A Rogue in Sheep’s Clothing (25 page)

Lank heard her as he hauled on the rope tied to the pony’s legs. He smiled. If he’d whipped her, Ellie could not be more terrified. He was saying goodbye. He meant to leave her there.

“Offer you some help there, boss?” a man said.

“I’ll get this one myself,” Lank replied. “It’s naught but a pony.”

Ellie threw her shoulder against the wall, banging it hard, trying to attract the man’s attention. Tears streamed down her face. Her nose filled, making it harder to breathe.

Lank had half the dead animal in the stall. He was cursing and grunting to hide the noise she was making.

“Quite the struggle you’re having, old man,” Chase said, peering into the stall. He didn’t see Ellie under the hayrack.

“Get the burn going,” Lank cried, blocking Chase’s view. “I’ve got this one all right.”

“We agreed you’d be the one to start the blaze.”

“That’s right, Captain, but I’ve a trail in mind that will lead the herd out a back way — less chance of someone seeing us on the road — but where it is, I can’t very well describe to you.”

Chase grunted. “Leave quickly with the men and horses. The fewer who know about the burning the better.”

“That’s an excellent plan, Captain,” said Lank, backing Chase out of the stall. Ellie made her tiny, shrieking noises; she banged her bound feet and hands against the floor, but to no avail. Chase didn’t hear her. Despair washed through her as his footsteps receded down the corridor.

No, not burned alive,
she thought. She shook her head from side to side, her eyes pleading with Lank. She held her bound hands up begging him to let her go.

“’Tis a noble case you put before me, miss. Is it wise to let you burn? Will you not report me for embezzling or send me to Bridewell?”

Lank squatted in front of her. “Did you know Baron Wadsworth is bent on your ruin?”

Terrified, beseeching, Ellie sought the tiniest chink in his iron soul. “Please,” she pleaded, through the gag. “Please.”

“Eeee,” he said, imitating the sound she made. “Eeee.”

The malice left his eyes. “It’s a mercy to you not to suffer the kind of poverty Wadsworth has planned for your family. Breathe deeply, girl. It’ll soon be over.”

Lank stood then and kicked her hard in the ribs. She gasped. The blow sent her sprawling across the head of the dead pony, her cheek landing on its cold, lolling tongue.

Thrashing and scrambling in horror, she pushed herself back under the hayrack.

Lank left then, pulling the bolt shut on the outside of the stall door. She heard him walk away. With him went the ragged light of the torch. The barn plunged into darkness once more.

Twisting her bound hands, Ellie tried to free her fingers enough to untie the rope binding her feet.
I’ve got to get out of here!
She fought a panic that made her hands tremble — fought the urge to flail uselessly, tightening the stiff knots.
Toby, where is Toby?
She thought.
He should have come back to the barn. Had Lank killed him?

Then abruptly her turmoil soared. The knots were visible. She could see the lifeless eye of the pony lying next to her, a dull illumination flickering on its filmy surface. Light was coming from somewhere, but where? And then she heard crackling. The smell of acrid smoke filled her nostrils.

“No, no, no,” she screamed into the gag. “God, help me!”

• • •

Manifesto swept over the countryside like a tornado, Hugh struggling to keep the horse on the best parts of the road. What a relief not to think of Ellie. But as he grew used to the stallion’s stunning speed, his concentration shifted back to her.
Witch, wanton, wench
. The words repeated in his mind, synchronized with the pounding of Manifesto’s hooves.

He tried to blot out images of High Tor, of laughing with her in the barn, of feeding carrots to Manifesto, of her face framed by fresh hay in the mow. His body longed for her, and no amount of anger dispelled his desire. Hollow, raw, and burdened with need, her deception stung like a whip.

It wasn’t until the sun went down and they were steeped in darkness that Manifesto slowed his headlong gallop for home. Soon, though, flicking like fairy light through the trees ahead of them, the pointed tip of a rising moon illuminated the road and the horse picked up the pace again.

Suddenly the stallion plunged off the road down a narrow trail, his movements so quick, Hugh scrambled to stay aboard. A shortcut to the barn? He leaned close to Manifesto’s neck, “Excellent effort, but if you’re plotting to scrape me off on a tree, you’ll get scratched, too,” he told the horse.

A light caught Hugh’s attention. Not the moon — a torch. Someone was coming through the trees.

Manifesto whinnied. Another horse answered. The stallion bounded through the brush bearing down on the light. Hugh could see the torch now, and then Lank, black shadows and orange fire rocking across his face. A herd of horses ambled behind the estate steward.

