Chasing the Heiress (16 page)

Chapter Fifteen

With the porter watching the front entrance, and Fletcher and Bobby alternating between walking the grounds and guarding Jennie, Colin positioned himself to watch the other approaches to the house. He didn't explain the measures to Lucy, and she didn't ask, grown used—he assumed—to not knowing why or how or when from her years in the camps.

He chose as his watch station the weapons room at the end of the second floor. It gave him full vistas of the back and side of the house.

Overlooking the west yard where the kitchen garden still grew under the keeper's care, he could look through one large window and a smaller round one. Overlooking the back yard into the wilderness, he could watch from two large windows or from the four petal-shaped ones. With leaded glass, each of the four petals opened individually to allow a breeze through—or a gun for protection. At each set of windows, he had set up a stool to lean against and a pair of loaded pistols on a short table.

* * *

When Lucy arrived with tea, the weapons room was empty, and she took the occasion to investigate.

The room stored the guns and other sporting equipment a group of hunters might need for a week's retreat. A large cabinet held the small guns, each with its own case and loading kit; on the wall hung the larger guns alongside each one's powder horn. The drawers of a short cabinet below held powder and paper-wrapped cartridges in carefully labeled sections.

The room held more than forty firearms. It read as a history of British weaponry, or at least British weaponry from the American and Napoleonic Wars. She named the guns as she recognized them: a breech-loading Ferguson rifle from the American Wars; Paget carbines from the light cavalry in the Waterloo campaigns; muskets from the East India Company.

She stopped before the six Baker rifles, muzzle-loading, each one accompanied by horns of fine-grain gun powder and a supply of paper-wrapped cartridges. She ran her fingers across the fine wood graining of the closest rifle. She remembered James, his green uniform for the Ninety-fifth Rifle Regiment scuffed and dirty, carefully cleaning his Baker. She turned away from the memory.

On the opposite wall were the swords and other weapons, and in between were the more historic pieces: a suit of armor, beaten and rusted (or at least she hoped it was rust); a battle-axe; and other weapons dating as far back as the Middle Ages.

Well, if we grow bored, we could start a war with the local farmers.
She returned to the wall of swords, picking up a light cavalry officer's sword, much like the one of her father's she'd had to leave behind at her great-aunt's house.

She held the sword up before her face.
En garde
. She was caught for a moment in a memory of her father, during one of the endless sieges of her youth, wearing the leather reinforced overalls of undress, calling her his “little swordsman” as they danced around one another. She could still hear his instruction: “Body upright! Head up! Shoulder easy. Wrist opposed to the sword. That's it. Turn your left side in. Now thrust. Good girl. Watch for the counter-thrust. Keep the pommel in line with your temple. Good girl. Now again.” Instinctively she took her stance, thrust, and parried, pretending once more she was fencing with her father.

At the sound of footsteps, she replaced the sword. But when they left the hunting lodge, if she could, she'd take one of the pistols and some powder with her.

Colin smiled when he saw her.

“I thought you might be hungry. I brought you the last bits of Alice's fruitcake and some tea,” she said.

“I am. Just a moment, and I'll make us a seat.”

He pulled a game table from against the wall behind his watch station, then two chairs. He positioned the whole thing where he could still survey the lawn. She met him at the table, placing the tray nearest the seat he held out for her. She tried not to notice how well his leggings fit his form.

He bowed as if they were at a ball. “May I offer you a seat, my lady?”

She laughed. “Why, thank you, kind sir.” She offered him her best deep curtsy.

He took her hand and lifted her out of the curtsy. Then, holding her hand out in front of him as if he were leading her into a dance, he directed her into the chair.

“Had I known we were to be so formal, I would have found a way to make weak lemonade and brought up some pieces of yesterday's bread with a thin veneer of butter,” she said, pouring the tea into two mismatched cups.

“And I would have braved the crowds at Almack's to bring it to you.” He lifted his cup to her in salute.

“I fear you would have had trouble finding me, dear sir. You forget: scullery maids would be in the kitchen.”

