by Claudy Conn
“Mary, do release Mr. Parks’ arm and come and sit down.”
“No, I won’t. Edward and I have been friends forever and it is very good to see him again,” she said peevishly, and reminded Richard how very young she still was. He smiled to himself and thought one day she would be a magnificent woman and have a flurry of beaus coming and going.
Parks patted her hand and said, “Mary, I am off now. This was a blatant attempt by a desperate man, and I can only hope that he will soon give himself away. However,” he turned to Bess who was seated a bit apart, with her hands in one another on her lap, “if Miss Widdons could bring herself to help us by telling us everything she knows, or even suspects, we might be able to flush the villain out sooner.”
“I don’t feel up to any questions,” Bess said on a quiet note.
“Very well,” Parks answered. “Perhaps later, Miss Widdons, you may summon the courage to speak with us…or at least to Mary, who is most affected.” He turned back to Mary. “Be a good girl and don’t go out of the house.”
“She doesn’t have any courage,” Mary declared, still annoyed with Bess. “I am most put out with her. As to our safety, Edward, we do have Richard here, so you needn’t worry. We could ask no better to protect us.”
Richard felt his chest swell as a smile lit his face, but they were interrupted at that moment by Lady Penrod, who walked into the room and said with some surprise, “Edward…good morning.”
“Indeed, my lady. I am in a bit of a rush, but his lordship here,” he nodded at Richard, “I am certain will put you in way of the facts.”
“Facts? Are there facts?” Lady Penrod turned to Richard.
Richard moved to take her hand and lead her to the sofa, saw her seated and began, “You see, ma’am…”
* * *
Parks had but one aim. It was a dangerous one, for it was the middle of the day and he might be seen if he weren’t careful. He rode over the moors and the rough terrain, making for the viscount!
Some ten minutes later, he led his horse down the cliffside at a slow and careful pace, and saw the viscount walking his stallion on the beach. He shook his head. “Bret, for the love of…what the deuce are you doing in broad daylight?”
“Poor Midnight came up stiff this morning when I walked him out to give him some air. He needed a little exercise. He seems fine now. What brings you here, Edward?”
“Which leg,” Parks asked as he moved over to Midnight and handed the reins of his horse to the viscount.
“Right fore.”
“I can’t feel any heat, Bret. He should do.”
“Agreed.”
A few moments later, within the confines and safety of the cave, Parks said, “We need to talk, and you need to listen to what I am saying.”
“Right…talk away,” the viscount said.
“I think Duncan has taken a go at Mary! She is fine, nothing came of it, but damn, Bret, this is ugly business getting uglier.”
“The devil you say!” the viscount thundered as he clenched his fists at his sides.
“Lady Vanessa drove over to Montlaine this morning, and by the by, she is one hell of a woman! She told Duncan…drove it home, that she thought the killer was aiming for Bess Widdons, who had been with them walking within Penrod grounds. I think she was trying to get Duncan to slip and ask about the dagger. I blundered and asked if it could have been a woman and assumed they had been shot at.”
“Wait, why were they in the woods…what the devil is going on? Why was the Widdons chit with them?”
“I am trying to put it all in order, do sit, be quiet, and let me tell you the whole!”
“What about the gun?”
“There wasn’t any gun.” Parks sighed. “Let me start over.”
Slowly, carefully, and in intelligent prose, Edward recounted the tale as he knew it. He then removed his hat, wiped his brow with his handkerchief and said gently that things were moving too fast and Duncan was the very personification of wickedness.
“I do believe your cousin knows no remorse,” Edward finished.
The viscount took to pacing. “Damn his soul! The time has come for me to show myself. I can’t have Mary in danger and Ness, my Ness, will throw herself right into the heart of it. I won’t have it.”
“No, Bret, not now when we are so close to catching the scoundrel,” Parks argued.