With Manifesto’s arrival, the mares broke ranks, rushing to the stallion or shying off the trail into the trees. Hugh flattened against his mount’s neck.

“Blast it to hell!” shouted Lank. He took his whip to his horse, driving the animal toward Manifesto. Just as he was about to catch the stallion’s bridle, Hugh grabbed Lank’s arm. With one mighty yank, Hugh dragged the steward from his mount and sent him sprawling on the ground. The torch died in the dirt.

Hugh leaped from Manifesto, landing with a knee to Lank’s chest. “Dirty, thieving scoundrel,” he cried. “Where are you taking these horses?”

“Ah, you’ve killed me. You’ve killed me,” Lank squealed, writhing beneath Hugh’s weight.

“Tell me your business in the dark of night with a herd of the Albrights’ mares!”

“The girl,” Lank moaned.

“What girl?”

“Ellie Albright. She’s in the barn … it’s burning.”

“My God, what do you mean?”

“We’ve set fire to the barn,” Lank wheezed. “Fly if you want to save her.”

Hugh recoiled as if he’d stepped on a snake.

The steward sat up and smacked dust off his elbows. “That’s right, stay with me. Make sure I don’t escape. It may be too late for the girl anyway.”

Hugh dragged Lank to his feet. “If you have so much as frayed her gown, I will chase you to the doors of Hades.”

“Then you’d best be on your way. Burning is a terrible way to die.”

With one powerful move, Hugh punched Lank full in the face and threw him in the dirt.

Manifesto didn’t fuss as Hugh leaped back in the saddle.
Must be tiring
. Still, it took spurs and rein ends to whip the stallion past the loose mares and down the darkened path. How much further to the barn? How long did he have until the burning turned Ellie to ashes?

• • •

Chase piled a thin pyre of branches and straw against the stone exterior wall of the broodmare barn. It had to be high enough to reach the thatch roof. The job was distasteful. He worked slowly, but soon, too soon, he had a sufficient pile.

“May you rot in hell, Uncle,” he mumbled as he touched the end of his torch to the debris. The flames sprang up like innocent children, creating little flambeaus in the grasses. Swiftly they grew, however, catching the bottom of a rotted board that led to the roof. The blaze grew rapidly now, catching and spreading like a blanket of blue and red and orange.

Chase ducked inside the barn. A pile of filthy straw rose against the flank of a dead horse in the first stall. He lowered the torch and fire instantly curled around the grasses, touching off the horse’s tail.

The smell of burning hair was so nauseating, Chase grabbed a bucket of water and doused the blaze. Overcome by revulsion, cold sweat beaded on his forehead. “A curse on you, Uncle Wadsworth,” he said aloud. “A curse on you.” He closed his eyes and waited for his stomach to settle.

Just then flames pierced the ceiling, illuminating the barn with a light brilliant as day. Chase saw the stalls, the hind legs of dead horses poking from them. The stench of death and smoke filled his nostrils. Aurelia Davenport — despite her age she was beautiful, but he wouldn’t wed her. He wanted her money, her power, her caché. The gambling debts he’d accrued … all of his valor spent on the field at Waterloo … all the good in his life sacrificed for fear of poverty. He was a coward with a soul as dark as his uncle’s.

With a terrible cry, Chase lifted his torch and screamed, “To hell! To hell and damnation!”

Deliberately, he lowered the torch to the tail of the dead horse. The hair curled. Horrible and glowing orange, fire spread to the straw and the flesh of the dead beast. Chase forced himself to watch, forced himself to breathe the stench of rotted, burning flesh.

He raced to the next stall, set the torch to the hayrack, then the horse carcass, then the dirty straw surrounding the dead animal, until fire drove him back into the corridor. Like a madman, he lit the next stall, and the next and the next. Down the row he ran, until a roaring conflagration towered at his back.

He was putting the torch to a stack of horse blankets when someone cried, “Stop!”

Hugh Davenport stood in the far entrance to the barn. “Run, Davenport!” Chase shouted, “Run from me.”

• • •

Chase’s eyes were wild. “Where is Ellie Albright?” Hugh yelled, but the captain didn’t seem to hear.

“I’m warning you, get out!” Chase cried, brandishing his torch.

The fiery skeletons of the farthest stalls crumbled and a wave of heat blasted Hugh’s face. “You’re murdering her!” he screamed. Plunging into the burning barn, Hugh kicked open the first stall. The body of a dead horse shocked him to a halt.

