Molly in the Middle

by Stobie Piel

  "I should think that obvious, Miren. I'm honoring our former agreement. You will become my wife."

  "We never had such an agreement. I refused."

  Dr. Patterson smiled, evil and cruel. "Your refusal was a petty attempt to garner a quicker proposal, my dear, and we both know it. My wife lingered on the brink of her tragic death. I had to wait, for propriety's sake." He turned back to the window and made a "tsk" noise. Miren's hands clenchedinto fists. ''Where did you go? I've often wondered."

  Miren sneered. "I went from the gates of hell to the mountains of heaven, and I never looked back."

  Patterson glanced back at her, his soulless eyes narrow. "Maybe you should have glanced back, once or twice anyway. Hell was at your heels."

  "Not until you returned from America, after you murdered Laird MacCallum and his son."

  Patterson "tsk"-ed again. "Surely you don't believe I committed that ghastly crime? Not when your beloved savage had far more to gain." His mocking words left no doubt. He didn't care if she knew. He even seemed proud of his deeds.

  "What I don't understand is what you had to gain by their deaths. It might have served Brent Edgington to remove his stepfather and the new heir, but not you."

  "Brent had much to gain. Poor sap was too stupid to know it. I witnessed his pathetic display with the bagpipes. Dreadful noise, don't you agree?"

  "I wouldn't expect a coward to appreciate Highland battle music. It must have put a shred of fear into you, Patterson. Just a wee shred."

  Patterson's mocking smile turned toward a snarl, and Miren knew she'd guessed well. "There's nothing to fear from a bagpipe."

  "Scots history is filled with surprises, Doctor. Every one heralded by the mystic call of the bagpipe."

  "You forget, as do too many Celts, that England dominates this land now. As I dominate you."

  Miren angled her chin. "And the Queen of England knows every Highland plaid. She makes her most beloved home at Balmoral. Have we become English, or have the English become Scottish in part? Isn't that what Brent Edgington proved today?"

  "He proved himself a fool, and little more."

  "Ah, but you're wrong, Doctor. He proved himself a man."

  "By playing a bag of wind? Miren, my dear, you are a naïve and winsome lass, aren't you? Brent Edgington is nothing without his title, without money."

  "You think money and position and favorable circumstances make a man's worth. I think the opposite is true. No circumstance on earth can alter what you've created by your deeds, Doctor. I fear you shall learn this truth the hard way."

  Patterson's eyes darkened with suppressed anger. "You have changed, my dear. Tell me, does this new self-assurance come from having an Indian between your thighs?"

  Miren smiled. A wave of pleasure like intoxication swept over her. "An Indian . . . a pirate . . . and a Scottish laird."

  She sat back in her seat, pleased with his rage.

  He twisted the rope around her neck tighter, but she refused to back down. "In a short time I'll be your husband, and everything I ever wanted from you you'll give."

  "What is that, exactly? Besides lust." Miren kept her voice taunting, but fought a sick tide of disgust and fear. I will not act on fear, but on what I want. She shoved fear aside and allowed her practicality to take over. She ran through what she remembered of Dr. Patterson. He tended the old wealthy noble families, but not the young. Because he loathed childbirth and pregnancy . . .

  "It should interest you to know, my husband, that I bear Nathaniel's child."

  Patterson's eyes narrowed. His thin lips curled in disgust. "That's impossible. You can't have known him more than a month."

  Miren patted her stomach. "My body has already begun to change. I haven't experienced my monthly flow in three weeks. Nathan and I made love at our first meeting, you see." It was a risky assertion. She couldn't be sure when Patterson had arrived in Scotland.

  "You moved from frigid maid to whore with amazing speed, didn't you?"

  She nodded. "Indians settle lots of things with kissing."

  Miren crossed one leg over the other. "Perhaps our wedding isn't so desirable after all."

  Patterson laughed, and her hopes dwindled. "As pleasurable as it might be to sample your delights, my purposes are far grander."

  "What 'purpose' can marrying me serve? And what makes you think I'll agree?"

  "You'll agree, because I hold your Indian's life in my hands."

  "He was left with the authorities."

