Chapter Nineteen
Dartmoor, April 1817
Pain. Hushed voices. The soft swish of skirts. Pain. The clink of spoon against glass. Something nasty on her tongue. The cool relief of water touching parched lips. Pain—but beginning to dull. Somewhere a roar of rage . . . pounding footsteps. Beth winced, tried to open her eyes. Useless. Like her life.
But she could hear. Hear the door bang back, hear a voice—Rodney’s—exclaim, “It was cut, by God. The rein was sawed nearly through.”
Feminine gasps. Horror at the news, shocked remonstrances over a loud voice in the sickroom.
“But who?” demanded another familiar voice, one she couldn’t quite place. “Who would do such a terrible thing?”
“No one,” Rodney asserted. “It’s absurd.”
But Beth could hear doubt creeping into Rodney’s voice. He was recalling what she’d said about being attacked on the moor. Wondering if he should have doubted . . .
But if that were true, then Rodney truly wasn’t responsible. He was not trying to kill her.
Or her husband was an actor of consummate skill.
Beth sank back into the refuge of oblivion.
A deep voice tugged at her, dragging her back. Pressure . . . warmth. Someone was holding her hand. “I’m sorry, so terribly sorry. For everything.” The baritone voice throbbed with anguish and sincerity. “I didn’t believe you. I didn’t listen. Come back to me, Beth. I’ll do better, I swear I will. I never meant to hurt you.”
She must be better, Beth decided, because her brain was sharper. The first thought that popped into her mind was that there must be a third person in the room. Rodney was giving a performance. To her surprise, her eyelids obeyed her command and she found herself looking straight into her husband’s gray-blue eyes.
“Beth? Oh, my darling, you’re awake!” Rodney bent his head as if in prayer, his lips touching her fingers where they were tightly clasped in his hand.
Instinctively, Beth knew that moving her head would bring agonizing pain, but from what she could see from her fixed position, from what she could feel, the room behind Rodney was empty. Confusion. Weakness. Fear. She had to think. But it was so hard. This was her husband, the monster. The man who beat her, who had isolated her from the world by confiscating her mail. The man she suspected of trying to kill her. Yet here he was, playing the anguished husband to the hilt. Radiating remorse. Begging for forgiveness, another chance.
To make sure he finished the job properly next time?
She would have withdrawn her hand, but she hadn’t the strength to move it. But, wait . . . there was something she needed to know. Something . . . Will Jenks! “Will?” she whispered as Rodney lifted his head.
“You just worry about yourself, my dear. You must get well.”
“Will!” Beth insisted, feeling a first small spark of returning life.
Rodney looked past her, as if fascinated by the closed curtains on the far side of the bed. He squeezed her hand between both of his. “I am very sorry,” he said at last, “but Jenks died a hero. He took the brunt of the fall. You were still clasped in his arms when we found you.”
Dear God! Will Jenks, with his cheerful smile. Will Jenks, who’d been courting Sally, the parlor maid. He had died for her.
“I’ve given his parents a goodly sum,” Rodney told her. “Little enough for the sacrifice made, but ’twill help with the rest of their brood.” Gently, he tucked her hand under the quilt. “Go back to sleep, my dear. Least said, soonest mended. You’ll recover quickly now you’re back amongst us. I’ll send Mrs. Mapes in now. She’s an excellent nurse, you have no need to fear.”
Beth’s eyelids collapsed, there was no other word for it. It was a miracle she’d kept them open those few minutes with Rodney. She heard a hushed but happy exclamation from an unknown female voice. Once again, the soft swish of a skirt. A crackle, a hiss, as more wood was added to the fire.
She slept.
Obediently, Beth opened her mouth for tea, broth, and nasty tasting decoctions, but she shunned the world, refusing to participate, lingering in a twilight fantasy where she did not have to acknowledge that Jenks had died for her, that her husband was a monstrous enigma, and that someone—perhaps not Rodney—was trying to kill her. But her mind was too agile, her heritage too courageous to allow a lengthy retreat. One morning she opened her eyes to sparkling sunshine, the smell of spring drifting through an open window, and a startling sight in a chair only a few feet from her bed. “Madame?” Beth murmured. “Is it truly you?”