“What has happened here?” he said, backing away. Chase stood still as a statue watching him. Horror and disgust knotted Hugh’s gut. “Monster,” he hissed.

“Get out!” Chase screamed, bolting toward Hugh.

Hugh armed himself with a shovel propped against the wall and charged back, trying to drive Chase away from the unlit stalls. They met with a brutal blow. Sparks flew as the shovel smashed against the torch. Again and again Chase parried his fiery weapon until Hugh caught the burning end dead on with the shovel blade. It snapped and a shower of embers leaped into the air tracing arcs to the dirt floor. “Bloody hell, man!” Hugh cried as he stomped out the lit end. “Are you gone mad? Where is the girl?”

Scarcely had the words left his lips when Chase came at him again, this time with a pitchfork. The captain’s eyes had changed — there was killer in them now — a desperate man ready to fight to the death. Before the pitchfork’s sharp tongs pierced his flesh, Hugh spun out of the way.

With a powerful thrust, he used the shovel to deflect Chase’s next stab, and ducked into an open stall. Ellie wasn’t there, but Chase was on him in a flash, thrusting the prongs of the pitchfork at his throat. With the shovel in two hands, Hugh blocked the fork, catching it between spikes. He twisted his body, throwing Chase off balance. The captain fell with a crack on the ribcage of a horse carcass. Unable to dislodge the shovel from the pitchfork, Hugh hurled the implements at his foe and darted back into the corridor, slamming the stall door shut on the fallen captain.

The next stall was empty, and the stall after that, too. “Ellie!” Hugh yelled, “Ellie!”

Chase burst into the corridor, fury in his eyes. He leaped with pitchfork in hand, shoving the prongs hard at Hugh’s chest. The sharp metal ripped through wool and linen and tore into flesh, but as Hugh stumbled back, the blow failed to pierce cartilage and bone. He slammed against a wall and sank onto a stool that tipped beneath his weight. He fell sideways. The pitchfork, retracted and hurled through the air, hit a place on the wall where Hugh’s head had just been, sticking like a quivering arrow in its mark.

“Leave me be,” Hugh bellowed, trying to roll away from his assailant.

“My uncle won’t allow it!” Chase screamed, leaping on him and shoving Hugh’s hand into a burning patch of straw. Hugh threw him off, and drove Chase’s face into a pile of manure. Kicking and punching, Chase gained the upper hand and squeezed Hugh by the throat. For an instant, the fight suspended. They both heard banging from one of the stalls. “It’s Ellie,” Hugh rasped.

Chase looked confused. He released Hugh’s throat. “Miss Ellie?” he said.

The banging grew more frantic. Chase lurched to his feet in the direction of the sound, but stumbled and crashed, one shoulder slamming into a bench carrying a blacksmith’s anvil. There came a dull thud, followed by a sickening bang as the anvil hit Chase’s back and tumbled to the floor. The breath left the captain’s body in a gasp, his legs kicked, and then lay still.

In shock, Hugh stayed on the barn floor until he became aware again of the frenzied thump, thumping.

With horror, he realized Ellie must be in a stall on the verge of being engulfed in flames. He found two horse blankets and plunged them into a water trough in the corridor.

One soaked blanket he threw over his head, the other he wrapped around his hand. Fumbling through the woolen barrier he gripped the red hot bolt to the stall door. Steam hissed a spectral fog that disappeared in seconds, igniting the blanket. Soon access to the stall would be impossible.

And then something cold hit the stall door and splashed back in Hugh’s face.
Water!
The flaming blanket went out and Hugh shot back the bolt. Toby stood in the corridor holding an empty bucket in his hands.

“Drag him out!” Hugh bellowed, nodding toward Chase.

Hugh swung open the stall door. “Stop!” Toby screamed. “You’ll kill yourself!”

“It’s Ellie.” Hugh plunged into the black smoke that roiled through the open door.

He dropped to his knees, down where the smoke was thinner. Crawling forward, his hands groping blindly, a cold fear swept through his veins. He shivered despite the heat that made the skin on his back tighten.
Where is she?
The question thundered in his mind obliterating his body’s urgent signals to flee. The hair of the pony’s mane tangled in his fingers. He stopped crawling, paralyzed in terror. And then he heard her, the drum of her feet on the wall. He clambered over the pony’s neck, stumbling, crawling, feeling frantically until he touched a writhing pile of cloth. He yanked the bundle into his arms, his lungs burning with smoke, and ran from the stall just as its walls disintegrated into a mass of fire. He ran and continued to run until he felt the blessed cool night air wash against his cheek and knew she was safe.