Brenda Joyce

by The Rival

  Garrick heard it first. He faltered, the sound of pounding hoofbeats drawing his attention from Hannah and the dog. He spun around, searching the landscape for an approaching rider—and saw a horse flying down the road toward them. He stiffened.

  “Garrick!” Olivia cried, seizing his arm.

  And Garrick did not have to be told to know who it was. The rider halted his gray mount violently, causing the animal to rear wildly. But Lionel dismounted before the gray was even standing still. His strides long and hard, his cape whirling about him, he came running forward.

  Garrick braced himself, mentally as well as physically. “Step back, Olivia,” he said, low, so only she could hear.

  “What if he is armed?” she cried.

  “Step back,” he snapped. They both knew why Lionel had chased them to Cornwall.

  She moved away from him. Garrick could feel her fear.

  Lionel slowed to a walk only a few yards from him. “You left Bedlam in such haste, Garrick.”

  “Obviously we were in a rush,” Garrick said smoothly.

  Lionel halted. “To return to this dismal place?” He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. Then he glanced at Olivia. “My lady. Where is the child?”

  “What do you want with my child?!” Olivia cried, suddenly coming forward, the wind tearing at her cloak and skirts.

  Garrick stepped in front of her, blocking her way. He did not allow his eyes to roam the countryside in the direction Hannah had disappeared. “Hannah is far away, in a very safe place,” he said softly and with a menace he had no wish to disguise.

  Lionel’s gaze slammed to Garrick and remained there. “I do not believe you,” he said harshly. “She is here. Where? At the manor? But you would not leave her there alone.”

  “And why, my dear brother, are you so concerned over the whereabouts of a little blind girl?” Garrick asked.

  Lionel stared. “She is a mad child, with mad thoughts. I do not like being the target of her unruly tongue,” he finally said. “She should have been left in the asylum.”

  Olivia cried out. Again Garrick stepped in front of her to prevent her from stepping forward and perhaps lunging at Lionel. “Perhaps you are afraid of her—as you should be,” he said grimly. “And perhaps, now, you should be afraid of me.”

  Lionel’s stance changed, became aggressive. Suddenly the two men were circling one another warily. Olivia gasped, but neither man paid her any attention. “I am not afraid of you. I am the Stanhope heir. Father has publicly declared it. It is you who should be afraid of me,” Lionel said.

  Garrick laughed. “Not for very long. Let us do away with all pretense,” he said with sudden heat. “You are not Lionel. You cannot be Lionel. And we both know why I am here—and why Hannah is a threat to you. We shall unmask you, you bastard.”

  Lionel smiled, but it was more of a snarl. “Never,” he said.

  “Admit the truth,” Garrick demanded, becoming motionless, his entire body tensed to spring and attack. “Because I have had enough.”

  “I am your brother. That is the truth,” Lionel cried.

  Garrick smiled. “Tell me about Margaret MacDonald.”

  Lionel’s expression remained implacable. “What is it that you wish to know?”

  How cool and contained he was, Garrick thought. “Tell me about your relationship with her.”

  “Why?” It was a demand.

  “Because if you are truly Lionel, then you know that she was the most important woman in your life,” Garrick said.

  A light—of relief?—flickered in Lionel’s eyes. “I loved her very much.”

  Garrick did not respond.

  “As you well know.”

  Garrick held himself still.

  “What more should I say?” Lionel’s temper was evident. “Clearly you are testing me—and clearly your machinations fail.”

  “She was your mother,” Garrick said.

  And for one instant, Lionel’s eyes went wide with surprise.

  “Father told you the truth when you were eight years old,” Garrick cried.

  Lionel shook his head. “But you? How did you find out?”

  Garrick froze, because for one moment he had been certain that Lionel was a fraud—that he had not known about Meg MacDonald. And Lionel, sensing Garrick’s doubt, laughed. “You cannot win, Garrick,” he said.

  Garrick saw red. With a sound that was more animal than human, he threw himself at his adversary, his rival.

  Lionel jumped forward to meet him. “No one will believe you!” he shouted as they grabbed hold of each other and wrestled back and forth.

