Corey McFadden (28 page)

Contrary to Eleanor’s vituperative accusations, he had no intention of being stingy with her. He had promised to look after her and he would honor that promise to the best of his ability. She would have a generous allowance, and perhaps it would do her good to learn a little discipline in living within it. She could continue with her parties; he had seen to it that the St. Bees house was large enough to accommodate a slew of her friends in style, and there was no reason why she couldn’t go on just as she had always done—at a distance from him and his bride.

There was a noise outside the door, a faint scratching sound. Had he been asleep, as usual at this time of night, he would have heard nothing at all. He had the last room at the end of a long corridor on the top floor. He had selected this room based on its distance from the common room below and the relative lack of hallway traffic. Well, he thought, turning over on the scratchy sheets yet again, someone was abroad in the night, but it did not concern him.

There was another scratching sound. Already annoyed that he was unable to sleep, Giles sat up. It was no good. He could see nothing. The room was nearly pitch dark. He had let the fire die down and now he could make out only a few bare embers glowing. There was no moon out tonight, and he had shut the curtains against the early morning sun.

Then he saw the line of the door frame move a bit as the door began to open slowly. His mind raced. He had no pistols and no knife—he had no reason to go armed about Dufton. But he had his fists, and many a man could attest to his talents in that regard, a weekly boxing match being part of the immutable culture of Dufton.

Here, perhaps, was another piece of the puzzle that had bedeviled him over the past two weeks. Under normal circumstances, no one would attack him in Dufton, of that he was certain. He had no conceivable enemies here, and anyway, in Dufton, disputes between men were settled like men, by fisticuffs, not an assassin’s knife in the dark. He was sure it was not Sally, the tavern serving girl. While he had occasionally availed himself of her willing services, it was a business relationship only, and she had gladly accepted the little sack of gold sovereigns that he had pressed on her as a parting gift before his wedding.

Watching the bulk appear against the faint light of the hallway as the door swung silently open, he hoped it was a knife and not a gun he would have to deal with. The intruder could not see him, he was certain. The man came from the hallway where a single candle burned on every level, faint, but spoiling his night vision.

He waited. The shape came closer to the bed, then stood over him.

As fast as an adder’s strike, the intruder’s arm came up. Giles saw a faint glint. Good! A knife, he thought, as his arm came out to grasp the other man’s arm, his fingers like steel around his wrist.

“Drop it!” Giles growled, twisting the man’s hand down to his side. Leaping from the bed, Giles grabbed his would-be assassin and spun him around, catching his arms up behind his back and ramming his knee at the back of the man’s legs. His adversary buckled to the floor, a howl of pain coming from him as the knife clattered from his hand. Giles could see little, but from the stench he judged the man was none too clean and had been drinking. Now he knew who it had to be. He kicked the knife away.

“Good evening, Mr. Duffy,” he said cordially, digging his knee sharply into the man’s back as he knelt on top of him. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, sir?” Giles reached for his neckcloth on the chair by the bed, and tied Duffy’s hands together tightly behind his back. Tying his stockings together with a tight knot, he wrapped them around the man’s feet and bound them tightly. Judging Duffy to be secure for the moment, Giles rose and took his candle over to the fireplace, blowing up the embers enough to kindle a flame at the wick.

“Much better,” he said genially as the light sprang up around the room. “Now,” he said, seating himself on the bed. “Start at the beginning and tell me what this is all about. When the cart came down on me a few weeks ago—were you trying to kill me then? It was you who neglected to fix the bricks in place. We are certain of that, Mr. Duffy.”

“I told ye before,” Duffy spat, his face down on the dusty floor. “’Twere an accident. Ye had no cause to go dischargin’ me fer an accident!”

“It wasn’t the first bit of willful negligence on your part, Duffy, and you well know it. There were several other instances, and you had fair warning.” Giles eyed the form on the floor. He knew the flimsy bonds would not hold long, but so far Duffy did not seem inclined to test them. He was a big, strapping man, but even from here Giles could smell the whiskey about him, that habitual alcohol smell that persisted day and night. The man was beyond redemption, Giles thought. He was a mean drunk. It was rumored that his wife had died from one of the numerous beatings he had inflicted on her, but there had been no new marks on the corpse and no way to prove the widely held belief. He had a daughter, but she’d run off after her mother died, doubtless to escape the abuse that would then have been directed solely at her. Of all the Dufton inhabitants, good and bad, he was the worst, his existence tolerated because he was one of them, but liked by none.

