Lady Markstone closed her eyes. ‘Rowland was intelligent. He may have uncovered the truth with Edward not alive to delude him. I was forced to confide in Bernard. In spite of appearances, he has no love for the King. He promised to keep me safe.’
Her palm grew hot. ‘At such cost?’
‘I do … regret it. But Bernard said it was necessary.’
Mercia stayed her mounting anger. ‘And so he influenced the King to condemn my father, and to prevent anyone from seeing him to pass on what he knew. But you did not count on how clever father really was. He left me a clue in his own execution speech.’ A great pride surged through her. ‘He was a remarkable man.’
‘Oh, he was.’ Lady Markstone took a sip of red wine from a half-full goblet. ‘Then you took his place. A pity you gave yourself away by visiting me in the Tower. We tried to warn you off, but you persisted. When we found out you were joining the fleet, of course we realised why. But the Duke always knew Bernard wished to come to America. Securing his commission was not hard. It chimed well with our designs.’
Mercia wrenched her hand from the chair. ‘To think I begged the King for you to come with me.’
‘That helped, although Bernard would have convinced him in any case. The King was keen to … dispense with me. Letting slip you had met Wildmoor, that was your mistake. It was easy to bribe him.’ She stroked the goblet’s base. ‘Money is a powerful persuader when one has a bastard child to raise.’
Mercia narrowed her eyes. ‘I only wonder you did not dispose of him after he confessed his part.’
‘What would have been the purpose? He never knew who we were and you shunned him after that.’
‘And Lady Calde?’ Involuntarily, Mercia clenched her fingers into a fist. ‘I know it was she who wrote the message left in my cabin. Did Sir Bernard feel any remorse when he threw her into the sea?’
Lady Markstone stared into space. ‘That was not Bernard. I killed Harriet.’
‘You?’ Mercia felt sick. ‘My God.’
‘She detested you. It was easy to convince her to write the note. I wanted to scare you off, don’t you see? But she became suspicious. I followed her behind the fencing and pretended there was something to see in the waves. It was easy to fool people afterwards, raving on the deck, a poor, senile old woman. Bernard hit me a little hard, but it was a nice touch.’ She studied her hands. ‘It was remarkably easy pushing her over. I suppose God gave me the strength to carry it out.’
‘You are as mad as your lover.’ Mercia’s anger with the woman who had claimed to be her friend was now acute. She snatched a china cup from the desk beside her, thinking to throw it, but she checked herself. Instead she smashed it down, drawing blood. ‘I trusted you. I trusted you with my son. I am going to tell Colonel Nicolls everything. But you can tell me where the rest of the paintings are first.’
‘The paintings will never be found,’ came a voice from the doorway.
Mercia whipped round. Sir Bernard stood on the threshold, his left arm bandaged where she had shot it. He strode into the study, a rope loosely coiled around his right.
‘And neither, Mrs Blakewood, will you.’
‘Quite the conversation,’ said Sir Bernard. ‘I have been standing at the door for the past several minutes. As soon as Sir William took your lover and your monkey away, I bandaged my arm and followed you here. It has been amusing listening to your prattle.’
‘The murdering sweethearts reunite,’ mocked Mercia. ‘See, Lady Markstone, you are well matched. He has murdered my uncle as you murdered Lady Calde.’ She held her gaze on Sir Bernard, but he did not flinch.
‘You have killed Sir Francis?’ Lady Markstone’s face fell. ‘Why?’
Sir Bernard removed his hat and sword, resting them on a side table. ‘I did as we agreed. I met Pietersen at his farmhouse. The preening fool thought to threaten you so I would help him keep his position. I had to shoot him, but Simmonds had followed me. He saw what happened.’
‘But Bernard—’
As they continued to debate, Mercia glanced around the study. Sir Bernard was blocking her path to the door, but a window was close by to her right. If she could escape and elude pursuit, she might be able to return for the paintings, or at least get out with her life. She began to inch towards the window, but Sir Bernard looked across and she stopped.
‘Are you not worried Nathan will reveal the truth?’ she stalled.
