Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123)

by Coulter, Catherine

Meggie said, “Let me get you some water, sir. How do you feel?”

  “Is that a girl I hear? She shouldn’t be here, Thomas. God only knows what the Grakers left upstairs. They scared off all the guests, but I have this very bad feeling that they did something she’s not going to want to see. Aye, they’re mightily displeased with me. I kilt one of them. It was an accident, I swear it, but they don’t believe me. They came for their revenge.”

  Thomas shook his head. “First things first.” Thomas took a wet cloth from Meggie, motioned for her to hold the candle closer, and examined the wound. “It isn’t bad, just a single blow. After I take care of you, Bernard, I’ll go upstairs and see if there’s anyone else here. Where’s Marie?”

  “Marie?” Bernard frowned.

  “Your wife, Bernard.”

  “Oh my lord, I’m in a bad way here, my boy. Marie—I don’t know, I just don’t know. What if the Grakers hurt her, Thomas?”

  “I will go search the rest of the inn. You will stay here and rest.”

  “But who is this girl?”

  “This is my wife.”

  “Ah, your wife. Ain’t she a pretty one? Look at all the lovely hair, can’t make up its mind what color it wants to be.”

  “That’s enough, Bernard. Your head should hurt too much for you to flirt with her. All right, I’m going to help you to that chair and you will rest until I see what’s going on here. Do you have a lantern?”

  Once the lantern was lit, Thomas said, “Meggie, you will remain with Bernard to, er, protect him.”

  “No, he’s not my husband. His head isn’t bleeding anymore. Mr. Leach, you don’t move. Thomas and I will find your wife. Don’t worry. Let’s go, Thomas.”

  He could tie her down, he supposed, then just shrugged, raised the lantern high, and left the kitchen, Meggie on his heels.

  Thirty minutes later, after looking into every bedchamber on the second floor, they went to the attic rooms where the servants stayed. There were no servants anywhere.

  But they found Marie Leach hanging by the neck from a thick rope wrapped and knotted about a high beam in the far attic room. Meggie didn’t pause, just ran to the woman and lifted her up, trying to relieve the pressure of the rope around her neck. “Hurry, Thomas, hurry. I can’t hold on much longer.”

  “I’m sorry, Meggie. It’s too late. She’s dead.”

  She was holding a dead woman. Meggie gulped, slowly released her, and stepped back. She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to accept that she was seeing a dead woman, and such a horrible way to die, but she forced herself. She wouldn’t faint, she wouldn’t moan and groan, she wouldn’t be useless.

  She might have weaved a bit, but managed to say in a fairly firm voice, “Tell me what to do, Thomas.”

  “Please hold her up again, Meggie. I need to get the rope off her.”

  Thomas managed to untie the rope around her neck. “The knot wasn’t well tied,” he said as he eased Marie down onto the single narrow cot in the small bedchamber. He paused a moment, lightly touched his fingers to the dead woman’s cheek, then drew the cover over her. He was silent for a moment.

  “You knew her. Well.”

  Thomas raised his head. “Yes, this is Bernard’s wife, Marie. I’ve known her since I was a small boy. This shouldn’t have happened, Meggie. Now, there’s nothing more we can do for her. Let’s go downstairs. I have to tell Bernard, and then we must fetch a magistrate.”

  18

  IT WAS NEARLY midnight when the housekeeper led Thomas and Meggie into a newly aired bedchamber at Squire Billings’s house at the head of Morgan Cove, just south of St. Agnes Head, a fine property some three miles distant from The Hangman’s Noose.

  Once the housekeeper had left them, Thomas said, “Go to bed, Meggie. Squire Billings and I must speak about this further.”

  She nodded, saying not a word. She’d not said a word, but she’d hurt and cried deep inside and let the shock burrow deeper than the tears, and now she was exhausted. Within five minutes she was stretched out on her back beneath a marvelous goose-down comforter.

  Thomas came into the bedchamber to see that she was all right before going back down to Squire Billings’s library. He held the candle high and looked down at his wife. She was already asleep, her hair spread out about her head on the pristine white pillowcase. She looked so very young, untouched, but that wasn’t true. And now she was no longer innocent—she’d seen a woman hanging by the neck.