Nell Archer dropped the book she’d been reading and dashed to Beth’s side. “Oh, my dear child,” she cried, “you’ve given us such a fright.” She smiled through swimming tears, then struggled to find a handkerchief while never taking her eyes off Beth’s face.
“How long?”
“Five days since the accident,” Nell told her. “The vicar was kind enough to bring me as soon as we heard. I am not a skilled nurse, but your husband was gracious enough to allow me to help.”
“But, madame,” Beth protested, truly shocked, “you should not be waiting on me!”
Nell hid her face behind her handkerchief, blew her nose with vigor. What to say? To Beth she was Madame Rosamund Rolande, premier diva of the civilized world. What explanation could she give for playing nurse in the wilds of Dartmoor?
She allowed her hand to drift to Beth’s blond curls, tucking back a strand that had fallen into her eyes. Just as she had done so often over these last few hideous days. It was the most intimacy which had ever passed between them. “We are more than teacher and pupil, my dear. I like to think we are friends. Are we not?”
“I am honored, madame.”
“Nell, please. I am just . . . Nell.”
Beth managed a lopsided grin, though even that seemed to bring on twinges of pain from head to toe. “Yes, Nell, and thank you, Nell, I am exceedingly grateful. I feel . . .” She had almost said “safer.” The word had been on the tip of her tongue. It was true. With Nell Archer in the room she felt nothing could touch her. “I feel much better,” Beth declared. “Your kindness has worked magic.”
Nell, putting a firm grip on her moment of emotional weakness, strode to the bell pull. “Now that you’re feeling more the thing,” she declared brightly, “let us see if we can get you some more interesting food. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
As they waited for an order of toast and poached egg, Nell stacked pillows behind Beth, then helped her sit up. Although pain stabbed through every inch of her and her head swam for a full minute, Beth was relieved to be seeing the world from something other than the horizontal. “Nell,” she ventured, “is it true Will Jenks is dead?”
Nell sank onto the bed, gazing anxiously into Beth’s face. “I am so sorry, my dear, but, yes, he seems to have hit his head on a boulder. Yet he never let go. He took the worst of your fall. I know this is little comfort, but Monterne has given a grant to the family. Jenks’s parents, his brothers and sisters will live a good deal better now.”
So she had not dreamed it. A remorseful Rodney full of loving protestations and handsome gestures.
Ellie came into the room, setting up a bed tray and neatly laying out Beth’s first solid food. “Eat up, my lady,” she encouraged. “With real food in you, you’ll feel better in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
Though hungry, very hungry, Beth could only stare at the toast, the small pots of creamy butter and jam. The bland mound of poached egg. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?” she whispered.
“Oh, my dear, you mustn’t think about it!” Nell cried. “You must only think of getting well.” She buttered a quarter triangle of toast, added jam, and offered it to Beth. “Monterne is making inquiries, the magistrate as well,” she added when Beth refused to open her mouth. “I promise you, the culprit will be found.” Beth’s lips remained stubbornly closed. “There have been rumors of strangers sighted in Ponsworthy, Buckland, and Poundsgate, as well as the usual tales of slav
ering hounds, nasty pixies, and vicious witches. But so far the search has produced nothing solid.”
Once again, Nell offered the toast. “But you need have no worries,” she added, “you’re perfectly safe at the Refuge. Now that your husband understands the danger, you will be well protected at all times. Come now,” she urged, “please try a bite of toast. When you’ve restored your strength, the world will seem a much more friendly place.”
Beth doubted it, but she could hardly insult the great Madame Rosamund Rolande by telling her she was a naive optimist.
Terence. Dear God. Terence, where are you?
London, April 1817
Tobias Brockman sat at his desk in the heart of the City of London, frowning over a cargo manifest, occasionally running an agitated hand through what little was left of his fringe of brown hair. Checking manifests was a task turned over to others many years ago, but this one had made its way to his desk. It was short. Short enough any dim-witted clerk could catch it. The bloody bugger of a captain was either helping himself or the bastard was shipping slaves as a sideline. An abomination Tobias Brockman had left behind him twenty years ago.
