“Blessed hell,” Alex said.
A few moments later Philpot came into the drawing room to announce that one of the lads had just found both Crocker and Ostle bound and gagged in the tack room. Neither man knew who had done it to them. Just talkin’ they were, an’ knocked all over their heads.
Colin turned to stride from the room.
“Where are you going?” Douglas asked, catching his arm.
“To Edinburgh, to get the damned money.”
“Wait a moment, Colin,” Ryder said slowly, stroking his long fingers over his jaw. “We must do a bit of thinking now. I do believe I have a plan. Come along.”
Sophie flew to her feet. “Oh no you don’t! We came here to help Sinjun and you shan’t exclude us now!”
“No indeed!” Alex shouted, then clutched her belly and ran to the corner of the room, where Philpot had placed a basin.
MacDuff watched Colin ride from Vere Castle early the following morning, riding that huge brute stallion of his, Gulliver. Fast as the wind, that one was. He’d supposed that Colin would have left immediately, but then again, this marriage hadn’t really been to Colin’s liking. He’d married Joan Sherbrooke only to get his hands on her money. Why should he hurry? Why should he care overly if she was killed?
Of course, his honor would demand that he ransom her.
Colin rode alone. MacDuff rubbed his hands together. With luck, Colin would return to Vere Castle sometime tonight, money in hand. He’d decided to let them all gnaw on their fear for her, and not deliver the other letter until the following morning. But something urged him to bring it all to a close. There was no reason to draw it out.
He rather liked the notion that both her brothers and their wives were here at Vere Castle. He hoped they would try to interfere, that they would somehow try to fool him with some stupid plot, and come with Colin into the trap MacDuff had set for him. He would enjoy showing them up as inept English bastards. He was rather pleased they were here; he couldn’t have planned it more to his liking.
The English losing soundly. That had a delicious irony to it and MacDuff was pleased. It dulled the ever-present pain in his chest.
He waited a while longer to see if either of Sinjun’s brothers would leave the castle, but no one came through the great front doors. He waited another hour. Finally satisfied that nothing was afoot now, MacDuff mounted his horse and rode back to the small croft.
It was Jamie, the youngest of the crofter lads, who slipped into the side door off the kitchen, the infamous doorway Sophie swore was the one used by the murderer to get into the castle. He was only one of a dozen small boys who’d been stationed around the castle in a wide perimeter, well hidden, waiting and watching.
Colin was waiting there, seated at the kitchen table, a mug of thick black coffee in his hand.
“ ’Tis a man, milor’. ’Tis yer cousin, th’ giant wi’ all th’ red hair. MacDuff ye calls him.”
Colin paled. Ryder’s hand came down on his shoulder.
“Who is this MacDuff, Colin?”
“My cousin. Douglas met him in London. Dear God, Ryder, why? I don’t understand any of it.”
Ryder gave Jamie a guinea. Jamie, mouth agape, gasped and said, “Thank ye, milor’, thank ye! Me ma’ll bless yer soul, aye, she will.”
Colin rose. “Now, Jamie, take us to the place you saw him.”
Douglas slipped through that side door off the kitchen an hour later. His eyes glittered with ill-suppressed excitement. He looked up to see the same look in his wife’s eyes. “We’re two of a kind, aren’t we?”
“Oh yes. And soon we’ll have MacDuff. Remember him, Douglas? He was the very nice giant of a man who came to see Colin in London. Colin was knocked off kilter. He doesn’t understand why MacDuff would do this.”
“Dear God.”
“I know. It’s a shock. Colin and Ryder went with the lad who saw him to the place he is hiding.”
“Soon we’ll have Arleth’s murderer as well as Fiona’s. I do wonder what his motive was.”
Alex just shook her head. “I don’t know, Douglas. Neither does Colin. Ofcourse, Sophie is claiming she would have suspected him instantly if only she’d been in London with us to meet him.”
Douglas laughed.
When Douglas rode back to Vere Castle at seven o’clock that night, he knew MacDuff was watching him and from what vantage point. He was careful to keep his face averted from that dense copse of fir trees. He was careful to ensure that MacDuff got a good look at the bulging packet fastened to his saddle. He hoped MacDuff wouldn’t notice that Gulliver wasn’t sweating from his hard ride. Indeed, Gulliver had been running only about ten minutes. He was a terror, Douglas thought, wondering if Colin would sell him the horse.