“As long as Duncan thinks me dead, Mary is his target. I shall give him a new challenge. He will have to see me go to trial and put to death…”
“And so he will. Don’t be a fool. You…coming out now will only serve to stall him, nothing more, and could end with you at the end of a rope. It is foolishness.” Parks ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
“I think not, Edward. There is something I can do…regarding Bess Widdons, that none of you can.”
“What would that be?”
“Force her into telling us what she knows…or, wait a minute! Why the deuce didn’t I think of it earlier?” He grabbed Parks’ shoulders. “It will work, Parks. It has got to work.”
“What? What has to work?”
“I’ll tell you on the way to Penrod. Now, old friend, are you with me?”
“I don’t know how it is, but as always, Bret, I am with you.”
* * *
“There, there, Miss Widdons. Perhaps you are sufficiently recovered to partake of tea with Mary and me,” Lady Penrod suggested gently.
“Thank you, my lady. You are very kind,” Bess said, avoiding Mary’s eye.
“Kinder than you have been to us,” Mary stuck in as she, at this point, was beyond infuriated. “How can you sit here with us, knowing what you know, and keep silent?”
“Someone tried to kill me today!” Bess snapped, showing some temper.
“Finally,” Mary said smiling. “That’s the spirit. Now, take it further, Bess. If someone tried to kill you and failed, don’t you think he will try again? Of course he will. The time is now for you to tell us who he is so we can stop him!”
“Oh dear, oh dear…then my parents will find out I was a part of it all…” Bess wailed, and buried her face in her hands.
“Good lord, she has gone off again!” Mary exclaimed, beside herself.
Lady Penrod reached out and put a restraining hand on Mary. “Hush, Mary, do sit and allow our guest a moment to recover.”
It was at this point that the sitting room doors were flung open and filling its wide portal stood a tall and exceptionally broad-shouldered man. His long black waves of silk framed a handsome face. His white shirt was opened nearly to the waist beneath his dark cloak and his dark breeches displayed muscular thighs.
He made a striking picture, which would have, under ordinary circumstances, brought all eyes to him. However, it was more than that which cowered the occupants of the room to silence.
Here was a dead man come to life. Here was the Viscount of Montlaine.
Bess gasped. “He has come to punish me!” So saying, she fainted.
Mary’s gasp turned into a shriek as she ran towards him, sobbing his name, laughing and then sobbing again. “I knew it,” she choked out. “I knew you couldn’t be dead. Not you. I kept sneaking to Bodmin Heights in hopes. I just knew a paltry mob could not send you to your death. Bret, oh, Bret.”
Lady Penrod put her vinaigrette to her nose and took a decided whiff as brother and sister were reunited. “Am I dreaming?” she asked. “Is that really you, my dear?”
With his arm still about his sister’s shoulders, he moved toward his ladyship and bent low over her hand. “Guss, thank you. I am so sorry if I have overwhelmed you.”
She touched his face with a show of deep affection. “A more pleasant and welcome sight I could not want, and isn’t it just like you to do such a thing to us?”
Parks entered the room behind the viscount, but turned as a sound accosted his ears at his back. It was Richard and his cousin, Randall. Richard saw Bess in a heap and went to her, bent and began fanning her with his hand.
“Oh,” said Mary. “She is forever going off.”
Richard got up and helped Bess to her feet as she recovered in slow degrees.
Randall had stood transfixed as he watched the viscount and said, “This chap looks familiar…”
“Hold, indeed he does. He is the one in the portrait at Montlaine.” Rick eyed the viscount. “We thought you dead.”
It was at this moment that the viscount, ignoring all else, bent to speak to Bess, who was now seated near Lady Penrod.
Bess sniffed. “My lord…forgive me.”
“There now, my dear,” he said softly. “I am not blaming you. No one is, but if you feel it is in your power to help us, we are speaking about my life.”
“I only know what Melony told me,” Bess said hoarsely.
“Which is hearsay and is inadmissible in court,” Parks said irritably. “Though, we could make use of the information if only you will trust us with it.”
“Who was the father of Melony’s child? Who, Bess?” the viscount pursued.