‘Not especially. He and Wildmoor will be in a cell by now. Sir William will make sure nobody listens to them.’ He smiled. ‘I know certain things about him he would prefer to keep quiet.’
‘Naturally.’
‘It is my business to know them. It has been maddening not to have a single thing to use to silence you.’ He started towards her. ‘But now I have this rope.’
‘Where is everyone?’ Backing towards the window, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. ‘The house is deserted.’
He paused his approach. ‘A fair question.’
‘Van Arnhem got Jerrard’s message when the fleet arrived,’ said Lady Markstone. ‘He has sent his family upriver to Fort Aurania. But he himself – ’tis as you feared. He thinks he can hold onto the paintings.’
‘The obtuse fool. Where are they now?’
‘Locked in the strongroom he built to house them.’ She held up a key. ‘As is he.’
Sir Bernard laughed. He nodded at the portrait of the King’s family. ‘What of this one?’
‘Bait.’ She turned to Mercia. ‘You see, neither of us could come here before today. I was trapped behind the troops on Long Island, and it would have been suspicious for Bernard to leave the fleet for so long until the invasion was complete. But I knew you would sneak around the town as soon as you could, asking questions. Even without Pietersen, it would not have been long before you learnt of van Arnhem and his love of art.’ She reached for the painting, setting it on the desk. ‘I arrived this afternoon. I fooled van Arnhem into ordering his guards to let you through the gate if you did come, as I thought you would. I even left the side door open.’ She began to roll the painting. ‘As long as you were in the house, I wanted you with me. I knew the firelight from this room would attract you, and with the painting here, I at least had the chance to keep you talking until Bernard could arrive.’
‘I should have taken it and run,’ said Mercia, now alongside the window. Pretending to scratch her back, she rested her arm on the sill, wondering about the strongroom Lady Markstone had mentioned. ‘So what now?’
‘Is your mind so dull?’ rasped Sir Bernard. ‘Why do you think we are here? The Oxford Section must finally be destroyed. We will take the pictures and burn them.’
‘Burn them?’ Mercia stared at him, appalled. ‘But that is barbarous!’
‘I am afraid there is little choice.’
‘Van Arnhem will resist,’ said Lady Markstone, not looking up.
‘Then I will make sure he understands.’
‘What will it be this time?’ Mercia felt her anger rising again. ‘A carving knife? A blow to the head with a kitchen pot? A faked accident, like you prepared for Colonel Fell?’
Sir Bernard frowned. ‘That fool gunsmith who shot himself? That was not me.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Believe what you will. And you are not one to talk of murder, after what happened to my man in van Arnhem’s brewhouse.’
‘That was his brewhouse?’ She shook her head. ‘So it was arranged.’
Lady Markstone’s face twitched. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Did you not know?’ Mercia nodded towards Sir Bernard, feeling behind her for the window clasp. ‘He sent his man to kill us. Unlike him, I feel a great guilt about what we did.’
‘Bernard?’ She stared at him. ‘I never knew of this.’
Putting down the rope, Sir Bernard went to take her hands in his. The partly rolled canvas unwound slowly on the desk. Mercia paused on the clasp, her eyes flitting between the painting and the now a
ccessible door. It was tantalisingly close. Could she?
‘I promised to protect you, Millicent,’ said Sir Bernard. ‘I agreed with your plan to scare her off. I sent Jerrard after her in London, blackmailed that sodomite archer of the Queen’s to shoot at her, paid that son of a dog Wildmoor to help us. But she would not give up. There was only one thing left to do.’ He released her hands. ‘She is here of her own meddling will. If you want to stay safe, it has to be done.’
As fast as she could, Mercia sprang to the desk. She grabbed the painting and ran for the open door. But swift as she was, Sir Bernard was faster. Roaring in annoyance, he thrust aside chairs and tore straight after her. He grabbed the folds of her dress before she was even out of the room, the large canvas too restricting an encumbrance. Reeling her back in with an agonised cry, he flung her carelessly in front of the fireplace.
‘Enough,’ he snapped, rubbing his injured arm. ‘We have to do this now. Millicent, take the painting and wait outside. I will fetch the rest once I have finished here.’ He reached for the rope.
