There's Something About Lady Mary (26 page)

“Well, don’t thank me just yet; we still have a long way ahead of us. I shall need to examine you first, as I mentioned to you before, but I do think that—”

Mr. Croyden grinned as he waved his hands dismissively. “There will be no need for that,” he said, cutting her off. “While I am immensely grateful for your efforts, I am not entirely sure that I would be very comfortable with a. . .ahem. . .a woman taking a peek at me.”

Mary gaped at her uncle as if he were a complete lunatic. “I see,” she told him drily as she got up and walked across to the window. The ground was still white from last night’s snow. “You didn’t seem to mind it in the slightest when I mentioned it yesterday.”

“Please don’t take offense. This is a delicate matter for me, and I. . .well, I am just not comfortable with a young woman such as yourself...” He looked at her pleadingly. “I was hoping that I might be able to borrow the journal that mentions this particular case so that I can show it to my physician in London. I will give you full credit, of course, and—”

Mary turned to him with frost in her eyes. “No,” she told him sharply.

“No?” Her uncle spread his hands in exasperation. “But surely you would not deny a dying man the means by which to recover.”

“You are right. I will not. But if you want to make use of the information my father gave me, then you will have to put your welfare into my hands. If not, you are welcome to return to your London physician and tell him everything that I have just told you. But the journals will remain here with me.”

Mr. Croyden narrowed his eyes as he met her gaze. “You are a stubborn woman, Lady Steepleton,” he told her coolly, but a second later a warm smile creased the corners of his eyes. It was enough to strengthen Mary’s resolve. There was something about this man that unnerved her.

“Never mind,” he told her gently, his demeanor completely changed from that which he’d shown her a moment earlier. “I completely understand. No hard feelings, ay? Come, let us join the others in the parlor. I believe the men are having a game of faro, and I would love to see how they are getting on.”

“Yes, of course,” Mary replied, though somewhat brusquely. She regretted the way in which she’d handled the situation, particularly since Mr. Croyden was her only relative. It hadn’t been her intention to tell him that she didn’t trust him, yet that was precisely what had happened anyway. And now he’d probably resent her forever.

What could she do, though, short of letting him take her father’s journals with him to London, and that was out of the question. Those journals were clearly very important to somebody other than her. She had no intention of letting them out of her sight until that little mystery had been solved. With a heavy heart, she accepted the arm that her uncle offered her and allowed him to lead her down the hall and toward the parlor.

M
ary awoke with a start that night. Sitting bolt upright in bed, she glanced steadily around the shadowy room. Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the faint outlines of the furniture that stood tucked away in the darkness. Everything seemed perfectly still, save for the faint ticking of the clock that sat upon the chest of drawers. Exhaling a breath of air, she was just about to settle back down again when a slight creaking caught her ears. Stiffening, she turned her head toward the bedroom door. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now that she focused her eyes on that spot, she was able to see that the door stood slightly ajar. Another creak sounded, followed by the low thud of footsteps along the hallway runner.

With her heart thumping furiously in her chest, she leaped out of bed, crouching onto her knees to retrieve the box she’d hidden underneath it earlier that evening. Her fingers fumbled helplessly around the dusty space, unwilling to accept that the box was no longer there. It was gone. All of her father’s work—her most precious possession—had been stolen.

She jumped to her feet, flinging her robe over her shoulders and casting a quick glance at the panel door that led to Ryan’s room. There was no time to lose on waking him. Whoever had taken her father’s journals would already be well on their way. She had to hurry.

Grabbing the pistol that Alexandra had given her, she raced out of the room in her bare feet, her robe and nightgown billowing out behind her in the chilly hallway as she ran.

At the sound of neighing, she quickened her pace, bounding down the stairs in a desperate attempt to catch the thief before he got away. She was almost there. Her hand reached out to grasp the handle of the large front door. It swung open quickly on a gust of wind, pulling her along with it and swirling her flimsy garments about her legs while her hair whipped across her face. Steadying herself, she looked out into the night, spotting the horse, just as a hand clad in a black leather glove pressed itself over her mouth and pulled her forcefully against the frame of a sturdy figure.

