The Marsh Hawk (15 page)

“Let me go, Rupert! I'm not going anywhere with you. I'll scream!” It was an empty threat. His grip was so tight she could scarcely breathe.

“I'm not going to let the bounder have you, Jenna. You've shared his bed, haven't you?” He shook her.
“Haven't you?”
He repeated. “I'm the only titled suitor you'll ever find now who's going to settle for used merchandise. You should be grateful. No one else will have you after this.”

She dug her heels into the damp sod, ruining the perfect lawn with deep ugly trenches in a desperate attempt to slow his progress.

“Simon and I are going to be married,” she gritted. “Let me go!”

“Hah!” he erupted. “Everyone knows he's diddling that ripe little packet of flesh he's carting all over Town. Don't you see, my dear, he may well marry you, but the lovely Lady Evelyn goes with the arrangement, part and parcel.”

It was unfounded, of course, but Jenna hadn't quite exorcised the demon, jealousy, where Evelyn and Simon were concerned. Though she knew there was nothing threatening of a physical nature between them, she couldn't help being a little jealous that they were together in London, enjoying the Season—the fetes, the opera, Drury Lane Theatre, Almack's—all that the ton afforded, while she was alone and miserable without him at Kevernwood Hall. That manifested itself in a fresh assault upon Rupert's shins, which earned her another slap. This time his fingers left marks.

His hand on her mouth prevented her scream now. Every step was taking her farther away from the house, and help. The strong hand clamped around her arm bent it behind her back. He was propelling her toward the sound of horses whinnying unseen among the budding apple trees. She made a valiant struggle, and he needed both his hands to restrain her. With her mouth free, her screams grew louder and more desperate. All at once he spun her toward him and his cruel lips reduced the sound to a whimper. They siphoned off her breath, and she was close to passing out from lack of air as his hand on her breast tore at the thin, lace chemisette that rose high at the throat of her peach-colored lawn frock, filling her with a panic she had never experienced. It came with the realization that he had the strength to overpower her.

“Stop that!” he snapped through his teeth, shaking her. “I'm doing you a favor, damn you, Jenna. Our union will save your reputation. You'll still be received—still be welcomed by the ton. I can do that for you. Can he? The man is ostracized from polite society. He's a revolutionary. I can lay the ton—the whole world—at your feet.”

“I'd rather die!” she shrilled. “And you are the one who is ostracized, Rupert. The ton does not favor backstabbing cowards. It is you who have fallen from grace.”

His eyes dilated with rage, Rupert drove her down into the woodbine at the edge of the path and fell upon her there, anchoring her hands to the ground at her sides.

“You'd lie down for him—and have done, I'll be bound. You belong to
me
, and I mean to have you.”

She screamed at the top of her voice, but his savage mouth cut it short again. It was no use. Pinned beneath him, she couldn't break free.

All at once a thunderous shot rang out close by, and Rupert's head snapped toward the sound. As he scrambled to his feet, Jenna rolled out from under him, scrabbled up, and ran straight into the arms of Vicar Nast, who had come running from the direction of the tower with a smoking pistol in his hand. Meanwhile, Emile Barstow, armed with an obsolete flintlock rifle, sprinted over the courtyard with the agility of a man half his age and three stone lighter, as Phelps converged upon them coming from the manor. They reached her in seconds, but after another warning shot from the vicar's weapon, Rupert fled to his waiting carriage and escaped.

The vicar made brief eye contact with Phelps and glanced in the direction of the tower, which loomed darkly in the shade of the orchard, meanwhile gesturing with the pistol, still trailing smoke. Watching the exchange, Jenna caught a hitch in the valet's expression, but the groom distracted her before she could analyze it.

“Are you all right, my lady?” he asked.

She glanced down, assessing the damage. Her dress was grass stained, the puffed left sleeve had been torn, and the high-waisted skirt of her frock had become separated from the bodice where Rupert had stepped on it. Her hair had come down. It hung awry about her shoulders. Her cheek stung where he'd struck her, her tooth had pierced her lip, and she dabbed at the blood with her handkerchief.

“Yes, thank you, Barstow,” she said. “But for the obvious, I'm just winded.”