“Duncan,” Bess finally whispered. “It was Duncan, and I have made up my mind, I shall give you the letter she wrote me and hope you can keep my name and the names of the other girls out of all this.”
“Indeed, but you are sure it was Duncan, not Orson? Duncan was in London,” the viscount said gently.
“No. He wasn’t. Melony said that the twins had switched places. Orson knew nothing about the cult meetings. It was all Duncan.”
* * *
Ness tooled the curricle to Lady Penrod’s stables, where a groom hurried to take up the driving reins as she dropped nimbly to the ground.
It was with supreme irritation that she heard, “Ho there.”
She turned around to find Duncan riding up behind her. She shaded her eyes and said, “Duncan, what a surprise. Did you follow me?”
“If only to make certain you got home safely,” he said suavely.
She wanted to kick him in the shins, but instead smiled politely and said, “Ah, of course, you wanted to see me home safely. Very well, now that you have done so, you may go about your business.”
“You are my business,” he said, and as he gave over his horse to the other stable boy, he bent his arm for her hand. “Besides, I should think you would invite me in for a cup of tea before sending me on my way.”
She was wild with annoyance and ignored his arm as she took a heady pace towards the house. “Indeed, come along then.”
Ness was told ‘everyone’ was in the sitting room, which brought up her eyebrow as she moved across the hall, with Duncan at her heels, and opened the doors wide.
She was met with a vision, indeed. The viscount on one knee, bending towards Bess Widdons. The viscount, her viscount was here! She immediately moved to block Duncan’s view of him.
“Duncan…I see we have a room full of Lady Penrod’s guests, and I just remembered there is something I have been wanting to show you.” She took his arm in an attempt to pull him around, but it was too late.
She saw him go stock still as he stared at the viscount. She saw his mouth open as he tried to speak and obviously could not.
All at once, he managed an admirable sneer, and said quite casually, “Well, well, so my cousin returns from the dead? Certainly the trick of a sorcerer.”
Richard went to stand in front of Mary, Randy moved with him and said, “Bound to be a set-do now.”
“Hmm, I should think so,” Richard said. “Be ready.”
“Ah, Duncan,” Lady Penrod said, ever able to keep her calm. “Shall I ring for more tea?”
The viscount was on his feet, keeping Bess at his back as he moved towards Ness and said, “Ness…come here if you will.”
Her reaction was to do just that, however, Duncan was not having it. He grabbed hold of her arm and looking reproachfully at her and said, “It appears that you are acquainted with my cousin? Is he, then, your farmer’s son, for whom you wore breeches?”
“You overstep, sir. Now let me go!” She tried desperately to yank away from his hold and felt the pain rip through her as his fingers dug in.
The viscount stomped toward them, his black eyes stormy. “Is that how you keep a woman at your side, Duncan? By force? Is that how you kept Melony? Oh yes, we know your secret. Melony had a friend, and she wrote it all down in a letter.”
The expression on Duncan’s face changed. He seemed to lose color as the viscount proceeded, “That’s right, cousin. Although Bess was afraid of her parents discovering the truth, she has decided she can’t keep silent any longer.”
“You are bluffing!” Duncan shouted. “She has only hearsay…the ravings of a tart!”
“No, as I said, Bess kept a letter written by Melony that names you as the father of her child and the Master of the cult,” the viscount said on a hard note.
Ness had been standing very still and too late she tried to go to the viscount.
Duncan acted quickly, devastatingly, and before she knew what he was doing, Duncan held her fast. With another fluid movement, he brought down a slender crystal vase on the table, breaking off enough to create a jagged shard of glass and put it to her neck. “No one move!” he commanded. “I should hate to spill this beauty’s blood, but mark me, I will, if only for spite.”
He walked backwards with her and they reached the exit, where he pulled Ness roughly with him, so roughly that the glass grazed her neck and blood started down her throat.
The viscount growled and rushed forward.