  He didn’t like this at all. He turned on his heel and went back downstairs.

  Meggie awoke the next morning, still alone. No sign of Thomas. She wondered if he’d even come to bed at all. Then she remembered what had happened.

  She closed her eyes and tried not to think about Marie Leach. She looked about the bedchamber and didn’t like it. It was dark, the furnishings heavy, Spanish in flavor, she believed, having visited a Señor Alvarez in his home in London during her Season the past spring.

  She looked toward the windows, not seeing the heavy draperies, but rather Marie Leach, and she was dead and it was perfectly horrible.

  Thomas knocked lightly then quietly opened the door to see his wife sitting on the side of the bed, her face in her hands, sobbing, great ugly sobs that seemed to bow her utterly.

  He strode to the bed, picked her up, and carried her to the large winged chair beside the fireplace. He sat down and settled her on his lap. He held her for a very long time.

  She felt in those moments that she was once again with the man she’d enjoyed so very much before they’d married, the man who’d never hesitated to comfort her, to laugh with her, to simply appreciate what and who she was.

  “Thank you,” she said, and straightened up. She was knuckling her eyes with her fists, and it made him smile.

  “You’re welcome. It’s morning. A maid is waiting in the hall to assist you. We will spend the day here. This business with Bernard and his wife, it’s a mystery and Mr. Billings hasn’t a notion where to begin.”

  “And you do?”

  “Yes. I wish to speak at great length with Bernard. I will ask the local physician to look at Mrs. Leach.”

  “But why? Didn’t she die by strangulation?”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “I will speak to the stable lad.”

  A thorny problem, Thomas thought, and cleared his throat. He said, “That won’t be possible.”

  “Why not?” She was off his lap in an instant, standing there in front of him, frowning, her hands on her hips, that white nightgown of hers flowing from the throat down to her toes. “I could question him as well as you could. I will even have Tim there with me.”

  “The stable lad is gone. Tim is looking after Pen and the carriage horses. Tim said he must have left while he was asleep, probably fearing he’d be blamed.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sorry to take the wind out of your sails.”

  “You have surprised me, true enough. Do you believe the stable lad knew what had happened even while he was leading your horse to the stables?”

  “If he did, then it would mean that he must have been involved. I will ask Bernard about the lad’s family—”

  “Ah, and then I will go speak to them, find out where he is.”

  “Perhaps. Now, I will meet you downstairs for breakfast.”

  Life had turned very strange, Meggie was thinking as the maid, Tossa—a Spanish name, she told Meggie when asked, handed down from an ancestor who’d been flung up on the southern Cornish coast during the wreck of the great Spanish Armada during the reign of Good Queen Bess—helped her bathe, arranged her hair and her clothes. Tossa told her Squire Billings was all bluff and no brain, but a good man even so. When Meggie emerged nearly an hour later, she looked like a lady, and it was a good feeling.

  She heard Mr. Billings’s voice as she eased into the dining room.

  “I say, my lord, I know all about the Grakers, they’re bad, there’s no question about that. I didn’t know that Bernard had killed one of them. Ho
wever did he manage it? It’s rare to see one. I’ve never heard of actually catching one.”

  “I will find out,” said Thomas. “Bernard told me it was an accident.”

  “Ah, here’s some more eggs for you, my lord.”

  “Thank you. This is my wife, Squire, Lady Lancaster. We appreciate your hospitality.” Thomas rose from his chair, followed by Squire Billings, who gave her a brief bow and a fat smile.

  “Good morning,” Meggie said as she eased into the chair opposite her husband, held out for her by a butler with trembling hands, who was so pale he looked nearly dead. Squire Billings said matter-of-factly, seeing the countess’s alarm, “Elroy is distraught. He finds death, particularly violent unexpected death, very upsetting to his innards. Fetch her ladyship some eggs and toast, Elroy. Try not to think of Mrs. Leach, and whatever you do, don’t drop the tray anywhere close to her ladyship.”

  “It were a bad thing, sir,” Elroy said, hands trembling even more, “a more terrible thing than I could imagine,” and left to fetch the food.

