Yancey had her gun in her hand and her arm down at her side. She wasn’t nearly as concerned for herself, or even Sam—a strong, capable man—as she was for Her Grace Nana. Yancey worried that, despite her warning to Sam to keep his nana with him, the old dear would slip away from the emotional crowd gathered there. That could be tragic because Her Grace Nana was the most vulnerable one of them all. She had seen Mrs. Edgars kill Roderick, Yancey was certain of it. Though the ancient woman didn’t recall it at the moment, it was only a matter of time before her fog cleared—and well Mrs. Edgars would know that, too. Yancey couldn’t bear the thought of Her Grace Nana being attacked by the knife-wielding housekeeper.
Just the thought of such a scene halted Yancey and left her weak. She held on to the wall a moment and concentrated on taking deep, calming breaths. She had to remind herself that it wasn’t going to happen, not if she had anything to do with it. And she did. She had everything to do with it. There. Yancey let go of the wall and stood under her own power. She tested her legs and her resolve. Steady as a rock. Smiling grimly, she set off again for the drawing room, which was just ahead.
Thinking of Mrs. Edgars, Yancey wondered what could possibly be driving the woman to kill Sam’s family. Yancey realized she didn’t know enough about her to even hazard a guess. But she sincerely hoped she didn’t have to kill the housekeeper. All she wanted was answers from her. Then she would have her locked away somewhere until Sam could get the authorities here to take her away. England had an excellent court system. As far as Yancey was concerned, it was up to them to try her and punish her.
It sounded all neat and orderly to her, but the reality was, and well Yancey knew it, that the woman most likely would not want to be captured, knowing the fate that awaited her. Yancey sighed. That meant a life-or-death struggle. Yancey pulled a face. Not another one. For her, the two deaths already on her soul were weighty enough. But still, she didn’t rule out violence. She hated it, but never pretended that the potential for it didn’t exist. To do so could only get her killed. And when it came to killing or being killed … well, she’d twice over proven that her will to live was firmly intact.
At this point in her thinking, she stealthily approached the drawing room. Curious that the doors would be open. They weren’t normally. But there could be any number of innocent reasons for that. Or guilty ones. From the safety of the doorway, Yancey began quietly looking around. Her trained gaze considered each piece of furniture and every corner. Any nook or cranny that could hide a person the size of Mrs. Edgars warranted Yancey’s attention. But nothing she saw gave her alarm. Too bad the woman couldn’t have been simply sitting in here, perhaps with tea prepared, and waiting for Yancey so they could have a nice chat about what had happened.
Wouldn’t that be lovely? Yes, but not likely. Yancey entered the room, thinking, Drat. Did the woman mean to make her search the second floor for her? Yancey didn’t relish that prospect one bit. She thought of the long, mirrored ballroom, the many dressing rooms for the ladies, the billiards room for the gentlemen, and shook her head. All manner of rooms unfamiliar to her. Less certain ground. But the next places she had to look.
As she turned to leave, her gaze fell on the French doors leading out onto the terrace. They too were open. Of course, she’d seen that the instant she’d walked into the room. But the very fact of their being open hadn’t struck her as important until now. Standing there, frowning, she concentrated on what she could see of the out-of-doors. A beautiful May day. Sunshine. A warm breeze. Birds chirping. A butterfly flitting hither and yon over the many flower pots. A perfectly innocent day, by all accounts.
Why would these doors be open if no one was in here to enjoy the air? Was this a trap? Or was it a trail, a clue, provided by her quarry? A way of directing her steps? Yancey suddenly felt certain of it. With each step she took toward the open doors, her heart rate picked up. This, then, was her old, familiar instinct kicking in. It happened every time she got close to the villain or the answers. Instead of scaring her, it reassured her that the end was near.
Yancey stepped out onto the terrace and looked around. Of course, no gardeners swarmed over the place today. Her orders. She’d wanted nothing and no one between her and her quarry. No one to be used as a shield or to inadvertently stop a bullet not meant for him. So where was she supposed to go from here? No obvious clues presented themselves. Yancey worried her bottom lip with her teeth as she narrowed her eyes.
