Cut Throat (55 page)

‘Is that why you tried to blackmail him?'

‘I
did
blackmail him!' Darcy asserted proudly. ‘I was going to bleed him dry. I'd have done it, too. I would have bled him dry and then taken Peter from him. He was running scared until you came along and fouled it all up!'

Gotcha! Ross thought, triumphantly. That should be all that McKinnon needed to hear. The wind gusted mightily and a shower of slates slithered off the roof. Somewhere in the distance a tree groaned and toppled with an impressive crash.

Darcy ignored the slates, stepping nearer to the American. ‘What have you done with Peter?' he asked then, remembering why he had come.

‘Nothing. He's at the cinema, as far as I know.' Ross stood his ground, caution battling with pride. ‘He's quite safe. He still has to rely on that wheelchair, though, doesn't he? Tell me, how do you live with yourself, knowing you did that to your own son?' He had no proof, but everything pointed to it: their physical similarity, Darcy's affair with Marsha and his jealousy over Peter's admiration for Ross.

Darcy's reaction removed any lingering doubt.

‘No!' He almost screamed the word and Ross took a step back in spite of himself. ‘I never meant that to happen, I swear it! The driver was incompetent. He wasn't meant to hit any of the children, just scare them – to scare Franklin. It was just another threat. He was an incompetent fool!'

‘You're the fool, fella!' Ross said contemptuously. ‘You had everything going for you but you just couldn't get rid of that chip on your shoulder. Well, you've had it now.'

‘Says who?' Darcy sneered, stepping ever closer, menace in every line of him. ‘There's no one else here. Who's going to believe a drunken, nerve-shattered cripple with a grudge?'

Without taking his eyes off the American, he reached into an inner pocket and produced a flick knife with which Ross was uncomfortably familiar. The blade clicked open smoothly.

Where the hell was McKinnon?

‘Especially,' Darcy went on, ‘when they find you've tried to commit suicide by cutting your wrists. Or maybe they won't find you until it's too late. “Poor Ross,” they'll say. “He just couldn't take it any more.” And I'll be as shocked and upset as the rest of them.'

He appeared to find the prospect immensely satisfying and Ross felt his temper rising. It was no part of the plan to tell Darcy he was wired, but the cavalry should be arriving any moment now and he doubted that revealing it would put him in any more danger than he was in already. It might, if anything, give Darcy pause for thought.

Ross patted his torso. ‘Maybe nobody
would
believe me,' he admitted. ‘But I'd say you've been pretty convincing yourself.'

Darcy's rapidly changing expressions were almost comical. He ran quickly through surprise, disbelief and dismay, and settled once more for vicious loathing.

‘You sneaky bastard!' he hissed a second time. ‘You're wired!'

Ross thought that rich, coming from someone who had unashamedly listened in on countless occasions, but his amusement was short-lived. Only a few feet separated them now and Darcy was advancing with a disturbing light in his eyes.

‘Who's listening?' he demanded. ‘Who, damn you? Is it McKinnon?'

Ross stood his ground, keeping a wary eye on the knife. Because his temper was high, he smiled maliciously, gaining a perverse enjoyment from the moment.

‘McKinnon. Your uncle. The Colonel. Do you want me to go on? I'd say they've heard enough, wouldn't you? They'll be here any minute.'

It was too late to back down now. Ross could only hope he could fend Darcy off for as long as it took them to get there.

Where the hell were they? How long could it take to drive up the lane from the road, for heaven's sake? With a sudden, sickening sense of foreboding, he remembered hearing a falling tree. If it had been one of the limes at the end of the drive . . .

With an inarticulate cry, Darcy launched himself at Ross, his knife hand swinging for the American's belly. Ross blocked the thrust instinctively, stepping aside as he did so, and Darcy's foot lashed out, smashing sickeningly into his knee.

Ross' desperate defence crumbled. He fell back in agony, to land sitting against the stable wall. Inside the box, Woody snorted in alarm.

