If He’s Wicked

by Hannah Howell

  Julian could not believe how badly he wanted to laugh. He felt it must be because he was so bone-deep afraid for his family and nervous that he would not be able to do what he needed to do to reach them and keep them safe. Then he saw the signal from Bened he had been waiting for and all three of them began a fast creep toward the house.

  “Obviously no one here can think of a plan or has the backbone to enact it,” snapped Lady Evelyn, and then she looked at Mildred. “My grandson is but three years old and my new daughter may well be carrying the earl’s child. Either get out of my way or come with me.”

  “You were always a bossy girl,” Mildred said calmly as she opened the door.

  “I will come with ye, m’lady,” said Dilys as she shoved her way to the front of the shamefaced crowd.

  Lady Evelyn touched the young girl’s face. “No, sweet girl. I could never rest knowing I sent such a young girl out there. You wait here. I will bring Anthony back to you.”

  “Are we going or not?” asked Mildred.

  “Going,” replied Evelyn.

  “Mother,” whispered Helena.

  “What is it, dear? I really must go or Evelyn is going to run off and get herself killed.”

  “Take this.”

  Both Evelyn and Mildred stared at the large, gleaming knife Helena handed Mildred. Evelyn suddenly grinned and took it away from Mildred. “That is definitely your daughter, Mildred,” she said as she hurried out of the door.

  Mildred cast a last look at her sweet-faced child and said, “Good girl.” Then she hurried after Evelyn as fast as she could without her spectacles. “Wait, Evelyn, we should still try to have a plan.”

  “My plan is that we whisper,” Evelyn said very softly, “and I think we had best stay together. It would be faster to search separately, but neither one of us could defend ourselves against a grown man without help. I also think I need new servants.”

  “Chloe needs new servants.”

  “Quite right, and she better find some with some backbone.”

  “That girl Dilys has some.”

  “Hush,” Evelyn whispered close to Mildred’s ear and they slipped into the kitchen. It only took her a moment to see that neither Anthony or Chloe were there. As she turned to leave she caught sight of the huge iron pan the cook used to do her sausages and she grinned. She took it down off the ceiling hook and handed it to Mildred. To her surprise her friend hefted it a few times and then nodded in satisfaction. She was just about to continue on to another room when she heard heavy footsteps coming their way. Evelyn pushed Mildred behind the door while she slipped behind the far side of the huge kitchen oven.

  A man came in, a sword at his side and a pistol in his hand. As he turned around looking over the kitchen in disgust as if he were some self-important French chef, Evelyn noted that a pistol was tucked in his waistband and the hilt of another knife stuck out of the top of his boot. Unless they were very clever, Evelyn knew she and Mildred could never defeat such a huge, well-armed man.

  She signaled to Mildred that she wanted her to hit him over the head with the pan. Mildred looked at the pan and then at the man’s head as if testing for distance. Evelyn shook her head and then made a noise, just a quiet shuffling of feet. It was enough to cause the man to look her way and Evelyn did her best to look afraid. The smile he gave her made it a lot easier to look terrified. He took a step toward her and then Evelyn heard a sound she silently prayed she would never hear again. The man’s eyes rolled up in his head and he fell to his knees before toppling face-down on the stone floor. Evelyn winced, deciding the noise his face made as it hit the stone was nearly as bad as the sound of an iron pan hitting a head.

  “That were so fine, m’lady,” said a scratchy little voice.

  Evelyn sniffed, smelled a dirty little boy, and looked behind the oven. She reached in, grabbed a bone-thin arm, and pulled out a filthy boy. At a guess she would say he was seven, but she had the feeling he had not eaten well for a very long time.

  “And who are you?” she asked.

  “I be Jem, m’lady, and I be the pot boy.”

  “Why are you not down in the room in the wine cellar?”

  “Cook told me to hide up here. T’aint enough room down there for dirty boys.” He leaned back a little. “Doan beat me, m’lady. I still got bruises from that last woman and I be liking to heal a mite first. Oh, m’lady, you are looking right fierce.”