  “No?” Garrick laughed as his superior size and weight drove Lionel backward. “Olivia is my witness.” He finally shoved him violently, and Lionel went flying to the ground on his back. Garrick launched himself at him. As he did so, he saw Lionel drawing a dagger from beneath his cloak. Olivia must have seen it, too, because she screamed.

  But it was too late. Garrick landed on Lionel as he thrust up with the blade. But, miraculously, Lionel missed, merely slicing through Garrick’s coat.

  With a roar, Garrick pinned him to the ground, gripping his right hand until he felt the bones there being crushed. Lionel screamed and released the knife.

  Garrick reached for it, grabbed it, and flung it as far away as he could. For one instant, they were eye to eye and nose to nose, face to face. “No one will ever believe you and your whore,” Lionel shouted, panting. “The earldom is rightfully mine!”

  Garrick slammed his fist into Lionel’s face.

  Bone and cartilage smashed. Blood spurted from his nose.

  Garrick stood, hoisting Lionel up with him. “Confess.” He held him by his throat. “The truth! I want the truth!”

  Lionel smiled at him. Ugliness and hatred had appeared in his eyes. “No.”

  Garrick hit him again savagely, this time in the stomach. He watched Lionel double over with real satisfaction. “Confess,” he cried. “Or I will beat a confession out of you.”

  Lionel straightened, only to meet Garrick’s fist a third time—and this time it was a blow to his face. His head snapped back, and the force of the blow sent him hurtling backward, and he again landed on the ground. This time he lay curled on his side, panting, bleeding. Garrick towered over him. “I will rip you to pieces,” he said. “With real pleasure.”

  Lionel looked up at him from where he lay in the dirt and mud. “Then you shall be hanged for my murder,” he snarled.

  The dog barked.

  Garrick straightened and met Olivia’s gaze. Treve barked again, the sound high-pitched and adamant.

  Garrick grabbed Olivia’s hand, forgetting all about Lionel, alarmed. They turned and ran through the gorse toward the ruined keep. The stone shell came into view as soon as they topped the first rise. Garrick spied Hannah’s small form immediately—she stood in the corner of the shell, Treve dancing around her. He thanked God that she was all right.

  “Come on,” he said as he and Olivia half-ran and halfstumbled down the hill, kicking up dirt and stones as they did so. Hannah turned toward them with an expectant look upon her face.

  “Hannah!” Olivia cried as she caught her daughter in her arms. “What is it? Are you all right?”

  “Mama, he is here,” Hannah said.

  Olivia frowned, brows furrowed.

  “No. Here.” Hannah pointed at the ground. “This is where the body is. My lord, this is where you must dig.”

  Garrick stared at the grass-covered earth in the corner of the keep, a chill sweeping over him. And then instinct made him look up.

  Lionel stood atop the hill, his pale, fawn-colored cape stained with dirt and blood, staring down at them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Garrick glanced at Olivia, who had also spied Lionel. She put her arm protectively around Hannah as Lionel began coming down the hill. He moved awkwardly, with a limp.

  Garrick looked at Hannah. “Say nothing. And do not be afraid,” he said.

  Hannah n
odded, but she moved even closer to her mother.

  Garrick did not move, staring as Lionel approached. It took him many minutes to hobble across the interior of the keep. Finally he halted, gazing with open sarcasm at the three of them. “So? What is all the fuss about?” But his gaze was sharp, belying his tone.

  Garrick stared. If Lionel’s body was buried here, it did not seem that this man knew about it—and he felt a tremor of doubt. On the other hand, this man was not necessarily a murderer. Someone touched his back. He turned, and was seized with confusion. It had not been Olivia, for she remained out of reach. It must have been his imagination, but the hairs on his nape prickled. His glance found Olivia. Her eyes urged him to believe.

  “My brother is buried here,” Garrick said slowly. And the certainty began to build.

  At first Lionel started. Then he laughed.

  “If you have nothing to worry about, then you should not object when we dig up the body?” Garrick queried coolly. But he was trembling.

  “If there is a body buried here, how will you prove it belongs to a boy dead for fourteen years?”

  “So he is dead.”

