I was just passing the boundary of the lawn and stepping into the woods when he sneaked up on me.
His cold, sweat-slicked hand grasped my wrist with a firm hold. I cried out, lurched backward in the direction of the nearest tree, and was whipped around. Before I could cry out again, his hand was pressed firmly over my mouth.
“Hush,” he snarled. “Be silent and I won’t have to hurt you.” His voice was rough, deep, and eerily calm, and I didn’t recognize it. But his face I did recognize. It was the face of the strange man who had threatened Lizzie. And now he had come for me.
Thinking in a jolt, I twisted my face away from his hand and spit out its taste. His grip still held firm on my wrist, but I jerked my elbow backward, hitting his ribs with a direct blow. On impact he let out a small moan, bending at the waist, but his hold on my wrist remained steady. His dark eyes fell on my face and I was shocked to see they held amusement. He was laughing at me.
Wasting no time, his other hand tightened around my other arm, just above the elbow. In a swift motion he pulled me closer, so close that he could whisper in my ear.
“If I were you, mademoiselle, I wouldn’t try that again.”
Disgusted, I pulled backward, away from the wet breath of his words against my ear. I could see his face completely now—the angry glint in his eyes, the deep lines around his mouth, the sharpness of his cheekbones. Panic tightened a cord around my stomach. My heart beat so hard it hurt. I needed to get away before something terrible happened. There was something about him that screamed terrible in every sense of the word, and I didn’t want to find out what it was.
My arms weren’t free, but my feet were readily available. Using all my strength, I swung my leg forward, aimed at his knee. My foot made perfect contact. He instantly loosened his grip and reached for his knee, swearing under his breath.
Taking the split-second opportunity, I jumped backward and turned, nearly tripping on a tree root. I had only made it two steps before my arm was in his grasp again. This time his fingernails dug into my skin. His hands were cold and slick with sweat, but his grip was unfailing. He jerked me backward, toward him again, until I was looking into those terrible near-black eyes. But this time there was no laughter.
I was trapped. My mind reeled, but terror overtook too many of my senses to allow me any clear thought. “Owen!” I screamed just before the man had his hand over my mouth again.
What was I thinking? Owen wasn’t here; he couldn’t hear me. No one could hear me. I was completely alone.
“So you know Dr. Kellaway, hmm?” he asked. The hushed, careful tone of his voice hinted at hatred, and that same terrible thing that I didn’t want to discover.
A feeling of dread dropped through my stomach. This man was no friend of Owen’s. A sharp instinct told me to shake my head.
He dropped his hand from my mouth and used it to grip my other arm. He leaned his head down closer, twisted sideways, studying my face. “You know him,” he said with a low chuckle. “You care for him.”
The chuckling increased in volume until it verged on insane. My arms burned and stung in his unyielding grip. What did he want? The question burned in my skull with raw foreboding. I needed to get away. Now.
I quickly surveyed my surroundings—the thick mottled tree behind the strange man, the rocks at my feet, chunks of flat and round stone. I was a mere five feet from the edge of the woods, so I wouldn’t have to run far to reach safer territory. I frantically searched for options, considering the idea of hitting him with a stone. It seemed to be the most promising thought yet, so I grasped on to it. I only needed a way to pick up a stone …
The laughter stopped so abruptly my heart jumped, severing my trail of thought.
A crazed smile spread his lips, showing his yellow teeth. “But does he care for you?” he asked. “Does he care for you like you care for him?”
The question was no longer intended to humor him. His eyes showed real curiosity. Which scared me even more than the actual question. My gaze darted to an oblong stone near my left foot. Without thinking, I stomped on his foot and ripped one arm free, reaching downward. He grabbed it again without wasting a second. With a sneer, he kicked the stones away from my feet, sending them at least ten feet deeper into the woods.
My heart sunk, then picked up speed. My only plan was ruined.
I glared at him through a loose strand of hair on my face. “What do you want?” I yelled as close to his ear as possible, hoping that the loud sound would give me an opportunity to jar my arms free.