A knock on the door deepened his scowl. He’d told his secretary he did not want to be disturbed.
“Sir,” James Morton ventured, poised in the doorway as if ready to run, “there’s a Miss Matilda Spencer to see you. I told her you were not seeing visitors, but she declares it is urgent.”
Tobias came straight up out of his chair. Matilda here, at his office? He couldn’t even imagine the circumstances which would bring the very proper Miss Matilda Spencer to the headquarters of Tobias Brockman & Company. “Well, show her in, James, show her in.”
Tildy, at the sight of her employer, her friend, the man she had hopelessly loved for well over a decade, came close to losing her ingrained reserve, the stern discipline by which she lived her life. Her eyes filled with tears, her limbs quivered. Helpless, she allowed Tobias to seat her in the same brown leather chair Terence had so frequently occupied.
Tobias suddenly felt the weight of every one of his fifty-five years, even as he experienced emotions usually attributed to youth. Though why his heart should be thudding and his middle-aged groin tightening at the sight of a thin, dried-up spinster he refused to imagine. But the distress in those cool gray eyes had his hands shaking as he poured out a glass of brandy and handed it to her. “Now tell me,” Tobias demanded, “what’s happened.”
Unable to force words past the lump in her throat, Tildy held out the letter which had come in the morning’s post. Instantly, Tobias recognized his daughter’s hand. Dear God, at least the child was alive. The look on Matilda’s face had been so awful, he’d feared the worst. He unfolded the letter and began to read.
My dearest Tildy,
I am going to ask my friend Nell Archer to post this letter, as I fear something has gone wrong with mail here at the Refuge. I have not heard from you or anyone else, including Papa and Jack, for over six weeks now, and I am sure that cannot be right. I am sending this plea to you as I never know where Papa or Jack will be, and I doubt Terence has yet returned. I know you will find one of them to help me.
I have never liked to fail—as you well know—so it is difficult to admit that my marriage is not going well. Try as I might, I cannot please my husband. Much of the time he is his charming self but, on occasion, he becomes violent. (I cannot bring myself to write the details.) One moment he says he cares for me. The next, he rails against having to marry a Cit to get Papa’s money.
I fear for my life. If not from Rodney, then from an outside force. In February, when I was walking on the moor, someone pushed me into a bog. I was fortunate to escape with my life. I wrote to you about it but now believe you could not have receoved the letter. If so, you would have told Papa and he would have sent someone to my rescue long since.
Yes, dearest Tildy, I need rescuing. I tried to have the courage to live with what I have done to myself, but I cannot. If I stay here, I will die. I am convinced of it. I am also quite sure I cannot effect an escape on my own. Please, I beg you, send someone to bring me home.
Your loving Beth
Stunned, Tobias allowed the letter to drop onto his desk. Head bent, he struggled for breath, his rage so great his surroundings, even Matilda’s dear face, receded into a red mist. He raised a clenched fist, pounded it onto the mahogany, sending papers flying in every direction. Rodney Renfrew’s head, severed from its body, stared up at him from the mess at his feet.
“O’Rourke!” he bawled. “Somebody get O’Rourke!”
Tildy, terrified her beloved was going to be stricken by an apoplexy, jumped up, poured out a brandy, and thrust it into Tobias’s hand. Fastening his fingers around the glass, she lifted his hand to his mouth. As he gulped the potent liquor, she realized her hands were still in place. She was touching him. For the first time in nearly fifteen years of service, she was actually touching him. Shock. Horror. Poignant sorrow. The amber eyes staring back at her reflected the same emotions. And perhaps . . . something else. An awareness? Awakening?
The moment was not allowed to last. The door slammed back. Terence stood there, brilliant blue beacons of fire scanning the room for signs of trouble, James Morton hovering behind him.
“So you tore yourself away from that whore long enough to come to work,” Tobias barked.
“I was helping her find a house,” Terence snapped back, not bothering to dispute the epithet. He turned to Miss Spencer, anger vanishing as if by magic. “Tildy! I’ve missed you.” He swooped her up, gave her a hug before seating her once again in the deep leather chair in front of Tobias’s desk. “I was coming to see you,” he told her, “but I’ve only been back three days.”
