CHAPTERTWENTY
“Don’t ever succumb to the blue devils, dear. They will have won if they see you ground down.”
Mrs Tadlow. Widow, mother and ten-year resident of Ingleford Lodge.
A dank smell and a scratched table were all the bare hut contained, but even so, Rosalind hunted around for something, anything with which to fight the vile cur.
Honestly, Caleb… And she’d thought him such a lovely, young boy.
“Your whorish maid told me you carried a chiff,” he’d sneered as he had rifled through the contents of her reticule, tutting when he came across the flick knife. He’d tucked it into his boot before leaving, and she’d heard the heavy thud of a wooden brace being laid across the door. The only light breaking the gloom now came from between the broken slats.
Rosalind scolded herself for not insisting the maid come with them. Although if she had, they’d both be in danger. She’d never before considered a chaperone necessary in an open pony cart with a curate – after all, what was the worst that could happen.
There were some strange noises from outside: a heavy dragging and low mean curses.
The curate’s language seemed to have taken a turn for the worse and in the cart, he’d babbled on about stifling the sinful and hushing the wicked. Indeed, he had switched from sweet boy to evil slyboots in the space of a breath.
She’d been rather grumpy when he had arrived this morning. After the gentlemen had left, she’d fallen onto the bed, wondering if Lucas had purposely given her a large brandy to keep her out of trouble. A short while later, a knock on the door had interrupted her slumbers, and she’d been tempted to say she was otherwise indisposed. But Mrs Mitchell was a friend and she had been unable to bear the thought of the widow being ill and alone in this weather. Rosalind had even packed a quick hamper of food.
How stupid.
“Mrs Mitchell left the day before,” the curate had informed her in the pony cart, a smug grin on his chitty face. A face that Rosalind had wanted to clout, but couldn’t because he’d held a rather wicked, sharp knife to her side.
This old woodcutter’s hut was a long way from Stonebridge Hall, and she hadn’t been here for years. No one would think to search here. Indeed, no one would be looking for her at all, thinking her with Mrs Mitchell.
Footsteps crunched closer and the door brace was removed. Rosalind prepared herself, although that only involved breathing deeply and thinking calmly, heeding Mrs Tadlow’s advice on fear. Light flooded the hut as the villain slowly entered, and Rosalind was once again amazed by his visage: sweet, handsome, soft-looking and obviously rotten to the core.
Pure-blue eyes bored into her. “Trollop, bunter, whore,” he taunted.
Managing not to roll her eyes, Rosalind glared back. Was that it? Those insults were laughable. “They are not the words of an ordained man.”
“Nah,” he agreed. “Words of the gutter. But it takes a common man, one who knows, to rid this earth of evils.”
“Miss Risley was evil?”
A wounded look entered his eye. “Didn’t want to kill pretty Cecily, but she didn’t understand. I thought we were of the same mind and when I saw that she was ready, I showed her my sermons. Told her what we could achieve together.”
Rosalind raised a brow; she imagined that didn’t go down well with the gentle and forgiving Miss Risley. “She didn’t agree then?”
“Broke off our engagement. Said I frightened her. Me? I wouldn’t hurt anyone that didn’t deserve it. In the end, she had to die for being a coward. I was lucky, really, that she showed her true colours.”
“And Bridget?”
“Devil’s whore. Told me she was lonely and that only I listened to her. Tried to kiss me. Told me I was pretty and said she didn’t care if I was a curate. Little did she know.”
She watched his innocent blue orbs shift slyly away.
“You…you’re not a curate, are you? But I saw your letters of introduction, your–” Her eyes widened at his broad grin. “In fact, you’re not even Caleb Rowland.”
“Found me out, whore. Caleb Rowland is at the bottom of a lake. Stupid cull. He didn’t deserve to live. But I do. I nearly got killed in London by the guv, slit my stomach for blabbing. But I survived see, and I realised it was for a purpose. And when I saw that curate sitting in that ale house, I knew. I was meant to spread the word, that’s why I was spared.”
“Goodness. Erm, how…clever.”
He pushed a hand through his hair, moving the boyish curls aside and smiled coyly. He really was insane. Of all the people she had met at the asylum, no one had been as mad as this boy stood in front of her.
“And what did yo–”
“Enough talk, whore. I have to leave this village now. That major you’re docking has been nosing around, talking to the vicar and such. It won’t be long before he finds out, especially with a dead magistrate on his hands.”