Darcy stepped forward to follow up his advantage and Ross could only watch him come. There was nothing within reach that could conceivably be used as a weapon and he would be damned if he was going to give Darcy the satisfaction of seeing him try to crawl away.

Darcy leant forward, his lip curling unpleasantly as he held the knife up for Ross to see, and Ross was calculating the merits of pulling him on to a head butt when two things happened almost simultaneously. Another tremendous gust of wind blew a second shower of tiles on to Darcy's head and shoulders and three burly men sprinted, shouting, into the yard.

Darcy was not beyond thought. He decided to cut his losses. As two of the men ran forward, leaving one at the entrance to the Manor drive, he raced for the nearest vehicle, which happened to be the yard Land-Rover. Ross groaned inwardly. The keys were in it, as they almost always were. It was yard policy in case of emergency and had become a habit.

Darcy wrenched the nearside door open, slid in and along the seat and gunned the engine. For one short moment Ross thought it wasn't going to start. It was known for being temperamental.

Not today.

It gave a polite cough and started obligingly. Within moments Darcy had it in gear and, ignoring his pursuers' commands to stop, had swung it round and was accelerating across the yard.

At this point, Ross wouldn't have given much for the chances of the single man guarding the drive but, much to his surprise, Darcy turned the vehicle the other way and drove hard at the five-bar gate into the home field.

The gate was a heavy wooden one, built to last, but it hadn't been fashioned with the idea of withstanding an assault from an accelerating Land-Rover, and it didn't.

By this time, Ross had dragged himself up to a standing position by hanging on to the stable door. His left leg, when put gingerly to the ground, felt as though it had been forcibly filleted and set up a protest that brought him out in a sweat.

The three burly individuals looked at the departing Land-Rover, then at each other, and raced in unspoken agreement for Darcy's abandoned car.

‘We'll take it from here,' one of them called to Ross as the powerful engine burst into life.

Not in that, you won't, he thought sardonically, watching the silver beauty skid as it hit the wet grass of the field.

He briefly considered the other Land-Rover, hidden away in the shed, but doubted if his knee would co-operate enough even to get it in gear.

With an ungainly action somewhere between hopping and skipping, he crossed the yard to get a better view of the pursuit and found himself outside Telamon's box, hanging on to the door to stay upright. In front of his nose hung the stallion's bridle, swinging in the wind. It was left there in case of emergencies. This, he decided with a flash of inspiration, definitely qualified as an emergency.

Without giving himself time to think better of it, he grabbed the bridle and within moments had caught the big chestnut, who seemed surprised but not displeased to be going out at such short notice.

Ross had neither the time nor the energy to spend fetching a saddle. He led the eager stallion outside and with a flying leap that owed more to desperation than athleticism, reached the sleek back and clung to it instinctively as the horse surged powerfully forward. The leading rein, which he had hastily knotted back to the bit to give him more control, was almost ripped through his fingers.

He heard shouts and four more men burst into the yard; two from the drive to the Manor and two, who could have been Franklin and McKinnon, from the lane. Ross shouted about the other Land-Rover as he passed and, with more luck than judgement, managed to guide his excited mount through the shattered remains of the gate to thunder in pursuit of the two vehicles.

Halfway across the field he passed the abandoned sports car. Superb on the road, its performance on the wet and rutted surface of a grassy meadow had obviously left a lot to be desired.

A few strides further on, Ross passed McKinnon's men running gamely in the wake of the Land-Rover, which had by now disappeared into the wood on the far side of the field.

Giving the stallion his head, Ross tried to guess where Darcy would make for. He decided that if, as seemed to be the case, he was familiar with the lie of the land, he would bear right inside the wood, heading for the track which led into a field beside Home Farm Lane.

If Ross cut the corner, he estimated he could catch up with the Land-Rover before it reached the lane. It would mean jumping two sizeable hedges but such was Ross' confidence in the stallion's ability and courage that he didn't hesitate. He twisted his fingers in the flowing red mane and swung the horse right-handed across the field.

