Another Small Kingdom (5 page)

‘What now?'

‘Put the box somewhere, on your shoulder or on your head.' Macleod smiled. Bentley thought it a nasty smile. ‘Why not hold it between your legs, just under your crotch?' The smile widened to a grin, ‘Anywhere you feel comfortable.'

This is a damn fine time to find out that the bastard has a sense of humour, thought Bentley, and placed the box carefully on his left shoulder leaning slightly over to his right so that it balanced. It wasn't an easy thing to do under the circumstances. And if Macleod isn't still the shot he was in the army it wasn't supposed to be me who would suffer any consequences.

Bentley looked back down the gallery and called out. ‘I hope you haven't lost …'

But the sound of the pistol firing exploded through the cellar and pounded into Bentley's ears. The box was gone and he could see Macleod's mouth moving but, whatever he was saying, Bentley could only hear a loud ringing inside his head. He saw the lawyer removing two small pieces of wadding from his ears. Then Macleod pointed with the pistol at something behind Bentley on the floor. Bentley turned and looked down. On the floor behind him at the bottom of the cellar wall was the box. There was a neat hole in it, almost in the middle. He couldn't hear himself as he said, ‘Damn and blast the Scottish bastard, that surely was some shot.' As he walked back down the gallery the ringing began to subside and by the time he was at the table where the lawyer was cleaning his pistol his hearing had almost returned to normal.

‘I guess you could call it a hobby. I pistol shoot targets down here.' Macleod looked around the cellar. ‘Sometimes I buy a caged bird and let it out to see if I can hit it on the wing. It's something to pass the time.' Macleod took his dressing gown off its hook and put it on. ‘Now, shall we go back to the library and you can tell me what all this is about?'

Bentley nodded and waited while Macleod snuffed out the lights, picked up his lamp and left the shooting gallery.

Bentley followed well pleased with the evening. Yes, he would tell Macleod. He would tell him just enough to get the job done, but he certainly wouldn't tell him what this was all about.

Chapter Seven

M
acleod once more sat alone in the library with the blanket back round his legs but the night-cap ignored on the floor and the footstool still where he had kicked it. He was looking blindly into the empty fireplace thinking of what Bentley had told him, trying to make some sense of it. Amélie came in, went to the table and picked up the empty decanter. She turned to leave. Macleod stopped her.

‘No more tonight.' He wanted another decanter very much, but he also wanted a head clear enough to think about what Bentley had told him. Unfortunately he knew he couldn't have both. Amélie shrugged. She was well used to his late-night drinking. Lawyer Macleod hadn't gone to bed stone cold sober above a dozen times since his return to Boston at the end of the war. ‘Did you hear me and M'sieur Bentley shooting in the gallery, Amélie?'

‘I never hear anything. Perhaps I am deaf.'

Macleod smiled as Amélie left, then drank the whisky that was still in the glass.

To the world at large Lawyer Macleod must have seemed the embodiment of temperance. He had never been known to partake of any alcohol, no wine, no spirits, nor even ale. But in his own home at night, however, he felt free to seek some peace through fiery Scottish Highland malt whisky. But tonight's visit would make little sense if reflected upon through a haze of whisky fumes.

So, Bentley
was
connected to the Government in some secret way and Darcy was connected to Bentley. Now he was connected to both of them, though what that connection might mean for him he wasn't sure. And to make things worse it looked like the French Girl was back in his life. Well, he had never really believed he would remain free of her for ever. At least now she was out in the open where he could deal with her. He held out his hands, extending the fingers. They were shaking.

Chapter Eight

B
entley stood by the fireplace resting his arm on the mantelpiece, looking with disdain at the young man slumped in the chair.

‘Macleod was right, Darcy. You're a fool as well as a bad lawyer.'

Darcy sat in his chair feeling unwell. He felt sure it was the previous evening's dressed crab which had provided him with the nightmares, but it was the claret which had left him so very fragile. The way he felt, the last thing he wanted was Bentley haranguing him in his own rooms, especially at such an ungodly hour of the morning. It couldn't be more than ten at the most.

