Time's Fool

by Patricia Veryan

  Appalled, Gideon said softly, “You’ve an odd sense of values, sir. I can scarce believe that because you held so twisted a grudge you would wipe out the hopes and fortunes of countless innocent—”

  “They deserved it, stupid fools.” Collington shrugged. “But there is more to it, of course. Much more.” He smiled a craftily secretive smile. “My particular business happened to fit in nicely. And I must say it went off surprisingly well.”

  Gideon thought of his father’s haggard, worn face, and had to fight the need to wipe the leer from the earl’s lips. He drawled, “But there were more than just your brains behind it, I think. The—Squire’s, for instance.”

  There was an outburst of alarm from the other men. The earl seemed transfixed, and stood motionless, gawking at Gideon in almost comical consternation. “’Sblood,” he half-whispered. “I think I will find out how you learned that, you curst young puppy! And for a start, I’ll take the two jewelled men you stole.” He thrust out his hand. “Now.”

  Gideon smiled thinly. “Not now.”

  The earl glanced at Bill, and jerked his head.

  Bill grinned. “My turn at the gent now, is it—sir?”

  “Just search him,” said the earl coldly.

  Gideon said, “I did not bring them with me.”

  “We’ll see that,” jeered Bill. “Hold him, you two.” His search was unnecessarily brutal, but thorough. He grunted, “He ain’t got ’em.”

  Collington asked gently, “Where are they? You’ll do better to tell me now, Rossiter. I dislike violence.”

  “Never you fear, sir, I’ll be glad to help him remember,” offered Bill.

  The north countryman, half-drunk, said thickly, “So will I. And I know how t’make the perisher tell anythin’—damned quick.” He snatched up a ragged newspaper and held it over the lamp so that it burst into flame. “If I was t’drop this,” he jeered, lurching unsteadily towards Gideon, “y’ pretty lady’d—”

  Gideon sprang for him, but the vindictive Bill backhanded him hard across the mouth, sending him tumbling through a wheeling blur of light and shadow. Dimly, he heard a flurry of frenzied shouting. “Get some water!… Throw this on it!… Not the gin you idiot!”

  There was a great deal of confusion, but the voices faded and faded until they were quite gone …

  The colonel’s guess that this would be a major engagement had evidently been correct. The smoke was thick on the battlefield. Odd that he could hear no musketry or cannon … Someone was damning the men furiously, demanding that they “get up there!” Boots stamped past, making the smoke swirl. His eyes stung, and he coughed feebly. He’d been hit again apparently, but he must get to his feet. The men needed him. It was very hot. Unusual for spring in the Low Countries … He could hear the voices again, becoming clearer now.

  “…can’t get up them stairs, no matter what he says!… Be murder!… Listen! Them was shots!… Get out! Get out!… He’s gorn ain’t he?… Hell with Rossiter! He nigh got the lot of us! Let him burn with her!”

  Her…? Naomi!

  Gideon’s mind cleared in a flash. The smoke was a pulsing orange. He could hear the crackling of flames. That drunken lout must have dropped his makeshift torch and this rotted old building was ripe for fire. And Naomi was upstairs. Perhaps tied! “My God!” he gasped, and lurched to his feet.

  The scene tilted. Coughing, he staggered to the side, putting out a hand to steady himself against the wall. It was hot. He was alone. The men were running away, and Collington, the cowardly swine, had abandoned his helpless daughter to the flames! Rage seared through him. Tearing out his handkerchief, he covered his nose and mouth and groped his way to the stairs. Lord, but it was hot! There were flames on every side, and when he reached the stairs he met a solid wall of fire. A glowing tongue licked at his arm and the lace at his wrist began to smoulder. Retreating, he beat the sparks out. It was hopeless, all right. He could scarcely breathe, and his eyes were streaming. Turning, he plunged blindly for the door.

  He was outside, choking, dizzied, the wind buffeting him again. Distant shouts and another gunshot registered on his mind dimly. He gulped in air. Flames and smoke gushed from the lower windows. The place was going up like a bonfire. He must get to her.