“You had better stay back, cousin…or I shall mar her pretty face. You see, I can keep her alive and my hostage and still hurt her. That’s right…stand there, useless, no hero, stand there for her to see how ineffectual you are.”
Ness tried to distract him. “Oh, but there is quite a bit of blood…do you mean to let me bleed to death, Duncan?”
“Shut up,” he told her as he slammed the sitting room door and used his free hand to turn the key.
She used that moment to kick backwards at him and knew she had made a mistake as she felt the blunt of the crystal vase connect with the back of her head.
Explosions of excruciating pain shot through her head just before everything went dark.
* * *
A commotion of some magnitude ensued within the sitting room as everyone began moving and shouting at the same time.
Richard started calling for Toby at the top of his voice. Randy pounded at the door. Edward Parks tried to calm down Bess, while Mary and Lady Penrod also called for the servants to attend them.
The viscount was out the window.
He landed hard on his ankles, paid it no mind, and rushed around the house in time to see Duncan already seated in a curricle with Ness beside him.
Montlaine felt sick to his stomach for he saw that Ness was bleeding badly and she was in an unconscious heap beside the scoundrel.
It didn’t take him long to mount Midnight and pursue. His nerves were taut with determination, and his will was centered in but one effort, to get to his woman, to his Naughty Lady Ness, whom he was certain he did not want to live without.
He could see Duncan up ahead, taking his corners at a dangerous pace and thanked providence that Duncan was a very incompetent whip. He didn’t have the knack for driving and only hoped he wouldn’t land Ness in a ditch.
He was putting away turf. The curricle could never go as fast as his Midnight. That had been a bad move on Duncan’s part. He should have left Ness behind and taken to horse if he truly wished to make a clean escape.
Ness began floating in semi-consciousness. Her head ached, her neck felt stiff, her body seemed to be rocking dreadfully. Where the deuce was she?
She attempted to rise, felt as though she might swoon and remained still a moment longer when she saw Duncan and it all came horribly back to her. The beast had hit her—hit her hard.
Where was she? In a carriage of sorts, that’s where.
Duncan was whipping at the horse, calling out for more speed. She gro
aned out, “Duncan, you will overturn us. You must slow for the bends.”
“Jade!” he bellowed at her. “All this time you have been doing me sweet and slinking out to see him, work with him against me!”
“Doing you sweet? Good gracious,” she said, steadying herself by holding onto the side of the carriage with one hand, and holding her forehead with the other. “You weren’t even here until the other day.”
“Was I not? I played the part of Orson, but it was I…I who wanted you!” He was in a rage.
“Why switch places?”
“My twin is too squeamish. He would rather bemoan our lack of funds and leave all to the fates. I sent him off to London so that I could manage the affair. I would not have had to kill Melony if she had not turned on me—threatened me.” He shook his head. “I didn’t count on the Widdons chit.”
“Give it all up, Duncan. Put me out on the road. It will delay them as they see to me…just let me go.”
“Let you go?” He was incredulous. “I see you haven’t fathomed my way of thinking yet. No, you are my escape. Your father is the Earl of Grey. There is nothing he wouldn’t do to protect your name and that of your husband. I intend to marry you. Your father will hush everything up, and I will have you and your money, and I will make you pay for this day’s work!”
“You have quite lost your mind,” Ness said, by now deeply worried. “There is no way you can force me to marry you.”
“Is there not? We shall see, my beauty, we shall see.”
The time had come to contemplate drastic action. She had to escape this madman. But how? She could break her neck if she were to jump from the carriage now.
* * *
The viscount found himself at the fork in the road. One led toward the village, the other inland. He studied the ground until he found the tracks he was looking for.
Duncan, he decided, was traveling inland. To what purpose?
Bret knew the land far better than his cousin. He smiled as he reached a portion of fence flanking the road and sent his horse flying over its height. Through the field, over the meadow cutting the road, and back once again over the fence to wait for Duncan’s arrival. Duncan could only take the carriage over the road.
