The Wayward Son

by Warfield, Caroline

  David rode at the head of the Clarion carriage as it wound its way up the drive to the front of the manor. Lucy didn’t recognize the roughly dressed man at the reins, but she suspected it was one of the grooms that had accompanied Gibbons. Another sat next to him. Rob rode behind with Gibbons.

  Before the groom could climb down and lower the steps, even before the men could fully dismount, the countess burst through the door to the carriage, stumbled on her skirts, and pulled herself upright. “Madelyn! I demand that you—”

  David had her by the arm in a trice, cutting off her words. Rob strode to block the door.

  “This is an outrage. A disgrace. Have you no honor? Treating your mother like—”

  Lucy glanced up at Maddy, who stood in stunned silence, staring at her mother held firmly in her brother’s grasp.

  The earl addressed the groom who had climbed down from the box. “Kindly help me escort my mother to her room,” he said.

  “You can’t force me to stay,” the countess shouted as Madelyn gaped. “I was on my way to visit a cousin. You can’t—”

  “I can, and I will detain you for thievery,” David said through clenched teeth, pulling the woman toward the steps.

  “Thievery? That’s absurd.” The countess dug in her heels.

  “Of my carriage, to begin with. I fear the list of charges will grow long once we’ve questioned your accomplices.”

  The countess shot a venomous glance over her shoulder. Rob had come up, waiting patiently between them and the carriage. “You can’t mean to allow that, that by-blow of your father to accuse me of ridiculous and unjust—”

  “Shall I have Danny take your other arm and drag you up the stairs, or will you come on your own?” Lucy had never seen David like this, his eyes cold and his words colder. She could almost sympathize with the woman, except for her dawning realization of what had unfolded. Next to her, Maddy had begun to shiver.

  The countess let him lead her up the steps, the big groom following closely, but her face never softened, and when she reached Maddy, she opened her mouth to speak. David overrode her. “Lady Madelyn, follow us, please. I’ll explain later,” he said. Maddy followed without a word.

  Rob slammed the door to the carriage shut, jolting Lucy into action. She ran down the steps and skidded to a stop, narrowly controlling her urge to throw her arms around him, intending to demand an explanation. Rob reached over and cupped her cheek, his fingers tender against her skin, and her capacity for speech drained away.

  “It’s over,” he said, his sad eyes holding her captive.

  She tore her face away long moments later and stood on tiptoe to peer into the carriage where she could just make out two figures in the gloom, both gagged and bound. Rob’s voice rumbled through her from behind. “Miller drove the carriage. The other is Higgins. We left the maid at Blackshaw Moor.”

  She turned, startled to find him so close they almost touched. His large body trapped her against the carriage. His eyes skimmed across her face to study her lips. If he moves the slightest bit…

  “I need to hear it all,” she breathed, waiting for a kiss that didn’t come.

  He straightened and took a step back, glancing over to where Goodfellow stood with Gibbons. “We have no doubts, but we need to question these two carefully. Miller may be ready to spill his guts, if you’ll excuse blunt talk.”

  “I want to be there. Maddy will, too.”

  The foolish man hesitated. She suspected that thought hadn’t occurred to him.

  “I’m the one most impacted. I should hear them questioned. And the countess?”

  “That is David’s decision,” he answered. “And he’s the magistrate. Appeal to him if you want to sit in.”

  “I will.” She pushed away in a swish of skirts. Goodfellow stepped forward to follow her into the manor, but Lucy raised a hand to stop him. “You heard him, Corporal. It’s over.” Behind Goodfellow, Rob gave the coachman the order to go on and mounted his great beast. The carriage pulled around the drive toward the rear of the manor, and, after one last glance at Lucy, Goodfellow followed them on foot.

  Lucy stood alone at the top of the steps while elation over the capture, such as it was, slipped away. She stared across the drive and down at the valley below and let the full weight of the future crush down on her. Once, she had plans and dreams. Now she saw only emptiness.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Maddy’s grip on Lucy’s hand hurt, but, absorbed in the events around her, Lucy didn’t pull it away. With their backs to the wall, they stood on the far side of the cellars across the pavement from where Aaron Miller sat on a battered wooden chair dragged from the estate office, his arms bound. David made it plain that their presence would be permitted only as long as they kept silent. Lucy wondered if that would be possible.

