Chapter 32
They’d involved Scruggs and his village in this rescue, but only one villager was crowded onto Perry’s borrowed cart sitting up in the cargo box, while her three companions there lay low and rolled out, one by one, as the cart crawled up Sir Richard’s long drive.
Perry’s skirt flapped along, soaking up the moist drizzle. She pulled it in tight around her legs and gripped the seat edge.
They came to a narrow part of the road, densely thicketed and deeply rutted. Sir Richard must have few visitors. If he truly was John Black the smuggler, his merchandise wasn’t traveling down this path. This jarring ride would pop open half the tubs.
“Use that pistol.” The low voice came from the back and the cart jumped again, dispensing the last of the muscled cargo.
Her heart flipped with it, but she dared not turn to look. “I will. You use that knife.”
I love you, Fox. I shouldn’t but I do.
All around her the air seemed to thicken and she struggled to breathe.
Fear.This was fear.
“Steady now.” Lady Jane’s hand came down atop hers and squeezed.
She turned her hand over and squeezed back.
Lady Jane had sensed the panic rising in her. Thank God, it had been this sensible woman following Father to Gorse Cottage to chaperone Perry.
Along with Fox, Farnsworth and Fergus MacEwen had slipped off the back, leaving Edie propped up against the side gripping a basket. The three men would steal through the woods on their way to the house. The other MacEwen, Fergus’ cousin, was leading the dragoons and some of Scruggs’s men up the steep hill at the back side of the estate.
All of them would be, please God, mopping up Sir Richard’s watchers and henchmen, if there were any.
“Kincaid,” Lady Jane said, “must you hit every rut and hole? You’ll burst that wound open, and then where will we be?”
“Hang on.” Kincaid pulled the reins and finessed the cart around a particularly watery rut. Bottomless, it might be, fathomless perhaps, and filled with illusions, like everything surrounding Sir Richard.
Edie had shed a great deal of light upon Sir Richard’s dwelling and his personal habits. She’d served as a maid until two years past.
Under MacEwen’s, and later Farnsworth and Fox’s questioning, Scruggs had enlightened them more about the man’s business enterprises, bit by excruciating bit, the questioning sweetened with promises that the Crown would look kindly upon a man who gave evidence against a traitor.
Clouds had gathered again, thickening the late morning sky to a purple as mottled as the bruise at her throat. The rain was like a slick exhalation of those heavy clouds, and it would soon come heavier, God’s tears or perhaps a demon’s spit.
She shook off the fanciful thoughts.
The blouse she’d donned under the stark, servile gray dress helped soak up the wet. The square of Indian cotton she’d borrowed from Jane added another layer against the dampness. As well, it concealed the damage he’d already done and was too bulky for a garrote, should Sir Richard decide to come at her again.
If he uses his hands, stab him. If he comes from behind, claw his eyes out.If you’re a distance away, shoot him.
Watch the trigger. Don’t shoot yourself in the leg. Don’t fire too soon.
As she ran through the lessons Fox and Kincaid had rushed her and Lady Jane through, the manor house came into view. She was traveling gloveless, a blade up her sleeve, a pistol in her pocket, and a bellyful of anger needing revenge.
And thisbloodyhouse looked deserted. No lights in the windows, no smoke in the chimney, though the day was dim enough and chill enough for candles and fire.
Sir Richard’s manor was a gothic lair. Restoration, perhaps, with chinks in the bricks where the mortar had given up, and windows that held onto thick grime for the extra layer of secrecy. Over the years, Sir Richard had driven off most of his staff, Edie said. The young maids—if they wished to remain maidens—wouldn’t stay. Those left were a collection of the willing and the old.
A fine dinner party Sir Richard had planned for them—Father as the main course and herself as dessert. And poor Lady Jane. What plans would he have had for a fine-looking woman of her age?
Kincaid took them through the likeliest archway into a back courtyard. A decrepit brick building—stables or carriage house, it was hard to tell which—stood, its doors closed securely. Broken barrels and rusted farm tools littered the fringes among waist high summer weeds, and not so much as a chicken wandered the mud-puddled yard.
Bakeley would never allow a Shaldon property to be in this state. The villagers would find plenty of work here once Sir Richard’s heir, whoever that may be, came into possession of this property.
Which, if she had any say, would be very soon. This very afternoon.