  Patterson grinned. "Authority, my dear . . . but whose? Major MacDuff and I 'associated,' shall we say, during our tenure in India. I'm an observant man. I learned a few things about the good major that could send his career in a serious downward spiral."

  "You're blackmailing him."

  "Coarsely put. But whatever I want done with your Indian, the major will dolest I reveal his propensity for men. Kept a lover for years in Ceylon. Wouldn't think it to look at him, would you?"

  "The major's private life is none of my business. Nathan's life is."

  "I have them both where I want them. Where I have you, Miren. At my mercy."

  "You have no 'mercy.'"

  Patterson folded his long, thin hands on his lap. "It would be wise for you to remember. You have a choice, my sweet. You'll marry me to save your Indian, or refuse and he'll die. Per my instructions, Major MacDuff will be forced to kill him 'escaping.'"

  "Why?" Her voice came too rushed, desperate. "Why do you want to marry me at all?"

  "For the same reason Kenneth MacCallum sought out your mother and arranged for her hand."

  Miren remembered Glenna's story. "For some ancient Malcolm treasure? That's ridiculous. There's no such thing."

  Patterson's pale blue eyes glimmered. "Isn't there? Kenneth said differently. He told me quite a lot in his drunken stupors, in fact. Interesting enough so that I checked on his story. What your fanciful Celtic imagination calls 'treasure,' I call a vast inheritance left sitting at a vault in Edinburgh. A vault only accessible to Malcolm's heir. Or to a husband who possesses the duke's seal of approval . . ."

  "What?" Miren shook her head. "That's not possible. If my mother had some sort of inheritance, she would have shared it with my father. We were poor, Doctor. So poor you lent your services for free, if you remember . . ." Her voice trailed as her understanding grew. "You knew it then, didn't you? That's why you tended my father, because you wanted to force me to marry you. You didn't try to heal him at all, did you?"

  Patterson chuckled. "I even helped him along, my dear. And in the meantime, arranged for him to pay for my services by selling me his cottage. My wife took longer. But then, she was healthier when I began administering poison, drop by precious drop, into her system."

  Miren didn't respond. Hatred filled her heart, blinding rage coupled with fear. "You killed my father."

  "Your father was ill anyway. I simply quickened his last hours. As an act of mercy." His voice took on a taunting quality that spurred Miren toward violence. "I never did care much for my profession."

  "Yet you enjoy killing, don't you?"

  "It's necessary. I enjoy crafting people, Miren. Manipulating them, controlling them. I enjoy using my superior wiles to defeat them. Your mother knew nothing of her inheritance, nor presumably did her father. Kenneth stumbled onto the information while researching the connection between the Malcolm and MacCallum clans."

  "They were once the same clan, I know."

  "And your grandfather's branch proved far more wealthy than Kenneth's. He wanted their power. And later, I wantedhis." Patterson closed his eyes briefly, swollen with his twisted pride. He couldn't resist bragging. Miren listened attentively, searching for anything that might help.

  "Poison is a doctor's tool, but I use it wisely. The day he went to meet his son, I dropped a half-pint of sleeping powder into Kenneth MacCallum's whiskey. I watched them drink, frown at its taste, and drink again. I held the cup to my own lips and said it was surely a rare form of the purest
Scottish whiskey ever tasted."

  Patterson leaned his head back against the padded coach wall. "They drank, and I watched them doze off into fool's slumber. I lay them together, piled wood on their bodies, and lit a fine, healthy blaze. Sucked up that little wooden cabin in minutes."

  Miren closed her eyes. If he told her this, he meant to kill her, too. "There were three bodies."

  "Ah, yes. I'd almost forgotten. A guide led us to David's pathetic little farmhe'd built it out in the middle of nowhere. I killed the guide the first day and left him in the woods. When the time came, I dragged him to the cabin. Almost made a mistake. The blaze had burned faster than I guessed. I had to throw his rotten body through the door." Patterson touched his mustache. "Singed my hair in the process."

  Miren fought an intense wave of nausea. "Why did you kill them? How did that serve you?"

