The Kent Heiress

by Roberta Gellis

  Perce was not nearly as sanguine as his friend, but at the moment he was concentrating on the first step in that direction, which was bringing Sabrina back to England. Nothing showed in his expression when he was ushered into Lord Mulgrave’s presence, but the tenseness of his body when took the seat proffered was not lost, on his host.

  “I will not keep you long,” Mulgrave said. “I imagine you know by now how great a service you have rendered your country.”

  “I did what I had been sent to do, my lord,” Perce replied with stiff impatience. “The magnitude of the service was a chance no one could have foreseen and entailed no extra effort on my part.”

  Mulgrave smiled. “I cannot accept that, but it’s rather foolish to discuss it at any length. Whatever you think, we are grateful to you, to your father, who approved your mission with great reluctance, and particularly, to Roger St. Eyre, who brought you to the attention of the Foreign Office.”

  A muscle jumped in Perce’s jaw, and Mulgrave laughed aloud. “You are wishing all our thanks and me personally at the bottom of a well, I believe,” he went on, “but I must ask you to be patient only a few minutes longer. There has been considerable discussion of a suitable reward, since no public—”

  “Please!” Perce interrupted, losing his temper. “If I have been of service, I am glad. If you wish to reward me, give me back my freedom.”

  “Ah, yes, you have been rather hedged about by civil servants. You deserve an explanation of that. A fleet of ships under Admiral Lord Gambier is sailing for Denmark. The Danish fleet will not fall into Bonaparte’s hands.”

  “I am delighted to know,” Perce said bleakly, “how evenly your thanks accord with your faith in my intelligence and discretion.”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” Mulgrave said defensively. He found himself quite disconcerted by the cold rage that somehow emanated from the blank mask turned on him, and he hurried on. “Let the matter of reward stand aside. It can be discussed at a more suitable time. However, what made me think of it is that Mr. St. Eyre has asked a favor of me. Directives are going out tomorrow evening concerning the Portuguese fleet. It was suggested to me that you might be willing to go along on the cutter that will take them.”

  “Go along?” Perce echoed, interrupting again.

  “I assure you,” Mulgrave hastened to add, “that this is no further attempt to keep you from your friends and normal activities.”

  That was not true. Canning had realized he could not hold Perce any longer and had requested help in keeping him out of circulation; however, Lord Mulgrave had no intention of confessing.

  “Mr. St. Eyre,” he went on quickly, “is very much concerned for the safety of his wife’s cousin, Lady Elvan, who is currently in Portugal. He asked me whether it would be possible to bring her home on a naval vessel. Ordinarily I would have had to refuse. In time of war, you know… However, I find it difficult to refuse Mr. St. Eyre any reasonable request, and the cutter you know, has instructions to avoid all action until message and reply are delivered.”

  Perce sat mute, his mouth a little open, his brain whirring and clicking as pieces fell into place. Vaguely he heard Mulgrave still talking but it was about how little naval officers liked the responsibility of a female passenger. All he heard was that Roger had suggested that Perce, a family friend acquainted with Sabrina from childhood, might be willing to escort her home.

  This Perce translated without difficulty, as meaning that Roger had seized the opportunity created by Canning’s suspicions to kill two birds with one stone. Suggesting that Perce to Portugal would calm Canning and get Perce out of the way until actions to render the secret clauses ineffective were under way or even completed, and bring Sabrina home safely. Perce lowered his eyelids to hide the unholy glee he felt and let Lord Mulgrave run down.

  When the explanations were finished, Perce was well in control of himself. He accepted the duty rather grudgingly and said he wished to take his valet along. Mulgrave assured him that would be possible; probably, Perce thought, Mulgrave would have agreed that an elephant go along to get rid of him. However, Perce knew it would not be a surprising request to Mulgrave’s way of thinking. Many aristocratic young men were far more attached to their valets than to their wives. Someday, Perce thought with amusement, I must let him meet my “valet”.