He cringed, taking a step backward, but never loosening his solid grip. Anger was displayed all over the lines in his face, but surprisingly, he continued with the same question. “Does … he … care for you?”
My vision blurred as he squeezed my arm tighter. His question seemed irrelevant in so many ways. “Why do you want to know?” My voice was fierce, which I was quite proud of.
“Tell me. Now.” He let one of my arms loose for a quick moment, pulling aside his jacket. A flash of menacing silver caught my eye.
A dagger.
Impossibly, my heart beat faster. “No.”
“No?”
“No,” I confirmed, feeling an unwarranted prick in my heart as I said the word.
He clenched his jaw, kicking the dirt with the toe of his boot, apparently frustrated. “Then who?” His voice rose. “Who does the monsieur love? What is the name of the lady that he is mad for, that he would give anything for? That he would die for?” Everything about his words screamed mockery, and I almost thought the crazed laughter would begin again.
Miss Lyons came to my mind immediately, but his intentions pertaining to her filled my mind with apprehension. Why did he want to know? He was mad. That was the reason, and I could see it in the gleam of his bloodshot eyes.
“Tell me! Or those you love will face the consequences.”
My heart raced. Escape was my first priority, and I needed a way to distract him. “I think I know,” I said.
He froze, willing me to proceed with a nod of his head. “Who is it?” I cringed as he tugged me closer. His rancid breath filled my nose but I resisted the urge to retch.
“What?” I asked, only half my thoughts on the conversation, the other half on escape possibilities. “Oh, yes, I know.”
His face contorted with impatience, obviously leashing masses of anger. “Who?”
My heart beat loudly as I formulated a plan in my mind. His hands slid down my arms and tightened around my wrists. My hands quickly lost sensation.
“Tell me!” he repeated in a growl.
“Milba Durbin,” I blurted without thinking, my eyes wide.
He froze. “Milba Durbin?”
“Yes. Miss Milba Durbin of Canterbury.” I willed my nostrils not to flare as I repeated the lie.
He glanced upward at the trees with a look of victory on his face. This was the distraction, my split-second opportunity. Leaning back with all my weight, and trusting his tight grip on my wrists, I swung my legs upward and forward, slamming my feet into his torso.
I heard the sudden exhalation of air knocked out of his lungs, and the sound of his back crashing against the tree behind him. I fell as his hands slipped from my arms. Scrambling to my feet, I dove forward and ran.
I had never run so fast in my entire life. My feet slapped hard against the grass and I didn’t look back until I reached the house. When I did, there was no sight of the man at the edge of the woods. I imagined him standing behind that tree that he slammed against, watching me. There was no way I could know if he was. The thought placed an icy shiver between my shoulders.
I did not go inside. I couldn’t, not while I was so confused and scared and disheveled. I needed to make some sense of what had just happened. So I sat down with my back against the door, tucked my knees to my chest, and focused on my breathing. Who was that man? Why did he want to know who Owen loved? It was an absurd question, and to puzzle out its meaning was nearly impossible.
&nbs
p; I put my face in my hands, wishing desperately for answers, for rest from this day that was so warm and beautiful. So deceitful. Too much had happened to me today. It was far too much to handle all at once and I felt at the edge of madness. Already a fierce headache buzzed against the back of my skull, begging me for answers that I didn’t have. Those answers were what I wished for most desperately now, and I knew a person who could hopefully grant that wish.
Lizzie was walking out of the kitchen with another maid when I found her. I saw in her eyes a flash of worry that told me she knew why I had stopped her. Without protest, she followed me into the empty dining room where I planned to relay the entire story.
“What happened, miss?” Her eyes flashed with apprehension.
“The man that threatened you. He found me at the edge of the woods.” I promised myself not to break eye contact. I needed her to feel an obligation to reveal what had truly happened that morning.
Lizzie’s face paled. Silence filled the air for a long moment. “Are you hurt?” Her eyes darted to my upper arms, the color lingering pink, where his fingernails had left tiny red marks in a curved line.
