Dangerous to Hold (38 page)

“That’s exactly what I mean. He’ll go after chose papers and sketches first, of course.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

The major stared thoughtfully at the newspaper in his hands. Finally, he folded it and set it aside. “We’re not going to do anything,” he said. “Perhaps Wrotham can succeed where we have failed. If he wants our help, he’ll ask for it. We’ll keep out of it, Crabbe. That’s what we’ll do.”

Later that evening, in Watier’s club,
The Journal
was passed from hand to hand. Some of the comments were admiring, others derogatory, as they discussed an English girl who had dared to become a partisan. Except for Peter Farrel, no one connected the article with Marcus’s wife, though there was speculation about whether or not Catalina might be familiar with the anonymous English girl.

Penn was there, but by this time he was lost in a pleasant brandy-induced haze, and though someone put the paper into his hands, he barely looked at it. He was thinking that Marcus had been wrong to think that he couldn’t stop drinking whenever he wanted to. They’d been in town now a number of weeks—he couldn’t remember how many—and in that time he hadn’t had a single drop of brandy. Tonight was different. This was an all-male party. Not to drink would be rude. He’d have one more and that would be the end of it.

He tried to rise, but his legs buckled under him. His companions thought it was a great joke, and one of them put the brandy decanter on the table right by his elbow. Penn looked around at his smiling companions. Some of them, he decided, were in worse shape than he.

Some of the brandy spilled when he tried to pour it into his glass, and Lord Dowling said, slurring the words, “I can’t believe I used to think you were a Methodist.”

Everyone laughed at this, and no one laughed harder than Penn. At that moment, he felt as though he had the world in the palm of his hand.

Dowling’s joke sparked others, each worse than the last. There was no offense meant, and Penn didn’t take offense, since the gist of it was that Penn had surprised them all. He really was one of them. It was a good feeling.

“And I,” said Roger Beattie, determined to top them all, “thought you might very well turn out to be a murderer.”

“A murderer!” exclaimed Penn, dissolving into laughter. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

Roger’s remark was seconded by first one gentleman then another. Peter Farrel said nothing. He was watching Penn intently.

Beattie held the floor, something he didn’t do very often, and he made the most of it. “We’ve all talked about it,” he said, looking from one face to another, “and we all have our different opinions. I think this Spanish vendetta thing is a diversionary tactic.” When he saw Penn’s blank look, he went on, “Some months ago, there was an attack
on Marcus in Hyde Park. More recently, he’s either sent his wife home to Spain or he’s hiding her away somewhere. Obviously he thinks her life is in danger. Well, I ask you, who has the most to gain if Marcus were to die?”

“Who?” asked Penn.

“Why, his heir, that’s who, not some Rifleman who would stick out like a sore thumb if he came anywhere near an English officer and gentleman. And the same goes for a Spanish peasant. You, Penn. I’m talking about you.”

They went in to dinner on a great gale of laughter. The conversation moved on, but Penn couldn’t concentrate. There was something bothering him, something in that last conversation of Beattie’s of vital importance, if he could only clear his mind.

He forgot about it when the burgundy was served. Not to accept a glass would only make his friends self-conscious, and he really didn’t like to be called a Methodist.

Murderer.
Someone had called him a murderer. The thought came to him intermittently as dinner progressed. Fragments of Beattie’s conversation came back to him, but it was a long time before his befuddled brain began to make connections.

Suddenly lurching to his feet, he roared, “Call out the militia!”

His companions stared at him in blank shock then went off in peals of laughter. Penn pushed back his chair and stumbled toward the door. He didn’t get very far, before his legs buckled under him.

Farrel took him home in a hackney. By this time, Penn could hardly remember his own name. The last thing he remembered as his valet put him to bed was that he had to find his brother and tell him everything.

Catherine read her own article in
The Journal
for what seemed like the hundredth time, then, throwing the paper aside, she sighed, picked up her pistol, checked it for what seemed like the hundredth time, and set it carefully on the table by her elbow.