“Ah, no, my lady, you are an officer's daughter whose beauty and graciousness on the fields of battle have attracted the attention of all London. The patronesses have sent me with this voucher.” He pretended to withdraw a piece of paper from his pocket, and held it out for her. “To honor your service to the men of England on the fields of Waterloo.”

She blushed, pretending to take it. “Am I to be Cinderella then? Wiping the soap off my hands and waiting for my fairy godmother to transform my working dress into a ball gown?”

He looked at her with unfeigned desire. “Has she not already arrived? Are you not the most beautiful woman in the whole assembly rooms? Your dress sparkles with the light of a thousand stars—to suit your nature. Lucy—Lucia, saint of light—opposite faces of the same coin.”

“Well, in that case, if we were at a ball, you would find me standing in front of a window, hoping to get even the faintest hint of a breeze. Or in the garden with my abigail, trying to escape the crush.” She placed his cup on a saucer and handed it across the table.

“No, you'll be at a table in the gallery, fending off your suitors, while I”—he reached out and broke off a piece of Alice's cake—“will be enjoying the refreshments.” He drank his tea.

“You would leave me with a dozen suitors?”

“Yes, but you are bored. You have seen me at the refreshment table, and you are waiting for me to approach and ask you to dance.”

“Ah, I see. I suppose I am also holding the next dance open for you.”

“Of course. Our eyes have met across the room, and I have signaled I will come to you. What piece are the musicians playing tonight? I don't recognize it.”

“Ah, I think it's . . . no, it can't be.... I believe, sir, they are playing a waltz. Scandalous.” She lifted her chin and turned her face slightly away from him as if mortified.

“Dance with me.”

She raised her wrist to consult an imaginary dance card. “Oh dear, I've made a mistake, I fear that this dance is already taken . . . by one of the men actually paying attention to me, not just watching me from the safety of the refreshments table.”

He stood and stepped to her side of the table. He held his hand out. “Dance with me.”

“If you insist.” She offered her hand, and he held it while she rose.

“I do.” He held her hand out formally as he led her into the large open space in the center of the room. Then he turned to face her.

“To what are we dancing?” She felt the warmth of his hand on her waist. She'd waltzed at the ball at Lady Richmond's before Waterloo, in a dress borrowed from one of the British families in Belgium.

James had been with her, dancing every dance, softly repeating the beats of the steps under his breath. She'd thought it sweet, the look of such concentration on his face. He'd kissed her before he'd left with the rest of the men in his regiment. The last time she'd seen him alive.

“Mozart. Can't you hear it?” His voice drew him back to the present. She opened her eyes, and that glittering ballroom of long ago disappeared in the gentle arms of the man before her. Colin, not James. This was a new memory, one to cherish for the rest of her life.

He began to sing in a rich baritone, a wordless tune.
Da-da-dada, da-da-dada, da-da-da.

She listened to his voice run gently over the melody. She closed her eyes and just listened, the smoothness of his voice, his sense of the pitch and time of the song. She knew it, one of the country songs drawn from Mozart's works.

His hand began to lead her in the dance, moving her body by the slight pressure of his palm when he wanted her to move backward, of his fingers when he wanted her to move forward. He led firmly but gently. He was an easy dancer, in control, his every intention conveyed by the silent guidance of his fingers.

It was an elegant movement, not too slow not too fast. Just enough to focus on the feel of his hands, the closeness of his body, the clean scent of him.

They waltzed around the square of the room, learning the rhythm of each other's bodies. She expected him to falter either in the singing or in the dance, but he did not. In each, he was consummate.

Halfway around, he began also to turn them with each set of steps. Then he began to turn her in his arms, twirling her out, then stepping to meet her in the turn. Turning her out, meeting her again.

He never missed a step. But she felt his arm tense against its own weight, and she saw his face grow pale.

“You grow tired,” she said, watching his face. “Perhaps we can finish our dance another time.”

His eyes met hers, determined, and he shook his head.

He spun her away from him and back. As he drew the song to a close, he spun her out one last time, and as the song ended, he stepped closer, pulling her tight against his chest.