  Perce traveled to Portsmouth with the young naval lieutenant who commanded the cutter. He was glad to share the comfort of Perce’s post chaise, and soon relaxed the formality with which he had acknowledged their introduction. It was plain that he resented and feared the use of his ship to carry home a privileged lady.

  Far from relieving Perce’s worries, the fortunate turn of events seemed to intensify them. No matter how irrational he knew it to be, Perce grew more and more sure that he would arrive too late That he had no idea what he could possibly be too late for was irrelevant, and each day of voyage seemed the longest in his life. By the time he was ashore in Lisbon with the lieutenant, his gently vacuous expression was masking violent emotions.

  At the British embassy Perce inquired for Lord Elvan’s direction. Having forgotten at that moment that Lord Elvan had left for La Casa des Ermidas on the tenth of August, the clerk gave the address of the house in the city. Perce went out at once with Sergei, thinking that if Sabrina were not at home, he could at least talk to Katy and get the packing under way. He was not at all certain how long the lieutenant would be able to wait for his passengers. It would depend on the urgency of the reply Lord Strangford must make. It might also depend on private instructions given to the lieutenant, Perce thought. He was now so suspicious that he wondered whether Mulgrave had instructed the lieutenant to strand him in Portugal.

  Naturally, Perce’s emotional state was not improved by finding the house empty except for a few servants. Nor did his attempts to communicate with them—they understood only a few words of English, but no other language he spoke—calm him. He came back to the embassy fit to commit murder. Fortunately for all concerned, the moment he stepped into the building, the clerk greeted him with cries of apology and explanation and asked him to speak to Lord Strangford.

  The conversation that ensued put an end to Perce’s most lurid imaginings. The ambassador gave him clear instructions on how to reach Lord Elvan’s house near Lousa. In addition, he said it was not necessary for Sabrina to come back in time to sail on the cutter. Lord Mulgrave had given permission for her to sail on any naval vessel going directly to England. It would be best, of course, if she could return in time to sail with the cutter, but it was not essential.

  Perce considered this information in the light of what he knew and suspected and promptly excused himself. Lord Strangford seemed a little surprised at his eagerness to leave, but was not sorry. There was a pile of material that he had not yet examined that had come with the cutter. Out of the private office, Perce found the clerk who had misled him, correctly judging that a guilty conscience would make him, at least temporarily, more efficient, and arranged to change English money for Portuguese coinage and to have an embassy groom rent horses and equipment for Sergei and himself.

  Obviously, Canning and Lord Mulgrave had not had the nerve to order he be detained at the risk of Sabrina’s safety, but they had done their best to avoid any pressing need to hurry. Partly out of pure spite and partly out of the irrational fear that he would be too late, Perce decided to get Sabrina on that cutter if it was humanly possible. As soon as all the arrangements had been completed, he and Sergei set out north.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dom José stepped forward softly, avoiding furniture without difficulty. The floor creaked once, but he did not pause and neither did the soft voices. So sure, he thought bitterly, so very sure that he was a fool, a dupe. Just as he crossed the threshold into the bedchamber, Francisca laughed.

  “Oh, but I am delighted,” she said. “You need not worry. I will make sure he thinks the child is his. I have had prayers said and a medal blessed. All I nee
d do is say I am sure I will conceive. He is so eager for it, he will know it is God’s will.”

  Dom José jerked to a halt. His eyes widened and his mouth opened, but his agony was too intense for sound. He was paralyzed by pain just long enough to hear the male voice murmur silkily something about being very happy to be of service. Then Dom José moved again swiftly. It was only six long strides to the bed, and he leaned in through the bed-curtain, put a pistol to each head, and pulled the triggers. He had been so quick and they so much at ease and unsuspecting, that they continued to face each other in death. Neither Francisca nor William had had time to look at the intruder.