“You should have stayed in bed, Lady Steepleton,” a thick voice told her leeringly. “It is not safe for a woman such as yourself to be running about at this hour,
unchaperoned
.”

A menacing laugh erupted from somewhere deep within the stranger’s chest as his free arm snaked its way around her waist. Mary struggled against him, but he was stronger than her and held her in a firm grip that rendered her desperate attempts at escape completely useless. “The more you fight me, the more likely I shall be to lose my patience and serve you the same fate as your father. I must say, nothing has ever given me more pleasure than the sound of his neck snapping like a twig. And just so you know, my orders are to acquire his journals at all cost.”

Mary froze. Her breath was coming in rapid bursts, while she tried to calm her pounding heart.

“That is better,” her captor said. “Now, if you please, hand me that pistol before you cause an accident with it.” He pried the gun out of her hand and tossed it aside. “Good; now, if I might make a suggestion, run back inside the house and do your best to pretend that this never happened.” Her assailant came around to face her. He was dressed entirely in black, with a scarf covering his mouth and nose. A pair of dark eyes glistened with contemptuous delight as they swept over her. “Remember, we know who you are and all that you have done. We will ruin you without a moment’s pause, my lady. So if I were you, I would forget that these journals ever existed. Go on with your life, or I promise you that you will live to regret it.”

“Who. . .who are you?” Mary stammered “Who sent you, and what do they want with my father’s journals?”

“You certainly have a lot of questions, don’t you?” he sneered. “In answer to your first question, however, I am the Messenger. Be thankful that I will not answer the rest, for the answers would cost you your life.”

With an overstated salute, the Messenger swung himself up onto his horse. The agitated creature snorted, sending clouds of hot breath out into the chilly air. He struggled a moment against the command of his master but finally surrendered to the pull of the reins, turning about and breaking into a fast gallop.

Hands hanging limply at her sides, Mary watched as the darkness closed behind them, impervious to the cold that clawed at her flesh. After several minutes, she brushed her hair away from her face, then stooped down to pick up her discarded pistol as she wiped the onset of tears from her eyes with a shaky hand. She’d lost the only worldly possession that mattered: a lifetime’s worth of medical research that had been entrusted into her care. Choking back a cry of anguish, she crept slowly back inside Whickham Hall on trembling legs.

“M
ary?” Ryan implored, his voice a ghostly echo in the dimly lit corridor. The candle he’d brought along with him sent flickering shadows along the walls that stretched themselves until they reached across the ceiling. Occasionally, a few scattered puffs of smoke would rise from the melting wax, obscuring his vision for the briefest of moments. He paused at the top of the stairs, sweeping the candle in a wide arc, but he could see nothing but depths of infinite blackness below. With slow, deliberate steps, he made his descent toward the front hall. Filled with an ever increasing sense of concern, he called out her name once more, his voice resonating against the stone walls of the grand entrance.

A soft whimper caught his attention. “Mary?” he asked again, this time in a softer tone.

He held his candle out at arm’s length and circled the room, the soft glow spreading outward from the center of the twitching flame before blending with the shadowy darkness. He turned back and suddenly paused. There, huddled against one corner, was a small hunched figure. “Mary,” Ryan murmured with a mixture of relief and despair. Never in a million years would he have imagined that she could look like this, so fragile and utterly defeated.

He hurried over to her, kneeling at her side as he placed the candle on the floor beside them. Reaching out, he set his hands upon her shoulders and started to pull her toward him, but she flinched at his touch and instantly pushed him away, arms flailing to ward off the attacker that she thought him to be.

“Mary,” he whispered. “It is only me, Ryan. It is all right; you are safe now.” He reached for her again, and though her body remained tense, she allowed him to wrap his arms around her in a tight embrace. A moment later, he felt her shoulders tremble, and she began to sob, burying her face against his chest and dampening his shirt in the process.

