Strangers At Dawn Part 28

The work began at once. Sara went through the motions of taking up her life again. She went to church services; she visited the local shops; she spent time in the sickroom with Max; but she was only biding her time until the dower house was ready.

From the very first, the day after the fair, Max knew something was wrong. He was confined to bed, and though Sara was pleasant when she read to him or shared his dinner tray, he recognized the look on her face. She was too calm and too pleasant by half. She'd withdrawn into her sh.e.l.l, shutting him out. He thought he understood why. She was afraid of her feelings, afraid to admit that she loved him because it would make her vulnerable. Well, that was too d.a.m.n bad. He hadn't been looking for love either, but now that it had found him, he didn't go around whining about it. It was done. There was no changing it. She might think that she could keep him at arm's length, but as soon as he was on his feet again, he was going to prove how wrong she was.

It came to him gradually that there was more to it than that. One of the workmen had found a pistol beside the path that led to the dower house, and he sent it up to the "master." The footman delivered it to Max. It belonged, he said, to Samuel Carstairs. No one knew how it had come to be near the dower house, but Max thought long and hard about the night Sara was attacked and he began to add things up.

His suspicions intensified when Sara suggested he might like to move back into his own room, just for convenience, and those suspicions solidified into convictions when he learned workmen had begun to clear out the dower house.

Peter Fallon was away for four days, and on his return, as he approached the front steps, Max, with a gla.s.s of brandy in one hand and a thin cigar in the other, came forward to meet him. It was late, and the candles had been lit. As a footman carried his box upstairs, Peter picked up a candle and led the way to his office. From the drawing room upstairs came the sound of someone playing the piano, a violent piece. Scarlatti, thought Peter, and the music suddenly stopped.

After the usual casual conversation between friends, he got down to business. "Drew Primrose," he said, "as far as I can determine, was not in Bristol the night William Neville disappeared. I checked the hotel where he was supposed to be staying; I checked with the clients he was supposed to have seen. Oh yes, he was there and he did see them, but one day later than he would have us all believe ."

"And it's only a day's drive from Stoneleigh to Bristol," said Max. He was doodling with a pencil on a piece of paper.

Peter stared at him for a moment. "That's it?" he said. "You send me to Bristol to find out if Drew Primrose has an alibi, and when I tell you he hasn't, you're not even interested?"

Max looked up. "I'm interested. Very interested."

"Or maybe you're still feeling under the weather?"

"I'm perfectly recovered from the fight, if that's what you mean."

"All right. But something has happened to take the stuffing out of you. What is it, Max?"

Max smiled, but there was no smile in his voice. "Small things that add up. You see, Peter, I think that tonight we've reached the crisis point. And now that you're back, you can be of great help to me."

"How?"

Max told him in a few clipped sentences, then rose to leave. Peter was still trying to recover from the shock of what Max had asked him to do when Max shocked him even more.

"Oh, by the way," said Max, "don't drink that brandy." He gestured to the untouched gla.s.s of brandy he'd left on Peter's desk. "My wife gave it to me and it's laced with laudanum."

He was seething with a resentment he could hardly master. They were husband and wife; they were lovers. She had no hesitation in giving him her beautiful body. But her heart wasn't his. He didn't think she had a heart to give.

He'd tried making excuses for her, and he knew that some of them were valid. Her caution had been learned in the harsh school of life. She hadn't survived by being free with her trust, and maybe she'd had good cause to distrust him in the past. But once they became lovers, none of that should have mattered. And it hadn't mattered until he'd practically asked her to give him the words. And from that moment on, a veil had come down. She'd cheapened something precious that had flowered between them and turned it into dross.

She must think him a simpleton not to have put two and two together. She couldn't seem to understand that he didn't give a d.a.m.n about William Neville. What he cared about was protecting her, but she still saw him as a threat to her precious family.

And, fool that he was, he might have forgiven her everything if she had not offered him, with her own hands and a sweet smile on her face, a gla.s.s of brandy that a schoolboy would have known was doctored.

He'd taken one sip and left the drawing room at once, because if he'd stayed, he would have been tempted to throttle her.

She would go to the dower house, of course, after she'd made sure that he was practically insensate with her laudanum. He would catch her in the act, and this time, by G.o.d, there would be no half-truths and evasions.

He went to his own room first, a room that he used only to store his belongings. If he'd agreed to his wife's oh-so-casual suggestion that he sleep in his own room, where he could smoke whenever he pleased, he might have been spared the laudanum. d.a.m.n her cheating soul to all eternity!

He found a gla.s.s just like the one Sara had given him and poured enough brandy into it to convince her that he had swallowed some of her witch's brew. His temper was on a short leash when he made his way to her bedchamber.

She was sitting at her dressing table in her nightclothes, brus.h.i.+ng out her long dark hair. She looked as fragile as a fine porcelain figurine. But Max no longer believed what his eyes told him. He knew she was as hard as nails.