“Good God, man, put that thing down before you do yourself a mischief,” the vicar said to the groom, glancing at his rifle. “Is that the best you've got back there at the stable? The thing's positively antiquated!”

The groom scowled. “She may be old, but she still shoots straight enough, does Effie here—straight enough to pepper the pants of the likes of that jackanapes what just run off.”

“Well, I shan't argue the point, but, all due respect to ‘Effie,' I shall speak to his lordship about updating the arsenal at Kevernwood Hall at my earliest opportunity; you can count upon it.”

“As you please,” Barstow said, patting the stock of his gun with affection. “But I'll just stick to good old Effie all the same, thank you kindly, Mister Nast.”

The vicar handed his pistol to Phelps. Jenna couldn't bear to look at it, yet she couldn't look away. It reminded her of that night on the old Lamorna Road. It was a large piece, a twelveinch holster pistol. She admired the sleek walnut handle and smooth brown patina of the metalwork. She picked out the English Tower proof markings, and, on the center plate, the royal cipher. It wasn't a gentleman's handgun. It was a British Military Sea Service pistol; quite similar to the army type the thatchgallows had stolen from her father during the robbery. The very one she wished she'd had at her disposal for her mission that terrible night two months ago, and all the other nights that went before, when she'd gone searching for the Marsh Hawk. In its absence, she had chosen instead smaller, lighter flintlocks from her father's collection, overcoat-size models that weren't as formidable looking, but fit her hand more comfortably. She shuddered, reliving the instant she squeezed the trigger, and the vicar reacted, pulling her close in the custody of strong arms.

“You're trembling,” he said. “Let's get you back to the house and clean you up, then you can tell me what the devil went on out here.”

“Shall I send Peter to fetch the constable, Mister Nast?” the groom said.

“No!” Jenna cried. “Please, Robert, I don't want Simon to know!”

The vicar's eyebrow lifted and he soothed her against his shoulder, meanwhile shaking his head in a silent
no
to the groom. “We're going to have to talk about that, Jenna,” he said, steering her back toward the house.

An hour later, Jenna and the vicar were having lemonade in the gazebo, the groom had gone back to the stable, and Phelps had disappeared. She hadn't seen him since they left the orchard.

She had changed into an ivory-colored afternoon frock, with a Brussels lace scarf demurely obscuring the décolleté. The welts on her face had been painted with a paste Mrs. Rees had made of marshmallow root from the Heaths' herb garden, to reduce the redness and swelling.

She took a sip from her glass and sighed, glancing around the gazebo. They sat at a small wicker table, with chairs to match, that had been brought and spread with a cloth edged in Battenburg lace. A bowl of flowers from the garden squatted in the center of it, alongside a salver holding a crystal pitcher filled with the tangy refreshment.

“I was so enjoying this place before it . . . happened,” she lamented.

“That's why I had the lemonade served here,” the vicar confessed, “to erase some of the unpleasantness. Simon wouldn't want you to feel uncomfortable anywhere on his land.”

She cocked her head and studied him. The man was a mystery.

“You are very kind,” she observed, with heartfelt appreciation.

“Are you certain that you're all right?” he pressed, “That's a nasty cut on your lip there.”

She nodded. Her abrasions would mend. She was worried about Simon's reaction to them.

“Robert . . . I really don't want Simon to know what happened here today. I mean this,” she said.

The vicar set his glass aside and leaned back in his wicker chair. It creaked from disuse with his shifted weight. Those articulate eyes of his told her she had wasted her breath.

“Jenna, he has to know,” he murmured. “What's more, I've got to tell him before Phelps or Barstow or one of the other servants does. If I don't, and it comes out, which such things always seem to do, he's going to wonder why
you
didn't tell him. You don't want to start your marriage like that. Besides, look at yourself! If Mrs. Rees's famous cure-all should fail, I won't have to tell him.”

Her posture collapsed and she looked away. A bee had settled on the flowers in the center of the table, and she concentrated on its methodical course as it flitted from one bloom to another.

“He's going to think he has to challenge Rupert, and we'll have it all over again.” She groaned. “I couldn't bear another duel.”

