by Mary Nichols
‘But he can’t do that,’ Maman said. ‘They are not his to dispose of.’
Robert smiled at Adam. ‘Well, my friend, what do you propose to do about it?’
‘What can I do?’
‘Come out into the open. Force his hand.’
‘No,’ Maryanne said quickly. ‘It is too risky.’
‘Doubts, Maryanne?’ Adam queried with a half-smile that lifted the scar on his brow.
It was an expression which meant he would do exactly as he pleased. She wished Robert would not encourage him, and Maman too. In some ways, she wished they had not returned to England. She wanted her child to be born in her homeland, but not at the price of Adam’s life. If he were convicted of murder... Oh, if they could only prove his innocence!
‘No, of course not,’ she said hastily. ‘But Mark holds all the cards.’
Adam chuckled. ‘But we have just been told what a poor gambler he is.’ He turned to Robert. ‘Tell me, what cards do we hold?’
Robert shrugged. ‘Madame Saint-Pierre can prove who you are.’
‘But we cannot prove who killed James,’ Maryanne said. ‘Until we can, I think Adam should do nothing.’
A servant announced that supper was served, and they went in to the dining-room, and for a little while the conversation was of other things: their adventures, what had been happening England, the latest gossip, food prices, anything but the subject which was most on their minds. Afterwards, the ladies went back to the drawing-room to talk of weddings and clothes and babies, leaving the two men to a more serious discussion over port and cigars.
‘You know, Adam, even without the accusations of murder there was enough gossip about you before, but to return and do nothing to silence it...’ Robert paused, but Adam did not interrupt. ‘And you and Maryanne are not the only ones to consider. You will have an heir one day...’
‘Very soon,’ Adam murmured. ‘The end of October, I am led to believe.’
Robert smiled and lifted his glass in a toast. ‘Congratulations. But all the more reason to fight. If you do not, the estate will be broken up, furniture, pictures, valuable heirlooms all scattered. It is already happening. And it is not just your family who will suffer, but the estate workers and villagers who depend on the landowner for a livelihood. Your half-brother has already put up a bill to enclose the common land at Beckford. When it is done, he will sell at a good profit, no matter what hardship it causes others. Adam, you have a responsibility to those people; you cannot let him do it.’
‘And if I am arrested?’
‘Then I will do my best to defend you,’ Robert replied.
Adam smiled wryly. ‘Thank you, my friend. But I am not at all sure I am brave enough to face my wife’s wrath if I go against her wishes.’
Robert smiled. ‘I am sure you can think of a way round that. You must have done it before.’
Adam threw back his head and laughed. ‘It will be a battle royal.’
He was right. Maryanne was adamant; if he insisted on putting his head in a noose, then she would accompany him, and nothing he could say would dissuade her. Knowing she was quite capable of riding after him and risking not only her baby’s life but her own as well, he gave up his intention of riding to Wiltshire and ordered a post chaise.
‘But you will stay in the carriage,’ he said, facing her across the breakfast table. ‘I shall see him alone. I mean to give him the opportunity to retract his accusation. If he does, I’ll help him to go abroad and stay there. There will be no need to make the reason for his going public.’
She laughed. ‘One more Danbury scandal is neither here nor there and he will never agree.’
‘We will see,’ he said.
They arrived at Castle Cedars in the middle of the morning three days later, having spent the previous night at an inn a few miles short of their destination. The gate was opened for them by the young son of the gatekeeper, who told them that the Duke had gone out in his carriage not ten minutes before.
Adam cursed under his breath. He wanted the confrontation over and done with. It was like going into battle; the plans had been made, the ground chosen, the dispositions of the troops set, and all that remained was the order to charge. The waiting always keyed him up, made his stomach churn, killed his appetite, made him restless and sharp-tempered, and the only cure was action. As soon as he was in the thick of it, his nerves disappeared.
‘I reckon there’ll be trouble...’ the boy said, pocketing the coin Adam had given him.
‘Trouble?’
‘At Beckford. The villagers are up in arms about the enclosure. I heard they were marching today. His Grace will be off to fetch the militia...’