He let her cry until her breathing had steadied, running his fingers through her hair and over her head in long, soothing strokes. “Come,” he told her at last, as he took her hand in his and helped her to her feet. “We cannot remain here on these cold stone slabs, or we’ll catch a chill. Let us go upstairs instead, and you can tell me what happened.”

Mary wiped away her tears with the handkerchief he offered her and nodded so slightly that he barely noticed her response. Then, taking her by the arm, he guided her back up the winding stairs and down the hallway toward her room, all the while alarmingly aware of how cold she felt beneath his touch.

“Is everything all right?” a voice asked from behind them just as they reached Mary’s door. They both turned to find Michael standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

“There has been an incident,” Ryan told him gravely as he met Mary’s red-rimmed eyes. “Give me a few minutes to get Mary settled back into bed, and I will meet you in the library to tell you what happened.”

Michael nodded, ignoring the impropriety of a genteel young lady being escorted unchaperoned to her bedchamber by a man whose eyes had held a roguish gleam for the past few days. Instead, he merely closed his bedroom door behind him and started off in the direction of the stairs. “I will get the claret ready,” he muttered, disappearing into the darkness and thus out of sight.

“Now then,” Ryan said as he eased Mary’s robe off her shoulders and lifted her onto her bed, tucking the blankets around her. He brushed a few strands of stray hair from her face and gently lifted her chin so he could meet her gaze. “What exactly happened? I heard a horse ride off. Who was it? Who frightened you like this?”

Mary shrank back against her pillows and clutched his hand in hers. She closed her eyes briefly, only to find her mind flooded by visions of a dark figure mocking her with his venomous glare. “The Messenger,” she whispered, meeting Ryan’s eyes with a dead stare. She saw the flicker of overwhelming anger in them and caught her breath, quite unwillingly.

Swallowing hard, she forced herself to go on while Ryan listened quietly to her every word. “He took the journals,” she told him in a small voice at the end. “Every last one of them. Those books meant the world to me, Ryan.”

“I know,” he said as he wiped a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. His eyes filled with regret. “But he did not take them all, Mary; we still have one left.”

Mary stared at Ryan in puzzlement while she waited for him to explain. The box was gone; the journals had all been in there.

“Earlier today, while you were speaking with your uncle in the library, I took the liberty of borrowing the last volume of your father’s journals, hoping to perhaps discover something more in it. It is still on my bedside table.”

Mary closed her eyes against the fresh onset of tears and breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Thank you,” she said, gently squeezing his hand.

“In a way, it is the most important one,” he added. “It is the one that lists the hospital where one of the many fatal surgeries took place. It is also the one that lists all of the initials. If we can work out what they stand for, we might be able to find the people who took the journals.”

“You don’t think that this is the doing of just one man?”

“I don’t know, but I do think that the Messenger is just that: a messenger.”
Not to mention a cold-blooded killer
. “I believe there is someone else behind him pulling the strings and telling him when to jump. I intend to find out who that somebody might be.”

Mary nodded thoughtfully. “And I thought my uncle might have had a part in this,” she said. “I treated him quite badly, I’m afraid, but the man I saw this evening—I couldn’t see much of him—I could tell that he was no more than thirty years of age.”

“I had the same impression when I met him in London,” Ryan told her. “But you still ought to tread lightly. There is no harm in being cautious.” He ran his hand carefully along her cheek. He couldn’t read her expression in the dim light, but he knew that she’d had a terrible fright, and he was prepared to do bloody murder because of it. If something had happened to her. . .His jaw tightened at the very thought of it.

“You are right,” Mary agreed as he lowered his head, kissing her briefly on the forehead. “Please be sure you put the journal somewhere safe before going downstairs to meet Trenton. I would hate for something to happen to it.”

“You have my word,” he told her softly as he tucked the blankets around her once more and headed toward the door. He turned for a moment to look at her, his hand resting on the handle. “I will be back to check on you before I go to bed.” But Mary didn’t offer a reply; she was already fast asleep.