Tildy’s emotions fluctuated so rapidly she could scarcely breathe. Her whole world was in this room, and in her dear Beth so far away in Dartmoor. Terence, grown straight and strong, fulfilling all the promise of that confident, arrogant youth who had interviewed her so many years before, his black waves of hair gleaming like polished ebony above those amazing blue eyes. The ones that could shine with genuine humor, flash with courage, or freeze a man to the bone. He was her child, as much as if she’d borne him, and he was a man to make a mother proud. And now he must save the other child she loved so dearly. For this, she would gladly forgo her third love, she vowed. It was, after all, a hopeless dream at the best of times. What right had she to even think of a man like Tobias Brockman?
Her beloved’s growl pierced Tildy’s fleeting thoughts, her foolish attempt to bargain with fate. “Mount Street,” Tobias mocked. “St. John’s Woods is good enough for the likes of her. But Mount Street! Have you no sense, boy?”
“Mademoiselle Dessaint has ambitious goals,” Terence explained, straight-faced. “A belted earl at least, perhaps even higher. She needs the proper setting.”
Tildy’s hand flew up to cover her face, not quite certain if she was hiding shock or laughter. The look on Tobias’s face, as she peeked at him through her fingers, was priceless.
“You’re pimp–uh, setting her up to find a–ah–husband?” Tobias asked, incredulous.
“A great relief,” Terence admitted airily. “I’ve known all along she wanted no part of a man without a title.” Well, he thought as he heard his words echo through Tobias’s grand office, he had perhaps not chosen the best phrase. There were certainly parts of him Rochelle Dessaint wanted. With only the smallest twitch of his lips, he added, “She has all that money we paid her, so she can live like royalty and will probably end up with ‘Lady’ before her name. Mademoiselle Dessaint was born for great things. I could scarcely deny her my escort to the capital of the world.”
“She was born to be a great courtesan,” Tobias corrected sternly. “Enough! We’ve more important business here.” Balefully, he eyed his Irish son. “If you can tear yourself from that woman’s arms, you have work to do.” He handed Terence Beth’s letter.
“You’ll not kill him,” Tobias ordered as he wa
tched color rise in Terence’s face as he read. “I’ll not lose you to the hangman, boy. Leave that to someone else. Just go and bring her home.”
“You can’t do that,” Tildy declared in the voice Terence recalled so well from the schoolroom.
“Don’t tell me what to do, woman!” Tobias roared. “He can and he will.”
“You cannot part a man from his wife,” Matilda Spencer persisted. “It’s theft. As criminal an offense as if Terence were a highwayman.”
“Then, needs must, the boy will visit his sister . . . and bring the widow home,” Tobias returned without blinking an eye.
“I haven’t been a boy for quite some time now,” Terence declared. “And I’m quite capable of bringing Beth home without being transported for life.” He leaned forward, placed a comforting palm on his tutor’s thin shoulder. “Never fear, Tildy, I’ll manage the thing.”
“Take as many men as you need,” Tobias said. “Jack’s not got ’em all. The great oafs have been sitting around all winter, eating me out of home and hearth. ’Tis time they earned their keep.”
Terence folded his arms, rocked back on his heels, replaying in his mind every nuance of Beth’s short cry for help. “Is it Monterne then who’s trying to kill her?” he asked, as if to the air around him. “Or do we have two separate problems?”
“When she’s home there’ll be no problems,” Tobias barked.
“If it’s not Monterne who wants her dead—and I tell you I doubt he’s man enough to fly in the face of the warnings we gave him—then bringing her home is not enough. Though who could want her dead I can’t imagine for, as far as I can see, I’m the only one who would benefit.”
Tildy gasped. “It’s true and all,” Terence drawled. “But I think we can acquit me of the intent. Or the opportunity.” He paused, staring out the window behind Tobias’s huge mahogany desk. “Unless I paid someone, of course. Went calmly off to the Louisiana Territory while someone did the deed for me.”
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