‘Well, Bentley, blame my family, not me, for being in the law. They're so damned Puritan. They would insist on my making a choice so that they could put me to something and, as I couldn't possibly be a military man, the law seemed a preferable choice to medicine. God, if I hadn't accepted being a lawyer, the only thing left was to end up as a damned parson.' He pulled petulantly at his robe and looked miserably at his expensively slippered feet. ‘As for being a fool, you wrote that part for me. If the actor's a fool, it's only because the writer chose to make him one.' When he looked up he saw that Bentley, sitting opposite him, was regarding him in a most unpleasant manner. Darcy decided he wasn't up to being defiant in his present condition. The dressed crab was still preying on his mind and his stomach was still protesting about the claret. ‘Look here, Bentley, we both know that my lawyering is only a sham and will be over in a year at the most. So long as I have a few clients the charade will hold good. I'm not supposed to be doing it for the income, am I? I have my own money. I'm supposed to be playing the lawyer so as to have a reason to be here and move in Boston society. Isn't that what we agreed? I thought antagonizing Macleod would be all of a piece with the part I've been given. He's as sharp as I am shallow and it's well known that he thinks me a jumped-up nincompoop. It's good sense that I make him the butt of my humour among the younger set. That or something like it is just what they'd expect. Mind you it's so easy to dislike the dull block that I have to say it certainly isn't a hard part to play.' And Darcy surprised himself by managing a smile. Bentley shared the smile as he delivered the message which had been the reason for his early morning call.

‘Well the dull block, as you call him, is going to come to the club this evening and call you out. And in two days' time he's going to put a pistol ball in you.'

Darcy's smile vanished.

‘Call me out? For a mere nothing, a little laughter among friends at a silly name? Good God, Bentley, nobody duels any more and certainly not over a little private laughter. If he's mad enough to try it why, you can tell the authorities and have it stopped.'

‘And ruin my reputation alongside yours?'

Bentley watched Darcy as his words sank in. He had not been a party to selecting Darcy for the role of courier between Boston, New Orleans and Washington. Darcy, he had been told, was New Orleans' choice, but he knew the decision had, in reality, been made by the men in Philadelphia. It had been a choice made by the political side of things rather than the business side. So much for the judgement of politicians. Well, things would be different when the dust finally settled, and politics and politicians could be firmly put in their place. Bentley had already quietly sounded out two or three from the business side and knew the direction things would take when the whole affair was satisfactorily completed. From the responses he had already received, he felt sure that some of the politicians who were currently so necessary would rapidly become redundant once things levelled out.

‘You have two choices, Darcy. You can stay or you can run. If you stay Macleod will put a ball in you. If you refuse to fight you'll be dead in Boston in everything but name, and as useless to us as if you were dead in fact. If you run I promise you you'll have a ball in the back of your head before you're halfway to wherever it is you might be headed for. And you know I can make it happen. You know I've made it happen before.'

Darcy now looked really worried. He knew Bentley had made it happen before. He smiled weakly.

‘Great heavens, Bentley, we're on the same side aren't we?'

‘Are we? It all depends on whether you think having Macleod wound you is more of a consideration than the smooth running of our little bit of business.'

Darcy paused.

‘Wound me?'

‘Aye, wound you. Nothing fatal, nor even very dangerous. Macleod's an excellent shot and let's just say I feel I can persuade him to put a ball in you where it won't do any lasting harm.'

Darcy scented a resolution to his dilemma.

‘But what if he doesn't just wound me? What if he drops me, or what if he puts me in hospital for months? I don't say I'm all that important in the grand scheme, but just at the moment I don't think I can be dispensed with altogether, or immobilised even for a few months. Bringing in someone new could jeopardise things, Bentley, even cause a fatal delay. If you allowed that to happen who's to say how far you would get before the ball was in the back of your own head? I may not be as familiar with our partners in this as you are but from what I've heard and seen they don't seem a particularly forgiving lot. And they make their feelings known in the most direct manner.'

Bentley smiled. Darcy was playing his hand too strongly. Trying to threaten showed the weakness of his position. What to do? He wanted Darcy frightened enough to go through with the duel and take the wound, but not so frightened, that he might cut and run at the last minute. He knew too little about Darcy to be sure about him. Was he just weak, or was he fatally weak? Bentley looked at him lounging in his chair looking half frightened, half insolent, his left hand in his robe pocket, his right arm resting on the arm of his chair and his fingers playing with a crystal goblet on a side table. Bentley turned over the question in his mind.

Darcy would never stand at the wrong end of Macleod's pistol. He would say that he would, but in the end he would run. Unfortunately, as he had pointed out, just at this particular time he was needed. Bentley leaned forward putting his right hand casually into his pocket.

‘You're right-handed, are you not, Darcy?'

‘What if I am? What's that got …' but the enquiry was cut short. Bentley leaned forward and gripped Darcy's right wrist forcing his hand to the table. The glass Darcy had been holding smashed on the floor and the room filled with a scream as Bentley slammed down an open clasp knife pinning Darcy's hand to the table.

