The Burning (30 page)

“No you won’t. But I still plan to do some plunging. Quite a bit in fact.”

“I’m not crazy, you know. But I will be if you carry out your plan.” She said it straightforwardly, as sanely as she could.

He approached. He was only six inches taller than she was but still he loomed over her. She could see the slime on his teeth, smell his foul breath. She daren’t cower or run to the other side of the room. That kind of behavior would incite a bully. “I don’t care,” he said between gritted teeth. “In fact, that guarantees I can put you in an asylum. Your fifteen thousand a year will set me up nicely.” His pale blue eyes gleamed. “And no one blames a man deprived of a wife in the prime of life for taking his solace where he may.”

He tapped her forehead with the rolled license. She felt the men who had prepared it, the one who had rolled it and got a faint, distasteful echo of Erich himself. He was . . . weak. She knew that of course. He had . . . secrets. She couldn’t tell what they were.

He turned and headed for the door, yelling for Polsham.
She let out a breath when he disappeared, but he shocked her by putting his head back around the doorjamb. “Don’t think your Harrier friend will save you. He’ll be out of the way in a day or two. We’ll just protect our rooms at night and let nature take its course.”

He was gone.

Ann collapsed where she was on the floor, as though all the air had been let out of her. She was too horrified to sob. She looked around at the nursery as though it had become Katmandu or Peking. Her refuge had been transformed into a prison. What could be done? What could she
do
? Her uncle was now on the side of her persecutor, through the best of intentions for her welfare. She couldn’t upset him when he was so ill. The servants were helpless. Mr. Cobblesham had never been an intellectual light or a beacon of courage. He hadn’t even kept the chimney sweeps from taking children from the orphanage as climbing boys and virtual slaves. He wouldn’t help her against someone who would in the next days become a powerful patron.

Who might help her? Not Mr. Sincai. He had made it clear he had his own concerns. She would probably never see him again. Mr. Sincai wanted her to leave for London. It might as well be Katmandu or Peking, it seemed so impossible. She wanted her refuge back, and that meant ousting Erich somehow from Maitlands.

The squire! Squire Fladgate had the power to revoke a special license, didn’t he? He could not want an outsider to have Maitlands, especially one likely to be as pushy as Erich. After the episode at the gaol, he would have no love lost for Erich. Was he concerned enough to try to throw a spoke in Erich’s wheel? She would have to find out. It was her only chance.

Fifteen

Ann hadn’t slept a wink. The sun was full up and still she paced. But if she was to leave the house at all Ann had to do it now. Right now, so she might catch Erich off his guard. She hurried to the nursery door and peered out. The staircase was empty. She heard voices, faintly. Erich was engaging Polsham to board up the secret passage.

She lost no time but darted down the stairs. If she could make it to the stable . . . Another flight, past Erich’s room, and she was on the first floor. She peered over the railing from the hallway overlooking the great arched staircases that ran down to the hall below. She shuddered to think about the echo her footsteps across those great marble tiles would make. Surely Erich would catch her! She couldn’t go out by the kitchen. The voices came from that direction. They were arguing now. Good for Polsham! The French doors in the library . . . they gave out onto the terrace. She scampered down the stairs as fast as she could and took an immediate right through the dim Grand Salon with its dust-covered furniture, into the long library, and let herself out in the morning light.

Once Maitlands had required a staff of fifty, what with gardeners and grooms, footmen and undercooks and such. Now it was silent. The fish pond at the center of the formal gardens was cloudy and dull. The hedges themselves, once so neatly trimmed, had sprouted leafy prongs of disarray. Maitlands Abbey was dying.

She pulled up her skirts and dashed across the flagstone terrace. A tiny voice said that maybe having her gone would be better for Maitlands, that she was the reason there were no servants to keep it up. She swallowed hard and ran for the stables.

“Jennings,” she gasped as she put her head in at the huge barn, now holding only carriage horses and her uncle’s aging hack. “Jennings, are you here?”

He stuck his head out of the tack room, soap and a rag in his hand. His broad, solid face was creased in concern. “Miss? What’s wrong?”

“Could . . . could you harness my cart for me? I must leave immediately on an errand.” She struggled to get her breathing under control.

“Why, let me take you in the barouche, miss. It would be much more seemly.” He was dressed in polished boots, buff breeches, and shirtsleeves. His bottle-green uniform coat was hung on a peg next to the tack room door.

“Not necessary.” She managed a smile. She did not want to drag Jennings into this. If Erich won out and became master of Maitlands, his involvement would have consequences. “The cart will do, and you know very well I’m a good driver.” She had her own harness. Jennings kept it clean. That’s how she knew he was utterly trustworthy. She sensed it through the leather.

He must have seen the look in her eyes. He nodded briefly, threw the soap and the rag on a stool, and retreated into the tack room to retrieve the harness. In less than ten
minutes, Ann was scrambling up into the cart and taking the reins.

“Thank you, Jennings,” she murmured.

“Be careful, miss.” His voice rose to follow her, since she was even now slapping the reigns over the Haflinger’s creamy mane and tail. The cart clattered out of the stable yard.

The squire’s residence was on the far side of the village about three miles on. But she was betting she did not have to go so far. The woods flashed past the pony’s brisk trot. They would have discovered Sincai’s escape by now. The squire might well have been called to town. She might even meet them on the road as they came to inform Erich.