Her gaze lit on the high hedges that formed the maze. No. Not even if she saw Mrs. Edgars dart in there would she follow. Logic told her that wouldn’t be necessary or even smart because all she would have to do, in that eventuality, was wait. The woman would have to exit at some point.
But again, no Mrs. Edgars. Yancey tensed her hand around her gun and took a slow, considering walk of the sun-dappled terrace’s entire perimeter while she kept her gaze trained on the grounds. Nothing was amiss. No darting movements. No black-clad woman standing out in a field, waving a hanky and calling out to her. Yancey grunted her amusement at her own dark humor. If only something so obvious would happen. But the only movement she saw was that of birds and butterflies and breeze-fanned tops of the trees. Concluding her stroll on the right side of the terrace, Yancey turned back around and thought to look up.
Her heart all but stopped. “Good Lord!” She put a hand to her heart and realized her mouth had dropped open. “I should have known,” she said aloud but quietly. “The tower.”
There she was. Mrs. Edgars, dressed all in black. She was sitting in the high, high window of the room at the top of the ancient tower. She wasn’t waving at Yancey, though. Instead, as if nothing were amiss, her hands were in her lap and her feet dangled outside in the air. From this distance, Yancey couldn’t see the housekeeper’s expression, but the woman’s head was angled in such a way that Yancey knew her prey had spotted her.
The woman meant to jump. She meant to kill herself. Sudden and unaccustomed panic seized Yancey. She couldn’t think what to do or how to stop the woman. She feared that if she called out to her or even so much as looked away, Mrs. Edgars would jump. Fear for the woman, and fear for herself for having to witness such a scene, held Yancey riveted to the spot, staring up at the housekeeper. Should she get Sam? Was there time to seek help? Or … should she just let the murdering woman jump? No. Yancey quickly dismissed that. Such a cold, hard thought. She refused to allow such a notion to claim her heart. She had to do something.
Suddenly the seconds seemed to be flying by, faster and faster. But then Yancey realized something else—something disturbing. Maybe Mrs. Edgars didn’t mean to jump at all. Couldn’t this be a ruse to have Yancey running up the narrow, winding stairwell, thinking only to stop her from jumping? After all, how hard would it be for Mrs. Edgars to wait until she heard Yancey on the stairs and then simply climb back inside and attack her the moment she entered the room?
Not hard at all. In fact, brilliant. But what the woman hadn’t counted on was Yancey’s realizing all that. Mrs. Edgars had underestimated the craftiness of the Fox. So it was professional pride and the thought of a fight with a worthy opponent that freed Yancey from her moment’s panic and spurred her into decisive action. More than anything, she wanted her opponent to see exactly what she was doing and to know that she was coming.
Yancey leaned over the terrace’s low railing. The drop to the soft ground was negligible. That decided, she tucked her gun into her waistband, hiked up her skirt, sat down atop the wide railing, swung her legs over, and pushed off.
* * *
Sam had accomplished quite a bit in a very short amount of time. He’d left his study and gone immediately in search of Scotty. Finding him in the butler’s pantry, Sam had given him his orders. But they weren’t the ones Yancey had wanted him to relay. No, they were instead Sam’s own for the man. He’d told him to go the dowager’s rooms and keep her and Nana and every single maid from leaving it. Scotty had merely nodded, turned around, and headed for the serva
nts’ stairs. But Sam knew he understood and would be effective.
Effective? Sam snorted a chuckle. Why, Scotty would corral that entire room full of women into one corner, if he had to, and stand in front of them glowering and with his arms crossed. And there they’d stay until Sam came to tell him otherwise. No amount of arguing or complaining on the part of the women would sway the silent butler, either. The wonderful thing about Scotty’s granitelike state of mind was he wasn’t the least bit impressed or intimidated by anyone. Sam knew that not even his mother would be able to move the man—and that was exactly what Sam was counting on.
For him to be effective in what he intended to do, he needed first to be certain that his loved ones were safe. At least those two loved ones would be. The other one—namely, a little hellion named Yancey—wasn’t. But Sam was about to rectify that, too.
