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Haversham froze and turned guiltily. He then stepped back inside and eased the door quickly closed before saying, "I was just . . . er . . ."
When he paused at a loss, Suzette smiled wryly and suggested, "Going to cut back bushes?"
Bewilderment covered his face until he noted she was eyeing the butcher knife in his hand. Grimacing, he lowered the weapon and said with great dignity, "I have already requested that Cook make up a tray."
"He did, m'lady, and the kettle's on," Cook assured her as she ran a rolling pin vigorously over a swath of pie dough on the counter. She then added, "Then he saw one of the boys slip past the window with a sack over his shoulder and started out of the kitchen after him."
"A sack?" The question came from behind Suzette and she glanced over her shoulder, not at all surprised to see her father there. Lisa stood behind him, wringing her hands worriedly.
"Well, I think it was a sack," the woman said, pausing in her rolling to move to the stove and stir a pot of something bubbling there. "But I didn't really catch more than a glimpse meself." She peered questioningly over her shoulder at Haversham, apparently expecting him to clarify the matter.
The butler grimaced, and said, "It was a certain sack that Lord Richard is awaiting in the office." He glanced to the cook and then back before continuing, "I just thought to follow and be sure he was headed to the office as expected."
Suzette frowned. It was possible the man holding Christiana had decided to go around to the office via the yard rather than risk carrying her through the house where he might be spotted by servants. However, if Chrissy was the sack over his shoulder, that wasn't a good sign. And the men were no doubt expecting him to come in through the hall door. They wouldn't be prepared for his arrival via the French doors. If he should approach the glass doors and spot something that spooked him, he might simply slip away with Christiana completely unnoticed.
"Good idea. I shall join you," Lord Madison said suddenly, selecting the largest of the knives remaining in a wooden block on the counter. "You girls return to the parlor. We shall be back as soon as it is over."
On that note, he moved to the door and followed Haversham out.
"Are we going back to the parlor?" Lisa asked.
"What do you think?" Suzette asked dryly, snatching up the rolling pin the cook had been using and moving toward the door.
"Wait for me," Lisa gasped.
Suzette glanced over her shoulder to see Lisa picking up and discarding several kitchen items before settling on a long, wicked-looking two-pronged cooking fork. Apparently satisfied that it would do, she hurried after her as Suzette pushed through the door.
Suzette crept along the back of the house, staying as close to the wall as she could. She didn't have to glance around to be sure Lisa was still behind her. Her younger sister had one hand on her back as they crept along several feet behind their father and Haversham.
The butler was in the lead, with her father on his heels, and beyond them Suzette could see their quarry. The man was standing outside the French doors to the office, peering in through the window panels. He had Christiana slung over his shoulder like a sack, holding her in place with an arm around her legs, and at first Suzette thought her sister was unconscious, but as her captor eased one of the office doors open and began to slip inside, she noticed that Christiana's eyes were open, and she was peering about to take in what she could see.
"She's alive," Lisa whispered with relief behind her.
Suzette nodded, but didn't say anything and continued forward, raising her rolling pin in case the fellow burst back out of the office and made it past Haversham and her father. She would feel no compunction at all about bashing him over the head with the item rather than let him escape with Christiana.
Haversham had reached the French doors now and Suzette saw him hesitate. Christiana's kidnapper had left the door open just a crack and the butler peered through the window briefly before easing the door open and slipping inside the room. A couple feet behind the butler, Lord Madison paused at the door as well to take in the situation, and then he too slipped inside.
Suzette began to move more swiftly then, rushing along on her tiptoes as she worried about what might be happening in the room. As she drew near she heard Richard say, "I won't let you leave here unless it's in chains," and knew they were confronting the kidnapper, but still moved as quietly as she could until she reached the door. She paused then on the threshold and took in the tableau, as much as she could around her father, who stood just inside the door. The butler stood in front of him, a bare step behind the apparently oblivious kidnapper, who still had Christiana over his shoulder. Suzette could see Richard approaching the desk from the opposite side of the room and Daniel was coming from around a settee, but she had no idea where Robert was.