“I am fine. But I need you to tell me what information he wanted from you. Please.” I tried my best to plead with my eyes as well as my words.
Tears sprang instantly into her eyes, surprising me. “I didn’t tell him, I swear it! I did not tell him anything.”
“What? What did he want to know?”
She looked down and clasped her hands together, squeezing them tightly. I could hear her slow, careful breathing. It was as if she was still afraid to speak about it. I was about to repeat my question when she finally answered, in a hushed voice, “He wanted to know who Dr. Kellaway loved.” She looked up then, a look of fear on her tear-streaked face. “He told me that he would abduct me, or—or murder me if I told anyone what he said. I’m sorry,” she sobbed, putting her hands to her face, “I should have told you before.”
My heart pounded. “Is that all he said?” I knew I sounded unsympathetic, but my curiosity couldn’t be helped.
She dropped her hands. “Well, he said something about the look on Dr. Kellaway’s face when he does it. The revenge. But I don’t know what he meant.”
“What? Does what?” My mind was pulling me from all different directions, leaving me unbalanced.
Lizzie shook her head with small movements. “I don’t know.”
The word revenge burned in my ears. “Lizzie, we need to tell someone about this. We need to warn Owen.”
The thought of something terrible happening to Owen filled me with a renewed sense of urgency. But he was at Willowbourne, and no one knew when he would be returning! I felt conflicted, lost between wanting him to hurry back so I could warn him about the man, and hoping that I would never have to face him again to explain why his entire family believed that we were engaged.
I leaned against a chair for support, feeling a sudden lightness in my head. Black splotches filled my vision in angry bursts.
“Miss? Miss, are you all right?” The words swam like water in my ears. The room spun, a blurry swarm of wood and glass and fine decorations and a girl with dark hair. I didn’t want to faint. Fainting was for people that were weak, and I was not weak. Was I? My hand slipped from my support, and thankfully all consciousness fled before I hit the ground.
A
I awoke to the smell of rosemary and a pair of icy blue eyes. It took several seconds and dozens of blinks against the sudden light to wholly absorb my surroundings. I was laying on the recamier in the drawing room next to the window. The new sense of warmth from the late afternoon sun dispelled the prick of cold on my arms, giving me a strange feeling that I was wrapped in a blanket. A dainty hand held the potent rosemary smelling salts beneath my nose. The dainty hand and the icy blue eyes belonged to Miss Lyons.
“She’s awake!” The exclamation brought the sound of hurried steps to my ears. Mrs. Kellaway, Alice, Grandmother, Grandfather, and two men I did not fully recognize came into view above me. Then Charles’s dimpled grin and Peter’s twinkling eyes appeared above me like two precious gifts.
“You fell down.”
“And then you slept for a very long, long, long time.”
“And then your eyes just opened.”
I knew it was my brothers talking, so I laughed, even though I could hardly decipher their words. Slowly inching my arms to each side of me, I pressed myself into a sitting position, wincing from the unexpected pain. My head throbbed, filling my ears with the sound of my heartbeat with every movement.
“How are you feeling?” This came from Mrs. Kellaway.
I found her face among the many peering down at me. I mustered a smile. “I have felt better.” I was struck with a wave of embarrassment at the amount of attention that was focused on me, especially in my current state. “But I will be all right. Thank you,” I added in a hurried voice.
Mrs. Kellaway put a gentle hand on my arm, then looked back at the others. “We had quite the scare this morning with Charles, here,” she offered as explanation for my fainting. She went on to tell the entire story, filling me with an odd sense of dread—but for something that had already happened.
The older man I recognized as Mrs. Kellaway’s husband, smiled down at Peter and Charles with a distance in his gaze that looked like old memories. Perhaps they were memories of his own sons as children causing mischief. His face was kind, wrinkled from years of laughter.
The younger man, Edmond, I recognized mostly from the portrait gallery. His eyes were striking, much like Owen’s, and when he reached down to pat Charles’s shoulder with a congratulatory grin, it reminded me of something Owen would do. The gesture made me want to scowl, tell him that Charles should not be encouraged, but I realized that since I had come here, smiling had become a much easier alternative.