  "Let's say it served another's interest. My hand is in many pots. At the time, my dearest, I thought I'd lost you for good. Rumors around Kilmartin said you'd committed suicide. I know now those dotard farmers were trying to protect you. They never liked me, I'm afraid."

  "Farmers have good sense." Miren paused. "What do you mean, 'hand in many pots?' What other pot?"

  "It seems wise to keep that from you, in case I require it as a fall-back plan. But if my plan to secure your inheritance fails, I'm not completely lost."

  "Where are we going, if I might ask?"

  "We're headed to a place you know well, my dear. The MacCallum estate."

  "Why?"

  "We'll marry there, at the stone church on the MacCallum estate. I've already arranged for a priest to perform the ceremony. The good duke will sign papers securing my rights to your inheritance, and I'll be on my way."

  "You can't expect me to agree, when I know you'll kill me anyway."

  "You'll agree, because I have your Indian under my control. Two things can happen, per my orders. He can be sent to America, or he can die. It's your choice."

  "Nathan isn't here. You left him in Oban. How will I know what your henchman has done with him?"

  "I don't have time to give personal instructions at this point, my dear. I have two letters, to be sent by a courier. One says the Indian dies, one says he goes free to America."

  Miren considered this. "I do not trust you, but I have no choice."

  "In case you come to your senses and realize the Indian's life is valueless . . . I have something to threaten your own life." Patterson drew a small dirk from his waistcoat and held it to the window.

  "What happened to your butcher's knife?"

  "A weapon for each task, my dear. The larger knife was necessary to insure your compliance when I attempted to remove you from your miserable little cottage."

  Miren's lip curled in disgust. "So if I refuse to marry you, you'll stab me? I doubt a priest will take kindly to a proposal like that."

  "The good father needn't know about our private . . . arrangement."

  Patterson fingered the dirk's sharp blade. "If you don't care about your own life . . . When the duke's coach arrives, therewill be several people you care for present. Possibly . . . Glenna MacCallum?"

  Miren tensed, and Patterson laughed. "Your Indian preceded me to Scotland by a few weeks, but I located his ship. Once I realized he had you watched at all times, I focused my attention on proving him a fraud . . ."

  "Why? If I'm the one you're after, why do you care who inherits Kenneth MacCallum's estate?"

  Patterson's smile faded. His lip curled in a sneer, and Miren guessed she'd come close to unveiling another secret. "The matter is of interest to me. I asked a few questionsdidn't learn anything besides his arrival date, and that Simon was with him. I was about to leave when I spotted the woman and child. That disturbed my plan. The brat wasn't an Indian. David MacCallum's son, perhaps?"

  Miren kept her expression straight. "The woman you refer to is Nathan's housemaid. The boy is her grandson."

  "Maybe. But she's hovering near you, Miren. She'll come with the duke. And she'll bring her grandson. . . . Something tells me their lives are of interest to you."

  Miren's anger overflowed. It came like bile to her throat. "Yes, their lives have value. All life has value."

  "Such a simple-minded wench you are. I doubt you could endure something so tragic as a child's death."

  Miren's heart ran cold, but she kept her voice even. "You'll stab a child? So much simpler . . . How do you expect to get away with that?"

  "Stabbing . . ." Patterson clucked his tongue. "So dramatic. A small prick, like that of an insect, can be so much more effective." He opened a small black case at his feet and withdrew a narrow vial. He removed the vial and dipped the dirk's point into the clear fluid.

  "The tiniest dropapplied, say, to the blade of a knifecan send a man, or child, to certain death. The only cure is an immediateand vulgarresponse. A well-meaning individual nearby has to suck the poison from the wound beforeit enters the blood stream. Spitting it out afterwards, of course. Even so, it should leave the victim weak and deranged for days, even weeks afterward."

  Patterson recapped the vial and placed it in his waistcoat. "Unfortunately, the cure wouldn't work on a child. They're too weak. The beauty of this particular poison is that it doesn't show up immediately. One can attack, then withdraw. The symptoms aren't noticeable until it's too late for the cure. Person gets dizzy, stumbles. Throat gets dry . . ." Patterson affected a false shudder. "Grisly, isn't it?"

