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“Pull that trigger and I swear, I will let you kill me before ever I show you the diary,” Mandy threatened. “But my brother will find it, because I left Skip a note telling him where it is in case anything happened to Elly and me.”
Alfred walked over to a hook in the wall and produced a length of rope and threw it at Mandy. It fell to the floor and he sneered as he told her, “Pick it up and tie her wrists behind her back. And her ankles…tie them as well.”
A few moments later he shoved Mandy with the pistol in her back and said, “Come on then, walk…we are going to get that diary.”
He kept the reins of her horse tightly in his grip and she was forced to hold her horse’s mane for balance as they made their way to Abbey Road.
It didn’t take them long to get to the abbey and once there, she jumped off her horse and watched as he tethered his nearby, noting that he didn’t bother to tether hers. No doubt, he meant to kill her as soon as he had the diary. She had to think fast.
And she did. She looked at him and said, “We have to take the stairs down under the trap door, do you wish to go first, or shall I?”
“You…first and I would be careful if I were you, as I have this pointed at your back and will be close, very close.”
She took the stairs but as she got to the bottom step, she stumbled and went down, flinging her arms wide.
“Get up, you clumsy bitch!” he shouted at her.
She did as he asked, but this time, she was no longer empty-handed.
Some time back, she had planted a gun, for just such an occasion at the bottom of the stairs. She hid it in the folds of her gown now as she proceeded to lead him down the long dark corridor. She had to bide her time, wait for the right moment.
Only one torch had remained lit in their absence and Alfred didn’t seem to want to waste time getting the others lighted, so they had to slowly make their way through the semi-darkness.
Suddenly Mandy stopped, turned and faced her cousin, “Alfred…the diary isn’t here. I lied.”
He gritted his teeth, reached out and slapped her hard across her cheek. She put a hand to it, shocked at the force he had used. “Damn you for a cockatrice!” he snapped. “Get the damned diary now.”
“I am telling you, this was a ruse to get you away from the gold and Elly. It isn’t here.”
He hauled off and hit her again and this time she reeled sideways and went down. Now, she told herself, shoot the blackguard now.
No, she couldn’t just yet. The duke would come. He would question Sticwell and know that she would take Elly and the diary to the abbey. She had been afraid that Celia’s killer might come back to the waterfall and had meant to get out of there with Elly as fast as they could, however, they had been a few moments too late.
“Get the diary,” he said on a low hard note. “I know that you are stalling…but it is useless. No one knows about the waterfall cave. No one knows you are here. Now get the diary!”
“It isn’t here…it is really in the barn,” she said.
His hand went up to slap her again, but she stepped out of his range and he sneered, “Go on then…out we go.”
She led him back down the corridor and up the stairs, outside and toward the building they had used as a barn. She was stalling for time, but she was nearly out of it. She was going to have to shoot this beast of a man.
Outside he took a step toward her, “No more tricks.”
“Of course not,” she said on a grim note.
He laughed, “You know, I have always wondered what it would be like to bed you, and I think before I put a bullet in your head, that is just what I will do…now, the diary.”
A hard authoritative voice at Alfred’s back said, “You don’t think I will allow you to have either, do you?” He had already put the nozzle of his gun against Alfred’s neck, as he reached and grabbed the gun from the man’s hand.
However, Alfred now desperate whirled and tried to retrieve his weapon. He fought with the duke and they struggled.
Mandy’s held up her gun and had it ready, but they were tightly bound to one another and she couldn’t get a clear shot.
Suddenly, she heard a shot go off, and cried out, “Brock!”
And even as her heart leaped into her throat, she saw that her duke was safely standing as her cousin slumped to the earth.
She ran into th