“You mustn't sell Simon short. Rupert is no match for him. The bounder needs a comeuppance. He nearly raped you!”

“No, I was never in danger of that—not really,” she refuted. “Rupert views me as a possession. He takes loss badly. In his warped, egotistical mind he believes that Simon has stolen something that belongs to him. He was merely trying to take it back.”

“Hah!” he erupted. “You defend him well enough.”

“There is no defense for his behavior. I simply mean that I understand the way his mind works. That is why I left him.”

“And you don't think the man's dangerous?”

“I don't think he'll try it again.”

A guttural laugh rumbled in the vicar's throat. There was no humor in it.

“Well, I doubt Simon is going to want to take that chance, and I shan't advise it. You aren't going to convince me that you could have handled the situation if I hadn't happened along.”

He was probably right, but she wasn't about to tell him so. It didn't matter if he was. She would be more diligent next time.

“Where did you come from?” she said, deftly changing the subject. “And, what were you doing with that pistol?”

“There's a narrow road, more path than road actually, beyond the orchard that winds down 'round the quay. I often come that way. The distance is shorter,” he explained. “I saw the coach half-hidden among the trees. The driver was dozing. I was just about to wake him and ask him why he was loitering in Simon's orchard, when I heard you screaming. Lucky I came on when I did.”

“And the pistol? That was no pocket pistol, Robert; it was a military weapon, a Sea Service pistol, if I'm not mistaken. What ever would a vicar be doing with one of those?”

His eyebrow lifted, and he dosed her with his piercing amber stare. It was a look she'd almost come to fear. He seemed to see into the thoughts she was so desperately trying to hide.

“Astute of you!” he blurted. “You know your guns. I'd like to hear the whys and wherefores of that, I'll be bound!”

“My father kept a rather extensive arms collection—guns, swords, truncheons, tipstaves; I believe he was a frustrated Bow Street Runner. That's what makes the way he died so horrible. At any rate, he owned a pistol very similar to yours, except that it was army issue; he'd used it himself in the Colonies. But what were you, a vicar, doing with such a weapon?”

“It isn't mine. It's Simon's, the very one he used at Copenhagen. When he retired from duty, he lent it to me. There was a rash of church robberies at the time, you see. The vicar of a church on the outskirts of Wadebridge was badly pistol-whipped in his own vestry. I'm often on the road, traveling alone, and what with the threat of highwaymen in these parts, Simon thought I'd best have protection. I keep it in the cabriolet usually. I'm glad I had it with me today. I'd never really shoot anyone, of course, but it makes a god-awful noise. It scared Marner well enough, didn't it? A pity that decent folk have to resort to such tactics these days.”

“Were you . . . aiming?”

“Of course not. I might have hit
you
. I only fired a warning into the air. I'm a terrible shot, my dear.”

“I don't like guns,” she said frankly, cracking the paste that had dried on her cheek as she spoke, “and I don't like war. I'm glad Simon is out of it. I cannot believe that he's buying a commission for Crispin. The boy's so terribly young.”

“All men answer the call to arms, Jenna,” he replied. “It's in the blood—in the gender.”

“But not you.”

“No, not me. But I understand the drive. You need to understand it, too. Oh, I don't mean that you have to agree, of course, but if you love Simon, you need to understand his need to follow the call, and his frustration that he can no longer do so.”

“He's living vicariously through Crispin, is that what you're saying?”

The vicar sighed, weighing his answer. “To a degree, I suppose,” he said. “Part of him wants to do right by his brother—to do what Edgar would have done for the boy. It's a point of honor. Another part of him wants to secure the boy's future . . . in case something should happen to him, God forbid. And then there's the part that frustration feeds.”

“I'll never understand it,” she lamented.

“Jenna, Simon fought under Nelson during the Battle of the Nile. Nelson was rear admiral then. Simon idolized the man. He was in the thick of it, a lieutenant, and he watched Nelson rise. He was on the
Foudroyant
when she captured the
Genereaux
, but it was another, more experienced lieutenant, Lord Cochran, who, as prizemaster, took her into Port Mahon. Afterward, Cochran was given command of the
Speedy
, a fourteen-gun brig.”