That first scream of pain was nothing, however, to the one which followed. Bentley's eyes held Darcy's as he slowly dragged Darcy's hand against the blade so that it cut through the flesh and came clear of the hand between the fingers.

Bentley released the screaming lawyer's wrist, pulled the clasp knife out of the table and casually lifted up the edge of Darcy's robe and cleaned the bloody blade before closing the knife and putting it back in his pocket. Then he sat back in his chair. Darcy was still screaming and looking in horror at Bentley, nursing his wounded hand with his sound one. The blood was flowing freely, staining his robe and dripping onto the carpet. There was a confused noise outside the room, then the door burst open and Darcy's manservant dashed in. He stopped dead when he looked at Darcy.

‘My God, sir, what's happened?'

Bentley looked at the man calmly.

‘Is this how you normally enter your master's room, all noise and shouting, without so much as knocking?'

Bentley's reproof, his calmness and his superior manner stopped the servant dead.

‘But Mr Darcy, sir. He's wounded.'

‘A slight graze. I'm sure it looks worse than it is. Just a lot of blood, making it look serious. It's nothing, not much more than a scratch really.' Darcy was still nursing his right hand in his left but whimpering now and giving an occasional terrified look at Bentley. ‘He's just cut himself on a broken wine glass. Go and get some towels and hot water to clean him up and bring some bandages to bind the wound.' The man looked at Darcy then at Bentley. On the floor by the table there was indeed a broken glass but there was no sign of blood on it. ‘Well, what are you waiting for, do you want the carpet totally ruined, man?'

The servant looked at the bloodstain on the carpet then turned and ran out. There was a pause while Bentley patiently waited until Darcy could finally manage speech.

‘God, Bentley, what have you done to me?'

‘I may just have saved your wretched life, Darcy, that's what I have done to you.' Bentley smiled a nasty smile. ‘But you needn't thank me now. I see you're upset, although why you should make such a fuss over a mere scratch …' Bentley stood up and walked to the fire where he put his hands behind him and pulled the tails of his coat apart and warmed himself. His manner when he spoke was as if he and Darcy were chatting to each other in the club. ‘Dammit, Darcy, you're behaving as if you would have preferred to have a pistol ball in you. I assure you it would have been considerably more painful. I know. I've had more than one musket ball taken out of me. Damned painful, very damned painful indeed.' Darcy began whimpering again so Bentley returned to his chair, reached across and caught hold of the lapel of Darcy's robe. His voice now was hard, the voice of command. ‘This is what has happened. We were laughing about something and you brought your hand down on a glass. It broke and you gave yourself a nasty cut. If anyone asks how it happened that's what I shall say, and it's what you shall also say.' Bentley let go of the robe and sat back. Darcy looked at him and slowly nodded. Bentley's club manner returned. He laughed. ‘And if our fine duelling friend Macleod wants to call you out he can. But he can't expect satisfaction until your hand is fully mended and by that time I shall have arranged for lawyer Macleod to be elsewhere.'

The pain of the wound had not diminished and Darcy was still very frightened, but the point Bentley was making did not escape him. One day he would revenge himself on Bentley but he would never again underestimate him. When he spoke, his voice had in it nothing but subservience.

‘I dare say you're right and I ought to thank you, but need you have been so extreme? Wouldn't a nick have served just as well?'

Bentley permitted himself a laugh.

‘Perhaps, perhaps, but a nick would have had you fit to fight too quickly. It may take me some weeks to get Macleod far enough out of the way. Anyway, I must be allowed my own little bit of fun. I don't get to use my knife much these days and I wanted to see if the old skill still lingered.' Bentley leaned forward, there was still a smile on his lips but his eyes told another story. ‘I was quick wasn't I, and you didn't see it coming?' The laughter died out of Bentley's eyes and suddenly there was no smile on his face. ‘Just remember that, Darcy, for that's how it will be, quick, and you won't see it coming. I don't want anything from you except your total obedience, and if I don't get it, well, I'm sure I've made my point.'

The manservant returned and came into the room with a bowl of warm water and some towels and bandages. Bentley got up and went to the chaise-longue where he had thrown his coat, hat and gloves on his arrival.

‘I'll take my leave now and let your man tidy you up.' He gave a short laugh. ‘I daresay you won't be playing a great deal of cards with that hand. In fact you won't be doing much of anything with it for some weeks. Damn lucky for you you're a lawyer and do all your work with your head, eh, and have a clerk to do your scribbling? Yes, I think you could say you were damn lucky, Darcy, damn lucky indeed.'