There was something incongruous about the appearance of the shape sprawled on the floor. Beneath the large man protruded a bit of red material, some kind of purple and lilac pattern apparent in the dim light. Where had he seen that material before? thought Giles. Recently, but where? Reaching down, he pushed Duffy’s bulk up slightly and grasped the end of the cloth, pulling it away from the man’s body. It seemed to be stuck down the front of his pants. Giles held it up and could see that it was a woman’s shawl.

Maggie Bigod’s shawl. She had had it wrapped around her and the babe yesterday when he had visited her. He had told her it was pretty, hoping a compliment would coax a smile from her. She had smiled, and told him that her Jimmy had spent a great deal to buy it for her when the first of the babes was born. It was her prized possession, she had told him, the prettiest thing she would ever own. And her face had crumpled again in front of him.

“Where did you get this?” Giles asked, his voice harsh. There was no response from the form on the floor.

A swift kick brought a grunt from Duffy and an unseen grimace from Giles. He should put his boots on before he started kicking information out of the man!

“I asked you a simple question, Mr. Duffy,” Giles spat out. He seized the man’s hands and pushed them again, hard, up his back. “I know this shawl belongs to Mrs. Bigod. She would never have given it to the likes of you. Why did you steal it?” Giles leaned over and picked Duffy up, turning him over on his back so he could see his face. The man’s eyes were mutinous, and he held his tongue.

“I can summon the magistrate now, Duffy, if you’d like. You will be hanged in a matter of days for trying to kill me. Or I can ask for mercy and get you some gaol time instead. It’s your choice, Duffy. Now, let’s see if you can remember. How did you come by this shawl?”

“I took it tonight when they was all asleep,” was Duffy’s muttered response.

“Good. That’s a start,” Giles said coolly. “Hanging is not pleasant, you know. It often takes a good while before you die. Now, why did you steal Mrs. Bigod’s shawl?”

There was another angry silence.

“I really don’t care if you hang or not, Duffy. And most in the community would agree with me. Shall I roust the magistrate now?”

“I was told to leave it here. Make it look like ’twere she that knifed ye. Fer killin’ her man. It’s her knife, too.”

It was not surprising to hear that the shawl was to be planted, to make Mrs. Bigod appear to be the guilty party. It didn’t bear thinking of that this man would have let the widow hang for his crime, leaving three babies orphaned and penniless. But what surprised Giles was the implication that someone else had a hand in planning this crime. Up until this moment he had assumed Duffy was retaliating for losing his job.

“Did you kill Bigod, Mr. Duffy?”

“No! ’Twere an accident, I swear it! I went on site that night to do some mischief, to get ye to come back here. That was the plan. I saw the cart and Bigod below and I thought ’twould just nick him, like it did ye. I never meant fer him to die!”

“Do you know anything about an attack on me a few weeks ago in Carlisle?” Inquiry of the Carlisle constabulary had turned up no useful information as yet.

“Naught but that it failed.”

“Who planned this for you, Duffy?” Giles asked, his tone deceptively mild.

Silence.

“I asked you who told you, Duffy,” Giles snarled, aiming another kick at the man’s ribs. “You know, I don’t really have to call the magistrate at all. I can slit your miserable throat right now. I believe the mayor would give me a medal for it.” Another kick brought a moan from the bulk on the floor.

“One more time, Duffy. I am not a patient man.” He leaned over and picked up the knife, allowing Duffy to watch him run a hand carefully over the blade. “She’s a good housewife, Mrs. Bigod is,” Giles said mildly. “It’s as sharp as a razor. You won’t suffer long.”

“It was yer man. Yer Mr. Hawton. He tried to cover his face up in the dark and put a hat over his hair, but I recognized him anyway from the way he walks, and he was ridin’ one of yer stallions!” Duffy’s eyes were wide, fixed on the knife blade that Giles was turning in his hand, letting it glint in the light.

