlight shone through the curtains and splashed across my bed.
I sat up with a start, dressed hastily, and removed the chair from my door.
Peregrine Graham was asleep across the threshold of the outer door, and the instant he heard me, he opened his eyes and stared at me as if he hardly knew me.
“I’m awake.”
“I’m cold. I want my tea. Will you let me prepare it?”
“Go ahead.”
I busied myself with the tea things, then said, “You’ve got yourself a small problem. There’s no food in the flat. We’ll both starve.”
“I’ve considered that. You’ll go and buy what we need. If you call the police or in any way betray my whereabouts, I’ll kill Mrs. Hennessey. If she’s out, I’ll shoot the first three people I see on the street, and then myself. I’m a murderer. What can they do to me? A man can only hang once.”
I couldn’t tell whether he was mocking me or not.
“Your family will be hurt-it will bring up all the old gossip and make their lives a misery.”
“Except for Arthur, who is dead and beyond hurting, I don’t really care.”
“That’s a vicious thing to say-”
He rose from his bedding, then faced me, taller, malevolent. “My stepmother treated me worse than an animal. She slept with her cousin before and after my father’s death. I don’t know if any of my half brothers are related to me. What do I owe any of them?”
“Her cousin-”
“Robert Douglas. He was always decent to me, I give him that-but he did nothing to protect me.”
Well, I thought, that certainly explains a good deal…if it’s true.
He saw the surprise in my face, and added, “I should have thought you’d guessed. You must have seen them together. You must have seen the resemblance between Timothy and Robert, if not Jonathan.”
But I’d thought they favored their mother…I said as much.
“Yes, yes, I know,” he responded impatiently. “But you haven’t lived with them and watched as I did when we were young. Look at their hands, they’re his, and the way their hair grows. The way their upper lips curl when they say words like church or children.”
It sounded more like obsession than observation, and he must have sensed my disbelief, because he went on earnestly, persuasively.
“I had no idea until one day I caught them in bed together. I was a child, I didn’t know what that meant. But that evening I was locked in my room and seldom allowed to join the family again until we were taken to London.”
I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. The only confirmation I had was the ease with which Robert came and went in that house, and his familiar attitude toward Mrs. Graham. But of course they were cousins-
“You have a devious mind for someone the world claims is half-witted.”
“I was told often enough that I was slow, stupid. I had trouble concentrating, and Jonathan took pleasure in taunting me about it. Mr. Appleby-our tutor-did nothing to stop him. I’d be tongue-tied with anger, and I must have seemed dull and belligerent and unable to learn. But in the asylum, I saw how half-witted children behaved, and I knew I wasn’t like them. Still, I’d been told the alternative was hanging, and I stayed in that God-bereft place and held my tongue. Literally. They thought after a time that I was mute, that it was the shock of what I’d done, or where I was. They got used to not hearing my voice from one month to the next.”
I hadn’t heard him speak when he arrived or as he left my care. Only in the privacy of the sickroom had he talked to me. And then not in the beginning.
The teakettle began singing merrily, jolting both of us. I made the tea, and while it steeped, I said, “Surely you remember what you did that sent you to the asylum.”