Rex took a deep breath. “There’s something I need to tell you. It’s not going to be easy.” He really couldn’t afford to have her running around oblivious and vulnerable anymore, especially not now he had concrete suspicions that he could go to the police with.
“What is it?” She looked wary, but undaunted.
“When we had lunch in London, you asked me why my parents split.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t want to tell you because I knew the reason it happened would upset you.”
A frown developed between her eyebrows. “But you’re going to tell me now?”
He nodded. “I have to.”
“So tell me.”
He admired her resilience. He hated to crush it. But this thing had gone too far and it was necessary. “My father had a mistress. It was a full-on thing. He set her up in her own home, the works. It broke my mum apart when she found out.”
“Seriously?” She looked astonished. “I can’t believe it.”
“You had great admiration for him and a good relationship, that’s why I didn’t want to explain before now.”
She stared out of the car window a moment, eyes focusing on a midpoint while she thought about it. “Are you telling me that he had a mistress even after he married my mother...I mean, if he bought the woman a home and everything, was she a permanent fixture?”
Rex rested his hand on her arm, squeezing it gently. “I can’t be entirely sure when it ended, but I don’t think so.”
She rested back against the headrest. “If it’s true, I’m glad my mother never knew.”
It raised all sorts of questions for her, Rex could see that. He looked out of the car. It was getting overcast, and he wanted to get her to the house. He felt increasingly uneasy. Jacobson’s call had set his mind running with questions. “Do you remember when Chris read the will? He mentioned a clause that would come into action if we both passed on.”
She turned back to him. “Vaguely.”
“The estate funds would go to a charity. It wasn’t something I’d ever heard of, so I’ve had someone look into it. I don’t think it’s entirely aboveboard. It turns out my father’s mistress is the finance officer. I can’t be sure yet, but I’ve got a private investigator on it.”
Carmen’s frown deepened. “I don’t get it. Why on earth are you worried about what will happen if we are both dead?”
This was it, the crunch. “Because an attempt has been made on both our lives.”
“What do you mean?”
Slowly, carefully, Rex summarized what had happened to him on the day of her accident. When he delivered the information, he waited for her response. He expected her to be shocked, afraid even. Instead, she folded her arms tighter across her chest and glared at him.
“Unbelievable!”
“I know it sounds far-fetched, but believe me, I’ve got grounds for my suspicions.”
“No, you are unbelievable. Why didn’t you share all of this with me before now? It’s just typical, you think you can take control and you don’t think about the implications. You just do what suits you regardless of the consequences to other people.”
Rex had to unclench his jaw in order to respond. “I was trying not to worry you any more than was necessary.”
“Well, you sure as hell have me worried now.”
“Believe me, I would have dealt with it all and protected you without you ever knowing the sordid details of my father’s previous love life, if I could have.”
“You just don’t get it. Just because I like you to take charge in the bedroom, doesn’t mean you can take charge of every aspect of my life now you’ve walked back into it.” Her eyes glittered.
He could see that she was afraid. That was making her lash out.
He reached for her, but she drew back and nodded at the house. “Take me to the manor, please. I’ll phone for a taxi and get the train back to London.”
“No way. You aren’t going anywhere on your own.” It wasn’t the only reason, but he was getting irritated by the way the conversation was evolving. “I don’t intend to let you out of my sight, so get used to the idea!”
She sighed pointedly. “Didn’t it occur to you that all this information you just dropped on me might be upsetting and that I might need some time on my own?” She turned and glared at him. “It’s a lot to take in, the fact that the man we all trusted, my mother’s husband, had a mistress all those years.”
“I know that.”
She shook her head at him. “And you lied to me. You told me that you didn’t know why your parents had split up.”
Increasingly frustrated, Rex shook his head at her. “I’m beginning to regret telling you at all.”
He turned the key in the ignition and revved the engine. “I should’ve just let you run loose and break your neck on some booby trap on the stairs?”
He pulled the car back onto the drive and set off at a pace.
“If you had any faith in my intelligence, you would have told me so that I could have been prepared.”
“Maybe I have gone the wrong way about it, maybe I should have told you. But I acted as I did with the best of intentions.”
They were still arguing about it after he’d parked the car and they reached the doorway.
Rex barely paused to grab his laptop bag from the boot of the car before darting after her. “Some women would be glad they had a protector.”
“Okay, so now you want to be praised to the high heavens for keeping me in the dark and feeding me bullshit. Why doesn’t that surprise me at all?”
They were standing on the steps outside the door.
Usually Mrs. Amery would be there, ready to greet them, door open. Rex tried the door handle. It was open.
Carmen gave him a terse look as she stepped past him into the hallway.
As soon as he stepped inside he registered that the place was eerily silent. The chandelier in the hallway was lit up, as was the one on the floor above. “Why is it so quiet? Where is Mrs. Amery?”
The door was open and the housekeeper was expecting them. Mrs. Summerfield, too. Something was amiss. He set his bag down on the floor and stuck his head out the front. The CCTV camera didn’t appear to be damaged in any way. Back in the hallway, he strained his ears, and heard nothing.