Amy looked up from the book she was reading.

In reply to that look, Catherine smiled faintly. “I’m probably worrying about nothing. In fact, the more I think about it, the more absurd I think we all are. No one’s going to take Marcus’s bait. Whoever it is must know that if I’d had anything to go on, I would have done something about it before now.”

Amy set her book aside. She wasn’t really reading it. She was as restless as Catherine and couldn’t settle to anything. “I think you might be right,” she said.

This did not pacify Catherine. “At the very least, Marcus should have had the decency to tell me what’s going on. After he picked up my article and sketches, he never showed his face here again.”

Amy said reasonably, “Cat, he knows what he’s doing. He’s afraid I may be the next victim. You have your part to play looking after me.”

“I know. It’s just that I’m so afraid he’s going to handle this on his own, with no one there to help him.”

“A moment ago you said you didn’t think anything was going to happen.”

“I know. I know. Shall I ring for tea and biscuits? I know cook has gone to bed, but the footmen are still up.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Neither am I.”

Their eyes met, smiled, and parted. For three days they’d been confined to the house and gardens while they waited for this particular issue of
The Journal
to come out. They were comfortable with each other now. They’d done a lot of talking in that time, though mostly of their early years. The one thing they had not talked about was the future.

“Talk to me … tell me about Wrotham, about Marcus’s family,” said Amy, not liking the look that had come into Catherine’s eyes.

Catherine shook her head. “It’s no use, Amy. I must go to him. If anything happened to him and I wasn’t there to help him, I would never forgive myself.”

Amy started to protest, then thought better of it. If it
were
El Grande
, she would have felt the same way as Catherine.

“Then be careful,” she said, and surprised herself by adding, “And God go with you.”

El Grande
returned to his cell after a night on his knees in the Abbey’s chapel. His prayers had been answered. He knew exactly where he was going from here. Tomorrow, he would leave the monks of Marston and never return.

The latest issue of
The Journal
was lying on the small table that served as his desk. He was surprised to see it there, but his surprise lasted only a moment, until he found Catherine’s article and sketch.

Seating himself, he began to read.

A few minutes later, when he threw off his monk’s habit and began to dress, his face was grim.

In Heath House, Marcus rubbed his eyes, yawned, and stretched his cramped muscles. He had been keeping vigil in the closet where Cat kept her Spanish mementos and now he was ready to give up. Through a crack in the door, he could see through the French windows, and though it was still dark outside, a sliver of light had crept onto the horizon. Soon it would be dawn. It seemed that he had miscalculated. He’d been so sure that the murderer would come tonight that he’d taken the precaution of sending the McNallys away.

He had his hand around the edge of the door when a flickering shadow appeared at the window, then a face. There were no candles lit, for Marcus hadn’t wanted to frighten his quarry away, but he’d deliberately banked up the fire, and the glow from the embers gave a weak light. He cradled his pistol in the crook of one arm and waited.

There was a grating sound, then a click, and the French doors swung open, letting in a blast of cold wintry air.

The door was shut, and all was silent. The intruder moved to the desk and systematically began to go through the drawers, then a moment or two later, he passed the closet where Marcus was hiding. Marcus made his move.

“Halt, or I’ll blow your brains out,” he said, and stepped into the room.

The intruder turned slowly to face him.

“Drop your weapon,” said Marcus, “and put your hands in the air.”

El Grande’s
voice said, “I don’t have a weapon.”

“So, it
is
you!” said Marcus. “You heard me, put your hands in the air.”

As
El Grande
raised his hands,. Marcus took a taper from the mantelpiece, lit it from the fire, and proceeded to light several candles around the room.

“You’re making a mistake,” said
El Grande.

“Oh, yes, that’s what they all say.”

“I came to help you.”

Marcus smiled. “You came to kill Catherine, but not before you got your hands on her notes and sketches. You should have destroyed them when you had the chance. You counted on us not understanding the significance of what we had in our possession. It was a calculated risk and you lost.”