  Miller’s guilt had been obvious from the beginning, and Lucy didn’t expect to learn much from him. She looked in vain for the countess or Higgins. “Where is your mother?” Lucy hissed.

  Maddy shook her head and indicated the upstairs by raising her head and gazing upward. “David told me she’s behind it all, but he didn’t explain,” she whispered.

  The earl continued to question Miller, who snarled his answers. “Higgins,” he said in answer to the question Lucy missed.

  “Who hired you?” David asked, obviously repeating the question.

  “Higgins—I told you.”

  “On his own behalf?”

  Lucy’s attention sharpened. Who, indeed. David stood with his arms behind his back, a picture of studied calm.

  “How would I know?” Miller growled. “I only ever talked to Higgins.”

  “Who ordered the damage to the bridge?” David asked.

  “What damage?”

  Rob lurched forward at Miller’s smirk, but David put out a hand to stay him. Some sort of silent communication passed between the brothers. Lucy thought of the older Robert Benson, broken and battered when they carried him into Willowbrook, and her heart went out to Rob.

  “Don’t be coy, Miller. You sabotaged the bridge, and Mr. Benson almost died. But we’ll leave that for a moment. The murder of Lieutenant Robbins in front of witnesses is enough to get you hanged.” The earl spoke with the same unnatural calm—the reasonable tones of a schoolmaster dealing with a disobedient boy. His words were all the more menacing for it.

  When Miller’s head snapped up, Lucy saw the stark fear in his eyes. He cast a panicked glance in her direction, aware no doubt she witnessed the murder, opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again. David kept silent, watching Miller intently and allowing the man to consider his likely fate for several minutes.

  “If I talk, what will it buy me?” Miller’s sly expression left Lucy cold.

  “A swifter execution, perhaps. It depends on what you have to say.”

  Lucy knew David must be churning with emotion, and yet he managed to infuse his words to Miller with a studied indifference.

  “Higgins ordered all the damage. Little stuff. Some she didn’t even notice. He said it wasn’t enough, so I did the stable. Higgins wasn’t happy when the bast—the major hired a crew, but it ended up a stroke of luck. He hired me.” Miller’s cocky grin at that made Lucy’s skin crawl.

  “But it still wasn’t enough, was it?” David asked.

  “Higgins said the chit felt too safe with all those men around—one of them me,” he laughed. “If she wouldn’t leave, he said we had to get their attention so folks would force her to go.”

  “The purpose of all this was to cause Miss Whitaker to leave Willowbrook?”

  “Obvious, isn’t it? Stubborn woman stuck to the place like tar on a roof. Higgins wanted to make sure folks took notice, so we did the bridge.”

  “Did you plan to harm people?” David asked it softly, but this time there was no mistaking the threat under it.

  Miller shrugged. “Higgins said to make it good. To make sure it collapsed when someone went over it. The first horse and rider that went over d
idn’t do it. Took the second trip with a pony cart.”

  “But you knew whoever triggered the collapse would likely be injured.”

  Miller sobered. “I warned Higgins someone could be killed, but he said to do it.”

  “And you did it anyway.” The earl stared at him until Miller dropped his eyes to his feet. “Getting paid, wasn’t I?”

  “You were lucky that time. Mr. Benson was merely injured,” the earl said.

  “I wanted to quit then. I did. But Higgins said if I tried, he’d make sure I was caught and transported for it.”

  “But you didn’t,” David murmured.

  “What did you plan to do to Miss Whitaker when you assaulted her?” Rob spoke for the first time, much less able to keep the rage from his voice than David was.

  “Dint assault her. I wouldn’t have hurt a woman, even for pay. I was meant to frighten her. ‘The damned woman won’t leave.’ Higgins kept going on about it. ‘We need her gone,’ he said.”

  “We?” Rob roared, driving the breath from Lucy’s body.

  “We?” David pounced on the word at the same time. “Who besides Higgins wanted her attacked.”

  “He never said.”