  "You are truly evil." Miren spoke evenly, without emotion. Nathan would come for her. Somehow, he would free himself, and he would come. But if Patterson saw him . . . She had to let Patterson think he was winning, that nothing threatened his plan. "I take it you've used this method before."

  "I spent years in India, where poison is common. It was my own dear late wife who showed me this tactic. She eased her father to an early grave when he thought to pass his fortune on to his mistress. Unfortunately, her 'fortune' passed too soon, and with it, her usefulness."

  "A shame you two didn't have children, Doctor. The world needs more of your kind."

  Miren's caustic reply disturbed Patterson's composure. "How lighthearted you are, Miren! It will be a shame to become a widower again, so soon after our wedding."

  "You'll force me to marry you at the threat of another's life, then kill me? Won't that raise suspicions?"

  "I'll bring you with me to Edinburgh, collect your inheritance . . . And then I'll have no further use for you. Oh, it will appear accidental, of course. There are limitless ways of removing you, without casting suspicion on myself. But even were the authorities to pursue me, I shall be long gone by then."

  "What about your ally?"

  A slight frown twitched on Patterson's lips before he concealed it. "Allies are useful at certain times. When their usefulness passes . . . Assuming this person has secrets to conceal, I face no threat from that quarter."

  Miren's throat tightened as she realized the hopelessness of her situation. "As soon as we're away from the people I love, I will fight you. All the way to Edinburgh. All the way to hell."

  Patterson fingered the rope attached to her neck. He tugged her forward, and she felt his dank breath on her face. "I'll keep you busy, Miren. Did you think your story of pregnancy would save you from your 'husband's' attention? It won't. I would make use of you now, but I don't want you soiled for our wedding. Afterwards, I'll take my fill of you all the way to Edinburgh."

  Miren met his eyes evenly. "I will die first."

  He slackened his grip on the rope, knowing he controlled her with or without its force. "You'll die after. When I choose. In fact, if need be, you'll be weakened by this same poison, and I'll have you while you languish."

  Patterson twisted the dirk, then flung it at the wall behind Miren's head. His wrist flicked with lightning speed, and the weapon lodged an inch away from her temple. Patterson sat back and laughed. "Learned that in India, too."

  The men in uniforms are evil. Like a pack of dark wolves. The
y held my Nathan to the ground while their leader took Miren away. In a coach. A coach such as I once coveted. I covet them no more.

  Molly sat in the middle of the field, lost in the crowd. The coach disappeared, taking Miren with it. She tried to follow, but a uniformed man held her back. "What do we do with the dog, Major?"

  Four men surrounded Nathan, and clasped metal hoops over his wrists. Molly sensed they were not for decoration. "Shoot it."

  Nat screamed, and Glenna stepped forward. "You will not shoot my dog."

  The major looked confused, but Glenna took Molly's collar. "I am the housekeeper of the MacCallum estate. This is my dog. Shoot her, and I will see you in court, Major."

  The major shrugged. "Keep her quiet, then." He nodded to his servants. "Take the prisoner."

  "Not so fast." The fat woman who resembled Blossom made her way through the crowd, trailed by her servants. Molly felt reassured. This woman had final say. Even over Muffin.

  The queen ignored the major in favor of the duke. "Of what has he been accused?"

  The major stepped forward. "Murder, Your Majesty. Also, impersonating the rightful heir"

  "That is known to Her Majesty."

  Nathan caught his breath. Molly glanced up at him. His mouth was open. "It is?"

  The queen looked down upon him, despite the fact he stood several heads taller than herself. Molly considered it an impressive tactic, and wondered if she could use it somehow on Blossom.

  "All is known to Her Majesty."

  The duke looked uncomfortable. "You don't keep secrets from the Queen of England, Nathan."

  Nathan smiled. "Apparently you don't."

  Queen Victoria looked silently into Nathan's eyes. He met her gaze. Molly approved the interaction. "I like you, young man. But who are you, that I should believe you innocent despite Dr. Patterson's claim?"

  Nathan didn't have an answer ready. Molly tensed. He needed an answer. She squirmed free from Glenna and nudged his ankles. "The little collie knows."

  Glenna came to face the queen. "He is my son."