El Grande
gave a disbelieving laugh. “I don’t know anything significant that I should want to suppress. Let me repeat myself. I came here to help you. It was you, was it not, who sent me that copy of
The Journal?”

“I sent you nothing.”

“Ah, then it must have been Catherine.”

“I don’t believe you, and even if it were true, do you expect me to believe there’s some other reason for you to be here tonight? I caught you in the act. You were going through Catherine’s desk.”

“I was looking for a weapon. I know she keeps her pistol there.”

“A pistol?” Marcus jeered. “That doesn’t sound like the lay brother who was so sickened by the war that he never wanted to hurt anyone again.”

El Grande
said quietly, “I have come to terms with all that. And I’ve left my religious order now. But I see that nothing I say means anything to you.”

The heads of both men whipped round as the French doors rattled. The door swung open and Catherine stepped inside. In her hand, she clutched a pistol, but unlike Marcus’s, it was pointing at the floor.

“I could hear you out there in the garden,” she said. “What’s going on here?”

“Bloody hell!” said Marcus.

With the pistol still pointing at
El Grande
, he positioned himself so that Catherine was not in his line of fire.

El Grande
said, “I think he means to kill me. He has this insane notion that I’m the murderer. I came to help him, but he won’t believe me.”

Though Marcus spoke to Catherine, his eyes were trained unwaveringly on
El Grande.
“He came out here to kill you and steal your sketches. What the hell are you doing here? Stand back, Cat, and for God’s sake don’t get in my line of fire!”

“Will you listen to yourself!” she cried out. “This is my friend. He saved my life many times, and the lives of countless English soldiers. He saved your life, too, when you were ambushed by French soldiers.”

“I’m facing facts, Cat, and you have to face them too.”

“What facts?” she scoffed. With one hand on her hip, she stared doggedly into his face.

“You did his portrait. He can’t take the chance that it will be published in
The journal.
I think he’s preparing for something that’s about to happen, something that will make him publicly known. I think he’s going to kill everyone who knows he was once
El Grande.”

She cried out, “What about all the brothers at Marston Abbey? They’ve seen him. Is he going to kill them too?”

“To them, he’s Brother Robert. They don’t know him as
El Grande.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying all this.”

“Then why is he here?”

“He’s here because I bribed one of your servants to take him a copy of
The Journal.
I didn’t want you acting alone, and I wanted him to help you. He knows there is nothing in my notes or sketches to incriminate anyone. I told him so when we went to see him together, don’t you remember?”

Marcus said viciously, “The
El Grande
I know would have read
The Journal
and gone straight to the chapel to pray about it. He wouldn’t have come here, not unless he had a good reason.”

When Catherine started to protest,
El Grande
said, “There’s nothing you can say, Catherine, to make him change his mind.”

She stared at Marcus for a long time, then she turned aside. “Perhaps this will make him change his mind,” she said. Stepping right into the line of fire, shielding
El Grande
, she pressed her pistol into his hand.

El Grande
instantly pointed the pistol at Catherine’s head. “Don’t move. Now, Wrotham, put your weapon on the flat of the desk.”

Marcus cursed savagely but had no choice but to do as he was told.
El Grande
approached him, the pistol pointing straight at his heart.

Catherine stood back without a word.

“So you are both in it,” Marcus said, and the shaft of bitterness that twisted inside him made his voice harsh. “My first impression of you both was the right one.”

El Grande
spoke softly. “No, Wrotham, Catherine and I were never your enemies. I’m sorry Catherine chose this way to prove my innocence. But you will never question it again.”

He flipped Catherine’s pistol over and presented it to Marcus with the muzzle pointing at himself. “Take it,” he said. “And the one on the desk.”

Marcus slowly picked up both pistols.
El Grande
backed away, hands in the air. “If you think I’m guilty, shoot me. Don’t hesitate, shoot me.”

Marcus dropped both pistols on the table and he gave Catherine a look that froze her to the marrow. “Very
clever,” he said. “And very brave.
But what if you’d been wrong? ”