"Nor do you, Thibaud, for all you complain," Beales said to Thibaud's back as the man left the room. "My old friend waxes poetic," he said, retaking his seat, his freshly reloaded pistol trained on Ainsley's chest. "I should buy him a petticoat, and perhaps a Bible. Oh, don't frown so, Geoff. It's not that Thibaud is right, our old friend Liam, no matter that he has played at being French these last many years. But enough! Your family dies easily or it dies hard, Geoff, it's up to you. I'd have this over with by now, as humanely as possible, truly, if you'd just tell me where I might find the Empress. Come, come, what are a few more breaths when eternity beckons? Isabella must be anxious to see you."
Cassandra clapped her hands to her mouth to stifle a gasp as Thibaud and another man reentered the room, dragging a badly beaten Jack Eastwood between them and then dropping him on the floor in front of her father. Jack rolled onto his back, his arms flung wide, clearly unconscious, his face bloody, one side of his face cut and horribly swollen.
"Surprised, Geoff?" Beales asked, getting to his feet. "Perhaps you thought he was dead,
hmm?
He should be, lying to me that he knew nothing of the Empress, but one never knows when one might need a bargaining chip. Now, are you ready to bargain, Geoff, or must I be put to the tedious business of picking who dies after this one." He put his heeled boot on the center of Jack's chest, and leaned forward, putting most of his weight on that foot. "Dear, dear, I think a few of these ribs might be broken. Not that he seems to feel the pain."
Jack moaned, but didn't stir.
"Thibaud? Once again I call on you for your assistance. In the interests of brevity, please take two of the men with you and bring down the ladies. They must be fretting, locked away up there. Oh, and the charming little kiddies, as well. A hard and fast rule of mine, Geoff," he said as Thibaud and two others headed for the foyer, "never leave a whelp alive. They have this lamentable tendency to grow up, wishing to seek revenge."
Ainsley Becket looked levelly at his old enemy, saying nothing.
Cassandra's brothers struggled against the ropes binding them.
Beside Cassandra, Lisette quietly began to pray.
Strange. Cassandra didn't feel at all like praying or even crying. She wasn't frightened, afraid to die. She was, once again, angry. Very, very
angry.
She wanted Edmund Beales dead, and she wanted to watch as he died.
For all her protestations, all her supposed beliefs, it would seem that she was indeed her father's daughter….
* * *
BECKET HALL HAD NEVER before seemed so immense, so full of places a man could hide, ready to jump out at them. Still, Courtland bypassed the servants' rooms and headed straight for the nursery. The three adjoining rooms were empty. Spencer's William wasn't at play with any of the toys littering the carpet. The infant, Elizabeth, was not in her cot.
Courtland was still staring at the overturned rocking chair when Jeremy Wilkins skidded into the room. "Nobody nowheres else, Court. Now what do we do?"
"Now we go downstairs, to the bedchambers, careful not to take aim at one of our own, because Jacko has the others down there, already doing what we were doing up here. Pass the word, Jeremy, knives only unless forced to fire. I told you— off with those boots, man, we need to be quiet. Remember, nobody knows we're in here."
They joined up and made their way back to the servant staircases at either end of the house, Jeremy leading three men, Courtland the other two: Cholly, a seaman from the long ago
Black Ghost—
and Demetrious, once the ship's chandler. They descended quietly, swiftly, coming out into the hallway and quickly moving into the first bedchamber on the left, Fanny's old room.
Courtland hadn't expected anyone to be in the chamber, unless it was to look for valuables, and he pointed Cholly at a second door, Demetrious at a third, as they made their way down the hallway and then turned into the main hallway and the largest, center chambers.
He had just stepped out of Ainsley's bedchamber when he heard a child's cry and motioned for everyone to flatten themselves against the wall.
Eleanor and Jack's chamber, of course. With Eleanor still confined to her bed, it would only make sense to bring the other women to her.
Cassandra.
He put a finger to his lips, then lifted the knife he held, wordlessly ordering them to have their own knives at the ready.
