by P. N. Elrod
He seemed to sense my urgency and tore away like the wind.
* * *
No lights showed when I arrived at the house. Everyone had gone to bed.
My relief at this show of normality was physical. Resuming a corporeal body, I sagged exhausted in the saddle as though I’d been the one to do the running and not my horse. There was still time.
This was a small household, just Elizabeth and James and the valet, Harridge. They also had a cook, maid and scullery boy, all part of the same family, but they lived in their own house a quarter mile farther along. So convenient for the Norwoods, so convenient for Ash. Fewer witnesses. James had successfully isolated Elizabeth without raising any suspicions.
I dismounted and quietly walked to the front door, vanished and slipped through the narrow space of the threshold, reappearing on the inside. I had no plan, no idea of what I was going to do, only blind faith that the right path would present itself now that I was here.
Going to the front parlor, I busied myself with the tinder box by the fireplace and soon had a number of candles burning throughout the room. I wanted a lot of light. When I was done, I went to the entry below the staircase landing and bellowed out my sister’s name. I couldn’t bring myself to go up to their bedroom.
After a moment, Norwood called down, looking understandably astonished. “Jonathan? My God, man! What are you doing here? Has something happened to Caroline?”
“Jonathan?” Elizabeth hesitantly called.
“Come down, please,” I said, in a softer tone. I was not speaking to him. For a tiny instant, I nearly wavered and fled. I was about to deliver a terrible wound to a soul I loved more than life. Perhaps I should spirit her away with no explanation, leave the pain for later, when Father would be there to help.
“What the devil are you about, man?” Norwood demanded, sounding highly aggrieved and worried. He had much to be anxious about.
No. I crushed my doubts. Not one more minute with him.
Soon they came, Elizabeth wrapped in a loose gown over her nightclothes, Norwood still dressed except for his coat and waistcoat.
Of course. He would want to be ready for his murdering guests when they arrived. Easy enough for him to make some excuse to Elizabeth so he could remain downstairs on watch to let them in. Caroline had given me to understand that midnight was to be the appointed hour on any of three nights. If they’d not arrived by then, he’d go up to bed as usual.
Norwood and Elizabeth followed me into the parlor and stopped, faces anxious, full of curiosity and not a small touch of annoyance at my intrusion.
“What is it, Jonathan?” asked Elizabeth, coming over to me.
“Yes,” said Norwood. “Is it the war? What’s wrong?” He stopped short, having noticed the pistol in my hand. It was Caroline’s. I had it pointed at the floor, but he was plainly wondering why I was in possession of it.
Elizabeth noticed as well and drew away. “What is it? What’s wrong? Was there trouble on the road? Is it Father? Is he ill or hurt?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said. “I’ve . . . I’ve learned something that you need to know.”
“Learned what?”
I drew out the letter. “This arrived from Oliver. It’s on the top page.” A cowardly way to tell her, but if I’d tried to speak the words would have choked me on the spot. Besides, I had to keep watch on—
“Really, Jonathan,” said Norwood. “What is so important that you had to come by at this hour? Where’s Caroline?”
Elizabeth took the letter and held it so the candlelight fell upon the damning page and read. Then she gave a moaning gasp and sat heavily on one of the chairs. “My God . . . .”
“Elizabeth? What is it?” Norwood, made uneasy with her failure to reply, faced me square, a much put-upon man defending his household. “See here, Jonathan, I won’t be having you barging in like this without a word of explanation.”
“Be quiet.” It was all I could do not to shoot him then and there.
He flushed. “And I won’t be spoken to like that in my own home even if you are my brother-in-law!”
“You’re no relation to me and you know it. Be quiet or I will kill you where you stand.”
His mouth dropped open, but nothing came forth. He saw how I looked. He put that together with the letter and finally, finally the true import behind my actions began to dawn upon him.
“Elizabeth?” I spared her a glance. She had become smaller and trembled as though chilled to the bone. The letter quivered so in her hand that she had to press the rattling pages against the chair arm to read it again. She’d have to read it several times, even as I had.
She turned to me, eyes pleading. “This is true, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” The word burned my tongue.
“It’s not some silly joke of Oliver’s . . . .”
“No. I showed this to Caroline. I made her talk. She was . . . unable to lie. She and Norwood are married. Everything they’ve told us is a sham.”
Elizabeth let the letter drop and stared past me, not to her husband, but to the monster who had betrayed her. Her eyes blurred under the welling tears.
“How could you?” she asked him in a broken voice that pierced me right through the heart. “Why?”
“How could I what? Elizabeth—” He reached toward her, putting on a convincing show of bewilderment and tender concern. I cuffed him back with my free arm barely able to hold myself in check. Sensing the rage, he subsided, watchful.
She ignored him and looked to me once more, silently begging for me to make things right again.
Which I was powerless to do. “If I could change it, I would. You know that. Caroline told me everything. I got the whole story from her. I made her speak the truth. You know I can do that.”