  The two shots going off together had deafened Dom José, but when he pulled the pistols away and put them back in his pockets, he could hear again. He listened intently for several minutes, but there was no indication that the servants on the floor below at the other end of the house had heard anything. Dom José then looked again at his handiwork, only it was too dark to see much. The pale blurs of the two faces were unmarred. The black bullet holes were masked by black hair on the entry side, and the gaping exit holes, from which blood gushed, were hidden by the pillows on which the heads rested.

  Suddenly Dom José began to weep. He was not regretting what he had done or even the lost opportunity of founding a great noble line. He wept because the guilty had not suffered. They had died laughing at him, far too swiftly to feel pain or fear. He looked at them, still gazing into each other’s faces, Francisca’s hand on her lover’s shoulder. Under the thin cover he could see that their legs were still intertwined. Sobs of renewed rage and frustration tore him as he remembered the pang of agony he had endured, the pain he was now enduring. He, the innocent, was suffering while they, the guilty, still lay at peace, laughing.

  The sobs broke into howls, and he seized the bodies and tried to wrench them apart. He would literally have torn them, except that he was not strong enough. In the end the limp weight defeated him. Instead of separating them, he merely tumbled them closer together so that they looked as if they were making love. And, in flopping over, William’s limp arm struck Dom José as if to push him away. Insanely, he punched and pummeled the corpses, but the blows only pressed them more tightly to each other.

  They did not care! Only he suffered! It was not just! From the maelstrom in Dom José’s mind a fact was cast up. The seducer’s wife had spoken too well of Francisca and had made excuses for her husband. She must have known! Guilty! Lady Elvan was as guilty as her man, filthy whore, pandering to her husband’s lewdness. Surely that noble-born bitch also laughed at his pretensions and gladly lent her husband so that no common seed should contaminate a pure line of aristocrats. She must suffer for her complicity.

  Without another glance at the corpses, Dom José left the room and then the house, unbolting and unlocking the front door on his way out. No one heard, and it was very unlikely that any servant would check the door once it was locked for the night. In the yard he stopped. The arrival of the carriage would wake everyone. The dead pair would be discovered. Everyone would pity him aloud and laugh privately. Again his brain whirled, and again an unpalatable fact came uppermost. Lady Elvan was well liked by the noble families in Lousa. They would not think of her as guilty. They would sympathize, support her.

  But she must suffer. Someone must suffer. Yet no one would help him. Very well, then, no one must hinder him, either. No one must know until all the guilty were punished.

  Now that his resolution was made, Dom José felt his mind clear. It was a shrewd mind, and it came to grips with the problem quite easily. Dom José slipped around the house and walked in the back door, raising his voice to shout the butler’s name as he came in. A chaos of welcome broke out at once, although Dom José knew that he was not really welcome. He silenced the servants quickly and heard what he expected to hear—that Donna Francisca had felt unwell, retired to bed early, and left orders not to be disturbed. Dom José seconded those orders firmly, bidding the housekeeper to make up a room for him for the night well away from his wife’s apartment.

  Strangely, now that he was sure of what he wished to do, he felt quite calm. He allowed the servants to go about their work without impatience, gave directions when the carriage arrived that it should not be unloaded until the next day so as not to disturb his wife, and sat quietly in a parlor where he reloaded his pistols and refined his plans until his room was ready. Then he dismissed the servants to bed, warning them to keep away from his and his wife’s rooms in the morning until they were specifically summoned.

  When the house was quiet, he went out the front door again, through the back gate, and down the path he had climbed less than an hour before. Oddly, it was harder to go down the path than to come up it. He fell twice, which made him very angry.

  There were fewer lights in the dower house now than when he had driven by earlier. That was right. The house was small, and most of the servants came in by the day and left at dusk. Dom José walked boldly up to the front door and rang the bell. Through the glazing he could see a light approaching. The door opened. The servant began to step back, as if to allow an expected arrival to pass. The movement convinced Dom José of the collective guilt of the entire household. All of them knew where their master had gone. All of them had been laughing at him.