  “But you can guess,” Rob said, stepping toward him, threat in every line of his body. David didn’t call Rob back this time.

  Lucy fisted her hands to control the urge to pull him away.

  “They’re willing to let you hang for killing Lieutenant Robbins, Miller. You may as well tell us everything.” David had begun to sound weary. Profoundly weary, as if the responsibility pressed in on him from every side. Rob stopped a few paces short of the chair.

  “I only ever spoke to Higgins, and he never said. But I’m not a fool. I know who he works for. You saw them yesterday when you came thundering downhill to the house by Blackshaw Moor. Thick as thieves, for all he’s a servant.”

  He won’t say the words to name the countess. He doesn’t have to. Lucy gave Maddy’s hand a sympathetic squeeze.

  “If you hang a man that’s just a hireling and let them go, you’re no better than they are,” Miller whined.

  “I’ve heard enough. We’ve gotten all we can out of this one.” David gestured to Gibbons, who gagged Miller and yanked him to his feet.

  *

  Rob helped Gibbons drag Miller to the locked storeroom. The groom guarding it stood aside. Gibbons shoved Miller in and pulled Higgins out, tying the butler to the same chair, still gagged.

  “You can’t keep me here forever,” a weak voice called. Spangler.

  “Be grateful you’re not gagged,” Rob told him, slamming the door shut. He walked past Higgins’s glare of raw hatred and muttered to David. “Make this one talk, or I will.”

  Higgins’s refusal to respond to Clarion’s questions came as little surprise. Rob glanced at Lucy, standing wide-eyed, hand in hand with Maddy, and his heart gave a lurch. He wouldn’t want to do murder in front of Lucy, but the urge to hurt anyone who put her in danger—or so much as upset her—seethed through him. If David hadn’t let the women in here, I would choke the truth out of the man.

  “Have you nothing to say? You hired a man to kidnap Miss Whitaker, and another man died. You will hang for causing his murder.”

  Higgins glared at Clarion, rage and disdain dripping from his words. “You’d take the word of a thug?”

  “Miller has no reason to lie. Why, Higgins? Why did you terrorize Miss Whitaker?”

  Higgins’s chin rose, his lip curled. “Someone had to defend the Clarion honor. That solicitor got your father in his cups and diddled the estate out of Willowbrook and much else. Who would do something about it? You?” Higgins’s contempt for Clarion vibrated through the room.

  “And who appointed you the guardian of Clarion’s honor?” the earl asked through tight lips.

  David’s control is slipping. He best pull it together. The worst is yet to come. Rob stepped forward. “Miller said he knew who you worked for. We all know, don’t we, Higgins? Who ordered the attack on Miss Whitaker? You—or the countess?”

  “You!” Higgins howled. “You don’t know your place. You never have. It is an affront to decent men to see you prancing around Willowbrook, lording it over your betters.” He spat at Rob’s feet. “You. Are. Not. Fit. To even speak of her ladyship.”

  “Are those her words, Higgins?” Rob asked, looming over the man.

  Higgins clamped his jaw shut.

  “You heard my brother’s questions, Higgins. Who ordered the attack, you or my mother?” David asked, his words coming from just behind Rob’s left shoulder.

  The butler held his mouth tightly shut, but the hatred in his eyes spoke volumes. After a long pause, he growled. “Brother? How low you have sunk, Clarion.” He turned his head and refused to answer the question.

  “Are you willing to hang for her?” David asked, his voice just above a whisper.

  The flicker of fear Rob detected died a swift death. What hold does that old witch have over this man? Higgins held his silence.

  “I’ll have to ask her, then,” David said. When Higgins began to sputter and threaten, David, all aristocratic splendor, ordered him gagged. “Lieutenant Gibbons, my sister will escort you to my mother’s quarters. Kindly tell her she is summoned.”

  Maddy paled, and she swayed a bit. Lucy quickly put an arm around her. David approached the ladies just ahead of Rob.

  “I’m sorry, Madelyn. I’m asking for a united front. Can you do this?” David asked.

  Maddy nodded and answered, her voice thick with pain and, Rob suspected, bad memories. “It has to be done.”