Thirty minutes later, Philpot retrieved the letter that had been left on the front steps. He opened it and read it. He smiled.
MacDuff was whistling as he pulled his horse to a stop in front of the deserted croft that huddled beneath some low-lying fir branches just short of the eastern edge of the Cowal Swamp. It was a damp, utterly dreadful place, redolent with rotted vegetation and stagnant water. The croft itself was on the verge of collapse. Supposedly an old hermit had lived there for years upon years. It was said that he’d just walked into the swamp one night during a mighty storm, singing to heaven that he was on his way. There was one window, long since stolen and now boarded up, but even the boards were sagging and loose, one constantly swinging by its rusty nail. He pulled off his gloves and strode into the one room. There was a packed dirt floor, one narrow rope bed, one table, and two chairs. Sinjun was tied securely to one of them. He’d brought the table and chairs. He didn’t fancy sitting on the dirt floor to eat his meals. There were rats to eat the remains. He imagined that they’d kept Sinjun excellent company whilst he’d been gone.
Sinjun eyed the huge man when he walked through the door. His head barely missed the frame. He looked very pleased with himself, damn him. She closed her eyes a moment, picturing Colin and her brothers. They would find her. She didn’t doubt it for a moment. On the other hand, it would never have occurred to her not to try to escape. She was nearly ready.
“Not long now,” MacDuff said as he sat down on one of the chairs and rubbed his large hands together. The chair creaked ominously under his weight. He cracked his knuckles, a ripping sound in the silence. He opened a brown bag and pulled out a loaf of bread. He tore off a huge chunk and began to eat. “No,” he said, his mouth full, “not long. I saw Colin riding back from Edinburgh just a while ago. I left the letter on the front steps. No sense waiting until morning. Perhaps he wants you back alive, my dear. Who can say?”
“He is very honorable,” Sinjun said, her voice carefully neutral. She wasn’t stupid. She was afraid of MacDuff.
MacDuff grunted and swallowed the bread. He ate steadily until the entire loaf was gone. Sinjun felt her stomach knotting with hunger. The bastard didn’t care if she starved.
In that moment she found herself wondering if he truly intended to let her go as he’d promised.
“I’m hungry,” she said, eyeing the other brown bag.
“A pity. I’m a big man and there just isn’t enough for you. Maybe a bit for the rats, but not for you. Yes, a pity.”
She watched him eat until both bags were empty. He wadded them up and threw them into the far corner. The air was redolent with the smells of sausage and bread. “If the rats want the crumbs, they’ll have to eat through the bags.” He laughed at that.
Nearly free, she thought. Nearly there. He rose then and stretched. With his arms over his head, they touched the sagging roof of the croft.
“Perhaps you’d tell me now why you’re doing this?”
He looked at the bruise on her jaw where he’d struck her the previous afternoon. “I was tempted to strike you again when you asked me that last night.” He made a fist and rubbed it against his open hand. “You don’t look like such a lady now, my dear countess of Ashburnham. You have more the look
of a frowsy slut from Soho.”
“Are you afraid to tell me? Do you think I can somehow free myself and kill you? You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?”
He threw back his head and laughed.
Sinjun waited. She prayed he wouldn’t hit her again. Her jaw hurt dreadfully. She prayed he wouldn’t go ahead and kill her now.
“So, you want to taunt me into talking, huh? Well, why not? You’re not stupid, Sinjun. You must know that, if I please, I can easily kill both you and Colin. You are so very different from Fiona. Colin must believe he’s already died and gone to mighty rewards. You have an independent spirit and you have money, an irresistible combination. I will think about it. But, you know, telling you makes no difference to the outcome and we must pass the time. So why not tell you?”
He stretched again, then took a turn around the small room. “What a filthy place,” he said more to himself than to her.
She waited, working her hands that were tied behind her.