She paused for a moment looking up into his face, seeing his unconcealed desire. She wanted him to kiss her, wanted to feel the warmth of his lips against her own. Her belly tightened with expectation. But she was his nurse. She pulled away, never dropping his hand, and led him back to his chair.

“I see, dear sir, that you are an experienced dancer.”

“How else would I have the most beautiful woman in the room all to myself without raising the ire of her guardians?”

“So, you have done this before?” She refilled his teacup and watched his face regain its color.

“Never to such good success, and never before left so much alone by the other dancers. I like this place: no one cuts in.”

“Then we will have to dance here again.”

“We will.”

She placed the largest piece of fruitcake on the plate. “Butter?”

“No. Let's save it for the stale bread you promised me.” He watched her eyes focus out the window and her expression turn from playful to pensive. “What is that faraway look, my sweet? Do I need to be more attentive to keep your interest?” He reached across the table to touch her hand.

“I was just thinking that I can't remember when I've ever had such a lovely time.” She brought her eyes back to his. “I'm storing up memories, you see, of you, for a cold day when we have parted, and I find myself lonely.”

“There's no reason to store them up, my star. I have promised to stay with you until you send me away.”

Chapter Sixteen

Later that afternoon, after she finished preparing food for their dinner, Lucy set up several cushions in a corner of the weapons room to be near Colin as he watched. She had brought several possibilities from the lodge's meager library, and she spent the next hour reading him another set of chapters from
Castle of Otranto
.

“Stop,” Colin ordered.

Lucy froze.

Colin peered out the window, a movement near the trees drawing his attention. While he watched, two men left the shadows of the wood to stand at the edge of the yard. Their faces were obscured, whether from distance or disguise.

“Stay here. Men in the garden.” He picked up his pistols as he ran from the room.

Fletcher was sitting in the hall, carving a piece of wood, looking every inch the part of the bored servant dragged to the country.

“Men in the yard. Protect William.”

Fletcher moved with surprising speed for a man in his sixties, toward the secret entrance to the priest hole.

Colin slipped out of the house using the kitchen entrance. The door had the most protected entrance, a hedgerow separating the main yard from what had once been a kitchen garden. He tried to keep out of sight, using the trees of the yard and the hedges of the garden to obscure his progress. He walked only on the grass, not on the stone paths themselves, to keep his movements from being heard. One pistol in his hand, the other tucked in the waist of his pants at his front.

He looked over his shoulder at the gallery window to gauge how distant he was from where he had spotted the intruder. Lucy had moved from the window into the dark of the room. Good.

The lodge was set in the middle of a clearing, woods on all sides. From the house to the woods in any direction was not more than the length of the ducal carriage, but the carriage was in the stables, hidden from view. He had only a few more steps before he would have to leave the protection of the kitchen garden's high hedges.

There had been two men, he was sure of it, with kerchiefs around their faces. Even if they were only poachers, the penalty for poaching could be death. So even if they had nothing to do with the Marietta affair, they could still be dangerous if challenged. As Colin grew closer, he could hear their voices.

“Got me a boy, Jock. No livery, but well fed by the look of him.” The first intruder—stocky and bearded—held Bobby by the neck. “What do you want me to do with him?”

“Bring him here. The house was supposed to be empty. If there's a boy, there's likely others.” The second intruder—a tall man with red hair—stared at the house. “We might need a little bribery.”

Colin moved to where he could see Bobby through a less densely leaved portion of the hedge. He appeared unhurt, but he was being pulled along by a large bearded man with a stocky build and a broad torso. As they walked past on the other side of the hedge, Colin could see that the man had two pistols, one strapped to his belt, the other pressed to the side of Bobby's head. He couldn't see the second man.

“Quit strugglin, boy, or I might lose my grip on this trigger, and then your friends wou'd be clearing up bits o' your brain from now till Whitsunday,” the bearded man threatened.

Bobby quit struggling as he and the bearded man moved out of sight.
If we live through this
, Colin thought,
I'll teach Bobby some tricks to use next time
. Next time. He hoped they would have a next time.

The two men were in front of him on the house side of the kitchen garden, some distance from the house. Before him, the paths came to a cross. There the path down the side of the kitchen garden intersected with the path coming from the main portion of the house. From that intersection, the main path extended through the kitchen garden to the woods on one side, and across the back of the house to the woods on the other.

