Almost a Princess (10 page)

“Get dressed and get the blunderbuss.”

“Why?” He was instantly awake.

“I think we have visitors. Gypsies. Tinkers. And I think they may have hurt Lance.”

She delayed at the front door only long enough to don her boots and greatcoat, then she was through the door and racing down the incline toward the stable. It had rained in the last day or two and the snow had turned to a muddy slush, making the path treacherous, but Jane didn’t care. Not a sound from Lance, but she could hear her horses whinnying in panic, and their panic as well as the choking stench of smoke sent an ice-cold chill along her spine.

She wasn’t thinking about gypsies or tinkers or that she might be in danger when she slammed into the stable door. Her one thought was to get her animals out of there. She put her gun in her pocket and used both hands to drag back the door. As air rushed in, flames enveloped one wall and licked along the roof. The horses went wild. On the floor was Lance, in a pool of blood.

As Jane started forward, she was hit from behind, and fell to her knees. A hand covered her mouth, muffling her scream, and she was yanked back on her heels. The voice that came from behind her did not belong to the man who was restraining her.

“It would have been better for you, Miss Mayberry, if you’d slept a little longer. Put her out of her misery, but don’t hit her too hard.”

The man who had spoken began to close the door she’d opened. Rage and terror engulfed her, just as the fire engulfed another wall. She sensed the blow coming and bit down on her assailant’s hand, on the fleshy part of his thumb. He wasn’t wearing gloves and she tasted his blood. When he yelled and relaxed his grip, she tore out of his grasp and rolled clear.

As she came up, with her pistol in her hand, several things happened at once. Ben, who had stopped halfway down the incline, yelled to the men to be gone or he would blow their brains out. The stable door burst open and Razor charged out with Daisy at his heels. If the men who had attacked her hadn’t jumped clear, the horses would have run them down. Smoke billowed out of the stable.

It was now or never.

Screaming at Ben to keep the men covered, she pocketed her pistol, dropped to her hands and knees, and began to crawl toward the spot where she’d last seen Lance. The heat was intense. In those few, agonized seconds it took her to find him, she heard the blunderbuss go off. Someone yelled out a stream of curses in Spanish, then nothing. Her hair was scorched, her eyes and lungs burned. There was no air to breathe, so she held her breath. She didn’t know where she got the strength, but she gathered her dog in her arms, not knowing whether he was alive or dead, and she dragged him outside, well clear of the stable that was turning into an inferno.

She stayed as she was for several moments, crouched over Lance, gulping air into her lungs. When she could breathe again, and her eyes cleared, she saw Ben, sitting up as she was, with Mrs. Trent helping him to rise. She couldn’t see her horses, but she could hear them whinnying beyond the stand of firs. There was no sign of the thugs who had set the stable on fire.

Eyes tearing, she looked down at Lance. His thick, tawny fur was matted with blood from one shoulder to his chest. She choked back a sob, then another and brushed the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her greatcoat. The next sob stuck in her throat. Was she imagining things or had Lance moved?

“Lance?” She put her bare hand on his side. “Lance?”

A shudder ran through him, then another. He exhaled a wheezy, coughing breath, but his eyes did not open.

A moment before, Jane did not have the strength to rise. Now, she jumped up and stripped off her greatcoat. “Lance is alive!” she cried out. “Help me, Mrs. Trent. Help me carry him into the house. We’ll use my coat as a stretcher.”

Chapter 10

They could smell the smoke when they entered Highgate. Though it wasn’t long after midnight, there were few lights at any of the windows. The residents evidently kept country hours, so there was no one about to tell them where the fire was, and no telltale streak of red lighting up the horizon. Not that any of this mattered to Case. Fire or no fire, he knew where he was going.

He did not slacken his pace, and Robert and Waldo, sensing his mood, exchanged nary a word as they rode after him. All they’d been told was that they could well be closing in on Gideon Piers, so they should expect trouble.

