“Hmmm.” He looked in the direction of the stairwell leading to the second floor and the room Captain Jon had shared with his lady. “What are the chances that anyone would miss us for an hour or two?”
She snapped the fan closed and smacked him on the shoulder with it. “Don’t even think about it. Good grief, Nick, they’re giving
tours
tonight. Could you imagine the scandal?”
Nick laughed and went off on his mission to save Darla from the clutches of Ted the Terminally Dull. India waved to an old friend from high school who joined her to gossip about who was wearing what, who was dancing with whom, and who the few unknown dancers might be behind their masks. When the music ended, the announcement was made for all to assemble on the verandah overlooking the gardens to watch the fireworks display, which marked the midnight hour and the official end of the holiday season for another year. Nick escorted both India and Darla, and with an arm around both, the group
ooohed
and
ahhed
at the brightly colored lights that dazzled the January sky.
“There are so many here this year, we’ve had to go to a buffet rather than a seated dinner,” August was telling a short, dark-haired woman dressed in black velvet trimmed in gold with a matching mask, “and we’ve easily seated over a hundred here in past years.”
“Well, the Twelfth Night Ball in Devlin’s Light is becoming quite the thing.” The woman nodded and allowed
August to lead her back into the ballroom through one of two open sets of French doors. “We heard about it all the way up in Parsippany and it sounded like such fun.”
“Well, if you’ve enjoyed this, you’ll have to come back for the Midsummer’s Night Social,” August told her.
“Really?” The woman’s eyes sparkled. “Tell me all about it.”
“What fun that all of those traditions are still being followed,” India told Nick, “and that those that fell by the wayside over the years are now being revived. They stopped doing Midsummer’s Night back when I was in high school.”
“This must have been some place to live in, years ago,” he said, turning his head to look across the expanse of lawn, which now lay in dark stillness, the fireworks display having ended for another year.
“It was. Someday you’ll have to read the journals that some of my ancestors kept detailing the social life in Devlin’s Light. Who wore what. Who danced with whom. Who flirted with whose husband.”
“Much like the conversation here tonight,” he pointed out.
“Precisely the same.” India laughed. “Maybe I should start keeping a journal of my own.”
“Shall we see if Darla wants to leave now or after supper?”
“Actually, since she did all the baking for tonight, I think it might send a poor message if she was to leave before dessert.”
“We can stay another hour.” Nick nodded. “I think we want to hang out a little with your aunt. Seems that low-cut green velvet has attracted more than a little attention, don’t you think?”
“I did notice that Captain Pete appeared to be shadowing her a bit tonight, and she didn’t seem to be grumbling at him for it. I told you I thought there was something there.”
“You did indeed. Let’s see if we can catch up with them and figure out exactly what.” Nick held out his hand to her.
“Where did Darla disappear to?” India frowned and looked over her shoulder. “She was just right there.”
“She probably fled to the kitchen to escape the clutches of Ted the Terrible.”
“I guess.” India took his hand and together they joined the crowd filtering toward the lavish buffet supper awaiting them in the grand dining room.
Hand-carved roast beef, pink and perfect, and scrumptious honey-baked ham, rosy and fragrant, were the crown jewels in the evening’s feast, which started with oysters on the half shell, smoked bluefish with fresh dill dressing, and brie topped with raspberry puree and wrapped in phyllo pastry; the repaste ended with a spectacular array especially prepared by Darla’s Delectables.
“If I never see another poached pear again it’ll be too soon,” Nick groaned, and India laughed. “Or chocolate. I make a mean chocolate cake, India, I pride myself on that. But I have never experienced the likes of what Darla did with that soufflé.”
“It was that incredible coconut cake that did it for me.” India leaned against him. “And just how many of those tiny fruit tarts did you have, anyway?”
“One too many, obviously. At least one too many. But I think it was the truffles that finally put me over the edge.”
The lights in the ballroom dimmed, and the music began to play. India and Nick looked at each other and groaned at the thought of a sprightly waltz.
“Maybe just a walk around the verandah,” Nick suggested.