Fussing silently to himself as he left the pantry off the dining room and came around the corner, which put him at one end of the long hallway that ran the width of the central building of the manor, Sam spotted Yancey at the other end and stopped cold. Her back was to him and she appeared intent on making a search of the downstairs. Sam arched an eyebrow. So he was right. The Pinkerton agent had her gun, but no writing materials in her hand. And if she meant to make her way to the dining room, then she should be facing him … which she wasn’t.
Feeling smug because he’d correctly guessed her intentions, Sam stood with his feet apart and his arms crossed over his chest. He watched her turn to her left and face the open doors of the drawing room. He could just see her profile, no more than the back of her head and skirt, as she evidently looked around that room. He wondered if he should make himself known to her and then confront her. He thought not. All that would do was start an argument he probably wouldn’t win. And from where he was standing, she didn’t appear to be in any danger. But if he heard any signs of a struggle, he could be in the room in a matter of seconds.
Satisfied, he told himself he could wait … at least until she came out of the drawing room. And then he would allow her to see him and to explain herself.
A man faints one time and then docilely takes orders from a woman one-third his size, Sam fumed, and she thinks him both weak and mentally dull. Had it been anyone else, he would have been angry and insulted. But this was Yancey and he loved her and found her wanting to protect him at all costs endearing—not to mention infuriating and hair-raising. Certainly, his male pride had taken a trouncing today, but that didn’t mean he intended to compound his inadequacies any further by being stupid.
In a nutshell, he hadn’t been taken in—not in the least—by Yancey’s pretty little speech about needing writing materials to make a log or by her benign plan to question his entire staff. She meant to send him on his merry little way, none the wiser, and then go after Mrs. Edgars herself. Did she think he hadn’t realized that she suspected his housekeeper—no, actually his brother’s housekeeper? He’d seen clearly enough the look that had passed between the two women.
That was exactly the moment when he’d known what she intended to do. And that was when he had come up with his plan to stop her. And now here he was, about to outfox a professional Pinkerton agent and reclaim his pride. Once he’d had it out with her, he’d turn her over to Scotty and go on his own to confront Mrs. Edgars. This was his fight.
So all he had to do was wait for Yancey to exit the drawing room. He stood there, grinning. Waiting. After a few seconds, his grin faded. It became a frown. Then he became impatient and, finally, curious. What the devil is she doing? Why is she taking so long to look around in there? He considered the size of the room and her curiosity and concluded that maybe it hadn’t been all that long. He’d wait a bit more.
Then he wondered if it would make a bigger point with her if he went to stand in the room’s doorway and startled her when she turned around. Wouldn’t that prove to her that she wasn’t infallible—that she could be surprised? Then he remembered that gun in her hand and that she was on the trail of a villain. In that frame of mind, she was more likely to shoot him than fuss at him, should he surprise her.
So Sam stayed where he was. He uncrossed his arms and planted his hands at his waist. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He looked behind him in the hallway. Empty, of course. With the lawn and formal gardens off to his right, he faced forward again and watched the drawing room doors. No sign of Yancey. Not a sound, either. No raised voices. No crashing noises. Was the woman napping? Perplexed, Sam scratched at his head, wondering what he should do.
Then he wondered if maybe Yancey had spotted him out of the corner of her eye and was smugly waiting for him to enter the drawing room so she could show him that he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. That could be. But would she play such games with him, given that they were in dire straits? Sam’s conscience was quick to point out to him that he was doing exactly what he’d just accused Yancey of. He was standing here, playing a game, much like Nana and Scotty’s hide-and-seek.
Well, that did it. Stung again, Sam set himself in motion. This was nonsense. A straightforward approach was called for here. He would confront the woman and tell her that if there was any sleuthing to be done in his home, then he would, by God, be in on it. And he would not listen to any arguments from her. If he had to, he would again fire her. Sam turned into the drawing room, a pointing, accusing finger already raised and his argument already forming on his lips. But, to his great shock, the room was empty. “What the devil—?”