  “You are newly wedded,” Squire Billings said between mouthfuls of kippers. “A miserable thing to have happen. Ah well, at least you had your first night together in relative peace and calm, eh?” Squire Billings actually leered, most of it, thankfully, behind his napkin, but Thomas still wanted to kick him.

  Meggie realized what he’d said, fastened her eyes on the scrambled eggs, and said, “Ha.” She spent a good minute buttering her toast and decorating it with some gooseberry jam.

  Thomas said, “I was taking my wife home this morning, but given what has happened, we will remain here at least for today.”

  “I would indeed appreciate your assistance in this dreadful matter, my lord. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

  Thomas nodded, took a final drink of coffee, neatly folded his napkin, and laid it beside his plate. He rose, saying, “Meggie I don’t know how long this will take. You will amuse yourself.”

  She wanted to shoot him, but she merely smiled, tossed her own napkin down, and rose as well. “I have decided to accompany you, Thomas.” And the look she gave him dared him to order her to stay, like a damned dog.

  She turned to their host. “Thank you very much for your hospitality, Squire Billings. Do you wish to accompany my husband and me on our inquiries? There are so many people to speak to who might know about what happened last night at the Hangman’s Noose.”

  Squire Billings sputtered his coffee onto his necktie. “Well, as for that, I’m not a young man, you know, my lady, and who’s to say what—”

  “If it is not too difficult for you, I would ask that you speak to your staff, sir,” Thomas said as smooth as the butter he’d spread on his toast. “This evening we will all compare what we have learned. Meggie, fetch your cloak and bonnet.”

  That evening at eight o’clock, Squire Billings knew nothing more than what he’d known at breakfast. He’d had to hunt, he told Lord and Lady Lancaster, looking not a whit apologetic, aye, a full day of it, and he’d been desperately fatigued upon his return and had to nap before dinner. He had asked Elroy to conduct interviews with the staff, but the butler was still too overcome, and besides, what would his staff know?

  Everything, Meggie wanted to say, but wisely kept quiet.

  As for Thomas and Meggie, they’d found out two things: the local doctor had told them that Marie Leach was unconscious from a blow to the head before she was hung, maybe even already dead, and Bernard Leach had packed up and left the Hangman’s Noose suddenly, and no one knew where he’d gone. Nothing more. Even the stable lad had gone missing.

  “Did Bernard go missing because he murdered his wife or because he was too scared to stay?”

  It was an excellent question, the only one Thomas had ever heard from Squire Billing, and there was no answer.

  It was late when Thomas came into the bedchamber. Meggie was sitting up in the big heavy bed, three pillows behind her back, a candle burning on a small table at her elbow. She appeared to be reading.

  She looked up when he came into the room, watched him close the door quietly behind him, watched him set his candle down on the dressing table, then straighten and turn to face her.

  She cocked her head to one side and said, “Hello, my lord. What do you want?”

  “What are you reading?”

  “John Locke. He isn’t very amusing.”

  “No.”

  “What do you want?” she asked again.

  “You,” he said. “I want you, Meggie. Take off your nightgown.”

  “I believe some specifics are in order here, my lord.”

  “My name is Thomas.” He said again, his voice cold and remote this time, “I said that I wanted you. That is quite specific enough.”

  “Do you mean that you want to maul me again?”

  His hands stilled on the top button of his trousers. It was a good question. He had mauled her, rutting bastard that he was, but it wasn’t really his fault. If she hadn’t said those things, hadn’t rubbed his nose in the fact that she didn’t love him—no, that was a lie if he’d ever told himself one, which, of course he had. He’d known she hadn’t loved him and he’d believed it wouldn’t matter, that he would make her love him soon enough.

  Damnation.

  He stripped off his clothes, knowing she was watching, looking at him, pointedly. Surely that could be seen as a good thing, perhaps.

  When he was naked, he walked to the bed and sat beside her. He looked into those Sherbrooke eyes of hers, beautiful light blue eyes, vivid as the summer sky—and said, “I will not hurt you tonight. I will come into you and you will like it. I’m going to teach you pleasure, Meggie.” I will be the teacher, the lover, not that bastard Jeremy, and you’ll learn to love my hands and mouth, and stop your dreams about him.