“What’s the matter now?”
The lights flickered off and back on again.
Carmen was so het up she didn’t seem to notice.
Rex put his fingers to his lips. With his arm around her shoulders he directed her back toward the front door. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he gave her instructions. “Call the police, tell them we just arrived and we’ve found the property open with no staff around.”
“They’ll be in the kitchens. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I hope you’re right. I’ll go and check. Now make the call and don’t move from this spot.” He paused. “If you hear anything unusual, head that way, fast.” He nodded his head outside.
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Anything unusual, run, as fast as you can. Promise me.”
Her eyes widened. “Rex, you’re really scaring me.”
“Good. Now make that call.”
She nodded and went for her shoulder bag.
Once he saw her open it up and withdraw her phone, he touched her gently on the shoulder, then turned and made his way across the hallway toward the kitchens at the back of the house. Still he heard nothing.
The corridor that ran along to the kitchens was in darkness and he left it that way. When he reached the kitchen, it was empty, though everything appeared to be normal. Then he noticed the back door into the adjacent lobby was ajar. Stepping closer, he peeped into the lobby and saw the back door there was wide open.
Turning on his heel, he headed back.
When he reached the reception hallway he found it empty.
Carmen had gone.
The front door still stood open and he broke into a jog, assuming she’d gone outside. There was no sign of her anywhere on the lawns or pathways and he couldn’t hear footsteps on gravel. Turning back, he jogged quickly up the stairs, wanting badly to find her on the way into her room, having ignored his instructions. There was no sign of her. He made his way back downstairs, eyes scanning the hallway.
As he reached the bottom of the staircase, he saw her phone in its electric-blue case lying near the doormat. Rex could barely stop himself screaming out her name, but instinct told him that if there was an intruder, silence and stealth were his friends.
Frantic, Rex scanned the hallway again. He hadn’t been gone long. Thirty seconds maybe, less than a minute. The doors to the reception rooms at the front of the building were open and at first glance those rooms seemed empty. There was only one answer; she was still in the hallway, but he just couldn’t see her—oldest magician’s trick in the book. She claimed his words had frightened her, though, and perhaps that was it; she’d been scared and had hidden somewhere. Rex hoped that was the case, but he couldn’t take the risk by calling out her name.
Had she even had time to make the call? He was on his way to pick the phone up when he noticed something on the far side of the door, neatly positioned behind it. It was the pot of walking sticks that Mrs. Amery had dug out the week before. She’d obviously left it there in case Carmen needed one on arrival. As usual, Mrs. Amery had thought of everything. Instead of reaching for the phone, Rex reached into the pot and pulled out the most brutish-looking walking stick he could find.
Facing the hallway, he asked himself: Where would I hide?
He’d played hide-and-seek in this house as a child when his friends came to visit, and quite often with the staff, too.
Under the stairs. There, beneath the massive crescent-shaped staircase was a dark corner. If she was there, though, she’d have seen him looking for her. Heart thumping, he made his way over. When he rounded the corner and squinted into the dark shadows under the staircase, he saw her there.
A man stood at her back. He had his hand over her mouth.
“Back off,” the man warned gruffly.
Carmen’s eyes widened when she saw Rex. Then her gaze shifted, and he saw that she was trying to indicate something. Before he had a chance to get any closer, she moved and whacked her assailant in the groin. When she broke free, Rex pulled her to one side.
The bloke straightened up and tried to make a run for it.
Rex used the stick. The man slumped to the floor, out cold.
Rex dropped his weapon, grabbed Carmen into his arms and kissed her head. “That was some move. Remind me never to hold you against your will.”
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I’ve told you that. I’ve had self-defense training.”
“I’m glad.” He never wanted her to be in this position again, though. He pulled his phone from his pocket. “You call the police. I’ll try and see what’s going on here. Stay under the stairs, out of view.”
The sound of footsteps stalled them. Rex pulled her back into the shadows beneath the staircase and put his fingers on her lips. She nodded.
A woman’s voice called out. “Charles?”
Puzzled, Rex craned his neck. The bizarre sight that met his eyes made no sense. Olivia Fordyce was walking across the hallway. She had Bill Amery at her side and was holding a gun to him.
“Charles?” she said again, calling it out quite loudly.
It was too surreal. Why was his father’s mistress calling out the name of a man she knew was dead?
The man at their feet stirred.
Rex stared down at him, horrorstruck. Was this Charles? If so, the possible implications of the name choice made his blood run cold.
He had to act fast. Bill was being held at gunpoint. This Charles bloke was about to wake up, and it wouldn’t be long before Olivia looked their way.
With a hand on Carmen’s shoulder, he indicated she stay put. Then he ducked down and picked up the stick. Stepping out from the cover of the staircase, he rapped the stick loudly on the floor as he went.
As he hoped, Olivia turned in his direction, arm swinging out wildly as she did so, gun pointing in his direction. He had a split second to incapacitate her. Breaking into a run, he batted her raised arm with the stick.