Lady Markstone picked up the painting, a sadness in her eyes. She looked at Mercia crumpled on the floor. ‘You promise it will be quick?’
‘If I can find a pistol.’ He held up his injured arm. ‘She took mine in the town. Otherwise I have my sword, but I need to tie her first.’
With one last look, Lady Markstone left the room. Sir Bernard unravelled the rope, then forcing Mercia onto her front he pinioned her to the ground with his legs. He twisted her wrists together, holding them firm; she winced as his fingers ground into the soft flesh.
Desperate, she kicked at the fire. At first she missed, but then her heavy boot connected with the blazing pile of wood, tumbling burning logs onto Sir Bernard’s thigh. He leapt up in irritation, brushing hot embers from his breeches. Her wrists still free, Mercia rolled to snatch up the log basket beside the fire, staggering to her feet and bringing it down hard on his wounded arm. He screamed out in pain. She seized this new chance and ran.
She fled into the hallway, across the back room, out the side door, heading for the gap in the palisade. As she neared it the front door smashed open behind her. She looked back to see Sir Bernard brandishing his sword in pursuit, shouting in rage.
She ran on, but her dress was heavy, hindering her escape. Atop the palisade she could see the guards hurrying towards the gate, alerted by Sir Bernard’s cries. With nowhere to go but out, she put her head down and sped through.
‘Leave her to me!’ shouted Sir Bernard from behind.
Stirring herself onwards, she dared another look back. The guards seemed to have understood, for they were standing above the gate, not making any move to follow. Sir Bernard himself was gaining, but if she reached the forest it would be pitch dark. She might be able to elude him in the trees.
She nearly made it. At the edge of the plantation grounds, within feet of the forest, he slammed into her. She tumbled to the ground with a cry, her head bouncing off the springy earth. With his good hand he struck her face hard. She recoiled, stunned, the trees blurring. He yanked her to her feet. In a daze, she felt the sharpness of his sword against her side.
‘I will not allow a woman to best me,’ he growled. He pushed the sword through her dress, scratching at her skin. ‘Now move. Your time in America is over.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
It had been a calm evening, but the wind was strengthening, the tops of the forest trees rattling in its sway. Mercia herself felt anything but calm, tied to a solitary elm in the field beyond the plantation house palisade. Fighting her rising panic, she watched as Sir Bernard and Lady Markstone drew painting after priceless painting from the saddlebag of a horse, setting them in amongst a pile of logs and straw laid all around her: the Oxford Section finally in reach, and yet never so far away. A pistol from the house lay at Sir Bernard’s feet. It had already been used to encourage the guards to wait patiently in the strongroom with van Arnhem.
‘Please,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘People will ask questions if I die.’
‘So they may,’ said Sir Bernard, holding a burning torch. ‘But they may also believe you lost your head and fled into the forest, perhaps to be devoured by a bear, or to live amongst the Indians. I am told it has happened before.’
She squirmed in the ropes that held her. ‘How will you explain my corpse?’
‘No one is coming, Mrs Blakewood. I shoot you, I light the pyre, the flames devour your body, and your precious Oxford Section is gone. By the time one hour is over, maybe two, the fire will be extinguished. It will not be hard to dispose of your blackened body in the forest.’
‘Lady Markstone!’ Mercia’s words quivered with fright. ‘Please! I have a son!’
Lady Markstone bowed her head, but in the wavering torchlight Mercia could see her biting her lip. Her nervousness was infecting the horse. It was unable to keep still, agitated by the flickering of the torch.
‘You should have thought of that before you left England,’ said Sir Bernard, setting down a vivid depiction of the Venetian canals, astonishing in its detail. He looked on grimly. ‘Now I imagine he will become a ward of court.’
‘I did this for him, Lady Markstone! Like you did this for your son.’
Lady Markstone hesitated as she placed the final painting on the pile, an allegorical work of goddesses and satyrs, overwhelmingly green and of flesh. ‘’Tis true, Bernard. Young sons need their mothers. Perhaps his life could be the price of her silence.’
‘Millicent, she knows everything. Do not let your woman’s sentiments delude you now. Think of Robert. He would want you to be safe.’
