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“Stay here,” Ben ordered harshly. “I will be back as soon as I can.”
He didn’t stop to hear any further argument, and slammed the door behind him.
/> By the time the bolts slid closed, he was already at the top of the garden.
By the time Beatrice moved to stare after him out of the kitchen window, he had vanished into the trees.
Tears filled her eyes as she watched him go. Hurt flooded her. Why didn’t he want her help? Alright, so she wouldn’t be much use in putting a fire out, but she could at least help to get his personal belongings out of the house, or at least look after the things that could be saved. She wasn’t completely useless. After everything he had done for her, helping him in time of crisis was the very least she could do. Yet he had quite forcefully made it clear that he didn’t want, or need, her help. Why?
“He is worried dear, that’s all,” Maud assured her and patted her arm as she passed. “He needs to rescue his house.”
“But I could do something. He needs someone to be there for him. Why won’t he let me help him? He has done so much for me.”
“Don’t read too much into it dear. The man cares deeply about you, that much is plain to see. Caroline Smethwick might be a lunatic, but she was right in what she said about him staring longingly at you across the aisle in church on Sunday. He is just worried about his house right now, that’s all. You can hardly blame him.”
“I know, but I should be there just to offer support if nothing else.” Although she tried to stop herself from taking his actions too personally, she couldn’t ignore the pang of hurt that simply refused to be ignored. It left her to wonder if she should have waited until he had declared some deeper feelings for her before she had allowed him into her bed.
It was too late now though. What was done was done. They couldn’t go back and simply forget what they had shared last night. However, as much as she tried to tell herself that he was facing a crisis at home, she couldn’t ignore the fact that she should be the one who was right beside him. Rather than voice her fears to an unsympathetic Maud though, she merely sighed and left the room.
She stood in the sitting room doorway for several moments, but had no interest in merely staring at the fire. It reminded her too much of what she and Ben had shared last night.
Instead of going into the room, she moved to the study doorway and turned her thoughts toward the plant. Whatever issues lay unresolved between her and Ben, it was quite clear that they couldn’t move their relationship on until they had resolved the mystery surrounding the plant, and removed the threat of danger which seemed to lurk around every corner.
She felt herself go cold at the thought that someone might have already stolen it, and set fire to Ben’s house to hide the fact that the plant was missing. It was a sickening to think that Ben’s kindness had resulted in his house being burned to the ground. She wanted to sit down and weep.
“I am going to peg the washing out, Beatrice. I won’t be a minute,” Maud called.
“Fine,” she replied listlessly as she made her way into her uncle’s study. She stared blankly at the shelves and took a deep breath. She had yet to touch any of it, mainly because there was so much to work through. She knew that when she started, it was going to take days to get the room emptied. Now, however, she rather wished that instead of moaning that she was bored a couple of weeks ago, she had waded in and made a start on clearing it all out. If she had, then maybe she would have found the answers they needed about who owned the blasted plant, and why people were lying and dying for it.
She sat at the table and picked up a sheaf of papers. With the door open there was barely enough light to see, but she thumbed listlessly through the array of personal notes, bills and lecture notes anyway.
It was only when she was about half way down the pile that she came to something that looked horribly familiar. She lifted it out and, once she was assured that the papers beneath were bills and nothing to do with the cultivation notes, she put the paper on the top of the pile and looked at it a bit more closely.
A dark frown settled over her face as she read the declaration that had been carefully penned in block letters. It was dated one month prior to her uncle’s death, and had been signed by Jules Sanders, Brian Mottram and Bernard Murray.
“Declaration of ownership and process,” she murmured as she read the title at the top of the page.
She read the words beneath it over and over, and felt her stomach began to churn. She skimmed over most of the descriptive text, but read enough to learn that two of the men were responsible for the cultivation of the plant, and her uncle had acted as advisor. Jules Sanders had owned one of the mother plants, having purchased it from Richard Browning several months previously. Richard Browning had sold Brian Mottram the second mother plant a few weeks later. Together, Sanders and Mottram had cultivated the rare orchid, the colour and rarity of which was so unique, so improbable, that there was only one of it in existence in the entire world.
Ownership of the plant had been split equally between Jules Sanders and Brian Mottram. However, in the weeks prior to the document’s creation, they had been subjected to increasingly sinister threats from Richard Browning, who was attempting to claim ownership given that he had originally found the plants in far off foreign countries. Mottram and Sanders had agreed to make an official declaration of their part in the plant’s creation, and had gotten Matthew Northolt and Bernard Murray to witness it. The document stated that both Sanders and Mottram wanted ownership of the plant to be taken over by Matthew Northolt in the event of the sinister threats actually being turned into a reality. Upon his demise, Matthew’s relatives should inherit the plant, along with both mother plants, which were apparently already in Matthew’s conservatory somewhere, along the cultivation notes. The names and addresses of each of the men, along with the witnesses, were written at the bottom of the document besides the men’s signatures. Beside that was Richard Browning’s name and address, should the police ever need it.
“Good Lord. The four men on the list I found,” Beatrice whispered, and felt a headache start to develop behind her eyes as she tried to read the note her uncle had written on the bottom, but it was too dark within the room to see clearly. She sighed and shook her head and stepped and stumbled over the piles of papers and books on the floor in order to get to the window.
Her gasp was loud when she drew the shutters back, and looked up straight into the face of Archibald Harrington/Richard Browning, who was mere inches away on the other side of the glass. Her eyes met and held his for a moment. The cold-blooded intent in his dark, feral gaze, matched the sneer on the man’s thin lips and her mind went blank.
Panic took hold. She began to shake. Behind Browning, she could see a lump on the floor, and knew that it was Maud; she recognised the colour of the dress. Whether she was alive or not was impossible to know, but to even consider that something could have happened to her housekeeper and companion brought about a wave of grief that almost brought Beatrice to her knees.
Her thoughts immediately turned to Ben, and she hoped he had made it through the woods safely. Her hand lifted to slam the shutter closed, but then she realised that she could feel a cold draft around her ankles. Maud had left the kitchen door open.
She spun on her heel, and took a moment to drop the papers on the desk and put a couple of books on the top. By the time she reached the hallway, the bang of the kitchen door being slammed open made her scream, and she threw a horrified glance over her shoulder as she raced toward the front door.
Her trembling fingers fumbled with the bolt, but she managed to slide it back and yank the door open. Unfortunately, her flight wasn’t swift enough because cruel hands ensnared her in a tight hold which dragged her relentlessly back into the darkness of the house.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ben was panting hard by the time he reached the end of his driveway. His stride faltered at the sight of the house, which lay still and silent in the early dawn. He jogged around to the front door, and scowled when he found nobody there.
“What the hell?” The small hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he knew immediately that he had