He closed the door softly and crossed to her. She watched him in the mirror as he took a long swallow of brandy from the gla.s.s in his hand.

"You left the drawing room very suddenly," she said.

"I went outside to smoke a cigar. You have beautiful hair. May I?"

He put his gla.s.s down and took the brush from her. There was something different about him. With his tawny hair, he looked like a slow, sleepy lion and just as unpredictable. She glanced at the brandy gla.s.s and wondered if the laudanum had something to do with it.

Their eyes met in the mirror. He wasn't brus.h.i.+ng her hair. He was running his fingers through it, fluffing it out in voluptuous disorder.

"We haven't made love for several days," he said.

"No." She inhaled deeply. "Did you mind?"

He began to brush her hair. "Of course I minded. You're incomparable, my love. In fact, I'd say you're the most responsive, pa.s.sionate woman I've ever had in my bed, and that's saying something." He put the brush down and reached for his gla.s.s.

"Max, I don't think you should drink any more of that brandy. You don't sound like yourself."

He lifted the gla.s.s to his mouth and tipped it back. He smiled at her, not the smile she loved, but a twisted smile with a hint of cruelty in it.

"You know what they say," he said. "In vino veritas."

He put the gla.s.s down, drew her back against his thighs, and framed her face with both hands. Her heart was pounding; her fingers curled into fists.

"Do you know what I think, Sara?"

She shook her head. She was beginning to be frightened.

"I think ... " His words were becoming slurred. "I think love is highly overrated, don't you?"

She swallowed hard. "I haven't thought about it."

"Take us, for example. Take that first night in Reading. We didn't know each other. It wasn't love. What we felt was purely physical. I remember thinking that I wanted to make you my mistress. How in h.e.l.l's name did we ever get to be married?"

"You said," her mouth was completely dry, "you said that you felt as though fate had touched you on the shoulder."

"Did I? Perhaps I was being gallant." He chuckled. "I can be charming when I want to be. Then, so can you, my love."

She felt as though a shard of gla.s.s had pierced her heart. He wasn't himself. It was the laudanum that had loosened his tongue. But he couldn't say these hateful things if he hadn't been thinking them.

She shrugged out of his grasp, rose to her feet and turned to face him. In a few minutes, he would fall asleep. All she had to do was get him into bed, and he would fall asleep. She couldn't let herself be ruled by hurt pride at this stage of the game.

She took a step toward him and looped her arms around his neck. "Make love to me, Max," she whispered huskily. "Take me to bed and make love to me."

Something inside Max quietly died. She should have slapped him for his taunts and insults; she should have ordered him from her room. Instead, she had lowered herself to the level of a prost.i.tute.

He had no intention of taking it further. He was going to yawn, stagger to the bed, and let events overtake them. But the need to hurt her as much as she had hurt him was driving him hard, and when her lips touched his, his arms came around her in a crus.h.i.+ng embrace.

His mouth was hot and hard and cruelly demanding. This wasn't what she expected. She hadn't drugged him. All she'd done was unleash something wild in his nature that she hadn't known existed.

She went limp in his arms, hoping that would placate him, but his mouth roamed down her throat to the soft swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He dispensed with her dressing robe and tore open the front of her nightgown, then slipped it from her shoulders so that it slithered to the floor.

"Look at you," he said, "ripe for me."

He filled his hands with her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then laved her nipples with tongue and lips and teeth till she was s.h.i.+vering with need.

His mouth was on hers again, his tongue thrusting and withdrawing in a way she had never imagined a man could kiss a woman. His hands moved over her, touching, taking, and she was moaning her pleasure into his mouth.

With his mouth still consuming hers, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. There was no tenderness in him, no gentleness, no giving. He was so aggressive in his masculinity that she should have been afraid. She was anything but afraid. He had stirred something in her as well, something she hadn't known existed until now.

He loved her as he'd never loved her before, demanding total control of her body. And all that was feminine in her nature beat through her blood in answering fire. He allowed her no modesty, and she felt no shame. With his hands and mouth he learned every inch of her intimately, and she abandoned herself to pleasure. To want like this drove everything from her mind but him.

He stripped out of his clothes and kneeled above her. She looked up at him, helplessly lost in sensation. As their eyes locked, she sensed his hesitation.

"Max?"

He spoke harshly. "Let's not spoil things with words."

For a moment, a look of pain softened the harsh tension in his face. "My G.o.d," he muttered, "what am I doing?"

He suddenly wrenched himself away from her and flung himself to the other side of the bed. With his back to her, shoulders hunched, he tried to even his harsh breathing.

He did not look at her. "I apologize," he said. "No man should treat his wife in that shameless way. I don't know what came over me."

The hurt spread through her in waves. His words turned what to her had been a beautiful experience into something sordid, and she was ashamed.

"It was the ... the brandy," she said.

He sighed and drew the coverlet over them. "Was it the brandy? I wonder."