  “You are, Evelyn, dear. Calm down. You are scaring the child,” Mildred said in the voice she always used on her daughters when they got their tempers up and could not seem to calm down. “We still have to find Anthony and Chloe.”

  “You looking for the little earl?” Jem asked and both women nodded. “I seen him go that way toward the big hall a wee bit ago. The new lady came through first and she sent the two scullery maids down to the room.”

  “Then that big hall is where we shall go,” said Evelyn as she stood up, still holding the boy by the arm. “You need to go down into the wine cellar and—bugger—”

  “Evelyn!”

  “Oh, m’lady, you should not be sayin’ that word.”

  “I like it. I cannot send him down there because those cowards in that room will not open the door for him, I am certain.”

  “Then he goes with us,” said Mildred.

  “Why should I do that?” asked Jem.

  “Because we have weapons.”

  “So does I.” Tugging Lady Evelyn along with him, Jem reached behind the oven and brought out a thick, short club. “See?”

  “Very impressive.” Evelyn saw him frown in confusion and smiled. “A proud weapon.”

  “What about the man’s weapons?”

  “Oh.” Evelyn did not really want to touch the man but decided it was not wise to leave him armed and behind them just in case Mildred had not actually crushed his skull. “Best disarm him, then.” She hastily stripped him of his weapons and hid them behind the huge cupboard against the wall, keeping one of the pistols for herself. “Now. Let us go find the little earl—I do like that—and Chloe before they get hurt.” She tapped the boy on the head and silently hoped she would not contract lice. “You stay close to us and do just what I say.”

  “We going to help the little earl?” asked Jem.

  “That is my plan. Do you know him?”

  “Aye, he gives me food when Cook ain’t looking. He gets a real fierce look on his face like you done when he hears that I doan get no more than a scrap or two a day. He be a good lad.”

  “Yes, he is, and after we rescue him and his mother and all these ruffians are gone, I intend to show my new daughter how a countess disciplines her staff—starting with a fat, greedy pig of a cook.”

  As Evelyn marched away, Mildred looked at the little boy following her and sighed. Poor little boy was mad in love with the dowager countess. Mildred hurried to keep up, for she had to make sure Evelyn did not get herself killed. Never mind that it would upset Julian, Nigel, and the girls, plus many others—the pot boy would probably die of a broken heart.

  Chapter 19

  “Anthony!” Chloe cried and grabbed him. “What are you doing out of the room?”

  “I had to get Jem. The cook lefted him in the kitchen.”

  “I saw the cook go into the room.”

  Anthony nodded vigorously. “But she lefted him in the kitchen.”

  “What do you mean—she left him behind?” It was the kitchen staff’s duty to make sure everyone who worked in the kitchen was led out if there was an emergency. It was a rule that was put in place in case there was a fire, but men trying to get into one’s home and shooting out windows was just as big an emergency.

  “She said she would never take the filthy brat anywhere.”

  Chloe briefly admired the way Anthony could sound like so many adults when he was mouthing their own words. She then hoped that Julian knew how to find another cook because if what anything Anthony said was true, the one he had was going to be leaving. She did not care if the woman c
ooked the best apple tarts in the whole of the country. If Anthony was right, the woman had left a child in the kitchen while men fought all round the house and tried to get inside. She would not allow anyone like that at Colinsmoor.

  “If he is still up here, we will get that boy,” she promised, thinking on how they would pass near the kitchen on their way to where the Kenwood people all huddled in a too-small room. “What happened to Dilys?”

  “I runned away from her when I could not see Jem.”

  “We shall discuss how naughty that was later, but we have to go now. All of us.”

  “We be fine right here,” said Brindle.

  “Nay, you are not. Where would you run to if some man opened the door? These men have guns. You can hear them.”

  Brindle shrugged her thin shoulders. “Then I will be shot.”