‘Beckford!’ Adam shouted up to their driver. ‘And make haste.’
They could hear the noise before the bend in the road brought the cause of it into view. Beckford Common was packed with villagers milling about and shouting threats. Maryanne was appalled to see men and women she had hitherto thought of as law-abiding and peace-loving carrying pitchforks and rakes and other implements as weapons, brandishing them as if they meant to use them.
‘What are they going to do?’ she asked as they pulled up under an oak whose leafy shadow helped to conceal them.
‘I don’t know. They are shouting against the Duke,’ Adam replied.
No one paid them the slightest attention because they had seen the Danbury carriage coming down the hill and were surging towards it. It was forced to a stop as they surrounded it.
‘We want the Duke!’ they yelled. ‘Where is the black-hearted devil?’
They wrenched open the door of the coach and pulled Mark out. It looked as though they intended to lynch him.
Adam could remain still no longer. Bidding Maryanne stay in the coach, he pushed his way through to the front of the crowd. ‘Stop this madness!’ he roared. His powerful voice carried across the heads of the mob like a roll of thunder before a storm. ‘Don’t you know rioting is a serious offence? Listen to reason!’
In the sudden silence that followed Mark looked up and realised who had caused it. His eyes lit with sadistic pleasure. ‘What have we here?’ he said, ignoring the villagers, although he was still firmly held by two of them. ‘Has my patience been rewarded? Has the spider caught the fly?’
‘Go back to your work and your homes,’ Adam said, ignoring him and addressing the villagers. ‘And I guarantee you will have your grazing land back.’
Mark laughed harshly. ‘Are you going to listen to the empty promises of a dead man?’ he shouted. ‘You know this man is wanted for the murder of the late Duke of Wiltshire and is not in a position to guarantee anything. I’ll give ten guineas to anyone coming to my aid!’
The rioters looked at each other doubtfully. Ten guineas was a great deal of money, and might, in some measure, compensate them for the loss of their grazing land.
‘I will overlook your behaviour today,’ Mark went on. ‘I will send the militia away. All you have to do is seize that man.’ His arms were firmly held; he indicated Adam with a nod of his head.
Maryanne, fearful for the man she loved, forced her way through the mob to his side. ‘He is innocent,’ she cried. ‘Do not turn against him.’
For a moment she quailed at the look of annoyance Adam gave her, but then smiled up at him defiantly. ‘I told you before, where you go, I go,’ she said.
‘How touching!’ Mark sneered. ‘And are you prepared to preach at Tyburn Cross along with him?’ He turned to address the villagers. ‘This woman, whom you once took into your midst out of the goodness of your hearts, is his accomplice. I am a magistrate, empowered to take them into custody, and I have the right to insist on assistance. Seize them both and bring them to the Hall.’
Maryanne moved closer to Adam, trying to shield him with her own small body. Knowing and liking her, the villagers looked unsure of what to do. One of them took her arm, but whether in obedience to Mark or as a gesture of reassurance she could not tell. Another took a pace or two towa
rds Adam. He dodged and went to stand beside his half-brother.
‘His Grace and I have a great deal to talk about and it were better done in private,’ he said to the crowd, then, turning to Mark, ‘I will come with you, provided my wife is allowed to go free.’ To Maryanne he said, ‘Go back to the coach.’
‘I will not,’ she answered promptly. ‘I am coming too.’
Mark’s mocking grin of triumph sent trickles of ice running down her back. ‘Fetch the constable from wherever he is,’ he ordered the blacksmith. ‘Bring him to the Hall.’ Then, as the man hurried away, he called after him, ‘There is no need for haste, the prisoners will be safe in my keeping.’
Adam’s behaviour was anything but that of a prisoner as he handed Maryanne up into the Danbury coach before climbing in himself.