She turned on her side, away from him. It was the laudanum, she thought, but she hadn't ingested any laudanum or brandy. So what was her excuse?

She lay there quietly, listening. The laudanum had started to take effect. Max's chest was rising and falling; his breathing was soft and even. She waited until she had command of her emotions, then she slipped from the bed and began to dress.

When the door closed softly after her, Max was up like a shot. He dragged on his s.h.i.+rt and trousers, then his coat, and picked up his boots. Once he reached the landing, he listened. As he'd hoped, she'd taken the servants' staircase. She'd have to retrace her steps because he'd had the foresight to lock the door into the back hall. It would slow her down and give him time to get there first.

When he got outside, he put on his boots. Peter Fallon came out of the shadows to meet him. "All set?" asked Max.

"I'm not much good with a gun." Peter held up the pistol Max had given him.

"Then you'd better take care," said Max, "because Sara will be armed and I bet she knows how to use a pistol."

Peter said incredulously, "She'd shoot me?"

"Not if she knew it was you, but how could she tell in the dark? Remember, your job is to follow her and see that no harm comes to her. Don't enter the dower house. Wait outside until I call you."

"You're sure she'll go to the dower house?"

"I'm sure," said Max savagely.

She entered the dower house so stealthily and soundlessly that he was almost caught in the light of her lantern. He was positioned just inside the doorway behind a ma.s.sive beam that stall supported part of a ceiling. He'd been right about the pistol. He caught the gleam of it as she pa.s.sed him.

He quickly pulled back when she turned her head. She was careful, looking every way to make sure she wasn't being followed. Most women would have been terrified to come out alone at night after someone had already attacked them. But Sara must think the risks were worth it.

He knew why she was here. There would be a small cell, a hiding place for a priest, or a body, but he hadn't a clue where to look. He'd already gone over the house and tried every nook and cranny. He'd pulled on decorative bricks and metal rods and handles; he'd examined the floor for a trapdoor. Anything. There was nothing.

Without Sara, he would never find it.

He had a few bad moments when he lost sight of her. She'd moved past the great stone fireplace to the back of the house. He would give her a minute or two, he decided, then he'd go after her. But she wasn't gone for more than a few seconds. Careful Sara. Once again, she'd been checking to make sure that she was alone.

Her steps took her to the stone hearth, to the fireplace with the inglenook on either side, and here, she put down her lantern and pistol. Max's heart picked up speed. In his own search, he'd come back to the fireplace time and again. It seemed like the logical place. But he hadn't had any luck. He hadn't found a door or anything out of the ordinary except the decorative bricks high on the walls of the inglenooks. He'd tried to twist or turn and pull every one, and he'd been stymied.

Sara had moved into the inglenook on the left of the fireplace. He didn't know what the h.e.l.l she was doing. She seemed to be climbing the wall. She must be out of her mind. She was going to overbalance. Her arm reached up for a handhold. There was a sound of metal sliding on metal, then a dull thud, and Sara jumped down.

So that's it, thought Max. There was a sequence to the mechanism for opening the door. Sara had used her foot, waited a second or two, then pulled on one of the decorative bricks. Ingenious. No wonder neither he nor the officers of the law who had searched the house had found it.

It was time to make his move, before she got to her pistol.

"Sara," he said, and stepped into the light.

He gave her credit for cool nerves. Or maybe she was just frozen like a terrified rabbit.

"It's Max," he said, and slowly, slowly, began to cross the distance between them.

She stood her ground. The nearer he got, however, the more he could see the emotions flash in her eyes-shock, fear, and finally, the ironclad control that never failed to rattle him.

Her chin went up. "You didn't drink the brandy I gave you."

"You mean the laudanum." He couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice. "No, I didn't drink it."

Her eyes faltered. "Then what ... ? You wanted to humiliate me. The laudanum had nothing to do with it."

He might have felt ashamed if he weren't still burning from the knowledge that she'd tried to drug him. If her pride was bruised, his was crushed. "I wondered how far you would go to keep me in that room." He made a bow that was so exaggerated it was insulting. "Even I didn't expect you to go that far, Sara. What can I say except that your eagerness made me forget the respect I owe my wife?"

Her brow lifted. "Then my sacrifice was in vain, was it not?"

Her contempt stung, but this had gone on long enough. He picked up her pistol and pocketed it. He looked at the fireplace, from inglenook to inglenook. There was no entrance to a secret chamber.

"Where is it, Sara?" he asked.

Her head drooped. "On the other side of the fireplace. But before you go in there, I want to confess that I and no one else murdered William Neville. Do you understand? I murdered William."

No shock registered on Max's face. He said casually, "Oh, I understand more than you think." He picked up the lantern. "Don't even think of running away."

She let out a choked laugh. "Where would I go that the Courier would not follow? You should be proud of yourself, Max. You vowed to find the final resting place of William Neville, and you've succeeded."

"Sara-"