  There was such resignation in the child’s face it took all of Chloe’s willpower to fight the urge to pull her into her arms and hug her. Something was very wrong here. Anthony was speaking of a pot boy who was rarely fed, and now she had two very thin children hiding in the closet with the tablecloths and other linen. The two scullery maids had also been left behind to fend for themselves. Chloe could not believe that Julian would ever treat children this way, but she had no more time left to get answers to the many questions now rippling through her mind.

  “No more arguing. We go now. We will find the pot boy, Anthony.” She held her hand out to Brindle. “Come along.”

  “Nay.”

  Chloe grabbed Brindle by the arm and pulled her out of the linen closet and the boy quickly followed. “You do not get to say nay to a countess, young lady, especially not when she is trying very hard to get you to safety. Hang on,” she told Drew.

  It was not easy, but Chloe shepherded the children toward the kitchen using a complicated path full of twists and turns. Each time she heard someone moving around, she went in the opposite direction. The kitchen was not that far away from where she needed to take them to safety, but if she kept winding her way through the house it could take a long time to get there. She kept everyone as close to the wall as she could because of the gunfire. Every now and then she could hear glass shatter as a bullet cut through it. Under the arm she had draped around Brindle and Drew she could feel the boy shaking. The men Julian and Leo had placed to guard the house were doing their best and she had the sinking feeling that some would die, but the men attacking the house were getting closer. She could actually hear them shout at each other.

  The moment they entered the kitchen, Anthony broke free of her grasp and ran to the oven, peering behind it. The boy did not seem to notice the blood on the floor and she hoped he continued to be blind to it. Brindle glanced down at it and then looked at Chloe with wide, slightly frightened eyes. Chloe did not like to see the girl so frightened, but it was a far better look than the one of complete resignation to whatever fate handed out she had before. She held her finger to her lips and the little girl nodded.

  “Jem is gone,” Anthony said.

  “I am sorry for that, darling boy, but we cannot search the house for him. We have to go to that room. There are four of us to worry about now. We must pray that Jem has found a safe place to hide.”

  “Mayhap you ought to pray for yourself.”

  Chloe shoved all three children behind her back even as she turned toward that voice. It was only barely recognizable, as was the man standing before her, a pistol in his hand. It was as feral as he looked. Arthur had definitely been living very rough since that last time she had seen him. His fine clothes were dirty and worn, his hair was dark with dirt and sweat, and his face looked as if he had aged ten years. It was in his eyes that she saw the madness that had gripped him.

  “Greetings, Sir Arthur,” she said. She clutched her hands in her skirts as any frightened woman might do, but she did it to hide the fact that she was holding her skirts out a little to further hide the children.

  “Sir,” he snarled and spat on the floor. “I should have been the earl.”

  “I believe you have made that clear. If not in word then in deed.”

  “You are the one who saved the brat.” His voice carried a harsh accusation and he aimed the pistol right at her. “That was a damn good plan and you ruined it.”

  To her relief the children started slipping away. Chloe suspected it was the girl Brindle who was trying to get the two younger children out of reach and had the sense to use Arthur’s distraction with her to the best advantage. The girl had the look of one who knew how to take responsibility for others. Chloe needed to make sure that Arthur stayed distracted until the children were safely out of his reach.

  “You put him in my house. That made him mine, and I chose to let him live.”

  “I put him there to die, you stupid cow!”

  “I am sorry, sir, but I could not allow that to happen.”

  “We be gone now.”

  The whispery words were hard to hear, but Chloe caught them and she gave a sigh of relief. To her dismay, the look on Arthur’s face told her he had heard them, too. Chloe prayed that the children were already too far away for him to catch. All he would need was one look at Anthony and he would know whose child he was.

  “What was that?” he demanded as he stared in the direction Brindle had taken the two boys.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Liar. But then all women are. They are born to the art. At least Beatrice did not try to be something she was not. She was born a whore and she clung to that truth until the day she died.”