No one spoke on the journey to the house, and when they arrived Maryanne was shocked by the change in the place. It had a forlorn air, as if it knew the loving care that had been lavished on it by its previous owner was no more. And when they went inside she realised that Robert had not been exaggerating. It was easy to see where the pictures had been taken from the walls, and there was only the barest minimum of furniture and that not the best of what had once been there. The library was bereft of books and held only a small desk against one wall and a few chairs. She was reminded of the day she had entered this room for the first time, when James had asked her to go to Castle Cedars with him. What would she have said if someone had told her then that she would come back one day to be accused of being an accomplice to his murder? She would have laughed at the absurdity of it.
‘Coming back to England was a foolhardy thing to do,’ Mark said, locking the door and turning to face them. ‘And coming to Beckford was madness. You must have known you would be arrested, so why return?’
‘To prove my innocence and your guilt,’ Adam said.
Mark laughed. ‘There can be no proof, you know that. As far as the world is concerned, you murdered my father.’
‘Our father,’ Adam corrected him. ‘And it was you who did the killing. Having caused the death of the fifth Duke and got away with it, you became even more ambitious. With Father dead, no one would know the truth except me, and if I were hanged for murder there would be no one to dispute your claim. You would inherit an impoverished dukedom and Maryanne would provide the capital when she came into her inheritance.’
‘Now, I wonder who would be believed if you were brought to court?’ Mark sneered. ‘A rough soldier - and a Frenchman at that - or a respected peer of the realm whose antecedents are without question? Everyone knows the late Duke of Wiltshire was a faithful husband and a good father, and Caroline and I are his only children...’
‘You are very confident,’ Adam said coolly. ‘How can you be so sure my story will not be believed? I have proof of my birth, and in wedlock too. Your mother was not our father’s first wife. I may not have wanted my inheritance before, but I am claiming it now. I suggest you withdraw with a good grace. Leave the country and I will see you want for nothing.’
‘Where is this proof?’ Mark demanded.
‘My lawyer will provide it,’ Adam told him.
‘You bluff,’ Mark said. ‘You have no proof and no hope of being believed. Your foster-parents are both dead, that much I know. . .’
‘You are wrong. Madame Saint-Pierre is alive and well and in London at this moment with my lawyer,’ Adam informed him.
‘You lie,’ Mark said, going over to the drawer of the desk and taking out a small pistol. ‘I have captured a wanted murderer and no one would blame me if I took revenge for my father’s death.’
‘No! No!’ Maryanne shrieked, flinging herself between them. ‘You can’t kill him, you must not.’
‘I can and I will, and you too, just as I did that old miser, our fathe.’
‘Stand aside, Maryanne,’ Adam said quietly, putting her from him. ‘Move away.’
‘The constable will be here soon,’ she said, more out of desperation than conviction. Now she knew why Mark had told the blacksmith not to hurry.
‘And he will find both prisoners dead, killed while trying to escape. I shall, of course, be sorry that I had not been able to take you alive, but I had to defend myself.’ He took aim very deliberately and squeezed the trigger.
Adam, ignoring the gun, hurled himself at his half-brother and the shot went wild. They struggled together for possession of the weapon while Maryanne stood with her fist in her mouth and her heart beating wildly. They were well-matched in size and weight and neither was prepared to give an inch.
Maryanne skirted round them and stooped to pick up the poker from the fireplace. It could only have been seconds, but it seemed like hours, before she had a clear view and then she brought the poker down on Mark’s head as hard as she could. He slid to the floor and Adam turned and took a pace towards her, smiling. ‘Good girl!’ he exclaimed. The next moment he had crumpled at her feet and she realised the shot had found its target after all.
‘Adam!’ She stared at him in disbelieving horror and then threw herself down beside him, cradling his head in her lap. ‘Adam,’ she said over and over again, ignoring the sound of people shouting and banging on the locked door. ‘Oh, Adam.’
‘Adam! Adam! For God’s sake, man, if you are all right, open the door!’ She heard, and yet did not hear, someone throw his weight against it. She was numb with shock. Her heart had cracked into a thousand pieces, dissolved and left a hollow space, a void, a numbness, a dryness which could produce no tears. There was nothing there to feel with, no emotion, only emptiness. She could only sit there, stroking Adam’s face with a blood-covered hand in an unthinking gesture, as if doing so would let him know how much she had loved him. She looked up with unseeing eyes when the glass of the window shattered and Robert Rudge and the constable climbed over the sill into the room.