"Where's Robert?" Lisa breathed behind her worriedly, and Suzette shook her head and raised a hand to shush her as the kidnapper cried, "Stay back or I'll cut her."
Suzette hadn't noticed the man holding a weapon in the brief glimpse she'd gotten earlier, but he must have one because Christiana suddenly squawked, "Ouch! That is my bottom."
"Put her down," Richard ordered.
"Go to hell!" the kidnapper snarled and whirled toward the door only to crash into Haversham.
From her position, Suzette saw the startled look on the man's face and then saw him turn a bewildered expression to Haversham. Even so she didn't realize what had happened until the kidnapper started to fall back and she caught a glimpse of the butcher knife protruding from his chest, blood blossoming around the wound. He'd skewered himself on the butler's weapon.
"Oh dear," Lisa said faintly behind her, and recalling her dislike of blood, Suzette turned quickly to see that the younger girl had gone terribly pale and was swaying on her feet.
"It is all right," Suzette said, quickly catching her arm and urging her a step away from the open door. "Take deep breaths."
Lisa inhaled several times and after a moment seemed to recover a bit, her color returning.
"All right?" Suzette asked with concern. Lisa had been known to faint at the sight of blood. But she appeared steady enough on her feet at the moment, perhaps because there hadn't been all that much blood, just a slow blossoming on the cloth of his livery. Whatever the case, she was recovering nicely and Lisa nodded, even managing a smile.
Suzette smiled back and then glanced toward the door as her father ushered a somewhat shaky Christiana out.
"I need a word with your sister," Lord Madison murmured as they approached.
Suzette nodded and watched them move toward the back of the garden and then turned back to Lisa. "We should go in now. Can you manage it?"
Lisa nodded. "I just won't look at him this time."
Suzette squeezed her arm, then led her to the door. Haversham was gone, but Robert had join
ed the other two men. All three of them were gathered around the body and pretty much blocking their entrance to the room, so Suzette and Lisa paused as Robert said, "Well, that is one problem taken care of anyway. The blackmail threat is over."
"Now we just need to figure out who poisoned George and is still trying to kill Richard," Daniel commented in dry tones.
"Well, I'm afraid Lisa and I didn't find out anything of use today," Robert said apologetically to Richard. "I think people were reluctant to gossip about you with Lisa there. She is your sister-in-law, after all. Perhaps Christiana and Suzette were more successful at discovering what servant may have administered the poison."
"We should ask them," Richard murmured and turned toward the doors. His eyebrows rose when he saw Suzette and Lisa there, but no sign of his wife. "Where--"
"Father wished to speak to Christiana. They have stepped out into the garden," Suzette explained.
Richard glanced past them toward the yard, and then swung back to the room as the office door opened.
Suzette leaned to the side a bit to see that Haversham had returned. The butler entered stiffly, leading two men into the room. The red vests the men wore announced that they were Bow Street runners.
"Oh dear," Lisa said suddenly. "I don't think I can stay here."
Suzette glanced to her sister with surprise, but then realized it wasn't the arrival of the authorities that had so overset her, but despite her assurance that she just wouldn't look at the dead man on the floor, Lisa was now staring at him transfixed, her face paling by the minute.
"Come," Suzette said with a sigh. "We can wait in the parlor while the runners sort this out."
"Thank you," Lisa whispered gratefully, as Suzette ushered her quickly around the men and toward the door.
Chapter Ten
You don't have to stay with me. I'll be fine by myself if you want to rejoin the others."
Suzette glanced to Lisa and shook her head. "No, it's fine. The Bow Street runners are probably asking a thousand stupid questions and doing . . . whatever they do," she said, waving a hand vaguely.
"Hopefully removing the body is one of those 'whatever they do's,' " Lisa said wryly.