  The wheel! He raced around to the side and stepped down into the sluggish stream. The old wheel loomed above him, up and up, seemingly to the clouds. His foot broke through the first blade, and it was no use. His knees grew weak at the very sight of that soaring wheel. But he must! He must! He snatched at a spoke and climbed onto the next blade. It held and he went up, his right hand gripping the rim, his left clinging to one spoke until he could reach the next, since the spokes were sturdier than the rim or the thinner blades of the wheel. He kept his eyes on the small window in the loft, gritting his teeth, refusing to yield to the familiar and debilitating panic that was hammering at him, causing his heart to jolt, his legs to shake under him. His hands were wet with sweat; he could feel it trickling down his forehead and between his shoulder blades, and knew it came not from the heat, but from his lifelong terror of heights. Each movement was a battle against fear so intense that he was nauseated, but he forced his cringing body to climb higher. His love was trapped in that furnace beside him!

  He was halfway up when a howling gust sent the wheel slamming against the wall of the mill. The blade splintered beneath his feet and only his hold on the spoke saved him. The impact tore his grip from the rim, and for a hideous few seconds he swung by his left hand alone, the old wound in his shoulder sending agonizing jabs through him. Consciousness reeled, but he sank his teeth into his lip and thought of Naomi’s sweet face as he grabbed frantically for the rim. His questing foot found another spoke and he was able to steady himself and seize the rim with his right hand again. Gasping for breath, fighting weakness and fear, his streaming eyes barely able to see, he fought his way doggedly upward through ever thickening clouds of smoke.

  * * *

  Naomi clambered from the chair when she heard the shot, and ran to the door, pressing her ear against the wood. There could be no doubt now. There was a battle royal going on downstairs. She could hear shouts and cursing and crashes as they blundered about.

  It was quieter suddenly. A temporary hush giving way to a clamour that held the unmistakable ring of panic. Nightmarishly, she caught a whiff of something burning. She felt faint. They had set fire to this horrid place and she would be burned to death up here!

  Beating her fists on the door, she screamed, “Let me out! Help me! Please—don’t leave—” But horror choked off her words. Smoke came curling under the door. She could hear a frightful sound—a crackling that grew louder by the second. Someone howled “Murder!” And another voice, fading, “Let him burn with her!”

  She thought briefly that there must indeed have been a fight, and that one of them had been slain. She moaned distractedly, and tottered back to climb up on the chair. Her hands were shaking as she grasped her ladder. Taking careful aim, she threw. The loop slipped over the plank, and she held her breath, but when she tugged, down it came again. The air in the room was already growing blue with smoke, the smell of it strong and acrid, and her eyes began to smart. She knew with a sob of terror that she would have time for only one or two more tries and then she might not even be able to see the plank.

  “Please dear God,” she whispered. “Help me!” She tossed, blinking tears away as she gazed upward. The mug swung down at her, but then stopped, and dangled far above. The loop had gone over the plank! With a little cry of joy and gratitude, she tugged gently, then less gently. It did not come down. She hoist the skirts of her habit, gripped the sides of the ladder—oh, how frail and fragile they felt!—and put her foot in the first rung. If it broke, or if the plank was loose and came down, she was surely doomed. But although the ladder twisted and became very narrow, it didn’t break. In her ears was a low and terrible roaring, and the air was getting warm. Praying frantically, she had to struggle to force her boot into the
next twisting rung. The ladder swayed, the plank creaked. Her heart seemed to stop. Peering, it seemed to her that the plank was slanting downward. Was it going to break? Dear God in heaven—was she going to fall back?

  “Naomi! Naomi! Are you in there?”

  Gideon’s voice!

  She was so overjoyed she almost fainted. Her throat seemed to swell shut so that her answer was a barely audible croak.

  Incredibly, wonderfully, she saw his face, dirty, bloodied, and beloved, peering down at her.

  “Praise God!” he shouted. “Hold on tight, brave girl, and I’ll pull you up.”