  “That is your supposition, not mine. I know who I am,” Lionel said.

  His adversary had a point, a damn good one. But he was compelled. There was no going back now. And freedom awaited him on the other side.

  “Yesterday I sent a message to Stanhope, asking him to meet me here. I am expecting him at any moment. We will dig up the grave when he arrives,” Garrick stated.

  Lionel’s eyes narrowed. “You are a fool,” he finally said. “There is no grave.”

  Garrick sincerely hoped that he was wrong.

  It was raining, but lightly. Still, it was not an ideal day to dig up a body—if a body was truly interred there in the corner of the keep.

  They had gathered there within an hour of the earl and countess’s arrival at the manor. Garrick had been surprised to see his mother, and worried, too, by the sight of her—she was pale, red eyed, visibly distraught. She was not with them at the ruins, having begged to retire to her rooms, pleading fatigue from the journey.

  “I do not understand the logic of this,” Stanhope said grimly. But there was something in his eyes Garrick could not decipher. It was not fear. Was it resignation?

  Garrick stood beside Olivia and Hannah, not far from his father and Lionel, everyone cloaked in hooded mantles to avoid the damp mist. Two villagers were using spades to dig up the stony earth. Garrick watched clumps of wet dirt flying backward from the spades. He shifted. “I have asked for your patience, Father. If Lionel is truly buried here, can you not give me that much?”

  The earl skewered him with wide, grave blue eyes. “You base your theory upon the ramblings of a blind child. Some might say you have gone mad yourself, Garrick.” But his tone was not as caustic as usual.

  Garrick’s jaw tensed. “We have been over this before. But I will say it again. If Lionel were alive, he would have come home many years ago. He would have never hurt us this way.”

  Stanhope stared, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Garrick again thought he saw a flicker of something he could not identify in his eyes. Then he watched the earl glance at the tall, somewhat husky blond man standing beside him. How relaxed the impostor was. How confident. What if he, Garrick, were wrong?

  “My lord,” one of the villagers said, pausing to lean on his spade, “there ain’t nothing here, my lord. We’ve dug deep enough for any grave.”

  Stanhope gave Garrick an enigmatic look and walked over to the hole in the earth, gazing down at it. Lionel followed him, then turned and grinned at Garrick. There was nothing mirthful or endearing about his expression. Garrick had the urge to knock him into the ground and bury him alive.

  Olivia plucked his sleeve. “Do not.”

  Stanhope and Lionel turned away from the dark, wet hole. “You may go,” the earl told the two young men. Suddenly furious, Garrick strode past them, pulling a spade from one of the boy’s hands as he started walking away with his partner. Garrick began digging furiously.

  “Give it up, Garrick,” the earl ordered.

  Even angrier, Garrick thrust the spade into the ground again and pushed up hard on a clump of dirt. And again. And again.

  “He is mad,” Lionel said very clearly. “Let’s have a drink, Father. And tell poor Mother what has happened.”

  Garrick gritted his teeth, sweat pouring down his face, and slammed the spade into the earth, ready to give up and shout in frustration and rage. Then the spade hit something hard. He slammed it down again and felt it break through something, an object that was neither as hard as stone nor as soft as the wet, condensed earth.

  And when the spade came up, he saw what appeared to be a tattered piece of blue rag on it. “Wait!”

  He dug again, carefully now, repeatedly hitting the buried object, a sick, ill feeling, almost of dread, rising up within him—competing with certainty and anticipation. His pulse drummed deafeningly in his ears. Everyone had gathered around him.

  He knew what he was digging up.

  “Oh, my God,” Olivia said as something dirty and white and covered with pieces of blue rag appeared before their eyes.

  “Jesus.” Garrick dropped to his knees, moving the earth with his hands now, recalling that Lionel had been wearing a blue coat the day he had disappeared. The earth gave way, revealing pieces of bone. An arm, a shoulder, and part of a torso was emerging, the flesh having long since rotted away. Tatters of fabric, blue and discolored gray, remained. Garrick realized he could not see. His tears blinded him.