But there was no one on the road to Maitlands. With anxiety rising in her breast, she urged the Haflinger to a canter. The cart jolted over the road. She slowed him only when she reached the outskirts of Cheddar Gorge. She allowed him to trot by the Hammer and Anvil and up to the town hall. People in the street pointed and whispered. She tried not to notice. She needed the squire. She must focus on that.

Pulling up in front of the hall, massive and solid with its hewn stone walls, she leapt from the cart and patted the pony. “Good boy, Max.” The pretty blond beast was blowing. “Boy,” she called to an urchin nearby. “A shilling if you walk my pony up and down.” He rushed up, hand out. Max threw his head up and down twice and blew out a whicker through his flaring nostrils.

Ann went round back of the hall. A crowd there muttered around the open door to the two gaol cells. She could hear their fear talking.

“Just disappeared, he did.” This from Jemmy.

“The cell door was still locked, I hear,” Mrs. Scrapple cawed.

“All that garlic and such didn’t keep him in. What was Van Helsing thinking?”

“What was ’e that’e could get out through a locked door? Maybe Van Helsing was right.” Mr. Watkins sounded unsure, but there were several grunts of agreement.

The crowd turned. She stopped. Silence fell. “Is Squire Fladgate here?” she asked in a voice she hoped wasn’t tremulous.

“Do you have information?” The familiar stentorian tones carved a path through the crowd as they parted, heads pivoting. Squire Fladgate’s paunchy figure stood at the open door.

“I need to see you, sir.”

“And I need to see you, young lady.” He strode forward. The crowd fell away, muttering.

Ann swallowed. “Can we talk somewhere private? At the inn perhaps?”

“Did you have anything to do with this?” The squire frowned.

“With . . . ?” Ann looked around at the reflected accusations.

“With Sincai’s escape.”

So. Erich was right. They thought she was his partner. That would make her job more difficult. “Has he escaped?” she asked, craning to look around the squire’s bulky form.

“You’re a bad dissembler,” the squire accused.

“How could I have gotten him out of a locked cell?” she asked, trying for incredulity.

“Ye’re a witch,” Jemmy screeched. “Ye can do magic.”

“You think I got him out with magic?” She chuckled. “Surely, Squire, you don’t believe that. You are an educated man.”

The squire flushed. “He got out of a locked cell somehow. The key has been in Mr. Steadly’s possession here all night.” He nodded behind her.

Ann turned. The Bow Street runner had come up behind her. His eyes were dark blue and cold. His mouth was set in
a grim line. The crowd leaned closer. “Perhaps we can talk, miss?” He reached out and before she could pull away he took her arm just above the elbow.

Crashing sensation engulfed her. Steadly was under suspicion by his department for taking bribes. That was why he had been sent to what his superiors considered the hinterlands on this wild-goose chase. Their suspicions were true. His life flashed before her; an impoverished childhood, being taken in by a philanthropist, educated, rejected by his patron’s friends because of his background, finding his place in Bow Street, disillusion that corruption prevailed even there, joining the corruption, his shame and his relentless rejection of that shame. It all cascaded over her. She watched his eyes grow big.

With a supreme effort, she wrenched away and staggered to the side.

“Girl, where do you think you’re going?” The squire pulled her back.

Self-congratulation! Bitterness at his wife’s death. Angry confusion that he did not know how to talk to his son who was up at London doing the town and in dun territory. Determination not to let his position in the town be compromised by this incident.

Ann let out a cry. The squire let her go as though he had been burned. She careened through the crowd, bumping against first one and then another. Mrs. Scrapple hated her, hated Mr. Watkins, hated everyone. Jealousy bathed Ann, and . . . failing health. Mrs. Scrapple would die within the month. The ostler at the Hammer and Anvil thought Ann would make a fancy piece, and imagined her lying with her thighs spread in the hay. He wanted to take her but knew he couldn’t do it. His body always betrayed him, to his shame. It made him hate women.

Sensations showered over Ann. She thought she would faint. Breaking free, she stumbled into the lane behind the
hall, gasping. Nausea overcame her and she leaned on her knees, head down. The small sounds she heard in her ears were her own. “Leave me . . . alone,” she pleaded.

No one crowded around her now. Ann couldn’t hear anything as she tried to keep her mental balance. At last, she looked up. Mrs. Scrapple’s face was red and crumpled. Sound filtered in. The woman wailed. The ostler stood, shaking and pointing at her. Others in the crowd milled restlessly. A general murmur grew in anger. Finally she focused on the squire. His face was slack, his eyes unfocused, his chest heaving. Then his gaze turned to her.

“Y-y-you,” he accused. He swallowed. “You should be locked up. You are a menace.”

“I . . . must talk to you,” she panted. It was useless. She knew it even as she spoke.

The squire drew himself up. “Get in your cart. Your uncle must control you until we can find a more permanent solution.”

Ann’s heart froze inside her. Permanent solution?

“Get my horse,” the squire croaked. When the ostler did not move to obey, Jemmy leapt into action and fetched the beast. The crowd surged around to the front of the hall, leaving Ann a wide berth. Ann tottered in their midst.

“Jemmy,” the squire ordered. “Drive the cart. Get in the back, woman.”

Ann heaved herself up in the cart and fell onto her elbow, images of all that touching still careening around inside her.
A tumbrel,
she thought.
The cart feels like a tumbrel carrying a prisoner for execution
. The squire heaved himself into the saddle of a chestnut gelding.