‘Robert would want you to admit the truth,’ said Mercia, and she knew she had overstepped a line, for Lady Markstone’s face set.
‘How dare you tell me what Robert would want! Your precocious son is nothing compared to him!’ She took the horse’s bridle in her hand. ‘Do as you like, Bernard. The paintings are in place.’ She walked briskly away, leading the horse back inside the palisade.
‘Farewell then, Mrs Blakewood,’ taunted Sir Bernard. ‘America was not so kind to you after all.’
‘You will not succeed,’ she trembled. ‘I will not allow it. Nathan will not allow it!’ She struggled violently against the ropes. They loosened slightly, but did not give her up.
‘Keyte will hang for treason. And you can hardly protest, tied to this tree.’ He flexed his left hand. ‘I had thought to be merciful. I told Millicent I would shoot you before burning your lifeless corpse.’ He leant in closer. ‘But you have caused me such trouble, Mercia Blakewood. The truth is, I do not intend to shoot you at all.’
‘No!’ she cried, a great fear piercing her heart. ‘You cannot!’
‘Burnt alive. A fitting punishment for a witch.’ He spat out the word. ‘And amongst all the paintings you thought to bring you hope.’ He smiled. ‘Mrs Blakewood, there is no hope.’
He threw the flaming torch on the straw.
The speed with which the flame took hold was astonishing. Much of the dry straw burst into fire within the first awful minute, the edges of the paintings setting alight where they rested on the burning mass. Mercia watched horrified as irreplaceable masterpieces by the greatest artists the world had known began to crackle and blacken at her feet. The fire spread quickly across the pile, consuming its expensive prey with hungry relish.
For a moment Sir Bernard stood transfixed by the flames until he turned to walk away. ‘Coward!’ she cried through her terror. ‘Stay to look on what you do!’ But in the noise of the fire he could not hear, or chose not to, and bathed in orange light he disappeared behind the palisade.
The logs atop the straw began to sizzle, whistling and popping as moisture was spirited away. Mercia could already feel the air being polluted with asphyxiating fumes. She worked frantically at the rope, rubbing her wrists together, pulling at the knots with all the strength her confined arms could muster. The rope came a little looser, but still she could not pull free.
With a mighty effort, she kicked at the pile around her with her unbound legs, trying to keep the encroaching fire at bay. There a pastoral landscape, there the portrait of Charles I himself, there all the other paintings that had been thought lost, fulfilling their destiny by burning to ashes in this far-off land.
The wind whipped up, blowing the smoke and flames outward, giving her a few seconds’ respite. She rubbed and tugged some more, never giving up. The rope slipped slightly, and now she could reach the knots with the tips of her long fingers. She worked as quickly as she could, scrabbling at the knots, scratching at the rope, cutting into her skin with her nails. It seemed an age, the fire burning, always burning, but finally the loop around her left wrist fell loose enough for her other hand to grasp. Crying with pain she tore her wrist through the loop, stripping away sore layers of skin, but her hand was free.
By now the fire was singeing her boots where the straw had been piled closest. The smell of burning leather began to permeate the air. Quickly she freed her other hand and bent towards the heat, wrists bleeding, clawing at the rope around her waist. But there Sir Bernard’s rope work was firmer; coughing in smoke, she shifted left and right to agitate the bindings against the rough bark, but with little result, and as the flames grew ever hotter, the hems of her dress caught alight.
Deeply scared, she looked into the eyes of Charles I, whose image was now blackening around his neck in a perverse parody of his beheading. In turn he stared out at her, calm, composed, facing his fate as the real King had done fifteen years before. In that instant, Mercia was infused with the spirit of her father’s struggle to throw down tyranny, and an image of her son filled her mind, motherless and afraid.
‘I will not … let them … win!’ With an agonised cry she pulled at the rope round her waist, pulled hard and true, drawing on all her father’s strength, her mother’s pain, her brother’s courage, her son’s love. The rope began to give; she pulled harder, still harder, until a weak strand frayed and with an almighty effort she was able to wrench herself free.
Birthright Page 34