  Weak with relief her courage faltered, but she must not give way. Gideon had come and found her. She would not fail now.

  He was heaving at the ladder. It twisted, and she clung desperately as he looped a rung over the plank, then heaved again.

  An ear-splitting roar. A great surge of heat. The section of the floor by the stairs had given way. Naomi cried out in terror.

  Looking down at her, it seemed to Gideon that she swung over a sea of smoke shot with fire. She looked so small, so terrified. If she didn’t faint from the heat and smoke it would of itself be a miracle. The boards he lay on were cracked and half-rotted and creaked ominously with his slightest movement. If they gave way, he would die with her, at least. Coughing, blinded by the smoke, he pulled mightily.

  Naomi did not see the blazing ember that floated up and set fire to the trailing end of her ladder, but Gideon did. One more rung and then he leaned until he could reach her wrists. She felt the iron grip of his strong hands and she was wrenched upward. His arm was tight about her and she was lying on the crude loft flooring, wheezing and sobbing for breath. Sparks and blazing pieces of debris were flying upward; she screamed as the lace on her petticoat began to burn. Gideon tore at the garment and she wriggled out of it. The planks seemed to move, to slant down towards the inferno below.

  Gideon was dragging her, shouting something lost in the uproar. With one hand clamped bruisingly about her wrist, he climbed through a tiny square window and guided her after him. She had a momentary and bemused thought that she was glad she wasn’t wearing hoops.

  Clinging to the waterwheel with one hand, and to her with the other, Gideon shouted, “Come to me!”

  The waterwheel seemed a mile away, but she reached out bravely. His arm clamped around her, and she threw her arms around his neck. Other shouts rang out. Through the billowing smoke below came the anxious face of Lieutenant Morris, suddenly breaking into a beaming grin. “Here they are,” he bellowed, waving frantically. “This way!”

  Glendenning and Hector Kadenworthy raced up, carrying a long ladder. It was propped against the side of the wheel. Gideon guided Naomi to it, and Morris climbed up and helped her down. She was on solid ground, but between the dense smoke and the fact that her eyes smarted so, she could scarcely see.

  A battered and dishevelled Falcon ran to join her. “Well, don’t hang about, you silly chit,” he said with oddly reassuring irritability. “The whole lot will come down at any second!”

  Frantic, Naomi cried, “Where is he? Is he safe?”

  Gideon was beside her, his face a mask of soot and blood, but his eyes worshipping her.

  She sobbed, “Oh … Gideon…!” and was swept into his arms.

  “Good God!” howled Falcon. “Not now, you fool!”

  Gideon laughed shakily, and carried Naomi through the smoke.

  They were halfway across the moat when the flames roared through the loft window. They all turned to watch.

  A moment later the roof crashed down, and with a great gout of fire the old mill collapsed in upon itself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  By two o’clock the excitement had died down and the house on Snow Hill was quiet again. The men from Bow Street had departed; Lord Kadenworthy and Peregrine Cranford had taken Katrina and a fast-asleep Lady Naomi back to Falcon House, with Horatio Glendenning and Falcon riding escort. Sir Mark Rossiter and Gwendolyn had long since retired, and all the windows were dark save for one. In the book room a branch of candles still flickered to the intrusive fingers of the wind, and smoke from the small fire occasionally puffed into the room.

  Comfortably settled on the sofa to the right of the fireplace, James Morris stirred, yawned, and blinked sleepily. Opposite him, sprawled low in his chair, chin propped on bandaged hands, long legs stretched toward the hearth, Gideon gazed blindly into the flames.

  Morris peered at the clock on the mantel. Stifling another yawn, he muttered, “Must you make a decision tonight, dear boy? Appears to me you’d do better to get a bit of rest. D’you hear someone—?” He glanced to the hall. “Oh, it’s you, Falcon. Come back, did you?”