“Colin is a bastard,” he said abruptly, grinning hugely at her. “Ah, yes, a real bastard, as in his mother was a whore and slept with another man. Arleth knew but since she nurtured hopes of marrying the earl herself after Colin’s mother died, she feared he’d turn on her if she told him the truth, so she just made up that story about Colin’s mother and her kelpie lover. Ah, some kelpie! A flesh-and-blood man with a flesh-and-blood rod.
“The old earl never married Arleth. He bedded her, but nothing more. Then he died and Malcolm became the earl. Arleth loved Malcolm, none of us could figure out why. Malcolm was a rotter; he was petty and mean-spirited. He was occasionally quite cruel. Ah, but then he, too, passed on to his just rewards in Hades and Colin became the earl of Ashburnham.
“But you see, he was a bastard. It is I who should have become the next earl, I who should have inherited Vere Castle. Arleth was distraught when Malcolm died. She hated Colin, oh aye, she certainly did. She promised to give me proof of his illegitimacy, the old hag. She promised me the proof so Colin would be set aside and I would be the earl of Ashburnham.”
Sinjun held perfectly still. She didn’t even blink. He was furious, nearly out of control. She was more afraid than she’d ever been in her life.
He seemed to calm. He was sweating profusely. When he spoke again, his voice sounded a bit singsong, as if he were reciting words that had been in his mind for a very long time, playing themselves over and over. A justification, perhaps, for any guilt.
“Arleth tried to kill you through neglect. It was revenge against Colin because he was alive and Malcolm was dead. You survived, more’s the pity. Then the old witch had an attack of conscience. After all these bloody years, an attack of conscience! I killed her because she refused to give me the proof. I wanted to snap her scrawny neck, but I thought perhaps you would all believe her guilty of killing Fiona if you believed she’d hung herself.”
“You tied the knots much too tight at the base of the chandelier. She wouldn’t have had the strength to do that.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter now. I will have fifty thousand pounds. I will go to America, I believe. I will be a wealthy man there. I’ve decided not to kill you or Colin, unless you force me to it. Then again, perhaps I shall. There’s no reason to, really, though. I’ve never hated you or him. But killing—it exhilarates me, makes me happy in those precious moments.”
“Did you kill Fiona?”
He nodded, his expression suddenly dreamy. “Perhaps I should kill Colin. He always had what I wanted, even though he never realized it. Fiona was besotted with him, but he didn’t give a good tinker’s damn about her. She drove him mad with her ceaseless jealousy. She shrieked at him if he even looked in the direction of another woman. She didn’t care about Vere Castle or any of its people. It was just Colin, only Colin. She wanted him to be her lapdog. He should have just beaten her, it would have helped, but he didn’t. He just withdrew from her. But I wanted her, loved her, and she rejected me. Yes, Arleth gave me a potion to pour into Colin’s ale. Since the old earl and Malcolm were both dead, she didn’t care if the whole bloody castle died; she was quite ready to assist all of them to the grave. Colin drank it and passed out. I broke Fiona’s pretty neck and tossed her over the cliff. She pleaded and promised she would love only me, but I didn’t believe her. Perhaps I wanted to for a moment or two, but then there was that odd exhilaration again. I couldn’t stop once I’d begun. I was quite the artist, Sinjun. I arranged Colin’s unconscious body right there, nearly over the edge but not quite. Had I been lucky, he would have fallen; had I been lucky, he would have been hung for her murder. But I wasn’t lucky at all.”
He stopped then, as if the spigot had turned off.
But Sinjun had to know. “Did you hire a man to kill him in London?”
“Yes, but the fool failed. I came to visit my dear cousin all happy as a clam in the home of the damned earl of Northcliffe. Safe from me, he was, but I was busy. I thought, were he to die in London, far away from Scotland, things would be easier for me, and they would have, damn him. Your brother behaved as I suspected he would when I sent the letter accusing Colin of killing Fiona. But you, Sinjun, you were completely unexpected. Whisked your lover away from London, away from your family’s interference, away from me.
“Colin blamed Robert MacPherson for everything, though all Robbie did was steal a few sheep and butcher a couple of Kinross crofters. He did try to shoot Colin in Edinburgh and even botched that up. He hit you, the blundering sod. He believes himself so cruel and wicked, does Robbie. He does it because he’s so pretty. The meaner he is, the less pretty people will see him to be. I told him that Colin had killed Fiona and he believed me because I also told him a very real truth—that I loved his sister and that I couldn’t bear that Colin get away with her murder. I convinced him that it was his responsibility to avenge his sister’s death.”