At the other end of the hallway, Jacko was already on the move— as if he'd only been waiting for Court-land to show his face— his footsteps light, quiet, almost graceful, as only a large man could manage.
Jacko stopped in front of the door that led directly into Eleanor's dressing room, nodded to Courtland, and then he and his men slipped inside.
Courtland pointed to himself and then to the heavy double doors to the bedchamber, and then pointed to Cholly and Demetrious, put his fists together and then pulled them apart, hoping they'd understand that he wanted them to take the doors, pull them both open at once.
Cholly nodded, and then whispered in Demetrious's ear. The old man who had not fired a pistol or swung a sword in nearly two decades looked at Courtland, and grinned.
Courtland, now with a knife in each hand, put his back against the far wall and waited for Cholly and Demetrious to get into position, their hands on the door latches. He took a deep breath, and then nodded his head once.
The doors were pulled open, Cholly and Demetrious stepping out of the way, and Courtland launched himself into the bedchamber, through the small vestibule, past the drawn-back, emerald-green velvet curtains, and then went down, rolling to his left, coming up just as quickly, and praying Jacko had already made his own entrance.
He had. Jesus, God, he had.
The scene in front of Courtland was like some horrible tableau, everyone posed in place, nobody moving.
The women were all massed on the large bed.
Eleanor, looking deathly pale but yet also managing to appear indignant, holding her newborn son close against her chest as she glared up at the large, older man who held his hand out to her, as if asking her to leave the bed, come with him.
Mariah, sitting close beside her, her children held tight in her arms.
Sheila Whiting, Onatah and the young girl from the village— Betty? Mary?— perched on the edge of the bed, strung together at their waists like beads on a chain with the thick, silken cords from the draperies.
There were four men in the room. Beales's men. Three of them with their pistols trained on Jacko and the six men standing behind him. These men moved first, shifting their collective gaze toward Courtland and the men with him, now all six from the second cannon floor, and immediately dropped their own weapons.
The fourth man turned his pistol, pressed it against Eleanor's head. Courtland noticed that he had a second weapon, tucked into the sash at his waist. Except, within a heartbeat, that pistol, too, was in his hand, and leveled at Jacko not six feet away.
"Jacko, back from the dead, are you?" the man said, grinning. "Geoff told us you were dead. Gone to fat, haven't you? Shameful."
"It's over— you can count, can't you? Your cowardly hirelings can. Hand over the pistols, Liam," Jacko said quietly, smiling that extraordinarily friendly smile that made his eyes dance, yet held all the menace in the world. "You're a dead man and you know it. It's up to you how long you want me to keep you alive before I send you to Hell. Hurt her, and you may die from now till Christmas. Maybe halfways to Easter. An inch a day. You know I know how to do it."
"Where's…where's Jack?" Eleanor asked, attempting to turn her head away from the pistol that pushed into her temple. "Jacko, please. Where is my husband?"
"Waitin' on you downstairs, my angel," Jacko said in a voice suddenly so gentle, so alien to the man Courtland had known for most of his life that he had to take his eyes off the man called Liam and look at him. "It didn't end then, and it won't end now. Not for you. I promise."
Courtland stealthily slipped the heavy knife in his right hand into his waistband and pressed his upper arm once, twice, against the side of his body. The stiletto slipped into his palm. He could do this, he knew he could do this; he'd practiced for years, fashioning his weapons for everyone else. He knew the weight of the stiletto, its balance. The distance wasn't that great, no more than twenty feet. He narrowed his eyes, refusing to see Eleanor or Jacko or any of the women. He saw only the man holding the pistol on his sister. He took one deep breath, a second, and held it. He could do this.
Please God, let me do this.
"Why, Jacko, I think I'm going to cry, really," Liam said, laughing. "This one's special to you? Didn't think anyone was
special
to you. Hard as nails, that's the man I knew, and twice as bad as any of the rest of us. An old woman now? Makes a man feel sort of sick to see you brought so low. I'm tired, too, Jacko. So tired of all of this. Too many years, you know? So I'm dead, that's what you say? Fair enough. But I think I'll take her with me."
