Strangers At Dawn Part 20

She cursed herself for the stray thought, and before her courage completely deserted her, she quickly pushed through the iron gate and entered the garden. Little hills and depressions, now covered with weeds, pockmarked the flower beds. This was where the constable and his men had turned over the earth in their search for William's body. They'd also made a thorough search of the house and found nothing.

Other memories were beating at the edges of her mind, demanding to be let in, but she resolutely pushed them away. She made her mind blank as she crossed to the house, mounted the stairs, and entered the hall. Here, she halted, and raised her lantern high to view the wreck the fire had made of this once-lovely house.

And wreck it was. Blackened beams littered the floor like grotesque coffins. There was no gracious staircase now, only jagged remnants to mark its pa.s.sing. She looked up at the roof. The light from her lantern did not reach that far, but she could see a patchwork of light and dark where the roof opened to the sky. Directly opposite her, facing the entrance, untouched by the fire, was the great stone fireplace with its inglenooks on either side.

The memory was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. They'd been playing a game of hide-and-seek, she and Anne, when she'd stumbled upon it. She was hiding in one of the inglenooks, and Anne was coming closer and closer. She could never remember afterward what insanity had made her decide to try and climb the lnglenook wall. She'd reached for one of the decorative bricks high above her head and had been left hanging when her feet lost their hold. As she'd tried to regain her balance, part of the chimney floor slid open.

They'd heard of priests' holes, of course, those hiding places for priests during England's b.l.o.o.d.y history, when Catholics were hunted down. There was one at Longfield, but it was no bigger than a closet. The one at the dower house was more like a small room.

She and Anne had told no one. For one thing, their father would have punished them if he'd known that they were playing in the dower house, and for another, they'd hugged the secret to themselves, as children do, feeling smug and superior because no one else knew about the room beneath the flagstone floor.

And it had remained their secret to this very day.

She swallowed hard and willed her pulse to slow down. Many moments pa.s.sed before she steeled herself to go on. With head bent, she concentrated on navigating her way over debris and around obstacles to reach the fireplace wall. Six feet from the hearth she saw them, and all the air rushed out of her lungs.

By some trick of fate, two ma.s.sive beams had fallen into the fireplace and barred her way. She might reach one corner of the chimney, but not the one she wanted.

She set down her lantern and pistol and tried to angle her body into the inglenook so that she could put her shoulder to one of the beams. It was impossible. A child might fit, but a child wouldn't have the strength to move the beams.

She wasn't ready to give up yet. She stood back for a moment, then came at it from a different angle, clasping the nearest beam with both arms and dragging on it with all her might. She gritted her teeth, feeling the strain across her shoulders and back, using muscles in her thighs and stomach she hadn't used in an age. She pushed, she pulled, she came at it from every direction. It would not budge.

Finally defeated, she sank down on a fallen beam. She could have wept. To have come so far only to meet with this brought her to the edge of despair. She didn't know what to do next. It would need a man or a team of oxen to move the beams. If she could find a lever of some sort, or a length of rope, she might stand a better chance.

She was reaching for the lantern when she heard a small, stealthy sound, like the crunching of gravel underfoot, coming from just outside the entrance. Her head whipped up and she listened intently. When it came again, she reached for her pistol and blew out the lantern.

Max's head jerked, dragging him from sleep, and he stretched his cramped muscles. It took him a moment to come to himself. He was fully dressed and had fallen asleep in a stuffed armchair. Simon's chair. Simon's room.

He stretched again and got up. The candle was beginning to sputter, so he lit a fresh candle he found on the mantelpiece. It was three o'clock in the morning, and still no sign of Simon-or Martin, for that matter.

What in Hades did they get up to till this time of night?

Stupid question. When he was an eager eighteen-year-old, he'd got up to plenty, and his parents hadn't known a thing about it.

He might as well give up and go to bed. He wasn't going to have that man-to-man talk with Simon he'd been promising himself. But they'd have it soon, because he, Max Worthe, mild-mannered and easygoing though he might be, had had his fill of quarrelsome, bad-tempered infants. He didn't think this was a quarrel they would settle with words. Their fists, more like, but all done in a gentlemanly fas.h.i.+on, of course, one Corinthian to another.

In short, he was going to beat the living daylights out of that whelp. That was the only way to get Simon's respect. Martin, naturally, would follow Simon's lead. It was time Martin learned to live his own life instead of living in his brother's shadow.