  “No,” said Falcon pithily. “You behold my shade, Morris.” He waved a reassuring hand at Gideon, who had started up anxiously “Be à l’aise. She is perfectly safe, and fast asleep in bed at my father’s house. Am I to be offered a glass of brandy?”

  Morris shrugged. “Ross is all fingers and thumbs, and I ain’t inclined to wait on you. Serve yourself, Lord Haughty-Snort. You can see the decanter.”

  Falcon considered him grimly, but containing his instincts, went over to the credenza. Returning, glass in hand, he said casually, “I dropped in at Collington’s.”

  Both men sprang to their feet.

  “The devil you did!” exclaimed Gideon.

  “I wonder he did not put a hole in you,” said Morris.

  “Likely he would have done, had he been at home.” Sitting on the edge of the reference table, one foot swinging, Falcon said ironically, “The butler informed me that his lordship had been called back to Italy on a matter of great urgency. Can you believe that the heartless villain did not even wait to learn whether his daughter had been rescued?” He sipped his brandy and snorted. “Faugh!”

  Morris was shocked. “It’s jolly good cognac, and it ain’t polite to criticize—”

  Falcon groaned. “I was referring to his lordship, my blithering dolt.”

  “He need not have fled the country had I perished,” Gideon pointed out. “He must know I survived, and likely knows Naomi did also.”

  “No thanks to him, the merciless hound,” growled Morris.

  Gideon sat down again. “’Tis very good of you, Falcon, to come all the way back here to tell me. You—er, did not mention Collington’s part in it to the others?”

  “I said nothing, as you desired.”

  “Well, if you ask me,” said Morris, “the bastard should have been reported to the authorities at once! Why on earth—”

  “That is your considered opinion, is it?” sneered Falcon. “And with what does Rossiter charge our noble peer?”

  “You know blasted well! Kidnapping for a start, and—”

  “Kidnapping his own child?”

  “Oh, do try to use your famous nous! Lady Naomi is of age. She was imprisoned ’gainst her will and damn near slain! And Collington tried to force Ross to hand over the jewelled men as ransom.”

  “Did he really? Pray where is your evidence? Who witnessed Rossiter’s confrontation with the earl in that damnable mill? No one. Who even saw Collington in the vicinity? Only those rogues we apprehended, and they are obviously too terrified to speak. One gathers transportation is less to be feared than the wrath of their legendary Squire. Where are these allegedly so valuable jewelled figures? No one knows.”

  “The ransom note!” exclaimed Morris triumphantly. “You can give ’em that, Ross!”

  “I might, had I not stupidly allowed the earl to take it back when we were at his house.”

  “Very stupidly,” murmured Falcon.

  Irritated, Morris snapped, “At such a moment, only an insensate block of ice—”

  “Or a Mandarin?” put in Falcon sweetly.

  “Or a Mandarin—would be capable of rational thought!”

  “And being such a notable judge of rational thought, Lieutenant, do pray favour us with your next edifying suggestion.”

 
; “Well, I will! You read that blasted letter, and I saw the jewelled men. We could testify under oath that—”

  “Rubbish,” exclaimed Falcon impatiently. “Even did they not judge you a silly fribble—and I ain’t saying they wouldn’t!—you served with Rossiter in the Low Countries and are known to be his good friend, and thus prejudiced. I am scarcely acknowledged to exist at all, and was I graciously permitted to speak, my testimony would be disregarded. And at the moment, Rossiter is even worse ton than I am. Without some tangible evidence the authorities would either laugh at us, or clap us up in the Gatehouse on a charge of slander and malicious mischief ’gainst a peer of the realm.”

  Persisting stubbornly, Morris argued, “We all know Naomi was kidnapped. She herself will—”

  “She does not know her father is involved,” interposed Rossiter quietly.

  “And you don’t mean to tell her, do you?” said Falcon.

  “I hope she will never learn of his part in it.” Rossiter looked at him steadily. “She has been hurt enough.”

  Falcon smiled his mocking smile. “What you mean is, you’re afraid of losing her. She’d never wed you an she knew her father was instrumental in the ruin of yours.”