  David gave his sister a one-armed hug. “I need you to make it clear that the district magistrate has summoned her and not her son. That we, none of us—” His glance drew in Rob and Lucy “—will be bullied. That she can’t divide us to conquer. She must answer for what she’s done.”

  Maddy nodded. “I know. The horror of it just struck me for a moment. I won’t back down.”

  “Do you want me to come?” Lucy asked.

  Maddy shook her head and left with Gibbons.

  Rob studied his brother, seeing backbone and determination. “What are you going to do to her.”

  “Get a confession if I can. Even if I can’t, she will be confined.” David peered up at him uneasily. “I can’t have her jailed or hanged, you must see that.”

  “The house in Northumberland? We’ll need to hire caretakers.”

  “Prison guards?” David asked ruefully. He didn’t wait for an answer. “You said ‘we.’ It isn’t yours to do, Robbie, it’s mine, and I have no choice. She’ll ruin my children’s lives eventually if I continue to let her run amok. She’s already ruined mine, hurt my sister, and damaged your life, as well.”

  The countess’s cruel voice the morning he left Ashmead echoed in Rob’s head. “Damaged, but not destroyed,” he said. David nodded and turned away.

  Lucy had taken in every word. Her sad eyes touched him deeply. “The army didn’t kill me,” he said, reaching over to touch her cheek, unable to help himself.

  She leaned into his hand with a sigh, and heat ran up his arm. His heart began to pound. “She’s a horrible woman,” Lucy said.

  “She is that. This will soon be over.”

  The well of sadness in Lucy’s expression stunned him. He would have looked for triumph. “What is it?”

  She lifted her head away, and his hand dropped. “I’m sad for Maddy,” she murmured. “But I’m glad it’s over, and I can get on with my life. So can you.”

  Rob could hear the earl giving orders behind him—setting the stage. It wasn’t the time or the place to ask her what she meant—or to give voice to his newly born hopes. He had little time and less privacy to speak with her about it. A disturbance in the hall drew their attention.

  Instead of the countess, Eli and Brynn Morgan, led by a footman, stood in the doorway gaping at the scene, and the sight sent a surge of affection through Rob. He shook his brother’s hand and gave him a f
irm pat on the back.

  “I gather you caught them,” Eli said irritably. “You might have sent word. I wouldn’t want to miss the denouement of the drama. If Morgan here hadn’t brought news, I might have missed it all.”

  “I’ll fill you in on what you missed later.”

  Morgan held up a folded sheaf of paper. “Account numbers, amounts, banks. She’s been a busy lady for a very long time.”

  Rob pulled him toward David, still arranging the room for the coming confrontation. Morgan handed the earl the papers, and David met Rob’s eyes in silent communication. They had the last bit of evidence.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The Dowager Countess of Clarion swept into the estate office ahead of her daughter and Rob’s lieutenant, dressed for battle, arrayed in peacock blue silk with a matching turban, ostrich feathers flowing upward. She wore what Lucy recognized as the Clarion emeralds, a parure she had refused to surrender to Marjory as the heir’s wife.

  The countess tossed her head and scanned the room with practiced arrogance. Lucy drew breath to calm her nerves at the sight of the woman who never bothered to notice her except to utter an insult. The countess had humiliated Lucy’s sister throughout her marriage, in spite of David’s efforts to protect Marjory, and Lucy learned to avoid being in the same room with the woman for fear of her biting tongue.

  She treated Rob worse. But to order destruction and harm to people? To cause the death of Lieutenant Robbins? Can she have gone that far? It seemed inconceivable.

  The countess raked Lucy with a cold disdain, and all sympathy fled, even when Lucy watched the old woman flinch at the sight of Higgins, gagged and bound to a chair. Rob’s solid presence next to her, so close her shoulder touched his arm, gave her strength.

  David had rearranged the room, transforming the cellar into a mock courtroom. A desk and chair had been dragged in from the estate office and lifted onto a platform raised a foot higher than the brick floor. The raised area’s normal purpose was to store dry goods above the damp floor. Light streamed in from the windows that opened toward the stable yard, bits of grain and dust motes floating in the beams over David’s head. Lucy wondered vaguely where the bins and barrels had been moved to.