Max felt in his jacket pocket and found a cheroot. He took the candle with him when he left the room.

Rising soundlessly, Sara edged her way to one side of the fireplace wall and flattened herself in the inglenook. Her pulse was racing again; her blood throbbed at every pulse point. Her breathing was becoming labored, so she pressed her lips together to stifle the sound of it. Slowly, slowly, she raised her pistol and cradled it in the crook of her left arm. She was sick with fear.

The minutes dragged by. From her position in the inglenook, she could see only one side of the hall. Because the upstairs windows were not boarded up and the roof was open to the sky, the darkness was not absolute, but marbled with paler shades of gray. One of those marbled shadows began to move. Then she knew it was a man.

He kept hard by the wall, moving cautiously as she had done when she'd entered the hall, to avoid fallen beams and masonry. His shadow merged with a darker shadow, and though she could no longer see him, she could trace his path by the tread of leather on debris on the floor. Occasionally he stopped, as though he, too, were listening for a sign of another presence.

He was level with her now. She could hear him breathing, smell him, feel his eyes searching the darkness for her. It wasn't her imagination. He knew she was here, and though she couldn't explain it to herself, she knew, sensed, that his purpose was sinister.

This was no vagrant looking for a place to bed down for the night. William's name drummed inside her head.

She longed to c.o.c.k her pistol but was terrified that he would hear the sound of the hammer going back. Safer by far to stay where she was and wait it out, even if she had to stay here all night.

He pa.s.sed by her, going to the back of the house where the family parlor used to be, and beyond that, the kitchen and pantry. She heard flint strike iron, once, twice, and panic rose in her throat. He'd found a candle or a lantern and was trying to light it.

A spate of thoughts tore through her brain. He'd been here before or he knew the house well; in another minute he would light the candle and discover her hiding place. He could be armed as well. She wouldn't stand a chance.

She had to get out of here before it was too late.

Though she was crippled by fear, she made herself move. Half crouched over, she began to grope her way to the entrance. She b.u.mped into something and sucked in a breath. Then she heard him. He wasn't moving stealthily now. He knew where she was and he was making straight for her.

Blind instinct took over. She hurled herself over beams, gained the front steps, and threw herself down them. Her feet had never moved faster. A few bounding leaps took her to the gate, then she was through it, and running for her life.

She screamed when he grabbed her from behind. She would have screamed again, but those powerful masculine arms suddenly tightened around her rib cage till she thought her ribs would crack. She squirmed. She kicked out. His grip did not slacken. Almost as frightening as his sheer brute strength was the silence of his attack. Not a word pa.s.sed his lips, not a threat or a warning. All she could hear was the harsh sound of his breathing.

When he lifted her off her feet, she flung back her head and connected with his face. He swore and relaxed his grip. Maddened by fear, Sara wrenched herself free, then in one lightning movement, lashed out with her pistol. The force of the blow made her cry out. Her a.s.sailant groaned and fell back. Sara whirled away and made a dash for the cover of the trees.

She was sobbing in sheer animal terror as she tore through a wilderness of briers and holly bushes. She wasn't looking for a place to hide. Like an animal of the wild, the quarry of a predator, she was panicked into a stampede.

It seemed like forever before she saw Longfield's porch light winking at her through the trees. She didn't slacken her pace. Though she had a st.i.tch in her side, and her legs were cramping painfully, she made her feet move as if every moment would be her last.

As she hurtled out of the trees, a dark figure loomed up in front of her. She gasped and tried to check herself, but her momentum carried her forward. When strong arms closed around her, Sara went wild.

"Sara, will you stop struggling!"

Max's voice! It didn't calm her. In fact, it only enraged her, but she stopped struggling. "You!" she choked out. "It was you back there!" She sucked air into her lungs. "How dare you frighten me like that!"

Max looked over her shoulder. "Back where? What are you talking about? I've not long left the house. And what in h.e.l.l's name are you doing out at this time of night?"

"As if you didn't know. You followed me! You deliberately tried to frighten me!"

"I did nothing of the sort. I've been waiting up for Martin and Simon. They're still not back. I came outside to smoke."

As she strove to regain her breath, she blinked up at him, and it came to her that Max was keeping his temper on a tight leash. He was angry because he thought she'd crept out of the house to meet someone.

