Cecil couldn’t prove it, of course, but he strongly suspected that Polly’s abilities to predict future events were greatly enhanced by her proximity to such a powerful place. The question of how to get her alone at the circle had plagued him… until he’d seen her with Oliver Hawthorne. Threatening Hawthorne’s life would do the trick.
At the top of the stairs, finally, Cecil smiled with victory. Two steps to the left and he was at Polly’s door. But when he turned the handle, the door remained stubbornly closed. Locked tight. Cecil’s lip curled back with temper. But it didn’t matter. He had the keys, after all, courtesy of the pretty little maid who had borne his bastard.
Silently slipping the key from his pocket, he eased it into the lock. Turning it slowly and with extreme caution, he grinned wickedly when the lock released and the door began to ease open. He prided himself on the fact that, for a man of his age and girth, he could move silently when it was required of him. And so he moved with rather surprising grace toward the side of Polly’s bed. By the time she opened her eyes, his hand was already clamped over her mouth.
“Not a word, Polly. Not a sound,” he admonished in a soft whisper. “You may think me old and fat, but I’ve shown you that I can move silently and quickly, else I would not be here now. Nod if you understand.”
Her head jerked a bit, the movement difficult beneath the weight of his hand. With her compliance, Cecil lifted his hand.
“Now, if you do anything which deviates from my instruction, I will put a pistol ball in Hawthorne’s brain before his feet ever touch the floor,” Cecil whispered. “Get up.”
She did so, pushing the covers back with hands that trembled ever so slightly.
“Get your boots. Carry them downstairs. And avoid the fourth step from the bottom,” he said. “You’ll not warn your lover that way.”
Cecil watched as Polly pushed back the covers. His eyes roamed over her, taking in the thin cotton of her night rail and the way it clung to her curves in the silvery moonlight. He hadn’t thought to marry her. But he’d be damned if he’d let her marry a lowly solicitor and use her gifts to bring the man up in the world. The fortune she could make would be his and so would she!
* * *
Polly wasn’t afraid.She was furious, but she was not afraid. How dare Cecil threaten Oliver! He might have been able to creep about silently, but he didn’t know all the many vagaries of the house the way she did after living there for a decade and cleaning it top to bottom. Once they were below stairs and there was no chance of Cecil catching him unawares, she would scream the rafters down about them.
With Cecil behind her, his gun pointed at her back, she opened the bed-chamber door and moved toward the stairs. She traversed them slowly, carefully, making no sound. When she reached the bottom, Cecil still right behind her, she headed directly for the kitchen. After all, she knew what his ultimate goal was. He wanted to take her to the stone circle. Cecil’s obsession with it had begun years ago, long before Claymore had been able to take possession of the house. It was one of the things that Cecil had tried desperately to get his parents to swindle them out of, but the entail of the property had been quite firmly established.
Once in the kitchen, Polly took a seat on the low bench before the fireplace. Cecil stayed far enough back that even if she did manage to grab the poker, he could shoot before she’d ever reach him. Cursing his paranoid nature and apparent natural aptitude for crime, she slipped her feet into the kid boots. Going to bed alone without the promise of Oliver to keep her warm, she’d kept her stockings on, at least.
With her boots on, still clad in only her hightail, she rose to her feet once more. “I’ll need a cloak or I’ll freeze before we even reach the stone circle.”
Cecil jerked his head at the row of pegs on the wall behind the door. There were several serviceable wool cloaks hanging there—all of them patched and worn, used for working about the farm or dashing out in the rain to tend the animals. But also hanging from one of those pegs, underneath the cloaks, was a large knife in a scabbard that she used for cutting herbs.
Carefully, Polly picked up the cloak, sure to keep the blade concealed within the folds of the fabric as she lifted it off the peg as well. It was awkward, but she managed to don the garment without ever turning back to face Cecil. He probably thought it was modesty. In truth, she had no desire to feel his gaze on her. It was repulsive and everywhere he looked, she felt compelled to scrub at her skin because he made her feel dirty. Tainted.
“Stop dawdling,” he demanded in a hushed whisper.
Over her shoulder, Polly noted that he glanced nervously at the stairs. Despite his bravado, he was clearly intimidated by Oliver. Polly turned to face him, the knife still clutched in her hand beneath the cloak. But when her gaze landed on Cecil, she gasped in shock. There was a pall around him—a dark halo that she had seen so many times in her life. She knew precisely what it meant. A wave of dizziness washed over her with that awful sense of knowing. Cecil would die before the day was out. How or by whose hand she could not say, but his death was imminent.
* * *
Oliver satup in bed abruptly. Without rhyme or reason and well before the dawn, he was instantly wide awake. His heart was pounding, the blood racing in his veins. But it was the bitter and acrid taste of fear that bloomed at the back of his throat that had him immediately rising from the bed.
In the dark, he slipped into his trousers and boots. From the bed, Elspeth grumbled. She opened one eye and gave him a look that revealed how mightily offended she was, before scooting around and presenting him with her back. At any other time, he would have been amused by the dog’s antics. But there was no escaping the awful sense of foreboding that had settled inside him. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
Crossing the room to the door, he opened it softly, just a crack, and peered out. Immediately, he knew the source of his fear.
Polly’s door was open. It stood ajar and even without looking, he knew that room was empty. He could feel it.
The absurdity of that was not lost on him. He was a man of logic and reason—see it, hear it, taste it, touch it. That was what was real to him. Not some ephemeral feeling. And yet, the knowledge that Polly was in danger was just there for him. It resonated inside him with a certainty that, had he time to truly examine it, would have been mind-boggling.
Retreating momentarily to the trunk at the foot of the bed, Oliver opened it and peered inside. There was a brace of pistols in a cherrywood box. Opening it, he found them clean and with adequate shot. With the weapons prepared, he reached for his coat, sliding his arms into it. The pistols went into each of the large outer pockets. As an afterthought, he reached into the trunk once more and withdrew a saber. He was an excellent fencer, his father having insisted on both he and his brother mastering the skill. He strongly doubted that Cecil Winters-Beaton could claim such an achievement.
Suitably armed, he crept down the stairs, avoiding the squeaky fourth step. But as he reached the first floor, he knew that it wouldn’t have mattered. The house was already empty save for himself and the blasted dog.
Turning toward the kitchen, he saw the open door and went through it, straight into the snow. The skies had cleared and moonlight, in those predawn hours, was still strong enough to reflect brightly onto the crystalline surface of the packed snow. It was bright enough that he immediately spotted the crimson bloom.
Every few feet there was a drop or two of blood.
Breadcrumbs, he thought. Figuratively, at any rate. Polly was leading him with her version of bread crumbs. And he followed.
Once he cleared the garden gate, he could see them easily enough. Two dark shapes about thirty yards ahead of him and moving steadily forward toward the nearby woods. Polly had told him of the stone circle there. She’d told him he should visit it before he left Mansford Hall. He’d agreed more to humor her than because he had any real interest. But she’d been insistent, stating that he needed to see it.
