Blood Autumn Read online

  Lyttleton looked about the room. Two walls held books from floor to ceiling, while in a third wall French doors opened out onto a terrace. Several velvet chairs were located by the French doors, and Lyttleton noticed a clump of men gathered around one of the chairs. An older man walked away momentarily, and in that instant Lyttleton could see who sat in the chair and commanded the undivided attention of the men.

  It was August Hamilton, and she was looking at him.

  He shouldn't have been surprised, he thought wryly, for somehow he had come to expect to see her wherever he went.

  August looked away as one of her admirers asked a question, but Lyttleton saw that she flicked a glance back at him a few minutes later. In the meantime Lord Ashford had strolled off to talk with several newly arrived guests. Lyttleton smiled at Lady Ashford and devoted his full attention to her. Some years younger than her husband, she had been scarcely out of the schoolroom when she married and her son was born. A daughter had followed shortly after that, then three more children, and somehow the attractive brown-haired woman had managed to retain her girlish figure. Lyttleton wished suddenly that he had talked with her more thoroughly through the years.

  A burst of laughter sounded from the direction of the French doors, and Lyttleton could hear the low husky tones of the widow.

  "I wasn't aware that you were acquainted with Mrs. Hamilton, Lady Ashford," he remarked casually. Certainly the Ashfords had met Tommy, but Lyttleton had never seen them in the same company.

  "Who is not these days?" Blanche Ashford asked, her grey eyes fixed on the other woman.

  Surprised at the heavily ironic, almost hostile tone, Lyttleton glanced at his hostess. Her lips pressed tightly together, she was frowning.

  "Is it correct for me to assume from your words and tone that you do not like the young widow, Lady Ashford?"

  She gazed at him, her eyes wide with candor. "In all honesty, Mr. Lyttleton, I must confess that I do not care for Mrs. Hamilton. There is something . . . foreign . . . about her."

  "You are accustomed to foreigners and their odd ways from your many journeys abroad, Lady Ashford. I have never heard this particular complaint before," he replied mildly, intrigued by her reaction.

  "Yes, I know, Mr. Lyttleton, and that puzzles me all the more, for I really shouldn't be disturbed, and yet somehow I am." Blanche Ashford sipped her sherry. "All the men are fascinated. Both my husband and son have been dancing attendance upon her since she arrived, and I have scarcely had a word with either." She paused as she regarded him. "And how is it that you are not among her group of admirers?"

  He smiled. "Let's say that while I'm acquainted with the lady, I'm not yet caught up in her web." He knew she hadn't missed the faint irony in his voice.

  "Her web," the woman mused. "Yes, it's an excellent term." She looked truly distressed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Lyttleton, you must think me impossibly ill-mannered for speaking so of a guest, and prejudiced as well."

  "No, not at all," Lyttleton replied thoughtfully. "One moment, Lady Ashford, before you leave." She paused. "Could it be that the word you were thinking of was not foreign, but rather exotic, or alien? Possibly even strange?"

  "Yes," she replied without hesitation. "Foreign isn't appropriate. I grant you she is most decidedly exotic — much like a dark-hued jungle orchid among pale English tea roses. And yes, I think she may be described as strange. That is, there is nothing odd about her, but yet ..." Words seemed to fail her.

  Had he found someone who felt as he did? If he wasn't the only one with misgivings about August, then perhaps it wasn't simply his imagination playing him false, as he'd begun to believe. "Yet would you say you sense something about her, something not precisely correct, not in the sense that she is socially unacceptable but rather in the sense that something is distorted?" He looked intently at his hostess.

  "Distorted," she said. "Yes, I think there is something not right about her, something I find — " But what she was going to say Lyttleton did not discover, for Lord Ashford chose that moment to beckon to his wife. "I'm sorry, Mr. Lyttleton. I fear I must see what my husband wants. Until later, then." She smiled warmly at Lyttleton, then hurried off.

  Lyttleton sipped his wine thoughtfully as he studied the group tightly gathered around Tommy Hamilton's widow. None of the men had moved from her side.