As it turned out, it was not the horse's ability that was put to the test but that of his jockey. Telamon leapt with such power that Ross was hard put to keep his seat on the satiny-smooth chestnut coat. He prayed that they would encounter no farm machinery on the landing side of the hedges.

The gamble paid off, however. Landing – halfway up the stallion's neck – in the field that flanked the lane, Ross somehow managed to retain his seat and the vestiges of control and steady the horse, and after a moment he caught sight of a figure hurrying through the half-light towards the road.

The Land-Rover had presumably come up against an insurmountable obstacle, probably a fallen tree, Ross thought, as he sent the horse once more in pursuit. He'd not properly considered quite how he had intended to tackle the moving Land-Rover from the back of a horse but thankfully the problem had resolved itself. A running man certainly presented less of a dilemma.

Because of the howling wind, Darcy didn't become aware of the approaching horse until it was nearly upon him. Then he sent a desperate glance over his shoulder before veering sharply away.

Telamon entered into the spirit of the chase, altering course obediently to follow, and as they drew level once more, Ross stuck out his foot and pushed. Darcy stumbled sideways and pitched headlong into the grass.

Attempting to stop and turn in one movement proved to be Ross' undoing. The stallion lost traction with his hind feet on the wet grass and almost fell. Sliding hopelessly, Ross abandoned all hope of staying with him and half-fell, half-leapt to the ground, feeling pain shoot through his knee as he did so.

Darcy was clambering to his feet not two yards from where Ross had landed, an action the American discouraged by throwing himself at him in a flying tackle that would have gladdened the heart of a major-league football coach. Darcy subsided into the grass again and stayed down, moaning weakly, even when Ross cautiously raised his weight from him. He appeared to be winded but Ross was taking no chances.

A quick search revealed the flick knife in an inside pocket and an all-purpose scout's knife attached to his belt by a clip. These Ross transferred to his own pockets.

Well aware that Darcy's incapacitation was likely to be only temporary, and having little inclination for further fisticuffs, Ross removed the belt from his jeans and used it to secure his captive's hands firmly behind his back. Then, as his own breathing was far from easy, he sat on him.

‘Now you know what it feels like!' he told his winded adversary with satisfaction.

Darcy declined to comment.

Ross looked round hopefully for Telamon but the horse had prudently taken himself off. He sighed, resigning himself to the fact that from here on in he would have to walk; a prospect that gave him little pleasure. Still, if the stunt had done no good at all to his knee or ribs, it had done immeasurable good to his soul.

As his own breathing steadied, Ross looked back at the dark mass of the wood from which Darcy had run. The trees dipped and swayed in the wind and, though he strained to see in the low light, Ross couldn't see any sign of McKinnon's men.

Although it could be no later than half-past eight, the sky was incredibly heavy with the threat of more rain and the effect was a sort of eerie twilight. McKinnon's men were probably still floundering about in the depths of the wood. Ross would have shouted if he'd thought it would do any good but the noise of the wind was far too great.

Darcy had begun to move beneath him now, and reluctant to tramp back through the muddy woodland paths with timber raining about his ears, Ross decided to head for the lane in the hope that someone would have thought to try and head the fugitive off there.

Nothing could be gained by waiting any longer, so he rose painfully to his feet and hauled his protesting prisoner up after him.

‘I've got your knife, so shut up and walk,' he said unsympathetically, giving him a push in the appropriate direction.

Darcy walked, out of necessity, but he didn't shut up. He started by calling Ross all the uncomplimentary names he could think of, which was quite an impressive number, and gradually worked round to offering him a princely sum for his freedom. Ross' opinion of Franklin's nephew reached an all-time low.

‘What makes you think Peter is your son?' he asked finally, as they reached the gate into the lane.

Darcy half-turned. ‘What? Of course he is! I've always known. You only have to look at him . . .'

‘Oh, I don't think so,' Ross said in his ear. ‘That kid is twice the man you are, already. I'd say the most you've got in common is your name.' He grinned to himself as Darcy renewed his vitriolic attack on his character and ancestry.