This finally penetrated to Norwood. The game was over. He quietly backed away, one foot behind the other. Whether his intent was to bolt out the front door or retreat upstairs for some weapon I was not to know. I foiled whatever plan he had by bounding forward and seizing him by the scruff of the neck.
He bellowed protest and made to fight. We were both of a size, but my unnatural strength turned the odds in my favor. One-handed, I raised his boots clear of the floor and shook him like a doll. It was just his good fortune that Elizabeth’s shrill cry hauled me up short, or I’d have snapped him in two.
“God’s mercy, Jonathan, don’t kill him!” she cried.
“Why not?”
“Please, for your own sake put him down!”
I did so, flinging him across the room into a wall. He crashed hard and sprawled flat on his back, stunned and breathless.
Elizabeth gaped. She knew I was strong, but had never witnessed so violent a demonstration of it. “Please . . . .” Her face was dreadfully white. Fear. I’d caused her to fear me.
With much effort I mastered myself. The last thing I wanted was to add to her anguish. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Oh, Jonathan, is it really true?”
I nodded, quite out of words.
And this confirmation made her seem smaller still. Elizabeth hunched in on herself. She turned toward Norwood, but did not otherwise move. “Why, James? Why?”
He made no reply. If she had the least doubt left about the truth of things, she had only to look at his face. The awful certainty was writ there as clear and stark as ink on paper.
“Why did you do this to me?”
Norwood roused somewhat from my assault, but remained where he lay, making not the slightest protest of innocence, nor any gesture of compassion or remorse toward the woman he’d so callously wronged.
“WHY?” she shrieked.
He displayed no jot of shame for any of it. If anything, he appeared to be wholly disgusted at this turning of events, of being caught.
Soulless and heartless, the bastard.
> Elizabeth was unable to hold back the grief any longer. She gave up fighting and tears and wracking sobs burst forth, the emotions overwhelming, striking her helpless.
I put my arm around my sister and pulled her close, offering what small comfort I could, but sickening as it was just to look at him, not once did I take my gaze or the aim of my pistol from Norwood.
* * *
“What shall we do?” Elizabeth asked, voicing the question that had begun to hammer at me.
The first shattering blow had passed. There would be more reaction to come later, but she was a strong woman, recovered for the present. She blew her nose, dried her eyes, and braced herself to listen to the full story behind the letter. I told her everything Caroline had imparted. The fact that I’d obtained such a bounty of detailed information from her both puzzled and frightened Norwood.
He was now in a parlor chair farthest from the door and well away from the room’s only window. It would have been wise to tie him up, but I wanted him to attempt another escape. It would provide me a most savage joy to thrash him bloody.
“We’ll tell Father,” I answered. “He’ll help us work out something.”
“I don’t see how.”
Neither did I, but she didn’t need to hear that. “He will.”
She nodded dully, accepting, not really thinking about it. Just as well. I had the feeling that Father would also be floundering at sea over this horror. “What about Caroline?” she asked.
Norwood’s eyes flickered and sharpened.
“She’ll be no trouble to us, I promise,” I said. “She’s at The Oak. Farr and his wife are looking after her, and Beldon’s been sent for.”
“My God, why?”
Damnation. I should have kept that to myself.
“Jonathan?”
My turn to slump. “She’s in . . . a state.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was an accident.”
“What sort of accident?”
“My anger got away from me. While she was under my influence. I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“What happened?”
I couldn’t soften it with Elizabeth looking at me like that. This was a night for confessions, apparently. “I served her as Nora served Tony Warburton.”
Elizabeth understood instantly, eyes going wide. She and Father were both familiar with that terrible incident. “Oh, dear lord.”
Norwood was openly mystified, but too cowed to demand an explanation. He’d learn about his wife soon enough. Everyone would.
“Oh, Jonathan, what’s to be done?”
“We’ll work it out later.”
“This is so horrible.”
I almost winced, then realized her dismay was for me, not Caroline. “I’ll be fine.”
Elizabeth seemed ready to question that. Her focus on me was a distraction from the greater problem of Norwood. I doubted she was even aware of seizing upon it.
“Go upstairs,” I said gently. “Put on riding clothes and quickly. I’m taking you home. We’ll talk to Father.”
“What about him?” She glared at Norwood.
“He’ll be here when we come back. I’ll make certain of it.”
“You’ll—”
“I’ll only just tie him up.” Half of a plan had formed in the back of my mind that I should tether Norwood in the parlor and wait for Ash to turn up. If not this night, then the next. I’d see the lot of them on a gibbet before the week was gone. “Now go along.”
Elizabeth stood, stiff as an old woman one moment, then swaying as though about to swoon the next, but she got hold of herself and paced over to where Norwood was seated. He had no expression now, just a trace of watchfulness, nothing more. She looked him up and down, a tall and handsome man, husband for a month, betrayer for a lifetime.
She slapped him. A hard crack across his face that must have hurt her like blazes. She gave no sign of it, though. Her other pain had to be the greater.