  “Dear God,” Stanhope cried, stepping down beside him. And he was on his knees, staining his once immaculate stockings and breeches, beginning to claw the dirt with his own bare hands. “But this could be anyone,” he gasped.

  Garrick wiped his eyes with his fingers. “This is not an adult. Look, damn it, look!” The urge to vomit was strong, but he pushed more dirt off the skeletal corpse, revealing his chest and other shoulder, his neck and head. And when faced with those sightless eyes, the gaping sockets where the nose and mouth had been, Garrick turned and wretched violently.

  “This is a boy,” the earl whispered, kneeling in the dirt, unmoving. “A boy … oh, God.”

  Garrick felt Olivia touching him from behind. His tears halted and his vision cleared. And hanging on a fine gold chain about the skeletal neck amid the dirty faded rags was the Spanish coin.

  The earl saw it, too. “The coin,” he cried.

  Garrick suddenly lurched to his feet, turning. “You!” he screamed.

  “I had nothing to do with this!” Lionel said, his face devoid of all color, fear finally evident in his eyes. “I am not a murderer—I would never murder my own brother!”

  Garrick froze.

  “Yes, Garrick,” Lionel said, unmoving and ashen. “He was my brother, too, not that he knew me or I knew him. I wasn’t good enough to be a part of the family.” His tone was caustic. “Am I not right … Father?”

  The earl was bowed over the body. He did not move.

  “You’re a bastard,” Garrick said, shocked. “That’s why you look like a goddamned Stanhope.”

  Lionel nodded. “And my name is Richard,” he said. His gaze turned ugly. “My mother named me after him.” He pointed at the earl. His hand was shaking.

  Stanhope was rising heavily to his feet. He stared at his bastard son, still stunned by the discovery of Lionel’s body.

  “Did you know the truth about him?” Garrick accused his father.

  And in that instant, Stanhope appeared confused and very, very old. He looked at Garrick. Then his expression firmed, and he was the earl of Stanhope once again. “A very long time ago,” he said heavily, “just before Lionel was born, a housemaid came to me and told me she was pregnant with my child.” His gaze was now on the pretender. “I did not believe her.” Suddenly his face became taut, his nostrils turning red. He stared down at the skeleton in rags. “Oh, my God. My dear, dear
Lionel.”

  “You knew,” Garrick said, and it was an accusation.

  The earl inhaled, fought for his composure, and faced his son. “I suspected from the start that this man was a byblow.”

  Garrick shook his head in disbelief.

  The pretender stepped between them. “Do you even remember her name, Father?” His tone was bitter, scathing.

  “Frankly, I do not. She was a tart,” the earl said flatly.

  Richard lunged forward, but Garrick caught him, restraining him. “You turned her away penniless!” Richard shouted at the earl. “She was pregnant, with your son, with me, and you sent her packing with nothing but the rags on her back. And her name,” he spat, “was Molly Nelson.”

  “She was not a virgin when she came to me,” Stanhope said flatly. “I did not believe she was pregnant, nor did I believe I was the father if she was.” He stared. “Of course, all of that changed. The moment I saw you I knew you were my flesh and blood.”

  “That is right. I am your flesh and blood,” Richard said. “I am your son.”

  “But you are illegitimate,” Garrick said, looking from one to the other. “How is it that you knew so much about me and Lionel, so much about the family?”

  Richard faced him. “I grew up in Carston. Mother never even considered leaving. You were practically raised at the Hall, you and Lionel. I watched the two of you, playing, riding, even taking your lessons-all the time. I spied. I used to sneak around the grounds, just to see what the real brothers were doing. I even stole into the house on several occasions. Once, a servant caught me—but I escaped.” His face was flushed now. “Do you know what it was like, to go to bed night after night, starving and cold, knowing that just down the road my brothers had full bellies, down comforters, dozens of clothes, hundreds of toys—and a father?”

  “You hated us,” Garrick said. “You still do.”

  “When I was older, I followed you in the summertime to Caedmon Crag. When you and Lionel finished playing in the smuggler’s caves, I would play there myself—pretending I was legitimate.” He stared, hatred in his eyes. “Pretending I was Lionel, the brother I resembled. I have rights, too!” he cried.