When they left Highgate behind, a fine ash wrapped around them like a North Sea fog, unsettling the horses and making Case and his friends turn up their coat collars to keep the worst of the fog out of their lungs. It was a treacherous ride, but the farther they got from Highgate, the more lights they saw winking at windows, and they could follow the road by following the lights.

Suddenly there were lanterns everywhere, and men with kerchiefs covering the lower half of their faces, forming a line from the well to the smoldering ruin that was once the stable. They were passing buckets of water from hand to hand to douse the embers. Case called out to the man who seemed to be in charge.

“Where is Miss Mayberry?”

“Up at the house. She’s had a fright, but she’s fine.”

Case let out a long, pent-up breath. “Are you the constable?” he asked.

After a quick appraising look at Case, the man in charge seemed to realize he was in the presence of a gentleman of rank. “Constable John Turnbull,” he replied respectfully. He was a square, thickset man who was also, he told Case, steward of the Lauderdale estate. “Everything around here belongs to the estate,” he said, “even the men I’ve brought with me. It’s too bad about the barn, but by the time we got here, it was too late to save it. The horses got out, so that’s something. We have Miss Mayberry to thank for that.”

Case hadn’t realized that Jane rented the house. He’d just assumed that she owned it.

“And the dog?”

“He looked in a bad way to me. Miss Mayberry can tell you.” He shook his head. “I never saw such a fuss about a dog.”

“How did the fire get started?” asked Waldo.

“Gypsies most likely,” replied Turnbull. “Or young bucks from town with nothing better to do than set fire to barns and terrorize innocent people. If I catch them . . .” He left his words hanging in the air and ran to help a man who seemed to have fainted.

“Have a look around and see what you can find out,” Case told his friends.

As Case walked his horse to the hitching post, Robert edged his mount closer to Waldo’s. “Who is Miss Mayberry?” he asked quietly.

“I haven’t the faintest idea. What I’d like to know is how Case knew that something was about to happen here tonight.”

Robert thought back on the conversation he’d had with Case at the Bell. La Contessa. Amelia Standhurst. Emily Drake. “It was something I said. So it’s true. This Piers fellow really is out for revenge.”

“We’ll talk later,” said Waldo.

Case halted at the kitchen door and took in the room at a glance. Ben was in a chair and looked to be in a bad way. His face was screwed up in pain as a gentleman, the doctor most likely, bound the arm his patient had dislocated only a few days before. Jane was sitting at the kitchen table, hands extended, palms up, while Mrs. Trent anointed them with a salve. Her ministrations seemed to give more pain to the housekeeper than to Jane, for it was Mrs. Trent who winced and sniffed back tears.

“Jane,” he said softly.

At the sound of his voice, she turned her head, and when recognition dawned, gave him a look that belied her tart words. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

She was wrapped in a woolen dressing gown that was blackened by ash; her hair was scorched, her face was daubed with soot. She would have to be the one, of course, who entered the blazing building to rescue her animals. His sympathy began to waver until he remembered her dog.

“What happened to Lance?”

Maybe he spoke too harshly, or maybe she sensed his change of mood, for the welcoming look vanished, and she said without elaboration, “He’s under the table.”

“He’s not dead!”

His shocked expression softened her considerably. “No. The doctor gave him poppy juice.”

Mrs. Trent choked back tears. “Oh, your lordship,” she said, her voice cracking, “thank God you’re here.”

The doctor was looking at Case curiously. “The dog will be fine,” he said, “though he’ll need constant care for the next little while. A nasty knife wound.” He patted his shoulder to indicate where Lance had been stabbed. “I’m Dr. Harvard, by the way.”

“Castleton,” said Case. “How do you do?”

The doctor inclined his head in acknowledgment. He was a robust man of perhaps fifty, with ruddy cheeks and strong, capable hands. He looked as though he smiled a lot.

Case sank to his haunches and examined Lance. The doctor had shaved the fur around the wound, but beyond that, there was little to see. A bandage covered his handiwork, and where the fur hadn’t been shaved, there were singe marks and the unavoidable soot.

