Stephanie Laurens - A Lady of His Own

While he did, he planned and plotted how best to disarm Fothergill; he would really rather not kill the man in front of Penny. The others were gathered outside the door, waiting for his word, but he had no intention of inviting anyone in; in his increasingly panicked state, Fothergill would undoubtedly run someone through. Enough innocents had already died.

The thud of their feet on the rug covering the floorboards was a form of music to his ears. Through the fractional changes in tone, he could judge where Fothergill was shifting his weight and predict his next attack. Combined with the flash of the blades, the almost choreographed movements, he had all the information he needed; his instincts settled into the dance.

Fothergill pressed, and pressed, trying to force him to yield his position before Penny, defending her—and failed. Desperate, Fothergill closed; again with relative ease, Charles threw him back.

Fothergill stumbled, almost falling. Charles stepped forward—realized and leapt back as Fothergill dropped the rapier, grabbed the rug with both hands and yanked.

On the far edge, Charles staggered back, almost into Penny.

Fothergill grasped the instant to fling himself out of the open window.

Charles swore, rushed across and looked out, but Fothergill was already on the ground, racing away, hugging the house so Charles had no good target. Charles thought of his direction, extrapolated, then swore again and turned inside. “He’s heading for the shrubbery—one will get you ten he has a horse waiting there.”

Penny blinked as he neared. He gently removed the gag and she gasped, “Send the others after him.”

Tugging at the knot in the cords binding her, Charles shook his head. “He’s a trained assassin—I don’t want anyone else cornering him but me, or someone equally well trained.”

He jerked her bonds loose, caught her as she sagged. Eased her back to sit on the bed. Only then saw the bruise discoloring the skin over her cheekbone.

His fingers tightened involuntarily on her chin, then eased.

Penny didn’t understand the words he said under his breath, but she knew their meaning.

“He hit you.”

She’d never heard colder, deader words from him. Words devoid of all human emotion, something she would have said was impossible with Charles. His fingers gently soothed, then drifted away; turning her head, she looked into his face. Saw resolution settle over the harsh planes.

“What?” she asked, and waited for him to tell her.

Eventually, he drew his gaze from her cheek, met her eyes. “I should have killed him.” Flatly, he added, “I will when next we meet.”

Penny looked into his eyes, saw the violence surging. Slowly, she rose; he didn’t step back, so she was close, face-to-face, breast to chest.

Arguing would be pointless. Instead, she held his gaze, and quietly said, “If you must. But remember that this”—briefly she gestured to her cheek—“is hardly going to harm me irreparably. Losing you would.”

He blinked. The roiling violence behind his eyes subsided; he refocused on her eyes, searched them.

She held his gaze, let him see that she’d meant exactly what she’d said, then she patted his arm. “Nicholas has been unconscious for some time.”

He blinked again, then glanced at Nicholas’s slumped form, and sighed. He stepped away from her. “Norris! Get in here.”

The door flew open; pandemonium flooded in.

CHAPTER 21

NICHOLAS STIRRED AS SOON AS THEY LIFTED HIM. NOT SO Jack. By the time he opened his eyes, then groaned, Dr. Kenton had arrived. The dapper little doctor lifted Jack’s lids, moved a candle before his eyes, then gently probed the huge contusion above his right temple.

“You were lucky—very lucky.” Kenton glanced at the cosh Charles had retrieved from behind the chaise. “If your skull wasn’t so thick, I doubt you’d be with us enough to groan.”

Jack grimaced; he bore with the doctor’s fussing, but signaled to Charles the instant Kenton’s back was turned.

If Jack was up to making such faces, he was at least in possession of his wits; Charles eased the doctor from his patient’s side and bore him away.

Fifteen minutes later, Gervase returned, grim-faced. They gathered again in the library as they had hours earlier; this time, both Jack and Nicholas looked the worse for wear, pale and drawn, both in pain, Jack from his head, Nicholas from the shoulder wound Fothergill’s blow had reopened.

They took it in turns to relate their story. Penny described how Fothergill had arrived, how he’d seemed so innocent to begin with, and how that had changed—how he’d incapacitated Jack, then used her to force Nicholas to do his bidding. She stopped at the point where Charles had appeared at the bedchamber door. She looked at him, sprawled beside her on the chaise. “How did you know to return?”

“I shouldn’t have left.” He looked grim. “We were galloping toward Fowey when the penny dropped. Dennis’s cousin couldn’t have had any direct connection with our nemesis; the knife and cloak were stage dressing to ensure I connected the death with the intruder here and raced off to investigate, presumably so something could then happen here. I turned back. Gervase went on to see if there was anything we could learn from Sid Garnut’s death.”

Gervase shifted restlessly. “Other than being proof beyond doubt that our man—Fothergill as we now know—is cold-bloodedly callous, there wasn’t anything more to be learned.” He paused, then added, “The boy had been dispatched with almost contemptuous efficiency. Fothergill, or whoever he really is, feels nothing for those he kills.”

Penny quelled a shiver. Charles took up the tale of what had transpired in the master bedchamber. He abbreviated the proceedings, stating only the necessary facts. He’d just reached the point at which Fothergill went out of the window when the crunch of approaching hooves reached them.

Charles rose and looked out. “One of my grooms. Looks like Dalziel has unearthed something.”

He strode out, reappearing two minutes later, one of the now familiar plain packets in his hand. He went to the desk and slit it open; unfolding the sheets, he returned to the chaise.

Swiftly scanning, he grimaced. “Dalziel writes that while they still haven’t cleared Gerond, the Julian Fothergill who’s a connection of Culver’s wife is a twenty-year-old with pale blond hair who, according to his mother, is presently on a walking tour of the Lake District with friends. He is, however, a budding ornithologist.”

Charles glanced at Gervase, then Jack.

Who humphed. “Other than the hair color and a few years, he had all the rest right.”

“Not only that, he used it to best advantage,” Charles said. “No one’s surprised to find an avid bird-watcher marching over their land.”

“How was it that Culver didn’t realize?” Gervase asked. “If our man’s been staying there pretending to be one of the family, surely the usual questions about Aunt Ermintrude or whoever would have tripped him up.”

“Not necessarily.” Charles glanced at Penny. “If the family’s as large as Dalziel suggests, then it’s always possible he truly is a member, just not that member, not of an English branch.”

“And Culver would never notice,” Penny said. “Aside from all else, the Fothergills are his wife’s connections, and with the best will in the world I doubt his lordship remembers his own connections. If this man hadn’t remembered Aunt Ermintrude, Culver would have thought he himself had got things wrong—he’s awfully disconnected.”

“He’s a true recluse,” Charles said, “but a terribly correct one.”

“What’s more,” Penny added, “his reclusiveness is well-known.”