“I’ll try,” she told him, “though I feel more like rolling than walking.”
The night air was still unseasonably balmy, and the warmth from the day combined with the slightly cooler evening air to form a mist across the side lawn. The lights from the ballroom spilled gently through the windows and spread a faint haze over all. It was timeless, the night and the mist and the music, and India could not help but say so.
“There are some things that do seem to endure,” Nick said. “Nights like this must be one of those things. And you do feel it here, in this house, don’t you?”
“I always have. This house was always a draw for me.” India leaned back against the white wall that ran the length of the open porch. “I remember times when I was a child, before the restoration began in earnest and the house was open to the public for things like this, I would come here,
thinking if I sat quietly enough, I would see one or another of my ancestors.”
“Did you?”
“Frequently. At least I thought I did,” she mused.
“You could have told me that there might have been an audience.” He pointed to the windows on the second floor where Salem’s lamp shone brightly. “I might have put a little more into my performance.”
“If you had put anything more into your performance, you’d have had to carry me out of here,” India whispered as another couple joined them to share the night air.
“Lovely evening, isn’t it?” The man nodded.
“Lovely,” Nick and India agreed in unison.
“Time to go, my sweet.” Nick took hold of India’s elbow. “I figure it will take us another hour to say all of our goodnights and get back to the cabin. You still owe me a dance on the deck in the moonlight—such as it is tonight— from New Year’s Eve.”
She grinned. “Well then, we should put the moonlight— such as it is—to good use. Let’s find Aunt August and let her know that we are leaving.”
August was easy to find, surrounded as always by her circle of friends and their spouses, with Captain Pete thrown into the mix for an added fillip this year. August fussed proudly over India for having danced too much on her first night out since having the flu, and she agreed that it was time for India to call it a night without asking where India would be spending the rest of it.
Darla, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen.
India checked the kitchen but was told that she had not been in there since early in the evening, when she poked in to add a few small finishing touches to the desserts she had delivered that afternoon. Nick went through every room on the second floor, thinking perhaps she had wandered, but she was not there.
“I’ll run outside,” Nick told her. “Maybe she’s out there.”
“We just came in,” India reminded him.
“Well, maybe she was on the front porch or the other side of the house.”
India paced the long front hallway uneasily, a finger of fear chilling her back from her shoulders on down. “Maybe
the garden,” she suggested when Nick came back shaking his head. “Maybe she just went off to sit by herself. Maybe she was thinking back to last year, being here with Ry.”
“I’ll check in the garden,” Nick told her.
Several others had quietly joined in the search. Taylor Anderson, one of the members of Chief Carpenter’s staff who had attended the ball with his wife, along with one of Pete’s sons who was attending his first Twelfth Night, followed Nick down the stone path to the garden. India stood on the back porch and watched the three men disappear into the darkness of the gardens that lay beyond the house.
“Call an ambulance!” Pete’s boy raced through the night, shouting and waving his arms frantically. “Get the chief! Get an ambulance!”
The small crowd gathered at the back of the house seemed to freeze, not quite comprehending the meaning of the young man’s words. Chief Carpenter stepped forward and asked, “Jake, what is it?”
“She’s down there!” The boy pointed toward the garden. “There’s blood!… I never saw so much blood!”
He leaned against the railing, and it was clear that he was about to be violently ill.
India’s brain, at first unwilling to respond, finally sent a message to her feet and she took off down the steps.
“No, India, go back and call the ambulance,” the chief called over his shoulder. He did not want her there, not knowing exactly what he was going to find.
Ignoring him, she kicked off the high heels, which were sinking into the soft ground, and ran past him, a lithe, frantic figure driven by fear and the need to protect someone she loved. In the distance she could see the white of Nick’s tuxedo shirt gleaming in the dark, and she fled to him.
“Nick, what—”
“India, no … go back.” Nick’s voice was curt with alarm.