He got up, dusted a film of ash from the chair opposite Jane’s, and sat down. “He’s a very lucky dog,” he said.

The doctor was still regarding him speculatively. Realizing that some explanation of his turning up in the middle of the night was necessary if Jane’s reputation was to be safeguarded, Case said, “My friends and I were dining in Highgate when we heard about the fire. Since I’m acquainted with Miss Mayberry, through my aunt, I decided to come and offer my assistance.” He looked at Jane. “Now tell me what happened. The constable seems to think that gypsies were responsible.”

“They were
not
gypsies,” she said. “One of them spoke Spanish, though the constable is sure it must have been Romany, and the other had a . . .” she paused, trying to bring the memory into focus, “not a cultured accent, but . . . I know it sounds strange . . . but no accent at all.”

Case knew why she was puzzled. In England, one couldn’t open one’s mouth without betraying one’s origins. Jane had an educated accent with just a hint of Scotland in it. Mrs. Trent and Ben had the Scottish monotone, in their case uneducated, that placed them firmly on the east coast. There was no doubt in his mind that the doctor had been educated at one of the better public schools. His own accent would best be described as cultured. It was an intolerable state of affairs, but a man’s accent could well be the deciding factor in whether doors opened for him or were firmly shut in his face.

“What did he say to you?”

“He knew my name, and that surprised me. And he said it was a pity I hadn’t slept a little longer. Oh, yes, and he told the other man, the one who cursed in Spanish, to put me out of my misery, but not to hit me too hard.” She positively bristled. “I didn’t think of it at the time, but now I see that it was Lance and the horses they wanted to kill, not me.”

The doctor said, “It’s a strange business. Gypsies would steal horses, not kill them.”

Case nodded. “Would you recognize these men again?” he asked Jane.

“No. Everything happened too quickly.”

“Start at the beginning,” he said gently, “and leave nothing out.”

It took Jane, Mrs. Trent,
and
the doctor to flesh out the story for him, with Ben occasionally rousing himself to add a few words. No one mentioned a pebble. There was no need. He understood that there would be no more pebbles from now on, only a tide of rising violence, shades of the past when Piers played his tricks to demonstrate how vastly superior he was to any man.

She’d been lucky, he thought, damn lucky. If the horses hadn’t bolted, and if Ben hadn’t let off that shot . . . He looked down at the burns on her hands, now beginning to blister, and he unconsciously took a long swallow of marmalade tea from a cup that someone must have put in his hand without him noticing.

The doctor was speaking. He’d been out at a deathbed watch, he said, and was returning home when he saw the fire. No, he didn’t see the men who started it. He’d wakened a neighbor and sent him to get help.

He got up and said he had to go. “Wear white cotton gloves at all times,” he told Jane. “And don’t use your hands till those blisters have healed or they could turn septic. As for you, young man,” to Ben, “ah, he’s fallen asleep. I’m worried about that arm. It took quite a wallop when the gun went off.” He looked at Mrs. Trent. “Don’t let him use it until I say otherwise. Would you mind showing me out?” And bidding everyone a cheery goodnight, he left the room with Mrs. Trent.

Case, who’d risen at the doctor’s exit, sat down again. He watched in silence as Jane struggled to pull a cotton glove over the fingers of one hand, then, when she winced, he took the glove away from her.

“These gloves are no good,” he said. “Look at them! They’re smeared with soot.”

“They’re clean on the inside, and that’s what matters.”

She would have started over, but he took her wrists in a loose clasp and pulled her hands toward him. She didn’t struggle, but sat there passively as he examined the burns and blisters she’d sustained when she’d dragged Lance from the barn.

“These look painful,” he said softly.

“Well, they are, though at the time, I didn’t feel anything.”

He looked up. Their eyes held. She’d never been closer to weeping. Then his expression changed and he let her wrists go.

“You could have died in that inferno.” Just thinking about it stirred the incipient fear—and anger— making his voice harsher than he knew. “I know Lance means a lot to you, but no animal is worth a human life.”