  In an instant the servant realized the man at the door was not whom he had expected. He checked his welcoming gesture and moved to block the doorway, his eyes widening in alarm.

  “Who the devil are you?” Charlot snapped at the wild-eyed apparition covered with dirt, leaves, and twigs.

  “I am your landlord, Dom José,” the madman replied, reaching into his pocket and cocking one pistol.

  Charlot laughed and began to swing the door shut. He assumed the creature was the local idiot, who believed he was the great landholder of the district. Charlot was no hero, but he was not afraid of this pathetic-looking creature, twenty years older and four inches shorter than himself, who obviously had no place better to sleep than a thicket.

  “Shoo!” he said contemptuously. “Go away, you silly creature, before I call the men from the stables to drive you—”

  The words caught in his throat and his mouth opened wider, but the scream was never uttered. The pistol had come out of Dom José’s pocket, his arm extended so that the gun in his hand was no more than a foot from Charlot’s face, and he fired. Charlot toppled backward. From somewhere farther back in the house and from a room above, women’s voices cried questions. Dom José pushed the pistol he had fired back into his pocket and drew out the other. He ran up the curving staircase and reached the head just as Sabrina came out of the open door of her sit ting room, calling, “Charlot, what was that?”

  Then her eyes fell on the intruder. “Dom José,” she cried. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?”

  There was so much concern in her lovely face and voice, in the hands outstretched to support him if necessary, that for one moment Dom José’s insane purpose wavered.

  “Your husband,” he croaked.

  Sabrina’s hand drew back and lifted to cover her mouth, and there was horror in her eyes. From this Dom José drew the conclusion that Sabrina was aware he had caught and killed William and his reason for it. He was much mistaken. The wild look on his face, the scratches and twigs on him, and the gun in his hand made her think of bandits or of a French invasion. Nonetheless, the seeming proof of her guilt drove Dom José back into his madness.

  He gestured with the gun.

  “Go down,” he ordered.

  “Wait, Dom Jose,” Sabrina cried, “let me—”

  She was about to tell him she would get William’s pistol and help him defend them, when Katy’s sharp cry of distress cut off her speech. Sabrina still had no suspicion of Dom José because she could not see the floor, near the front door or Charlot’s corpse from where she stood. At Katy’s cry she ran forward. Dom Jose met her and, with the strength of madness, pushed her so hard that she flew backward and
fell, striking her head on the wainscoting of the corridor wall.

  Partially stunned, Sabrina lay for a moment gasping with shock and pain. She lifted her head just in time to see Dom José whirl about and strike viciously at Katy, who had runup the stairs. Her scream and any cry Katy might have uttered as she arched over mingled too closely to be distinguished. Sabrina screamed again when she heard the banister give way and the thud as Katy struck the floor of the lower hall. Desperately she scrambled to get to her feet, calling, “Katy! Katy!” but there was no answer.

  She was on her knees, hands extended like claws, but the gun was pointed at her, and the face above it was totally insane. Fear of death checked Sabrina’s impulse to attack for a moment. In the next, reason of a sort reasserted itself. This madman had killed Katy, and he would surely kill her if she attacked him now. She remembered his only words to her and understood that William was almost certainly dead, too. Dom José must have learned of his wife’s infidelity. Sabrina uttered a hopeless sob.

  The gun gestured toward the stairs. Sabrina climbed slowly to her feet, holding to the wall for support. She thought of pushing Dom José down, as he had pushed Katy, but his insanity was not of that careless kind. He moved back out of the way where Sabrina could not reach him.

  “Go down,” he ordered.

  Sabrina wet her lips to try to speak, but the pistol lifted significantly, and she sobbed again and started down the stairs, clinging to the wall. When she reached the bottom, she turned her head, hoping against her desolated fear that she would see Katy stir. The whole body was not visible, but what she could see was utterly still and one leg was horribly and unnaturally twisted. Sabrina moaned softly feeling the underpinning of her whole life slipping away.