As he crossed the intersection, he could be seen down the long main path. If he could just pass the break in the hedge without being seen, he could circle behind them. Having found Bobby, they might now expect opposition from the house, but not likely from the forest they had just left. The hedge on his side of the opening, however, was dense, and he couldn't get a clear view of whether the men were still close by or had moved farther away. He could stick his head around the edge and hope no one would see, or he could just leap across the path. He risked exposure either way.

He chose the path of greater discretion. He tucked his head around the side just enough to see down the opening. He saw nothing. He leapt across. Nothing. He moved forward again, gauging his movements in relation to the windows of the house.

At the end of the hedge, he would be at the bottom of the kitchen garden and could turn into the main yard some distance from the woods. But he would be farther from where he'd seen the men with Bobby.

Unfortunately, at the next intersection, he found the first poacher waiting for him, Bobby before him with a pistol to his head. Before he could respond, the second poacher came from behind him and, pulling his arms back, restrained him. The flash of pain made his eyes see white. He wanted to struggle, but he would not risk Bobby, at least not twice on the same mission.

“This isn't my land.” Colin would have to rely on his wits, though he knew from their position, they could be seen easily from the lodge windows. “I'm here on the largesse of the landowner. I have no concern with whatever game you trap or take. Let the boy return to the house.”

“He saw my face,” the bearded man objected and pressed the pistol against Bobby's temple.

“He's a boy,” Colin soothed. If the men were assassins, he needed to discover it.

“A boy's as good a witness as any other in a trial for transportation or execution,” the man restraining him said.

“We are guests at the lodge,” Colin said, hoping he was giving Fletcher time to protect the child. “Here for a day or two, then home. We have no reason to be concerned with your business.”

“But we have reason to be concerned with yours.”

“In what way?” Colin waited to hear that these were the men who had attacked them before.

“The lodge has a fine set of plate and weapons, or so we've heard. We'd like them . . . all of them. That means, you see, it's unfortunate that you and the boy decided to visit here this week,” the bearded man explained. “Gives us no choice.”

Moving his pistol from Bobby's head, the robber leveled his gun at Colin. Colin realized he'd failed once more. Now, they would all die.

If he were lucky, Fletcher would be in the priest hole with Jennie and the babe. But Lucy was unprotected, and she wouldn't have time to hide. He hadn't shown her the second hole or how to get into it.

He prayed she had ignored him and gone to hide with Fletcher. And he prayed that the men wouldn't start a fire in the main hall. It would be a cool night. A small fire was no danger, but a blazing one would heat the rooms behind it and suffocate those hiding in the priest hole.

He felt despair and a bone-deep regret. Why hadn't he seized his opportunity to take Lucy to his bed and show her the pleasure he could offer?

He started to struggle, but stopped. If she were watching, at least she would see him die bravely and know to hide. If she could. If she had time.

As in the carriage, the gun leveled at him was too close to miss. All he needed to do was stand still while the ball dropped and ignited. A gun cracked, and he waited to feel the ball. But instead, the poacher flinched, sending a second shot humming past Colin's head. The poacher fell to the ground, writhing in pain and releasing Bobby.

“Run!” he cried, as he twisted from the second poacher's grasp and began to fight him.

Another shot rang out, and he heard the bore of the bullet pass him by. Another shot fired soon after. How Fletcher was reloading that fast, he didn't know, but he also didn't care. All he needed was to give Bobby time to get to safety and dissuade the robbers—by whatever means.

Another shot. And another. From the numbers of shots fired, it sounded like the house held a full party, and each one was standing in a window shooting.

Thank God for Fletcher, though he'd given him a direct order to protect Jennie and William. He could hardly regret him disobeying it, but he'd have to berate him for choosing Colin's safety over Jennie and the infant's.

He twisted the second poacher's arm until he felt it dislocate. The poacher began to howl in pain. Then Colin knocked him behind the head, felling the big lug to the ground, unconscious.