He turned then and yawned. “I don’t wish to speak anymore. Indeed, I’ve told you more than another living soul. If you have more questions, my dear, perhaps you can ask God when you reach heaven—if I decide to send you there, of course. Ah, a decision to sleep on.” He laughed.
“I think I’ll take a short nap. Perhaps a long one. You just relax, my dear, listen to the rats and their gnawing. I’ll try not to snore.”
He unfolded several blankets, spread them on the floor, and careful not to touch his clothes to the dirt, he lay down. His back was to her.
She gave him twenty minutes. She’d needed but ten minutes to work her hands free, finally. Her wrists were raw and bleeding. It didn’t matter. Soon now, very soon.
CHAPTER
21
HE DIDN’T SNORE, damn him. If only he would, she could be certain that he was really sleeping.
She couldn’t afford to wait longer. If he was pretending in order to catch her, then so be it. She had to try. Slowly, Sinjun leaned down and began to untie the knots at her ankles. It took longer to untie the knots than it took the rats to eat through the paper to get to the crumbs.
At last she was free. She rose. Quietly, very quietly. She immediately collapsed back onto the chair. Her legs wouldn’t hold her. She rubbed her ankles, rubbed her legs, one eye on her hands, the other on MacDuff. He shifted suddenly. Her breath stuck in her throat. He turned onto his back now.
Oh God, don’t let him awaken.
She tried to rise again. This time she succeeded. Slowly, she walked toward the croft door.
A rat shrieked. Sinjun froze in her tracks.
MacDuff stirred, then groaned in his sleep.
She had her fingers clutching the handle. She pressed it down. Nothing happened. She pressed again and shook it.
There was a loud squeaking noise. MacDuff jerked and sat up. “You little bitch,” he screamed at her, and jumped to his feet.
Sinjun had sheer terror in her favor. She jerked open the croft door and plunged into the darkness outside. Thank God for the fetid damp night, deep and fathomless. The ground beneath her feet w
as suddenly spongy, then wet, the wetness slapping against her slippers, sucking and loud. Her feet suddenly sank into quagmire, the dank muck pulling at her skirts, weighing her down. Smells were all around her, awful smells and strange sounds from creatures she would rather not see.
He was right behind her, yelling, “You damned bitch! You’ll die in the swamp! I told you it was unlikely I would kill you! Come back here, all I want is the money and you’ll be free! Surely even you don’t think I could get away with murdering both you and Colin and perhaps your brothers, as well! Don’t be stupid, get back here!”
Oh no, she thought, oh no. He sounded close, knocking against branches behind her. She turned, panicked, and ran into a tree. She nearly knocked herself out. She stood there, trying to get her bearings again, hugging that damned tree. It was bent forward toward the still, thick water and its trunk felt slimy. She felt herself being drawn deeper into the thick mud. She clutched the trunk, trying to pull herself free. It didn’t work. She was sinking, the filthy slime nearly to her knees now. Her great plan, all for naught. Either she would sink here in this swamp or MacDuff would kill her. Why didn’t he sink like a stone? He weighed three times what she did, why the devil didn’t he sink?
“Jesus, you stupid bitch, I should leave you here to be sucked under.”
MacDuff hauled her free of the muck and without hesitation threw her over his shoulder. “Any more trouble from you and I’ll strike you again.”
She was breathing hard, her face hitting his shoulder. She wanted to be sick but she had no intention of succumbing. She swallowed hard. She had to do something. She’d wanted only to run away from him. Damnation, all for naught.
Then, quite suddenly, she was flying off MacDuff’s back, striking the ground and rolling onto her stomach. She heard Colin’s voice and it was cold and furious. “All right, you damned bastard, it’s all over.”
Sinjun turned over quickly. She saw Colin holding a pistol on MacDuff. Thank God he hadn’t tried to fight him. MacDuff would have broken him in half. Then there were her two brothers and Sophie and Alex, all of them there in a half circle, watching, silent as stones. All of them holding pistols.
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