Charles Todd - Wings of Fire

There was nothing there of anger or tension or a desire to kill. If anything, Cormac’s expression was pleasant, welcoming. But the brilliant blue eyes were fire.

Answering him, Rutledge said, “Yes. She’s the spirit of the house.”

Cormac smiled at him. “That’s a very Irish way of putting it.”

“Is it?”

Cormac came to the table and picked up his drink, then gestured with the glass. “Won’t you join me?”

Rutledge said nothing, and Cormac went on easily, “There’s no laudanum in it. Will you join the search for this new Ripper?”

“He isn’t my business. Never was. But Olivia Marlowe is.”

“Ah.” He lifted the glass again, gesturing this time to the portrait. “You didn’t know her as I did. Olivia was only a pale shadow of Rosamund.”

“She had a remarkable talent. Olivia.”

“Her poetry? But talent is transient. Fame is transient. We are all going to die some day, more’s the pity. It seems man has learned to do everything except live forever. When we achieve earthly immortality, I suppose we’ll finally have the power of God.”

“I’m not sure I’d want that. Immortality. To live forever would be-tiresome. Eternal youth, that might be more useful.”

Cormac laughed, the handsome face lighting from within. “Would you choose now, or before 1914?”

“Before. I have no fond memories of the war.”

“No, I don’t think you have. I’ve read your medical reports-I still have connections in London with the people I worked with during the war. And most things are available for money. A very intriguing file. I’m amazed you survived. But you’ve nothing to fear from me. I don’t plan to expose you.”

No, Rutledge thought. You’d much rather kill me.

He said aloud, “It doesn’t matter. I never expected to keep my secrets forever. If they come out, I’ll find something else to do with my life.” But he knew how great a lie that was…

“Or end it?” Cormac asked softly, responding to the silent thought.

“You can pray for that. Will you be here when I leave?”

“It depends on what you’ve come to find.” For the first time something echoed in the quiet voice.

After a moment Rutledge said, “Why should I make it easy for you?” and walked past Cormac, back into the hall. To his surprise, Cormac actually let him go. But he could feel the man’s eyes still watching him, and he knew it wasn’t over.

He crossed the hall, taking the stairs two at a time while Hamish reminded him that Stephen had fallen here, the words tumbling like the man had done, over and down and crashing into the floor below. Yet only Rutledge could hear them. At the top of the steps in the gallery, he made his decision, then took up the small lamp from the table where it had been set, waiting, nearly lost in the surrounding blackness.

Down the passage to the left, not the right, past the closed doors of bedrooms, the darkness here astir with feelings Rutledge couldn’t name as the lamplight made a circle of orange light around him. The oil was hot beneath the glass, warming his hand. He thought of Olivia, and of Nicholas. Did one ever come back from the dead? It was an interesting question. He hoped it would be some time before he discovered the answer to it.

The silence in Stephen’s room was palpable. In the lamplight the furnishings seemed stark and somehow dauntingly empty, heavily shadowed.

He paused in the Norway for a moment, listening to the sound of his own breathing and Hamish’s trepidation.

‘‘Leave now!” the soft Scottish voice repeated over and over. “Now !”

But Rutledge crossed to the bed and knelt, his hands moving along the struts that held the springs in place. Fingers careful, sensing their way over the strips of dusty wood.

His nails struck the book’s binding, his fingers stretched and closed around it, drawing it out with infinite circumspection.

Then it was in his grasp.

He stood, and in the silence there was now a humming of tension, like the distant baying of hounds. The hairs on the back of his neck lifted in a primeval reaction. Hamish, hissing malevolently, heard it too.

There was very little time.

He opened the slim book. Thumbed through the pages once, then again. Found the family genealogy that had been written carefully here, ever since a century-dead FitzHugh had held this prayer book in his hand at confirmation. Long ago in Ireland. In another time and another world…

The sound was louder, the tension something that made his body tighten with anticipation. It was like waiting for the Huns to come over the top, and yet-different. The first rumble of nearby thunder shook the house, and his pulses leaped, as if the first shells had landed.

“Hurry!” Hamish urged him.

With one swift movement he drew his pocketknife, opened it, and gently slit the handwritten pages at the binding so that they fell out in his hands.

He checked once more as the footsteps rang out on the bare wood, coming closer, boldly stalking down the passage towards him.

Yes. He’d gotten them all. The records of a family-and a single line at the end: “Cormac FitzHugh. Mother unknown. Father unknown. Taken from a ditch along the road to Kilarney. FitzHugh by courtesy, not adoption.” And the date. The Gabriel Hound, unblessed-and cursed. Without a name or blood of his own.

Lifting out the book on Irish horses from the others Stephen had kept on the table by the window, Rutledge slipped the pages inside, then returned the heavy volume to its place and the closed knife to his pocket.

Was it his imagination or did the echoes seem to double, triple the number of footfalls? As if there were hordes in the passage, crowding it, elbowing each other, cutting off all space and air.

Sudden panic seemed to choke him. He fought it down, refusing to give in to it. But he was trapped here. Damn it, he wasn’t in France, this was Cornwall!

He was facing the open doorway, the little prayer book in his left hand, his balance even, ready for whatever was coming for him.

And then once more Cormac FitzHugh came out of the darkness and into the light. He was in his shirtsleeves, now. His eyes went directly to the book Rutledge held.

“I wasn’t sure my father had kept it. After turning Anglican for Rosamund. Stephen swore he had it,” he said. “But he wouldn’t tell me where he’d put it before he died. I thought it was probably a lie, but I had to keep searching. Thank you for sparing me further trouble over it.”

“He must have found it-and hidden it-that same morning. Did you kill him?”

“The fall would have, I think. But I gave him a more merciful end. He couldn’t move. Whether it was true paralysis or temporary, I can’t tell you. I twisted his neck until it snapped, then shouted for Susannah and Rachel. Give me the prayer book now, if you please.”

“Interesting reading,” Rutledge said, thumbing the pages lightly. “Apparently you’re illegitimate. Not the stigma it once was, of course, but you have lived a public lie for many years, haven’t you? Stepson to the Trevelyans. Even these days, the news wouldn’t sit very well in London business circles, would it, where a gentleman’s word is his bond? Especially not if it came from Stephen Trevelyan, in banking himself. His doubts, dropped in the right quarters, could have ruined you.” He flipped the book closed. “Did you ever learn who your real parents were?”

“No. FitzHugh found me abandoned along a country road. Half starved, filthy, and sickly. And he took pity on me. But you’re absolutely right about London, especially since the Troubles and that 1916 uprising in Dublin. England saw it as an unforgivable stab in the back, in the middle of war. Being Irish just now is the same as being a traitor. A bastard Irishman-an upstart and a nobody-Stephen swore he’d use that to ruin me in the City if I didn’t help turn Trevelyan Hall into a mausoleum. Rosamund’s house! The Hall is all I ever truly desired in this world. Even the money I’ve earned was only a bridge to owning it. And I wanted to come here by right, not with my tail between my legs!”