  The wives of the men stood apart as they chatted. From time to time, singularly and collectively, the women glanced toward the knot of men with bemused expressions on their faces.

  Interesting, he thought, that only he and Lady Ashford had noticed something odd about August Hamilton. Certainly his friends, like these men, had not.

  The butler announced that dinner was ready. Lady Ashford stood nearby, and Lyttleton offered his arm, for her husband had abandoned protocol. For a moment they watched while the Ashfords, father and son, vied to escort the widow into the dining room. The son finally won, and after flashing a triumphant smile at his frowning father, he led the woman away from the older man.

  During the meal, which was excellent, Lyttleton concentrated on the widow, seated across from him between the two men of the house. She spoke little, for Josiah Ashford and his son Gerald dominated the entire conversation as they vied for her attention. Only occasionally did August raise her head, and then it was to look across at him.

  The rivalry could almost be amusing, Lyttleton thought, except that the two men seemed so intent, so serious. This was no lighthearted flirtation; yet he knew Ashford adored his wife and had always been faithful to her, unusual within their society. Too, now that Gerald Ashford had returned from abroad, he planned to wed Lucy Chandler, his childhood sweetheart, in a few months. But these men didn't act like men in love. Indeed, all evening both wife and fiancee had been pointedly ignored, almost as if they did not exist.

  Lyttleton saw the anger and hurt in Lady Ashford's eyes, emotions to which her husband was obviously impervious tonight. She was talking too rapidly to her other guests and darting quick glances at her husband. Finally she directed a question to her husband. He neither turned his head nor acknowledged her, and Lady Ashford dropped her gaze as her cheeks turned crimson. Lyttleton felt sorry for her, and as he glanced around the table he realized that the only diners actually conversing were Bethany and Lady Ashford, Mrs. Cleveland, Edith and Lucy Chandler, Honoria Young and himself. Mr. Cleveland stared raptly at August Hamilton, while his son Timothy, a year younger than Gerald Ashford, gawked adolescently. The near-elderly John James Chandler and considerably younger Francis Young wore miserable expressions of unrequited love that could almost have been laughable, too. But somehow they weren't.

  With the strained conversation Lyttleton was uncomfortable for the remainder of the dinner, and afterward, when normally the men would have remained at the table to smoke cigars and drink brandy while the women would have gone to a parlor, Lyttleton was surprised to Find the diners all headed together toward the library. At least August Hamilton, with her retinue of men, retired to the library, while the wives and daughters followed. Lyttleton trailed after them; stopping just inside the doorway, he narrowed his eyes as he found August once more established in the corner and encircled by the Cleveland and Ashford men as well as Chandler and Young.

  "I find it most shocking," Bethany Ashford stated. She, too, was looking at the widow.

  "What is that, Miss Ashford?" he inquired politely, although he already knew.

  "Mrs. Hamilton is a recently bereaved widow, not yet out of mourning," she replied forcefully, "but you would hardly know it for all the social appointments she keeps."

  Lyttleton glanced at the young woman. Bethany Ashford was a pretty girl, not at all beautiful, with intelligent eyes, a slender refined nose, a small mouth, and a pointed chin in a face with rosy cheeks. She also had a sensible nature, and he did not believe that maliciousness inspired her observation. "It is indeed extremely odd, Miss Ashford. I am at a loss to explain this phenomenon, although one of my friends claims that she is far too young
to remain secluded in mourning for long."

  Miss Ashford turned large brown eyes toward him. "Do you truly believe that, Mr. Lyttleton?"

  "No, I do not." His look was sympathetic.

  For a few minutes they listened to the rising conversation from across the library. The widow's admirers were trying to outdo each other with various flattering tales of their prowess, most of them greatly exaggerated. The Chandler women, Mrs. Young, and Bethany's mother had retired to the opposite end of the room to glare at the knot of men. The young woman next to him pressed her lips together tightly.

  "You don't like her, Miss Ashford?" Lyttleton asked, and her reply surprised him for the depth of its passion.

  "Like her? Indeed, I do not. I confess I . . . hate her!" With that Bethany Ashford whirled and left the room.