He had only a few minutes. He called to Bobby, who was hiding in the trees, to get a rope from the carriage. They tied the poachers tightly. There was no way to deliver them to the local magistrate without revealing their presence, but Fletcher could drive the men to the porter's lodge, and from there, the porter could deliver them to the appropriate liaison of the Home Office. The men might not die—because that would attract too much attention—but Colin was sure that they would find themselves on the next boat of transported criminals and poor.

Fletcher came from the house accompanied by Bobby. “Is this all of them, sir?”

“Yes, I believe so. They didn't sound like they had any more accomplices.

“Should we check the woods?” Fletcher searched the first poacher's pockets.

“Yes. Or at least the remainder of the grounds,” Colin directed. “We now at least know that violence unrelated to the child is possible, even here so far into the woods.”

“Aye.” Fletcher began to walk away to collect the porter.

But Colin called him back. The older man never liked compliments or compensation. But saving his life was too great an obligation to leave unnoticed.

“Fletcher, that was a great shot. I'm not sure I could have made it. And not from the distance of the house, with a rifle unused for months.”

“What shot?” Fletcher looked confused. “I made sure Miss Jennie was locked up and safe, then I came running to help you when I heard the firing.”

Colin looked back at the house. From the angle, the shot had to come from the second floor. At one of the petal windows, he saw a reflection and the bore of a gun sticking out unobtrusively.

“Can you handle these men?”

“Sure, especially as trussed as you have left them for me.”

“Then I must check on Lucy.” He walked, then ran to the house, fearing what he might find and wondering how she had made the shot.

When he arrived back in the gunroom, Lucy was seated at the table where they had enjoyed tea the day before. Her forehead rested, wearily, against her hand.

A row of rifles lay on the floor, each one having been shot to protect him. A long rifle, nearly six feet in length, was supported on a low table, propped by books to create the appropriate angle. She looked serious, severe, and worn to exhaustion.

“Is he dead?”

“No, just wounded. He should live.”

“I didn't want to kill him.” She looked pleadingly into his eyes. “But you and Bobby were in danger.”

“They would have killed us.” He hugged her to his side as she buried her face in his clothes. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

She was silent for some minutes before she answered. But then she pulled back from his side and wrapped her arms around her chest. “I learned to shoot my mother's pistol when I was young, perhaps seven or eight. And since I had a talent for it, my father taught me to fire a flintlock when I was nine or ten. I became a curiosity. The men in the regiment treated me as a sort of mascot; they taught me tricks . . . how to shoot a penny in the air. Periodically, they would even make a little money off it, betting the new recruits that they couldn't outshoot me. During the sieges, the men practiced firing. In part, it was to remind those behind the walls that the troops were outside, waiting.”

“To make the inhabitants fearful.”

She nodded, one hand absently rubbing a circle in her elbow. “The men had rifled most of the guns to increase their accuracy, but it was still almost always a surprise to see what they hit. During the sieges it became almost a sort of game between the battalions, to see what one could hit at increasingly impossible distances. But as the sieges wore on, the men decided it would be amusing to teach me to shoot long distances.”

“That doesn't explain today. That wasn't the shooting of someone taught to fire for amusement.”

“No.” She nodded agreement. “But at Badajoz, we shared the camp with the Ninety-fifth Regiment.”

“Ah, the sharpshooters.” Aidan had served at Badajoz; her story would be easy to confirm, if Colin wished.

“They had Bakers.” She pointed to the rifles on the floor. “They took longer to load than the muskets, but they were far more accurate and at greater distances. The riflemen in the Ninety-fifth could shoot a man off the city walls. One day, they staged a competition with my father's men. The hospital was quiet, so I went to watch. It was pretty, in a way: the green uniforms of the sharpshooters—the French called them ‘grasshoppers'—next to the scarlet of the infantry. The men were laughing, setting up more and more distant targets. At some point, one of my father's men joked that any man could shoot as well as the grasshoppers with a good Baker at his side. Somehow the bet was amended to be ‘any woman.' At some point, I can't remember quite how, my father's men wagered the grasshoppers that the nurse could shoot a flag flying from the battlements. The grasshoppers took the bet.”