“But little Charles is well now, thank heavens. That is what is important,” Mrs. Kellaway finished.
A series of agreeing nods followed. “Let us get to introductions, then.” She turned toward her husband and son with a broad, almost proud smile. Her eyes lit up like gems as she spoke. “Henry, Edmond, this is Miss Annette Downing, a dear friend and future daughter in-law, as I have already shared with you, and these are her precious brothers, Peter and Charles.”
I wanted to faint again. I wanted to scream, I am not engaged to your son! But mostly I wanted to slap the smile off Grandmother’s face. I felt guilty for the thought, but it made me happy all the same. How much longer could this carry on? How could I tell the truth now? Grandmother needed to do it. I shot her a begging look, but she greeted it with a sly wink.
I had no idea how to react to that. My head hurt too much. All I could muster for words was, “A pleasure to meet you.”
Then, remembering why I was here—what had led me to faint, I was filled with a sense of urgency. No matter what Lizzie wanted, it was past time to inform these people of their trespasser. But I didn’t want anyone to fret over me. I glanced quickly at my arms and was relieved to see the redness was almost entirely faded already. Taking a breath, I chose my words carefully.
“I need to warn you of a potential threat.” I said, focusing on the elder Mr. Kellaway in particular. “I have seen the same man twice wandering on your property. He threatened a maid and he questioned me about Owen, but I don’t know for certain of his intentions. But they aren’t good, to be sure.”
This caused a ripple of worried glances. “What do you suspect of his intentions?” Mr. Kellaway asked with no remnants of his warm smile.
I didn’t know how to respond. But by the man’s dagger and evil sneer and hatred in his voice when he spoke of Owen, I had a suspicion.
“I think … well, he had a weapon, so he could be intending to harm Owen or … or something worse.” I had to swallow back the words that were too blunt for my own ears. Could the man be intending to kill Owen? I shook the thought from my head. It was poison to my already frail consciousness.
Mr. Kel
laway stood, turning abruptly from his chair. “I am going to inform the servants of this. They must be watching for any unfamiliar person who steps onto my property and report the news to me.” With a quick smile, he added, “And thank you, Miss Downing, for the wise precaution.”
After Mr. Kellaway left, I felt strangely satisfied and relieved, which gave me permission to feel exhausted. Alice helped me to my room where I curled up between my cool, crisp blankets and fell asleep the moment my eyes closed. I had never slept so well in my entire life.
The heavy sheet of slumber didn’t split for even a moment until the bright sunlight of morning shone through my eyelids, bringing my mind to attention. How many hours had I slept? It seemed to be late morning, and I had fallen asleep late the previous afternoon. That was a long time without checking in on Peter and Charles.
After dressing quickly, I raced downstairs and found them sitting on the bottom step, their giggles bouncing off the surrounding walls.
I sat down on the step just above them and leaned my head forward. “What would you like to do today, Mr. Atrocious and Mr. Mischievous?”
Charles seemed to respond more quickly than if I had called him by name, turning sharply and flashing me a grin. “Which one am I?”
“Hmm,” I mused, feigning deep thought. “You are certainly Mr. Atrocious.”
He scooted up a step so he sat beside me, then leaned back with a pensive expression. Then he smiled broadly, as if I had just flattered him beyond words.
“So I am Mr. Mischievous?” Peter asked, scooting up as well.
“Well, of course you are, Mr. Mischievous.” I ruffled his hair. “And I would like to spend the entirety of this day with my two favorite little gentlemen.”
The giggles resumed, and I almost audibly sighed. It was just what I needed. I needed everything to be the way it used to be. I needed to spend all day with my precious brothers and them alone. No wicked grandmothers, or elegant, haughty young ladies, or too-handsome gentlemen. My life was in control before I came here to Kellaway Manor. I knew who I was and what my sole purpose was—to care for my brothers. My heart understood its duties and obeyed me. It was strong.
Mischief and Manors Page 20
