Jane Steele(79)

“We don’t have it,” Mr. Singh protested urgently. “And Miss Stone knows nothing of your monstrous intrigues. Let her loose or—”

“Or what?”

“They aren’t lying to you,” I croaked, still feeling the phantom clench of a fist round my throat.

“It’s nae in the Punjab.” He rubbed against my cheek, boar’s bristles abrading me. “It’s nae in jolly old London town. And ye claim it’s nae here, but mayhaps a bullet will jog someone’s faculties.”

“No!” Mr. Thornfield cried.

“Oh, d’ye prefer this aimed at you, then?”

The scorching grip against my hair blazed into a bonfire even as the badmash removed his gun from my neck and swung it in the direction of Charles Thornfield.

Mr. Singh, whose movements were generally so calculated you could have set your watch by them, lifted a futile palm in horrified protest; the master of the house looked endearingly relieved, as if having a pistol aimed at his forehead was preferable to its being aimed at mine. My immediate circumstances branded themselves upon my memory—the setting half-moon, the distant scuffles as the servants were roused, the fact Mr. Thornfield was gazing into my eyes rather than the barrel of the weapon now levelled at him. The sheer horror of the scene nearly finished me.

It did not, however—because the blackguard now had one arm devoted to a gun cocked at Mr. Thornfield and the other to tearing my scalp from its moorings; so I whipped out my knife and stabbed blindly backwards with all the fervour men devote to war.

? ? ?

I do not know whether the casual reader of novels is acquainted with an anatomical curiosity known as the femoral artery; without too much medical meandering, although you might suppose that cutting a man’s throat would be the fastest way to slaughter him, a good jab to the thigh will do.

Fainting in front of Mr. Thornfield and Mr. Singh was never my object, but faint indeed I did for the second time in my life. Not due to fright—pain swept me under its carpet. It must have been a brief respite, however, for when I came to, I was tucked deep in the settee with a blanket covering me, and Mr. Thornfield was shouting for towels, hovering over the pitifully whimpering brute. Mrs. Garima Kaur was there, looking haggard, twisting her fingers in violent worriment before running to obey the master of the house.

Walls tilted and furniture swam, and perhaps ten minutes later Mr. Thornfield was not shouting for anything anymore, merely gazing with dark satisfaction at what seemed a corpse and a crimson pond upon our floorboards.

The fact of my fifth murder at first slid off my consciousness like water from a goose feather; but I knew instinctually I could not remain in the same room with the dead man lazing in the pool of blood. Wrenching myself upright, I attempted a graceful exit.

“Wait a moment, Jane!” Mr. Thornfield cried.

“I can’t stay here.”

“You’re reeling from hurt and shock, you’ll injure—”

“Don’t touch me!”

We stared at each other, I in astonishment I had rebuffed him and he in chagrin he had startled me so. His thin grey gloves were covered with the other man’s gore, his shirt and waistcoat too, for he had been practicing his profession automatically, I believe, tending to the injured in spite of everything, and I was ready to splinter into a thousand mirror shards reflecting every memory of my own ugliness. Mr. Singh arrived bearing a mop and a bucket of soapy water and stopped, taking measure of the situation.

“Charles.” He passed his friend the cleaning supplies. “Miss Stone, will you let me walk beside you to the morning room?”

I started to speak, but clutched at his elbow rather than continue.

Mr. Singh ducked his cloth-bound head against my throbbing scalp in a glancing touch; Mr. Thornfield spread his arms as if in supplication, but since I could not speak, neither to protest the tainted innocence of accident nor beg forgiveness for guilt, I walked away. Mr. Singh accompanied me and, when we were in the morning room, I crossed to the divan and collapsed.

I could not see the shadow which tangled with mine as Sardar Singh hovered over me; I smelt him, though, warm nutmeg and the clean wintry sweat which accompanies a trek on horseback in January, and I fought not to weep at the strange comfort of it.

“Miss Stone, I am no doctor, but Charles will be here shortly, and in the meanwhile you’ve nothing whatsoever to fear. Are you injured in any sense we’re not aware of?”

“No.”

“Thank God for that, then,” he said as his footfalls grew fainter. “And thank God we were early in returning—we should have been here around midday tomorrow had we not been loath to leave the property unprotected.”

He knelt on the carpet before me with a glass of brandy when he returned; I swallowed it, and the searing of my bruised throat brought me back to myself. When I could focus, I saw that Mr. Singh regarded me as he might a casualty of a war he had started, and I did not think I could bear that expression.

“All this will pass,” said I, unsteadily.

“I am glad you think so.”

I wanted to elaborate—in this impossible future, I would not have just murdered yet another man, Sahjara would break mighty stallions, Mr. Thornfield would love me, and everyone would lose the look we had of folk waiting for the axe to fall.

“I think about many things that aren’t true, even say them sometimes,” I confessed instead, and his mouth tugged fathoms deep.