Courtland flipped the stiletto in his hand, gripped the tip, pulled back his arm.
Liam cocked the pistol aimed at Eleanor's head.
Jacko's shouted
No-o-o!
came at the same time, as he launched his bulk across the carpet, colliding with Liam a split second after the stiletto slammed home an inch below the man's Adam's Apple.
The sharp bark of two discharged pistols set Mariah's children to crying and Sheila Whiting to screaming at the top of her lungs.
Courtland didn't realize he was moving until he caught Jacko's bulk and somehow turned him so that he fell half on the bed on his back as Liam's body slid to the floor.
"Jacko, no!"
"Move away, Elly," Courtland commanded, ripping at Jacko's shirt that was already soaked with blood. "Sheila, shut up!"
"But I'm shot! He shot me!" the young woman cried, holding a hand to her head. "The bloody bastard shot off my ear!"
"I've got her," Mariah told Courtland tersely. "Court, how bad is he?"
Courtland looked at the wound, looked at Jacko. The man had never lied to him. He shook his head and said, "I'm sorry."
"All right, boyo…all right. Only…never thought I'd die in bed…"
"Oh, Jacko," Eleanor said as she stroked his face, with the baby still in her arms. "You saved me again. Life shouldn't ask so much of one man."
Jacko looked up at her. "You…you know?"
"Shh, it's all right," Eleanor told him. "I've always known. It's all right. I understand. I love you, Jacko."
"I…" Jacko slid his gaze to Courtland. "Shots…they heard them…go. Go!" He struggled to rise. "Up to you now. Finish it, boyo. Finish it…"
"No, Jacko, don't go…" Eleanor whispered as the big man closed his eyes and died.
Courtland eased the body to the floor and got to his feet. "Cassandra?" he asked tersely. "Why isn't she with you? Where is she?"
Mariah was holding her daughter's blanket to Sheila Whiting's bleeding ear. "Downstairs, in the drawing room. Lisette, too. Everyone's in there. A dozen, no, now less men, and Beales. Ainsley has something he wants. I don't know what. Hurry, Court."
"The Empress," Courtland said, making the word a curse. But, at the same time, the stone gave him an idea. "Three of you, stay here— Demetrious, Cholly, Wilkins. The rest of you come with me, down the servant stairs to Ainsley's study. They know we're coming now. Let's do what Jacko said. Let's end this."
* * *
THE SHOTS COMING FROM the second floor probably saved Jack Eastwood's life.
Edmund Beales took his booted foot off the man's chest and turned toward the foyer. "Thibaud! Thibaud! Answer me!"
But there was nothing…no more sounds came from the second floor.
"I remember something you told me, Edmund, a long time ago," Ainsley said, looking at Cassandra and— dear God, the man
winked
at her. "If a man believes himself invulnerable he, in reality, only makes himself vulnerable. When attacked, he can't believe the attack is happening, and will not react quickly enough. Because he has only his own supposedly perfect plan, seeing no need to consider alternatives. You're brilliant, Edmund, and always were. But you were never invulnerable."
Beales was still standing in the doorway, his pistol pointed at the empty staircase. "Shut up, Geoff."
Cassandra silently agreed with the man; silence seemed like a practical option. But her father spoke again.
"I was to hang, be neatly locked up in Dymchurch gaol while you attacked my home. You even staged that near riot at the gaol, just to watch to see how many of my men had come to Dymchurch. You must have been quite pleased, believing you'd so brilliantly scattered our forces, muddled our minds. You would face only a few women, perhaps some old men— just like before, on the island. The same sorry, sick plan as before, Edmund, a variation on a theme of yours— puffing yourself up as strong by attacking the weak. My family was going to tell you where the Empress is hidden in order to save their lives, even though you've never been known to keep a bargain. And you were to escape very neatly, before anyone even realized you'd been here, patting yourself on the back all the way to your grand and powerful new life in London. Yes?"