  “You mean the day you killed her, do you not?”

  “Figured that out, did you?”

  “It was not so hard. No one else had a reason, at least a reason that made any sense. You, however, had a lot of reasons, for she was destroying your plans for Colinsmoor.”

  “We had everything planned, but that fool Julian just would not die. And you were there, always there. You saved him when he got stabbed in the alley, I know it. Save the baby, save the man. Busy. Well, you will not be able to save him this time, neither him nor his family. And by family I include that little brat.”

  “Your own family is here, too. Your wife and your daughters.”

  “Ah, God save me, that stupid cow. Could not even give me a son, could she. No, she just kept grunting out daughters. I have decided I am going to let her watch me kill the little bitches before I kill her. Make her feel the grief I felt each time she failed to give me my son. And then that fool Julian gets a son off Beatrice. Sweet Jesus, off Beatrice, who had rutted with near half the county and never once got with child.

  “Well, he does not deserve a son. Weakling that he is. He could not bring himself to kill his wife even though she cuckolded him from the beginning. Ha, he cannot even be sure the boy is his. Beatrice spread her legs for any man, even the ditch-diggers if she liked the look of them. For all any of you know the brat is the get of some ditch-digger.”

  “Nay, he is Julian’s son. He has the mark.”

  The fury that contorted Arthur’s face was terrifying. Every part of Chloe’s body was screaming at her to run but she knew that would only get her shot in the back. She could see her death in his eyes. He wanted to kill her simply because she had told him Anthony really was legitimate. Chloe forced herself not to put her hand over her stomach. If this madman suspected she might be carrying a child for Julian, she knew he would shoot her dead before she could take her next breath. What had her terrified was that she could see no way out of this trap.

  Julian slammed his fist in the face of the man who blocked his way to the wine cellar. He needed to get down there and reassure himself that his family was safe. Nigel covered his back as he shoved the unconscious man aside, but before he could take a step he heard Nigel curse. Slowly, his pistol at the ready, Julian turned around and nearly gaped. Standing only a few feet away were his son and two very thin children.

  “Papa!” Anthony cried and ran to him.

  Julian shoved his pistol in his waistb
and and caught his son up in his arms. He looked at the other two children and wondered where Anthony had found the waifs. The girl held tight to the hand of the little boy and watched him and Nigel as if they might turn on her at any moment. Anthony turned in his arms and pointed at the children.

  “These are my fwiends, Papa. That is Brindle and that is Dew.”

  “Drew,” the little boy muttered.

  “I said that.” Anthony took his father’s face in his little hands. “You need to go gets Mama. A bad man has her in the kitchen. Brindle saw him.”

  Julian looked at the little girl again. It was difficult to guess what age she was, but he suspected she was a few years older than Anthony and could probably speak more clearly. There was wisdom in her eyes, one born of a hard life. He needed more information than the fact that a bad man had trapped Chloe in the kitchen. Julian handed Anthony to Nigel.

  “That is your uncle Nigel, Anthony,” he said as he took a careful step closer to the children, not wanting to frighten them. “He has just come home from far away. He was a soldier.” Hearing Nigel and Anthony talking softly, Julian crouched down in front of the children. “Do you know who I am?”

  “The earl,” the girl replied. “I am Brindle. I empty the ash buckets. This is Drew. He is the boot boy.”

  Julian wondered why he had never seen them before, as well as why they looked as if they had not had a bath for months and maybe not a decent meal for at least that long. “I need you to tell me if you saw my wife, if you saw the countess.”

  Brindle nodded. “She is in the kitchen. We went to look for the pot boy but he was already gone. Then the man came behind her and stuck his big pistol right at her.”

  “She put us all behind her,” said the little boy.

  “She did that and she nudged me and I knew she wanted me to get the lads away, so I did. She kept her skirts held out a bit so that man would never see us and we crept away while she kept him looking right at her and talking to her and waving that pistol round. You going to go get her and kill that fool?”