A Suitable Vengeance

“What’s the matter with you, Peter?” she whispered hoarsely. “What’s happened to you? This is Sidney. Sidney!”


Peter laughed. Sasha smiled. They settled themselves more comfortably to enjoy the sun.



Lady Helen listened at the heavy panels of St. James’ bedroom door, hearing nothing. She wasn’t quite certain what she had expected from him. Anything beyond brooding solitude would have been out of character, and St. James was not a man who generally acted out of character. He wasn’t doing so now. The stillness behind the door was so complete that had she not seen him to this very room two hours before, Lady Helen would have sworn it was unoccupied. But she knew he was in there, damning himself to isolation.

Well, she thought, he’s had enough time to flagellate himself. Time to rout him out.

She raised her hand to knock, but before she could do so, Cotter opened the door, saw her, and stepped into the corridor. He gave a quick, backward glance into the room—Lady Helen could see that the curtains had been drawn—and shut the door behind him. He folded his arms across his chest.

Had she been given to mythological allusions, Lady Helen would have dubbed Cotter Cerberus then and there. Since this was not her bent, she merely squared her shoulders and promised herself that St. James would not avoid her by posting Cotter to guard the gates.

“He’s up by now, isn’t he?” She spoke casually, an enquiry from a friend, deliberately overlooking the fact that the room’s darkness indicated St. James was not up at all and had no intention of getting up any time soon. “Tommy has a Nanrunnel adventure planned for us tonight. Simon won’t want to miss it.”

Cotter tightened his arms. “He asked me to make ’is excuses. Bit of pain this afternoon. The ’eadaches. You know what it’s like.”

“No!”

Cotter blinked. Taking his arm, Lady Helen pulled him away from the door, across the corridor to a line of quarry windows which overlooked the pantry court. “Cotter, please. Don’t let him do this.”

“Lady Helen, we got to…” Cotter paused. His patient manner of address indicated that he wished to reason with her. Lady Helen wanted none of that.

“You know what happened, don’t you?”

Cotter avoided answering by taking a handkerchief from his pocket, blowing his nose, and then studying the cobblestones and fountain in the courtyard below.

“Cotter,” Lady Helen insisted. “You do know what happened?”

“I do. From Deb.”

“Then you know he can’t be allowed to brood any longer.”

“But ’is orders were—”

“Damn his orders to hell. A thousand and one times you’ve ignored them and done exactly as you please if it’s for his own good. And you know this is for his own good now.” Lady Helen paused to consider a plan he’d accept. “So. You’re wanted in the drawing room. Everyone’s meeting there for sherry. You haven’t seen me the entire afternoon, so you weren’t here to stop me from barging in on Mr. St. James and taking charge of him after my own fashion. All right?”

Although no smile touched Cotter’s lips, his nod signalled approval. “Right.”

Lady Helen watched him walk off in the direction of the main body of the house before she returned to the door and entered the room. She could see St. James’ form on the bed, but he stirred when she closed the door so she knew he wasn’t asleep.

“Simon, darling,” she announced, “if you’ll pardon the ghastly use of alliteration, we’re to have our collective cultural consciousness raised with a Nanrunnel adventure tonight. God knows we’ll have to fortify ourselves with seven or eight stiff sherries—can a sherry be stiff?—if we’re going to survive. I think Tommy and Deborah are well ahead of us in their drinking, so you’ll have to be quick if we’re ever to catch up. What will you wear?”

She walked across the room as she was speaking, going to the windows to pull back the curtains. She arranged them neatly—more to stall for time than to see to their proper hanging—and when she could find no reason to continue fussing with them, she turned to the bed to find St. James observing her. He looked amused.

“You’re so obvious, Helen.”

She sighed in relief. Pitying himself had never really been the question, of course. Hating himself was more likely. But she saw even that may have spent itself after their moments alone on the cliff when Deborah had taken Sidney back to the house.

Would Brooke have killed her or just raped her, St. James had demanded, while I watched from up here like a useless voyeur? Quite safe, uninvolved. No risk incurred, right? It sounds like my whole life.

There had been no anger contained in his words, only humiliation, which was infinitely worse.

She had shouted at him. No one cares about it! No one ever has but you!

She spoke only the truth, but that truth did nothing to mitigate the fact that his own caring about it so unforgivingly was a permanent scar on the fragile surface of his self-esteem.