She hadn't the stamina or enough breath to argue the point with him. More than anything, she wanted to be inside Longfield's stout walls, with every door and window locked against intruders.

Making an effort to pull herself together, she said in a shaken voice, "I didn't go out to meet anyone, if that's what you think. Can we talk later?" She pressed a hand to her eyes. "I've just had the fright of my life. Someone attacked me just now."

Tears welled up. She couldn't help it. Max looked so solid, so safe. Everything about him was rea.s.suring, the faint smell of soap on his skin, the scowl on his face. She could tell that he'd been smoking, and though she hated the smell of tobacco, on this occasion, it pleased her more than the costliest French perfume. Even if she closed her eyes, she could still tell that she was with Max.

Max didn't pester her with questions. There was very little light to see by, but he could feel her whole body shaking. He put an arm around her shoulders and walked her to the back door.

"Where did it happen?" he asked quietly.

She s.h.i.+vered. She wasn't going to mention the dower house. "Not far from the house. Down there." She pointed vaguely behind her.

"You sound," he said, "as though you could use a large brandy, and it just so happens that I have a bottle in my chamber. Why don't you go there, lock yourself in, and I'll be up in a few minutes."

"Where are you going?" she asked quickly.

"I want to have a look around."

Her fear came back in a flood. "No! It could be dangerous."

"I know how to look after myself."

He released her, slid his hand into his coat pocket and produced a pistol. Only then did it come to her that her own pistol was missing. She couldn't remember where she'd dropped it.

Max said, "I won't go far. All I want is to make sure that no one is skulking around the house, all right?"

It wasn't all right, but before she could muster a protest, he had pushed her into the back hall, snapped the door shut, and locked it from the outside.

There were several unlit candles on a table just inside the door. She lit one from the lamp that was burning and, s.h.i.+elding the flame with one hand, pushed through the door to the servants' staircase, and quickly mounted the stairs.

She went to her own chamber first, meaning only to tidy herself, but when she'd lit several candles, and had taken a good look at herself in the mirror, she was stricken. She looked like a witch. Her garments were mired in soot and there were smudges of soot on her face as well; her hair was a mess and there were thorns embedded in her hands.

She sank down on her dressing table chair as in a daze, and stared at her reflection. How had it come to this? Her eyes lost focus, and thoughts she'd tried to banish to the farthest corner of her mind flooded into awareness as though a dam had burst.

When she came to herself, she jumped up, went to the clothes press, and chose a fresh gown. Then she began to strip.

*Chapter Seventeen*

The brandy burned her throat, but it wasn't an unpleasant sensation. After two or three sips, she felt a little better, and after a few more, she was able to describe the attack on her in a fairly level tone. She told Max only as much as she deemed was prudent. She didn't mention the dower house, but she showed him the note in William's handwriting.

She was upset, she said, and couldn't sleep, so she'd decided to go for a walk. Once or twice, she looked longingly at the door. If only she could have a few hours' rest, she'd be better equipped to answer Max's questions. She wasn't sure how much to tell him or what she should leave out.

Max had lit the fire, and they were comfortably ensconced in stuffed armchairs on either side of it. He looked tired and pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He wore no neckcloth, and his clothes were rumpled.

"Could it have been a vagrant who attacked you?" he asked.

"No." She paused as the memory came back to her.

"Why not?" Max prompted.

"He didn't smell like a vagrant." She smiled faintly. "I wasn't even aware of it at the time, but he smelled of cologne."

Max was staring at the fire. "Now let me see if I have this right." His voice was strangely uninflected. "This note was waiting for you when you went to bed." He held up the note that was written in William's hand. "You suspected that it came from William. And yet, you still went out, knowing that he might be waiting for you? "

She wasn't ready for this kind of cross-examination, not after what she'd been through. With each little lie, she was laying another trap for herself.

She said carefully, "I don't know what I thought, Max, but I certainly didn't expect William to be lying in wait for me. I couldn't sleep. I told you. I was upset. I went out for a walk. That's all there is to it."

He curbed his temper with an iron will. He knew she wasn't telling him the whole truth, but he didn't know how to force it out of her. It was obvious that she still didn't trust him, and that stung. But worse by far was his gnawing sense of helplessness. There was no question that she'd been attacked. If she'd come to him when she received the note, it would have never happened. He didn't know whether he wanted to gather her in his arms or shake the life out of her.