  August smiled across at him, for the first time acknowledging his presence in the library, and he had the most uncanny feeling that she knew what he and the Ashford daughter had been discussing.

  Impossible, Lyttleton told himself, but could not divest himself of the unusual notion. Increasingly uneasy, he lingered in the library and talked to the women as long as he could manage, but when another hour passed and he felt he would not be accused of being uncivil, he warmly thanked his host and hostess for their invitation and returned home.

  He stayed up until long after midnight reading, or trying to, for as soon as he opened the book, the words blurred and his thoughts returned to the evening's dinner and the woman who had been the focal point of everyone's attention.

  Finally, when he realized he couldn't read, he told himself to go to bed. Once there, though, he found no rest, for his dreams were filled with visions of the voluptuous beauty. Her lips were parted in a mockery of a smile, an expression that filled him with dread.

  *

  Lyttleton found August Hamilton at all the theater and dinner parties he attended, and in fact, he'd come to expect her presence, not that he would have been disappointed had she been absent. Or would he? he mused. In one respect, she seemed to be dogging his steps, but that was impossible, he countered, for she'd have no way of knowing where he'd be next. And yet he did see her often.

  The widow's name appeared more frequently in the social columns of the London newspapers than ever before, a circumstance no one — except Lyttleton — found unusual. Sometimes he found it hard to remember she was in mourning, while everyone else appeared to have forgotten it completely.

  To add to this faintly bewildering affair, Henry Montchalmers, apparently casting himself in the role of Boswell, reported faithfully each step the woman took until Lyttleton desired nothing more than to shake his good friend into silence. Good manners, however, would not permit him; instead, he endured Montchalmers' rapturous accolades.

  "She's become the absolute toast of the city!" an euphoric Montchalmers declared two nights after the Ashfords' dinner party. He and Lyttleton had met earlier, then had dined together at a restaurant they had often frequented with Wyndy Terris, and now they had gone to the club to talk further.

  "Is that so?" Lyttleton asked.

  "Yes, it is," Montchalmers replied, oblivious to his friend's irony. "Why, we've gone to the Sunday Populars at St. James' Hall, been for a drive through the park in the evenin', and tomorrow night I'm takin' her to the theater to see some French comedy."

  Lyttleton drew his brows together. "I don't know if that's wise, Henry. Perhaps you shouldn't."

  "Why the devil not?" Montchalmers rasped. He scowled at his friend.

  "Why the devil not? I'll tell you why not, Henry! May I remind you that August Hamilton happens to be the widow of our recently departed friend, and I don't think you honor his memory by escorting his widow about the city so soon after his death."

  Montchalmers looked astonished. "Good God, Lyttleton, you needn't look so furious! What's the matter with you, old boy? You were never one for toeing the mark. What's wrong? Jealous, are you?"

  Montchalmers had missed his point, and Lyttleton knew it would be futile to further explain why he felt the widow should observe the mourning. Montchalmers would simply get his back up and listen to his friend less than he already did.

  "Never mind," Lyttleton said with a slight sigh as he waved a desultory hand. "Go on, and enjoy yourself while you may."

  "Well, we certainly intend to."

  "And by the way . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "I am not jealous."

  "Oh, very well, if you insist." Montchalmers' normally good-natured face had taken on a faintly petulant look, and Lyttleton was reminded of Terris.

  Busying himself with the cigar he'd just drawn from a pocket, he turned to his own thoughts while Montchalmers expounded the many glories of August Hamilton. After their brief exchange Montchalmers appeared even more determined to prove how wonderful a woman the widow was.

  The trouble was that Montchalmers wasn't alone in his single-minded adulation. These days everyone of Lyttleton's acquaintance acclaimed the woman. Not only that, but Lyttleton had observed — and heard about — his friends being seen continually in her company, escorting her to various functions, calling upon her, riding with her in the park as well.

  By definition, yes, August Hamilton was the toast of the town, probably the most sought-after woman in London. All within the span of about forty days since the death of her husband. It wasn't right, Lyttleton told himself; Tommy had been his friend. She should observe a full year of mourning.