She crumpled, but she squeezed the trigger as she dropped.
The gun discharged, then skated across the marble tiles. Olivia buckled to the floor, crying out.
Bill Amery staggered backward, bending double. He gripped his thigh and a bloodstain appeared on the fabric of his trousers.
Rex lunged for the gun, then stepped behind Bill, supporting him, slowly lowering him to the floor. When he had Bill safely down, his head snapped back in Carmen’s direction. The man at her feet was slowly rising. Rex pointed the gun in his direction. “Don’t move.”
“I found them in the electricity generator,” Bill said. “Tampering with it. Then she came at me with a gun.”
“Take it easy,” Rex stated. “Carmen, call the police and request an ambulance, as well.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor that led to the conservatory. Mrs. Amery appeared, cried out and ran toward her husband. Behind her was Jason, Bill’s assistant. Hedging his bets, Rex pointed the gun in Jason’s direction. The young man lifted his hands.
“The inside man,” Rex said.
Jason had the decency to look ashamed.
Rex could hear Carmen’s voice speaking to the emergency services.
At his side, Mrs. Amery had taken off her jacket and folded it under Bill’s head. She was crying and fretting as she removed the belt from his trousers to use as a tourniquet.
Olivia was writhing on the floor nearby, attempting to get up. When Rex looked her way she bellowed at him. “You’ve broken my arm, you monster.”
Monster? Coming from her that was most amusing. “I’ll break every bone in your body if you don’t tell me why you did this.”
She snarled at him.
Rex stepped closer and put the toe of his shoe on her forearm.
She screamed.
“You want the manor?”
“This old pile of rubble? No way.”
Carmen waved his way and nodded, indicating the call to the emergency services was done.
“I’ll have you know we love this old pile of rubble.” Rex said that loudly and for Carmen’s benefit, too, then he pressed his toe harder against Olivia’s forearm.
Olivia cursed. “He promised he’d leave a share to my boys. My sons. He left it to her instead.”
Her sons? Were her two henchmen her sons?
She threw a disparaging glance in Carmen’s direction. “Charles went back on his word, so I decided to burn his pretty house down. If my boys didn’t get what they are owed, why should you?”
Rex almost didn’t want to know for sure, but it was staring him in the face so he had to hear it said aloud. “By ‘your sons,’ surely you don’t mean...?”
“Charles’s sons,” she hissed at him, and her face twisted in an ugly, vengeful smile.
Carmen was close by and Rex looked at her in order to ground himself, to convince himself she was safe. He was suffering from information overload, and all he wanted was Carmen—to know she was real, to hold her.
When he caught her eye he saw the horror there in her expression, but also the concern. She reached his side and clung to him. “The police are on their way.”
Never had Rex been more glad to feel her soft warmth against him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“I’LL NEED TO take a statement
from you now, Ms. Shelby.”
Carmen stared at the constable who was speaking to her, and tried to focus. She was a mess of emotions. Shocked by what had happened, and bewildered by the aftermath—the arrival of ambulances and police cars, arrests and medical treatment going on throughout the manor—she felt dizzy and nauseous. The ramifications of all that had been revealed left her reeling.
“Yes, yes, of course,” she managed to reply.
The constable gestured into the drawing room, and she followed, walking alongside him. “I apologize for being so vague. I’m just so shocked,” she said as they went.
“You’re bound to be. This won’t take too long.”
The police constable—thankfully a vaguely familiar face from the Beldover area—took her into a quiet corner of the room where he pulled two chairs together so that they could talk. While he made notes, Carmen kept looking out at the reception area beyond, the hallway where it had all taken place. It had been so sudden, and although she’d had some warning, it was so outrageous that she’d hardly processed the information Rex had given her before the situation got out of hand. For a few minutes there she’d really feared for her life. And Rex’s, too.
Yes, even though she was furious with him for keeping her in the dark this past week, she’d kept quiet and done exactly what her assailant had told her to do, out of fear for Rex’s safety. When he’d found her and taken over the situation, she’d never felt more relieved in her life.
Now that relief had morphed into a battalion of questions—and overwhelming doubts. She was currently going through the motions, acting according to social norms, when what she really wanted to do was go out there and demand an explanation, tell all these people to get out of their home and then confront Rex. She was still angry with him for keeping things secret, for hiding the danger. He claimed to be protecting her from it, but she’d been kept in the dark. The black clouds of their history had gathered into a perfect storm while she’d been blinded by his brilliance.
Too much had unfolded, and she felt herself withdrawing from it all, estranged by things that were beyond her control and outside of what she knew and understood. That reaction brought about the most overwhelming emotion of all—heartbreak. They weren’t close enough for him to confide in her, that was the bottom line. Those past two days had been so different. She’d begun to believe him, to trust him, and hoped the way she used to, for something more than the physical affair. But Rex was a lord unto himself, and she was alone.
The Burlington Manor Affair Page 27