Robert ran to crouch beside her. ‘Maryanne, what happened?’
‘He shot Adam,’ she said dully, nodding towards Mark, lying across the hearth where he had fallen, with the blood-stained poker beside him. ‘He didn’t want either of us to live. I had to stop him.’ Her voice was flat, toneless; all life had been drained from her.
Robert left her to unlock the door. A crowd of noisy people invaded the room and began talking and asking questions, and she could find no voice to answer. She clung to Adam, refusing to leave him.
‘Fetch the doctor,’ Robert said to someone behind him as he returned to Maryanne’s side.
‘Oh, why did Adam have to come here today?’ she asked. ‘I told him it was too risky...’ She looked up at Robert as if seeing him for the first time. ‘How did you get here?’
He smiled. ‘When Jeannie found out that I had given in to Adam and allowed you to come alone, she was furious. She sent me post-haste after you.’
‘If only you had arrived sooner, you might....’ Still she could not cry. ‘You might have prevented this...’ She looked round the room. It was a scene of chaos; there was blood everywhere. The housekeeper had fetched blankets and cushions from the servants’ quarters to make Adam comfortable and others were doing the same for Mark, whose head was a mess of blood. He was moaning softly.
‘What happened?’ Robert asked.
‘He said we must die, just as his father had died. He took the gun out of the drawer and...’ She took a deep breath. ‘He killed Adam.’
He had put his hand on Adam’s chest and smiled suddenly. ‘You despair too soon, my dear. He is not dead, though very close to it.’
‘Are you sure?’
He placed her hand on Adam’s heart. ‘Feel it?’
‘Yes! Yes!’ What a fool she was! She had seen enough of the carnage after the battle of Waterloo to know that a man did not necessarily die of a bullet wound. The relief did something that her grief could not, it brought on the tears. They flowed down her face as if a dam had burst.
‘I am sorry, Maryanne.’
Maryanne raised brimming eyes to look up at Caroline,
still too shocked to show surprise. ‘You here too?’ she gasped.
‘I was on my way to visit my brother when I saw Mr Rudge. Oh, Maryanne, I just wish I had spoken up before. I’ve been thinking about it ever since Richard and I left London. He said I should come and see Mark, sort something out.’
‘Sort what out?’
‘What I had seen. The night Papa was... was killed. After you had gone to up to your room, I went into the hall. I saw Adam leave and Papa was still alive then because I heard him and Mark quarrelling. I had never before heard Papa raise his voice in anger, and it frightened me. And Mark was shouting too. Then I heard a scuffle and it all went quiet. When Mark came out of the library, I dashed up the stairs to my room.’
‘You could have proved Adam did not kill James? You could have saved all this...’ Maryanne was too numb with shock to sound angry. ‘Why did you say nothing before?’
‘I didn’t want to believe it; I kept hoping I had misunderstood what I saw and there was a simple explanation. I kept telling myself that Adam must have returned later. And you had disappeared too. Mark said he had seen you running upstairs afterwards; he believed you knew exactly what happened, but it was not you he saw, but me.’
She knelt down beside Maryanne and took her hand, gripping it tightly. ‘When you were so good to me in Brussels, I realised how wrong I had been. I could not banish it from my mind, so I told Richard and he told me to make a clean breast of it. I came here to tell Mark what I was going to do. Maryanne, can you ever forgive me?’
‘If Adam... No, I will not think such thoughts,’ Maryanne added, as the doctor arrived. He knelt to pull open Adam’s coat and revealed a shirt soaked in blood; it seemed to give the lie to Robert’s statement that her husband was still alive.
‘Come away,’ Caroline said, helping her to rise. ‘He is in good hands now.’
She allowed herself to be led to the window, where they sat in silence, watching the doctor, aided by Robert, administer to his patients. When he had almost finished Maryanne murmured her excuses and hurried over to kneel beside her husband and take his hand.