  “That’s very hard to believe that it can actually be nice.”

  “I’m going to make you grin like a loon, make your eyes go vague. Eventually I’ll even let you go to sleep.” He said nothing more, just drew her against him. “Kiss me, Meggie.”

  “All right.” When his tongue was in her mouth, when she’d eased, when he knew she was becoming interested in what he was doing, he threw the pillows on the floor and came down beside her. “You’re beautiful,” he said into her mouth. “And you’re mine, Meggie. You will never forget that. No one else’s, mine.”

  She gave him a clear look and said, “Of course I’m yours, Thomas, and you are mine. I pray you will not forget that either.”

  That warmed him to his toes, then made him cold again, on the outside. Meggie might not love him, but she was loyal. He wanted her loyalty true enough, but he wanted her to love him too, it was just that simple. He wanted everything. Well, damnation.

  When her nightgown was on the floor and he was on top of her, kissing his way down the length of her, he knew it would be difficult to keep himself in check, but he wouldn’t allow a repeat of their wedding.

  Thomas’s heart was racing, the blood was pumping through him, hot and heavy, and he hurt with urgency. Then he kissed her white belly, feeling her muscles tense, knowing she was excited, knowing that she was ignorant as a post, but was beginning to enjoy herself and wanted to yell with it. He would make her love him, make her want him above all men, above that damned Jeremy, make her yield her soul to him, whisper his name in her dreams. He smiled when he came between her legs, wanting her, wanting her, lifted her in his hands, and gave her his mouth.

  Meggie’s brain shut down. Yes, he was actually touching her there, with his mouth, his teeth, his tongue. Then she lifted off the bed, so embarrassed when she tried to yell at him, she could only stutter. She tried to jerk away from him, shoving at his shoulders, yanking on his hair, but he just raised his mouth a bit, looked at her straight in her Sherbrooke eyes, and said, his breath hot against her flesh, “Lie down, Meggie. Close your eyes and let yourself enjoy what I’m doing to you. It’s the done thing, just like the tongues. Relax. I’m your husband. This gives
me great pleasure. Don’t deny me my pleasure, Meggie.”

  “Oh no, oh goodness, but, Thomas—”

  “Be quiet,” he said and blew his hot breath against her.

  Meggie lurched up and yelled.

  He eased a finger inside her and she yelled again, only this time, he knew she’d shoot him if he stopped. Good, he had her now. He pushed her until—“Come now, Meggie. Just let go. Come along, come to me—”

  Meggie didn’t understand what was happening to her, but she knew she’d simply shatter into pieces if anything or anyone tried to stop it happening, whatever it was. She was quaking, stuttering she was so frantic, so maddened by the feelings building and building until—she arched her back, fisted her hands in his hair, and screamed to the beamed ceiling.

  He pushed her and pushed her until he felt every bit of tension, every frantic need from deep inside her finally quiet, leaving her utterly limp, utterly his. He gave a shout of satisfaction as he came into her hard, deep and deeper still, and she raised her hips, something that nearly sent him right over the edge. No, he wouldn’t leave her this quickly, it wasn’t fair to either of them. Where had she gotten the energy to want him more? Then he looked down at them, saw himself going deeper inside her, and trembled like a tree branch in a high wind.

  Those long legs of hers went around his flanks, and she moaned, and he tried, he truly tried to slow himself, to come out of her a bit until he managed to grab on to just a bit of control, but then he just couldn’t, couldn’t do anything but go forward and he did, touching her womb. Her womb, he was part of her. Oh God. Even then he gritted his teeth, trying desperately to hold himself still, not to move even a small little bit, but it did no good. He went right over the edge when she bit his shoulder, then licked where she’d bitten.

  He yelled louder than his wife had, then collapsed on top of her.

  Meggie, flattened by a very big sweaty male body, didn’t mind a bit. So this was pleasure. She bit his shoulder again, licked it, and grinned. She was astounded. She’d wanted to sing and dance with the champagne, but it was nothing compared to this. Now she wanted to whirl about in a fast waltz, she wanted to stomp her feet to some wild music that the gypsies played. She was filled with energy, with power, and all because of him, because of Thomas, her husband.