“What?” Giles’s hands were at the man’s throat and he was lifting him off the floor by his shirt collar.

“It’s true, sir! I swear it! He gave me five sovereigns. Ye can look in my pocket if ye like. He told me ye’ve stolen all yer stepsister’s money. He promised me a permanent job at Queen’s Hall.” Duffy’s eyes were popping and he gasped out his words.

With a snarl, Giles threw him to the floor. Haw-ton. Hawton and Eleanor. And Joanna was at Queen’s Hall with the two of them!

He threw his clothes on, not bothering to fasten his shirt over his chest. He jammed his stocking-less feet into his boots and, grabbing his coat, made for the door, taking the candle with him.

He paused downstairs just long enough to rouse the innkeeper and tell him to summon the magistrate to take the prisoner away and hold him. Then he was off to the stables, saddling Red Devil in the dark. It was five hours to Queen’s Hall. Four, the way he would ride it tonight. God grant that he would not be too late….

Chapter Fifteen

It was just past midnight and the house was quiet. Eleanor had slipped downstairs in the dark and waited now in Hawton’s office with him. Her nerves were jangled to the point of madness, and she had brought in a decanter from the dining room.

“How much longer now?” she asked in a brittle, near hysterical tone.

“Anytime now, my dear, as I’ve told you,” he answered as patiently as he could. The woman would drive him mad. She was worse than a child on a long carriage trip. She must have asked him a half dozen times, as if he knew precisely where on Solway Firth the ship lay at this moment.

Fortunately, she could not see his face in the dark. They stood in his window which overlooked the sea. It was calm tonight with only a mild breeze to ruffle the black waters. Their eyes had been skimming the darkness for half an hour now, and he had to admit that his nerves were frayed, too.

“And when will your man take care of Giles, Hawton?” she asked peevishly. “When can we be sure he has done it?” This question again, more times than he could count.

“It will be happening even as we speak, Eleanor. I told you, he has instructions to wait until the inn has quieted down for the night. He will make his way up the back stairs and take care of it. But we’ll have to be very patient about finding out about it. We must wait until we are notified by the Dufton authorities. There is no reason to show our hand by acting anxious, as if we anticipate something. We probably will hear nothing until tomorrow afternoon.” He sipped at his own brandy, a concession to his nerves. “And don’t forget, you are going to be horrified and prostrate with grief. Can you do that?”

It was Eleanor’s turn to be impatient. “Of course I can do that!” she snapped. “I’ve told you that a thousand times.” She missed the rolling of his eyes in the dark. “What I do not understand is why you couldn’t have arranged to lake care of that little upstart of a governess at the same time.”

“I’ve explained it to you, my dear,” he said, the impatience now hard to hide. “It was too risky to try to arrange some sort of accident to them both here at Queen’s Hall. If one were only injured instead of killed, it would do us no good. As it is, she will die in a few days, and everyone will be certain she committed suicide because of her overwhelming grief. Just trust my judgment on this, Eleanor.” He had left off the “Lady” several times tonight and had heard nothing from her about it.

There was a slight winking of a light out at sea, so brief he wasn’t sure he had seen it at all. But the moon was dark and any light had to come from a ship.

“There! Look out and see if you see a light!” he whispered excitedly.

Again the light flashed, then disappeared. The ship must be riding swells.

“Yes, I see it!” Eleanor exclaimed. “Oh, Hawton! It’s going to happen! We’re going to be so rich!” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the lips. He suffered her embrace for a moment, then disengaged her arms.

“All right! Are you ready?” he asked, his voice urgent. “Please do not forget. No talking unless you absolutely must, and then only in a whisper. The girls have been drugged—just a bit, mind, because we need for them to be able to walk by themselves, but you’ll need to keep a sharp eye. Remember, they think they are coming to be legitimate servants, so do not say anything to set them straight. Can you do this?” he asked, grasping her shoulders so hard she flinched. “If you are uncertain, go back up to bed now. I can take care of it without you.”

“Of course I can do it!” she spat out, twisting out of his grasp. “Do you take me for an idiot? We have gone over all this a hundred times. Let’s just go!” She made for the door, her haughty anger apparent in the set of her shoulders.