But he couldn't excuse himself either. He hadn't been convinced that she was in any real danger. He'd thought that the notes were malicious, the product of a warped mind. And that's all he'd thought.

He took a long swallow of brandy, then said, "I don't think it was William who attacked you."

"I might have said that yesterday, but not now. Surely this proves that William is alive?"

"Then why didn't he kill you?"

Her eyes went wide. "What? "

He said levelly, "If it were William, wouldn't he want to kill you? You've told me often enough that he wants you dead so that he can claim the Carstairs fortune through Anne. So why didn't he come armed to do the job? He wasn't armed, was he?"

She shook her head slowly. "I don't know. But I fought him tooth and nail. Maybe he wanted to make it look like an accident."

He thought for a moment, then finally said, "We can't overlook the possibility that it was someone else."

She shrank back in her chair. "No," she said. "I won't believe that."

"Sara, you must face facts. Who had access to your bedchamber? Who could have left you that note?"

She said quickly, "William could. He knows the house well. He could have slipped in when we were at the dining table and no one would have known."

He went on regardless. "It could be Simon. Or Martin. They left the dining room first and they still haven't come home."

"That's absurd." Her throat worked convulsively. "They wouldn't hurt me. They've probably stolen away to go to a c.o.c.kfight or something. It wouldn't be the first time they've stayed out all night."

She was shaken, but so was he, and he was determined to drive home his point. "Or Anne could be behind it. She left the dining room, and she has the most to gain if something were to happen to you. Oh, I know she didn't attack you personally, but she might have had an accomplice."

"No," she said. "No! I won't listen to this."

His voice turned savage. "And let's not forget the inestimable Mr. Primrose. Maybe he'd rather you were dead than see you go to another man. With Constance, of course, it could be jealousy or some other motive we have yet to discover. It could be anyone, Sara, anyone. Do you understand?"

She put her gla.s.s down and slowly got up. Her eyes were naked with pain. Her voice shook so hard, he had to strain to hear her words. "Why are you torturing me like this? Can't you see it isn't necessary? I'm not stupid. I know well enough that if it wasn't William who left me that note, it must be someone close to me. And do you know something?" Her voice rose shrilly. "I don't want to know who it is. I don't want you to investigate. I don't want you to entrap anyone. I want you to leave it alone, Max. Just leave it alone."

He'd miscalculated. She was more shaken than he'd realized. He put out his hand in a placating gesture. "Sara, I'm sorry. You're right. It's probably William, or someone we haven't thought about yet. Look, I was only trying to convince you that you mustn't take foolish risks. It's too dangerous."

"Dangerous!" She plowed her hands into her hair. She said bitterly, "There wouldn't be any danger if I hadn't listened to you. I should have followed my original plan. I should have married Mr. Townsend. Then this nightmare would be over. Everyone would be happy. Then we could go back to being a family again without all this suspicion poisoning our minds."

She swung away from him and began to pace. Her hands were still caught in her hair, clasping her head as if she were nursing a monumental headache.

He said quietly, "Sara, we're not going to leave things as they are. We've got to find out who attacked you, no matter who it is. You must see that."

She whirled on him then, a wild-eyed fury and she quickly crossed to his chair. "Don't tell me what I have to do! What do you know about it?" Her voice was cracking with emotion. "What good will it do if I find out that Simon or anyone else in my family attacked me tonight? It would destroy us as a family. We'd all have to take sides. Do you think I'm going to let that happen? Besides, you said it yourself. Whoever it was didn't try to murder me. Maybe all he wanted was to frighten me. I'm not judging him. Oh G.o.d, I'd be the last person to judge anyone. My father should have treated us all equally. He shouldn't have left everything to me. How can I blame my family for turning against me? No one knows what anyone will do when they're desperate or put to the test. But it's not too late. I'm going to put things right. I swear to G.o.d, I'm going to put things right."

She began to pace again. "If I raised my offer, maybe Mr. Townsend would still marry me." She spoke her thoughts aloud as they occurred to her, either oblivious or uncaring of his presence. "Yes, that's what I'll do. I'll make him an offer he can't refuse."

He came out of his chair.

"Should I write to him? No. It would be better to talk to him in person, don't you think? Tomorrow. I'll return to Bath tomorrow, then, I'll ... I'll ... "