  And it wasn't right because of something else. Only he didn't know what that something-else was. Sometimes a glimmer of some elusive thought brushed his mind, and he would try to grab it, but it was gone before he could concentrate fully. And so the something remained, the something that prevented him from enjoying the company of August Hamilton, the something that kept him from being enamored of her.

  Too, he remembered certain things, such as the inexplicable half-smile on her face as she talked about the Indian Mutiny and the ice-cold touch of her hand after Tommy's death.

  Like the breath of a grave. He shuddered and rubbed a hand across his face, aware that Montchalmers had been talking for some time now and he had absolutely no idea about what. He was tired tonight, and irritable, and no doubt it would be best for him to go home before he picked a fight with Montchalmers. He didn't have too many good friends left.

  Lyttleton smiled at Montchalmers, listened as the man finished his story, then drained the last of his glass. He yawned, then stretched.

  "I suppose I should be going, Henry. It's been a long day, and I'm tired."

  "Well, I'm glad we could have dinner tonight," Montchalmers said cautiously.

  "I am too," Lyttleton replied, and he meant it. They stood and shook hands and agreed to meet again for dinner soon.

  Once outside the club Lyttleton breathed deeply. Damned strange October, he thought. The sky had remained overcast for several days, and a sultry heat had settled across the city. It was almost like summer again, and Lyttleton wished it would rain and sweep the heat away. He waved a hansom cab along, indicating he wanted to walk. It wasn't far, and he needed to be out in the night air to do some thinking.

  Of course, he told himself as he strolled away from the club, he was thinking too much lately. He was brooding about matters and magnifying them far beyond their scope. He was saddened by the deaths of two friends in such a short time, and he was uneasy about the attention being paid to August Hamilton. Or was it jealousy of the other men? No, it wasn't that. He didn't know what it was, but it certainly wasn't jealousy.

  Lyttleton reached a corner, crossed the street after a carriage rumbled past, and continued strolling.

  Perhaps he should retire to the country for a month or so, maybe spend Christmas there. He could do some writing, or just read and rest and generally rusticate. Or he could visit his family in America. His sister had just married, and he supposed he should meet her new husband now that he was part of their very small family. Yes, that sounded good. He would have to begin
making plans. First, he'd write Sophie, though, for she might not want visitors right away.

  He passed the mouth of an alleyway, then stopped in the globe of light from a street lamp. He frowned, then turned around, and gripping his walking stick more securely, he walked back to the alley and peered into the darkness. He could just make out the usual jumble of crates and boxes and a broken barrel. And something more, too. A dark shape lay crumpled amidst the heaps of rotting garbage. Lyttleton knelt and lit a match, then stared down at the shape.

  It was Gerald Ashford. And he was dead.

  *

  When Lyttleton returned home, morning was half gone. He'd reported the death to the police, who had asked Lyttleton to return to the station with them so that he could tell them everything he knew. Which, he realized, wasn't much. Still, he cooperated, telling them how he had been going home and had passed the alleyway and something glimpsed from the corner of his eye had caught his attention. He had walked back and found the body of the young man, whom he knew.

  The police had questioned him closely, and for a while he suspected they thought he had killed Gerald Ashford. Obviously, though, they had dismissed that idea, for not long afterward they let him go. He hailed a cab and went home.

  Drained by exhaustion, he collapsed fully clothed into bed and dropped shortly thereafter into an uneasy sleep disturbed by visions of a laughing August and the corpse of Gerald Ashford.

  When Lyttleton awoke later, he felt just as tired as when he had gone to bed. He stared into the mirror at his bloodshot eyes and the pouches under them, and he could have sworn he'd spent a night drinking heavily. If only he had, he thought as he splashed cold water on his face, then rubbed it vigorously with a hand towel. His skin tingled, but he didn't feel much better.

  He changed into the clothes set out by Edgar, went down to a simple breakfast of tea and toast, all that his queasy stomach could tolerate for the moment, then deemed it best to call upon the Ashfords. He did not look forward to this.