“I didn’t debate whether I should save him. He was there, just a few feet inside the door. How could I leave him? I didn’t think about it.”

He got up and began to pace. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t leave Lance, but you left a frightened boy all alone with those fiends. They could have locked you in the barn and turned on him and on Mrs. Trent too.” Just thinking about it made him want to yell at her.

“What would you have had me do?”

“What any normal woman would do. Back off and—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she interjected, as angry as he. “Ben was armed. I told you the men scattered when the horses came thundering through the doors. Lance was only a few feet away from me. I had to save him. But that’s not why you’re angry, is it? You knew something was going to happen. That’s why you’re here. I don’t believe the story you told of dining with friends in Highgate. You know who set fire to the stable, and you feel guilty. Who was it? Who?”

She was right up to a point. He did feel guilty. But that’s not why he was angry. This woman didn’t seem to be afraid of anything, and that could be fatal with someone like Gideon Piers. But, of course, she hadn’t known whom she was dealing with, or how vicious he could be. If Piers ever began to think of her as an enemy . . .

He breathed deeply and turned to face her. “I think the man without an accent is Gideon Piers. I think he started the fire. The message wasn’t for you but for me.” He paused, studying her. “You don’t look surprised.”

Her brow was knit in a frown. “I
am
surprised, but I’m not shocked. I’ve been wondering about Gideon ever since you questioned Letty about him. He was missing in action, that’s what the letter said, but his body was never found. Is he La Roca?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But why would he want to hurt
me?
That’s what doesn’t make sense. Couldn’t it have been someone else?”

He sat down again. “I know it was Piers,” he said, “because you’re not the only victim connected to me.” He knew she was too quick to accept evasions, so he told her about La Contessa and Amelia, then worked back to Spain when he and Piers first crossed paths. He told her how he’d tracked Piers for months before finding his hideout. “I’ll spare you the details,” he said, “but our cat-and-mouse game evolved into . . .” he smiled fleetingly, “a duel, you might say, between the two of us. Honor could only be satisfied with the death of one or the other. I thought Piers was dead until Collier’s body turned up in Hyde Park with a pebble in his pocket.”

When she stared at him mutely, he went on. “He likes to play games, Jane. That’s all this was tonight, an elaborate game to punish me.”

She heaved a sigh. “I’m too tired to take this in. It seems so far-fetched.”

“Jane,” he said gently, “believe it. Why do you think I knew to come here tonight?”

When she shook her head, he said, “From now on, I want you to be on your guard. This man is truly dangerous.” And to drive home his point, he told her about the attack on Harper. “He might have killed Harper or you or the others.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“I don’t know, but I do know that so many deaths would have galvanized Special Branch into combing the country for him. That wouldn’t suit Piers, not until he’s won and I’m dead. Oh, don’t look so stricken. It won’t happen. He’s not nearly as clever as he thinks he is.”

There was something in his tone of voice, something in his expression that she found chilling. But at last he’d convinced her. It must be Gideon. As her focus shifted to Piers and the attack on her, the memory of her terror and sense of helplessness filled her with rage.

“What is it, Jane?”

She looked up at him. “I used to feel sorry for Gideon, but no longer! I had a clear shot at him tonight, and I hesitated. Well, I won’t hesitate to shoot him if he tries to terrorize me again.”

He had been lounging in his chair, but at her words, he straightened. She sounded as though she meant it. “You’d be dead before you pulled the trigger. I mean it, Jane. You were lucky tonight.”

“Well, I don’t feel lucky, and I bet La Contessa— what a silly name—and Mrs. Standhurst don’t feel lucky either. I almost lost Lance.” She put a hand down to touch her dog, remembered the burns on her hands, and pulled back a little. “And I would have lost my horses if it hadn’t been for Razor. You might say he saved the day.” She was becoming maudlin and sniffed. “He always looks out for himself, you know. And Daisy, well, she’s just a follower. That’s what saved her. I shall never complain about Razor again.”