Behind her other footsteps followed, but she ceased to hear them as she neared Nick and the figure he was leaning over. Darla lay face down on the ground, her blond hair now crimson. Blood splattered her shoulders and the back of her
dress. With a cry, India fell to the ground next to Nick and reached for her friend.
“Don’t touch her,” Chief Carpenter warned. “Wait for the ambulance.” He turned to Nick and said, “It looks like she’s lost a lot of blood. Did you find a pulse?”
“Yes, but it’s weak.” Nick backed away to make room for the chief.
“Dar?” India leaned over her. “Dar?”
“Come away, India,” Nick tried to gently raise her, but she would not go. “The ambulance is here. Look, here come the EMTs with a stretcher.”
“Darla?” India repeated as if she had not heard. Her tightly fisted hands dug into her gut and she cried without even knowing.
“Nick!” She sobbed in disbelief as the ambulance crew carefully and efficiently guided the still body onto the stretcher and gently secured it. “Why would someone do this to her? Why would anyone want to hurt Darla?”
Nick shook his head and gathered her into his arms and let her cry, asking himself the same question. He did not like the answer that was beginning to swim in his brain. He did not like it at all.
Chapter 27
“Can I stay with her?” a shaken India asked the young emergency-room doctor.
“Maybe later.” He brushed past her as if she was invisible before seeming to evaporate before India’s eyes as he moved behind the curtain where Darla lay on a gurney.
“Come wait out here with me, India.” Nick tried to lead her toward the waiting room.
“I want to stay with her,” she protested.
“Sweetheart, you’ll be in the way,” he told her gently. “Let the doctors take care of her, and then you can sit with her for as long as you want. Right now let them do their jobs so that they can help her.”
India nodded numbly and followed Nick into the waiting room, where several rows of worn and faded orange-colored chairs were lined up with clinical precision across the length of the room. He guided her to a chair and pushed gently on her shoulders, indicating for her to sit, and she did so woodenly. He dropped some coins into a vending machine and handed her a paper cup of darkly questionable coffee, knowing she wouldn’t drink it, but it would give her something to do with her hands. Chief Carpenter came in and spoke softly with Nick, but India was unable to comprehend the conversation. All India understood at that
moment was that they had all lost too much. They could not lose Darla too.
She rose and paced, becoming nearly hypnotized by the simple process of putting one foot in front of another. At some point the doctor emerged to speak with the chief, who followed him down the hallway, speaking in hushed tones.
“What?” India asked Nick, wide-eyed.
“I don’t know,” he told her. “She’s still unconscious, Carpenter said. They’re moving her to a room.”
“I want to go.” India muttered.
“I know that. Let them get her settled and we’ll see if we can arrange that.”
Forty minutes later, India stood in the doorway of a dimly lit room. Darla lay on her stomach, black stitches running across the back of her head like train tracks where her hair had been cut. Several strands still held vestiges of blood, the dull brown red mixing obscenely with the pale gold. There seemed to be tubes and monitors everywhere.
“Are you a relative?” the doctor asked from the doorway.
“A friend,” India whispered.
“Normally we only permit relatives to stay,” the young woman told India as she made a note on the chart, “but since none have arrived yet, we’ll let you take the first shift.”
Nick moved a chair close to the bed for India to sit in, but she could not stay in it. She stood, rather, next to the bed, gently rubbing Darla’s arm and talking her from kindergarten through to the present in a steady stream.
“Remember when we were about five and you got caught picking Mrs. Murdoch’s prized marigolds?”
“Remember that summer we went to camp and we tried to sneak across the lake in a canoe?”
“Remember when we were sophomores and we got locked out of the house in our nightshirts at Candy Allen’s sleep-over party?”
On and on through the night, India kept up the dialogue, hoping for something as small as the flutter of an eyelash, but Darla’s condition never changed.
“Remember when you and Lynnie and I got caught smoking in the back of the bus on the way back from a basketball game?”
“I remember that.” A soft voice drew her attention to the
doorway. “Junior year. You were both grounded for a month and drew severe censure from the principal.”
“Kenny.” India held her arms out to the man who had once been Darla’s husband.