He flinched, but didn’t otherwise react. I was right behind Elizabeth and Norwood must have seen his own death in my eye if he dared to make the slightest move against her. I still had Caroline’s six-shot pistol ready in one hand, but didn’t need that to finish him off. Gladly would I squeeze the life from him given the least prompting.
Elizabeth slapped him again, his flesh going red from the assault and now his suppressed anger. He endured it, though.
And again. Blood on the corner of his mouth.
“I could kill you,” she whispered, low and venomous and cold as winter. I’d never heard her speak in such a tone before. It put the hair up on the back of my neck.
Her face was changed, like nothing I’d ever seen before, either. Truly hers was the kind of medusan fury that could turn men into stone. Norwood must have felt it, for there was fear in him now. I could smell it in his blood.
She spit in his eye. Accurately.
He was not tempted to wipe away the spittle, but sat frozen. One word, one move on his part and that would be his end. She needed no weapon either. She looked more than capable of tearing his throat open with her bare hands. I wondered at her restraint.
Elizabeth abruptly turned her back to him and left by the parlor’s other door, which led off to the kitchen. I wondered why she’d gone that way until hearing the soft splash of water. Yes, she’d want to wash her face first, part and parcel of making a new start on things. I listened to her quiet movements until she was done and climbing the servants’ stairs to her room. Her steps faded and a door decisively closed.
“See here,” said Norwood, who had also been listening, “I know it’s been a blow to you, but there’s no need for this to go any further. You’ve caught me out and we all know it, but do you want all the rest of the county to know it as well? Do you really want Elizabeth to have to face the scandal, the pointing fingers, the whispers?”
“You don’t give a damn for her, so don’t use that excuse to save your skin.”
“But it will happen if you turn me in, make this public. Let me go and Caroline and I will leave quietly, we’ll disappear and say nothing.”
“Leaving Elizabeth to explain why her ‘husband’ deserted her?”
“You can say I’d been called back to England, say anything you like. We’ll be out of your lives, we’ll stay away, I promise.”
“You’ve tried to murder me twice, nearly killed my father, and God knows you were planning to murder Elizabeth as well, and you think that I’d cheerfully let you run free just to avoid a little gossip? Free to do serve the same to others?”
“But—”
“You’ve blood on your hands from the people killed and robbed by your men, you even slaughtered one of your own to keep him quiet, and by God, I’m going to see that Nash knows all about it. I could strangle you where you sit, but I won’t. It’ll give me far greater pleasure to wait and watch you dancing under the gallows. There’ll be no one pulling on your heels to speed you to hell, I’ll see to that.”
He went whiter than his shirt and embarrassed himself with no more protests. Some new thought came to him, though. “You’d let them hang Caroline, too? If you turn me in, then she’ll have to be part of it. You’d let them hang a woman?”
My hard silence was not the answer he sought. Caroline was beyond the noose, but I saw no reason to inform or explain to him her condition. I doubted he cared anything for her; she was but a ploy to be used to get himself clear.
“You must let me go.” Tears were in his eyes, his voice, but I’d seen them first in my sister. I was not to be persuaded to pity for this insect.
“Aye, let ’im go an’ we’ll take care ’o things,” someone advised me.
Ash’s voice. What the devil. . . ?
He blocked the doorway that led to the kitchen, a pistol in each hand, both aimed at me. I knew they’d be primed to
fire, having done it myself. They were the duelers I’d left on my saddle. Behind him were other men I recognized: Tully, Seth, Abel. Drummond wasn’t with them.
It was well before midnight. They’d come early. Perhaps upon seeing my horse in the yard they’d worked out something untoward was afoot.
“Stand clear of ’im,” Ash ordered.
I did just that, smoothly, without haste, and holding my own pistol along the line of my leg, keeping it from his sight for a moment longer. I presented only my side to him, as though for fencing practice.
“That’s far enough.”
Norwood was on his feet again, pointing at me. “Look out for him, he’s armed.”
But Ash had me well covered and knew it. “ ’E won’t make no trouble. ’E’s too smart by ’alf to even try. Am I right, ye young bastard? Am I right? Thought as much. Put that on the table. Reach for it ’n’ you’ll make me a happy man, ’n’ that’s God’s honest truth.”
As instructed, I placed the Dublin revolver on the table, and did not move from my spot.
Relief flowed out from Norwood so strongly I almost felt it as a presence in the room. “Excellent work, Mr. Ash. I’d nearly despaired. Thank God you decided to come tonight.”
“When there’s money to be had we’ve no need to waste time. We’d ’a been sooner in but that bloody idiot in the back put up more of a fight than we’d reckoned on.”
“What? Harridge?”
I wondered as well, having completely forgotten the man.
“ ’E squealed a bit, but Tully made ’im quiet. ’E won’t be makin’ no more noise ever ag’in.” Ash chuckled, the others joining him as they separated out over the room.
“Where is he?” asked Norwood.
“We drug ’im into yer scullery. It’ll look like it’s supposed to, you’ve naught to worry about on that.”
“You murdered your servant?” I asked Norwood.