He looked all around, not knowing what to think. “Yancey?” No answer. His patience with her evaporated. “Yancey? Where are you? I find it hard to believe that, at a time like this, you are actually hiding behind the furniture. Come out this instant.”
She didn’t. Angry and frowning mightily to prove it, Sam stalked around the room, looking for her. He stopped, standing in the middle of the room, thinking and rubbing his hand over his stubbled jaw. This made no sense. He’d seen her come into this very room. And he hadn’t looked away long enough for her to have escaped his notice.
A bird chirped loudly.
Startled, Sam whipped around, seeing it take wing from the balustrade. Was she out there? He sprinted out onto the terrace and quickly looked around. Nothing. She was nowhere. Gone. Vanished into thin air. Ridiculous. That did not happen. Looking this way and that, searching, hoping, he caught a movement from the corner of his eye, off to his left—and his heart came close to stopping. Dear God, there she is.
She was entering the door to the tower.
“Now, why the devil is she going in there?” Another movement fluttered at the edge of his vision … Sam looked up and gasped. Shock stiffened his knees and left him staring helplessly. “No.”
He could hardly believe what he was seeing. There at the very top, and seated on the ledge of the high window, acting for all the world as if nothing were amiss, was Mrs. Edgars.
Sam took only a few precious seconds to put it all together. Yancey had done the same thing he’d just done, he reasoned. Entered this room, looked around, found it empty, stepped outside onto the terrace, again looked around, and then had caught sight of the woman sitting on the ledge. And now she meant to go up there and confront the housekeeper before the woman could jump.
If she meant to jump. Sam’s next thought was this could be a trap on Mrs. Edgars’s part. Then he knew in his heart: if he’d thought of that, so had Yancey. She was purposely, and foolishly, placing herself in great danger.
That was all he needed to realize. Sam leaped up on the railing, vaulted over it, hit the ground, and ran after Yancey. His heart pounded with his fear that she would get to the top of the narrow, winding stairs before he could catch her. He’d never forgive himself if he were too late.
Chapter Twenty-three
One step at a time. One hard, bare stone step at a time. Creeping sideways up the winding, twisting, narrow confines of the ancient spiral that was the tower, Yancey led with her left hand along the rough wall at
her back. In her right hand was her gun. At least it was cool in here, and that was good because she was in a hot sweat. Her senses attuned to the danger ahead, she kept her gaze ever upward, watching for Mrs. Edgars. The woman could decide at any moment to attack and, since Yancey had a ways to go before she even approached the tower room, the element of surprise was on the housekeeper’s side. She could have a knife and could come shrieking around the next spiral at any second. Or, like Yancey, she could have a gun.
Yancey exhaled, though her tight chest made it difficult to do so. She already regretted that she’d taken the bait and entered the tower. It only now occurred to her that, just as she’d reasoned with the maze, she could simply have sat on the terrace and waited the woman out. Yancey winced. No, she didn’t think she had the nerve to simply sit there and wait to see what Mrs. Edgars’s choice was. She only had two. She would either jump or climb back inside. Even eventually, had she chosen the latter, she would have come out of the tower. Or she could stay in here and starve to death. Or die of thirst.
Yancey shied away from those images, focusing instead on another possibility—the one that told her she had no choice but to climb these steps. What if the woman simply waited until nightfall and came down out of the tower and reentered the house, intent on killing them all? Of course, they could post guards, but it hardly seemed fair to use as sentinels some untrained stablehand or an innocent page. And neither Sam nor Scotty could do it alone. Why put them in harm’s way when she, a trained Pinkerton agent, was here and on the job? Sam had hired her to solve this. And solve it she would. No sense in allowing the woman to escape their notice.
That idea alone gave Yancey the shivers. Just as did the image her scared mind insisted on showing her, that of Mrs. Edgars charging her. Should the woman attack, Yancey knew she was too far up just to turn and run. She couldn’t. That would make her a perfectly helpless target for a raging, demented woman with a big knife. Of course, she could just shoot the woman, Yancey assured herself, should Mrs. Edgars charge her. But the question was: would she have time? And would it be wise, given how bullets that missed their target would most likely ricochet off these walls?
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